5281

It’s fairly minor for me too - I certainly wouldn’t -want- to level that way with the story quests as they currently stand.

5282

Seems to be a matter of opinion as I have had no issues with the personal story quests (aside from patchy voice acting in some parts). Also I levelled my asura guardian from 40-80 just by chasing story quests and crafting, the only world content I did were things I stumbled across on the road from instance to instance.

It’s true that up til 40 I did 3 zones to 100% but after that the pace of story quests seemed to pick up.

Honestly I had no issue with the story quests in terms of quality and structure. If anything they can be some of the more challenging fights you get in the game.

5283

Your personal story starts out fairly localized but it does ramp up to being involved in world changing chapters as you move towards Orr.

5284

So what is the state of this game (on Ehmry Bay or whatever). I played, got to around level 30, realized (as usual in these games) that I have no group of “friends” to play with, got to the first dungeon, and realized I had no easy way to do it.

I understand that they are working on an LFG tool of some form, but it is not in yet?

I remember with World of Warcraft that if you came into the game late, no one wanted to do earlier dungeons anymore (example, even after much effort, I could never find people randomly who were interested into doing the Blackfathom thing in the nightelf land).

Are people still routinely running the early dungeons? In story mode (or whatever it is) for first timers?

5285

I gather that GW2LFG.com is the way to go for grouping right now.

And on a different note, crafting in GW2 gives pretty serious exp, probably enough to level on alone if you wanted, so that’s not exactly levelling just from the personal story. But it’s entirely possible my opinion of the personal story will change as I get deeper into the game. I just am likely to take a long time getting there without it being compelling right now.

5286

One of the things I did with crafting was to use one discipline to get a lot of XP when it was easy to do so with common mats I could buy for super cheap in the AH and then drop the craft and take on another one and repeat that way. It was easy for me to do that since I don’t really like crafting anyway and crafting only seems to be worthwhile when you push it up close to the crafting cap.

Of course I only got to level 33 with one character and level 15 or so with another before I got tired of the game and bailed. I’ll probably jump in again at some point in the future though.

5287

On anthor note I am enjoying the revamped daily and monthly cheevos.

5288

+1000. If you need a group, don’t bother spamming map chat (although you can do both I suppose). Check the existing GW2LFG.com listings, and if there isn’t one that works, make your own.

5289

Now, let’s not switch the topic we are discussing here. It’s quite possible that I misunderstand you but I certainly wasn’t discussing whether it’s “possible to deliver narrative storytelling (as opposed to the ambient storytelling that characterizes the rest of GW2’s PvE game)”.

The topic I was discussing is much simpler - you complained it’s not possible to level 1-80 on personal story alone, I suggested that it’s not reasonable to expect it from an MMO game. The quality of writing or pacing is completely irrelevant to what I was talking about.

I mean, hell, the fact that the personal story -exists- is evidence that that assertion is wrong. It’s not compelling narrative because it’s badly written and paced, and it’s not very well integrated into the rest of the game because it’s strictly solo and has little connection with the things going on in the zones it purportedly takes place in (at least so far as I’ve played).

And again, I am not sure which assertion you are talking about here.

Besides, the facts you are listing here are questionable at best and some of them are simply incorrect. The quality of narrative, as mentioned above, is probably a matter of opinion but I think many of us would agree that at the very least it’s very uneven - the stories (and their quality) vary not only by races but also by the choices you make during character creation. I’ve seen a few of the human stories, for example, and I liked some more than others.

Also, I would argue that events in the personal story are quite well integrated into the rest of the game and provide very useful background. At least the ones I’ve seen. Human stories, for example, provide a nice background into what’s going on in the starting zone, what’s the deal with all those bandits and them poisoning the water supply and stuff. Not to mention the story at higher levels, without which it would be a lot more difficult to understand why the hell I am supposed to go south and what the hell I am doing there.

As for the personal story being strictly solo (you mentioned it a couple of times), it’s not true. Personal story quests can be viewed as mini dungeons - you can group up with your friends and do your personal story as a group, the only limitation is that your groupmates can’t choose dialog options for you. When you are grouped and you start a personal story quest, your groupmates will get a popup message asking them whether they want to join you. Not sure if they need to be in the same zone as you, it’s been some time since my friends and I did that.

The bottom line is, yes, it’d be nice if the personal story was better, sure why not. However, given that it’s an MMO game, I would rather see them spending their resources on improving their MMO systems like events, especially the zone-wide ones, WvW, additional content like dungeons or new zones and so on. And if I am not mistaken, that’s exactly what ANet is doing now - none of the latest updates from developers are talking about improving personal story, it’s all about stuff that matters to their audience in the long run.

5290

Is there any other MMO that has done single-player RPG stories better? Not that I know of. Maybe I didn’t play enough of Old Republic or maybe I’m just inured to all that Rebellion Empire Sith Mandalorian hoo-ha, but complaining about the personal storylines in Guild Wars 2 is like complaining that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest that have been tried.

-Tom
5291

The trouble is, the post you replied to - and indeed the last several I’ve made, -have- been discussing narrative storytelling vs ambient storytelling in the rest of GW2. My point is, was, and will be that I’m most engaged by narrative storytelling, it’s different from ambient storytelling, and that if GW2 wants to cater to that demographic it’s doing a poor job of doing so for a variety of reasons. Being unable to level from 1-80 based on the personal story is just one fairly minor reason. So your response was and is largely irrelevant to what I was talking about.

It’s also baffling. How is it unreasonable to expect to be able to level based on the narrative questing in an MMO when that’s the primary, indeed ONLY levelling method in almost all of the last 8 years worth of MMO releases? And it’s bizarre to see you write what is clearly an MMO system off as not an MMO system.

As for the personal story being strictly solo (you mentioned it a couple of times), it’s not true. Personal story quests can be viewed as mini dungeons - you can group up with your friends and do your personal story as a group, the only limitation is that your groupmates can’t choose dialog options for you. When you are grouped and you start a personal story quest, your groupmates will get a popup message asking them whether they want to join you. Not sure if they need to be in the same zone as you, it’s been some time since my friends and I did that.

None of my friends own Guild Wars 2, so I’ve never tried it. I was just going off memories of people complaining about not being able to bring in a team to certain tough story encounters, but I may be misremembering or they might have changed it. If you can vouch for it being untrue, that’s good enough for me.

The only MMO that I can think of that’s even tried to deliver a singleplayer RPG story is Old Republic, and while that was okay it had too much really bland MMO stuffed in around it. To me, GW2’s personal stories are just an instanced version of typical MMO questing. And there are plenty of MMOs that do that better, like WoW, LOTRO, The Secret World, and, for that matter, the original Guild Wars.

5292

This conversation puts me in mind of something I’ve been thinking about GW2 but I don’t recall anyone commenting on exactly: this game requires that you enjoy being distracted. That was the biggest “culture shock” I experienced when I first got the game after all the WoWness of the past. In WoW you get where you want/need to go and what you have to do (kill x foozles) and then you need to get back to the quest giver so you can get on with your life. Everything else is a chore, an unwanted distraction. Who doesn’t hate respawns on your way BACK from completing a quest??? Oh, the agony! Time and space are your constant enemies because you just want to get’er done, whatever it is. The landscape itself was something you’d rather avoid and when you got a flying mount, that’s exactly what you did.

Then Guild Wars comes along and it gives you your story quest with its go here and do this and come back and tell me about it but along the way everything is calling to you, often literally. “Help!” “Hey, ya gotta minute?” “Can you hear my plea?” and stuff keeps appearing on your UI with the hearts and you keep getting little chunks of experience for just walking around and all the events and big circles appear on your minimap and etc.

At first it was overwhelming to me, coming from the WoWness–what should I do? Where do I start? How do I play this game? Argh, two dynamic events are happening at once, what will I doooooo? Completionism, carrots on sticks, game gets better at x level, my accommadations to all that were under direct assault.

And then I just let go.

I realized that the game was trying to reach out to my inner magpie (or in game terms, my inner skrit) and allowed myself to get lost in the endless distraction of it all. I wonder if the folks complaining about the game aren’t just a little too “type A” to enjoy what GW2 has to offer.

5293

Well said, you really nailed it.

5294

To me, the events and the hearts and skill challenges and vistas and such are like snacks, and the personal story/linear questing experience are the main meal(s). If I were going to really enjoy Guild Wars 2 to its fullest, the “snacks” would be ways to pass some time and take the edge off my “hunger” between more satisfying “meals”. But in practice, the “meals” are sparse and rather flavorless and although the snacks are delicious I can’t survive on them alone.

To torture an extended metaphor. So I wind up dipping into GW2 now and again and futzing with ambient content for a while, largely ignoring the personal story, and then moving on to play something more satisfying.

5295

THANK YOU. Usually I’m pretty good at expressing my thoughts, but I think your comments hit the target better than anything I’ve written in the thread thus far. That is exactly how I feel when I play, distracted, like I’m constantly veering off course to participate in this random event or check that vista/skill/waypoint box off the checklist. It makes me feel like I’m wandering around aimlessley, without an overall purpose, like shouldn’t I be saving the world instead of finding lost kittens and taking in the view from the temple rooftop? Those things are nice, but they lack a sense of purpose I’m accustomed to feeling in games like this.

I think you’re right, I simply need to get over needing a “foozle” to provide that sense of purpose. With my new Charr character maybe I will approach it differently. I’ll try thinking in terms of being a mercenary, moving from place to place assisting the locals and beating down challenges as they arise, for fun and profit rather than a desire to save the world.

5296

Foozle.

5297

Bless you.

;-)

5298

IMHO the weakest storyline in SWTOR, the consular story, is better than the GW2 personal stories.

5299

Well, the GW2 personal stories are the worst part of the whole game imo. It starts pretty nifty, you meet some lovely characters and its totally worth it to play up to like level 20 of the stories of the different races. Once you are fighting undead however it goes downhill fast. The writing is just terrible in the end.

5300

It is a little interesting how the different racial stories fill in the background of what is happening in each story. In my human story a tree dude shows up with a cool sword, in my tree story I go get that sword.