Comparing GW2 personal story to ToR story quest is like comparing Mass effect to Skyrim. They use different mechanic and feel to them. ToR is more toward cinematic and GW2 is more towards dynamic character development
This is actually one of the major reasons that I have pre-purchased my copy of GW2.
AT first I bought SWTOR because I thought this was what I was getting, Dynamic Character Development, then I found out that My experience is the same for all same professions and regardless of my race, my Profession determines my story.
Not saying SWTOR was bad or good, just that My expections for SWTOR is what GW2 will give me.
Because one of the major pluses, is that I get to experience the same class and I can still play its story mode differently each time.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Realistically speaking, there's a limited amount of story branches you can possibly have.
Without playing it yet, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this is the way it'll work.
There will be story branches originally. It'll change your experience a bit, BUT it's not going to lead to completely different decisions later on down the line. So it's not like choices A or B lead to C and D or E and F... or if it is, that'll only happen a few times.
Definitely.
Going on what they quoted in the gamebreaker video linked in this thread, it sounds like there will only be a few branch points per character (ie, quite a few different paths your characters can take, but only a few points in the story where a huge difference is evident). I think they said around ~30 different outcomes per character total. Which is awesome. In SWTOR, I Think there was 2-3 tops per character, which I felt kind of let down by.
It'll also be nice to see how the different races play out, not to mention the different profession choices. I just hope that the human quests for a warrior are VERY different from that of a necro.
I really like what I've read, and pretty much confirms my expectations. I liked the story telling through lots of cinematics in gw1 even though it was linear, so I'll like it even more in gw2 where it's non-linear.
The read was good, and the idea sounds awesome. But I wouldn't put my eggs on the story basket for GW2. If you think about it its really hard to create a good story that also really changes as you make options. Im not saying GW2 is not going to nail it but Im super skeptical.
Ya I would worry about that as well if GW2 hyped the hell out of story like Bioware did but seeing how it is merely mentioned along side of their other gameplay mechanics without much fanfare it leads me to believe they trust the rest of the game if good enough to not need story alone.
To be honest, Arenanet haven't really made any real 'fanfare' for any of their features. They've just said 'hey guys, here's our game and what's in it'. All the excitement comes from the fact that what we've seen/played is awesome
The story voice overs ect. are a vast step up over guild wars 1, which is nice. but until i've played the story i can't comment on the overall quality. The bar isn't exactly high though, SWTOR's story was 'good for an MMO', not 'good'.
Well I have been suckered in enough to pre-purchase
April 20th beta weekend and I'll see for myself!
This is off topic, but what makes you think April 20 will be a beta weekend event? I haven't gotten any notification of such......did I miss it or are you just guessing?
The read was good, and the idea sounds awesome. But I wouldn't put my eggs on the story basket for GW2. If you think about it its really hard to create a good story that also really changes as you make options. Im not saying GW2 is not going to nail it but Im super skeptical.
Ya I would worry about that as well if GW2 hyped the hell out of story like Bioware did but seeing how it is merely mentioned along side of their other gameplay mechanics without much fanfare it leads me to believe they trust the rest of the game if good enough to not need story alone.
To be honest, Arenanet haven't really made any real 'fanfare' for any of their features. They've just said 'hey guys, here's our game and what's in it'. All the excitement comes from the fact that what we've seen/played is awesome
The story voice overs ect. are a vast step up over guild wars 1, which is nice. but until i've played the story i can't comment on the overall quality. The bar isn't exactly high though, SWTOR's story was 'good for an MMO', not 'good'.
Well I have been suckered in enough to pre-purchase
April 20th beta weekend and I'll see for myself!
This is off topic, but what makes you think April 20 will be a beta weekend event? I haven't gotten any notification of such......did I miss it or are you just guessing?
people speculating, we know it wont be this weekend so its either the 20th or the 27th.
I think you should not expect way too much choice in GW2's story. I read something about like every 10 levels or so you are faced with a new chapter of your story. (not absolutely certain) And within those chapters you could expect at least 1 major twist/branching. This concludes in like minimum 8 choices if I counted correctly. I guess it would be unrealistic to expect more than 20 choices. I mean if you would do so like all the time it would:
A: not feel important as you would do that all the time. Decisions would turn less meaningful
B: mean more content to implement which is alway consuming time. I guess this is a reason why you possibly wont be able to level from 1 to 80 with personal story only.
To come back to comparison: SWTOR vs GW2, I would expect that SWTOR's focus on cinematical conversations, story overall and everything else concerning story consumed much more time/money than for GW2's story. I would actually assume
SWTOR: story-rest : 75%-25%
GW2: story-rest: 33%-67%
My personal opinion is, that Bioware wasted like at least 15% on story.
And I like GW2's approach more because dev cost have not been wasted for gameplay breakers. I see little gameplay in Conversational Options of BW games: Especially because this feels more like a running gag which have not been improved over 4-5 games we experienced with that feature. This is my biggest criticism concerning BW games.
On quality of story... I can not judge, have not played SWTOR but from what I heard they raised the bar quite high... But ANet does not have bad writers. Read the books they receive quite good criticism.
From what I understand, yes, there are key elements of the storyline that you will come around to no matter what choices you make during your personal storyline, but the story you tell along the way can be very different due to your choices.
Think of any work of fiction that tells the story through many seperate Points of View. You could have major events in the story line that all the main characters show up for, but the course of events for each character in between those major events can be very different.
That's how I imagine the GW2 personal story playing out. There may be some major events that you are pre-destined to take part in, reguardless of your story choices, but the path through life that brings you to those key events is individualized based on your choices. The key is to ensure that the various paths you get to influence don't feel like they are just filler, but stories worth telling in their own right. (I'm also hoping that your previous choices will have at least minor effects on how the main story arc events are portrayed to you, like maybe the friend you saved is there to help, but if you let him die his absense is noted, etc..., but that remains to be seen).
Seems to me that article is a complete and utter over-exageration of the reality of the game, and the choices will be nothing like as important or game changing as he says.
The whole thing is a total hype-a-thon I would take it with a pinch of salt until we know.
Way too much bias in that article. In fact, I'm having a hard time taking it seriously.
yup, GW2 story mostly seems a gimmick to me its not why i'm buying the game, whereas the ONLY reason I bought swtor was for the story.
also gw1 was an e-sport and I fail to see how gw2 can be a better e-sport when the skill/class system is dumbed down so much. its like chess vs checkers.
pretty much sums it up for me i think, it's what i saw in SWTOR when i spent some time trying it out on a friends computer. When i watched many videos about GW2 on youtube about how they might handle this i noticed even in the character generation screen, there were essential differences. There wasn't simply this choose what your character will look like and give him a name thing like in other mmo's out there.
Excellent article. As a 2 year fanboy of the game I actually learned some things in that article which was a surprise since I thought I knew everything. :P
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Comments
This is actually one of the major reasons that I have pre-purchased my copy of GW2.
AT first I bought SWTOR because I thought this was what I was getting, Dynamic Character Development, then I found out that My experience is the same for all same professions and regardless of my race, my Profession determines my story.
Not saying SWTOR was bad or good, just that My expections for SWTOR is what GW2 will give me.
Because one of the major pluses, is that I get to experience the same class and I can still play its story mode differently each time.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Well to be honest, same story per class (TOR) versus same story per race (GW2) isn't much of a difference.
It's the choices you can make during the story that really matter, IMO, and how they effect that story.
I played TOR to 50 and finished my class story, never felt like any of the choices I made really mattered all that much.
I really, really hope GW2 is going to be different in that regards.
Sounds like they have got the right idea though.
Definitely.
Going on what they quoted in the gamebreaker video linked in this thread, it sounds like there will only be a few branch points per character (ie, quite a few different paths your characters can take, but only a few points in the story where a huge difference is evident). I think they said around ~30 different outcomes per character total. Which is awesome. In SWTOR, I Think there was 2-3 tops per character, which I felt kind of let down by.
It'll also be nice to see how the different races play out, not to mention the different profession choices. I just hope that the human quests for a warrior are VERY different from that of a necro.
I really like what I've read, and pretty much confirms my expectations. I liked the story telling through lots of cinematics in gw1 even though it was linear, so I'll like it even more in gw2 where it's non-linear.
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This is off topic, but what makes you think April 20 will be a beta weekend event? I haven't gotten any notification of such......did I miss it or are you just guessing?
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people speculating, we know it wont be this weekend so its either the 20th or the 27th.
well for myself it wont take much to do everything better than SWTOR.
I think you should not expect way too much choice in GW2's story. I read something about like every 10 levels or so you are faced with a new chapter of your story. (not absolutely certain) And within those chapters you could expect at least 1 major twist/branching. This concludes in like minimum 8 choices if I counted correctly. I guess it would be unrealistic to expect more than 20 choices. I mean if you would do so like all the time it would:
A: not feel important as you would do that all the time. Decisions would turn less meaningful
B: mean more content to implement which is alway consuming time. I guess this is a reason why you possibly wont be able to level from 1 to 80 with personal story only.
To come back to comparison: SWTOR vs GW2, I would expect that SWTOR's focus on cinematical conversations, story overall and everything else concerning story consumed much more time/money than for GW2's story. I would actually assume
SWTOR: story-rest : 75%-25%
GW2: story-rest: 33%-67%
My personal opinion is, that Bioware wasted like at least 15% on story.
And I like GW2's approach more because dev cost have not been wasted for gameplay breakers. I see little gameplay in Conversational Options of BW games: Especially because this feels more like a running gag which have not been improved over 4-5 games we experienced with that feature. This is my biggest criticism concerning BW games.
On quality of story... I can not judge, have not played SWTOR but from what I heard they raised the bar quite high... But ANet does not have bad writers. Read the books they receive quite good criticism.
From what I understand, yes, there are key elements of the storyline that you will come around to no matter what choices you make during your personal storyline, but the story you tell along the way can be very different due to your choices.
Think of any work of fiction that tells the story through many seperate Points of View. You could have major events in the story line that all the main characters show up for, but the course of events for each character in between those major events can be very different.
That's how I imagine the GW2 personal story playing out. There may be some major events that you are pre-destined to take part in, reguardless of your story choices, but the path through life that brings you to those key events is individualized based on your choices. The key is to ensure that the various paths you get to influence don't feel like they are just filler, but stories worth telling in their own right. (I'm also hoping that your previous choices will have at least minor effects on how the main story arc events are portrayed to you, like maybe the friend you saved is there to help, but if you let him die his absense is noted, etc..., but that remains to be seen).
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Seems to me that article is a complete and utter over-exageration of the reality of the game, and the choices will be nothing like as important or game changing as he says.
The whole thing is a total hype-a-thon I would take it with a pinch of salt until we know.
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Don't be silly. It's a well known fact that if you like one thing it's impossible to like another thing.
Way too much bias in that article. In fact, I'm having a hard time taking it seriously.
Unless you are new to the internet. Then you wouldn't know this yet.
yup, GW2 story mostly seems a gimmick to me its not why i'm buying the game, whereas the ONLY reason I bought swtor was for the story.
also gw1 was an e-sport and I fail to see how gw2 can be a better e-sport when the skill/class system is dumbed down so much. its like chess vs checkers.
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Excellent article. As a 2 year fanboy of the game I actually learned some things in that article which was a surprise since I thought I knew everything. :P
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Great article
loving it. Thank you for sharing!
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