tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post4112719707301556355..comments2024-03-28T04:50:52.945+00:00Comments on Inventory Full: By Their Deeds Shall Ye Know Them : GW2Bhagpusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-87615557690601403072015-01-19T13:52:39.897+00:002015-01-19T13:52:39.897+00:00Heh. I was more into Paul Levitz and Chris Clarem...Heh. I was more into Paul Levitz and Chris Claremont, myself, but I hear where you are coming from.<br /><br />I guess my disappointment is marked by hitting a higher level in the previous title. I thought "Nightfall" and "Hearts of the North" were outstanding, and that "Factions", "Eye of the North" and "Winds of Change" clocked in a pretty darned good. I have to throw in some Jeff Grubb fan appreciation here as well -- my dog-eared copy of TSR's "Marvel Super Heroes" RPG from the mid-eighties influenced my GMing style for... uh... gulp. A long time. <br /><br />My, how time flies when you are having fun.<br /><br />Anyway, yes, I do have some sour grapes brought on by overly high expectations. But, dangit, I know they can do better. I've seen it. I wonder how much "every line must be voice acted and animated" hinders the writing team?jonreecehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18384146710365926074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-36056621585739148622015-01-18T20:13:58.734+00:002015-01-18T20:13:58.734+00:00Hehe! Don't feel bad! Great comment - very int...Hehe! Don't feel bad! Great comment - very interesting analysis.<br /><br />I think your expectations are just one heck of a lot higher than mine. I've made this comparison before but to my mind MMO storytelling rarely reaches the middling levels of a run-of-the-mill comic book, something Roy Thomas or Marv Wolfman (yes I know that dates me) might have turned out on an average day at the office. My benchmark for literary ability and storytelling chops in the MMO field is TSW and even there I think you're looking at the equivalent of a fair-to-middling indie movie or a solid genre novel, not anything ground-breaking or exceptional. <br /><br />By those standards GW2 isn't doing too badly. There are some nice turns of phrase, the characters are better-than-flat and the plot is there or thereabouts as intriguing as an average episode of Scooby-Doo. Yes, very little of it stands up to even a cursory close reading but the kind of shortcomings you point out are present in just about every extended quest/set-piece in every MMO. <br /><br />I only played Prophecies and about 75% of Heart of the North in GW1 but I don't recall the writing in general being all *that* superior. The plotting, yes, that was tighter and better thought-through, but some of the dialog was pretty poor and characterization was nothing special that I remember.<br /><br />On the specifics of the Caithe/Wynne/Faolain triangle, did any of that ever make any kind of sense? It certainly didn't to me. Faolain seems to be some kind of pantomime version of a sociopath, Caithe makes decisions and choices that bear no rational explanation and frankly I have no clue who Wynn is, even now. I guess the proof of whether Wynn's decision here makes any kind of sense is in the outcome: she did trust Caithe and Caithe did prove worthy of that trust. I think we just have to accept, without the writers having done any work to deserve our trust, that Caithe knows Wynne and Faolain better than we do.<br /><br />As for the fight at the Pact camp - honestly I had no clue what was going on in it from start to finish. I was dodging and rolling and trying to stay alive and I barely managed to find a second to read the instructions. All the subtleties people have reported were completely lost on me. As I've said before we really need a "Skip Fight" button for Living Story like we have the "Skip Scene" one. You are completely right that all we need is a cut scene but apparently some people actually enjoy the fighting.<br /><br />All in all I think it was an above-average episode *by the standards these writers have set so far*. I wouldn't put it more strongly than that though.<br /><br />Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-71358759216986444472015-01-18T13:04:51.021+00:002015-01-18T13:04:51.021+00:00I suppose it is up to me to be negative again. So...I suppose it is up to me to be negative again. Sorry. I feel vaguely bad about it.<br /><br />So, tell me, from a story standpoint, what did you think about what you saw in the memory seed? Specifically, we have Wynne who is being confronted by Faolain deciding to torture her to get the information she wants. Faolain wanders over to the nearby bush, leaving Wynne guarded by Caithe. Wynne, having seen Caithe and Faolain being thick as thieves together, knows she can't persuade Caithe to let her go, or protect her from Faolain, or keep her from being tortured, and she thinks that she must keep the secret from Faolain. So what does she do? She first *tells Faolain's toady the secret that she doesn't want Faolain to get* and then *asks the toady to kill her*.<br /><br />Really? Seriously? That's the plan? Not even "you are too weak to help me, kill me to keep it from her" but "here is is, pretty please don't tell her but kill me in secret so nobody even knows I asked you not to but didn't even make you promise not to tell you dearest friend"?<br /><br />*facedesk*<br /><br />While I have my gripe on let me also express discontent with the "big fight at the base while being overrun" instance. This one is set up as "fight for a while, lose the south side, fight for a while, lose the north side, fight for a while, lose the middle, find a torch and light a beacon". The big thing I noticed is that it doesn't matter if you do well or poorly. Do badly at one side? The gun explodes and you have to go to the next step. Do well at the other side, even to the point of pushing the Mordrim back to their spawn point? The gun explodes and you have to go to the next step. Look, if my performance doesn't matter even the slightest, just give me a cut scene. <br /><br />We had plenty of these "you are losing, things are bad" fights in GW1, too. But there was what was to me a *huge* difference. Take as an example Minister Cho's Estate, the first mission in Factions. You can't save the minister, he becomes a monster. You can't save the people, they are going insane before you arrive. It's a loss, you were too late when you ran to the door. But the player's experience is very different. What you do is save the gate guard's frightened little son, and kill the transformed Minister Cho. For your side it is a loss, but you managed to save what you could and feel both frightened for the future but good about making the best of it that you could. We had lots of these in the previous game.<br /><br />I would have been happier if the camp had been overrun off screen, we had to rescue the guys holding out in the middle, and then light the flame. <br /><br />Sorry to be a wet blanket. I'm not really happy with the storytelling right now. This makes me double-sad, I feel like post-Prophecies GW1 was some of the best storytelling I'd ever seen in any MMO.jonreecehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18384146710365926074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-15586735911646007202015-01-16T16:29:08.740+00:002015-01-16T16:29:08.740+00:00Well, my sylvari is ready for embrace the Dark Tho...Well, my sylvari is ready for embrace the Dark Thorny Side...João Carloshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03071469488376795686noreply@blogger.com