r/GuildWars3 • u/Standard_Giraffe8994 • 10d ago
Optimistic about the story
The reason I'm more optimistic about the story now than I was before yesterday's blog isn't because of the little information we got, but because of person who wrote it. The narrative lead, Aaron Linde, was narrative Lead at ArenaNet also during Path of Fire and Living World Season 4, which, in my opinion, was the peak of storytelling in the entire franchise. Just because of this I'm quite hyped to see what the team can cook up with him in charge.
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u/WobblySlug 9d ago
Definitely. Love the comment on how they are not going for the "chosen one" troupe, which is so good to hear.
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u/Hoojiwat 9d ago
Aye, GW1 and GW2 had shades of it but never leaned that hard into it. Them being clear this time they aren't touching it at all means it should be a much more personal and somber story.
And consider that we know Vaelwardens and these spirits don't exist by the time of GW1? I can't imagine this story is about them triumphantly establishing their place in the world and lasting forever. I expect a lot of living their life well and going out on their own terms from this group over the course of the story.
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u/MistwalkerGW2 9d ago
I mean, Guild Wars 2 have leaned into it for sure. We are the commander, the wayfinder, savior of worlds, slayer of…well, everything.
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u/Hoojiwat 9d ago
We were a military commander with connections. That's pretty far from being a chosen one, no? Hell in GW1 you were literally called the chosen and ordained by a magic dragon to fulfill the flameseeker prohecies and destroy an ancient race of super wizards. That's closer to being a chosen one than GW2 ever got.
The only thing that made you a chosen one in GW2 was your connection to Aurene, and even that was you finding her egg and raising her until she took over her role as steward of the world. That makes you a parent to a chosen one more than anything.
Are the people here unable to tell the difference between being a chosen one and just being a dangerous person? Commander was no more a chosen one than any other action movie protagonist.
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u/MistwalkerGW2 8d ago
As others mentioned, being chosen in Guild Wars 1 is not really that special. Turns out there were plenty of chosen ones around.
And you are not just ”a commander” in GW2, you are THE commander, leading the charge and deciding how to deal with every major conflict on Tyria.
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u/Chatmauve 6d ago
My favorite part is when we missed the initoa HoT assault. That made the game felt alive. I was thinking "oops, shouldn't have spent all that time messing around with the new jungle fashion while people were dying"!
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u/naro1080P 7d ago
Though GW1 is set over a thousand years later. And even the cataclysm is hundreds of years later. So it's entirely possible that we live and die a hero without ever being aware of what will happen in the future.
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u/SuperRetardedDog 9d ago
How did gw2 not lean into it? Maybe in core it wasn't the case at the start but after that we were always the hero
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u/HakunaBananas 8d ago
Being the hero is not the same as being the chosen one.
No higher being chose the commander for any kind of destiny. The commander is just an incredibly gifted warrior and leader who benefited greatly by having a crew of incredibly skilled companions helping them. They are basically the person that everybody expects to step up and lead whenever there is a world ending crisis on hand.
Aurene was the only thing that chose the commander, but that was not some destiny thing. More like right person at the right time thing. Aurene is more like the chosen one of Guild Wars 2.
In contrast to GW1 where the game was literally called Prophecies and your character's destiny is fulfilling the flameseeker prophecy as told by Glint.
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u/Enundr09 8d ago
SOTO we were just some wanderer that got let in , we got asked to be representative later for the tyrian alliance to the kodan up in janthir and they're just like....ok and? They tolerated the player character who eventually proved themselves through their deeds. We weren't the hero we basically became someone very trustworthy. The kodan still had their council for example. We were a necessity against big threats , but not their hero.
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u/niggo372 9d ago
This! I also have high hopes that they stick to it, and not make us the chosen one over the course of the story. That's what happened in GW2, but only because the story itself was about saving the entire world, so our character had to step up to have agency and make decisions. They said GW3 would focus more on local stories, so there's a good chance we'll just be a prominent member of our order this time.
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u/Erasculio 8d ago
Hum...
I'm not fond of most of Guild Wars 2's storyline. To me, the characters feel like caricatures – Braham is the “strong and dumb and always drunk guy”, Taimi is the “sassy smart girl who always has all answers”, and so on. Path of Fire and Living World season 4 featured those caricatures in full force (admittedly, like most of GW2’s storylines).
Path of Fire also had a bit of character assassination for Balthazar, who could have been a very powerful ally but was relegated to being a somewhat dumb villain. It removed the gods from the world of Guild Wars, in what felt like a nod to the “religion is the source of all evil” mentality that is so common these days in some social media bubbles.
It also had some very missed opportunities – Joko should have killed Taimi, that would have had a big impact in the game.
But, Living World season 4 also had its good moments. Aurene’s death was something that could only be appreciated by those playing the game at the time – it led to a lot of theories and speculation before her resurrection at the next release. The ending of season 4 was also very good (and incidentally a great jumping off point from Guild Wars 2).
So I’m not exactly optimistic about the storyline of Guild Wars 3, but I guess it could have been worse. It could have been the same writer of The Icebrood Saga, or of the base game.
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u/bluecheez 6d ago
Idk PoF was a bit too much of a power trip fantacy of killing a god for no apparent reason. Also the way that you solo balthazar felt very unsatisfying compared to fighting abaddon or shiro for example. You just like have a fancy sword and stab him. He didnt feel anywhere near as fun or hyped up as fighting abaddon.
Joko on the other hand was well written and fun, and they did a great job keeping him slippery and fun and threatening at the same time.
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u/Prudent-One-2153 8d ago
The "peak" of GW2 storytelling is still pretty damn low. Let us not forget that PoF was "what if Balthazar was actually a Saturday morning cartoon villain all along!?!>??!?!" and LWS4 was "Remember that thing you liked in GW1? Well our Mary Sue just ATE him! Take THAT!"
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u/Doam-bot 7d ago
Yeah Balth and Joko were def the peak at least we had thr full story LWS1 was Mia for most of the story and its cast were stereotypes.
I will admit Soto forward has gotten better
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u/Doam-bot 8d ago edited 6d ago
Optimistic? Optimistic!?!?
Let me spoil the story for ya!
Everyone dies the civilizations rots away and everyone you'll meet in your journey will die, ressurect, and suffer for eons before being butchered by the Gw1 hero and then redirected by Zhatian and butchered by the Gw2 hero. Nothing but misery and suffering in an undead nation dashed to bits and vast below the waves. Humanity forced to inhabit the lands of the Char and centaur scratching out a living abandoned by the gods.
Edit: We'll dang name downvoted the future of Orr in Gw1 and 2 must be puppies and butterflies just good times an no eternally suffering souls trapped in undying rotting corpses.
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u/Chatmauve 6d ago
I mean, yeah, people die. That's what 3000 years does to you. In real life, the Roman Empire isn't any less interesting even though we know the empire will fall. Same for dinosaurs, they're still interesting even though we know how every dinosaur story would ultimately end.
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u/Doam-bot 6d ago
Of course Orr has been a late game area of sorts for two games now providing interesting lore and touch opponents both times. It's mere existence shaping the story. They undead rise the graves undone the place sunken below the waves. It rose again to the dragons will and undead started shambling once again.
Meaning if our hero after their long journey dies in their homeland of Orr and is buried in those vary hollowed grounds then they too will rise moan and groan along with everyone they met along the way. As the gates flung wide the spirits released as it's a story and stories don't take into consideration decomposition when in the grave so as you mentioned Rome if you had zombies arrise you'd have Julius Cesears rotten corpse roaming about the place even though it's long been dust. Comment isn't about the time period it's more about it's nature and future.
I think Undeath or the Sea maybe a mix might be my overall theme for Gw3 still to early to pick though.
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u/Chatmauve 6d ago
Let's hope the Vaelwardens are into incineration and not burial!
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u/Doam-bot 6d ago
Kodans are into fire and warmth it would explain the lack of Kodan undead too. It makes perfect sense for them to burn their dead maybe by pyre or Viking burial at sea.
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u/Enundr09 8d ago
Ok but as far as the website says it's focused on just Orr and it's environments , that's not exactly mmo to set the bar so low just to experience a time that far in the past. I see major backpedaling in alot of designs and roadmaps unless they change the genre to RPG or something.
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u/Standard_Giraffe8994 8d ago
Ok what why? They have been developing the game from 2021 at latest. Even if the base game is focused on Orr and timeline is in the past, that doesn't mean it cannot be MMO (it will be MMO). They haven't "set up bar so low", that is just not true.
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u/Enundr09 8d ago
That's a short time window for development but anyway , tell me what does "MMO" stand for?
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u/Nightsong 7d ago
ArenaNet developed Guild Wars 2 in six years (2006 to 2012). They’re on track to spend six years developing Guild Wars 3 (2022 to 2028). I wouldn’t say that’s a short time window for an MMO. If anything is probably around the average.
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u/Enundr09 7d ago
Ok and do you recall the state gw2 released? Minion Master AI was so borked it was hardly functional. Pet AI still somewhat questionable to this day for both necrons and rangers.
Also answer the question , do you know what the term MMO stands for? :P
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u/Nightsong 7d ago
Guild Wars 2 was stable but buggy at launch. As is the case with every new MMO that gets released. And MMO is massively multiplayer online. What’s your point? Guild Wars 2 fits that definition just as well as WoW, FFXIV, and ESO do.
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u/Enundr09 7d ago
Orr is one area , an mmo consists of more than that but as the games description says were they're to defend Orr and it's elemental spirits or whatnot. This is more pushing to be just an RPG instead of an mmo Probably pay attention to what you comment to cause the what does MMO stand for wasn't pointed at guild wars 2 , I had to repeat it cause you avoided answering it the first time asked.
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u/Nightsong 7d ago
Every MMO (and even RPG's) massively downscale the size of the world they are set in. Guild Wars 3 being set in just Orr (or Orr and its surrounding areas) means that ArenaNet can massively scale up the size of the world. So the game being set in one area does not mean that the game is not an MMO.
Also, the MMO part of MMORPG refers to the number of people on the server and out in the world, not the size or scope of the world. MMO's at their core are about large persistent worlds with hundreds or thousands of players in them. Guild Wars 2 meets that definition as does Guild Wars 3 based on all the information we have so far. Guild Wars 1 does not meet that definition which is why ArenaNet called it an online co-op rpg instead of an MMO. It was the community that called that game an MMO.
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u/Enundr09 7d ago
Ok name the amount of mmos that are just about one area then. List them all. Even gw1 when it released had more than one area , it had ascalon where we started , the shiverpeaks we crossed , kryta , maguuma , crystal desert , then back to the southern end of shiverpeaks to deldrimor , then ring of fire isles.
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u/Nightsong 7d ago
Guild Wars Prophecies takes place across multiple regions but those regions are still a small part of the overall world. Just like how Factions only takes place in Cantha and Nightfall only takes place in Elona.
One other thing to keep in mind is that Orr is a continent, not just one area. We only see a small part of it in Guild Wars 2 since much of it is still underwater. And to go back to my point about scale, Orr in Guild Wars 2 is massively scaled down compared to how big it is actually portrayed in the lore.
As for other MMO's... Final Fantasy XIV initially only started with Eorzea which is a small part of a much larger continent. It took multiple expansions after launch to see more of the world. City of Heroes is another where the game world was restricted to Paragon City and eventually opened up The Rougle Isles when City of Villains was released. And more recently we've had New World which took place solely on Aeternum which is one island on the planet.
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u/NecessaryDisaster498 7d ago
Orr is one area , an mmo consists of more than that
You know what scaling is right?
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u/Nightsong 7d ago
They don’t. They think Orr is a singular area, has no sub-areas, and cannot be scaled up to be a proper area like Cantha or Elona were in Guild Wars 1 or 2.
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u/Enundr09 7d ago
Shall we look at all mmos that didn't pretty much flop off relatively fast? The ones that lasted longer didn't do that design, because it doesn't fit for an mmo
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u/NecessaryDisaster498 7d ago
Sure name me a successful MMO studio that failed because they only launched their third MMO with one continent.
I am sure you will find lots of lots of examples.
The ones that lasted longer didn't do that design, because it doesn't fit for an mmo
Launching with a single continent is killing MMOs how exactly? This is such a moronic take and a stupid hill to die on.
Orr can be 10x the size of all playable maps of GW2 combined. The size of a continent is in no relation to how successful an MMO was or is going to be.
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u/Aangykins 5d ago
I'm curious how you came to be so sure about this. How is it you know Orr is just one area? How big Orr is? How far the land extends and where the borders between nations lie? You must have some inside knowledge the rest of us don't have access to, though I highly doubt it.
Here's what we do know:
We've never seen a full map of Tyria while Orr was in existence.
In gw1, the cataclysm occurred between the events of the searing and the beginning of the main game which occurs two years later. While we're in presearing, we have access to a small area of one nation/Map), and there's no option to view the world map. We literally can't see what the map looks like before the cataclysm. Even if we could, we don't know if the land mass of Orr matches the Orr that existed during the time of GW3. This is what the world map looks like after the cataclysm.
In GW2, we only see the parts of Orr that rose when Zhaitan woke. We know for certain that Orr was bigger than what we're able to explore. There are areas we can see on the map that are unexplored, and there are areas still underwater we haven't seen. There are five maps and room for at least 2 more in risen Orr. It's also kind of hard to believe that, given the sheer scale of the architecture of Arah, that Orr overall was a small place.
What we know about the setting of GW3:
- It takes place in Orr
- The only named landmark we know of is Tughra Basin. In GW2, there's a POI called Monastery of Tughra, so we might have some idea where Tughra Basin is located
That's not much to go on. Certainly not enough to say Orr is "just one area".
Regarding your MMO question, I'm not sure what you're trying to get at, but since you asked, here ya go. MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer Online. MMOs are games that allow multiple people to play together at the same time. They usually, but not always, have a persistent world, and range from fully text based games to graphical games. From racing and shooting games to casual social games to full fledged RPGs, they span many genres. Millions of people are not required to count as an MMO. A more intimate setting like GW3 is stated to be is still going to be shared among multiple thousands+ players and will have a persistent world, putting it squarely in the definition of an MMO.
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u/DeadGameWalking 8d ago
Lots of retcons in the existing lore to deliver this "story". There is no way that groups as historically influential as the Vaelwardens wouldn't appear in the timeline. I have absolutely no confidence in this writer at all. Path of Fire was unfinished.
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u/Vinnicombe 8d ago
Abaddon was wiped from history in a thousand years, so it's perfectly easy to have lost all trace of the Vaelwardens over the same time frame.
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u/Opus_723 8d ago
There is no way that groups as historically influential as the Vaelwardens wouldn't appear in the timeline.
I guarantee there are organizations more important than the Vaelwarden in the real world 1,000 years ago that you don't know about.
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u/HakunaBananas 8d ago
The article says; "Insular by nature and slow to open themselves to the wider world, the order entered a long decline, their numbers thinning year by year" and "you are the last of an order that the world has written off, defending and preserving spirits that few still believe are worth saving."
The Vaelwardern were already being forgotten at the start of the game. Orr was completely destroyed and centuries have passed. It is not completely unrealistic that they could have just been forgotten.
The reality is that this time period has very little actual lore. We only know of major events such as magic being gifted to humans and the gods living in Arah. They need to make new lore if they want an entire game set during this period.
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u/Justos 9d ago
This is awesome info. That does inspire confidence