Curse

Andisa Kalorn · Jun 27, 2007, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vagrant

Agreed... Varesh was like a pill bug in the scope of Nightfall, which was a big shame. I would've much preferred ending the civil war. I would also love if the story had more morally gray spots in the story than all morals being black and white. Because honestly, a good story has ambiguity to it.

I really wish they had done something better with Varesh's story. It would have hardly taken any effort at all to give it more depth. Or at least, if they were going to make her so one-dimensional, they could have made her less boring. She is the least memorable of all GW's villains.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vagrant

Actually, Palawa Joko was one of the few characters I found interesting -- he had some personality.

I find Palawa Joko fascinating. When you interact with him in the plot, he seems funny and harmless. But when other NPCs talk to you about him, you learn a different story. I find this is the most morally ambiguous part of GW's story. You're helping him regain his power, and finding him amusing. And yet, he has done many terrible things to many people in the past, and will probably do so again in the future. You have to help him, to save the world. But being a hero intent on saving people from harm, it must be unsettling to do something that you know will cause great harm for others in the future...

I love it.

I really wish that part of the plot could have been more elaborated on. And I think it would be better to focus on things like this instead of running around killing gods with leet mending skillz.

icymanipulator · Jun 27, 2007, 11:15 PM // 23:15

The way I always figured it went was that the envoys just know of the RoT not whats going on in there. The whole reason the baddies in Nightfall could even happen was because Grenth (and the gods et al) didn't kill Menzies, Dhuum or Abaddon. Rather than the game acknowledging your toon and party have ascended not once, not twice, but 3 times and killed a god among other things we get a very lame background character (in Kormir) getting all the credit and the glory of becoming deified.

Think about how much better ending the GW1 story as having your toon ascend into demi-god status rather than allegedly "dying of old age" between GW1 and GW2 could have been. If you liked NF thats ok...but for me the whole premise just seemed incredibly stupid and unrewarding. At least the skills were somewhat worth the trouble.

Zeek Aran · Jun 27, 2007, 11:32 PM // 23:32

I have read every post, and agree on most of the negativity towards the storylines.

Also, all of the 'filler' stuff written in quests and such is mostly ignored because there is SO MUCH. If someone hadn't made a post about the explanation of Zho's missing eye, I never would have noticed. If they took out a lot of filler crap, the interesting things would stick out.

Why don't the dragons have very big parts? Kuun had a bigger part as an enemy then an ally. She doesn't even fight WITH you. Pfft.

And I completely agree on Palawa Joko being an interesting character, he actually made me laugh.

Lagg · Jun 27, 2007, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Holy crap, Guild Wars has a story? O_O

All I see are red dots on my GPS that need to go away.

Vagrant · Jun 27, 2007, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andisa Kalorn

I find Palawa Joko fascinating. When you interact with him in the plot, he seems funny and harmless. But when other NPCs talk to you about him, you learn a different story. I find this is the most morally ambiguous part of GW's story. You're helping him regain his power, and finding him amusing. And yet, he has done many terrible things to many people in the past, and will probably do so again in the future. You have to help him, to save the world. But being a hero intent on saving people from harm, it must be unsettling to do something that you know will cause great harm for others in the future...

I love it.

I really wish that part of the plot could have been more elaborated on. And I think it would be better to focus on things like this instead of running around killing gods with leet mending skillz.

I totally agree with you. That was something that needed to be enhanced.

Bryant Again · Jun 28, 2007, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turaan Tolgerias

what annoyed me at the end of factions was when the envoy said "let us worry about shiro". So what did they do? Let shiro have a party with the lich and abaddon in the realm of torment.

Ho shit, I never thought about that. That is indeed pretty lame. Makes ya think a lot less of those four, don't it?

wetsparks · Jun 28, 2007, 12:44 AM // 00:44

I thought it was great that you didn't know exactly who the bad guy was in Prophecies. Then you went and fought your way through all the Titans to get at the Lich.
Faction, you were introduced to Shiro very early in the game and spent all your time beating up on his minions, then beat him in 30 seconds. He had virutally no help around him except a couple guys that would spawn to recharge your celestial skill. I really thought this story was lame outside of the Kurzicks/Luxons conflict.
I loved Nightfalls story my first time through it. I really hated Varesh and couldn't wait to fight her. Then we were sent to the Realm of Torment. Fighting through a bunch of demon mobs that are push overs, then you fight Shiro and the Lich again. Both are as easy as they were before. If you put SV on Shiro, especially when he starts to double strike and to double strike adjacent foes, he dies faster than a wammo without his mending. Then to kill Abaddon you can stand at the bridge and spam [skill]reversal of damage[/skill] is really lame. And like others said, we do all the work yet Kormir goes and decides to take over as a god. How is that "only a choice a mortal can make" it makes no sence.

Personette · Jun 28, 2007, 01:17 AM // 01:17

I don't get the people who think the Prophecies storyline is the best. I think it is by far the worst. We just blunder around helping all the bad guys. Consider:

1. We back a rebel prince who is consorting with suspicious ambassadors against a wise and moderate king. But, ok, fine, at least Rurik's heart is in the right place.

2. We abandon Ascalon, our homeland, in a time of crisis and then get Rurik killed. Whoops!

3. Then we go to Kryta to help out the White Mantle, a cult of bullies who practice human sacrifice. Hmmm. Bad choice.

4. We discover we've been aiding the bad guys and switch to the side of the Shining Blade. The Shining Blade - for once! - are actually good guys, but the first thing they do is make a very, very dumb decision: they decide to hand the uber-powerful Scepter of Orr over to an obviously skeevy, untrustworthy ambassador in exchange for...what? Some undead minions that the Scepter itself could presumably call up, and a boat? Great bargain!

5. In a time of crisis, we let the skeevy ambassador convince us to save our own hides instead of defending our allies. We abandon the Shining Blade to wholesale slaughter at the hands of the White Mantle and then go "find ourselves" in the desert. Talk about heroic.

6. We find out about the "flameseeker prophecies" and it seems like maybe there's a point to what we're doing after all. Glint and the Seer think they say we'll be able to eliminate the Mursaat. I'm not sure what the Lich thinks they say, but he obviously believes he can use us and our role in the prophecies for personal gain.

Then we find out that the ambassador whose orders we have been following like good little foot soldiers is, in fact, the Evil Lich. So we kill him. And that's it.

But...what about the Mursaat? They're still running rampant. The only thing we accomplish by the end of Prophecies is to kill the guy who wouldn't have been a threat if we hadn't given him the Scepter in the first place.

At the end of the campaign I was like, what? We are such retards. Somebody should lock us up, for spending so much time aiding and abetting bad bad people, for making big messes and never sticking around to clean them up, and for our total lack of loyalty.

The plotline of Factions and Nightfall made SO much more sense to me, in comparison.

Mekkakat · Jun 28, 2007, 01:20 AM // 01:20

lol, we know how to play the game wetsparks.. but i get your point..

proph was.. meh.. generic.. overrated by the community imo, and way too WoW clone to make me feel differentiated between other MMOs, and in fact, i didnt really like GWs till Factions, which had a really fun storyline, and for those of use who didnt know what to expect at the ending (i was one of the ppl who fought shiro day two of factions comming out, so there was no guides or tips on how to kill him.. just the idea.. "he's going to be melee... bring antimelee " ), he was a fun challenge. skill changes made him and lich way too easy nowadays.. but thats besides the point.. as for NF, well, it was way worse than any of the others by far, and its almost pathetic that Palawa Joko was the best character, with the most personality, and they kinda leave him out of the mix in the end..

"upping the ante" is something that game developers would love to do, but is harder than it sounds. also, over the top stories are part of the f a n t a s y... kinda obvious that a genre with such a title would have a .. oh idk.. climactic story ending?? if you want a boring, everyday story, play sims or like.. desperate housewives for the PC.

Kale Ironfist · Jun 28, 2007, 02:57 AM // 02:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

We abandon the Shining Blade to wholesale slaughter at the hands of the White Mantle and then go "find ourselves" in the desert. Talk about heroic.

Unless we are ascended, we cannot see the Mursaat (lore fluff). And if we're fighting blind, we're going to die.

But hey, at least we died trying, right? zOMG the pain of Spectral Agony!

arcanemacabre · Jun 28, 2007, 03:54 AM // 03:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andisa Kalorn

I find Palawa Joko fascinating. When you interact with him in the plot, he seems funny and harmless. But when other NPCs talk to you about him, you learn a different story. I find this is the most morally ambiguous part of GW's story. You're helping him regain his power, and finding him amusing. And yet, he has done many terrible things to many people in the past, and will probably do so again in the future. You have to help him, to save the world. But being a hero intent on saving people from harm, it must be unsettling to do something that you know will cause great harm for others in the future...

I love it.

I really wish that part of the plot could have been more elaborated on. And I think it would be better to focus on things like this instead of running around killing gods with leet mending skillz.

So agree. Palawa Joko was by far the most interesting NPC in all of Nightfall. Yes, even more than Zhed. Though the dialog between those two was the best in all of GW, IMO. Even better than Mehnlo and Cynn.

Bryant Again · Jun 28, 2007, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

The plotline of Factions and Nightfall made SO much more sense to me, in comparison.

Easy to understand but eeeh...Like I said, not much happens, more so in Nightfall.

At least Prophecies went places, and it wasn't just like the later two campaigns, both of which had someone betraying their country for sinister power.

1 up and 2 down · Jun 28, 2007, 04:54 AM // 04:54

My favorite mission in NF was the consulate docks mission because you think you are going to finish off Veresh and she summons her demons and totally wipes the sunspear invasion force. IMHO I really liked the cutscene in that mission.

free_fall · Jun 28, 2007, 05:31 AM // 05:31

"Then we find out that the ambassador whose orders we have been following like good little foot soldiers is, in fact, the Evil Lich. So we kill him. And that's it."

Ya, that's something I always found humorous - that the Lich starts crowing about how the Flameseeker Prophesies foretold everything ... then we bust his chops. Guess he forgot to read the last page.

I don't think anyone comes to these games expecting the depth of something like, say, Planescape: Torment (and, in that sense, they don't disappoint). But the plots are certainly serviceable enough for what they are IMO - good, goofy, slightly over-the-top fun.

Look at Baldur's Gate, for example: ****SPOILER ALERT**** here's a story in which the bad guy 'poisons' a country's iron ore so that he can corner the market with his untainted ore, thereby deriving immeasureable material and political power for himself.

Actually kind of interesting that the devs took this approach, basing the story on how the struggle for economic resources is often the underlying reason for political strife (war). Gives you the impression they sat through too many poli-sci classes in college before dropping out to become games programmers.

On the other hand, it actually turned out to be sort of boring, too, when you get to the end and find out you've saved the world from a ... robber baron/evil monopolist?

Any wonder that they abandonned this rather cerebral approach in BG2/ToB, reverting back to the tried-and-true "saving the world from really evil bad guy/becoming a demi-god" RPG conventions?

Vagrant · Jun 28, 2007, 06:04 AM // 06:04

Well, there's a lot of amazing stories out in RPG's (spoilers):

1) In Fallout 1, "The Master" is using a cult to disguise his plans to force all humans to evolve using the FEV virus. You have to uncover his plans, and do one of two things: Kill him, or convince him that the mutants from the FEV virus are sterile. That's not even including the backstory of Fallout 1.
2) In Chrono Trigger, Lavos' causes time aberrations as he sucks the planet's life force. You see the world after he has used it, and you find a time where magic was real.
3) Super Mario RPG, Bowser gets thrown out of his own castle by Smithy, and you must venture around the archipelagos of Mario's area to find a way into Smithy's (formerly Bowser's) fortress. Then you must defeat Smithy. There was something about Star Way too.

To be honest, with the Guild Wars stories, there's not a whole lot of memorable characters. At best, there's Glint, Palawa Joko, Mhenlo, and Cynn. They're the only ones who seem to be human (or dragon in Glint's case), and have a personality.

Redfeather1975 · Jun 28, 2007, 06:11 AM // 06:11

As others have said Palawa Joko was a very interesting character.

As for new goal ideas I vote 'rescue the princess'!
You can have 'rescue the princess'! for every mission.

-Loki- · Jun 28, 2007, 06:22 AM // 06:22

I'm hoping they do something new with the Great Destroyer. And I think I know what it's going to be. You don't win. They want to introduce you to the story of GW2, and what better way than to have your merry band of humans (and a couple of non humans if you take the hero route) comeup against an enemy powerful enough that it requires all the races to get together to destroy.

You walk in, do your best to kill the thing, but lose. Maybe have the Sylvari show up in a little cameo role to save your asses. You have now been introduced to the storyline of GW2 - you met the big bad guy, you lost, you need to get the races to ally together in GW2 to kill it, and you also got introduced to the new playable races.

Sophitia Leafblade · Jun 28, 2007, 09:14 AM // 09:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

1. We back a rebel prince who is consorting with suspicious ambassadors against a wise and moderate king. But, ok, fine, at least Rurik's heart is in the right place.

2. We abandon Ascalon, our homeland, in a time of crisis and then get Rurik killed. Whoops!

Actually we didnt Abandon Ascalon we were Banished from it because the Prideful King had grown Fearful of engaging the Charr in Battle and tried to hide behind his "safe" Wall which in the End nearly Cost him his Kingdom. It wasnt till the Death of Rurik that the King realised what he had become and Rallied with his troops to stop the Charr/Titan forces from spreading Further.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

3. Then we go to Kryta to help out the White Mantle, a cult of bullies who practice human sacrifice. Hmmm. Bad choice.!

The Mantle werent Evil, they were a shade of grey, they protected Kryta, sure ok they were a bunch of bullies but they were there to protect the others. And Yes they did sacrafise the Chosen at the request of the Mursaat but Ultimatly this was also protecting the World from the Titans, Is the life of thousands worth the cost of a few peasents? Hence a shade of Grey neither good nor bad

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

4. We discover we've been aiding the bad guys and switch to the side of the Shining Blade. The Shining Blade - for once! - are actually good guys, but the first thing they do is make a very, very dumb decision: they decide to hand the uber-powerful Scepter of Orr over to an obviously skeevy, untrustworthy ambassador in exchange for...what? Some undead minions that the Scepter itself could presumably call up, and a boat? Great bargain!

Wasnt the first thing they did, first they establisted a new home in Magumma, then they gave the Staff to a trusted and Wise former Kings Advisor who happened to be a powerful wizard. The Scepter of Orr was unknown to he as powerful as it was and it was given as a gift to the Vizier to gain his trust and help, since like him it was of Orrian decent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

5. In a time of crisis, we let the skeevy ambassador convince us to save our own hides instead of defending our allies. We abandon the Shining Blade to wholesale slaughter at the hands of the White Mantle and then go "find ourselves" in the desert. Talk about heroic.

The Shining Blade were already pushed into the shiverpeaks before we even known of Markis's betrayal, And the leader of the shiverpeak was imprisoned and Guarded by the Mursaat who at the time we were no match for, hence we had to Seek the great Phophet Glint to Advise us and we had to Ascend to become more powerful so we could fight the Mursaat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

But...what about the Mursaat? They're still running rampant. The only thing we accomplish by the end of Prophecies is to kill the guy who wouldn't have been a threat if we hadn't given him the Scepter in the first place.

The Mursaat were Wiped out by the Titans after there release, they suffered Great loses and were either close to (or were) totally wiped out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Personette

At the end of the campaign I was like, what? We are such retards. Somebody should lock us up, for spending so much time aiding and abetting bad bad people, for making big messes and never sticking around to clean them up, and for our total lack of loyalty.

Our loyalit was to all things good, we saved the all of Tryia from the machinations of the Lich who had ploted and decived us into helping him not realising the Prophecy would also lead to his defeat and the Closing of the Door of Komalie, he thought the release of the Titan was the End of the prophecies, but everyone knows prophecies dont tell u everything

freekedoutfish · Jun 28, 2007, 09:52 AM // 09:52

So instead of saving the world by defeating some big bad guy, you want to save a kingdom or domain or princess by defeating some big bad guy.

Its all the same thing. I dont see the issue!

Its a computer game, at the end of the day. RPG/MMOS all follow the same, general structure of good-guys, bad-guys, big bad boss etc etc etc.

How they work the story around that is their choice. But its all the same thing.

Bryant Again · Jun 28, 2007, 11:36 AM // 11:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

So instead of saving the world by defeating some big bad guy, you want to save a kingdom or domain or princess by defeating some big bad guy.

Its all the same thing. I dont see the issue!

Of course it's all the same thing, dude. It's how it's told and what happens inbetween that matters.