Áine’s harp

Today was the first day of my Creative Writing course. The syllabus makes it sound like we’d only write creative nonfiction about trees and flowers, but the class actually seems pretty awesome.

It’s very unstructured and open, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, I can write anything I want. On the other, I can write anything I want. Having recently decided to put away the novel I’ve been working on since Fall, I was looking forward to someone pushing me in a direction I might not have gone on my own. I can probably still get that out of this course if I talk to the professor, but since she specializes in creative nonfiction, I might refrain from that. We’ll see how the semester goes.

That aside, tonight’s assignment is to write something, anything, in regards to “nature.” I, regrettably, must use the quotes there. Nature can mean anything — the trees outside your window, to the space surrounding you, even to human nature. It can be literal, figurative, theoretical, philosophical… anything. Anything at all. Did I mention this class is unstructured and open?

On more specific terms, we have to talk about and to nature. Or through it if we so decide. I came up with a few ideas and one poem, but none of them suited my fancy. It wasn’t until I was listening to Amethystium and the song Mystere [click the link to hear the song] started playing that I knew what I had to write about. Several minutes and lots of scribbles later, this is what I have:

Boomslang Vin: Part 2 — The Tutorial

It’s a bit sloppy and longer than I wanted it, but here’s my rewrite of the Guild Wars 2 tutorial, closer to how I feel it should be. As always, comments/criticisms are welcome. I’m new to this style of writing, so any and all advice is helpful. As before, a video of the current tutorial (subject to change before release) is linked at the end.

Part 1

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“Everybody get to the Inn!” someone shouted, “We’ll protect you safe there!”

It was a Seraph Lieutenant. If anyone could fend off the centaur, it would be the Seraph.

I followed the stream of frantic villagers into the Inn in the center of town. Priests of Dwayna tended to wounded soldiers while families huddled together for comfort. Nobody paid me any mind as I weaved through people, looking for a shadow to hide in.

I felt a tug on my pants and looked down to see a young boy, staring up at me with red eyes set in a dirty face.

“Do you know where my mommy is?” he asked.

I knelt next to him, “Are you sure she isn’t in here?”

“I was out playing when they told me to come here. But my mommy was cooking! How will she know to bring the food here?” he spoke between his sniffles.

His mother was probably still in her home, in terrible danger if she was still alive. That meant this boy was in terrible danger of becoming an orphan. An orphan like me.

“Sergeant! There are more centaurs on the other side of town. Captain Thackeray’s calling for reinforcements at the garrison!” I heard a Seraph say.

“It must be serious if he’s asking for help, but I can’t spare anyone.”

The only memento I had from my parents was the broken amulet I wore around my neck. I didn’t even know their names. The Seraph couldn’t help find this boy’s mother, but I could. If I could find his mother and return her safely, I could save this boy from losing everything.

Boomslang Vin, Part 1

Hey guys! As I said in my post yesterday, I’m going to be writing my own story for my Guild Wars 2 character. GW2 already has a Personal Story for your character to follow, it’s just a little lackluster. I will be taking that story and making it better. Hopefully, anyway. I’ll be adding and switching around parts of it, but will try to keep as close to the official story as possible.

This means the story-related content is a mix of Arena Net and myself. I’m taking Arena’s ideas and putting my own spin to it. Consider it like Guild Wars fan-fic. Also, since the beta is over, I’m relying on my memory and youtube videos for much of this. Expect discrepancies until I can play again and get the details right!

Today’s post will be short — just the introduction! I’ll have the tutorial up tomorrow. If you want to see the real intro (though it may change by release), skip to 6:50 in the video at the bottom. Enjoy!

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Humans once ruled Tyria. Now, we struggle to hold our ground. We’ve been defeated, driven back, and broken, but we will not surrender. So many nations have fallen. Only Kryta still stands. Our faith is strong, despite the silence of the six gods. With courage, we’ll make our stand in Divinity’s Reach.

The city is my home. I grew up on the streets, an orphan forgotten by society. It’s a hard life, but many can say that these days. I have my friends to keep me strong. I’ve faced the worst this city could throw at me, and persevered.

Hoping to find a way off the streets, I left Divinity’s Reach and traveled to the village of Shaemore. Only instead of opportunity, I found a village under siege by centaurs. Innocent villagers were in danger, and I was, too. My road back to the city blocked, I went forward. I didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning.

This is my story.

Personal Stories

Guild Wars 2 is a new MMORPG coming out soon…ish…that breaks most conventions of the genre. One way they do this is by creating these Personal Stories to make your character and the journey he takes unique to you. When you create the character, you pick a backstory and certain personality traits. The character I played most during the beta was a human orphan who grew up on the streets. You could also be a noble or a commoner, have a long-lost sister who was thought dead, or have a serious regret of never joining the circus. There were two other races you could play, but I did not play their stories so I can’t comment on them.

I really enjoyed GW2. I have some gripes with the gameplay, but it lives up to the hype of breaking the stale genre into pieces. Being a writer, I was especially interested in the Personal Stories, and was sadly disappointed. In the human storyline, regardless of other choices you made, the opening starts with your character leaving the city (Divinity’s Reach) for the first time and walking right into a centaur raid on the town of Shaemore. At night. Instead of being afraid and trying to run, your character jumps straight into the fray and starts killing. At this point, you have zero skills except your auto-attack (you learn skills by killing things).

Already you should be asking: Why did my character leave the city prepared for battle (IE with a weapon) when s/he has no prior fighting experience? Why is my character completely unafraid of fighting a horde of centaurs in a brand new area? Why would my character venture out at night?

Your character charges off killing centaurs, volunteers to go to the front lines, defends against a few waves of the bullies until the gates open, fights the centaur leader, and THEN fights a massive earth elemental. By the end of that, you probably have two skills.

After the elemental explodes, you wake up 3 days later and learn Captain Thackeray himself brought you to the hospital, and that you have been dubbed the “Hero of Shaemore.” If you’re anything like me, you died once or twice during that. Some hero…

Did I mention that was the tutorial?

The storyline continues at that level. Your character has no fears or worries, makes no mistakes, has complete confidence in her decisions, and is suddenly Thackeray’s best friend, whom he calls on for help in numerous situations. Though you do make some decisions (Do I save my friend from the gang he tried to leave, or do I stop said gang from poisoning the city well?), your decision seems to only affect the next mission, nothing after that. If you save your friend, your allies save the city well. So there is no consequence to your decision.

For the beta, the storyline only went up to level 20 (the level cap is 80). At the end of that demo, your character finds closure to their big regret, finding my parents’ graves in my character’s case. Which leaves me wondering what happens next, and not in a good way. They solved out my character’s biggest concern, the big negative in their life. What could she possibly want next? What else does she need to do? She has no motives, no goals, no ambitions.

I heard the Charr storylines are a big more memorable (Charr is another race you can play), but I don’t like the Charr so I didn’t make one. There will be another beta next month, in which I would like to explore more storylines. For now, my opinion is a firm unimpressed with the quality of writing, though pleased with the attempt. It’s at least a step in the right direction.

I’m thinking about doing a sort of GW2 fan-fic type thing, in which I take my character’s Personal Story and turn it into the kind of story that would actually interest me. Until I get that up here, enjoy some GW2 Beta screenshots below! And if you’re a gamer, tell me about a videogame storyline that left an impression on you, whether good or bad.

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