Guild Wars 2

Okay so I got to the final fight where you go into mordremoth mind or whatever arcane metaphysical thingy magic you thought of to explain away your inability to write stories.

Didn’t beat it, was doing it with a friend and we were doing fine but every time I’d get f’ed by that bug where my glider won’t open. But that’s not the point.

The point is => Do you write this aiming it at 5 year olds? You story is horrible. It’s beyond horrible. Your lore, while rich, within game is non-existant.
Pre-HOT you bragged on twitch how oh watch out for the sylvari conflict (racism, deep issues). Watch out for nightmare court and how they won’t follow mordremoth, and oh boy I expected some extensive story arcs there.

What happens? Oh look, step 1 => Eir dies, Faolain dies. Eir dies why? To give Bram a bow. So god kitten pointless! That removes that Eir-Zojja tension. You could have injured her and still given him the bow while she heals?
Faolain => way worse. Where’s my nightmare court story? Where’s the depth? Where’s Faolain/Caith etc interactions? Where’s other sylvari? How does this affect sylvari as a whole? Do some accept Mordremoth? Some turn to Nightmare? Some turn soundless? Where are small stories?
My biggest fear was I’ll kill mordremoth too soon, and you’ll just declare all sylvari are happy and innocent again. So you don’t have to write /create anything about it. Well looks like that fear’s been realized, unless there’s some bomb after I beat the boss? But even if there is, I’m guessing I won’t get any quality story until LS 3, and even then I’ll be highly skeptical about it.

Most importantly – WHERE ARE THE NPC’s I CAN TALK TO?
You replaced text with Dialogue, but there’s so little of dialogue that I find myself longing for old story ways. I liked old Tyria maps, now I love them. Because there’s just so many npc’s all over with their little day to day stories and you can read it and it’s glorious.

Not only is your story stupid (sorry, but it is), full of gaping holes, and shoddy (oh look Faolain dies, okay, now lets go thru the jungle, oh look Rata Novus lets find their research => oo tension (I’m really upset it’s not a city full of Azura we can talk to btw) => oh look Taimi’s character ‘growth’ (so badly done)? Oh look her golem dead, cry people (kill another thing => JRR Martin much?) Oh look dragons have weakness yay. Very anticlimactic. Oh look lets go rescue logan/zojja. WE gonna bash mordremoth yee! Who cares we don’t know how.

Oh look, we are here. How do we kill it? Oh wait Trahearn is sylvari! Oh wait ‘insert mindnumbing metalomagicalbobbligoodity here noone understands because it makes 0 sense) we think this ’ll work! Lets go try it! Oh look yay it works (except there’s bugs so you don’t kill the thing).

The hell?
I understand you rushed this xpack but seriously, fail. Big fail.

And guess what, I can solve this for you. Introduce LORE system (look at Wildstar lore system). Scatter Journals and pages around not with just 1 sentence in them, bug pages of text. That’s how you get short stories in . That’s how you get that lore in, that depth. You could have told bucket loads of stories about Faolain, her courtiers, Caithe, and god knows who else, just through big kitten stories scattered as journals. No cutscenes needed. Those who hate reading can ignore them. Those who love story and lore will enjoy it immensely and feel there’s some substance to this.

Progression through the jungle to kill the dragon => too fast, zero substance, minimal dialogue. Disappointing.

If you want a good story, single player RPGs are that way →

Seriously, go play witcher 3, its one of the best story telling and story progression in a game I’ve ever seen.

This is an MMORPG.

Most of the ppl didn’t buy it to play story mode…….

I certainly didn’t make this purchase and expected some amazing, grand story….CONTENT thats what makes and breaks MMORPG…..not story mode lol.

most ppl could care less if the story is disappointing……I for one am glad anet didn’t spend a lot of time and resources into such an unimportant aspect of an expansion….

SkiTz.4590:

If you want a good story, single player RPGs are that way ->

Seriously, go play witcher 3, its one of the best story telling and story progression in a game I’ve ever seen.

This is an MMORPG.

Most of the ppl didn’t buy it to play story mode…….

I certainly didn’t make this purchase and expected some amazing, grand story….CONTENT thats what makes and breaks MMORPG…..not story mode lol.

most ppl could care less if the story is disappointing……I for one am glad anet didn’t spend a lot of time and resources into such an unimportant aspect of an expansion….

The story was advertised to be some epic grand battle against the biggest threat to Tyria. Tell me what you paid $50 for? 4 mediocre maps, a new class, and some raid instances… I for one was hoping for a story that lasts longer than a few hours

SkiTz.4590:

If you want a good story, single player RPGs are that way ->

Seriously, go play witcher 3, its one of the best story telling and story progression in a game I’ve ever seen.

This is an MMORPG.

Most of the ppl didn’t buy it to play story mode…….

I certainly didn’t make this purchase and expected some amazing, grand story….CONTENT thats what makes and breaks MMORPG…..not story mode lol.

most ppl could care less if the story is disappointing……I for one am glad anet didn’t spend a lot of time and resources into such an unimportant aspect of an expansion….

Unimportant to yourself, but many of us are invested in it. It was the weakest part of an otherwise decent expac. But it was rushed through, ignoring vast swathes of lore. No Malyk, no other Pale Tree, no egg explanation, very little about the sylvari turning.

The story was a big part of the expac to us. It just wasn’t given the time and resources needed to make it more than half a season’s worth of short story.

SkiTz.4590:

If you want a good story, single player RPGs are that way ->

Seriously, go play witcher 3, its one of the best story telling and story progression in a game I’ve ever seen.

This is an MMORPG.

Most of the ppl didn’t buy it to play story mode…….

I certainly didn’t make this purchase and expected some amazing, grand story….CONTENT thats what makes and breaks MMORPG…..not story mode lol.

most ppl could care less if the story is disappointing……I for one am glad anet didn’t spend a lot of time and resources into such an unimportant aspect of an expansion….

This is idiotic lol

I’m so with OP.
Sadly, this story is stupid, shallow and over-advertised.

Ranlares.2513:

SkiTz.4590:

If you want a good story, single player RPGs are that way ->

Seriously, go play witcher 3, its one of the best story telling and story progression in a game I’ve ever seen.

This is an MMORPG.

Most of the ppl didn’t buy it to play story mode…….

I certainly didn’t make this purchase and expected some amazing, grand story….CONTENT thats what makes and breaks MMORPG…..not story mode lol.

most ppl could care less if the story is disappointing……I for one am glad anet didn’t spend a lot of time and resources into such an unimportant aspect of an expansion….

This is idiotic lol

No, idiotic is what you people expected anet to do, which was spend a lot of time and resources into the story when in fact, its not the most important aspect of an MMORPG expansion….

some of you maybe well invested or care deeply about it…. but don’t call me idiotic when anet seemed to agree with me by not wasting too much resources/time into story….

disagree and bash me all you want, but anet is also saying “we’ll we don’t want to spend too much time and manpower into this part, we would rather focus our time and efforts in other areas of the expansion that is actually going to be played more than once”…..

Also did you ppl just forget about a thing called LIVING STORY?

That is the true STORY mode for this game, which will be continued and back on track in the near future…. not this nonsense personal story crap …

I thought it was epic.

And op needs to tone it down.

Besides, Faolame and Haithe are meh at best.

Yes, the HoT story was even worse than the Zhaitan story. Felt completly rushed. Glad I am not playing this game for story.

Perhaps it’s intended to only be a story stage setter. What if this content is essentially the prologue for living world season 3? What if Mordremoth’s death isn’t what we thing it is and we only thought he’s defeated. What if this entire storyline is meant to just give context to masteries so we can deal with what is about to happen? What if Mordremoth lives on in the corrupted Sylvari and instead of killing an single foe, we know have to defeat a race to truly defeat the dragon.

I’m not ready to give up on the story just yet.

Nah, I feel you skitz, they made a conscious decision to cliff note the story because:

1. We only play it once. There is no replayability except for masochists.
2. Everything that kids think is watered down, the devs don’t have to explain. Let our own imaginations wonder why Faolame turned from Caithe (which is explained by ‘there was never kitten, only the nightmare.) Good enough for the unobsessed I’d say.

This story was barely presented to us as an intractable out line. It is an absolute shame with how much potential we missed out on. Like, this story needed at least five more chapters after rata novus. The pale tree should’ve recovered by now after her fight with the dragon, and we should’ve gone to her to seek advice. There should’ve been more conflict with the other races and the pale tree, like some attempt to put her on lock down until mordy dies. The kitten “but wait if we kill mordy then the sylvari might all die, even the good ones!” Precedent should’ve been set (instead of it having like three lines of notice in the last instance.) We should’ve had forged a desperate alliance with the nightmare court and soundless. All the while we should be going back to novus to learn more about dragons AND the lost city. NOT “o hey the dragon can be killed!”. “OK let’s go kill him then!” And then you kill him with some last minute solution from Mr mcguffin.

Also because this is a visual medium, why is mordy choosing such a lame an potato-like visage in his own mind fight? He should be an absolute horror when forcing his image upon us. I didn’t feel like I was fighting the elder dragon’s mind. I felt like I was fighting his childhood imaginary friend.

I was hoping to get a lot more lore about the dragons and the jungle and what it means to be sylvari. But unfortunately the story seems to be very much concluded with little room for expansion.

zporter.1439:

Perhaps it’s intended to only be a story stage setter. What if this content is essentially the prologue for living world season 3? What if Mordremoth’s death isn’t what we thing it is and we only thought he’s defeated. What if this entire storyline is meant to just give context to masteries so we can deal with what is about to happen? What if Mordremoth lives on in the corrupted Sylvari and instead of killing an single foe, we know have to defeat a race to truly defeat the dragon.

I’m not ready to give up on the story just yet.

I thought Season 1 and 2 were prologues for HoT. I am tired of prologues and want the real content. 3 years of LS + expansion as prologue? I think I will be 100 years old before the game is complete then.

I’m positive I have never said I want to go talk to the Pale Tree.

I’d agree the story wasn’t too well paced, and was overall of low quality. I’m not mad about it, but some points just boggle my mind.
What was the point of killing off Eir? How did this serve to advance anything? Did she just draw the short end of the lot or what? I guess Braham became more docile? But was that really needed?
The part about discovering the dragons’ weakness. Again, a huge kitten -pull at the worst of times. Why couldn’t this have been discovered at Rata Novus by Taimi or Canach? Instead of the incredibly convenient extremely mentally exhausted Traherne? I get him dying – he was a huge part of The Pact, of Tyria’s fight against the dragons, a symbol, and above all – a sylvari, created originally to serve Mordremom, but again, why the kitten -pull weakness knowledge at that exact moment?
And finally Caithe – what the actual kitten? This was just so brushed over I don’t think anyone though about this part harder than an hour at most. So it was her wyld hunt, the way she betrayed us, her sneaking about everywhere, and finally you decide to 1) deny her her wyld hunt without shaking her emotions at all? 2) Make the player threaten her with “another one of these and I’ll put a sword through you” and then we’re back to being BFFs? She just wasn’t in the story and then suddenly is in every instance of it just like that?

A lot could have been made better simply by dividing the parts better.

Pretty much all of your problems with it are that the story didn’t go the way you imagined it would.

Ticky.5831:

Pretty much all of your problems with it are that the story didn’t go the way you imagined it would.

That’s absolutely not true and you know it.

I was really hyped at the point were Eir died, until I slowly realised that this was the top moment in the story (not because of logic, but because of the brutality and the surprise, which i really enjoyed). When i realised, like at Rata Novus, that the story is getting to an end, and waaaaaaaaay too rushed than i would have liked, i got dissappointed. The last third was just way to short, this whole story should have had at least 6 acts instead of 4.

eUnD.3156:

Ticky.5831:

Pretty much all of your problems with it are that the story didn’t go the way you imagined it would.

That’s absolutely not true and you know it.

I was really hyped at the point were Eir died, until I slowly realised that this was the top moment in the story (not because of logic, but because of the brutality and the surprise, which i really enjoyed). When i realised, like at Rata Novus, that the story is getting to an end, and waaaaaaaaay too rushed than i would have liked, i got dissappointed. The last third was just way to short, this whole story should have had at least 6 acts instead of 4.

Sorry to upset you…

TC followed most of his critiques with how they imagined the story should have gone. Did you actually read what they wrote?

As for length; the story was set with urgency. Your goal was to rescue Destiny’s Edge as fast as possible. In order to make the story longer, they would have had to rescue Destiny’s Edge a lot earlier; and introduced another arc, and in doing so bridge those arcs and the conclusion together.

I’m not a fan of stretching out a story for longer than it has to be. The brevity was at least appropriate to the subject matter.

With the taste of yours I suggest you take on another game or look at GW2 differently. Honestly, I feel great about the story. The atmosphere, the fight, the tension, the emotional moment… these are absolutely quality considering an MMORP not your AAA movies! As a rule of supple and demand, you satisfy your thirst elsewhere, or would you PAY Anet lavishly and encourage them instead???

What do you think has more weight to Anet employees? Incentives and encouragement or lament and criticism? Constructivism as in your post is good, I only dislike the blatant expression.

The story varies by opinion. To me it was ok, not great, not terrible but…ok. I’m more worried about the execution, specifically the last boss fight, which is full of bugs. Hopefully that gets fixed soon.

Ticky.5831:

eUnD.3156:

Ticky.5831:

Pretty much all of your problems with it are that the story didn’t go the way you imagined it would.

That’s absolutely not true and you know it.

I was really hyped at the point were Eir died, until I slowly realised that this was the top moment in the story (not because of logic, but because of the brutality and the surprise, which i really enjoyed). When i realised, like at Rata Novus, that the story is getting to an end, and waaaaaaaaay too rushed than i would have liked, i got dissappointed. The last third was just way to short, this whole story should have had at least 6 acts instead of 4.

Sorry to upset you…

TC followed most of his critiques with how they imagined the story should have gone. Did you actually read what they wrote?

As for length; the story was set with urgency. Your goal was to rescue Destiny’s Edge as fast as possible. In order to make the story longer, they would have had to rescue Destiny’s Edge a lot earlier; and introduced another arc, and in doing so bridge those arcs and the conclusion together.

I’m not a fan of stretching out a story for longer than it has to be. The brevity was at least appropriate to the subject matter.

“urgency” is just a lazy excuse for delivering less content

Malediktus.9250:

Ticky.5831:

eUnD.3156:

Ticky.5831:

Pretty much all of your problems with it are that the story didn’t go the way you imagined it would.

That’s absolutely not true and you know it.

I was really hyped at the point were Eir died, until I slowly realised that this was the top moment in the story (not because of logic, but because of the brutality and the surprise, which i really enjoyed). When i realised, like at Rata Novus, that the story is getting to an end, and waaaaaaaaay too rushed than i would have liked, i got dissappointed. The last third was just way to short, this whole story should have had at least 6 acts instead of 4.

Sorry to upset you…

TC followed most of his critiques with how they imagined the story should have gone. Did you actually read what they wrote?

As for length; the story was set with urgency. Your goal was to rescue Destiny’s Edge as fast as possible. In order to make the story longer, they would have had to rescue Destiny’s Edge a lot earlier; and introduced another arc, and in doing so bridge those arcs and the conclusion together.

I’m not a fan of stretching out a story for longer than it has to be. The brevity was at least appropriate to the subject matter.

“urgency” is just a lazy excuse for delivering less content

That is irrelevant to the quality of the story.

And I don’t agree with you that brevity is lazy either. Editing is much more arduous than just vomiting out pure word count.

Your “urgency” hurts the quality of the story. If it feels rushed and incomplete as if it would be lacking 2+ acts and an epilogue, the quality is maybe 4 out of 10 to me.

It feels rushed because you had presumed the length of the story.

Allow me to redirect you to a game designer’s post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Spoiler-HoT-Unsorted-Discussions

I do agree that it does seem rushed. The story could’ve settled into the lore that was taking place like exploring the Itzel/Nuhoch and their history/culture while helping them against the Mordrem, delving into the lore of the courtier and there difference from the Mordrem, studying more about Rata Novus and its eventual downfall (though there are scattered journals around).

However, there’s potential for more stories to be told in LS3, unless they just want to bring in the next elder dragon and we rush through them like Mordremoth. In my opinion, HoT is more like a conclusion whereas LS1/2 is basically the introduction and body.

guess i’m the only one who thinks HoT story was an improvement from the old content. I feel it’s a bit more epic now, maybe killing off too many characters put ppl off lol

Going into heart of thorns, story was my most anticipated feature. Unfortunately however, release proved it to be the most underwhelming. The story was too short and rushed; characters had meaningless deaths that did little to nothing to further the plot; and was filled with unexplained entrances, departures, and non-existent struggles that completely skipped over the promised lore.

Living Story Season 2 had only 8 chapters, but each chapter had roughly 4 instances, whereas the expansion had 16 chapters with only one instance per chapter, making LS S2(the prologue) over twice the size of HoT(which was to be the main story). And when the prologue is longer than the core story it’s leading up to, there’s a BIG problem. But not only that, the story felt rushed, if not for the mastery gating -no, even with- it could be completed in one day within a few hours. Rebuilding the pacts forces, forging alliances, pushing forward into dragon territory, facing setbacks, formulating a plan; it was all either rushed over or left out completely. We go from the pact all but being annihilated with no dragon weakness apparent, to strolling into the dragons place with no plan, to miraculously discovering how to defeat him in the last second. And then… nothing… no victory party, no funeral for Eir and Trahearn, no closing what-so-ever.

In a good story, characters should die to advance the plot, everything in a story is a building block, the characters influence the story’s development, and the story influences the characters development. Everything must happen for a reason, or it leaves the story stagnant and comes off as cheap and pointless… like Eir’s death. For what purpose did she die, how did her death change or impact the outcome of the story? It didn’t… she just… died. “Moving on.”

Advertised to have deep racial themes and subplot and noted numerous times to intensely explore the conflict between Sylvari, nightmare court, and Mordrem; in truth, it barely scratched the surface. Placing Faolin and killing her off in the same instance, and then bringing her back as Mordrem in the next -with little dialogue to show her intentions or purpose for even being there in the first place- in no way explored the tension that ANet promised to be present. In two instances what was stated to be explored deeply, was all but skipped over.

In conclusion, LS season 2 was a much deeper/longer/and more interesting story than the expansion…. and yet we got LS S2 for free, and paid $50 for the expansion… granted, I realize there was more to the expansion than story, but really??? Previous GW expansions -the Canthan and Elonian campaigns- were just as long as the core prophecy’s campaign; and GW2, which promises advancement in the realm of MMORPG, should at least be capable of giving us that much. I had sincerely believed their standard was rising for the better, but this isn’t progress… I liked the expansion, but they really dropped the ball on story.

I don’t know why anet tries to invest time and resources on the story part specially if they are not going to put effort on it, leave that to the RPG games. As an mmo player I rather see anet focus on other areas of the game.

tico.9814:

I don’t know why anet tries to invest time and resources on the story part specially if they are not going to put effort on it, leave that to the RPG games. As an mmo player I rather see anet focus on other areas of the game.

I disagree, while MMO’s are notorious for having horrible stories, it is also true that they cannot exist without a story, as it is the driving force for new maps, new enemies, skills, lvls and abilities. You cant even have events without story, as the content of an event helps to expand and flush out a story. The stories explain how the new maps come to be, and what the enemies we face are, even why you have to capture and hold an area.

Just imagine, you meet a random NPC, and they tell you, “Capture and hold this place from Mordrem.” You reply, “Why, are their civilians we have to escort out, troops to rescue, is this a base we have to establish?” “No, no reason, just, hold that point. Just kill.” It would honestly be boring as hell.

And why would we go into these new maps, just to run around and kill things? While GW2 doesnt have the best story by any means, I have always enjoyed playing it and replaying it. As it is honestly my favorite part of any game, and I am really excited about seeing the story develop and turn towards other dragons, other continents, and seeing what happens to my favorite characters. I truly enjoy GW2’s story, even if its not the best, which is why Im so sad to see this quality drop.

In terms of MMO stories:
GW2 core- good
LS S1- bad
LS S2-Great
HoT- okay

Totally agreed with OP.
He took my words about my view of the Expansion aswell.

It was greatly disappointing. World-building and story has always been one of GW2’s weak points granted, but here, things felt like they were jumping around too much and things that should have been more fleshed out (IE: Exalted, Rata Novus, etc.) were just rushed past…

I agree that the story could have been paced better, but I also note that the story was structured the way it was to give a sense of emergency. In other words, DE needed rescuing yesterday, Trahearne needs to be found right now, and we don’t have support, so what we have, we are stuck with and need to finish this fast.

Yes, there are parts which could have been fleshed out better, Rata Novus and the Exalted being prime examples. However, your character is also impatient to get the job over and done with.

Keep in mind, this is from lessons learned by Anet. They listen to fans, and the majority like their story to be in nice, digestible chunks. The original story was long due to having to encompass 80 levels of progression.

Now, I don’t mind the brevity of the Story. It keeps direction, your character keeps moving forward, and so forth. I admit it has flaws, but I can enjoy it for what it is. A quick run where time is working against you, and has a sense of urgency. There are no gradual advances culminating in a final showdown. There is your group barely holding on and grimly pressing forward because they are all there is between Mordremoth’s forces and the rest of Tyria.

Leohart.4610:

Allow me to redirect you to a game designer’s post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Spoiler-HoT-Unsorted-Discussions

I do agree that it does seem rushed. The story could’ve settled into the lore that was taking place like exploring the Itzel/Nuhoch and their history/culture while helping them against the Mordrem, delving into the lore of the courtier and there difference from the Mordrem, studying more about Rata Novus and its eventual downfall (though there are scattered journals around).

However, there’s potential for more stories to be told in LS3, unless they just want to bring in the next elder dragon and we rush through them like Mordremoth. In my opinion, HoT is more like a conclusion whereas LS1/2 is basically the introduction and body.

While I do understand the reason/need for the fast pacing to rescue Destiny’s Edge and Trehearn, I believe it was poor development choice to make that rush the core and entirety of the expansion. It would have fit better as the first arc, wherein we have to rush to rescue our comrades (locating them in the second, or even third map at the most), and then can transfer our attentions to the dragon; rebuilding pact forces, forming and strengthening alliances, researching our enemy with the help of Rata Nova, and pushing the fight to Mordremoth. That would allow them to more thoroughly develop and flush out the Exalted, Rata Nova, and Nightmare court involvement.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Going into heart of thorns, story was my most anticipated feature. Unfortunately however, release proved it to be the most underwhelming. The story was too short and rushed; characters had meaningless deaths that did little to nothing to further the plot; and was filled with unexplained entrances, departures, and non-existent struggles that completely skipped over the promised lore.

Living Story Season 2 had only 8 chapters, but each chapter had roughly 4 instances, whereas the expansion had 16 chapters with only one instance per chapter, making LS S2(the prologue) over twice the size of HoT(which was to be the main story). And when the prologue is longer than the core story it’s leading up to, there’s a BIG problem. But not only that, the story felt rushed, if not for the mastery gating -no, even with- it could be completed in one day within a few hours. Rebuilding the pacts forces, forging alliances, pushing forward into dragon territory, facing setbacks, formulating a plan; it was all either rushed over or left out completely. We go from the pact all but being annihilated with no dragon weakness apparent, to strolling into the dragons place with no plan, to miraculously discovering how to defeat him in the last second. And then… nothing… no victory party, no funeral for Eir and Trahearn, no closing what-so-ever.

In a good story, characters should die to advance the plot, everything in a story is a building block, the characters influence the story’s development, and the story influences the characters development. Everything must happen for a reason, or it leaves the story stagnant and comes off as cheap and pointless… like Eir’s death. For what purpose did she die, how did her death change or impact the outcome of the story? It didn’t… she just… died. “Moving on.”

Advertised to have deep racial themes and subplot and noted numerous times to intensely explore the conflict between Sylvari, nightmare court, and Mordrem; in truth, it barely scratched the surface. Placing Faolin and killing her off in the same instance, and then bringing her back as Mordrem in the next -with little dialogue to show her intentions or purpose for even being there in the first place- in no way explored the tension that ANet promised to be present. In two instances what was stated to be explored deeply, was all but skipped over.

In conclusion, LS season 2 was a much deeper/longer/and more interesting story than the expansion…. and yet we got LS S2 for free, and paid $50 for the expansion… granted, I realize there was more to the expansion than story, but really??? Previous GW expansions -the Canthan and Elonian campaigns- were just as long as the core prophecy’s campaign; and GW2, which promises advancement in the realm of MMORPG, should at least be capable of giving us that much. I had sincerely believed their standard was rising for the better, but this isn’t progress… I liked the expansion, but they really dropped the ball on story.

+1 on all of this. Quoting this post because it needs to be seen.

I am really dissapointed it all ended so rushed.

I agree with most of it. Mechanically and for enjoyment purposes I found the story to be good. Story wise… meh.

BUT! Dragging things out isn’t good either. if we look at the storyline of FF14 there is a LOT of fetching and FedEx quests with some of the biggest culprits being a Titan on the loose and the NPCs wetting their undergarnements because of it…. and we spend the next twenty or so quests fetching food for a feast, and convincing a crazy hermit to give us wine for said feast.

I honestly don’t care that much for stories but that part had me raging to my guild.

So the fact there is a sense of rushing and urgency isn’t bad. They could have taken the time to explore the new hylek, and perhaps soothe feathers between non sylvari and non turned sylvari, but in the background there would always be DE to rescue and Mordrem to stop while we’re playing ambassadors and diplomatics and archeologists over Rata Novus.

IF everything deserved a much larger expanding? Yes. We can hope the next installements of the story will go over these (how did RN fall? We know the chak were involved, but what happened to them? Did they die? Leave? Where did they leave if they did?).

The final fight was okay, but… like everyone has said. Caithe simple accepted back with two lines not to repeat it and Traherne in three seconds explaining the deus ex machina to kill the final boss and developing telepathy to pull non sylvari into the dream was just weak sauce.

I’m also not sure how I feel about having killed Mordrem so quickly. This kind of thing should be built and ended at the final stages of the expansion, six months or a year later after the expansion is released. The big bad being killed two days after coming out is bad pacing.

Of course I have no idea what the raids will be about, so we’re probably headed to our third dragon? Dunno.

Story was much better in gameplay, but felt very rushed.
In fact, it only had TWO more chapters more than the final arc of the original story.

I’m hoping a living story season will conclude the story properly, as well as give some new insight and additional content.

AWACS.6537:

Story was much better in gameplay, but felt very rushed.
In fact, it only had TWO more chapters more than the final arc of the original story.

I’m hoping a living story season will conclude the story properly, as well as give some new insight and additional content.

Considering the raid is dealing with bandits of all things, I can’t see the sylvari/Mordrem themes being explored in LS3 when it probably needs to start building toward X2, whatever that may be.

guys… the “story” is not limited to the 4-act story-instances. go do the content in the zones.

there are plenty of story arcs in the event chains in the zones that work in tandem with the story instances. for example: verdant brink is chock full of distrust of the sylvari, forging ahead with the itzel and Nuhoch, another event chain dedicated to the Pale Reavers, another dedicated to Nobles.

much more of the Exalted, Nuhoch, and Itzel story arcs will come available as you unlock more masteries.

the rush to rescue DE and fight Mordy is only the surface. you can explore the depth and nuance of those “side arcs”in the actual events in the zones.

and no, i did not address individual main character development. and no, i won’t discuss that so don’t bother calling me out for it. there is no law requiring me to respond to every single complaint that you make about anything.

Kanto.1659:

I agree with most of it. Mechanically and for enjoyment purposes I found the story to be good. Story wise… meh.

BUT! Dragging things out isn’t good either.
So the fact there is a sense of rushing and urgency isn’t bad. They could have taken the time to explore the new hylek, and perhaps soothe feathers between non sylvari and non turned sylvari, but in the background there would always be DE to rescue and Mordrem to stop while we’re playing ambassadors and diplomatics and archeologists over Rata Novus.

IF everything deserved a much larger expanding? Yes. We can hope the next installements of the story will go over these (how did RN fall? We know the chak were involved, but what happened to them? Did they die? Leave? Where did they leave if they did?).

I’m also not sure how I feel about having killed Mordrem so quickly. This kind of thing should be built and ended at the final stages of the expansion, six months or a year later after the expansion is released. The big bad being killed two days after coming out is bad pacing.

Of course I have no idea what the raids will be about, so we’re probably headed to our third dragon? Dunno.

I understand and agree with the need for the sense of urgency to rescue Destiny’s Edge and Treahearn, but I have a solution for that, one so simple and straightforward, I can’t believe no one at ANet thought of it. Make the story instance wherein we attempt and fail to rescue Eir, have ALL of Destinies Edge and Treahearn held prisoner there.

Then, with the fast paced rescue arc completed, the story can change gears and slow down a little to let the plot developed and thicken while we rebuild pact forces, find and strengthen new alliances, learn more about the dragon and it’s weakness, and advance pact forces deeper into the heart of mordremoth’s territory, culimating at a final show down. This would give adaquit time for a stronger, clearer story, and allow them to flesh out all the bits of lore about the nightmare court, rata nova, and the exalted.

Finding all of Destiny’s Edge at the same time/place would make it less likely for Eir to die you say? As her death was pointless in the first place, i see no problem with letting her live. At any rate, it doesn’t make sense for mordremoth to want to take high profile leaders to him and leave Eir, the leader of Destiny’s Edge, now does it?

Finding them all when we found Eir would be far too rushed for this arc? Also not a problem, either add more instances in verdant brink leading up to this encounter, or push the rescue further back into the second map, auric basin.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

guys… the “story” is not limited to the 4-act story-instances. go do the content in the zones.

there are plenty of story arcs in the event chains in the zones that work in tandem with the story instances. for example: verdant brink is chock full of distrust of the sylvari, forging ahead with the itzel and Nuhoch, another event chain dedicated to the Pale Reavers, another dedicated to Nobles.

much more of the Exalted, Nuhoch, and Itzel story arcs will come available as you unlock more masteries.

the rush to rescue DE and fight Mordy is only the surface. you can explore the depth and nuance of those “side arcs”in the actual events in the zones.

and no, i did not address individual main character development. and no, i won’t discuss that so don’t bother calling me out for it. there is no law requiring me to respond to every single complaint that you make about anything.

Even if you say the story is expanded through events, which to an extent is true, you don’t see those events in a linear order, some you don’t see at all, so they don’t mesh properly with the story. If these events were to properly contribute to the overall story, they should take out a page from LS S2, where they had a couple events that were mandatory to progress the story. That beautifully merged the story told in instances and events, and made sure we saw all the relevant content nessisary to get the full grasp of the story.

Furthermore, correct me if I am wrong, but there were no events about nightmare court, so once again, that impactfull lore they teased us about was skipped over.

Well it’s your choice to reply or not, just pointing out the flaws in your ‘the story is told through events’ arguement.

Wait.

So normally the whole “destroy their mind with a dream” thing would make me kittened as hell but for Sylvari it makes total sense.

I don’t understand how people can’t see how it makes sense in Sylvari terms.

I would say its lack of lore, but we all met the pale tree Sylvari or not.

I loved HoTs story. I consider myself picky and loved it.

I think alot of people don’t realize that alot of the unfinished thing (like glints egg) are going to be likely elaborated in a new living story which will likely be free content.

I was also disappointed with Eir’s death and agree it was pointless. Also insulting to her. No battle to the death as befits a norn. Just a constipated look and standing around for the most telegraphed attack in history.

As that rescue was happening, I thought Faolain (let’s just call her F) would team up with DE. It would be the uneasy-alliance trope, but that could be interesting.
But then she stabs Eir. Okay, that could work. I though Eir would die and F would tell the rest of the team she died bravely saving F’s life. Then F would join the team and work to undermine it from within. That could have been interesting.
But wait, Eir kills F. Okay, so it’s the I’m-taking-you-with-me trope. Fine. At least Eir will go out in a blaze of glory!
……oh……

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

I was also disappointed with Eir’s death and agree it was pointless. Also insulting to her. No battle to the death as befits a norn. Just a constipated look and standing around for the most telegraphed attack in history.

I agree with most everything you say here, including the ‘pointless’ and ‘insult’ part. But to be fair, while the attack was telegraphed, it’s not as if Eir didn’t see it coming, I believe ANets intent here was to show that she was so wounded by Faolin that she was going to die regardless (ie the constipated face was really her in tremendous pain/weakness), so she chose to face the attack head on and take it like a proud norn. The inability to display her expression/wound properly, is partly because of the graphics ANet uses for character faces, and partly because they were limited by the teen rating.

[Quote]
As that rescue was happening, I thought Faolain (let’s just call her F) would team up with DE. It would be the uneasy-alliance trope, but that could be interesting.
But then she stabs Eir. Okay, that could work. I though Eir would die and F would tell the rest of the team she died bravely saving F’s life. Then F would join the team and work to undermine it from within. That could have been interesting.
But wait, Eir kills F. Okay, so it’s the I’m-taking-you-with-me trope. Fine. At least Eir will go out in a blaze of glory!
……oh……
[/quote]

I thought the exact same, any one of those ways could have given her death impact and meaning and helped to carry the story forward. But as it was, she didn’t even pull off the take-you-with me trope, because Faolin later comes back as a mordrom. Completely pointless and the biggest possible insult to any character: killed off without even accomplishing anything for it.

Of all the obnoxious, juvenile, and melodramatic members of Destiny’s Edge to kill off, Eir was the least offensive. Zojja should have been number one on the “die an ignominious, screaming death” list.

Other than that, the story wasn’t perfect, but it was a strong improvement over the original personal story and LS1.

The story was interesting but they gave us half a word about each subject, they told is that we can expect a lot of tension between sylvari and others, 1st story mission was the ONLY thing where u trust or not a sylvari, they lied to is about the story, but the expansion is still cool

I enjoyed the story, it could have been better and fleshed out a bit more. Especially with the nightmare court, have us work with them and Faolain as we have hardly any pact soldiers left, have the nightmare court assaulted and faolain captured and had Eir trying to defend faolain and dying valiantly with faolain being taken.

My biggest thing was that faolain and the nightmare court could have played such a bigger role, maybe see Caithe actually getting through to her an Faolain lightening up a little before being taken and turned but overall I enjoyed the story non the less.

I really hope the next expansions they bring out they will give us more areas, although what we got made sense but I get this feeling that the next 4 dragons are going to be crammed into the Tyria map as well, not spread out over Cantha and Elona but maybe the Elder dragons are only the beginning and other forces are stirring in these other continents.

Looking forward to what will come of the ending.

The story bugged out for me on release day. Every time I hit a cutscene I crashed. I watched a few friends play through some of it so I get the idea a bit, but yep… this is pretty typical Anet story telling and over-hyping basically non-existent content claims.

Yep, nothing at all came up with Sylvari concerns after the very initial Verdant Brink debacle. Eir’s death was a given. I found that almost sealed the moment we saw her missing in the Betas. At one point in Dragon’s Stand I heard a disembodied voice say, “You are losing,” which was interesting, but that was all that I have encountered of the dreaded influence of Mordimoth on my mind.

Faolain’s death was a real blow to the story. I really don’t know what lead up to it, but the way it happened was just laughably bad. They spent all that money to get facial expressions on these characters just to blow it away for a trite meaningless act? I think all of the personal story really just says Anet’s throwing away Destiny’s Edge, Nightmare Court, and really all obligation to continue interacting with old content is being sacked. This probably is a demonstration of their ideas they’ve mentioned to keep people focused on the most currently released content. But ya, I felt no inspiration to go one with the personal story from what I’ve seen of it. I’m looking forward to it for whatever rewards it has and to see what hints of S3 is out there, but if I have no intention of playing it myself at all for a year at the very least.

I just hate how blatantly obvious Eir’s death was way back in LS2. When Braham and Eir began to patch things up that was a major red flag that Eir was going to die tragically before they could “go hunting together”. Then when the Dragonhunter was revealed it was again blatantly obvious that Eir was going to die so that Braham could take her longbow and become the first Dragonhunter. Then when Eir’s final cutscene started, all suspense was lost because it was a foregone conclusion that she wasn’t going to make it.

I can’t believe they “fridged” Eir just so Braham could get some emotional development. It also sucks that this is how they choose to kill off one of the most beloved characters. No chance for any Zojja/Eir resolution or for any Eir centred revenge against Kralkatorrik. I just bet they’ll bring her back Obi-kittenenobi style to give Braham some tips on defeating Jormag or something, when it should have been her leading the assault against that Dragon.

And where exactly is Garm?

So now we have many Human, Sylvari, Charr, even Asura major NPCs… and the Norn just have Braham. Seriously Braham? They had a brilliant Norn NPC in Eir who combined the best of Jora and Sif, yet they just wasted her.

It’s also incredibly disappointing that the Nightmare Court were rather minor players. If there was ever a time for them to do something big it was against Mordremoth. There could have been a really interesting dynamic with Faolain and the Nightmare Court, versus Malyck (the harbinger) and the Mordrem versus the heroes and the Pale Tree’s Sylvari, not to mention the rogue Caithe. There’s probably Sylvari fatigue but now is the only time to actually delve into this lore.

It’s just a shame that there are obvious NPCs with a target on their back while a select few are held in such regard that they are untouchable. Rytlock and Braham seem to be indestructible, yet Eir is dispensable? She’s far superior to Braham and an equal to Rytlock.

Sad to see Trahearne go but at least he got the hero’s death that Eir never got. Knifing someone in the back after being stabbed in the side isn’t fitting to even Caithe and she’s a thief.

I agree that the story was a massive letdown in many ways. I hope that it redeems itself with Mordremoth not actually being dead. Having an expansion called “Heart of Thorns” with Mordremoth dying on day 2 is like having Wrath of the Lich King with Arthas dying on day 2. It’s just a massive letdown and it feels like the story of the expansion has nowhere to go.

Aside from that the story was just filled with letdowns. Eir and Faolain die to some random mordrem for no reason that we kill with no effort seconds later. We go to Rata Novus to learn the amazing fruits of their research on killing elder dragons. What do we learn? Elder dragons have a weakness. Literally useless information that contributes nothing. Then we just go and bust into the center of Mordremoth where he practically commits suicide by letting Trahearne take us into his mind (why didn’t he just get rid of Trahearne a long time ago obvious weakness there) where we are stronger than him for no reason at all and somehow kill him by sucking blighted ghosts into rifts and turning them good (how the kitten does this even work and how do we know how to operate mind rifts??). The whole story feels incredibly contrived and bland. Mordremoth is like a Jojo villain where he has all the ability to easily win but just doesn’t for no reason other than the writer not wanting him to.

Gimli.9461:

Okay so I got to the final fight where you go into mordremoth mind or whatever arcane metaphysical thingy magic you thought of to explain away your inability to write stories.

Didn’t beat it, was doing it with a friend and we were doing fine but every time I’d get f’ed by that bug where my glider won’t open. But that’s not the point.

The point is => Do you write this aiming it at 5 year olds? You story is horrible. It’s beyond horrible. Your lore, while rich, within game is non-existant.
Pre-HOT you bragged on twitch how oh watch out for the sylvari conflict (racism, deep issues). Watch out for nightmare court and how they won’t follow mordremoth, and oh boy I expected some extensive story arcs there.

What happens? Oh look, step 1 => Eir dies, Faolain dies. Eir dies why? To give Bram a bow. So god kitten pointless! That removes that Eir-Zojja tension. You could have injured her and still given him the bow while she heals?
Faolain => way worse. Where’s my nightmare court story? Where’s the depth? Where’s Faolain/Caith etc interactions? Where’s other sylvari? How does this affect sylvari as a whole? Do some accept Mordremoth? Some turn to Nightmare? Some turn soundless? Where are small stories?
My biggest fear was I’ll kill mordremoth too soon, and you’ll just declare all sylvari are happy and innocent again. So you don’t have to write /create anything about it. Well looks like that fear’s been realized, unless there’s some bomb after I beat the boss? But even if there is, I’m guessing I won’t get any quality story until LS 3, and even then I’ll be highly skeptical about it.

Most importantly – WHERE ARE THE NPC’s I CAN TALK TO?
You replaced text with Dialogue, but there’s so little of dialogue that I find myself longing for old story ways. I liked old Tyria maps, now I love them. Because there’s just so many npc’s all over with their little day to day stories and you can read it and it’s glorious.

Not only is your story stupid (sorry, but it is), full of gaping holes, and shoddy (oh look Faolain dies, okay, now lets go thru the jungle, oh look Rata Novus lets find their research => oo tension (I’m really upset it’s not a city full of Azura we can talk to btw) => oh look Taimi’s character ‘growth’ (so badly done)? Oh look her golem dead, cry people (kill another thing => JRR Martin much?) Oh look dragons have weakness yay. Very anticlimactic. Oh look lets go rescue logan/zojja. WE gonna bash mordremoth yee! Who cares we don’t know how.

Oh look, we are here. How do we kill it? Oh wait Trahearn is sylvari! Oh wait ‘insert mindnumbing metalomagicalbobbligoodity here noone understands because it makes 0 sense) we think this ’ll work! Lets go try it! Oh look yay it works (except there’s bugs so you don’t kill the thing).

The hell?
I understand you rushed this xpack but seriously, fail. Big fail.

And guess what, I can solve this for you. Introduce LORE system (look at Wildstar lore system). Scatter Journals and pages around not with just 1 sentence in them, bug pages of text. That’s how you get short stories in . That’s how you get that lore in, that depth. You could have told bucket loads of stories about Faolain, her courtiers, Caithe, and god knows who else, just through big kitten stories scattered as journals. No cutscenes needed. Those who hate reading can ignore them. Those who love story and lore will enjoy it immensely and feel there’s some substance to this.

Progression through the jungle to kill the dragon => too fast, zero substance, minimal dialogue. Disappointing.

Actually, I find it quite ok. Better than the personal story. although I would love to have a longer story. And I find the Sylvari “different” storyline isn’t much, when many NPC still same the same thing to you no matter if you are Slyvari or other races. Where is the consistency with that, I would not know.