[:1]I'm reading through the Jeff Grubs Dungeons blog, having also read the recent commentary on SW:TOR at Penny Arcade and following The Secret World.
The Secret World is a sand park style, with a strong emphasis on on personalisation in terms of character generation and progression. No classes, no levels... but not much exposition on story yet either. However I'd expect it to have the same emphasis on open player driven, branching tree based progression through the story options as well.
SW:TOR is a theme park, with classes in the same way as GW2, but from what was said at PA it appears that it will have a branching story where the players actions and choices will not only change the world but also the progression of the main story itself.
GW2 definitely has a strong emphasis on story, with your actions making a palpable physical change to the world around you... but the dungeons article, specifically the part about the Ascalon Catacombs* has me worried that I won't have any influence on the progression or direction of the story.
I know a lot has been said about how the choices you make when creating your character will influence the story you experience, but I'm getting a strong impression that that will only be colouring in between the lines. That I'll only be along for a very linear ride.
What if I want to help the ghosts of Ascalon rather than fight them? Punch every damn char I ever meet in the face (which I fully intend to do)?
It's been said (in another thread) that by the time I get to that part of the game I'll want to subdue the ghosts and the games all about the races coming together. But who are Arenanet to say I will want to? This is 2011 (2012 by the time it's released) not 2005. Why shouldn't I be able to decide that actually, even with everything that's happened before, I still want to help the ghosts and punch every damn char in the face?
Am I going to be predestined to a single track main story to which there re no choices and hence consequence? Or will I be free to choose (even from a limited subset of options) what I do to progress the story, not just how I do it?
Ever repeating scripted dynamic events (to which we can succeed or fail) isn't the answer.
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For example, in the Ascalonian dungeon, players plunge into the catacombs beneath haunted Ascalon. The norn hero Eir Stegalkin is hunting for the remains of King Adelbern's sword, Magdaer. The charr tribune Rytlock Brimstone wants you to help him stop Eir before she stirs up the restless spirits of the Ascalonian ghosts. Both you and the iconic characters discover that there is more going on in the old Ascalonian Catacombs than anyone had anticipated.
That tale is told and resolved in the story mode, but what of the explorable version of this dungeon? This content happens in the same area as the story mode, but it takes place after the events of the story. What happens in story mode directly affects the circumstances of the explorable mode.|||Simply because the whole GW2 story revolves around the player being a hero, not some good/bad morality choice.
You can't side with the ghosts because that would go against the whole premise of you being a hero.
You can't kill EVERY charr in the game because you're under the premise you're a hero.
You can't side with the Elder Dragons because you're supposed to kill them.
You can influence your story. It just happens every choice is really different ways to make your character a hero, which, as you said, might just be different colouring.
If you like that or not, it's up to each one's taste. Story is still a story, and as long as it's well done and choices matter, I'll be happy to play it.|||There are more than enough god games out there (which is what it sounds like you want to play). GW2 is a hero game, you're the hero.
Play Black & White, Populous, Dungeon Keeper, or even Fable. Short of a single-player RPG you won't find that level of play choice.
BTW, I hate Need for Speed, they never let you ride bicycles!|||Quote:
There are more than enough god games out there (which is what it sounds like you want to play).
No No No. That's not what I want to play. I want to play an rpg, and I want to be able to choose the role that I play. If I have a personal story, as a hero, I should be able to make personal choices. to a lesser or (preferably) greater extent. And GW1 was always criticised as being a massively single player game.
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Short of a single-player RPG you won't find that level of play choice.
SW:TOR seem to be doing it. Did you really read my post?
And in this day and age I don't see why ways shouldn't be found. Especially with how much experimenting and progress they've made with the rest of the game.
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BTW, I hate Need for Speed, they never let you ride bicycles!
Now you're just being deliberately and unnecessarily antagonistic.|||Quote:
No No No. That's not what I want to play. I want to play an rpg, and I want to be able to choose the role that I play. If I have a personal story, as a hero, I should be able to make personal choices. to a lesser or (preferably) greater extent. And GW1 was always criticised as being a massively single player game.
You do get to make personal choices. GW2 is made with the fundamental premise of you being a hero. There are heaps of choices within that boundary.
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SW:TOR seem to be doing it. Did you really read my post?
GW2 is not SW:TOR.
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And in this day and age I don't see why ways shouldn't be found. Especially with how much experimenting and progress they've made with the rest of the game.
Because the premise of GW2 is that you're the hero. Want to play a villain? Go play TOR or WoW.|||I'm just gonna quote what I said on Guru on a similar topic.
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I understand what you're getting at. But it comes down to the fact that you have to be realistic with what you expect, Arenanet can only do so many choices before it starts taking away quality from other parts of the game. Even in a SP RPG there will be choices that you might not completely agree with or your character might appear to do something you don't feel is in line with the persona you've created for him. It comes down to that they can't make infinite choices.
This was in response to a guy who didn't like logan thackery as a character and wanted the option to show this trough conversation.
Now in and of itself this isn't a big task for arenanet to do, what you have to realize is that just as he wants one thing, and you want another thing, another hundred thousand fans want to be able to do their things. This is just not realistic, not even in a singleplayer RPG will you be able to create a game where EVERYONE is satisfied, and this is not primarily a role playing game lets be completely frank about that.
This is one of the reasons, and this is the basis for what Nemeon said. Namely that instead of trying to cater to everyone, which is an absolutely absurd request, arenanet decided that you will be a hero, and as such the conversations will flow from that decision. You will be able to do things in a ferocious or charming way, but you will never be able to be anything but a Hero.
If this bothers you, you will simply have to play another game which allows for deeper character decisions. But even those games are limited in this regard because again you can't possibly cater to every whim of every person who is gonna play your game. As a developer what you have to do is to cater to as many main groups as possible.
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SW:TOR seem to be doing it.
But TOR doesn't have 5 playable races with different stories, and different stories within those stories that are based on multiple decisions just in the creation of your character(as far as I know at least, I don't follow SW:TOR very closely to be honest). You have so many things that influence your story in GW2 in comparison to TOR. In order to do what you ask they would have to create an inzane amount of content to fit with their current design philosophy. There will probably be greater variaty in the story choices in TOR because they only have to worry about if you are going Jedi or Sith, while GW2 needs to worry about a ton of other stuff.
Just as a human you have the choices of Street rat, Commoner, nobillity, and then you have the choices of the events - Missed Opportunity, Dead Sister and Unknown Parents. And this is merely the foundation for one race, we are talking about 3^3 possibly combinations just at the start for one race. Lets say all races have these amount of choices (this isn't true some have more but just for the sake of argument) that would mean 5x3^3, this gives you a total of 405 possible combinations and we are only at the character creation screen, as you progress trough the story there will be ALOT more choices.
Do you even grasp what it is you're asking to be done here?
In order to cater to everyone arenanet would literally have to create hundreds of thousands of choices all culminating in hundreds of thousands of different quests and storylines. Do you really think this is reasonable? maybe they should just make a interactive movie and completely skip everything else, that way you'd get what you want.|||And excuse me for not buying the SW:TOR hype. They are really only giving you two story paths. You will either side with the Sith or the Jedi, and your choices just go to determine which side you will join with.
Having played other recent Bioware games(DA, DA2, ME2) where they tout their great storytelling and choices that matter, in the end your choices don't really matter as the story progresses the way they set it up to. Sure some choices matter a little bit, but they are not as in depth as Bioware wants you to believe and if you truly believe they will be, then you are in for major disappointment.|||Quote:
SW:TOR is a theme park, with classes in the same way as GW2, but from what was said at PA it appears that it will have a branching story where the players actions and choices will not only change the world but also the progression of the main story itself.
One more thing, you praise bioware for this, see statement above, but infact I can argue the same thing for all of their recent games as you are with gw2.
In Mass effect I couldn't simply kill the council when they didn't do what I wanted, I couldn't make them see reason in anyway even though I was right and they were wrong, even though I had proof I couldn't convince them. No matter what I did the outcome was the same, it was nothing but "colouring between the lines". The same holds true for the entire game, I couldn't stop the reaper invasion by any means, even if I saw how it was coming and how I could have stopped it. I couldn't stop Liara's mother from killing herself, even bringing Liara to the fight only ended up in the game laughing in my face at my attempt to save her mother, no matter what I did it was once again nothing but "colouring between the lines". In dragon age I played a Human Noble, and no matter what I did in the start my hometown was invaded and my brother's son and wife murdered and in the end of that origin story no amount of persuasion could make my mother leave my father's side and I had to leave with Duncan knowing that my parents would be killed when the main group of Howe's men reaches them. In DA2, no matter what I did the endgame fight was ALWAYS the same, the mage and the crazy templar chick. It didn't matter what I spent the last 50 hours doing, the end was ALWAYS gonna be the same, once again "colouring between the lines".
I could keep giving you examples of this from ME, ME2, DA, DA2 and every other game bioware has ever done, and every game that has EVER been done. The same WILL hold true for SW: TOR, and the same will hold true for GW2 because you can NEVER cater to every single person playing your game. That's the bottom line, and all you're doing is prohibiting yourself from enjoying the game by nitpicking it.|||Very eloquently stated Senatic.|||Quote:
In dragon age one way or the other you have to defeat the darkspawn, what if I wanted to side with the darkspawn? Well you can't too bad, so everything in that entire game in your words was just "colouring between the lines".
Well, to be fair, you COULD side with the darkspawn.
You just had to buy the DLC that allows you to play as one of the darkspawn.
But hey! Your point still stands.
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