Guild Wars 2 Expansion and Story

While I hesitate to send anyone to Forbes, some time ago Erik Kain posted some thoughts on what a Guild Wars 2 expansion should contain, almost all of which I wholeheartedly endorse. In brief, these are: (1) More weapon types; (2) playable Tengu [this one very much please!!]; (3) new ways to gain experience points and level up; (4) more movement boosts; and (5) more storylines.

In general, I would agree with his fifth recommendation--how could more story be bad?--but in this case, it hits on what is by far the worst aspect of Guild Wars 2: The story and writing.  I have now leveled three characters to 80 (the current level cap) and have not yet bothered to play through the main story missions for any of them. The only time I do play these missions is for the huge chunk of experience I get at the end and I always skip the cut-scenes. For a while, I had the vocals in French (since I am trying to learn), but even this was too painful.

The abysmal writing and scripting is particularly surprising given (a) the polish apparent in so much of the game's design, and (b) the number of promotional videos or blog posts that ArenaNet has put out hyping their story and writers. The latter was definitely a case of the lady protesting too much. When your story is actually good, it speaks for itself. But now, because of this sad campaign to try and convince us that their work is good (when it obviously isn't) I know the names "Jeff Grubb" and "Ree Soesbee," and know to avoid any of their work.

Complete Fail.

Happily, the main story is entirely avoidable (except for that nagging green star on my HUD) and the ambient dialogue and dynamic events are all pretty fun and entertaining.  The designers have definitely succeeded (I think) in creating a virtual world that is just fun to play around in.  Particularly once a zone's repetitive "quest hearts" (or whatever they are called) are either completed or eliminated (as in the higher level zones) there is a great feeling of open exploration and the power to make this game be what you want it to be.

It is sort of unclear if ArenaNet is really planning to do expansions, or just micro-transact new stuff on a rolling basis. But however they roll out new content, I definitely want to see more weapons and more skills, some playable Tengu, and also re-work the elite skills. These were the centerpiece of player builds in GW1 but are practically irrelevant in GW2. Be nice to bring these back in a meaningful way.