Guild Wars 2's Three Levels Of Stories

Written by: Jason Winter (Twitter @winterinformal - Google+) | July 24, 2012 4:45 pm

13 Comments

The last Beta Weekend Event for Guild Wars 2 is in the books, but if you’re one of those folks who’s been skipping the personal story so as not to spoil it for launch, ArenaNet‘s got a blog post today talking about the multiple layers of story in GW2.

Continuity and Lore Designer Jeff Grubb talks about the three stories in GW2: the large, worldwide story concerning the rise of Zhaitan and his impact on all of Tyria, your character’s personal story, and the story of Destiny’s Edge. Each is told largely through certain aspects of the game: the “world story” through dynamic events, the personal story through story instances, and the Destiny’s Edge story through dungeons.

In time, these three story trails weave together to tell what Grubb labels the “greater whole of Guild Wars 2,” the notion of people uniting underneath a common banner to take on greater foes than they could handle individually. It’s similar to the MMO experience, that one must join with others — whether in a group or a guild — to take on larger challenges.

7:17

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Dragon Ball PvP Sneak Peek

Watch Guild Wars 2 Dragon Ball PvP action!Read more »

8 comments
Guild Wars 2

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Continuation of the living story and many changes to WvW.Read more »

3 comments
1:02

Star Wars: The Old Republic

New Character Customization Features Come To SWTOR

SWTOR adds many customization options and the ability to change your species, character name, legacy name, and guild name in Game Update 2.1.Read more »

11 comments

Cyclops07

I don’t mind the story or cutscenes. I’d rather than pour time and effort into gameplay than spend tons on voiceovers or cut scenes like some…other games.
- Jay
  
  I agree completely… I rather play a single player game for story focus, or just read a book.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Mac/777995513 Alex Mac

I have to say that I was slightly disappointed with GW2′s personal story, insofar as the illusion of choice is concerned. I don’t want to spoil anything for player but a choice I made for my character at their creation was literally resolved by level ten.

The world story seems to be the bigger, more interesting thing. If only because ArenaNet’s done a good job of crafting an interesting world.
- Old Ben
  
  > I don’t want to spoil anything for player
  
  The great thing about GW2′s personal stories is that they’re virtually impossible to spoil.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Mac/777995513 Alex Mac
    
    Well, having played the things…I’m not buying that notion. I’m sorry. Listen, I enjoy the game a lot. But this is an area where I’ve yet to be impressed though. Like, in the least.
    
    Perhaps there’s more permeations than I’m aware of but the personal stories I’ve experienced had the mere veneer of impactful player choice and uniqueness and just that.
    - Old Ben
      
      Read my post again and ask yourself: “When is something impossible to spoil?”
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Mac/777995513 Alex Mac
        
        Read my post again and you’ll probably be able to infer my answer. But for posterity sake, let’s just say that it’s impossible to spoil content that uninteresting.
        
        I like that answer as opposed to whatever odd, faux intellectual answer you want your little riddle to reveal.
      - Old Ben
        
        Woosh…
      - Jay
        
        Lol trying to be clever isn’t always worth it.
Old Ben

(duplicate)
Galdros

I loved the personal story, especially on my Charr. After playing every single character creation choice through to 20, I can say that every one of the storylines are great, and I especially like the variety in gameplay depending on what you chose.
SiderFace

True enough that when a dynamic event happens you don’t know alot about what’s going on.

What happens is you are reading a listing of things that you can do to complete one of the classic kill/collect/activate heart quests, and a dynamic event pops up and you mostly just know that it is wiling to destroy you and everyone around you in many cases, so you turn and fight the challenge with little time know the precise reasons for its happening.
The bright side to this is that I think that is the point to some degree. If you make it too epic of a story event when they happen then they will become aggravating due to the fact that they happen again and again.
Also, we definitely DO NOT want to sacrifice the constant action and change going on in the map. If anything, much of the complaints I’ve heard is that the map isn’t changing as much as they expected it would before they played it.
I think the balance between keeping the map active without it being TOO disconnected from the events having some sort of meaning to the map, is quite well done. The manner in which they are doing it is unlike anything done before, and it can’t be easy to perfect.
jetjordan

hmm near constant commercial interruptions. 3 so far on a 4 minute spot…. dunno about that GB. The clip was almost un-watchable, hopefully not a sign of things to come.

anyway I found myself following my story line and naturally hitting heart quests and DE’s along the way which kept me appropriately leveled. Has anyone played the same story line again and made different decisions? I know I let a hospital burn down in BWE, I assume that makes a big difference down the road, its kinda hard to tell at this point to be honest.

Guild Wars 2's Three Levels Of Stories

Guild Wars 2 Dragon Ball PvP Sneak Peek

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

New Character Customization Features Come To SWTOR

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Sign in to your account