The second Durmond Priory story took me back to Harathi Hinterlands, and after reacquainting myself with the centaurs - sword first - I went into Rat-Tastrophe.
At the end of the previous Priory sequence I'd been give the choice of three story threads to follow up on, and of course I picked the one involving the Skritt. This is a much shorter and more focused questline, with the bulk of it being made up of three lengthy action scenes that see our heroes and their Skritt allies go up against the Destroyers. It's astonishingly good.
For a start the fights are absolutely brutal, especially the first one. More often than not in MMOs these kind of personal quests go easy on the player but this is definitely not the case here. These are desperate fights in which everyone involved is in real danger, and the furious action emphasises this, as does the discovery during the second stage of the story of several fallen Skritt that can't be rezzed. Rezzing defeated friendlies is an integral feature of Guild Wars 2 - and one that can make certain open world events very hard to take at all seriously - so when it's suddenly not an option it's surprisingly jarring. One instance where this happens during this part of the quest is out and out heart-rending.
I wasn't ready for that. I've referred to Guild Wars 2 in a previous post as one of the least immersive MMOs I've ever played due to every action being so gamified. It's the last game I expected to work on this level.
MMOs rarely handle scenes of sadness and loss well, and strangely enough I find it's the games with the most storytelling tools that tend to fall short in the execution - especially when it involves cutscenes. Good writing and voice acting is all too easily undermined by visuals that just aren't up to what's being asked of them. The Old Republic is a good example of this, since its limited range of conversational animations can lead to scenes playing out like they're being performed by very good actors under very bad direction.*
*This is another way in which SWTOR accurately echoes its source material.
I'll also undoubtedly come back to this topic at some point once I start writing about Final Fantasy XIV, which also makes the mistake of asking the player to care about certain events without really selling them on why they should.
Guild Wars 2 doesn't have these problems. The statically staged cutscenes in this game are best suited to character conversations and exposition, with the experience being rather like watching an audio drama being performed. With such limited tools at its disposal GW2 has to find other ways to make a dramatic impact, and for all that I've poked fun at the game's sketchy approach to narrative before, this questline does what Guild Wars 2 does best and packs its emotional punch into a few short sentences of dialogue that play out during the action.
Another reason why it's all so effective is that this is the Skritt we're taking about. They're one of the funny races, so suddenly plunging them into this life-or-death struggle against the Destroyers is like doing a remake of Aliens with the Muppets. The Skritt themselves are as quirky and amusing as ever, but this time the story isn't played for laughs.
The storytelling in GW2 may not be the most elaborate in MMOs, but it's a lot smarter and sharper than it looks. Ultimately this questline tells a small story - it doesn't change the world or directly impact anyone other than those directly involved - but it tells it well and with absolute sincerity. It's easy enough to make a player think - with big twists or new lore - but it's quite another thing to make them feel. Rat-Tastrophe does exactly that, and the end result is an unexpected masterpiece.
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