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[Column] Guild Wars 2: A New Threat Grows
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
With the arrival of the latest Guild Wars 2 update, Tower of Nightmares, players began to engage a terrifying new arc in the overall story line. In today's column, we take a look at the new content and offer a few thoughts. Read on before leaving us your impressions in the comments.
This event starts things out right. It throws you into an instance that gives you a little bit of back story on the situation. The instance only takes even an average player a few minutes to complete, but the use of cutscenes helps the instance serve its purpose, which is to move the story forward. The voice acting was a nice touch. I know voice acting is used in every event in Guild Wars 2, but when you think about the old days when everything was done in a cramped text box, you start to appreciate even these small little details.
Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: A New Threat Grows.
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Now that would be a really huge fire.
Comments
Was personally disappointed in the first step of the Tower of Nightmares.
All it has accomplished, so far, is retconning previously established racial traits of the Krait so it can advance their "because Scarlet" storyline. Producing more content around the expectation of player zerging circle jerks in open world. And a heal/cleanse skill that has no inherent benefit because there's no balance, PvE or otherwise, that would make fundamental use of this mechanic outside of the stuff specific to this living story.
All the while, it does nothing to excite me for what's to come. I was hoping this would be the first big thing that would actually indicate where Scarlet is going with these out-of-the-blue alliances. Would it indicate who the main villain is? Does the Elder Dragons have anything to do with Scarlet? What of her seemingly omniscient understanding of the world?... Oh good, at least we know the Pact finally got involved. It just feels like another episode where the heroes foil the dastardly plans of the cut and paste villain and their canonically nonsensical plans.
Did you seriously just ask whether or not that Scarlet was behind this and if she'd show up in the next patch? REALLY!?
https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/9af5a11-12_NextHero_EN.jpg
And not only does that image become a big giveaway about Scarlet, but all the NPC's related to this Tower patch have given dialog that hints at it. Are you sure you even did the content at all prior to posting this article?
I was worried about the effect on lore that an alliance with krait would have on lore. They are notoriously xenophobic...
...however, someone (Scarlet) has been providing them with pieces of their most precious religious artifact: The Obelisks. They were FORCED from their homes within these monoliths 50 years ago...and now someone is providing them with fragments of these Obelisks, infused with power?
That, I believe, is a pretty good reason to make an alliance with Scarlet. even if they ARE xenophobic. Hell, all Scarlet would have to do is convince the Krait Priests and the rest would follow: their religious text is memorized, it's not written down. These guys have huge sway with the krait, and with obelisk fragments scarlet would have huge sway over the priests.
Scarlet, as silly of a character as some people believe, has access to a disturbing amount of knowledge...some of which no one should rightfully know.
I personally find that interesting, but whatever
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
Sadly the story for GW2 is extremely boring at this point in time. I ended up leaving the game some time ago, though I do jump on from time to time to check out what's going on. I see that it's another generic achievement grind / weapon skins that are unlocked by buying Black Lion Boxes in the hopes of getting a ticket and I log off again. The game had such promise but it falls short with a lack of interesting things to do, loot progression beyond a massive grind for materials and of course no real end game. I like the combat but I never thought I'd see the day where I miss the 'holy trinity' to some degree.
It's really sad...I share the same opinion as most of the posters here. GW2 had great potential. It was extremely fun at launch but once you "finish" the game...there's not much left to do. These story events are have been rather similar as of late. New event/zone/thing, zerg it! Grind for X to get Y. Sadly, Y is usually a skin of sorts...IMO, that doesn't have much impact and the amount of grind to get this stuff done is crazy.
Now they're throwing the stuff into their cash shop. I wish their story went somewhere and actually changed the world. This world is living, right? But why does it feel like every other MMO with their events?
Interestingly, and yet sadly, they've started a recent initiative of "collaborative discussions" between the Devs and the players to, according to them, improve the in-game experience. I say "sadly" because they've utterly failed. There are massive threads in the WvW, sPvP, and GW2 Discussion (discussing the Living Story) forums, created with the fine intent of having a rolling back-and-forth dialogue and it is just the opposite. The WvW thread has fallen on it's face and has left the players that participated more angry than anything. The Living Story discussion has 25+ pages now of player contribution with little meaningful input from Chris Whiteside. I can't speak for the sPvP because I have no interest in that area of the game.
Point being, there has been months and months of multiple threads discussing the same topics around the Living World and little to no feedback has been garnered. There is a general feeling of frustrated discontent on the forums due to this general lack of communication. While Chris Whiteside has recently made a bunch of grand gestures of goodwill to start this collaborative effort, it has become increasingly clear that the people who haven't been communicating to the players for months, even with this intent of collaboration, are still failing to deliver.
So now the LW has become a grindfest wrapped around bi-weekly Gem Store BLC skin releases. What a sad, waste of a game GW2 has become.
GW2 is amazing in a lot of ways, but I have to agree with the above comment. Story, not really., very uninspired. Thee is no meat on the bone there. There is nothing to really care about, and every iteration shatters the once proud GW1 lore.
Initially I enjoyed the new system of combat as well...but you then discover there is no real depth to group play. They could fix this, but most likely want.
Really...how many weapon skins can you have?
Its funny but the game design promised you everything, but in doing say takes much much more away.
I used to log on for these updates, but ever since the whole Scarlet nonsense I stopped caring. It's a PvE game with the most uninspired comic book storyline ever, a big shame since the core game had a great amount of far more interesting lore they could have build upon instead.
I'd say the only redeeming long-lasting value the game has is WvW, but even that is lacking and clearly an underfunded aspect of development. I wish they would just go back to traditional bought expansion packs like in GW1, that actually added solid content, and no cash shop nonsense.
"The new dynamic events have groups of players destroying more spore producing plants which, if left unchecked, could cause the toxicity to spread over Tyria."
That would actually really take the Dynamic Events a step further towards its improvement. If Ignoring or failing tem actually had a huge negative impact in Tyria, not just the small area its taking place. I love Dynamic Events and wont take the old system again over this one, but it really needs to improve. Have more severe consequences taht would affect everyone in the bigger picture and also have less recycle times.
Good article, but:
This is two events now in a row that we've had very little story and a lot more grinding.
No. Nearly all of the living story patches went this way, but finally even those defending the living story from the start, begin to realize it. Stop it, ArenaNet and give us an expansion. I would be happy to pay for it!