Guild Wars 2

I have to say, I enjoyed the HoT story better than the current season. Of course there were flaws, but overall it was ok. It’s nice that I don’t have to grind masteries and replay map objectives. Dialogue was pretty good. Characters weren’t a huge pain in the a— like today. It seems the Mordremoth battle had some fixes since two years ago. It’s much more epic now. I wasn’t that impressed with the ending, but at least it’s coherent.

Season 3 just imploded for me. The story and plot pretty much collapsed in the 5th and final chapter. Although HoT wasn’t that great, I look back fondly on it. It’s better than what we have now.

JTGuevara.9018:

The story and plot pretty much collapsed in the 5th and final chapter.

That’s pretty much my summary for any living world content ANet released so far.. (just replayed LW2, HoT and LW3 to prepare for PoF :P)
I mean, the episodes for themselves are conclusive, but they always feel like ANet tried to stretch out the story by some meaningless collecting stuff for character X to get some information blah blah, but I always felt the time→progress ratio is reaaally unbalanced. Until “we” finally make some decisions in the last episode and everything collapses (so the time→progress ratio is unbalanced in the other direction)

My main gripe with Living World content is that Anet actually sees it as a TV series (as they themselves stated in a recent interview) and shoehorn “epic reveals”, “epic bossfights”, “epic drama” in at the end of every episode, I feel this has become decidedly much worse in LS3 when compared to LS2 (which I’m in the process of replaying).

I don’t usually watch TV series for this reason (the constant cliffhangers and mounting over-the-top-ness just to outdo previous episodes’ “epic moments” tends to get on my nerves. Especially given how characters tend to act totally out of character (or just tend to act unlike any sane person) just to the writers can shoehorn something in (“Wassup Braham?”)

I mean, at this rate I’m expecting LS4 to be fighting Balthazar riding a sharkkarka with laserbeam eyes mounted on top of Kralkatorrik while Marjory and Kasmeer are having a fighting divorce (or Balthy runs off into the sunrise with Marjory/Kasmeer who, shocking reveal, is actually bi gasp) and Braham is still crying in a corner over Eir’s death listening to cliché Goth music all while Taimi’s experiments with bloodstone drugs are quickly spiraling out of control. Rox and Rytlock are fighting some epic war in the Mists against Menzies and/or a not-so-dead-after-all Abaddon (gasp). All while the PC is playing fetch with Aurene.

But seriously, I feel that many epic hanging threads were pulled into LS3, got rather superficial treatment and then they grabbed something else from the “hanging threads”-bag just to try to outdo the previous reveal (Omg, White Mantle! Omg, Lazarus! Omg, Caudecus!, Omg, Balthazar! Omg, Livia!). I really hope this isn’t going to be a continuing trend and that the story gets some room to breathe in LS4 (and PoF, of course, but I’m slightly less worried about an expansion than the episodic nature of the Living World).

hmm. When I replayed it, I realised brahms little temper tantrum while getting the scroll was completely in character and exactly how he behaved during the second half of HoT. Albeit that during HoT our goals aligned so we didn’t see the kind of clash we did during that particular LS step.

marelooke.9708:

But seriously, I feel that many epic hanging threads were pulled into LS3, got rather superficial treatment and then they grabbed something else from the “hanging threads”-bag just to try to outdo the previous reveal (Omg, White Mantle! Omg, Lazarus! Omg, Caudecus!, Omg, Balthazar! Omg, Livia!). I really hope this isn’t going to be a continuing trend and that the story gets some room to breathe in LS4 (and PoF, of course, but I’m slightly less worried about an expansion than the episodic nature of the Living World).

As someone who didn’t play Guild Wars, it feels like the constant reveals were a checklist titled:

How Many Plot Points Can We Kill/“Resolve” In One Season?

I didn’t know who these characters were, except Caudacus, and his resolution came with the death of another loose end that felt really ungratifying.

So maybe that’s part of it. The deaths feel cheap. Belinda, Demmi, Lazarus . . These “surprise” deaths are just narratively unnecessary, meant to provoke angst or tie up loose plot threads that don’t need resolution, rather than taking a single plotline to completion.

Rauderi.8706:

marelooke.9708:

But seriously, I feel that many epic hanging threads were pulled into LS3, got rather superficial treatment and then they grabbed something else from the “hanging threads”-bag just to try to outdo the previous reveal (Omg, White Mantle! Omg, Lazarus! Omg, Caudecus!, Omg, Balthazar! Omg, Livia!). I really hope this isn’t going to be a continuing trend and that the story gets some room to breathe in LS4 (and PoF, of course, but I’m slightly less worried about an expansion than the episodic nature of the Living World).

As someone who didn’t play Guild Wars, it feels like the constant reveals were a checklist titled:

How Many Plot Points Can We Kill/“Resolve” In One Season?

I didn’t know who these characters were, except Caudacus, and his resolution came with the death of another loose end that felt really ungratifying.

So maybe that’s part of it. The deaths feel cheap. Belinda, Demmi, Lazarus . . These “surprise” deaths are just narratively unnecessary, meant to provoke angst or tie up loose plot threads that don’t need resolution, rather than taking a single plotline to completion.

Yup, revisiting plotlines without actually resolving them in a final way is also an option, many of the resultions were just plain unnecessary.
Eg. I’d much have preferred if Lazarus had stayed a (possible) threat after the Balthazar reveal thing rather than the entirely cheap “resolution” we had in Ep6. Especially for us raiders who have seen the power of the Mursaat on full terrifying display and then we just resurrect one and kill it like any other mook, because we can… I mean, seriously, which sane PC would take that risk? After going through the raids I sure as hell would never have agreed to resurrect Lazarus. (most definitely not with some wise-cracking jerk of a stranger my PC had never heard of before)

marelooke.9708:

Rauderi.8706:

marelooke.9708:

But seriously, I feel that many epic hanging threads were pulled into LS3, got rather superficial treatment and then they grabbed something else from the “hanging threads”-bag just to try to outdo the previous reveal (Omg, White Mantle! Omg, Lazarus! Omg, Caudecus!, Omg, Balthazar! Omg, Livia!). I really hope this isn’t going to be a continuing trend and that the story gets some room to breathe in LS4 (and PoF, of course, but I’m slightly less worried about an expansion than the episodic nature of the Living World).

As someone who didn’t play Guild Wars, it feels like the constant reveals were a checklist titled:

How Many Plot Points Can We Kill/“Resolve” In One Season?

I didn’t know who these characters were, except Caudacus, and his resolution came with the death of another loose end that felt really ungratifying.

So maybe that’s part of it. The deaths feel cheap. Belinda, Demmi, Lazarus . . These “surprise” deaths are just narratively unnecessary, meant to provoke angst or tie up loose plot threads that don’t need resolution, rather than taking a single plotline to completion.

Yup, revisiting plotlines without actually resolving them in a final way is also an option, many of the resultions were just plain unnecessary.
Eg. I’d much have preferred if Lazarus had stayed a (possible) threat after the Balthazar reveal thing rather than the entirely cheap “resolution” we had in Ep6. Especially for us raiders who have seen the power of the Mursaat on full terrifying display and then we just resurrect one and kill it like any other mook, because we can… I mean, seriously, which sane PC would take that risk? After going through the raids I sure as hell would never have agreed to resurrect Lazarus. (most definitely not with some wise-cracking jerk of a stranger my PC had never heard of before)

In theory we didnt’ take the risk, Livia and the Shining Blade did. I’m not sure her and Anise are typical PCs.

Edit: This said I did find the whole thing gratuitous. And I did play Guild Wars 1.