Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Tobias Trueflight.8350

Tobias Trueflight.8350

. . . someone must be thinking of a different Twilight.

Someone must be thinking the writing in the LS was leagues better than it actually was.

Not leagues better, but definitely better than Twilight. It’s no Silmarillion, but neither is it as much trash as people want to claim.

It still beats Factions.

Seeking assistants for the Asuran Catapult Project. Applicants will be tested for aerodynamics.

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Konrad Knox.5162

Konrad Knox.5162

Well, are you really that surprised? They did announce a “small feature patch”, – nothing major. If you were expecting a big update, blame yourself for not informing yourself. :P

And yet a few days back we had a few posters defending the horrendous LS narration by quoting the patch with the epilogue:

Wait until the epilogue in two weeks.

It’s like reading a book, and complaining before you finish the last couple of chapters. Have patience my friend. If the final part of the LS doesn’t satisfy you in two weeks, then complain.

Are you guys impatient or what? You really want a patch that tells the whole story and makes the next few years of GW2 irrelevant?

It’s like asking a patch for Season 2 to reveal all the spoilers.

Have patience, geez.

Wait for the epilogue, then complain.

I find it funny how criticism against the terrible, terrible delivery of the LS has always been defended by a dialogue of postponement (i.e. a “payoff” in a later patch will deliver more and better narrative).

Scarlet’s nonsensical character was defended by a dev during Aetherpath through this manner. The lack of plot development in the last LS arc was also defended using the same tactic. Now with the release of the Epilogue, we have some individuals defending the lack of answers by saying “don’t worry, we’ll get `some` of those answers in season 2.”

When it comes to writing stories, if it starts bad, it’s gonna continue being bad. Never once have I read or written a story that sucked all the way until the last chapter, and then suddenly was awesome enough to justify everything. Either the whole story sucked and needed to be trashed, or the whole thing was awesome and gave pride to the author. No epilogue will ever correct poor character depth, awkward dialogue, and atmosphere breaking random behavior.

But on the other hand, let’s all agree not to take GW2 story too seriously, it’s not like we’re reading a book. This is more of a children’s school theatre play – light, humorous, full of catchy jokes, with a little inkling of sadness to make the adults think about it. Take it for what it is. Nobody really goes to watch school threatre for the plot. They go to watch it to see their kids act on stage. Same here. We watch it to play the game and do missions.

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Lane.3410

Lane.3410

Not leagues better, but definitely better than Twilight. It’s no Silmarillion, but neither is it as much trash as people want to claim.

It still beats Factions.

Never played Factions. Agree to disagree about the rest though. I’d actually place LS around the same level as reality TV. A loose script, a contrived coupling for drama, an over the top ‘villain’ everyone’s supposed to hate, and a ton of filler to extend each ‘episode’.

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Yunigen.2897

Yunigen.2897

Well, are you really that surprised? They did announce a “small feature patch”, – nothing major. If you were expecting a big update, blame yourself for not informing yourself. :P

And yet a few days back we had a few posters defending the horrendous LS narration by quoting the patch with the epilogue:

Wait until the epilogue in two weeks.

It’s like reading a book, and complaining before you finish the last couple of chapters. Have patience my friend. If the final part of the LS doesn’t satisfy you in two weeks, then complain.

Are you guys impatient or what? You really want a patch that tells the whole story and makes the next few years of GW2 irrelevant?

It’s like asking a patch for Season 2 to reveal all the spoilers.

Have patience, geez.

Wait for the epilogue, then complain.

I find it funny how criticism against the terrible, terrible delivery of the LS has always been defended by a dialogue of postponement (i.e. a “payoff” in a later patch will deliver more and better narrative).

Scarlet’s nonsensical character was defended by a dev during Aetherpath through this manner. The lack of plot development in the last LS arc was also defended using the same tactic. Now with the release of the Epilogue, we have some individuals defending the lack of answers by saying “don’t worry, we’ll get `some` of those answers in season 2.”

When it comes to writing stories, if it starts bad, it’s gonna continue being bad. Never once have I read or written a story that sucked all the way until the last chapter, and then suddenly was awesome enough to justify everything. Either the whole story sucked and needed to be trashed, or the whole thing was awesome and gave pride to the author. No epilogue will ever correct poor character depth, awkward dialogue, and atmosphere breaking random behavior.

But on the other hand, let’s all agree not to take GW2 story too seriously, it’s not like we’re reading a book. This is more of a children’s school theatre play – light, humorous, full of catchy jokes, with a little inkling of sadness to make the adults think about it. Take it for what it is. Nobody really goes to watch school threatre for the plot. They go to watch it to see their kids act on stage. Same here. We watch it to play the game and do missions.

I agree with you that poor writing is often seen early on in literature; timing is always important in literature, but the way that the LS has been consistently bad but defended (till the very end) using this argument has left me questioning as to how literate some of the playerbase are.

I respectfully disagree however that games cannot be taken seriously as a good form of literature; there are many cases that games have provided good, compelling narratives because of their genre (“graphic novel” types like 9 Doors, Hotel Dusk, Walking Dead, etc.) and even some cases where the story was very compelling or at least sensible despite being in a weird game genre like RTS, FPS or action-adventure (Bioshock, Eternal Darkness, SC2, The Last of Us, etc.).

Given how GW2 is an MMORPG and is thus closer to the RPG genre, GW2 SHOULD have at least told a sensical, coherent story in the LS, considering other games have worked with harder genres to deliver their plots. It is disgraceful when one sees an MMORPG/RPG game fail to even tell a coherent (albeit cliched) story given how others have worked with greater restrictions due to their genre. The poor development and delivery of plot and characters reminds me of the FF13 trilogy, a game despite being an RPG, had one of the worst storylines in FF history.

(edited by Yunigen.2897)

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: zallis.2138

zallis.2138

They were celebrating the death of scarlet. It wasn’t a huge blowout party because instead of being celebrated on the streets, they wanted to hang out as friends. I think the brisban hint was awesome, and taimi is an interesting character to me. Her talking to braham was cool because they have a lot of the same things going on. Both have a hurt leg, and both agree they would rather do something than talk about doing something. But yes, I would have liked to have a little more, like what did scarlet have on caithe, and I would like to have seen the conversation with rox and rytlock. But I don’t think the party itself should have been changed, just more after that.

Information about New Outriders
en.guildwars2.com/forum/guilds/recruitment/New-OutRiders-NOR-Recruitment-Post/first#post2721974

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Calys Teneb.7015

Calys Teneb.7015

. . . someone must be thinking of a different Twilight.

Someone must be thinking the writing in the LS was leagues better than it actually was.

Not leagues better, but definitely better than Twilight. It’s no Silmarillion, but neither is it as much trash as people want to claim.

It still beats Factions.

Reading the Silmarillion is about as engaging as reading the Bible…

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Calys Teneb.7015

Calys Teneb.7015

I respectfully disagree however that games cannot be taken seriously as a good form of literature; there are many cases that games have provided good, compelling narratives because of their genre (“graphic novel” types like 9 Doors, Hotel Dusk, Walking Dead, etc.) and even some cases where the story was very compelling or at least sensible despite being in a weird game genre like RTS, FPS or action-adventure (Bioshock, Eternal Darkness, SC2, The Last of Us, etc.).

999 did not have a strong narrative. It has great puzzles and gameplay, but the narrative was extremely weak. And this can be supported with the fact that the iOS port of the game that included NONE of the puzzles but ALL of the narrative was an unmitigated failure.

The same could be said for Bioshock and Eternal Darkness. The narrative was the weakest part of the game, but was supplemented by unique or compelling gameplay that made it tolerable.

I’m going to be really honest, I love GW2 and all the games I play, but I’ve never seen the narrative be a strong point, and it’s never something I’ve expected. Even in games like Dark Souls or the Elder Scrolls series it’s been pretty “meh.”

(edited by Calys Teneb.7015)

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Konrad Knox.5162

Konrad Knox.5162

I respectfully disagree however that games cannot be taken seriously as a good form of literature; there are many cases that games have provided good, compelling narratives because of their genre (“graphic novel” types like 9 Doors, Hotel Dusk, Walking Dead, etc.) and even some cases where the story was very compelling or at least sensible despite being in a weird game genre like RTS, FPS or action-adventure (Bioshock, Eternal Darkness, SC2, The Last of Us, etc.)

Oh, I’m not talking about all games. I’ve played amazing story games, especially single player. (Witcher is by far my favourite). I’m only talking about GW2.

I agree that their writing is silly and should be better. It’s just that their resources are being spent keeping the game running. It’s a free to play MMO. Limited income, limited staff. I say redesign the game, integrate pvp into real map, make all the settlements capturable by guilds, not just NPCs, charge a subscription fee monthly, and hire a real writer team.

(edited by Konrad Knox.5162)

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Yunigen.2897

Yunigen.2897

I respectfully disagree however that games cannot be taken seriously as a good form of literature; there are many cases that games have provided good, compelling narratives because of their genre (“graphic novel” types like 9 Doors, Hotel Dusk, Walking Dead, etc.) and even some cases where the story was very compelling or at least sensible despite being in a weird game genre like RTS, FPS or action-adventure (Bioshock, Eternal Darkness, SC2, The Last of Us, etc.).

999 did not have a strong narrative. It has great puzzles and gameplay, but the narrative was extremely weak. And this can be supported with the fact that the iOS port of the game that included NONE of the puzzles but ALL of the narrative was an unmitigated failure.

The same could be said for Bioshock and Eternal Darkness. The narrative was the weakest part of the game, but was supplemented by unique or compelling gameplay that made it tolerable.

Perhaps 999 was a bad example; the sensibility of the story was bended, and perhaps beyond the tolerable level of a graphic novel. However, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t interesting for a japanese graphic novel game, considering the multitude of cliched “save the world” archetypes being milled out by the game devs of j. graphic novels (I’m looking at you Type Moon). Still, at least it’s narration is far better than GW2’s LS, given how the short stories, in game dialogues, cutscenes, etc. do not even mesh together properly (Scarlet’s character suffering from this issue the most).

As for Bioshock and ED, they at LEAST made a somewhat engaging and coherent story given the limitations within their genre; you want a really bad narrative in an FPS game? Try Doom 3. Having compelling gameplay + an interesting and sensical story is what put some of these guys on the spotlight, and NOT just their unique/good gameplay (e.g. insanity bar), otherwise they would have been praised the same way Doom 3 would have been (eerie, good looking, but reliant on “BOO!” scare tactics to be part of the FPS survival-horror genre).

Going back to GW2, it should have at least had tolerable levels in the delivery of LS story, given how they’ve placed a hiatus in many of the core issues of the game for over a year now. And yet, the “Story” portion of the Living Story pretty much just went down the drain, and was kept “living” by the eye-candy produced by the Anet’s art department. As I’ve mentioned earlier, it’s ironic that GW2 started to mirror the FF13 trilogy more and more as the LS content was being milled out over the last year.

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Konrad Knox.5162

Konrad Knox.5162

They were celebrating the death of scarlet. It wasn’t a huge blowout party because instead of being celebrated on the streets, they wanted to hang out as friends. I think the brisban hint was awesome, and taimi is an interesting character to me. Her talking to braham was cool because they have a lot of the same things going on. Both have a hurt leg, and both agree they would rather do something than talk about doing something. But yes, I would have liked to have a little more, like what did scarlet have on caithe, and I would like to have seen the conversation with rox and rytlock. But I don’t think the party itself should have been changed, just more after that.

Here is what I don’t get? Why not have a party at a camp in Lion’s Arch? People there feel alone and hopeless right now. They need a cheer, they need a strong hand and a light of bonfire. They need hope, they need to see their heroes.

Retreating back to Divinity’s Reach, behind its sturdy safe walls, to party away from the people whose lives were destroyed, is just such a shallow, snobbish, and frankly selfish thing to do. My character is not a noble, he is a commoner, and he would never do that. He’d gather everyone around for an open invite bonfire and share stories to release people’s stress. He’d give away food, connect children to parents, have a meeting place for everyone who lost loved ones, so everyone can follow to the light and gain some comfort. Why couldn’t this party take place in a camp like that?

(edited by Konrad Knox.5162)

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Calys Teneb.7015

Calys Teneb.7015

They were celebrating the death of scarlet. It wasn’t a huge blowout party because instead of being celebrated on the streets, they wanted to hang out as friends. I think the brisban hint was awesome, and taimi is an interesting character to me. Her talking to braham was cool because they have a lot of the same things going on. Both have a hurt leg, and both agree they would rather do something than talk about doing something. But yes, I would have liked to have a little more, like what did scarlet have on caithe, and I would like to have seen the conversation with rox and rytlock. But I don’t think the party itself should have been changed, just more after that.

Here is what I don’t get? Why not have a party at a camp in Lion’s Arch? People there feel alone and hopeless right now. They need a cheer, they need a strong hand and a light of bonfire. They need hope, they need to see their heroes.

Retreating back to Divinity’s Reach, behind its sturdy safe walls, to party away from the people whose lives were destroyed, is just such a shallow, snobbish, and frankly selfish thing to do. My character is not a noble, he is a commoner, and he would never do that. He’d gather everyone around for an open invite bonfire and share stories to release people’s stress. He’d give away food, connect children to parents, have a meeting place for everyone who lost loved ones, so everyone can follow to the light and gain some comfort. Why couldn’t this party take place in a camp like that?

What’s stopping you from roleplaying that now?

Not sarcastic. Get a group together, get a cheap bonfire, set out a bunch of feasts and toys, go nuts. Make it a server event! I’m sure people would enjoy it and have fun and there’s been a farewell party for LA before the event, no sense in not making a community event to celebrate the success.

In all seriousness and with no sarcasm, because I would like to have more options, but if we’re going to be here to debate “my character would or would not do this and there should be an option canonically from the writers for every option” then months of work would go into one five minute instance.

I’d also point out in response to an earlier comment about your character being the second in command of the Pact, that in game the Pact is not a global army. There are six armies and three orders in the game. The Pact’s commission is not to supplement or oversee the six armies. The Lionguard defends LA, the Wardens defend the Grove, the Seraph defend DR, the Peacekeepers defend Rata, the Frostwolves(?) defend Hoelbrak, and the Charr are their own army.

An illustration of the separation of armies is already in game lore. In Gendarren, there’s a fort that you defend periodically from the Risen. One of the Lionguard there has an ambient chatter that his nephew in DR was proud of him and wanted to know when the centaurs would be gone. He states that he had to explain that he’s a Lionguard, not a Serpah, and isn’t part of the war against the centaurs. This is in-game lore that explains the separation of commissions, even for someone who is presumably Krytan but is not a member of the Seraph.

Every nation has races in the Pact. However, even if our character is second in command, he cannot call the Pact back. He would be overruled by his commanding officer, Trahearne, who would keep the Pact’s commission to fight Dragons, not solve all the world’s problems.

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Yunigen.2897

Yunigen.2897

I respectfully disagree however that games cannot be taken seriously as a good form of literature; there are many cases that games have provided good, compelling narratives because of their genre (“graphic novel” types like 9 Doors, Hotel Dusk, Walking Dead, etc.) and even some cases where the story was very compelling or at least sensible despite being in a weird game genre like RTS, FPS or action-adventure (Bioshock, Eternal Darkness, SC2, The Last of Us, etc.)

Oh, I’m not talking about all games. I’ve played amazing story games, especially single player. (Witcher is by far my favourite). I’m only talking about GW2.

I agree that their writing is silly and should be better. It’s just that their resources are being spent keeping the game running. It’s a free to play MMO. Limited income, limited staff. I say redesign the game, integrate pvp into real map, make all the settlements capturable by guilds, not just NPCs, charge a subscription fee monthly, and hire a real writer team.

I agree with you that the writing has to be better, but somehow I just cannot believe that maintaining the game (i.e. income problems) is an excuse that Anet can use for milling out the poor story of the LS.

They’ve gone out of their way to hire reputable voice actors for the LS (Tara Strong, Troy Baker, Rachel Robinson, Sumalee Montano, etc.) to add substance to the narration, but being unable to hire more or better writers who have worked with the series (e.g. Jeff Grubb) seems to indicate poor allocation of resources in the development of the LS narration.

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Konrad Knox.5162

Konrad Knox.5162

They were celebrating the death of scarlet. It wasn’t a huge blowout party because instead of being celebrated on the streets, they wanted to hang out as friends. I think the brisban hint was awesome, and taimi is an interesting character to me. Her talking to braham was cool because they have a lot of the same things going on. Both have a hurt leg, and both agree they would rather do something than talk about doing something. But yes, I would have liked to have a little more, like what did scarlet have on caithe, and I would like to have seen the conversation with rox and rytlock. But I don’t think the party itself should have been changed, just more after that.

Here is what I don’t get? Why not have a party at a camp in Lion’s Arch? People there feel alone and hopeless right now. They need a cheer, they need a strong hand and a light of bonfire. They need hope, they need to see their heroes.

Retreating back to Divinity’s Reach, behind its sturdy safe walls, to party away from the people whose lives were destroyed, is just such a shallow, snobbish, and frankly selfish thing to do. My character is not a noble, he is a commoner, and he would never do that. He’d gather everyone around for an open invite bonfire and share stories to release people’s stress. He’d give away food, connect children to parents, have a meeting place for everyone who lost loved ones, so everyone can follow to the light and gain some comfort. Why couldn’t this party take place in a camp like that?

What’s stopping you from roleplaying that now?

Not sarcastic. Get a group together, get a cheap bonfire, set out a bunch of feasts and toys, go nuts. Make it a server event! I’m sure people would enjoy it and have fun and there’s been a farewell party for LA before the event, no sense in not making a community event to celebrate the success.

In all seriousness and with no sarcasm, because I would like to have more options, but if we’re going to be here to debate “my character would or would not do this and there should be an option canonically from the writers for every option” then months of work would go into one five minute instance.

I’d also point out in response to an earlier comment about your character being the second in command of the Pact, that in game the Pact is not a global army. There are six armies and three orders in the game. The Pact’s commission is not to supplement or oversee the six armies. The Lionguard defends LA, the Wardens defend the Grove, the Seraph defend DR, the Peacekeepers defend Rata, the Frostwolves(?) defend Hoelbrak, and the Charr are their own army.

An illustration of the separation of armies is already in game lore. In Gendarren, there’s a fort that you defend periodically from the Risen. One of the Lionguard there has an ambient chatter that his nephew in DR was proud of him and wanted to know when the centaurs would be gone. He states that he had to explain that he’s a Lionguard, not a Serpah, and isn’t part of the war against the centaurs. This is in-game lore that explains the separation of commissions, even for someone who is presumably Krytan but is not a member of the Seraph.

Every nation has races in the Pact. However, even if our character is second in command, he cannot call the Pact back. He would be overruled by his commanding officer, Trahearne, who would keep the Pact’s commission to fight Dragons, not solve all the world’s problems.

Konrad would then explain politely to Trahearne in a one on one conversation behind closed doors, that it’s absolutely deluded to let Lion’s Arch go into toilet, since it’s one of the biggest resource bases we have in the fight against Dragons. And, since Lionguard are obviously a disorganized embarrassing little mess of ragtag fighters in shiny armor, who cannot see past their noses, and already showed their incompetence twice (Claw Island and Aetherblades attack), if we don’t go in now and intervene again, we’re going to lose the city, and I don’t see how it will benefit our Dragon war efforts.

Since Konrad is clearly the most brilliant investigator (as Marjory claims) who unveiled the entire Scarlet Kessex Hills conspiracy, Trahearne would be inclined to agree with this analysis. And if not, the amount of politeness that will go into our further conversation will range from slight yelling to violently beating his whiny green face into a writing desk until he admits being wrong.

(edited by Konrad Knox.5162)

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Calys Teneb.7015

Calys Teneb.7015

As much as I want to argue against that from the Tyrian point of view, and there are many arguments about why it doesn’t make sense to have an army occupy another sovereign nation no matter how well intentioned, you’ve destroyed my composure with the image of beating Trehearne into a desk.

Well done.

But yeah you should think about setting up a community event on your server. I think even a few devs went to the “Farewell to LA” party right before the invasion.

Epilogue: That's it? (spoilers, obv)

in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath

Posted by: Lynx Raven Raide.2764

Lynx Raven Raide.2764

I’ll admit I’m skipping a lot of this thread, but on the case of the dragon, we saw it in a cinematic.

Yup, that’s about it. Us, as players, not characters, saw it. By the looks, its in a pretty remote place, and so soon after the Battle For LA I doubt many would have traced the ley line cracks, and thats if the beast has risen out of the ground yet. Joking around in a bar, trying to relax, does seem like a plausible scenario after a battle, and the first time MKBRT hear about the dragon is from you, the player.

Mad Aussie Bastard