Quote Originally Posted by Ronduwil View Post
I don't know that I would even call it a decent story. Aside from the final 45-minute cut scene, I didn't find it particularly compelling. One quest that stands out as an example of what made it so frustrating for me was where I had to go help Thancred with his investigation. When I arrived, Thancred said that he had already finished up and wanted to meet me back at the Rising Stones, where I had just come from. Why? Seriously, why? Also, I don't know how many times I had to sit through the Sultana whining about the stress of ruling and lengthy diatribes about her intent to abdicate the throne. I lost count after three. Then there are the extended cut scenes of characters emoting at each other. The quest line is already long enough without having to watch each Scion emote for ten seconds each. I just finished ARR yesterday, so the irritation is still fresh in my mind. I remember thinking I was done after repelling the Garleans and seeing what I thought were end credits rolling. Little did I know I was still tens (hundreds?) of quests away from being done done! I'm glad to hear they're streamlining it. There's certainly plenty of filler to cut!
A friend said it best in my mind, ARR's story was built primarily around slowly getting you through every single zone in the game like a tram ride at a theme park. Unlike later expansions where it felt like the zones were made for the story, not the other way around. Cut out those unnecessary fluff pieces and the story isn't bad by any means and would be a lot more cohesive. The issue is that it's trying to do too much (tell a story, get you to visit every zone, try and pad out the leveling experience, etc) and is basically the equivalent of a rough, first draft - where the author doesn't think, they just word vomit out what they want to write before shelving the script for a few months so they can go back and rewrite the story into something that flows much better.

But yeah it /desperately/ needs to be parred down. It was okay back in 2.0 but now it's such a huge barrier to entry.