Happy Never After : GW2

Oops! Spoiler Alert!

I guess it's a bit late now...

Thing is, it really doesn't matter. Whatever you do that's the ending you're going to get. Might as well know it up front.

When the link to Drooburt's Last Wintersday popped up in the launcher I thought the name sounded familiar. As I progressed through the storyline and reached Droobert's descent into alcoholism in the tender care of the Lion's Arch skritt an image came back to me.

Wasn't Droobert the quaggan sot we first discovered slumped outside the door of the bar in Dry Top, begging for change to dampen his endless thirst? Why, yes it was, as the ending of the Twine tale revealed or, at least, hinted heavily.

There are a lot of quaggans. I can't say I keep up with them all. Some I remember because they are so very, very annoying, like the one in Frostgorge Sound that yelps and moos about "Icebrood attacking Moshpoipoi" or whatever the infantile name of his ludicrous village is supposed to be.

Others stand out for the sheer effort the writers have expended on them, the prime example of which would have to be that increasingly desperate couple harried from map to map by Scarlet and her invading armies. They reminded me of Unlucky Alf from The Fast Show, harmless, inoffensive, hated by the fates. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Reddit remembers Drooburt but I'm afraid I didn't, though I guess I should have. I was there outside Martinus' unnamed bar, handing the down and out amphibian a few silver during his brief and controversial stint as a gold sink. I can just about recall being taken aback by his horrific death, when Mordrem vines overran Prosperity, Dry Top's oh-so-ironically named mining town. If nothing else, I really should have remembered his celebrated return as a ghost at Halloween - I must have seen him reprise that performance not three months ago.

I was at least able to summon up some vague shreds of familiarity as I worked my way through his retrospective. Mrs Bhagpuss couldn't even remember who he was when reminded. I don't see that as any kind of indictment on the quality of the writing, though.

Rather it suggests to me something I've felt about GW2 since the outset. The real strength of the franchise lies not in the mechanics of the gameplay and even less in the grandiose overarching narratives about Dragons and Demi-Gods. It lies in the breadth and depth of the world-building; all those small lives that vanish in the middle distance.

Syp was eulogizing today about the storytelling brilliance of a wagon ride in WoW. I agree. If we're talking story then this is what I come to MMOs looking for and I welcome it wherever it's found.

Although I have to say, given the choice, I'd prefer to get my slices of life in the game itself.

Skip To The Good Part : GW2

Sometime today the latest installment of Guild Wars 2's Living Story will hit the megaservers. I'm a little vague as to what chapter we're on but I know there's a trailer on YouTube. It's very short and choppy and when I watched it on a Tablet at work a few days ago it made me feel momentarily depressed because I knew I'd have to play through the unedited version eventually.

The first Living Story "Season" was muddled, chaotic and frequently infuriating. It had highs and lows and plenty of plateau states to bridge them. For all its flaws and shortcomings, however, I saw every single episode to its conclusion on both of my accounts. I never felt I wanted to skip one.

ArenaNet fielded a lot of criticism over LS1 and clearly it was criticism they took to heart. The second arc has been much, much tighter; more focused, more purposive, more targeted than the first. The writers have made a heroic effort to reconnect their rambling narrative with the lore established in the first Guild Wars. They have re-introduced important players from the past of both games: Destiny's Edge, Trahearne, Canach, The Pact.

In another popular move a significant amount of new virtual real estate has been added, first with the Dry Top map and then the adjoining Silverwastes. The achievement structure has been re-tooled to appeal to actual Achievers. All of the content has been allocated as much permanency as any content in an MMO can ever expect to enjoy.

All of this and more has been managed and yet the result, for me, is an increasing loss of interest. When each new chapter drops I dutifully follow the markers, talk to the NPCs, watch the cut scenes, grind through the fights, collect my rewards and that's it. It's all done in one evening. It takes maybe a couple of hours.

Turn round real slow Pwincess...I think it's really them!

After doing the story instances on one account I lose any interest in repeating them on the other. I just open my mail to flag the account in case I might one day want to come back to it; something that looks increasingly unlikely.

The open world maps fare a little better. When Dry Top was new I returned to it a number of times over several weeks. Silverwastes, however, has only seen my characters on the first couple of days and once later on when I had a new build I wanted to test. Other than for the rewards there really seems no reason to go back and the rewards don't do much for me.

The fundamental problem with LS2 from my perspective is how very formulaic it has become, and in so short a time, too. The first season was a hotch-potch. An awful lot of it didn't make much sense. Some of the writing was really quite poor. What it never was, however, was predictable.

We lived through a refugee crisis, saw huge, zone-wide attacks across multiple maps, explored new dungeons, met a whole raft of new characters, reveled in the best event ever added to the game (Marionette), took part in an election, even played a cameo role in a film noir pastiche. Mysterious artifacts appeared, entirely unannounced, all across Tyria and The Mists. A major city was turned into a battleground for weeks on end.

How d'you expect me to keep up with all this dragon stuff?
I've been here two years and I only just found my own kitchen last week.

LS1 was an attempt at a distributed narrative. Not always a successful attempt, that's undeniable, and it was certainly an attempt whose ambition was rarely recognized at the time. In retrospect, however, and particularly with the second season for comparison, I feel a little sorry I didn't appreciate it more. Although I did give it a B- which is a passing grade.

Let's not get too revisionist here. LS1 was no great work of art. Neither was it revolutionary or even particularly original in its approach. Plenty of MMOs have attempted distributed or accretive narratives before GW2 and some of them have made a better fist of it. Probably most of them. Still, it was more interesting and certainly more daring than what has replaced it.

The current Season appears to have condensed into a format as rigid as a crossword puzzle. For the main narrative, each week we speak to some NPCs, go to an instance, fight a mini-boss, speak to some more NPCs, go to another instance, fight a boss. Then it ends.

Some of the instances are spectacular it's true. Some of the boss fights have interesting mechanics (not interesting to me - I'd prefer a "Skip Fight" button - but they amuse some people). Regardless of the quality, however, the whole thing feels increasingly formulaic. It's all very well MMOs using repetitive structures - indeed it's intrinsic to the form - but when the player begins to notice the repetition that indicates a problem.

There has to be a better way...

The new, permanent open world content is much the same. Dry Top and Silverwastes have no real "feel" as parts of Tyria. They look and play like instanced battlegrounds not open world maps. It's as though all the effort that was expended throughout the original game to try and conceal the repetitive nature of the ironically-named "Dynamic Events" has finally been deemed a waste of development time. Instead of events triggering each other in cascading chains that branch according to outcome we get a series of set pieces on an unvarying timer.

It's a bit dull. I think that's what I'm saying. And it requires more effort than I feel it deserves. I'm not bored with the Living Story as such. I still want to know what happens next. I'm just not sure I can be bothered to trudge through the hoops to find out. I might just watch the highlights on YouTube. Someone's sure to post the cut scenes.

I'm not bored with GW2 itself either. I'm still exploring the world. There's a lot I haven't seen yet and a lot of what I have seen I've forgotten. I'll happily go round again. There are plenty of places in Tyria where it's fun just to spend time and be. Sadly, neither of the new maps is one of those places.

Twenty omegas to take a tower. Can we say "Overkill"?

As for WvW, since Yak's Bend graduated to Tier 2 after the last Tourney every match has been exciting, especially across the weekends. We have a bunch of great commanders and there's nearly always something going on. The fighting is more intense, there's more of it and it happens more often. The results are not always easy to predict.

Mrs Bhagpuss suggested a new build so I tried it and then tweaked it to an extreme. It's working very well for me. It certainly makes a change, not dying every second fight, although there's a question over whether I could solo a sentry let alone a camp. Still, I'm hell on wheels when it comes to holding a ring.

WvW somehow manages to be both repetitive and unpredictable at the same time. That's very much what I look to an MMO to provide. The open world of Tyria offers a wonderful environment to explore and relax in, which is also very much something I come to MMOs to experience. I'm not quite sure what value the current iteration of Living Story adds.

Today's LS update will be the last before Wintersday. That's good. I've about had enough of it already, short though the recent run has been, and I'm really looking forward to Wintersday this year. I didn't pay it much attention last go round, a oversight I intend to correct.

Get your airship warmed up, Tixx! My bank's full of stuffing and there are minis to be made. Saving the world from dragons? That can wait 'til next year.

Blimey, Charlie! : GW2 "Entanglement"

Just finished Living Story 2, Chapter 2. Blimey, Charlie! Really, that's all I can say although stronger words were used, out loud, several times. No, really, spoilers and all that. Suffice it to say things happen. A lot of them.

It took two, two and a half hours, straight through. Storyline, that is, Not touched the open-world content except for a couple of events I had to pass through along the way.

Did it solo, never died once, important to me for immersion reasons. Means everything that happened really happened, in real time, not in some fudged save game hinterland of suspended disbelief. Things got pretty hairy a few times, some close calls. Downed and rallied on kills from earlier AEs as the NPCs chipped in while I lay throwing dirt. My advice, tag everything, never know when you might need the credit.

Loaded a lot of CC and it paid off. Recommend it. Overall, found the fighting easier than chapter one. I think solo is easier in general for this stuff. Only one particularly annoying fight but no worse  (or better) than Aerin. No jumping required anywhere either - good news, that.

ArenaNet art department outdid themselves yet again. New maplet looks amazing, looking forward to exploring it. Going to be jumping there I fear and plenty of it. Instances large and packed with interest. Great to roam around after everything's dead. Some new mob models or new to me unless they turn up elsewhere in content I haven't done (Sylvari personal story, maybe?).

Took over 100 screenshots. Can't use hardly any. Spoilers. For now, here's some scenery. Later, when we've all been through it, we'll talk. Form a support group. We may need counselling.