I definitely get this, but what you're really talking about is that there is no way to make player A's version of the world different than player B's without instancing. And yeah, that's obvious.
I think what I and some other posters were talking about would be to not have a personal story at all, but instead tell the story of the WORLD all through non-instanced dynamic events. Players would then participate in these events and learn pieces of the story as the events unfolded.
I completely admit that this would not be nearly as personal as an instanced scripted quest line. You are never going to have a situation like "your brother dies" or "you are left to be in charge of an elite fighting force." So it's a trade off as I stated before.
You either have a more immersive world at the cost of story, or a more engrossing storyline at the cost of immersion.
That I understand. However, it seems you want to remove the personal story and not trade it with anything. We already dynamic events. In fact, we have events that have 20+ chains that accomodate for 100+ players. I imagine a 20+ chain event would tell a story. We have events that tie in with the elder dragons, the white mantle, the history, the secret things, and pretty much every aspect of the world. What you want is pretty much already in the game. The world in GW2 already tells a persistent story. This story goes on with or without you and is availble to everyone to experience with everyone else.
The personal story is just another piece. This personal story doesn't take anything away from the world story. The personal story is there for that exact reason... to be personal.
I think it's just a question of proporation really. I'm sure that if ANet focused more on dynamic events and didn't do a personal story, there would be more of them and they could "take the place of" the personal story as the vehicle that tells the story of the world.
But anyway, the personal story doesn't really upset me that much and I don't want to give that impression. I'm sure I will still play and enjoy the personal story. It just happens to be the only feature of GW2 that I have a gripe with.
ArenaNet is being realistic, and also extremely innovative at the same time. The realistic part is that they realize that sometimes every player needs to be able to solo. For whatever reasons (there are tons), sometimes you just don't have the time, the desire, or the energy to play with other people. We all need alone time once in a while.
ArenaNet decided, instead of just throwing in a bunch of solo content, to use this fact about the player base as an advantage in the game. As others have already mentioned, instancing this particular content allows them to change the story and the NPCs / world based on your choices and your actions. It also allows a certain level of permanence...you'll be able to see the effects of your story for as long as you have that character. Because it's instanced, you can do it any time, on your schedule, based on how and when you want to play.
Along with those benefits, providing a compelling personal story which ties into the story of the whole world allows the player not only a real sense of connection and depth to their character, but also a much more natural and intuitive way to follow (or push) the story itself. Story delivery is key...and something that MMORPGs have done a terrible job at for a long time. Based on what I've seen of the two games, I believe that although SW:TOR will likely have awesome story, I think GW2's implementation will be more seamless and better connected to the world. Just my opinion, we'll have to wait and see.
Keep in mind two really important things -
1. There WILL be a whole-world story that is advanced as you go along, and that will be told through the dynamic events. Changes will not be permanent, like in your personal story, but it will be persistent. You'll see the story play out, you'll help push it one way or the other, and you'll see the consequences of your actions in the world.
2. You can bring other people into your personal story instances if you want. You'll be able to have them along with you to see or help out with your adventures. If they are on the exact same story phase as you, you'll both be able to advance your story together if you want...or you'll be able to do it separately if you choose. All options are provided to never do anything alone if you don't want to.
Also, don’t forget about the combat mechanics, much more fluid roles, movement and ground control tactics playing a much larger role, and of course cross-profession combos. Also more great examples of how GW2 is building real social play into their game from the ground up.
The Personal Story is only a fraction of the game though.
While it's possible to hit max level just doing WvWvW or Dynamic Events, this isn't true for the personal story.
It's not even neccessary to do the personal story... and the level of the content changes with you. So if you want to save all (Or most of it anyway, you do a little in the beginning) of it for level 80 during some rainy day when you don't feel like playing with others, that's perfectly possible.
... and you can still bring other people along. Up to 4 more people presumably (Full party size), which means it can be as multiplayer as dungeons anyway.
That's good to hear. My hope is that you can't progress all the way through the game in the personal story. Because if you can, then it really defeats the purpose of getting rid of traditional quests. If you can progress all the way through the game with the personal story, you didn't get rid of traditional quests, you just hid them in an instance .
But I believe you, I don't think I have seen anywhere that you're supposed to be able to do the personal story all the way to 80.
I think it's just a question of proporation really. I'm sure that if ANet focused more on dynamic events and didn't do a personal story, there would be more of them and they could "take the place of" the personal story as the vehicle that tells the story of the world.
But anyway, the personal story doesn't really upset me that much and I don't want to give that impression. I'm sure I will still play and enjoy the personal story. It just happens to be the only feature of GW2 that I have a gripe with.
Well I'm sure it bothers a lot of people. However, if you remove the non-mmo parts of a game, then you should remove the dungeons too. They too are instanced. Same with the structured PvP. Even the World PvP is instanced away from the persistant world.
I don't see anything negative from the personal story, nor do I see there is something to be gained from removing it. I mean, the team may have more free time to polish up other aspects of the game... but replacing dynamic events with quests would have freed up a lot of time too. I don't think it should be removed simply because it doesn't make any other aspect worse. If it was something like... There was a story mode where once you beat a certain part then that map/location would be locked off, then I would see the problem. This story mode would hinder players at playing the game. The personal story however, does not hinder ANY other aspects of the game other than consuming time from the developers. Like I mentioned earlier though, every aspect consumes time, and we shouldn't remove an aspect strictly because it consumes time.
I like it. It gives you a sense that you are significant in the world and not just one of the thousands of other "heroes" out there, cracking skulls for a good cause. That your role in the events of Tyria are important, even though the world continues to move ahead with or without you.
But you can get that in tons of other games, so why should GW2 try to offer that as well? Counter to popular believe, not even Anet are omnipotent. You can't have the cake and eat it, too. Other aspects of the game will have to suffer for the personal story. Is it really worth it? I don't think so. Leave instanced storytelling to games that focus on instanced storytelling, and are already doing it well.
I definitely get this, but what you're really talking about is that there is no way to make player A's version of the world different than player B's without instancing. And yeah, that's obvious.
I think what I and some other posters were talking about would be to not have a personal story at all, but instead tell the story of the WORLD all through non-instanced dynamic events. Players would then participate in these events and learn pieces of the story as the events unfolded.
I completely admit that this would not be nearly as personal as an instanced scripted quest line. You are never going to have a situation like "your brother dies" or "you are left to be in charge of an elite fighting force." So it's a trade off as I stated before.
You either have a more immersive world at the cost of story, or a more engrossing storyline at the cost of immersion.
That I understand. However, it seems you want to remove the personal story and not trade it with anything. We already dynamic events. In fact, we have events that have 20+ chains that accomodate for 100+ players. I imagine a 20+ chain event would tell a story. We have events that tie in with the elder dragons, the white mantle, the history, the secret things, and pretty much every aspect of the world. What you want is pretty much already in the game. The world in GW2 already tells a persistent story. This story goes on with or without you and is availble to everyone to experience with everyone else.
The personal story is just another piece. This personal story doesn't take anything away from the world story. The personal story is there for that exact reason... to be personal.
I think it's just a question of proporation really. I'm sure that if ANet focused more on dynamic events and didn't do a personal story, there would be more of them and they could "take the place of" the personal story as the vehicle that tells the story of the world.
But anyway, the personal story doesn't really upset me that much and I don't want to give that impression. I'm sure I will still play and enjoy the personal story. It just happens to be the only feature of GW2 that I have a gripe with.
Sure ANet could probably focus more on events and cancel the personal story, but then you get back to where you feel less important in the world. Like a lot of these posts say, they like the personal story because it gives your player a place in this world. If the entire story were all dynamic events, it wouldn't matter who you were in the world. Espcially if its truly dynamic, think of how much of the story you could miss if you are logged off for a full week, etc.
To me the personal story gives a sense of progression that you can control, where as dynamic events can take place without you being there, giving the player no control over that part of the world.
ArenaNet is being realistic, and also extremely innovative at the same time. The realistic part is that they realize that sometimes every player needs to be able to solo. For whatever reasons (there are tons), sometimes you just don't have the time, the desire, or the energy to play with other people. We all need alone time once in a while.
ArenaNet decided, instead of just throwing in a bunch of solo content, to use this fact about the player base as an advantage in the game. As others have already mentioned, instancing this particular content allows them to change the story and the NPCs / world based on your choices and your actions. It also allows a certain level of permanence...you'll be able to see the effects of your story for as long as you have that character.
Along with those benefits, providing a compelling personal story which ties into the story of the whole world allows the player not only a real sense of connection and depth to their character, but also a much more natural and intuitive way to follow (or push) the story itself.
Keep in mind two really important things -
1. There WILL be a whole-world story that is advanced as you go along, and that will be told through the dynamic events. Changes will not be permanent, like in your personal story, but it will be persistent. You'll see the story play out, you'll help push it one way or the other, and you'll see the consequences of your actions in the world.
2. You can bring other people into your personal story instances if you want. You'll be able to have them along with you to see or help out with your adventures. If they are on the exact same story phase as you, you'll both be able to advance your story together if you want...or you'll be able to do it separately if you choose. All options are provided to never do anything alone if you don't want to.
Also, don’t forget about the combat mechanics, much more fluid roles, movement and ground control tactics playing a much larger role, and of course cross-profession combos. Also more great examples of how GW2 is building real social play into their game from the ground up.
Good post. I think you're right that it's good to be able to solo sometimes. And one thing I may have forgot about dynamic events is that anyone can basically join you at any time so it could be exhausting if you didn't feel like teaming up.
Anyway, this post and some others have made me feel a lot better about the Personal Story.
So long as its not an option for complete progression through the game, I think it's good. My hope is that the Personal Story is used more to enhance your experience in the world by connecting you with your character, rather than to be an alternative to your experience in the world.
Well, they say that DEs are their way of putting the MMO back in MMORPG and that the personal story is their way of putting back in the RPG.
A lot of their innovations have the goal of encouraging community, but that isn't their only goal. For instance, some of their steps to make combat more active do help, but not all of them. Or their goal to make underwater a bigger part of the game than it normally is doesn't either.
To me, the personal story is just trying to address a different goal. One of the only real downsides to DEs is that you can't do a sweeping, epic, personal experience. Sure, we can all band together and try to take down the dragon, but we can't all together do the kind of stuff that we're seeing in the beginnings of the personal stories.
Personally, I'm excited. I think they're going to add a lot of replayability. Sure, there's tradeoffs, but I'm the type of person who likes phasing, so they're not going to bother me.
"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
I see it as being an effective way to solve several long-standing problems in the genre -
Allowing players to solo without turning the whole game's mechanics into being actively anti-social.
Providing players with a sense of permanence...your choices and actions have lasting effects that you can see.
Delivering story effectively in a more visceral way
Providing players with a deeper connection to the world and their character in an immersive way...GW2 will really encourage and facilitate players developing their characters' lore... you literally get to play the role of your character in an awesome story...much more like the old tabletop RPGs.
I like it. It gives you a sense that you are significant in the world and not just one of the thousands of other "heroes" out there, cracking skulls for a good cause. That your role in the events of Tyria are important, even though the world continues to move ahead with or without you.
But you can get that in tons of other games, so why should GW2 try to offer that as well? Counter to popular believe, not even Anet are omnipotent. You can't have the cake and eat it, too. Other aspects of the game will have to suffer for the personal story. Is it really worth it? I don't think so. Leave instanced storytelling to games that focus on instanced storytelling, and are already doing it well.
That is a horrible mindset. No offense to you or anything mate, but this is NOT how we should go about developing games. Just because another franchise has focused on one aspect doesn't mean another franchise shouldn't include it. With that logic... PvP, dungeons, questing, storymode, world vs world PvP, classes, and pretty much everything viable for a solid MMO is out of the question. I forgot, minecraft focues on crafting, so no other MMO should include crafting.
Innovation isn't invention. The wheel was invention. Adding the wheel to a wagon is innovation. Adding a horse to the wagon is innovation. The engine as a whole is invention. Adding that to a wheel was just innovation. Getting the best parts of games, even if they aren't MMO's, and integrating them into a solid polished package is innovation.
Can you please tell me how other aspects of the game suffer because of the personal story? It doesn't step on any other aspects other than consume time.
Dynamic events consume time, so lets get rid of that and use quests instead. Quests are simple and don't take as much time. World PvP has been done before, and I'm sure it takes a lot of time to implement it, so let's get rid of that too.
Personal story in GW2 is an addition, not a replacement. It doesn't steal anything from any other aspect other than the fact that it it consumed resources, which ALL aspects of the game consumed.
The two biggest MMO's on the horizon, GW2 and SWTOR, have both come to the conclusion that current MMO's are missing a personal story... NCSoft certainly has a lot of experience making MMO's, so they have some experience and have perhaps seen this as something that is missing. BioWare has the experience in single player RPG's, so it's something they know very well and feel that they can bring into an MMO as a great enhancement. Personally, I think both companies are on the right track.
Each characters starts with their own personal story and taking humans as an example, you start in different levels of society. From that point on, you story already differs from others. Even if you are playing with your friends, you still have your own personal story to tell. That's really all there is to it, just how your character grows as a person.
I'm really hyped for GW2, so many features and design concepts really appeal to me as someone who misses the "glory days" when MMORPGs were more about communities and player interaction. But I find that I'm just a little turned off by the concept of the personal story...let me explain why.
Almost every concept in GW2 is built to bring players together and encourage a spirit of community.
Dynamic events shatter the old "Sorry I'm not on that quest" barrier to grouping. Now if you see someone saving a village, you can jump right in and help them without having to worry about if you ahve the quest first and if they will slow you down.
Forward and reverse level scaling shatter the old "Sorry you're too low/high!" barrier to grouping. Now if your friends are max level and you are level 10 you can play together and even do the level 10 content!
Teleportation shatters the "Sorry I'm on the other side of the continent" barrier to grouping. Now if you want to group with a friend who is far away, you can just pop right in!
And as for PvP, WvWvW will encourage a sense of "server pride" since you will always be with your server fighting against foreign servers; and the "FPS-style" servers for competitive PvP will enable you to really get to know your opponents/allies by frequenting the same server.
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.
I just feel like the personal story is the only thing in GW2 that could lead to the kind of "single player MMO" behavior that we see in so many quest based MMO's like WoW, WAR, AoC, and Rift. This worries be a bit.
Thoughts?
Why do you use the term MMO when MMORPG is more appropriate? That is the key to your problem I suspect. They are putting the RPG back into the game in a story way.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
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the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Originally posted by Creslin321 I just feel like the personal story is the only thing in GW2 that could lead to the kind of "single player MMO" behavior that we see in so many quest based MMO's like WoW, WAR, AoC, and Rift. This worries be a bit. Thoughts?
This doesn't worry me. The content style will keep it from being a single player game for the most part. Open questing and dynamic events are great ideas. Someone might join the events solo but I don't think they'd get very far so they probably would be better off joining parties and such.
GW2 looks to improve on the open world things that games like WAR and Rift did by making them less restrictive and actually more fun. Those games had the right idea but were implemented to the point where they got boring after one or two months for most people (rifts in Rift, public quests in WAR).
If it adds anything to the conversation, players recieve karma for helping another player with their personal storyline. The game will scale to accomodate up to the 5 players that can be in a party during the personal storyline.
I don't think it takes anything at all away from the MMO side of the game. Arena Net wants to provide for the players who want a rich, engaging storyline based on the decisions they make, as well as the players who want the multiplayer action of dynamic events and World vs World vs World that happens in the persistent environment.
It was said before, but...
Dynamic events are putting the MMO back in MMORPG.
Personal Storyline is putting the RPG back in MMORPG.
No, not really... Personal story is 100% optional from the beginning tutorial on so I wouldn't worry about it. I consider it a bonus game on top of what GW2 has to offer elsewhere. It's like someone added a nice optional sp/co-op full RPG to your persistent mmo experience.
I guess I'll play that instead of D3 when I get my sp/co-op leg up lol. (Up yours Bliz, what did you do with my WoW sub money?!?!)
100% agree. The personal story is just as backwards as SWTOR, except SWTOR is superior in terms of presentation. People want GW2 PvE because of dynamics events, and imo that's what Anet should focus on in expansions. Personal story is great, but only if it's told with the help of dynamic events instead of instances.
From some reports it seems that personal story doesn't take place entirely in instances..At some points you're required to wander about the "real" world. It's not really completely separate from the main game world. There's been some mention of something that sounds suspiciously like phasing... We'll see how it plays out, tho I wouldn't worry too much about it as long as it's optional. Frankly, I'd pay the full box price just to play WvW even if there were nothing else in the game.
A good story for your character cannot be bad. Especially if it is just one from many other options. If it immerse you into the lore, the house quarter feature, give you some good suggestion on what and how to do in game, and those kind of stuff why not? It's better to have lore ingame than in a web site. If it is a succession of fed ex, then i'll pass i guess.
100% agree. The personal story is just as backwards as SWTOR, except SWTOR is superior in terms of presentation. People want GW2 PvE because of dynamics events, and imo that's what Anet should focus on in expansions. Personal story is great, but only if it's told with the help of dynamic events instead of instances.
From some reports it seems that personal story doesn't take place entirely in instances..At some points you're required to wander about the "real" world. It's not really completely separate from the main game world. There's been some mention of something that sounds suspiciously like phasing... We'll see how it plays out, tho I wouldn't worry too much about it as long as it's optional. Frankly, I'd pay the full box price just to play WvW even if there were nothing else in the game.
this is a bit wrong you see, all they ever said was that you had to TRAVEL the world to get to where you can do your personal story at some points (i wudnt expect youd fight zhaitan in one of the racial citys, btw caps is for emphasis no yelling here). and the only phasing type thing there is in gw2 is the phasing of individual RESOURCE NODES so that noone gets ninja noded everything else happens in the persistant world (exception of course to dungeons, personal story and the instanced type of pvp.)
I honestly don't see the problem. Why should they leave something out? What if I want to solo for a bit and just work on something myself. It always good to have game play options and having a peronsal story can help you feel more attached to your character. It doesn't take away from the Dynamic Events, just seems like it adds another layer of play that would be silly to take away.
The personal story is a story for your character specifically. You can bring friends into your home instance, they can help you in your personal story quests if you and they want that. I'm sure you can pretty much skip it all without problem. It's there for the players that want to live the story of their character. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, do what you find enjoyable. I can't say I'm worried about having options. Maybe some day you'll feel like experiencing some storytelling where it's all about your character, you never know.
I don't get why anyone would be "turned off" by the personal story.
The Personal Story content is a big plus for me.
You develop your character there and sort of set up their place in the world. If you don't want your characters to have any depth and don't care for a personal, interactive, branching story that also offers quality rewards, don't do it. It's really that simple. I don't know why anyone would want to bypass it, but it's your choice to do so.
Comments
I think it's just a question of proporation really. I'm sure that if ANet focused more on dynamic events and didn't do a personal story, there would be more of them and they could "take the place of" the personal story as the vehicle that tells the story of the world.
But anyway, the personal story doesn't really upset me that much and I don't want to give that impression. I'm sure I will still play and enjoy the personal story. It just happens to be the only feature of GW2 that I have a gripe with.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
ArenaNet is being realistic, and also extremely innovative at the same time. The realistic part is that they realize that sometimes every player needs to be able to solo. For whatever reasons (there are tons), sometimes you just don't have the time, the desire, or the energy to play with other people. We all need alone time once in a while.
ArenaNet decided, instead of just throwing in a bunch of solo content, to use this fact about the player base as an advantage in the game. As others have already mentioned, instancing this particular content allows them to change the story and the NPCs / world based on your choices and your actions. It also allows a certain level of permanence...you'll be able to see the effects of your story for as long as you have that character. Because it's instanced, you can do it any time, on your schedule, based on how and when you want to play.
Along with those benefits, providing a compelling personal story which ties into the story of the whole world allows the player not only a real sense of connection and depth to their character, but also a much more natural and intuitive way to follow (or push) the story itself. Story delivery is key...and something that MMORPGs have done a terrible job at for a long time. Based on what I've seen of the two games, I believe that although SW:TOR will likely have awesome story, I think GW2's implementation will be more seamless and better connected to the world. Just my opinion, we'll have to wait and see.
Keep in mind two really important things -
1. There WILL be a whole-world story that is advanced as you go along, and that will be told through the dynamic events. Changes will not be permanent, like in your personal story, but it will be persistent. You'll see the story play out, you'll help push it one way or the other, and you'll see the consequences of your actions in the world.
2. You can bring other people into your personal story instances if you want. You'll be able to have them along with you to see or help out with your adventures. If they are on the exact same story phase as you, you'll both be able to advance your story together if you want...or you'll be able to do it separately if you choose. All options are provided to never do anything alone if you don't want to.
Also, don’t forget about the combat mechanics, much more fluid roles, movement and ground control tactics playing a much larger role, and of course cross-profession combos. Also more great examples of how GW2 is building real social play into their game from the ground up.
That's good to hear. My hope is that you can't progress all the way through the game in the personal story. Because if you can, then it really defeats the purpose of getting rid of traditional quests. If you can progress all the way through the game with the personal story, you didn't get rid of traditional quests, you just hid them in an instance
.
But I believe you, I don't think I have seen anywhere that you're supposed to be able to do the personal story all the way to 80.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Well I'm sure it bothers a lot of people. However, if you remove the non-mmo parts of a game, then you should remove the dungeons too. They too are instanced. Same with the structured PvP. Even the World PvP is instanced away from the persistant world.
I don't see anything negative from the personal story, nor do I see there is something to be gained from removing it. I mean, the team may have more free time to polish up other aspects of the game... but replacing dynamic events with quests would have freed up a lot of time too. I don't think it should be removed simply because it doesn't make any other aspect worse. If it was something like... There was a story mode where once you beat a certain part then that map/location would be locked off, then I would see the problem. This story mode would hinder players at playing the game. The personal story however, does not hinder ANY other aspects of the game other than consuming time from the developers. Like I mentioned earlier though, every aspect consumes time, and we shouldn't remove an aspect strictly because it consumes time.
But you can get that in tons of other games, so why should GW2 try to offer that as well? Counter to popular believe, not even Anet are omnipotent. You can't have the cake and eat it, too. Other aspects of the game will have to suffer for the personal story. Is it really worth it? I don't think so. Leave instanced storytelling to games that focus on instanced storytelling, and are already doing it well.
Hype train -> Reality
Sure ANet could probably focus more on events and cancel the personal story, but then you get back to where you feel less important in the world. Like a lot of these posts say, they like the personal story because it gives your player a place in this world. If the entire story were all dynamic events, it wouldn't matter who you were in the world. Espcially if its truly dynamic, think of how much of the story you could miss if you are logged off for a full week, etc.
To me the personal story gives a sense of progression that you can control, where as dynamic events can take place without you being there, giving the player no control over that part of the world.
Waiting for: GW2
Good post. I think you're right that it's good to be able to solo sometimes. And one thing I may have forgot about dynamic events is that anyone can basically join you at any time so it could be exhausting if you didn't feel like teaming up.
Anyway, this post and some others have made me feel a lot better about the Personal Story.
So long as its not an option for complete progression through the game, I think it's good. My hope is that the Personal Story is used more to enhance your experience in the world by connecting you with your character, rather than to be an alternative to your experience in the world.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Well, they say that DEs are their way of putting the MMO back in MMORPG and that the personal story is their way of putting back in the RPG.
A lot of their innovations have the goal of encouraging community, but that isn't their only goal. For instance, some of their steps to make combat more active do help, but not all of them. Or their goal to make underwater a bigger part of the game than it normally is doesn't either.
To me, the personal story is just trying to address a different goal. One of the only real downsides to DEs is that you can't do a sweeping, epic, personal experience. Sure, we can all band together and try to take down the dragon, but we can't all together do the kind of stuff that we're seeing in the beginnings of the personal stories.
Personally, I'm excited. I think they're going to add a lot of replayability. Sure, there's tradeoffs, but I'm the type of person who likes phasing, so they're not going to bother me.
"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
I see it as being an effective way to solve several long-standing problems in the genre -
Allowing players to solo without turning the whole game's mechanics into being actively anti-social.
Providing players with a sense of permanence...your choices and actions have lasting effects that you can see.
Delivering story effectively in a more visceral way
Providing players with a deeper connection to the world and their character in an immersive way...GW2 will really encourage and facilitate players developing their characters' lore... you literally get to play the role of your character in an awesome story...much more like the old tabletop RPGs.
That is a horrible mindset. No offense to you or anything mate, but this is NOT how we should go about developing games. Just because another franchise has focused on one aspect doesn't mean another franchise shouldn't include it. With that logic... PvP, dungeons, questing, storymode, world vs world PvP, classes, and pretty much everything viable for a solid MMO is out of the question. I forgot, minecraft focues on crafting, so no other MMO should include crafting.
Innovation isn't invention. The wheel was invention. Adding the wheel to a wagon is innovation. Adding a horse to the wagon is innovation. The engine as a whole is invention. Adding that to a wheel was just innovation. Getting the best parts of games, even if they aren't MMO's, and integrating them into a solid polished package is innovation.
Can you please tell me how other aspects of the game suffer because of the personal story? It doesn't step on any other aspects other than consume time.
Dynamic events consume time, so lets get rid of that and use quests instead. Quests are simple and don't take as much time. World PvP has been done before, and I'm sure it takes a lot of time to implement it, so let's get rid of that too.
Personal story in GW2 is an addition, not a replacement. It doesn't steal anything from any other aspect other than the fact that it it consumed resources, which ALL aspects of the game consumed.
The two biggest MMO's on the horizon, GW2 and SWTOR, have both come to the conclusion that current MMO's are missing a personal story... NCSoft certainly has a lot of experience making MMO's, so they have some experience and have perhaps seen this as something that is missing. BioWare has the experience in single player RPG's, so it's something they know very well and feel that they can bring into an MMO as a great enhancement. Personally, I think both companies are on the right track.
Each characters starts with their own personal story and taking humans as an example, you start in different levels of society. From that point on, you story already differs from others. Even if you are playing with your friends, you still have your own personal story to tell. That's really all there is to it, just how your character grows as a person.
Ready for GW2!!!
Why do you use the term MMO when MMORPG is more appropriate? That is the key to your problem I suspect. They are putting the RPG back into the game in a story way.
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GW2 looks to improve on the open world things that games like WAR and Rift did by making them less restrictive and actually more fun. Those games had the right idea but were implemented to the point where they got boring after one or two months for most people (rifts in Rift, public quests in WAR).
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If it adds anything to the conversation, players recieve karma for helping another player with their personal storyline. The game will scale to accomodate up to the 5 players that can be in a party during the personal storyline.
I don't think it takes anything at all away from the MMO side of the game. Arena Net wants to provide for the players who want a rich, engaging storyline based on the decisions they make, as well as the players who want the multiplayer action of dynamic events and World vs World vs World that happens in the persistent environment.
It was said before, but...
Dynamic events are putting the MMO back in MMORPG.
Personal Storyline is putting the RPG back in MMORPG.
Direct to OP question
No, not really... Personal story is 100% optional from the beginning tutorial on so I wouldn't worry about it. I consider it a bonus game on top of what GW2 has to offer elsewhere. It's like someone added a nice optional sp/co-op full RPG to your persistent mmo experience.
I guess I'll play that instead of D3 when I get my sp/co-op leg up lol. (Up yours Bliz, what did you do with my WoW sub money?!?!)
From some reports it seems that personal story doesn't take place entirely in instances..At some points you're required to wander about the "real" world. It's not really completely separate from the main game world. There's been some mention of something that sounds suspiciously like phasing... We'll see how it plays out, tho I wouldn't worry too much about it as long as it's optional. Frankly, I'd pay the full box price just to play WvW even if there were nothing else in the game.
A good story for your character cannot be bad. Especially if it is just one from many other options. If it immerse you into the lore, the house quarter feature, give you some good suggestion on what and how to do in game, and those kind of stuff why not? It's better to have lore ingame than in a web site. If it is a succession of fed ex, then i'll pass i guess.
I think most of the personal story does play out in the real world?
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
It is instanced. You will enter the instanced personal story content at various points around the world, though. I think.
this is a bit wrong you see, all they ever said was that you had to TRAVEL the world to get to where you can do your personal story at some points (i wudnt expect youd fight zhaitan in one of the racial citys, btw caps is for emphasis no yelling here). and the only phasing type thing there is in gw2 is the phasing of individual RESOURCE NODES so that noone gets ninja noded everything else happens in the persistant world (exception of course to dungeons, personal story and the instanced type of pvp.)
I honestly don't see the problem. Why should they leave something out? What if I want to solo for a bit and just work on something myself. It always good to have game play options and having a peronsal story can help you feel more attached to your character. It doesn't take away from the Dynamic Events, just seems like it adds another layer of play that would be silly to take away.
Personal story turns me ON. I love 'long string of instanced traditional quests'.
I want to reborn as a Sylvari.
The personal story is a story for your character specifically. You can bring friends into your home instance, they can help you in your personal story quests if you and they want that. I'm sure you can pretty much skip it all without problem. It's there for the players that want to live the story of their character. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, do what you find enjoyable. I can't say I'm worried about having options. Maybe some day you'll feel like experiencing some storytelling where it's all about your character, you never know.
I don't get why anyone would be "turned off" by the personal story.
The Personal Story content is a big plus for me.
You develop your character there and sort of set up their place in the world. If you don't want your characters to have any depth and don't care for a personal, interactive, branching story that also offers quality rewards, don't do it. It's really that simple. I don't know why anyone would want to bypass it, but it's your choice to do so.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
