More Characters need to Die! -- How to make GW2 writing better.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

With the announcement came a great cinematic that i LOVE and it shows us the true potential of what guild wars 2 can be story wise, and i'm in love with this new more dark storytelling they are starting to weave. Here are just my thoughts and propositions that I believe would make the story better, or at least free up the writers to expand the story and unlock it to it's fullest potential. If you agree or disagree i'd love to have a conversation.

 

**The Commander**

Everyone in game right now is referred to as "The Commander." This needs to go...along with "The Pact." These two story elements restrict the development of nearly every character because the commander is kinda forced to ally with everyone. There's no room for conflict. The Player character is an ADVENTURER. A LEGENDARY warrior. We are basically super hero's. We are supposed to "make the choice that only a mortal can make." We shouldn't be politicians, attending government swaree's and tea parties. We are the one's who do the right thing that other's can't do because they can't make the choice themselves, usually due to political, financial or socio-ethical factors (and because they are NPC's..shhhh). Right now we sort of do this already, but we have this baggage that is the title of commander...where we are the ones imposing our politics, and ethics on to others, which are influenced by whatever powers at be that want something (for example, Queen Jenna wants to ally with the BLAH BLAH so we have to go and act diplomacy with BLAH BLAH because we are the pact commander.)

 

So ya, being "The commander" puts us in a box. If we are an adventurer, or a hero, the story can go in whatever direction the writers wish the player character to go...

-The writers could make the player character evil for a bit if they wanted...make us do things that we have to redeem ourselves from ([Metal Gear Solid 5's Big Boss should come to mind.](

"Metal Gear Solid 5's Big Boss should come to mind.")).

-The writers could make our character make decisions based on factors OTHER than doing what's ethically right...or place our characters in such situations where the right choice might not actually be too clear.

-The writers could take our characters out of the path of a main plot in order to satisfy an emotionally driven story arc...Just an example of this, would be to find out that Traehearne came back from the dead, we would go to investigate that rather than to go and seek out a village that Jormag plans to attack because we are emotionally invested in Traehearne...Then we find out that the two events are connected...THAT SORT OF THING.

 

As the commander of the pact, we are stuck in an eternally long episode of West Wing...so ya...

 

**Killing off Characters**

We have too many characters, running around doing things we don't really care about. They are unimportant to us both emotionally, and sometimes to the plot. We can only invest ourselves in so many characters at a time, and if none of these characters that we do care about go through anything, than...well it's boring. Main characters NEED TO DIE or face real consequences to provide us emotional investment. Supplementary characters also NEED TO DIE because they aren't important. If they aren't die, they should be important to the story for to us emotionally going forward. There have been only three characters that have had an impact on me both emotionally and to the story as a whole that are dead, and that's Brahm's Mother, Tybalt and Traehearne...In fact i think those are the only 3 characters that have died so far lol.

 

Truth is that those deaths actually showed that the world we live in on Tyria is a real place with real consequences. Again, the lack of deaths of both main and supplementary characters just restrict the story.

 

**Not everything has to be about the plot**

This isn't a direct criticism of the story in the game, but rather a general idea that i believe the game should harness in order to tell good story. Take the following example:

Soap operas revolve around constant drama between a multitude of people... Now do people enjoy soap operas? sure. But i think most people would agree that soap opera's are objectively bad and cliche story telling, that rely on very very orchestrated plot devices and overly-emotional devices to keep watchers watching the show.

Guild Wars 2 is kind of like a Soap Opera, but with magic. Everything is based on a plot or device and every emotion is driven by some sort of cheesy event that most people don't really care about (mostly because of Deux Ex, exposition dumps, or "telling rather than showing" storytelling.)

The idea is that one should move away from this overly dramatic story-telling, using subtlety and intricacy. This is actually what we saw in the cinematic shown at the announcement...a perfect example of excellent story-telling using SUBTLE cues that bring about questions about what everyone's motivations are.

Another example is that...Taimi is disabled right? But we know she's disabled because we are told by mountains of dialogue that she has a disability. What is the harm in showing us a cinematic or presenting a quest that shows us how difficult her life is? Is her life even that difficult? How difficult is it for her to use the bathroom or prepare her meals? We don't really have any insight into characters we are supposed to care about. We also have many characters that are in relationships but frankly we don't really see any of it. I think there was one moment in season 1 when Marjory kissed Kassemeer...and that's kinda all we really got.

 

Anyway, the point is that we can steer away from the major plot with character arcs...These character arcs help build our relationships with characters that we are supposed to care about, so that when the plot of the story hits, and people start DIEIN' then we actually feel something for these characters.

[Crab Fear.1624]

Kill the commander.

[ugrakarma.9416]

i agree almost with 3, cuz i hate very much American series a la netflix. But the actual writers seems had good influences, since they mentioned Lovecraftian stuff. Personal history was simplistic but was good because was very "raw" in a military sense and had a lot of deaths.

 

already theres some bits of that in PoF, the duo Rytlock+Canach granted that any excessive and unecessary drama was put away.

[Mewcifer.5198]

I have no problem with them killing characters. But I don't think it needs to be a goal for them. I think that they just need to remove plot armour from some characters and let things happen as they would.

[knomslayer.9457]

kill taimi

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

I know that's what GoT taught to a whole generation but shock value from death doesn't equal good writing by default.

 

You are saying there are many characters you are not invested in and then say they need to die to provide that investment. That doesn't make any sense, if you are not invested in a character then you don't give two shits if they are dead or not.

 

Making the player character evil would make no sense at this point, their alignment has been established for years worth of story. I can only see it if the commander was manipulated somehow by a villain to do something that seemed righteous in the beginning, but ended up having bad consequences.

[Ashantara.8731]

Character death is actually a cheap way of creating a plot twist. It has to fit into the circumstances to be of impact and must serve a story purpose.

 

Eir's death, for instance, had an impact on the story and was well implemented in the long term.

 

On the other hand, I recall shaking my head at Aurene's death, because I was thinking all along that sending a young, small dragon into a fight over life and death against an elder dragon was a completely stupid idea. I never got why some people were shaken to the bone over this. It also didn't serve a purpose other than creating a cliffhanger; it did not serve the story at all, if we are being honest, it only created artificial drama and an uproar among players.

 

So, no, no unnecessary character deaths - unless it serves a purpose.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:

> I know that's what GoT taught to a whole generation but shock value from death doesn't equal good writing by default.

> You are saying there are many characters you are not invested in and then say they need to die to provide that investment. That doesn't make any sense, if you are not >invested in a character then you don't give two kitten if they are dead or not.

 

Sure. With Tact, Death can be a great tool to write out characters that simply serve no use, either emotionally or narrativly. Without Tact, then ya death can be clishe, overused or unnecessary. But ya something has to be done with all these characters because their's too many.

 

> @"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:

> Making the player character evil would make no sense at this point, their alignment has been established for years worth of story. I can only see it if the commander was manipulated somehow by a villain to do something that seemed righteous in the beginning, but ended up having bad consequences.

 

So the reason you are saying that you "can only see the commander was manipulated by a villain or something..." is BECAUSE the PC is the commander. There is no wiggle room for our character to actually do anything because of the position we are in. If the PC didn't have the baggage of being the commander, and was just an adventurer, then we could still be a fallible character, which would provide us with conflict, something critical for all good stories.

 

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> Eir's death, for instance, had an impact on the story and was well implemented in the long term.

The staging on eir's death was pretty bad though. She pretty much died to a random trashmob. It coul've been something fearsome and dangerous and she hold it off while the commander escapes or something but the way it happened it just felt so unnecessary and stupid like she didn't even try. She is supposed to be an epic hero after all.

 

Belinda was only introduced to be killed an episode later but at least her death was caused by something that felt believable to me. Eir was more a "plot needs you dead but we don't have enough time to think of a way to achieve this" kind of thing.

 

I'm all for dead characters especially if they are called Braham or Rox. But please not vs. a random trashmob. They could even die to a raidboss so you can avenge them later on if it wasn't Braham. I could have saved Eir if there wouldn't be a forced cutscene stopping me from doing so, I couldn't do it if it was a raidboss that would even wipe a full team if you do the story with 5.

 

 

[Mewcifer.5198]

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > Eir's death, for instance, had an impact on the story and was well implemented in the long term.

> The staging on eir's death was pretty bad though. She pretty much died to a random trashmob. It coul've been something fearsome and dangerous and she hold it off while the commander escapes or something but the way it happened it just felt so unnecessary and stupid like she didn't even try. She is supposed to be an epic hero after all.

>

> Belinda was only introduced to be killed an episode later but at least her death was caused by something that felt believable to me. Eir was more a "plot needs you dead but we don't have enough time to think of a way to achieve this" kind of thing.

>

> I'm all for dead characters especially if they are called Braham or Rox. But please not vs. a random trashmob. They could even die to a raidboss so you can avenge them later on if it wasn't Braham. I could have saved Eir if there wouldn't be a forced cutscene stopping me from doing so, I couldn't do it if it was a raidboss that would even wipe a full team if you do the story with 5.

>

>

 

Funnily enough I felt that the 'random trashmob' added to the feel of her death. She had been kept in a cage with no food or water. So she was weakened considerably and then betrayed by Faolain. It wasn't the death one would expect from a great hero who had fought two elder dragons and defeated one of them. That's what made it have so much impact to me. It was the getting to see how beaten down she had become, watching her stumble and fall after having seen her as this great figure. Having her son witness it as well. In my eyes it was the right way to do her death.

 

What else could have been done for her? Have her stand alone against a horde to give us some time to do something or another? That's already been done. It's been played out so much. It wouldn't have had as much impact in my eyes.

[CeNedro.7560]

*spoiler*

The biggest story-wise dissapointment of the announcement of the next Saga was, when they hinted that "Maybe it's time for a new pact". I mean, there was a pact(which was nice), we reformed the pact(which was ok), then we created a pact(*rolling eyes*), then we creacted another pact(eew) and now there's time to create a new pact?

Sure, it would be nice to see some annoying character dissapear, but yeah, they seem to be killing the "wrong ones" or the wrong way. Eir's death made Braham unlikeable, while they killed 2 of the most likeable characters: Tybalt and Joko.

They also killed Trahearne but the problem stays: Pact pact pact pact pact commander commander commander.

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> What else could have been done for her? Have her stand alone against a horde to give us some time to do something or another? That's already been done. It's been played out so much. It wouldn't have had as much impact in my eyes.

Not letting her die next to my character during a cutscene that just killed that mob in like 5sec after the cutscene ended would have helped. It just felt like way too much like I could've prevented it without that cutscene.

 

[Mewcifer.5198]

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > What else could have been done for her? Have her stand alone against a horde to give us some time to do something or another? That's already been done. It's been played out so much. It wouldn't have had as much impact in my eyes.

> Not letting her die next to my character during a cutscene that just killed that mob in like 5sec after the cutscene ended would have helped. It just felt like way too much like I could've prevented it without that cutscene.

>

 

Your character wasn't next to her. The commander and friends were racing to her location but didn't get there in time.

 

When she knew that she wasn't going to be able to get away she turned and bravely faced her death.

 

And you don't kill it in 5 seconds, it's a mini boss. It might not have been particularly hard to kill but it wasn't like you just run up and slap it.

 

in case you need a refresher on the details of the cutscene.

[Dawdler.8521]

Its time for Rytlock to die so we can all finally get that fur cloak we've been waiting on for 7 years. Charr mittens and fur boots wouldnt be too shabby either. And a lower jaw backscratcher.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> She is supposed to be an epic hero after all.

 

And she died as such, trying to save another person's (Faolin's) life. Then she avenged her own upcoming death before being dealt the final blow by the Vinetooth, which she realized she could not escape. That was pretty cool.

 

> Belinda was only introduced to be killed an episode later but at least her death was caused by something that felt believable to me.

 

Really? I almost had a laugh when I saw her hanging there upside down. It was quite comical in a way (especially because we did not see it happen) and only touched me because of poor Marjory's deep grief.

 

> Eir was more a "plot needs you dead but we don't have enough time to think of a way to achieve this" kind of thing.

 

I don't feel that way about it, and I played through that story mission at least 12 times. (shrugs)

[XenoSpyro.1780]

> @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> Kill the commander.

 

I think we did that joke already.

[Rauderi.8706]

> @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> Kill the commander.

 

Did once. Didn't stick.

 

Also, yeesh on the original post. GW2 has already had entirely too much meaningless, fridgey death. Killing characters without a reason is just lame, when they can simply be written off and given a mention as needed, which is far more resource-efficient.

[Fenella.2634]

Just speaking for myself, but I wont get invested in NPCs at all, if they get killed off anyway. And not getting invested in the characters to me means not getting invested in the story.

Another Hearts and Minds and I might quit for good this time.

[Nephalem.8921]

> @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> And you don't kill it in 5 seconds, it's a mini boss. It might not have been particularly hard to kill but it wasn't like you just run up and slap it.

I did kill it in something like 5-10sec. 40k+ dps solo burst spikes exist. They can't balance for that because the majority of players have some random stats and haven't read their skills. Current bosses need like 500k hp to survive the initial burst spike of most power builds that can selfbuff like dh and power chrono and they dont have that.

Power chrono doesn't have good 5sec burst but everything below 600k hp doesnt even survive the opener damage. Story bosses and especially mini bosses die to the slightest slap of a dps build.

On topic: I would like it if the story would be darker without a good or bad side where all sides are kind of grey to bad. Thats why i don't like the dragon plots. Always against evil nameless creatures. Let the commander questions his actions when he kills a random stranger for that sweet shiny.

Lots of story characters died though. Demmi, Belinda, one of the asura to name a few. Characters are already dying quite regularly it's just that mostly characters are killed nobody really cares about. Demmi was only known to players who did the order of whispers storyline aswell.

Would nevertheless prefer some other story approaches I don't see coming miles ahead and the sides could be less black and white and our enemies don't have to be nameless like all of the branded we had to fight. Joko was just way too evil. There is hope that we will fight charr and maybe we are the bad guys for attacking them in their homelands and we have to sacrifice rox and braham to them as compensation.

 

 

 

[RyuDragnier.9476]

> @"Rauderi.8706" said:

> > @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> > Kill the commander.

>

> Did once. Didn't stick.

>

> Also, yeesh on the original post. GW2 has already had entirely too much meaningless, fridgey death. Killing characters without a reason is just lame, when they can simply be written off and given a mention as needed, which is far more resource-efficient.

To add to this, there's more interesting ways to continue the story, such as the Commander finally having a mental breakdown from all the stress, calling out numerous characters for their actions over the past few years, and maybe even having Jormag attempt to convert the Commander and almost succeeding due to said mental breakdown.

[Vayne.8563]

While I understsand that some people like darker writing, the fact is 60% of all fiction sold right now are romance novels. Too many people still like/want a happy ending. The problem is you can't serve every demographic. This game wasn't written for you to be the bad guy. It was written for you to be the hero and in heroic fantasy, that's pretty much usually the case. Not always maybe, but usually.

 

I think that Anet has done a pretty okay job with the story, particularly starting with after Season 3, which was hit and miss for me. Could it be improved? Of course it could. That's true of most game fiction. But should it be changed to be darker, because some people like darker stuff? Nah. That's just a built in prejudice that some readers have that shouldn't be automatically indulged.

 

REmember, if everything is dark, nothing is dark. If they remake Game of Thrones over and over again in tone, eventually they'll be a backlash and people will crave the light again.

[anninke.7469]

Why do so many people think the only way to get rid of a character is to kill them of? Why can't they just leave to do whatever unimportant stuff they want, like growing cabbage, building sandcastles on a beach or read all the books in the Priory library? If I don't care about an NPC, it won't change just because they die. And if I do care, I don't want them killed just for a bit more drama.

 

Also, it'd be very nice if everyone at least tried to understand that "I don't like X" doesn't mean "no one likes X" nor does it mean "X is bad and needs to be killed". It's pretty sure, that someone does like X and will be upset about their death.

[Danikat.8537]

Note: Spoilers for various storylines in the last paragraph.

 

If good writing was as simple as "kill characters regularly" or "don't include politics" then almost anyone could be a great writer. But it's more about _how_ you tell the story than what happens within it.

 

Killing characters regularly for the sake of having enough death in your story to meet some checklist criteria for being 'dark' is just as cheesy, boring and predictable as a story where none of the main characters can ever die. It just becomes a matter of waiting to see which random person gets killed off this week, instead of waiting to see how they all escape because you know they will.

 

What made death work as a story telling mechanic in Game of Thrones wasn't how many people they killed or how often they did it but just the fact that they established early on that anyone _could_ die, even if it looked like they were building up to a major story arc. Before GoT it was often Joss Weadon who was referenced as an example of that technique - he doesn't usually kill many people in his stories (although there are exceptions) but he's willing to kill off any character to further the plot. That adds tension because it means when a character is in danger you don't know what will happen - you can't sit back and wait to see how they escape because you don't know that they will escape. This might be it...or it might not, and you have to wait and see what happens. If you know they're going to die then you're back to sitting and waiting for it to happen so the plot can move on to the next thing.

 

What's more important however is good characterisation and well written stories that get you invested in the characters so that you care what happens to them. The Walking Dead used the same system of being willing to kill (almost) any character at any time, but I stopped watching it around the time the good guys were building up to fighting the dude with the baseball bat and his gang because I realised I knew some of them would die but the only one I was concerned about was the bad CGI tiger, and then only because it's a tiger, and apparently I wasn't the only viewer they lost around then. I found the story repetitive and none of the characters especially likable or interesting at that point so it didn't matter to me what happened to them, and I wasn't going to suddenly change my mind on that because they were killed off.

 

Whether GW2 has achieved that depends on who you ask. When Taimi announced her illness was back reactions among people I talked to ranged from literally crying and hoping we'd find a way to save her to hoping she'd be dead by the next episode so the story could "move on to real characters" and lots of people somewhere in the middle - like one guy who isn't as emotionally invested but is very curious about whether she'll live or die or try to put herself into a golem body and how that will affect her.

 

I feel like they've done a decent job with setting up the idea that almost anyone can die, with characters like Eir, Traherne and Blish getting killed off during the story, and even Aurene and the Commander dying temporarily. If people want 'darker' stories with more meaningful deaths I think that's more about getting that characterisation across more effectively...although I don't know how you'd do that with an audience who wants to skip any and all dialogue or non-action sequences. Or maybe exploring different kinds of consequences, like having to answer for all the people who died in the fight against Kralkatorrik because our plan(s) messed up. And then you're into the problem of upsetting the people who want to always be the great hero getting a pat on the head and a cookie for doing _such_ a good job. It's hard to have a story with serious and terrible consequences, but a main character who is explicitly the hero who does everything right...as Game of Thrones also showed.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"RyuDragnier.9476" said:

> To add to this, there's more interesting ways to continue the story, such as the Commander finally having a mental breakdown from all the stress, calling out numerous characters for their actions over the past few years, and maybe even having Jormag attempt to convert the Commander and almost succeeding due to said mental breakdown.

 

A mental breakdown....noo this is exactly what i was talking about. That is soap opera level writing. Again, this kind of idea comes from the fact that we are the commander, and because we are in this position we are restricted in such a way that our PC can't be fallible....the only way to be fallible is if some outside force, forcing us to....this is not good writing...and unfortunately we are stuck in this position because of our baggage to being the commander.

 

A plot line like that might work well for some other media....like Jessica Jones did a pretty good job of mind control in their first season...but there are massive differences between that show and this game. Jessica Jones herself was already a fallible, and flawed character.

 

What i'm getting at here is that our character cant make any decisions based on his/her own volition because...our character is an emotionless bag that spews out orders to everyone and that's all he/she is right now.

[Mewcifer.5198]

> @"RyuDragnier.9476" said:

> > @"Rauderi.8706" said:

> > > @"Crab Fear.1624" said:

> > > Kill the commander.

> >

> > Did once. Didn't stick.

> >

> > Also, yeesh on the original post. GW2 has already had entirely too much meaningless, fridgey death. Killing characters without a reason is just lame, when they can simply be written off and given a mention as needed, which is far more resource-efficient.

> To add to this, there's more interesting ways to continue the story, such as the Commander finally having a mental breakdown from all the stress, calling out numerous characters for their actions over the past few years, and maybe even having Jormag attempt to convert the Commander and almost succeeding due to said mental breakdown.

 

I do not think having the player character have a mental break is a good idea because it takes away player agency in how they want their character to act. It being a story driven MMO already limits how much influence people have over their character's behavior, it doesn't need to be restricted more.

 

*However* if there was a dialog tree where certain choices in what you make your character say leads to them having a mental break, that would be fine. If a player is like "Man my character should be freaking tf out right now," they could click the options that have the character freaking tf out.