The new Guild Wars storybooks
The idea of storybooks originally came in with the Eye of the North expansion. Guild Wars: Factions introduced the idea of Factions, whom you could work with, earning faction points and Title Tracks, opening up access to exclusive items and missions. Storybooks built on this by allowing you to record your completion of specific missions and dungeons - once a certain number had been completed, you can hand the storybook in to an NPC and claim some faction rewards. The full the storybook, the greater the rewards.
This was a great idea that not only added extra depth to the storyline, but also gave you an opportunity to boost your Title Tracks and faction standings, pimping out your Hall of Monuments. With recent game updates, ArenaNet have introduced storybooks covering the three main campaigns.
Before I go any further - many of you reading this will be thinking “Awesome! I’ve completed all three campaigns, I’ll have some new storybooks insta-filled for me! Epic win!”
No chance. Any missions completed before the game update that introduced the storybooks - on November 13th 2008 - will not be recorded. You’re going to have to go back and do them all again. In Hard Mode, as well, if you want the Hard Mode version of the relevant storybook completed. Gutting - such grind is totally unwelcome.
There are four main storybooks:
- The Flameseeker Prophecies - available in Normal and Hard Mode, this covers missions in the Prophecies campaign, starting with the D’Alessio Seaboard mission.
- Shiro’s Return - available in Normal and Hard Mode, this covers missions in the Factions campaign, starting with the Vizunah Square mission.
- Night Falls - available in Normal and Hard Mode, this covers missions in the Nightfall campaign, starting with the Consulate Docks mission.
- Young Heroes of Tyria is only available in Hard Mode and covers the early missions from all three campaigns.
In the next few posts I’ll be looking at each storybook in turn, detailing which NPCs will hand them out, what missions need to be completed, and what rewards you can expect for each completed storybook.
I liked the storybooks in Eye of the North - they added more depth to the Guild Wars storyline for a PvE player like myself. They also provided a more entertaining way of progressing Title Tracks - with no requirement to hand in a fully completed storybook, you could pick and choose your favourite missions and dungeons to replay.
However, I think forcing players to have to redo all the missions from the three main campaigns is overly harsh. Prophecies has been around for many years now, and most players will have completed all the normal storyline missions - and many will have done the Hard Mode ones as well. My Title Tracks can all do with a nice boost, but having to replay all of Guild Wars again leaves me feeling a bit underwhelmed.
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