Poll: Which GW2 race has the best story?

[00slash00]

I know this is highly subjective and each race has a somewhat different story defending on your choices and your background, but in general, which race have you found to have the most fulfilling story? i was going to make a human since it seemed like their story would probably be the best, both because the first game centered so much around humans, and because they have lost so much of their power. it seemed like it would be a story of climbing back to the top. however, i have heard that their story is the worst. i hear the char have the best story but i really have zero desire to play as them. i guess when it comes down to it my question is whether sylvari or asura have the best story, by endgame. ive heard the asura story is better than sylvari but im skeptical because asura seem to be the comic relief race, and i cant imagine the comic relief character having the deepest story

 

[Scarim Coral]

Hard to say really.

I do agreed that I favour the Charr story the most while the human story was rather weak. To sum it up-

Charr- Legion related story (depending which legions you picked) but it all to do with defeating the Flame Legion. The common thing about the Charr story it to rebuild your character warband (party). Aquiring your new warband are story related but one of them can be picked depending which story options you picked.

Human- It's all political within themselves.

Asura- It all related to this competition depending which universities you picked and your Krewe (work crew).

Sylvari- The story is to do with your character dream (vision)

Norn- Pretty much seeking out glory well making your character a new legend.

In saying so the first part of the story doesn't matter to much as you progess the story, it start to weild into one.

 

[Smertnik]

Asura's story has the best writing, both story and dialogue wise. Humans and Sylvari are both on par (although Sylvari are probably not as relatable) and Norns are the worst (never played Charr). That's my entirely subjective opinion, at least.
Seriously, don't pick Norn if you want a "deep" story. From what I remember of playing a Norn to lvl 20 or so every single dialogue was a variation of "-You are going to be a legend! -Yes, I am going to be a legend!"

But the personal story only matters up until lvl 40-50 anyway, when Trahearne comes into play and you become his minion.

 

[NearLifeExperience]

You forgot the 'They're all equally bad' option in your poll, OP.

The story telling is a joke in GW2, which was a major disappointment to a fanboy like me, the worst offender being the false pretense of choice you are given whenever the game asks you which retarded proposal sounds the least dumb.

 

[Vegosiux]

You forgot the 'They're all equally bad' option in your poll, OP.

The story telling is a joke in GW2, which was a major disappointment to a fanboy like me, the worst offender being the false pretense of choice you are given whenever the game asks you which retarded proposal sounds the least dumb.

Really? I still got even more put down by the vegetable with no personality who not only replaced a character I liked after saying "Hello" once, he also has no idea how to run a military operation (you don't send your second-in-command out to do all the footwork, that's what the grunts are for) and you don't even have the option to tell him "Well, by the way, guess who's doing all the work for you!"

But yes, the storytelling in the personal story...not GW2's best aspect, is it.

At least the event chains make up for it slightly. I've done Claw of Jormag 80 times by now for sure, and I still did not get tired of it.

 

[NearLifeExperience]

Really? I still got even more put down by the vegetable with no personality who not only replaced a character I liked after saying "Hello" once, he also has no idea how to run a military operation (you don't send your second-in-command out to do all the footwork, that's what the grunts are for) and you don't even have the option to tell him "Well, by the way, guess who's doing all the work for you!"

But yes, the storytelling in the personal story...not GW2's best aspect, is it.

No hating on the Sylvari, they are the least douchiest of all races. Besides, every race treats their second in command (assuming you mean the player character) like an errand boy/girl.

But yeah, the stories are all so terribly weak and told in such an uninteresting manner I thought 'sod this' after the first couple missions and went my own way. Even the NPCs didn't seem into it, because they discuss the threat of the elder dragons with the same enthusiasm one would have when talking about today's weather. Arenanet really dropped the ball on the story aspect of the game, which is not the greatest selling point for a game most consider to be a groundbreaking mumorpurgerr. I know the 'groundbreaking' part mostly refers to the unique combat system, but that's hardly an excuse for a lackluster story mode.

I'm currently taking a break from the game, until more content gets released. I can't be arsed with completing any storyline, the dungeons become quite dull after a few runs (and not rewarding at all, since dungeon armor looks terrible) and there's only 4 areas in the game that have a 70-80 req.

Shame on Arenanet for this!

 

[DementedSheep]

Definitly the charr. All the other race story?s where kind of meh or just bad though azura at least was funny. I?m generally not into military themes so much so I didn?t expect to like the charr as much as I do but in general they just seem to have more interesting and better written characters.
Human wasn?t that bad, at least it has some poltics. Sylvari kind of sucked but I think I picked the 2 most boring choices in character creation. Unfortunately if you play sylavri Trahearne still acts like he doesn?t know you later on even though you?ve met and worked together before which is annoying and really just shows how your choices don't matter in the end. Norn I have always found boring and I haven?t finished playing through the personal story with them yet. I just don't really like them and even my own characters dialogue is annoying me. Its mostly just seems to be "RARGHH I will be a legend! Screw everyone else!"

 

[PPB]

I have yet to finish the storyline on any character so my input is limited, but I agree with the general feeling that the storytelling is rather subpar, to put it mildly. The writing doesn't help to alleviate this at all, it's really fan-fiction worthy at times.

With that said, amongst the 2 that I've played (human and norn), I found the human one to be more interesting. The political intrigue (using the term loosely) of the human storyline kept me relatively interested in what was going to happen, whereas I couldn't bring myself to care about the norn one after a few levels.

 

[Dirty Apple]

I'm currently taking a break from the game, until more content gets released.

Well the Halloween celebration goes live tomorrow. Apparently, there's a good chunk of content and activities being introduced. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[00slash00]

Definitly the charr. All the other race story?s where kind of meh or just bad though azura at least was funny. I?m generally not into military themes so much so I didn?t expect to like the charr as much as I do but in general they just seem to have more interesting and better written characters.
Human wasn?t that bad, at least it has some poltics. Sylvari kind of sucked but I think I picked the 2 most boring choices in character creation. Unfortunately if you play sylavri Trahearne still acts like he doesn?t know you later on even though you?ve met and worked together before which is annoying and really just shows how your choices don't matter in the end. Norn I have always found boring and I haven?t finished playing through the personal story with them yet. I just don't really like them and even my own characters dialogue is annoying me. Its mostly just seems to be "RARGHH I will be a legend! Screw everyone else!"

yeah the sylvari stories (what ive played of them) were very hit or miss for me. so are you saying the personal story doesnt really matter and doesnt really have much impact on the game? like, in order to get all the lore and experience the full story, do i need to play each race to level 80 or can i just pick whichever character looks the coolest and just play them?

 

[Sunrider]

No idea who has the best story, as I've only played Sylvari past level 10 (except for Norn, level 18 during beta), but when it comes to lore, I think Sylvari is the most interesting, as they are at least fairly unique. I loved the idea of a race only three decades or so old.

In b4 "IT'S BEEN DONE BEFORE BAWW BAWW", I don't care. I'm sure it's been done before, I just haven't encountered it.

 

[DementedSheep]

Definitly the charr. All the other race story?s where kind of meh or just bad though azura at least was funny. I?m generally not into military themes so much so I didn?t expect to like the charr as much as I do but in general they just seem to have more interesting and better written characters.
Human wasn?t that bad, at least it has some poltics. Sylvari kind of sucked but I think I picked the 2 most boring choices in character creation. Unfortunately if you play sylavri Trahearne still acts like he doesn?t know you later on even though you?ve met and worked together before which is annoying and really just shows how your choices don't matter in the end. Norn I have always found boring and I haven?t finished playing through the personal story with them yet. I just don't really like them and even my own characters dialogue is annoying me. Its mostly just seems to be "RARGHH I will be a legend! Screw everyone else!"

yeah the sylvari stories (what ive played of them) were very hit or miss for me. so are you saying the personal story doesnt really matter and doesnt really have much impact on the game? like, in order to get all the lore and experience the full story, do i need to play each race to level 80 or can i just pick whichever character looks the coolest and just play them?

Pretty much. Lore wise the personal story might help you understand and introduce you to lore of the race you picked but thats about it. If you?re wanting lore you get more of that from talking to the NPCs, particularly the ones for the heart quests, listening to npc?s talk to each other and playing events. Choices effect the quest line you're on but once the questline is over it doesn't really affect anything else even when its sounds like it would. For example Malyck for the Syl questline "where life goes" never comes back.

Your 1 to 10 quests are your first story choice in character creation. The 11 to 20 is your second choice. 21 to 30 is when you meet the orders and its different depending on race.
After that you pick your order (whispers is the most fun IMO) and race doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't even affect the dialogue as far as I'm aware and after level 60 or so your order doesn't matter either.

Pretty much the only thing the personal storyline does is add flavour and provide replayability because you don?t have to do all the same quests with every character and some have more than one ending.

So yeah...just play whatever you think looks cool. Even the race skills don't make much of a difference. They are meant to be a bit weaker than your class skills .

 

[Twilight_guy]

After level 30 all the storylines merge and race doesn't matter to the story anymore, just FYI. It depends on which race is the most interesting to you, and that's all based on personality and personal choice. I like the Asura, but it's because I like Gnomes, and Asura are essentially gnomes. Sylvari are elves, Char are Klingons/Krogans, Norns are a combination Indian and Norse, humans are... well the same generic race they always are in every fantasy game. Pick accordingly or hang out in the cultural city of that race and listen to the ambient dialogue to get a feel for the race (and also make some overworked level designer jump for joy that someone noticed their work).

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

It depends on what you're looking for. All in all the personal story writing is on the bland side, which is sad because the writing for events and NPC background chatter is almost all really good. A better thing to look for is which personal story quests are the most fun. As for specifics, though...

I think the sylvari have the best lore, so I can overlook the meh writing and boring quests. However, you don't even need to do the quests to learn the lore, so.

The asura quests are the most fun and the writing is the most entertaining, though the charr come pretty close. But I don't really enjoy playing either race. (Charr females are awesome though.)

And I think the norn are fairly boring (except for the "blacked out" option, which is pretty good) and the humans are just terrible (though still better than most MMO humans, sadly).

Cultural armor is another thing to take into consideration for your choice of race, as well as faction armor for your faction choice. If you happen to really like one of those, you could pick your race based on that alone.

You really should pick Order of Whispers, though. Tybalt Leftpaw is the best NPC in the game.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Sylvari are elves, Char are Klingons/Krogans, Norns are a combination Indian and Norse, humans are... well the same generic race they always are in every fantasy game.

I disagree with your assessment of humans and sylvari. Sylvari are more like classic humans (the newcomer race who look like they could possibly take over the world, and they're all adventurous and chivalrous), while the humans are more like classic elves (the oldest race with the closest connection to the gods, who created the "high culture" of the world and who are now slowly dying out).

 

[dyre]

I didn't actually play the Asura storyling, but it seemed pretty fun. They seemed like they had some interesting personalities among them (I enjoyed one low level mission in which you rescue a team of asura from prison, and the gutsy asura group leader decides to attack the enemy instead of escape). I can say from experience the human and norn stories are hella boring though.

You forgot the 'They're all equally bad' option in your poll, OP.

The story telling is a joke in GW2, which was a major disappointment to a fanboy like me, the worst offender being the false pretense of choice you are given whenever the game asks you which retarded proposal sounds the least dumb.

Yeah, the story was a serious let down. I was actually hoping for something more related to GW1's story (like maybe some sweet revenge on those goddamn Charr), which I thought was genuinely interesting. But it all got shoved into the past, with some weird history revisionism in the Ascalonian Catacombs to make the Charr seem better compared to the Ascalonians...

 

[mattaui]

What's so interesting about the charr is that they're not your typical dumb warrior culture. They're a warrior culture that also remade themselves by throwing off the traditions of their old gods and embraced reason. There's a reason they invented the printing press, after all, and helped spread the New Krytan language. The charr are imminently practical and flexible, traits usually not associated with your run of the mill militaristic society. They have a few traits in common with klingons, but almost none with the krogan.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

You forgot the 'They're all equally bad' option in your poll, OP.

The story telling is a joke in GW2, which was a major disappointment to a fanboy like me, the worst offender being the false pretense of choice you are given whenever the game asks you which retarded proposal sounds the least dumb.

Yeah, the story was a serious let down. I was actually hoping for something more related to GW1's story (like maybe some sweet revenge on those goddamn Charr), which I thought was genuinely interesting. But it all got shoved into the past, with some weird history revisionism in the Ascalonian Catacombs to make the Charr seem better compared to the Ascalonians...

It's not revisionism, it's being able to hear the story from the other side for the first time. In GW1 we only got to hear the humans' point of view. So basically the charr think the humans screwed them over and they were just retaliating, and the humans think the charr screwed them over and they were just retaliating, while really both sides just did a bunch of shitty things to each other for centuries.

Which is a relief, actually. I hate it when one race is supposed to be clearly evil and the other one is clearly good. (There's only one Always Chaotic Evil race in GW2 and that's the krait. They just wanted to have some mustache-twirlers in there for fun, I guess.)

Personally, even though the writing was weak in GW2 (the lore is pretty great though), I thought it was way better than it was in GW1, which was pretty generic. It did get better with each game though, since the writing in Prophecies was just godawful. (An evil vizier, who would have expected!)

I really wish they'd learned their lesson from Kormir when it came to writing Trahearne though.

 

[Shuguard]

honestly the mole people have a real struggle going for them. They even have a mission statement. But gonna go with humans i guess.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Sylvari are elves, Char are Klingons/Krogans, Norns are a combination Indian and Norse, humans are... well the same generic race they always are in every fantasy game.

I disagree with your assessment of humans and sylvari. Sylvari are more like classic humans (the newcomer race who look like they could possibly take over the world, and they're all adventurous and chivalrous), while the humans are more like classic elves (the oldest race with the closest connection to the gods, who created the "high culture" of the world and who are now slowly dying out).

In tune with nature, have a mystical and unknown mystique to their culture, live in a forest, have a connection with an unspecified mystic forces that somehow influence the world, tall with pointy ears, peace loving hippies, yeah their elves. Tolkien style elves with plant costumes. Humans still strike me as the generic and non-committal race I see in most fantasy games. Humans always get the least amount of work because you don't need to define them, they are us. The giant cat people though, they need a bit more work for the player to know what they are all about.