But then you have...the personal story. Which as I understand it is basically a long string of instanced traditional quests. Doesn't this just seem counter to everything else about GW2's philosophy? When someone is on their personal story they will never run into another player and decide to team up, they are essentially playing single player. Sure, you can bring another player into your instance, but this really isn't any different to how GW1 worked.
You've misunderstood how personal story works.
Your "personal story" is affected by everything you do in the world and reflected in your personal zone in the city(think of it like player housing or something, except instead of a house you have a whole zone). NPCs in that zone will react differently based on what you've done in the world, the zone itself will reflect it, etc. You can invite other people into your personal story area, or not.
The rest of the world is completely segregated, for the most part. (Meaning that you can take quests and stuff from your personal story zone out with you, but you are interacting with the same world as everyone else outside that zone, and the vast majority of the game is separate from your personal story.)
No, Creslin is correct, unfortunately.
Did you guys actually look at videos showing the personal story? Because this it what it really looks like:
Still waiting for more information before I make any judgement about this.
I've as of yet got no clue exactly how many branches and how far apart these branches are in the story.
Are all my branches decided by a combination of character creation choices and which of the three orders I join, or am I faced with choices on every step along the way?
Will each branch be vastly different or merely have a different flavour? We already know you can't go evil so the end-goal, bringing bringing Destiny's Edge together and defending against the elder dragons seems set in stone, the destination seems like it's set in stone (though I'm hoping for possible twists) but how many roads lead there and how far apart are these?
Are the character creation stories truly different or are they more like DA:O where as soon as you leave the starter area your choices only have a very minor impact? Are the three orders truly different or will they have basically the same quests but merely in different locations with slightly different approaches?
They talk about thousands of possible story combinations but they also mention that each story part (race story, order story ,one story per Destiny's Edge member and story for the elder dragon it seems) has at least one major decision point (thus implying that several parts do indeed have only a single major decision and that the others don't have significantly more).
So based on that we could say we have 5 races, 2 branches per race, 3 orders,2 branches per order, 5 Destiny's Edge members, 2 branches per member, 4 branches for the elder dragon. That gives us 5*2*3*2*25*4 = 7680 combinations. Which sounds about what they're talking about. So if that's true (which in all likelyhood it isn't) you can expect a story where you're faced with a total of 9 major decisions (1 for your race, 1 for your order, 5 for Destiny's Edge and 2 for the Dragon; noting that 1 major decision = 2 branches).
That sounds pretty good although it does make me wonder how much influence those choices at character creation have. If they have any major influence we'd be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of possible story combinations and I'm pretty sure they'd have mentioned that.
But as I said, I don't think there's nearly enough information out about the personal storyline to make what we're saying anything more then just guesses. We'll have to wait and see what additional information ANet releases, although I remember hearing something about them keeping the personal story more secret so as not to spoil anything.
EDIT: Updated math. 25 is there because unlike races and orders the Destiny's Edge members aren't mutually exclusive (doing one member's quest doesn't prevent you from doing another's, but picking one race does prevent you from picking another).
I've very hesitant to think about actual branches when it comes to the personal story. Truly branching storylines quickly spiral out of control when it comes to the amount of time that it takes a developer to implement all the outcomes. For instance, suppose you have a choice to investigate the cottage or continue down the road. You go into the cottage and now you have a choice to go to the attic or the basement. You go into the attic and now you have a choice to investigate the mirror or open a trunk. That's only three branches and they're binary choices. There's 8 possible outcomes, but it took 2+4+8=14 coding steps to implement them all. If there were 3 possible outcomes to each choice, it even more quickly gets ridiculous with 3+9+27=39. Another downside of this kind of system is that you could have to replay all choices except for the last one in order to get that particular different ending.
What GW2 will probably do is have branches which all come back to the same place. So you do a story segment based on what your human regret is parents/sister/circus. At the end of that, you'll have some kind of permanent instanced consequence (long lost parent hanging out, sister's grave, new pet elephant, whatever) but then all three segments might lead to the same place, which would be a segment based on which type of helmet your warrior wears. In each segment, there are three choices, so you could get three distinct playthroughs, but they only have to code up 6 segments (or 9 if we want to extend to a third choice of three options).
Some of the choices will obviously have a huge impact, like your choice of race or human birth status. Even if that helmet segment might always be the same, others might be drastically different, or perhaps just reflect the birth (whether the NPCs call you sir or maggot).
I think I remember reading somewhere that there is one huge decision during gameplay, and that might be what sets your adventure off in a totally different direction. That makes sense, it's not too bad to have to code up only two major branches. Your choice of Order might be similarly very important and take place after your character creation based branches have been followed.
I'm not sure about the Destiny's Edge people. It seems like every class meets their race's hero during the tutorial. It might just be that you have 5 missions at various points to meet all of them. I don't know whether they'd be variable or what they'd be based on. It's also possible that the meatier segments featuring them all happen in the dungeon story mode, which we know is separate from your personal story.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
What GW2 will probably do is have branches which all come back to the same place. So you do a story segment based on what your human regret is parents/sister/circus. At the end of that, you'll have some kind of permanent instanced consequence (long lost parent hanging out, sister's grave, new pet elephant, whatever) but then all three segments might lead to the same place, which would be a segment based on which type of helmet your warrior wears. In each segment, there are three choices, so you could get three distinct playthroughs, but they only have to code up 6 segments (or 9 if we want to extend to a third choice of three options).
Some of the choices will obviously have a huge impact, like your choice of race or human birth status. Even if that helmet segment might always be the same, others might be drastically different, or perhaps just reflect the birth (whether the NPCs call you sir or maggot).
Yup. That's how Bioware has always done it. Unless they dumped hundreds and hundreds of millions into SW:ToR just for the storywriting, that's how they'll do it for SW:tOR.
That's how Japanese dating games do it.
Really, it's the only vaguely reasonable way for a video game to do choice in games. At most you only have a handful of endings, with a few variables in them (Oh, you got ending A, but character X and Y are dead, so that gets a footnote).
Anybody who expects anything remotely resembling truly branching paths on any large scale is slightly out of touch with reality.
But then you have...the personal story. Which as I understand it is basically a long string of instanced traditional quests. Doesn't this just seem counter to everything else about GW2's philosophy? When someone is on their personal story they will never run into another player and decide to team up, they are essentially playing single player. Sure, you can bring another player into your instance, but this really isn't any different to how GW1 worked.
You've misunderstood how personal story works.
Your "personal story" is affected by everything you do in the world and reflected in your personal zone in the city(think of it like player housing or something, except instead of a house you have a whole zone). NPCs in that zone will react differently based on what you've done in the world, the zone itself will reflect it, etc. You can invite other people into your personal story area, or not.
The rest of the world is completely segregated, for the most part. (Meaning that you can take quests and stuff from your personal story zone out with you, but you are interacting with the same world as everyone else outside that zone, and the vast majority of the game is separate from your personal story.)
No, Creslin is correct, unfortunately.
Did you guys actually look at videos showing the personal story? Because this it what it really looks like:
I've very hesitant to think about actual branches when it comes to the personal story. Truly branching storylines quickly spiral out of control when it comes to the amount of time that it takes a developer to implement all the outcomes. For instance, suppose you have a choice to investigate the cottage or continue down the road. You go into the cottage and now you have a choice to go to the attic or the basement. You go into the attic and now you have a choice to investigate the mirror or open a trunk. That's only three branches and they're binary choices. There's 8 possible outcomes, but it took 2+4+8=14 coding steps to implement them all. If there were 3 possible outcomes to each choice, it even more quickly gets ridiculous with 3+9+27=39. Another downside of this kind of system is that you could have to replay all choices except for the last one in order to get that particular different ending.
What GW2 will probably do is have branches which all come back to the same place. So you do a story segment based on what your human regret is parents/sister/circus. At the end of that, you'll have some kind of permanent instanced consequence (long lost parent hanging out, sister's grave, new pet elephant, whatever) but then all three segments might lead to the same place, which would be a segment based on which type of helmet your warrior wears. In each segment, there are three choices, so you could get three distinct playthroughs, but they only have to code up 6 segments (or 9 if we want to extend to a third choice of three options).
Some of the choices will obviously have a huge impact, like your choice of race or human birth status. Even if that helmet segment might always be the same, others might be drastically different, or perhaps just reflect the birth (whether the NPCs call you sir or maggot).
I think I remember reading somewhere that there is one huge decision during gameplay, and that might be what sets your adventure off in a totally different direction. That makes sense, it's not too bad to have to code up only two major branches. Your choice of Order might be similarly very important and take place after your character creation based branches have been followed.
I'm not sure about the Destiny's Edge people. It seems like every class meets their race's hero during the tutorial. It might just be that you have 5 missions at various points to meet all of them. I don't know whether they'd be variable or what they'd be based on. It's also possible that the meatier segments featuring them all happen in the dungeon story mode, which we know is separate from your personal story.
Wasn't trying to imply that branches would be completely totally seperate.
I'm expecting that each storyline segment will be 90% the same and the last 10% will take place in exactly the same story instance with just different objectives.
So take the dragon storyline for example, I'm expecting something like this:
- Quest to find where one of the dragons slumbers.
- Major decision on whether to wake the dragon or trap it slumbering.
- Quest to wake the dragon or a quest to trap it.
- Dragon wakes no matter which path is taken.
- Big battle with the dragon, aided by Destiny's Edge guild.
- Major decision to kill the dragon or trap it for all eternity.
- Second big battle with dragon with some minor interesting mechanics depending on choice taken.
The actual storyline will, hopefully, be a bit more involved but I hope the idea is clear with what I mean. Similair for the Destiny's Edge members. Each of them will likely have a personal problem. Take Zojja for example, she's likely still mourning her mentor's death. I reckon that at the end of her part of your personal storyline you can decide to either aid her in coming to terms with her loss allowing her to join Destiny's Edge again or you can get her to blame the Dragons, also causing her to join Destiny's Edge but this time for revenge.
Moving on to the next Destiny's Edge member may cause a few mentions of your choice in the dialogue but the actualy events in the storyline will be exactly the same.
But you may be right about each race meeting only their Destiny's Edge member and some other storylines being involved, that'd probably be a whole lot better and improve replayability for alts.
Was more trying to work out how many major decisions a character will actually face. There being thousands of possible story combinations doesn't really tell me anything at all about how my own experience will be. There being nine or so major decision moments does tell me a bit more about how my own experience will be, assuming that nine is actually correct (which it likely isn't).
I'd personally expect a journey similair to Dragon Age: Origins.
You start off in different starter areas where some major event happens. After that major event happens you always end up in the same place. Another major event happens there to start you on your quest. You then have to visit several important locations all over the world (seeking out Destiny's Edge guild members?) before preparing for the final battle. Then it ends with the final battle (fighting one of the dragons I'd guess).
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
Was more trying to work out how many major decisions a character will actually face. There being thousands of possible story combinations doesn't really tell me anything at all about how my own experience will be. There being nine or so major decision moments does tell me a bit more about how my own experience will be, assuming that nine is actually correct (which it likely isn't)..
From what I've read and understood, it seems to me that a lot of your choices will make =differences=, but the difference won't be the story splitting.
For example, if you end up having an NPC die on you, he won't be in your town. You won't get his side story or whatever. Maybe you'll get somebody else's sidestory. It won't branch the path though, it's sort of like a little culdesac.
If you let the orphanage burn down, you have the hospital in your home instance, and vice versa.
So all the possible this/that switches means there can be a lot of different types of home instance changes, (OH hey, how'd you get that giant statue of yourself in your town square? That's pretty awesome) but it creates difference in details, rather than in actual storyline branches (Unless you count little cul-de-sacs that don't lead anywhere important as a 'branch')
Was more trying to work out how many major decisions a character will actually face. There being thousands of possible story combinations doesn't really tell me anything at all about how my own experience will be. There being nine or so major decision moments does tell me a bit more about how my own experience will be, assuming that nine is actually correct (which it likely isn't)..
From what I've read and understood, it seems to me that a lot of your choices will make =differences=, but the difference won't be the story splitting.
For example, if you end up having an NPC die on you, he won't be in your town. You won't get his side story or whatever. Maybe you'll get somebody else's sidestory. It won't branch the path though, it's sort of like a little culdesac.
If you let the orphanage burn down, you have the hospital in your home instance, and vice versa.
So all the possible this/that switches means there can be a lot of different types of home instance changes, (OH hey, how'd you get that giant statue of yourself in your town square? That's pretty awesome) but it creates difference in details, rather than in actual storyline branches (Unless you count little cul-de-sacs that don't lead anywhere important as a 'branch')
More talking in branches of the totality.
So let's say at each binary decision point (character dies/lives, orphanage burns/is saved etc.) you can pick A or B and you have 5 decisions. Then you can get the following:
AAAAA, ABAAB, BBBBA, ABBAB etc.
All of them counting as different story possibilities. To summarise it you'd get the following:
(nothing) -> A or B.
A -> AA or AB.
B -> BA or BB.
etc.
Each decision you make takes you to a different branch of the total story, even though the parts that make up your 'branch' are exactly the same as those in most other branches.
I'm counting it like this because this is how ANet is counting it. It's the only way to actually get thousands of storyline possibilities.
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
So let's say at each binary decision point (character dies/lives, orphanage burns/is saved etc.) you can pick A or B and you have 5 decisions. Then you can get the following:
AAAAA, ABAAB, BBBBA, ABBAB etc.
All of them counting as different story possibilities. To summarise it you'd get the following:
(nothing) -> A or B.
A -> AA or AB.
B -> BA or BB.
etc.
Each decision you make takes you to a different branch of the total story, even though the parts that make up your 'branch' are exactly the same as those in most other branches.
I'm counting it like this because this is how ANet is counting it. It's the only way to actually get thousands of storyline possibilities.
To me, that seems more like a bramble bush than branching. You may take a different path, but in the end, there's probably only a few possible endings at most. YOu just take a different journey.
Oh well. I'm sure there's different types of meaning of branching, but so many people seem to think it's the branching where the storyline actually diverges constantly. Only the little segments diverge, but they all lead to the same general places.
To me, that seems more like a bramble bush than branching. You may take a different path, but in the end, there's probably only a few possible endings at most. YOu just take a different journey.
Oh well. I'm sure there's different types of meaning of branching, but so many people seem to think it's the branching where the storyline actually diverges constantly. Only the little segments diverge, but they all lead to the same general places.
Is the journey not part of the destination?
We are the bunny. Resistance is futile. ''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\ ( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o) (")("),,(")("),(")(")
Yeah, it is, and that's why I think people will have thousand of varying storylines and possibilities....
... but they're not going to have thousands of endings. Not that I'm saying you were saying that, but I don't think it can possibly be emphasized enough that the story doesn't diverge as much as some people want it to. (I'm mostly preaching at other people, not you)
I mean, yeah, there's thousands of possibilities, if you acknowledge AAAAAABAA and AAAAAAABA are different. (But also largely the same).
I'm figuring about 5 beginning story parts, with 3 partial variants each (Based off of initial decisions. They even SAID that some of the biography questions are merely cosmetic changes, rather than actual changes in the story. Like what season you are as a Sylvari, or what kind of face thing you have as a Necromancer). Then they start to converge, and split back into three again (For the three main factions and their plans to deal with the dragon). Which is a lot of story.
... and a lot of different paths where you can say 'Look, we're both humans but I ended up relatively different', but it's not like there's going to be 1000 unique stories as in 'different in all, or even most observable ways from the other 999', just different as in 'Well, in THIS variant, you saved the orphanage and not the hospital, but in most all other ways it was the same'.
So there have been a lot of folks bringing up the positive points of the personal story and I definitely appreciate that input.
I don't hate the personal story at all, my only real fear is that it will provide an "alternative" for the more MMO oriented content.
Rift and WAR both had some form of public questing which is similar to dynamic events. But they also had a complete "traditional" quest line that would take you all the way to max level. What happened was that people just did the traditional quest line because it was generally much faster and much of the public content was neglected. Even worse, I feel like the quality of the PQ content in those games was less because the devs spent so much time on traditional questing.
What makes GW2 so revolutionary is that it has NO traditional quests, it's all dynamic events. So it's trying to turn the PQ from a "gimmick" into the main mean of the game.
But then when you look at the personal story, what is it but just a big traditional quest? And that's the root of my fear. If the personal story is extensive enough to carry you to max level or even just be the "main" thing you do...then GW2 really hasn't replaced quests with dynamic events, they just renamed quests.
However from what I'm hearing, the Personal Story should be a relatively "minor" part of the game when compared to DE's. Hopefully this is true.
And this is why none of you GW guys make any sense whatsoever. All I read is "this game sucks cause it "SUPPOSEDLY" forces the players to do this, that game sucks cause it "SUPPOSEDLY" forces the players to do that" and yet you guys cant seem to yell out your praises loud enough when GW "FORCES" players into this mass grouping "DYNAMIC" content without any say in the matter from what I'm hearing, or at least thats what most of you seem to hoping for anyways.
"What makes GW2 so revolutionary is that it has NO traditional quest, it's all dynamic event......"
So when does TAKING AWAY a players choice and options when playing a game become "REVOLUTIONARY" and "INNOVATING"? Why do other games "suck,blow and become shit for the noob sheep masses" when they are "supposedly" forcing players to play one way and one way only and yet its the second coming of the MMORPG renaissance when GW2 seems to forcing players to do it blatantly and you guys just lap it all up?
I'm sorry but who the hell are you to say that your way of playing a game is any better than someone elses? Why the hell do you care how someone else likes to experience their game? You want to do nothing but run around with the masses (what you guys would call "sheep") and do your "DYNAMIC" content? Thats fine, its your CHOICE how you enjoy to play, I respect that. So, how about you do the same and respect others choices and let them enjoy the game the way they want and not spew your guys GW fanboy, troll, hypocritical, you play your games the way we say so or youre just a mindless sheep, bullshit.
Frankly, what I see is a small (keyword being small) group of players that seem to have decided that their way of gaming is the ONLY way and that GW2/ArenaNet knows best when it comes to how they should play their games and they should just fall in line. Funny, sounds just like what you GW guys like to call EVERY other gamer in the world that doesnt worship GW, rapid fanboys
The worst thing of all is that while GW2 just isnt my cup of tea, at one point and time I was still able to look at it openly enough to see that it was still a very well made game that might have been at least worth a try. Saddly though, it wasnt the game that turned me away from at least giving it a try so much as it was the kinds of players on this site seem to be flocking to it in droves.
NOTE: This is no way a personal attack at the OP, he just happened to post the perfect example of everything I find hypocritical with the most of the GW fanbase and their stance towards pretty much anything that doesnt have GW2 on the cover.
So there have been a lot of folks bringing up the positive points of the personal story and I definitely appreciate that input.
I don't hate the personal story at all, my only real fear is that it will provide an "alternative" for the more MMO oriented content.
Rift and WAR both had some form of public questing which is similar to dynamic events. But they also had a complete "traditional" quest line that would take you all the way to max level. What happened was that people just did the traditional quest line because it was generally much faster and much of the public content was neglected. Even worse, I feel like the quality of the PQ content in those games was less because the devs spent so much time on traditional questing.
What makes GW2 so revolutionary is that it has NO traditional quests, it's all dynamic events. So it's trying to turn the PQ from a "gimmick" into the main mean of the game.
But then when you look at the personal story, what is it but just a big traditional quest? And that's the root of my fear. If the personal story is extensive enough to carry you to max level or even just be the "main" thing you do...then GW2 really hasn't replaced quests with dynamic events, they just renamed quests.
However from what I'm hearing, the Personal Story should be a relatively "minor" part of the game when compared to DE's. Hopefully this is true.
And this is why none of you GW guys make any sense whatsoever. All I read is "this game sucks cause it "SUPPOSEDLY" forces the players to do this, that game sucks cause it "SUPPOSEDLY" forces the players to do that" and yet you guys cant seem to yell out your praises loud enough when GW "FORCES" players into this mass grouping "DYNAMIC" content without any say in the matter from what I'm hearing, or at least thats what most of you seem to hoping for anyways.
"What makes GW2 so revolutionary is that it has NO traditional quest, it's all dynamic event......"
So when does TAKING AWAY a players choice and options when playing a game become "REVOLUTIONARY" and "INNOVATING"? Why do other games "suck,blow and become shit for the noob sheep masses" when they are "supposedly" forcing players to play one way and one way only and yet its the second coming of the MMORPG renaissance when GW2 seems to forcing players to do it blatantly and you guys just lap it all up?
I'm sorry but who the hell are you to say that your way of playing a game is any better than someone elses? Why the hell do you care how someone else likes to experience their game? You want to do nothing but run around with the masses (what you guys would call "sheep") and do your "DYNAMIC" content? Thats fine, its your CHOICE how you enjoy to play, I respect that. So, how about you do the same and respect others choices and let them enjoy the game the way they want and not spew your guys GW fanboy, troll, hypocritical, you play your games the way we say so or youre just a mindless sheep, bullshit.
Frankly, what I see is a small (keyword being small) group of players that seem to have decided that their way of gaming is the ONLY way and that GW2/ArenaNet knows best when it comes to how they should play their games and they should just fall in line. Funny, sounds just like what you GW guys like to call EVERY other gamer in the world that doesnt worship GW, rapid fanboys
The worst thing of all is that while GW2 just isnt my cup of tea, at one point and time I was still able to look at it openly enough to see that it was still a very well made game that might have been at least worth a try. Saddly though, it wasnt the game that turned me away from at least giving it a try so much as it was the kinds of players on this site seem to be flocking to it in droves.
NOTE: This is no way a personal attack at the OP, he just happened to post the perfect example of everything I find hypocritical with the most of the GW fanbase and their stance towards pretty much anything that doesnt have GW2 on the cover.
For one thing, your premise of people being forced to play a certain way is wrong. In my opinion, dynamic events are 100% better than traditional MMO leveling quests because they're communal, more immersive, more immediate, repeatable and failable.
However, just because they encourage community (everyone can take part, it scales up/down, dont have to do prequests to get on same stage, chaining so people stay together longer) doesn't mean that people are forced to interact. You CAN talk to people if you want, but you don't HAVE to. Actually, because of instant teleportation and automentoring letting you repeat any old content, and hidden events off in the wilderness, you can probably argue the game gives you tools you need to at least keep trying to be alone, as opposed to trying to avoid people while on a linear quest chain.
In my mind, Creslin's argument makes sense. He's saying PQs and rifts, which in theory should be the next evolution of content, suffered during gameplay because people took the path of least resistance with quests and that they suffered in development because they had to spend so much time working on quests.
He's arguing that if the Personal Story is so expansive that it becomes the path of least resistance (and an incredibly linear themepark quest line all in one package), DEs will suffer like PQs and rifts. Our counterargument has been that the personal story is a supplement and not enough to keep people from the open world.
What it comes down to is that developer time is limited. If they're working on one thing they can't be working on another. As I've said, DEs are better than quests. If ArenaNet would spend time developing thousands of quests, that would take away time from developing DEs. It would take away from people playing the DEs. There's a ton of quest based games out there already, which is why we think the focus for this game should be DEs. And as I pointed out, just because they encourage community doesn't mean they force it.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
On the story branching, there will be major story elements that each Personal Story will come around to at various points along the way, but your previous choices may effect how your story approaches those elements and from what perspective you participate in the greater over all story event.
While the stories may intersect around various key events, in addition to offering various perspectives on those events, players will have a much more varied experience in how their character gets to those events. Think of some Epic Fantasy novels where most of the story bounces around various Points of View, with key characters off in different places, doing very different things, but converging on key events and playing very different roles in those events based on their perspective. That they share some prominent events doesn't detract from the uniqueness of each character's journey which brought them to those points of confluence.
That's how I see GW2's Personal Story and it's branching content.
On Dynamic Events, there are still some misconceptions by some. Dynamic Events do scale up based on the number of players participating, but they don't force you into group play or make you do content you don't want to do. Yes, there are some Epic Events at some key points along some Dynamic Event Chains that are designed for 5 to 50 or 10 to 100 players, but if too few people show up, you can still try, fail and get a reward, or pass it by entirely. If enough people do show up for these events, you don't have to formally group, if you don't want to. Players can cooperate just as effectively with out formal groups and the way the game handles individual mob XP/loot and Dynamic Event rewards, everyone who actively participates gets rewarded. You aren't competing with other players for rewards and some well organized group can't swoop in, dominate an event and walk away with all the rewards.
Not having to take quests, you can just explore a zone, stumble across various Dynamic Events and no matter where they are in the entire chain, you can participate, (or not, no penalties for passing, other than missing out on the fun). For those who prefer more direction from a game, rather than open exploration, there will be Scout npcs in each zone that will highlight content at some key points across the map and reward you for going to each and completing a certain amount of content, but that's completely optional as well.
The only PVE content that requires formal grouping is the five man Dungeons. You can earn some pretty good gear from dungeons, but there will be nothing near the power gap between dungeon equiped and solo players as seen in other MMOs.
And this is why none of you GW guys make any sense whatsoever. All I read is "this game sucks cause it "SUPPOSEDLY" forces the players to do this, that game sucks cause it "SUPPOSEDLY" forces the players to do that" and yet you guys cant seem to yell out your praises loud enough when GW "FORCES" players into this mass grouping "DYNAMIC" content without any say in the matter from what I'm hearing, or at least thats what most of you seem to hoping for anyways.
"What makes GW2 so revolutionary is that it has NO traditional quest, it's all dynamic event......"
So when does TAKING AWAY a players choice and options when playing a game become "REVOLUTIONARY" and "INNOVATING"? Why do other games "suck,blow and become shit for the noob sheep masses" when they are "supposedly" forcing players to play one way and one way only and yet its the second coming of the MMORPG renaissance when GW2 seems to forcing players to do it blatantly and you guys just lap it all up?
I'm sorry but who the hell are you to say that your way of playing a game is any better than someone elses? Why the hell do you care how someone else likes to experience their game? You want to do nothing but run around with the masses (what you guys would call "sheep") and do your "DYNAMIC" content? Thats fine, its your CHOICE how you enjoy to play, I respect that. So, how about you do the same and respect others choices and let them enjoy the game the way they want and not spew your guys GW fanboy, troll, hypocritical, you play your games the way we say so or youre just a mindless sheep, bullshit.
Frankly, what I see is a small (keyword being small) group of players that seem to have decided that their way of gaming is the ONLY way and that GW2/ArenaNet knows best when it comes to how they should play their games and they should just fall in line. Funny, sounds just like what you GW guys like to call EVERY other gamer in the world that doesnt worship GW, rapid fanboys
The worst thing of all is that while GW2 just isnt my cup of tea, at one point and time I was still able to look at it openly enough to see that it was still a very well made game that might have been at least worth a try. Saddly though, it wasnt the game that turned me away from at least giving it a try so much as it was the kinds of players on this site seem to be flocking to it in droves.
NOTE: This is no way a personal attack at the OP, he just happened to post the perfect example of everything I find hypocritical with the most of the GW fanbase and their stance towards pretty much anything that doesnt have GW2 on the cover.
Comments
No, Creslin is correct, unfortunately.
Did you guys actually look at videos showing the personal story? Because this it what it really looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stfx0Lk0qQ4&feature=related
15:30 Entering story instance
18:45 Showing Instace map & exiting
20:30 - 23:30 Next story instance
24:45 - 28:30 Next story instance (sigh...)
Hype train -> Reality
Turned off by the personal story? Are you nuts? Its whats most interesting. And its probably the way you're going to get first elite skill.
I've very hesitant to think about actual branches when it comes to the personal story. Truly branching storylines quickly spiral out of control when it comes to the amount of time that it takes a developer to implement all the outcomes. For instance, suppose you have a choice to investigate the cottage or continue down the road. You go into the cottage and now you have a choice to go to the attic or the basement. You go into the attic and now you have a choice to investigate the mirror or open a trunk. That's only three branches and they're binary choices. There's 8 possible outcomes, but it took 2+4+8=14 coding steps to implement them all. If there were 3 possible outcomes to each choice, it even more quickly gets ridiculous with 3+9+27=39. Another downside of this kind of system is that you could have to replay all choices except for the last one in order to get that particular different ending.
What GW2 will probably do is have branches which all come back to the same place. So you do a story segment based on what your human regret is parents/sister/circus. At the end of that, you'll have some kind of permanent instanced consequence (long lost parent hanging out, sister's grave, new pet elephant, whatever) but then all three segments might lead to the same place, which would be a segment based on which type of helmet your warrior wears. In each segment, there are three choices, so you could get three distinct playthroughs, but they only have to code up 6 segments (or 9 if we want to extend to a third choice of three options).
Some of the choices will obviously have a huge impact, like your choice of race or human birth status. Even if that helmet segment might always be the same, others might be drastically different, or perhaps just reflect the birth (whether the NPCs call you sir or maggot).
I think I remember reading somewhere that there is one huge decision during gameplay, and that might be what sets your adventure off in a totally different direction. That makes sense, it's not too bad to have to code up only two major branches. Your choice of Order might be similarly very important and take place after your character creation based branches have been followed.
I'm not sure about the Destiny's Edge people. It seems like every class meets their race's hero during the tutorial. It might just be that you have 5 missions at various points to meet all of them. I don't know whether they'd be variable or what they'd be based on. It's also possible that the meatier segments featuring them all happen in the dungeon story mode, which we know is separate from your personal story.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Yup. That's how Bioware has always done it. Unless they dumped hundreds and hundreds of millions into SW:ToR just for the storywriting, that's how they'll do it for SW:tOR.
That's how Japanese dating games do it.
Really, it's the only vaguely reasonable way for a video game to do choice in games. At most you only have a handful of endings, with a few variables in them (Oh, you got ending A, but character X and Y are dead, so that gets a footnote).
Anybody who expects anything remotely resembling truly branching paths on any large scale is slightly out of touch with reality.
Please say those VO's are place holder?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The Devs had said that Dynamic Events will tie in with the Personal Storyline. Which means you will have to meet people someday.
If you don't want to play alone, don't fucking play the personal storyline. I rather have you cry than I cry.
Wasn't trying to imply that branches would be completely totally seperate.
I'm expecting that each storyline segment will be 90% the same and the last 10% will take place in exactly the same story instance with just different objectives.
So take the dragon storyline for example, I'm expecting something like this:
- Quest to find where one of the dragons slumbers.
- Major decision on whether to wake the dragon or trap it slumbering.
- Quest to wake the dragon or a quest to trap it.
- Dragon wakes no matter which path is taken.
- Big battle with the dragon, aided by Destiny's Edge guild.
- Major decision to kill the dragon or trap it for all eternity.
- Second big battle with dragon with some minor interesting mechanics depending on choice taken.
The actual storyline will, hopefully, be a bit more involved but I hope the idea is clear with what I mean. Similair for the Destiny's Edge members. Each of them will likely have a personal problem. Take Zojja for example, she's likely still mourning her mentor's death. I reckon that at the end of her part of your personal storyline you can decide to either aid her in coming to terms with her loss allowing her to join Destiny's Edge again or you can get her to blame the Dragons, also causing her to join Destiny's Edge but this time for revenge.
Moving on to the next Destiny's Edge member may cause a few mentions of your choice in the dialogue but the actualy events in the storyline will be exactly the same.
But you may be right about each race meeting only their Destiny's Edge member and some other storylines being involved, that'd probably be a whole lot better and improve replayability for alts.
Was more trying to work out how many major decisions a character will actually face. There being thousands of possible story combinations doesn't really tell me anything at all about how my own experience will be. There being nine or so major decision moments does tell me a bit more about how my own experience will be, assuming that nine is actually correct (which it likely isn't).
I'd personally expect a journey similair to Dragon Age: Origins.
You start off in different starter areas where some major event happens. After that major event happens you always end up in the same place. Another major event happens there to start you on your quest. You then have to visit several important locations all over the world (seeking out Destiny's Edge guild members?) before preparing for the final battle. Then it ends with the final battle (fighting one of the dragons I'd guess).
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
From what I've read and understood, it seems to me that a lot of your choices will make =differences=, but the difference won't be the story splitting.
For example, if you end up having an NPC die on you, he won't be in your town. You won't get his side story or whatever. Maybe you'll get somebody else's sidestory. It won't branch the path though, it's sort of like a little culdesac.
If you let the orphanage burn down, you have the hospital in your home instance, and vice versa.
So all the possible this/that switches means there can be a lot of different types of home instance changes, (OH hey, how'd you get that giant statue of yourself in your town square? That's pretty awesome) but it creates difference in details, rather than in actual storyline branches (Unless you count little cul-de-sacs that don't lead anywhere important as a 'branch')
More talking in branches of the totality.
So let's say at each binary decision point (character dies/lives, orphanage burns/is saved etc.) you can pick A or B and you have 5 decisions. Then you can get the following:
AAAAA, ABAAB, BBBBA, ABBAB etc.
All of them counting as different story possibilities. To summarise it you'd get the following:
(nothing) -> A or B.
A -> AA or AB.
B -> BA or BB.
etc.
Each decision you make takes you to a different branch of the total story, even though the parts that make up your 'branch' are exactly the same as those in most other branches.
I'm counting it like this because this is how ANet is counting it. It's the only way to actually get thousands of storyline possibilities.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
To me, that seems more like a bramble bush than branching.
You may take a different path, but in the end, there's probably only a few possible endings at most. YOu just take a different journey.
Oh well. I'm sure there's different types of meaning of branching, but so many people seem to think it's the branching where the storyline actually diverges constantly. Only the little segments diverge, but they all lead to the same general places.
Is the journey not part of the destination?
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
Yeah, it is, and that's why I think people will have thousand of varying storylines and possibilities....
... but they're not going to have thousands of endings. Not that I'm saying you were saying that, but I don't think it can possibly be emphasized enough that the story doesn't diverge as much as some people want it to. (I'm mostly preaching at other people, not you)
I mean, yeah, there's thousands of possibilities, if you acknowledge AAAAAABAA and AAAAAAABA are different. (But also largely the same).
I'm figuring about 5 beginning story parts, with 3 partial variants each (Based off of initial decisions. They even SAID that some of the biography questions are merely cosmetic changes, rather than actual changes in the story. Like what season you are as a Sylvari, or what kind of face thing you have as a Necromancer). Then they start to converge, and split back into three again (For the three main factions and their plans to deal with the dragon). Which is a lot of story.
... and a lot of different paths where you can say 'Look, we're both humans but I ended up relatively different', but it's not like there's going to be 1000 unique stories as in 'different in all, or even most observable ways from the other 999', just different as in 'Well, in THIS variant, you saved the orphanage and not the hospital, but in most all other ways it was the same'.
And this is why none of you GW guys make any sense whatsoever. All I read is "this game sucks cause it "SUPPOSEDLY" forces the players to do this, that game sucks cause it "SUPPOSEDLY" forces the players to do that" and yet you guys cant seem to yell out your praises loud enough when GW "FORCES" players into this mass grouping "DYNAMIC" content without any say in the matter from what I'm hearing, or at least thats what most of you seem to hoping for anyways.
"What makes GW2 so revolutionary is that it has NO traditional quest, it's all dynamic event......"
So when does TAKING AWAY a players choice and options when playing a game become "REVOLUTIONARY" and "INNOVATING"? Why do other games "suck,blow and become shit for the noob sheep masses" when they are "supposedly" forcing players to play one way and one way only and yet its the second coming of the MMORPG renaissance when GW2 seems to forcing players to do it blatantly and you guys just lap it all up?
I'm sorry but who the hell are you to say that your way of playing a game is any better than someone elses? Why the hell do you care how someone else likes to experience their game? You want to do nothing but run around with the masses (what you guys would call "sheep") and do your "DYNAMIC" content? Thats fine, its your CHOICE how you enjoy to play, I respect that. So, how about you do the same and respect others choices and let them enjoy the game the way they want and not spew your guys GW fanboy, troll, hypocritical, you play your games the way we say so or youre just a mindless sheep, bullshit.
Frankly, what I see is a small (keyword being small) group of players that seem to have decided that their way of gaming is the ONLY way and that GW2/ArenaNet knows best when it comes to how they should play their games and they should just fall in line. Funny, sounds just like what you GW guys like to call EVERY other gamer in the world that doesnt worship GW, rapid fanboys
The worst thing of all is that while GW2 just isnt my cup of tea, at one point and time I was still able to look at it openly enough to see that it was still a very well made game that might have been at least worth a try. Saddly though, it wasnt the game that turned me away from at least giving it a try so much as it was the kinds of players on this site seem to be flocking to it in droves.
NOTE: This is no way a personal attack at the OP, he just happened to post the perfect example of everything I find hypocritical with the most of the GW fanbase and their stance towards pretty much anything that doesnt have GW2 on the cover.
For one thing, your premise of people being forced to play a certain way is wrong. In my opinion, dynamic events are 100% better than traditional MMO leveling quests because they're communal, more immersive, more immediate, repeatable and failable.
However, just because they encourage community (everyone can take part, it scales up/down, dont have to do prequests to get on same stage, chaining so people stay together longer) doesn't mean that people are forced to interact. You CAN talk to people if you want, but you don't HAVE to. Actually, because of instant teleportation and automentoring letting you repeat any old content, and hidden events off in the wilderness, you can probably argue the game gives you tools you need to at least keep trying to be alone, as opposed to trying to avoid people while on a linear quest chain.
In my mind, Creslin's argument makes sense. He's saying PQs and rifts, which in theory should be the next evolution of content, suffered during gameplay because people took the path of least resistance with quests and that they suffered in development because they had to spend so much time working on quests.
He's arguing that if the Personal Story is so expansive that it becomes the path of least resistance (and an incredibly linear themepark quest line all in one package), DEs will suffer like PQs and rifts. Our counterargument has been that the personal story is a supplement and not enough to keep people from the open world.
What it comes down to is that developer time is limited. If they're working on one thing they can't be working on another. As I've said, DEs are better than quests. If ArenaNet would spend time developing thousands of quests, that would take away time from developing DEs. It would take away from people playing the DEs. There's a ton of quest based games out there already, which is why we think the focus for this game should be DEs. And as I pointed out, just because they encourage community doesn't mean they force it.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Well, then go away and take your generalizations with you. Please keep that attitude away from the game, I really wouldn't want to see it in the game.
On the story branching, there will be major story elements that each Personal Story will come around to at various points along the way, but your previous choices may effect how your story approaches those elements and from what perspective you participate in the greater over all story event.
While the stories may intersect around various key events, in addition to offering various perspectives on those events, players will have a much more varied experience in how their character gets to those events. Think of some Epic Fantasy novels where most of the story bounces around various Points of View, with key characters off in different places, doing very different things, but converging on key events and playing very different roles in those events based on their perspective. That they share some prominent events doesn't detract from the uniqueness of each character's journey which brought them to those points of confluence.
That's how I see GW2's Personal Story and it's branching content.
On Dynamic Events, there are still some misconceptions by some. Dynamic Events do scale up based on the number of players participating, but they don't force you into group play or make you do content you don't want to do. Yes, there are some Epic Events at some key points along some Dynamic Event Chains that are designed for 5 to 50 or 10 to 100 players, but if too few people show up, you can still try, fail and get a reward, or pass it by entirely. If enough people do show up for these events, you don't have to formally group, if you don't want to. Players can cooperate just as effectively with out formal groups and the way the game handles individual mob XP/loot and Dynamic Event rewards, everyone who actively participates gets rewarded. You aren't competing with other players for rewards and some well organized group can't swoop in, dominate an event and walk away with all the rewards.
Not having to take quests, you can just explore a zone, stumble across various Dynamic Events and no matter where they are in the entire chain, you can participate, (or not, no penalties for passing, other than missing out on the fun). For those who prefer more direction from a game, rather than open exploration, there will be Scout npcs in each zone that will highlight content at some key points across the map and reward you for going to each and completing a certain amount of content, but that's completely optional as well.
The only PVE content that requires formal grouping is the five man Dungeons. You can earn some pretty good gear from dungeons, but there will be nothing near the power gap between dungeon equiped and solo players as seen in other MMOs.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Hype train -> Reality