Guild Wars 2

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⋖ cørdion ⋗ said:
And the fact I always gravitate towards necro, but necro and even the new ritualist elite spec are just so fucking far from what normal necromancer fantasy is. None of the specs are appealing so it's not like "I'm okay playing a dogshit spec cause it's MY dogshit spec!!!". This sadly extends to GW1. Pet necros aren't a thing and ritualist is too wacky.. Ranger maybe? Elementalist in its purity is great - the fact it's a tryhard sweat spec in GW2 however ruins any hype
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Necro is the only one I enjoyed and every time they gave it something fun they fucking nerf it into the ground. Reaper? Nerfed. Scourge? Nerfed. Quit after that.
 
milk said:
In the expansion titled “End of Dragons.” One of the characters insults another calling her “bourgeoisie”, the character also takes it as an insult. A character introduces themselves “ Hey, everyone it’s your favourite non-binary engineer, Yao!”. In a strike mission (dungeon) one of the characters literally recites tanky propaganda against a strawman of a “conservative” about property rights. The ending of this expansion is the previously mentioned lesbian lovers having a wedding.
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There's a decent video summarizing EoD - the expansion is like a mutt child of redditors and borderlands 2/TPS/3 writing team.
 
tbf I checked out of gw2 around 2015, vanilla wvw and spvp were tremendous for an mmo. Fact is GW1 was more grounded, imperfect but compared to the levels of 'pozzed' in GW2 it was tolerable. Most of that crap started to seep in during the gw1 EoTN expansion. Also hi welcome to my blog.

GW2 had this heavily gay, unimpressive, 'everyone loves each other', zero tolerated enemies, zero threat, hollow experience going on. Much of it impassionately voice acted also. PVE was literally for farming materials that's it. It was just lame. Rainbow swords with massive trails, trashy armour, the gothic style and post 90s fantasy of GW1 was shed like a ton weight from the game.

I still played a ton of it for the pvp but I remember high end PvE being full of insufferable people, completely different world. Went back during covid to try some of the DLC and it just wasn't interesting. (also they added mounts, lol).

went back to GW1 for reforged, or also known in other games as an 'update'. And I can see how flawed this game is now, they need way more than some UI mods that were already available for free and some controller support; the game needs modifying. For example the mod Project Diablo 2 had to do it to D2 to modernise it and it was done tastefully. GW1 has old MMO crust, in a bad way, it's a bigger project than anet thinks to make it more palateable to newer audiences. (65k superior vigor runes lmao get fucked noobs how is that sensible? Are guild hall tokens even still attainable or are they still 100+k from private sellers?, aka a LOT of money).

Most of chat is either "wow so many people", people socialising or people complaining about stash space, they should honestly just double mat stash space and make most items collectibles (ie tomes, dumb shit xp scrolls etc) so that they have their own material storage. I also enjoyed how they added some pve only skills that are absolutely, fkn, BUSTED, like Rangers 'Together as one', which you can only acquire for 2 weeks of the year in April ...genius. Also mesmer somehow became a speed clear class since I was gone.
 
Of all the things I was hoping would get fixed in Guild Wars Reforged, ranger pet leveling in this game is still fucking broken. You basically have to jump through hoops and kill yourself a thousand times just to get a pet that's max level and that's assuming you have it unlocked in the menagerie. Open world leveling is still worthless and still takes several hours just to get to one level. I'm playing Factions by the way.
 
Dr Pavel I'm CIA said:
Funilly enough it looks like they rolled back the armors and outfits as I just saw today multiple people wearing them.

The writing is still bad though
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I think the last two releases of outfits pandering to AGP troons and coomers (fetish schoolgirl uniforms and beach bikinis) made them more money than all other outfits combined, so they've reconsidered their stance from certified halal burqas to certified kosher pornography.
 
I decided to give this game a try since apparently it's the "hot new thing" in the MMO space (somehow I doubt this but whatever) and I decided to actually go through the leveling process even though you can skip it just by buying one ArenaNet's critically acclaimedTM expansion packs for only 30 fucking dollars each. It's 20 dollars more if you want to do the bonus chapters in sequence going from vanilla to Heart of Thorns. Currently I'm almost level 70 and about more than half-way through the main quest. It started off passable, but then the very moment this plant author insert literal who enters the story, the writing goes from serviceable to just insufferably bad. It's that one moment where the story sharp 90 degree angle nose dives for me to the point where I had to skip cutscenes because it literally became either Trahearne telling me Zhaitan is so scary or it's me performing an action and then the characters saying "Wow! Thanks for doing that action you just did seconds ago. Let me just explain to you what you just did even though you just saw it with your own eyes." Or it's me going through a spoiler of the ending of author insert's character arc of him unitingTM the orders and overcoming a dangerous obstacle. Or it's Trahearne telling me what the theme of this story even is.

This one fucking character just destroyed the story and writing the very second Trahearne is brought into the cast. That is fucking incredible. I wonder if the main quest was written by two people. One half was written by one, the other one was written by another who really likes the "salads" for some reason.
 
Dave. said:
I decided to give this game a try since apparently it's the "hot new thing" in the MMO space (somehow I doubt this but whatever) and I decided to actually go through the leveling process even though you can skip it just by buying one ArenaNet's critically acclaimedTM expansion packs for only 30 fucking dollars each. It's 20 dollars more if you want to do the bonus chapters in sequence going from vanilla to Heart of Thorns. Currently I'm almost level 70 and about more than half-way through the main quest. It started off passable, but then the very moment this plant author insert literal who enters the story, the writing goes from serviceable to just insufferably bad. It's that one moment where the story sharp 90 degree angle nose dives for me to the point where I had to skip cutscenes because it literally became either Trahearne telling me Zhaitan is so scary or it's me performing an action and then the characters saying "Wow! Thanks for doing that action you just did seconds ago. Let me just explain to you what you just did even though you just saw it with your own eyes." Or it's me going through a spoiler of the ending of author insert's character arc of him unitingTM the orders and overcoming a dangerous obstacle. Or it's Trahearne telling me what the theme of this story even is.

This one fucking character just destroyed the story and writing the very second Trahearne is brought into the cast. That is fucking incredible. I wonder if the main quest was written by two people. One half was written by one, the other one was written by another who really likes the "salads" for some reason.
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Trahearne was so maligned by fans at launch that they actually went out of their way to remove him from 90% of the first expansion, followed by killing him off at the end of it.

The writing has never been great, but it's definitely improved over time, and the Sylvari became less and less relevant with time, at least.
 
SpellforceFan said:
I don't know what would be worse - you lying about it, or you genuinely believing this.
The game is rated PEGI 13, and it shows, not in avoidance of harsher topics or crude speech, but in infantilization of gravitas, and treating the player like they're delicate redditors.
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What the hell is with the autistic shrieking over a fucking PEGI rating of all things.

Especially when that was never the subject and doesn't affect the quality of writing anyway.
 
Holy necrosis.

Anyways, the writers who kind of fucked up the story were canned a long time ago after they had a public twitter spat, see here.

The game is still kind of good, but it's suffered from the same problem as FFXIV in that the story is now going in circles and they don't have much to go on since they ended the dragons story.
 
I don't think the story hasn't improved much after they got fired, but at least it isn't modern WoW bad. I've also noticed that each expansion's story usually start out well, then go off a cliff, crash and burn. PoF/LW4 was the high point, HoT made me mad and it was overrated, and SotO was just trash. Also fuck loot boxes, can we ban bag slot unlocks instead?
 
Trogspawn said:
Trahearne was so maligned by fans at launch that they actually went out of their way to remove him from 90% of the first expansion, followed by killing him off at the end of it.

The writing has never been great, but it's definitely improved over time, and the Sylvari became less and less relevant with time, at least.
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I hope you're right because for as much shit I throw at Trahearne, Zhaitan as a villain is just as terrible. I'm getting really exhausted getting 400 IQ outplayed by this guy who always seems 30 steps ahead of me every moment. I get the fact that they want to make this villain scary, but outplaying my every railroaded plan just to pad out this dragged out story is just not engaging. It's like he read the script ahead of time.
 
I’m gonna mark the vanilla personal story as a “did not finish” and just move on to the post vanilla story content. It’s the same we have a plan, Zhaitan nearly thwarts that plan, “wow! Zhaitan sure is scary” ad infinitum and I cannot continue to play through that.

Moving on to “Diversity’s Edge’s” introduction starting with Braham and Rox. Rox I haven’t really had a problem with despite her bizarre appearance. Her background story’s a bit on the nose, but at least she’s goes about it with a “yeah, that’s what happened, but let’s get back to work”.

Braham I’ve only known for a minute and I already want him dead. And if he’s still alive by the time heart of thorns comes around I’m going to be pissed.
 
Smug Chuckler said:
I don't think the story hasn't improved much after they got fired, but at least it isn't modern WoW bad. I've also noticed that each expansion's story usually start out well, then go off a cliff, crash and burn. PoF/LW4 was the high point, HoT made me mad and it was overrated, and SotO was just trash. Also fuck loot boxes, can we ban bag slot unlocks instead?
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I recognize a lot of the characters met throughout the story are annoying cunts, but the fact they keep reappearing and calling back to previous adventures is cool when I'm used to WoW and "let's roll the dice and see which 5 lore characters will dominate this story" at the start of every expansion.
 
I quite liked Trahearne. He and the commander made a good duo, though it was good for Trahearne to eventually be written out of the story once the commander was more accomplished and could credibly stand on his own and be handed complete responsibility and authority over the fate of armies and nations.

Aside from Braham being a black baby of a white nation, I was fine with him. He doesn't become annoying until season 3 threw when he starts throwing fits in front of his commander.

The character I disliked was Taimi, since she is obnoxious and prone to tantrums too. She gets a little better after season 2. A more likeable replacement character is introduced in season 4 but they never really committed to it, so Taimi and he coexist oddly.


⋖ cørdion ⋗ said:
I recognize a lot of the characters met throughout the story are annoying cunts, but the fact they keep reappearing and calling back to previous adventures is cool when I'm used to WoW and "let's roll the dice and see which 5 lore characters will dominate this story" at the start of every expansion.
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WoW's problem isn't the rotating characters. Despite the rotating cast, you will have worked with everyone multiple times by now. If you're Horde, you have worked with Malfurion in Hyjal, Val'sharah, etc. The problem is that WoW's main story rarely acknowledges the main character. The player was personally appointed by the High King and the Warchief as their general in WoD, but then come BFA you are treated as a footsoldier rather than assigned command over a front. In Legion you become Highlord of the Silver Hand, Archmage of the Kirin Tor, Deathlord of the Ebon Blade, etc. But then you aren't summoned to Dalaran along with the other Archmages in TWW, you don't command the Ebon Blade in Shadowlands, etc. Blizzard wants Anduin, Thrall, Jaina, etc, to be the only main characters in the story, not you. But this has always been a problem for WoW because it is a videogame, and you experience 99% of the game from the perspective of your character, not from Anduin's PoV.
 
Dave. said:
I decided to give this game a try since apparently it's the "hot new thing" in the MMO space (somehow I doubt this but whatever) and I decided to actually go through the leveling process even though you can skip it just by buying one ArenaNet's critically acclaimedTM expansion packs for only 30 fucking dollars each. It's 20 dollars more if you want to do the bonus chapters in sequence going from vanilla to Heart of Thorns. Currently I'm almost level 70 and about more than half-way through the main quest. It started off passable, but then the very moment this plant author insert literal who enters the story, the writing goes from serviceable to just insufferably bad. It's that one moment where the story sharp 90 degree angle nose dives for me to the point where I had to skip cutscenes because it literally became either Trahearne telling me Zhaitan is so scary or it's me performing an action and then the characters saying "Wow! Thanks for doing that action you just did seconds ago. Let me just explain to you what you just did even though you just saw it with your own eyes." Or it's me going through a spoiler of the ending of author insert's character arc of him unitingTM the orders and overcoming a dangerous obstacle. Or it's Trahearne telling me what the theme of this story even is.

This one fucking character just destroyed the story and writing the very second Trahearne is brought into the cast. That is fucking incredible. I wonder if the main quest was written by two people. One half was written by one, the other one was written by another who really likes the "salads" for some reason.
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You only really get HOT to get the raptor mount, and that becomes outdated once you get the time gated dragon mount. And then you get bombared by the skins. However the skimmer mount that looks like a dugong is amazing.

I think i might go back and finish the DLCs i've got burned out after getting my plushie dragon.
 
Now we come to the token lesbian additions of the new Destiny’s Edge and unfortunately neither of them are particularly well written. Kasameer’s personality seems to be whatever the writer thinks is cute, funny, awkward, or quirky and she’ll completely change her personality based on that and Marjory feels like the writer’s insert (I know I’ve said that a lot) because the writer wants to play pretend as a detective. Marjory never gets anything wrong in her case, she never clashes with any of the characters who are at a higher status than her, she wears a cosplay Victorian outfit that fits nowhere in any of the game’s settings (not even guild wars 1), and Logan Thackeray really likes her for some reason.
 
Dave. said:
Now we come to the token lesbian additions of the new Destiny’s Edge and unfortunately neither of them are particularly well written. Kasameer’s personality seems to be whatever the writer thinks is cute, funny, awkward, or quirky and she’ll completely change her personality based on that and Marjory feels like the writer’s insert (I know I’ve said that a lot) because the writer wants to play pretend as a detective. Marjory never gets anything wrong in her case, she never clashes with any of the characters who are at a higher status than her, she wears a cosplay Victorian outfit that fits nowhere in any of the game’s settings (not even guild wars 1), and Logan Thackeray really likes her for some reason.
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I can't edit my post so unfortunately I have to double post here, but I'm currently past the investigation of the "Dragon Bash" incident and currently doing the most miserable leg of the story where I have to run around 3-4 small islands completing a certain undisclosed amount of events all separated by an ocean meaning that I'm dismounted the very moment I stick my toe in it. There's two options, swimming which is several times slower than my mount or having to go through several fucking load screens teleporting all over the place trying to hunt down events which seem to be really fucking sparse because I can't find any to begin with. I hate this so much. I'm genuinely thinking about just skipping it and watching the cutscenes on youtube.

But let's move away from that because the whole plot and justification for this chapter just seems like "I don't know, noir stories are cool tee hee!" Basically the premise behind this entire story is that there was a Dragon Bash ceremony where a bunch of ambassadors got together and gave offerings to some tree. But oh no, it turns out one of the offerings, offered by a charr who seems to deliberately stand near the electric explosion getting himself killed for some reason, was actually a weapon and it injures the rest of the ambassadors. None of them were killed in the blast. Why the charr gets himself killed I guess because he didn't want to be interrogated (never mind the fact that necromancers and advanced deus ex machina technology invented by Asuras exist which the game seems to conveniently forget "STOP ASKING QUESTIONS I JUST WANT TO HAVE COOL NOIR STUFF!").

So the Lionsguard conducts an investigation, fine. But Thackeray, for whatever reason, wants to bring in a third party. I don't know if this is because he's some ultra human nationalist or if he just hates Lion's Arch just for the sake of hating Lion's Arch, but this is where Marjory comes in. I do not know if she's supposed to be a Private Investigator (which wouldn't fucking exist in this world anyway), if she's some extent of Divinity Reach's justice system, or if she's some freelance investigator who stands around doing nothing until someone happens to run by her name in years time (because let's be real), but he decides to "hedge his bets" on this literal who to investigate this incident because his friend died in the attack and he wants to "keep it a secret". Well secrecy doesn't mean much when a FUCKING THIRD PARTY is shoved into a government investigation in a foreign territory because she's gonna show up and do what? Investigate when the guards aren't looking? Is she gonna false flag them and have them diverted while she runs around the crime scene contaminating it? Is she gonna steal the charr body and have it hung in Divinity's Reach after he's declared the alleged cohort because her macguffin tool (we'll get to that) declared his guilt even though there's no proof of involvement besides a circumstantial piece of evidence? Lion's Arch, if this wasn't a clown world, would just tell her to fuck off and go back to whatever shithole she came from because 1. this is a government matter and 2. Thackeray, for whatever FUCKED UP reason didn't tell them ahead of time because secrecy. I hope this faggot Thackeray dies because he's so far been the most unlikable vanilla member of Destiny's Edge and he's paired with a fucking charr. The most evil fucking race in Guild Wars 1 besides the Shiro house in Factions. In fact, most of the characters in this game have been insufferable.

TL;DR: Terrorist attack happens in Lion's Arch. One of the ambassadors died. Thackeray decides to be petty for no reason and hire a third party who has no business being there. Kill me.

But that's just the first part, the story just keeps getting worse. So investigation is conducted and Marjory, for whever reason, is inducted into it by girlboss Ellen who is, for again, whatever reason, really impressed by her. Because the writer really thinks Marjory is cool and thinks noir stories are really cool. She whips out a tool (I do not remember the name of it) out of her ass and supposedly it can highlight arcane residue that happens to be on someone. It also looks Asuran. Why the Asuras didn't bring a tool like this to the scene before this, I don't know. I also don't know what arcane residue has to do with this attack in the first place and it's not established or even clarified what kind of arcane residue it's highlighting. Or maybe it did in a throw away line somewhere. So essentially the implication we are running with is "if you have arcane residue, you're a cohort". The dead charr I mentioned earlier has arcane residue on his hands and he's immediately declared a cohort. Nevermind the fact that someone could've switched out his offering for a bomb and detonated it, nevermind that maybe the residue is there because he was standing close at the explosion, nevermind the fact that it's NOT FUCKING CLEAR HOW THIS SHIT WORKS ANYWAY. but he's implicated and nobody bats an eye. Not even the charr in the audience who never challenge it and never call it bullshit. I'd be fucking pissed if I was a charr and a bunch of foreign guards just declared our ambassador a criminal without evidence. Then comes Mai Trinn, we'll get to her, who is scanned by this magical macguffin and people are immediately suspicious. Mai Trinn brings up the excellent point that she tried to revive the charr when he was down so her hands are probably laced with residue. We also don't really know what she is other than "healer" so whether that produces arcane residue is, once again, sigh, unclear.

So now we have to go on a fetch quest to gather up the ambassadors who escaped from Lion's Arch... somehow. It's very boring details, but we gather everyone and perform the scan again. This time it's amplified to highlight certain forms of chemical compounds. How they know which chemical compounds, I don't know. I guess Asuras have really good Deus Ex Machina technology that can somehow scan residue and return with a precise name. How Marjory fine tuned her gadget to detect these specific compounds again I don't know. All of them are clean even though they seem to agree they were apart of some grand conspiracy and they were probably standing close to the explosion when it happened. Fine, whatever. But then Mai Trinn is scanned again and... sigh... she's implicated as the prime suspect. I do not need to explain why this is retarded. She admits to it... because of course and she takes off and now I'm stuck doing this miserable quest.

If this is seriously the mindset the writers are going to have going forward of just "tee hee, it just sounded cool", I'm going to shut this game off and uninstall it. I would really prefer if the writers actually took their jobs seriously and didn't make this insufferable marvel drivel that is currently throwing my autism in overdrive.
 
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