Guild Wars 2

I am typically a forum lurker, frequenting the forums but not responding. After playing through the HoT story and reading many forum threads and watching videos about the topic, I decided it was time to talk.

ArenaNet,
Ever since you released the expansion, you have been flooded with criticism and complaints. It is understandable that right now is very stressful, trying to fix all the problems that weren’t caught in the beta, and finding some equal ground with the player base.

As I explored this new world, I felt as I had when I first started playing. I was vulnerable again, not yet knowing what to expect of this strange new land. The jungle and Ley-line Confluence was beautiful, expansive, and dangerous. The new gameplay of the Revenant and specializations put new life into repetitive builds. Gliding and bouncing around on mushrooms was a joy. Being a music nerd, I would just sit in certain locations and just close my eyes and listen, taking time to enjoy the musical art.

The new lands and environments are amazing, and people who worked on them deserve a standing ovation. My own personal let-down was the Personal Story.

This is nothing new. I have lurked the forums and know that lore-geek criticism has been prevalent. I don’t agree with everything, but there are a few common themes that I did agree with.

There was much anticipation about the new story and all the new lore that would be discovered in this strange land, but the story was rushed, and the lore was not as explored and flesh out as it could have been. I understand that there was a sense of urgency, but “urgency” and “short” are not synonyms. Using a classic example, in Lord of the Rings, there was a sense of urgency to destroy The One Ring. It was the one thing that could save or condemn all that was good, but the journey was drawn out in three long books. In HoT, we are Frodo, especially true of Sylvari resisting the dragon’s power, and the dragon’s mind is our Mount Doom. Sadly, we threw the ring into Mount Doom at chapter 3.

Personally, I was hoping for even more struggle against Mordremoth. I wanted him to be a dragon I would love to hate. He had more character than Zhaitan, but I was hoping for more mind games, and more characters turning on one another. The fight mechanics were satisfying, but I felt that I didn’t hate him enough in the end. When it came to Zhaitan, though the battle was not as satisfying mechanic-wise, I hated him enough to not be too worried about that. Zhaitan took many of my favorite characters away, mocked their sacrifice, and told me that I could easily join them if I died. Seeing Zhaitan fall in such a pitiful state was better than he deserved.

The whole part about Rata Novus and seeing Rata Sum in the distance felt like a lost opportunity. Rata Sum is a magical floating city. Mordremoth was already attacking and destroying simple waypoints, so Rata Sum should have been a magical all-you-can-eat buffet. There was a chance to explore Asuran politics and their collective resentment towards the elder dragons, but there was nothing.

Rata Novus was beautiful and I loved how the city was built using the ley-lines as a super charge station. The scientific Cave Johnson/bioshock feel of the area made me chuckle. There is so much that can be done with Rata Novus in the future, so I remain hopeful. When we go to the dragon lab, the “discovery” was terrible. “All the elder dragons have a weakness.” That is a line taken straight from the Water is Wet News Station. We are talking about Asura. They are a race of geniuses, save the one in prison. I’m pretty sure there was more to their data and studies than a simple “there is a weakness.” Even if there was nothing about Mordremoth, I would have gladly taken some Primordus lore in its place.

Now, for discovering the weakness of one of the greatest forces of nature, Mordremoth. I can accept that his weakness is his mind, his body is too large and resilient to keep down. The problem was the discovery, or lack there of. Struggling to find the weakness with the threat of destruction at any moment was a missed story chance. Knowing that the player character and group of comrades are trying to pin down his weakness, character development would happen. Both sides would have interesting interactions. Mordremoth trying to hide his mortal weakness and maybe even trying to convince the players that killing him will result in greater danger. The player could question for what purpose the elder dragons exist, still seeing them as too great a problem in the end. There could have been uncertainty that his weakness was even his mind. Everyone was too sure about his weakness in the end.

I cannot say too much about the new races, simply because there was not much to go on. I would love to know much more about the Itzel, Nuhoch, and Exalted. What are they like as individuals? Do any Exalted dislike the Charr? What does it sound like when the Itzel sing? Are the Nuhoch really as xenophobic and distrusting of strangers as the devs said? There are so many questions that could simply be answered with simple text boxes with npcs and a little more atmospheric chatter.

Those are my main issues with the story and lore. There will be people telling me that if I, or any other lore-geek critic, doesn’t like the game, we shouldn’t play. And here I confess my own personal reason for raising notice on things I felt were unsatisfactory: I love Guild Wars 2. I, lore-geek, love this game, its story, lore, and history. The reason I write my concerns down, the reason I take time out of my day to type up this page, is because I love the game enough to care deeply about it. If I did not care at all, I would not even bother.

Every time I log in, I enter a magical world and watch over my character. There is nothing that can compare to this feeling of playing the game. I know that the creators of this game are imaginative, smart, hardworking people that can bring fantasy to life. They made me laugh when the Asura were insulting each other about the calibration of an experimental portal. They made me smile when I found a Sylvari working hard to help some spiders find peace. They made me cry when Tybalt/Sieran/Forgal ran in to hold back the hoards of risen, with no hope of survival.

I know the developers, artists, composers, voice actors, story writers and more are brilliant, and that is why I place high hopes on you. I cannot speak for everyone, but I know I want your creation to succeed and become one of the greatest games out there.
Sincerely,
DuskyInsanePoet the Lore-Geek

TL;DR There are some problems with the HoT personal story, and I point them out because I care about the game.

+1 all the way.

^This is beautiful.

One of the reasons why I started playing GW2 in the first place was the lore. Hopefully the 16 chapters of the story we have so far won’t be the end of the line for Heart of Thorns plot.

I agree with most of it. I only have different interpretations on some details.
Like Mordremoth’s weakness. He’s the dragon of plants and mind. We’ve been told that during season 2. This dragon IS the jungle, and he’s completely immobile because of that. The only way he can expand his influence on the world is through his mind and his vines. He has to have an incredibly powerful mind. He has to be able to trick us, and to prevent us from killing his mind through the Dream thanks to a simple and weak Sylvari that is nothing more than his own creation. It was stupid to make his mind his weakness. It was just a really bad deus ex machina to end the story a lot quicker than it should !
The dragon has a real body somewhere. We saw his mouth after Scarlet’s death. He has a body that is immobilized. His weakness has to be his real body, not his mind. His mind is his best tool and weapon. We should have found his body burried deep in the jungle, found his real heart, the HEART OF THORNS, and destroyed it ! I want this story to finish with the death of a real big impressive dragon, not a plump lizard walking on two legs.

I’m really hoping this is not the end. Everything HAS to be pushed further in this story. It can’t stay like that, this is clearly not satisfying.
There are 16 chapters I believe. I felt like I was half way through the story during chapter 14. Not only because it felt way too short for an entire expansion story, but mostly because the 2 last chapters are like “let’s finish this quickly !” when nothing is actually resolved (hence the deus ex machina) And all this only because ANet wanted to kill Mordremoth at the end of the expansion, which wasn’t necessary at all. The story lost a lot of its credibility and epicness because of that and feels sketchy.

I want to see a plot twist in the next living story season that shows us we’ve been manipulated and the only thing we did was to kill Trahearne. It was all part of Mordremoth’s plan to make us believe we killed him so now he can prepare his next big attack (like attacking Rata Sum which is right next to him) without being disturbed by the races of Tyria fighting him.

In my opinion WoodenPotatoes sums up all the problems HoT story has (sadly they are many) in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL-8bSUothk
He’s a big GW lore nerd and his opinions are always very interesting and very well thought. And he’s followed closely by the devs so I expect them to react if it’s not the case already.

Ojyh.9842:

I agree with most of it. I only have different interpretations on some details.
Like Mordremoth’s weakness. He’s the dragon of plants and mind. We’ve been told that during season 2. This dragon IS the jungle, and he’s completely immobile because of that. The only way he can expand his influence on the world is through his mind and his vines. He has to have an incredibly powerful mind. He has to be able to trick us, and to prevent us from killing his mind through the Dream thanks to a simple and weak Sylvari that is nothing more than his own creation. It was stupid to make his mind his weakness. It was just a really bad deus ex machina to end the story a lot quicker than it should !
The dragon has a real body somewhere. We saw his mouth after Scarlet’s death. He has a body that is immobilized. His weakness has to be his real body, not his mind. His mind is his best tool and weapon. We should have found his body burried deep in the jungle, found his real heart, the HEART OF THORNS, and destroyed it ! I want this story to finish with the death of a real big impressive dragon, not a plump lizard walking on two legs.

I’m really hoping this is not the end. Everything HAS to be pushed further in this story. It can’t stay like that, this is clearly not satisfying.
There are 16 chapters I believe. I felt like I was half way through the story during chapter 14. Not only because it felt way too short for an entire expansion story, but mostly because the 2 last chapters are like “let’s finish this quickly !” when nothing is actually resolved (hence the deus ex machina) And all this only because ANet wanted to kill Mordremoth at the end of the expansion, which wasn’t necessary at all. The story lost a lot of its credibility and epicness because of that and feels sketchy.

I want to see a plot twist in the next living story season that shows us we’ve been manipulated and the only thing we did was to kill Trahearne. It was all part of Mordremoth’s plan to make us believe we killed him so now he can prepare his next big attack (like attacking Rata Sum which is right next to him) without being disturbed by the races of Tyria fighting him.

In my opinion WoodenPotatoes sums up all the problems HoT story has (sadly they are many) in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL-8bSUothk
He’s a big GW lore nerd and his opinions are always very interesting and very well thought. And he’s followed closely by the devs so I expect them to react if it’s not the case already.

Why do the elder dragons even need a weakness to begin with? I tried to not explore that tangent, because it is full of lore contradictions. Kralkatorrik can only be hurt with his own body, similar to the legendary lion in Hercules, that could only be killed and skinned with it’s own claws. The crystal dragon is a living crystal, so I can accept the whole “can only scratch a diamond with an equal or better diamond.” Zhaitan… Yeah, I didn’t see any real weakness there. We literally starved him, destroyed his armies, and blasted a giant super-laser at him. That was military tactics, not weakness. The EDs never really had an Achilles tendon weakness before. They are the embodiment of the chaotic forces of nature that hold the world together. If a volcano explodes, it doesn’t have a weakness, people don’t fight it(unless they live in Iceland). This whole “Elder Dragon Weakness” contradicts everything we’ve learned so far.

As Mordremoth is officially the dragon of mind, I was kinda hoping for a giant war of subtlety and subterfuge(Order of Whispers battle anyone?). I am personally hoping that my Sylvari Reaper is actually an unsuspecting sleeper agent for Mordremoth. Through Trahearne, Mordremoth realized that that his real target was none other than the Commander. Putting up a convincing act, he draws the Commander into the dream, where he can turn this pillar of power into a perfect puppet. While everyone is distracted with the dream battle, Mordremoth gets to work. Of course, this strategy is a high risk move, as he releases a lot of his magic to make his “death” look convincing, but the real battle has only just begun. The death of Trahearne was a bonus. At least, this is my hope. I thought Mordremoth would be equivalent to Niv-Mizzet from MtG in intelligence. A dragon so intelligent that a mind-reader trying to read his mind would make his/her brain spontaneously combust. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed.

I also agree that it was way to short. Like I said before: urgency does not equal short story. I need my fill of good story-telling.

I love WP. I only just recently watched his HoT lore video, since I am not one for spoilers.

@DuskyInsanePoet – you are, true to your name, a poet. +100

Ojyh.9842:

We should have found his body burried deep in the jungle, found his real heart, the HEART OF THORNS, and destroyed it!

YES! That would have been awesome, and reminiscent of System Shock 2 which I loved.

I agree that this should be a fake-out and M is really alive and planning something… well, we can hope.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/The-end-wasn-t-the-end-SPOILERS/first
I actually created a forum about Mord not being dead, if you folks want to check it out.

DuskyInsanePoet.4218:

Ojyh.9842:

I agree with most of it. I only have different interpretations on some details.
Like Mordremoth’s weakness. He’s the dragon of plants and mind. We’ve been told that during season 2. This dragon IS the jungle, and he’s completely immobile because of that. The only way he can expand his influence on the world is through his mind and his vines. He has to have an incredibly powerful mind. He has to be able to trick us, and to prevent us from killing his mind through the Dream thanks to a simple and weak Sylvari that is nothing more than his own creation. It was stupid to make his mind his weakness. It was just a really bad deus ex machina to end the story a lot quicker than it should !
The dragon has a real body somewhere. We saw his mouth after Scarlet’s death. He has a body that is immobilized. His weakness has to be his real body, not his mind. His mind is his best tool and weapon. We should have found his body burried deep in the jungle, found his real heart, the HEART OF THORNS, and destroyed it ! I want this story to finish with the death of a real big impressive dragon, not a plump lizard walking on two legs.

I’m really hoping this is not the end. Everything HAS to be pushed further in this story. It can’t stay like that, this is clearly not satisfying.
There are 16 chapters I believe. I felt like I was half way through the story during chapter 14. Not only because it felt way too short for an entire expansion story, but mostly because the 2 last chapters are like “let’s finish this quickly !” when nothing is actually resolved (hence the deus ex machina) And all this only because ANet wanted to kill Mordremoth at the end of the expansion, which wasn’t necessary at all. The story lost a lot of its credibility and epicness because of that and feels sketchy.

I want to see a plot twist in the next living story season that shows us we’ve been manipulated and the only thing we did was to kill Trahearne. It was all part of Mordremoth’s plan to make us believe we killed him so now he can prepare his next big attack (like attacking Rata Sum which is right next to him) without being disturbed by the races of Tyria fighting him.

In my opinion WoodenPotatoes sums up all the problems HoT story has (sadly they are many) in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL-8bSUothk
He’s a big GW lore nerd and his opinions are always very interesting and very well thought. And he’s followed closely by the devs so I expect them to react if it’s not the case already.

Why do the elder dragons even need a weakness to begin with? I tried to not explore that tangent, because it is full of lore contradictions. Kralkatorrik can only be hurt with his own body, similar to the legendary lion in Hercules, that could only be killed and skinned with it’s own claws. The crystal dragon is a living crystal, so I can accept the whole “can only scratch a diamond with an equal or better diamond.” Zhaitan… Yeah, I didn’t see any real weakness there. We literally starved him, destroyed his armies, and blasted a giant super-laser at him. That was military tactics, not weakness. The EDs never really had an Achilles tendon weakness before. They are the embodiment of the chaotic forces of nature that hold the world together. If a volcano explodes, it doesn’t have a weakness, people don’t fight it(unless they live in Iceland). This whole “Elder Dragon Weakness” contradicts everything we’ve learned so far.

As Mordremoth is officially the dragon of mind, I was kinda hoping for a giant war of subtlety and subterfuge(Order of Whispers battle anyone?). I am personally hoping that my Sylvari Reaper is actually an unsuspecting sleeper agent for Mordremoth. Through Trahearne, Mordremoth realized that that his real target was none other than the Commander. Putting up a convincing act, he draws the Commander into the dream, where he can turn this pillar of power into a perfect puppet. While everyone is distracted with the dream battle, Mordremoth gets to work. Of course, this strategy is a high risk move, as he releases a lot of his magic to make his “death” look convincing, but the real battle has only just begun. The death of Trahearne was a bonus. At least, this is my hope. I thought Mordremoth would be equivalent to Niv-Mizzet from MtG in intelligence. A dragon so intelligent that a mind-reader trying to read his mind would make his/her brain spontaneously combust. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed.

I also agree that it was way to short. Like I said before: urgency does not equal short story. I need my fill of good story-telling.

I love WP. I only just recently watched his HoT lore video, since I am not one for spoilers.

There’s a huge chance of this happening. Since Scott and Bobby said that they’ve been working on this story for 2 YEARS (as said in POI 18) for a paid expansion, there should be much more coming and Arenanet will release it slowly (like a good expac would do).
Plus, Mordremoth has the ability to plant thoughts in a sylvari’s mind anyways.Maybe some of the sylvari NPC’s ideas (or maybe even your sylvari character’s) could’ve been put in by the dragon himself.

@Zoltar MacRoth – Thank you.

@AESOkami – I’ll go and check that episode out. It seems most people are getting to the end of the story, and feeling like it is incomplete. Hopefully, when all the new story stuff comes out, all the theory crafters will be able to look back and say, “I knew it was too easy!”

Great post.

And I actually really liked that Mordremoth’s weakness was his mind. Often times our greatest strengths can turn into our greatest weaknesses. That said, I definitely wanted more. More tricks and deceptions by Mordremoth. More close calls and losses suffered by the Pact and friends. More of a lover’s quarrel and sad final confrontation between Faolain and Caithe. More of a ‘Eureka!’ moment when we discover we can use the dream against him.

And for that matter, was it even adequately explained how Mordremoth is connected to the dream? I assumed that he created it and uses the Sylvari linked to it to explore the world through their experiences. Using them to gain power, both mentally by assimilating their minds and physically by using their bodies after they’ve been taken in. In this way the Dream would be Mordremoth’s source of power and also weakness by giving us direct access to him. I -think- this is what happened? But the explanation was so very bare that I’m not even sure.

Also this.

Even if there was nothing about Mordremoth, I would have gladly taken some Primordus lore in its place.

So much this.

I was so hoping for some lore on Primordus. Instead all we get is “Wow, the Asura must have really hated Primordus.”

If they wanted us to know the Asura hated him so badly, they should have shown us that in their findings. Talk about millions of pages of research devoted to it, about detailed studies done on Destroyers, about theorized locations of him. About past failed engagements. A story about a believed weakness of Primordus that proved terribly wrong and cost hundreds of Asura their lives. Perhaps even touch on the second realm of influence that Primordus controls (or unconfirmed Asuran theories on what it might be so they can change it later if need be.)

Also lurker.

For me the story is the one outstanding failure in GW2.

All their art, 3D design, mechanics… Anet can produce beautiful, intelligent, interesting, unique, top-of-their-game content.

And then the story is treated like an afterthought. Just a complete lack of the class and polish that the rest of the game comes with. Really weird.

Can’t blame the writers. I’m sure they are about as pleased with the story as we are, no decent writer could look at it and say “yeah nailed it”. There was a crunch or some cuts or something. Pretty obvious when half your cast has literally nothing to say.