Guild Wars 2

Where did these people even come from? How did the PC end up even getting together with them and why didn’t I have a say in the matter?

I mean.. as the pact commander why is it I didn’t find some really awesome soldiers from the pact to pal around with instead of these randos? It doesn’t make any sense to me that I decided to start adventuring with a crippled kid, the one and only private eye in the world, a random noble, and some random norn.

I had no connection to these people, no reason to join up with them. I mean as the pact commander you’d think I’d get to know some of the people I’m actually, you know, commanding… but.. nope!

I mean.. who in their right mind would allow a crippled little girl to go gallivanting along with you regardless of how brilliant she is or how powerful her golem suit seems to be? Like am I the most irresponsible person in the world or something? Come on!

Just my thoughts on these people.. they all feel very shoehorned in. And I don’t wanna hear about external literature or other stuff like that. I’ve always firmly believed that if you can’t do the story in game then it isn’t good enough for any part or consequence of it to actually be in the the game and nothing is going to convince me otherwise on that point.

I’ve been here since the game released, killed Zhaitan, fought the flame…ground.. legion.. the toxic alliance.. and somewhere between the mole-ten alliance.. that was the one, right? And the end of Scarlet these.. people.. just appeared and I have no idea why or where from and some time between them appearing and HoT I’m their leader?

I mean.. I missed a couple episodes at the beginning of HoT and just before it ’cause I took a bit of a break.. but did me and DE 2.0 become so chummy in such a short amount of time? And why do I NEVER actually feel like the Pact commander?

Like, that’s a whole other tangent, but.. I don’t feel like the second in command of a multi-national military organization. I only give orders on small scale, I’m always the one saving everyone, I never take other soldiers with me, coordinate troop movements, or ANYTHING… But, that really isn’t the point here, so.. I won’t get much more into that.

So, yeah. What are your thoughts on DE 2.0? Do you think it’s a good idea taking a crippled girl around the worth with you, despite her glorified prosthetic? I mean.. the devs even show at one point that she is, indeed, still just a kid. She selfishly runs off with her “oh-so-great” magical invention and risks both herself and the invention due to a childish outburst.

Who thought putting a child in that sort of situation would be a good idea? /smh

These things all happened during the Living Story Season 1. It’s a shame that people can’t play that. Rox and Braham were introduced to us via the early living story when an alliance of Dredge and Flame legion known as the molten alliance, started combining technologies to create new weapons. Charr and Norn were both affected due to their proxitimity to the Molten Alliance.

We were introduced to Marjorie through Logan Thackery who himself couldn’t investigate a murder in LA because he had no authority there, and it would have chilled the relationship between Kryta and Lion’s Arch (which is run by the council of captains and is an independent city). A member of the Captain’s Council had been murdered during the Dragon Bash event, and we were asked to help out. Marjorie and Kasmeer both helped us solve that murder.

We got involved with Taimi because she was an expert on Scarlet Brier. She had spend her years as a progeny studying Scarlet, who was our enemy. No one knew more about Scarlet. So she was useful. She’s since proved her use in many ways.

The fact that you can’t replay that stuff, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, unfortunately.

Scarlet was the worse of them all, though.

Smart or not, there’s no reason she should have been able to do what she did. How in the world did she have enough time to find enough metal to build those gigantic machines?

To be honest, I didn’t care for the original Destiny’s Edge much. Only Rytlock. With DE 2.0 I like Taimi (best character in gw2) and Majory. So I’d say Anet have improved in that regard.

Someone linked me to this one a while back, it’s a youtube movie recap of entire LS1 with all movie clips and stuff, so you can find out what happened. Considering I was completely ignoring the LS back then (and still kinda is), it was nice to figure out who all these weirdos was, and why the heck they’re stalking me. Still doesn’t explain why they’re out of the asylum.

Lahmia.2193:

To be honest, I didn’t care for the original Destiny’s Edge much. Only Rytlock. With DE 2.0 I like Taimi (best character in gw2) and Majory. So I’d say Anet have improved in that regard.

I like Rytlock and I like Taimi, liked Eir and Braham

Ah, thanks for the reminders Vayne.

I had totally forgotten about all that. Guess I didn’t think they were important enough to remember at the time.

And I only just realized I had no idea where they came from or how I knew them until today when I realized that I was traipsing around with these randos instead of Pact Soldiers.. which would only make sense.

Like you’d think I’d have the A-Team of the Pact.. but then, on that note… Why does it seem like the Pact doesn’t actually have any soldiers that know what they’re doing?

Like… How did we even kill Zhaitan?

I know, I know.. Airships.

Yet, on that note, why was our strategy for defeating Mortie to just.. FIRE RANDOMLY INTO THE JUNGLE?

Like.. who seriously thought that would work and why wasn’t I briefed on this strategy so I could tell them “Yeah, that’s not gonna work?”

I mean.. we’re not in the Federation here, we don’t have phasers and quantum torpedoes.. we have cannons.. and there were massive massive trees in the way of this dragon whom was known to be under the ground.

I feel like if I had been teamed up with Pact people and had taken a more proactive role in the pact instead of just being thought of as “the emergency stuff doer” that things would have gone.. a lot less… bad.

I legitimately feel like me joining up with these random people is actively hindering my ability to be anything other than the “hero of the hour.” That it actively hurts my reputation with the Pact soldiers and their morale, since I apparently would rather group up with a bunch of non-soldier civilians than with my own soldiers.

About that. Said civilians all feel very…

Special for the sake of being special, especially the super smart crippled kid that is allowed to go on mega-dangerous adventures.

trianglecubed.3750:

Ah, thanks for the reminders Vayne.

I had totally forgotten about all that. Guess I didn’t think they were important enough to remember at the time.

And I only just realized I had no idea where they came from or how I knew them until today when I realized that I was traipsing around with these randos instead of Pact Soldiers.. which would only make sense.

Like you’d think I’d have the A-Team of the Pact.. but then, on that note… Why does it seem like the Pact doesn’t actually have any soldiers that know what they’re doing?

Like… How did we even kill Zhaitan?

I know, I know.. Airships.

Yet, on that note, why was our strategy for defeating Mortie to just.. FIRE RANDOMLY INTO THE JUNGLE?

Like.. who seriously thought that would work and why wasn’t I briefed on this strategy so I could tell them “Yeah, that’s not gonna work?”

I mean.. we’re not in the Federation here, we don’t have phasers and quantum torpedoes.. we have cannons.. and there were massive massive trees in the way of this dragon whom was known to be under the ground.

I feel like if I had been teamed up with Pact people and had taken a more proactive role in the pact instead of just being thought of as “the emergency stuff doer” that things would have gone.. a lot less… bad.

I legitimately feel like me joining up with these random people is actively hindering my ability to be anything other than the “hero of the hour.” That it actively hurts my reputation with the Pact soldiers and their morale, since I apparently would rather group up with a bunch of non-soldier civilians than with my own soldiers.

About that. Said civilians all feel very…

Special for the sake of being special, especially the super smart crippled kid that is allowed to go on mega-dangerous adventures.

Zhaitan was different than Mordremoth. First of all, for Zhaitan, we had already starved him, partially blinded him, and taken away his ability to make more undead in the story. And Trahearne was an expert on Orr. No one knew anything about Mordremoth. It was a complete unknown.

The other part of the Zhaitan equation isn’t airships. It was one very specific weapon, an anti-dragon magic ray developed by Professor Gor. If you don’t do that specific Asuran story you might not know about it (actually there are two stories with Gor) but we spent 10 levels of the personal story just weakening Zhaitan before we ever faced it, and then we had the technology made by Gor.

But Mordremoth controlled the jungle and the fleet never got near him.

There are smart people in the pact, but even smart people try to repeat stuff that worked the first time.

Vayne.8563:

trianglecubed.3750:

Ah, thanks for the reminders Vayne.

I had totally forgotten about all that. Guess I didn’t think they were important enough to remember at the time.

And I only just realized I had no idea where they came from or how I knew them until today when I realized that I was traipsing around with these randos instead of Pact Soldiers.. which would only make sense.

Like you’d think I’d have the A-Team of the Pact.. but then, on that note… Why does it seem like the Pact doesn’t actually have any soldiers that know what they’re doing?

Like… How did we even kill Zhaitan?

I know, I know.. Airships.

Yet, on that note, why was our strategy for defeating Mortie to just.. FIRE RANDOMLY INTO THE JUNGLE?

Like.. who seriously thought that would work and why wasn’t I briefed on this strategy so I could tell them “Yeah, that’s not gonna work?”

I mean.. we’re not in the Federation here, we don’t have phasers and quantum torpedoes.. we have cannons.. and there were massive massive trees in the way of this dragon whom was known to be under the ground.

I feel like if I had been teamed up with Pact people and had taken a more proactive role in the pact instead of just being thought of as “the emergency stuff doer” that things would have gone.. a lot less… bad.

I legitimately feel like me joining up with these random people is actively hindering my ability to be anything other than the “hero of the hour.” That it actively hurts my reputation with the Pact soldiers and their morale, since I apparently would rather group up with a bunch of non-soldier civilians than with my own soldiers.

About that. Said civilians all feel very…

Special for the sake of being special, especially the super smart crippled kid that is allowed to go on mega-dangerous adventures.

Zhaitan was different than Mordremoth. First of all, for Zhaitan, we had already starved him, partially blinded him, and taken away his ability to make more undead in the story. And Trahearne was an expert on Orr. No one knew anything about Mordremoth. It was a complete unknown.

The other part of the Zhaitan equation isn’t airships. It was one very specific weapon, an anti-dragon magic ray developed by Professor Gor. If you don’t do that specific Asuran story you might not know about it (actually there are two stories with Gor) but we spent 10 levels of the personal story just weakening Zhaitan before we ever faced it, and then we had the technology made by Gor.

But Mordremoth controlled the jungle and the fleet never got near him.

There are smart people in the pact, but even smart people try to repeat stuff that worked the first time.

You mention doing what worked last time.

Why didn’t we?

You say it yourself, we did a ton of stuff before confronting Zhaitan. So why didn’t we do a ton of stuff before going after Mortie? Surely we should have actively tried to do the same things we did with Zhaitan, starve it, blind it, etc, etc. Why did we just go in cannons blazing and expect something to happen in our favor?

It doesn’t make sense. We had made virtually no preparations. I mean we had one dragon already awake and were able to do everything we did to it.. so surely having another one wake up wasn’t a huge deal if we could just go through and cripple it all over again.

The only thing we did is make a weak foothold and do our best to push in, darn the consequences, as if we were some nervous teen guy after prom.

So little sense. Why did any of the military professionals agree with this course of action considering what it took to actually take down Zhaitan?

trianglecubed.3750:

Vayne.8563:

trianglecubed.3750:

Ah, thanks for the reminders Vayne.

I had totally forgotten about all that. Guess I didn’t think they were important enough to remember at the time.

And I only just realized I had no idea where they came from or how I knew them until today when I realized that I was traipsing around with these randos instead of Pact Soldiers.. which would only make sense.

Like you’d think I’d have the A-Team of the Pact.. but then, on that note… Why does it seem like the Pact doesn’t actually have any soldiers that know what they’re doing?

Like… How did we even kill Zhaitan?

I know, I know.. Airships.

Yet, on that note, why was our strategy for defeating Mortie to just.. FIRE RANDOMLY INTO THE JUNGLE?

Like.. who seriously thought that would work and why wasn’t I briefed on this strategy so I could tell them “Yeah, that’s not gonna work?”

I mean.. we’re not in the Federation here, we don’t have phasers and quantum torpedoes.. we have cannons.. and there were massive massive trees in the way of this dragon whom was known to be under the ground.

I feel like if I had been teamed up with Pact people and had taken a more proactive role in the pact instead of just being thought of as “the emergency stuff doer” that things would have gone.. a lot less… bad.

I legitimately feel like me joining up with these random people is actively hindering my ability to be anything other than the “hero of the hour.” That it actively hurts my reputation with the Pact soldiers and their morale, since I apparently would rather group up with a bunch of non-soldier civilians than with my own soldiers.

About that. Said civilians all feel very…

Special for the sake of being special, especially the super smart crippled kid that is allowed to go on mega-dangerous adventures.

Zhaitan was different than Mordremoth. First of all, for Zhaitan, we had already starved him, partially blinded him, and taken away his ability to make more undead in the story. And Trahearne was an expert on Orr. No one knew anything about Mordremoth. It was a complete unknown.

The other part of the Zhaitan equation isn’t airships. It was one very specific weapon, an anti-dragon magic ray developed by Professor Gor. If you don’t do that specific Asuran story you might not know about it (actually there are two stories with Gor) but we spent 10 levels of the personal story just weakening Zhaitan before we ever faced it, and then we had the technology made by Gor.

But Mordremoth controlled the jungle and the fleet never got near him.

There are smart people in the pact, but even smart people try to repeat stuff that worked the first time.

You mention doing what worked last time.

Why didn’t we?

You say it yourself, we did a ton of stuff before confronting Zhaitan. So why didn’t we do a ton of stuff before going after Mortie? Surely we should have actively tried to do the same things we did with Zhaitan, starve it, blind it, etc, etc. Why did we just go in cannons blazing and expect something to happen in our favor?

It doesn’t make sense. We had made virtually no preparations. I mean we had one dragon already awake and were able to do everything we did to it.. so surely having another one wake up wasn’t a huge deal if we could just go through and cripple it all over again.

The only thing we did is make a weak foothold and do our best to push in, darn the consequences, as if we were some nervous teen guy after prom.

So little sense. Why did any of the military professionals agree with this course of action considering what it took to actually take down Zhaitan?

I think that the big difference was that he just awoke. Because of this, he is going into minion making like crazy, and they hoped to weaken him early by destroying the blighting trees, his minion making factories.Trahearn mentions this in one story at least, if my memory serves me right. Plus they had no reason to believe that a plant elder Dragon could take out a fleet of air ships, or that 1/5 (roughly) of their troops would turn on them.

Narcemus.1348:

I think that the big difference was that he just awoke. Because of this, he is going into minion making like crazy, and they hoped to weaken him early by destroying the blighting trees, his minion making factories.Trahearn mentions this in one story at least, if my memory serves me right. Plus they had no reason to believe that a plant elder Dragon could take out a fleet of air ships, or that 1/5 (roughly) of their troops would turn on them.

I agree with this analysis. Trahearne was trying to strike while the iron was hot – when the dragon was weak. They didn’t have the advantages they had against Zhaitan, and they couldn’t for a long time. Time was working against the Pact, and Mordy was already spreading fast into other Tyrian lands.

Also, the Pact commander is working with DE 2.0 because s/he felt s/he was better at being in an independent, small group than leading an army. Think about it. You always were in a small frontal assault as the Pact Commander – that was your thing. The planning was always done by Trahearne and the Order leaders. It wasn’t the Pact Commander’s job – s/he led the charge.

trianglecubed.3750:

You mention doing what worked last time.

Why didn’t we?

You say it yourself, we did a ton of stuff before confronting Zhaitan. So why didn’t we do a ton of stuff before going after Mortie? Surely we should have actively tried to do the same things we did with Zhaitan, starve it, blind it, etc, etc. Why did we just go in cannons blazing and expect something to happen in our favor?

It doesn’t make sense. We had made virtually no preparations. I mean we had one dragon already awake and were able to do everything we did to it.. so surely having another one wake up wasn’t a huge deal if we could just go through and cripple it all over again.

The only thing we did is make a weak foothold and do our best to push in, darn the consequences, as if we were some nervous teen guy after prom.

So little sense. Why did any of the military professionals agree with this course of action considering what it took to actually take down Zhaitan?

In short: because Mordremoth just woke up.

Zhaitan had 100 years to build up an army, corrupt the land around him, and obtain magical power (aka food). Mordremoth had a few months.

The Pact’s plan against Zhaitan was to strip it of its resources, then assault it using magic-poisoning weaponry (aka “does to corruption what corruption does to others”).

The Pact’s plan against Mordremoth was to assault it before it could get resources, using magic-poisoning weaponry. Trahearne outright states this in Season 2:

Trahearne: Primordus has been awake for over two hundred years. Jormag for nearly as long. They both did great damage at first, sending out their minions. This is the stage where Mordremoth is now.
PC: The minions. I get it. You want to slow down its production of minions.
Trahearne: Yes. Slow down, or if we get lucky, stop it entirely. Now, before its corruption spreads too far and wide.

What the Pact didn’t seem to realize or know, was that Mordremoth already got those resources they were hoping to prevent it from obtaining.

Thanks to Scarlet, he got a magical power boost – but no one in universe knew this (players, of course, did). And unknown to all until the point it happened, Mordremoth had already created Blighting Trees to spawn armies and had the sylvari ready to turn against the Pact.

TL;DR

The Pact made a false conclusion based on incomplete information that they didn’t know was incomplete.

EDIT: As for the “fire randomly” bit – the Pact didn’t know Mordremoth (or his minions’) exact location, so they assaulted the general vicinity where they knew the mordrem were at, in hopes of drawing out the exact locations – or so my understanding is.

azureai.9764:

Also, the Pact commander is working with DE 2.0 because s/he felt s/he was better at being in an independent, small group than leading an army. Think about it. You always were in a small frontal assault as the Pact Commander – that was your thing. The planning was always done by Trahearne and the Order leaders. It wasn’t the Pact Commander’s job – s/he led the charge.

I can understand everything else except this part. Why DE 2.0. Why not, like I said earlier, the “A-team” of the pact? Why is it these random civvies? Wouldn’t it raise morale to see that the commander trusted the pact and its training to at least some extent, even if they operated more or less outside the pact?

It just doesn’t seem right to take these civvies, including a crippled kid, up against all these mega-threats and into all these high-danger environs when there’s got to be at least one “commando squad” or some “A-team” of soldiers that would have worked out better than civvies, right?

During Season 1, the Pact Commander was not working with the Pact but instead doing freelance adventuring (effectively), which is where he met biconics. Some of Season 1 was us doing work for our Orders, while other parts was doing work for DE, while still others was doing work for the Lionguard.

It would have been fully irresponsible for the Commander to take members of the Pact with him to do stuff that was fully unrelated to Pact activities.

Season 2 started much the same – the Commander wasn’t on official Pact business, but investigating rumors fowarded to them by E (just as the biconics were).

By the end of Season 2, all of the Pact that wasn’t on other fronts (e.g., Frostgorge, Orr, Dragonbrand) or crucial for defense against Mordremoth (remained at Camp Resolve) was on the Fleet, including any A-Team of the Pact (which would, technically, be Destiny’s Edge).

Heart of Thorns was basically the Commander with his non-Pact team looking for his Pact A-Team.

As far as I was concerned after I became leader, Edit: sorry “commander,” of the Pact I was working with/for the pact the entire time. If it was investigating something that might pertain to an elder dragon OR to the continued peace between peoples which made the Pact possible, which it almost always was in some way or another, it was Pact business.

Anything before us becoming the commander we didn’t have people to pal around with anyway. We were solo.

Yet doing stuff to fight off dragon minions, help the pact’s allies stay protected, or simply helping a renown adventuring guild, in this case DE, is hardly out of the purview of pact ideas, especially since all the actions were focused on figuring out how to find some sort of edge /against/ the Elder Dragons that’s all within stuff the Pact can focus on.

And the start of Season 2 we were alone, we weren’t traveling with DE 2.0 at that time, either. Yet once it became obvious that it was a dragon-based multi-“national” threat then it was Pact business and the Commander could have started taking some commandos or the like along.

Finally DE wasn’t really part of the pact officially, they were just an adventurer’s guild which ultimately decided to help the Pact.

And at the end of S2 if the commander had been traveling with a squad of soldiers since the beginning it only makes sense that they’d have been assigned to the commander at that point, thus not on the fronts, crucial for defense, or on the fleet.

The commander is kind of like the special forces person of the Pact, they work with and for the benefit of the Pact because they’re a part of it, but they generally aren’t on the front lines, they’re working other angles to try to make sure they get ahead of the elder dragons or stop threats before they arise.

The commander would still be this with pact forces, but they wouldn’t be dragging crippled kids and untrained civilians into the mix if they were, which would, overall, just be FAR more responsible a thing to do as such an important military and political figure.

trianglecubed.3750:

Yet doing stuff to fight off dragon minions, help the pact’s allies stay protected, or simply helping a renown adventuring guild, in this case DE, is hardly out of the purview of pact ideas

The “Pact ideas” is one thing and one thing only: Kill Elder Dragons.

Not helping the defenseless. Not supporting politics. And not killing terrorists. (Note: This was all that S1 was about, effectively).

If it has no involvement with dragons, the Pact don’t care. Because they were formed as a coalition of groups for the sole purpose of fighting dragons – the groups that make up the Pact could (and did and do) send other members not tied to the Pact to deal with other tasks.

And nowhere in Season 1 are we (knowingly) fighting dragon minions.

So we were indeed working out of the purview of the Pact. We were not, however, working out of the purview of those who make up the Pact – namely, the three Orders and the five nations. And they did send us support… namely in the form of the biconics and a few more that came and went.

And when we learned that we are, indeed, fighting the Elder Dragons (namely, Mordremoth), we get the Pact’s attention and bring them in (mid-S2).

trianglecubed.3750:

And the start of Season 2 we were alone, we weren’t traveling with DE 2.0 at that time, either. Yet once it became obvious that it was a dragon-based multi-“national” threat then it was Pact business and the Commander could have started taking some commandos or the like along.

Yes, we were traveling with the biconics.

The very first mission has us meeting up with them. We don’t just randomly find them, we’re randevousing with them.

The prelude to Season 2 – Festival of the Four Winds – even has every biconic talking about wanting to investigate the ‘roar’ heard at the end of Season 1, and what Scarlet had set in motion – that is what we’re doing when we head to Tangled Root at the very beginning of Season 2.

trianglecubed.3750:

Finally DE wasn’t really part of the pact officially, they were just an adventurer’s guild which ultimately decided to help the Pact.

They were in Season 2 and HoT. They weren’t in the personal story because they hadn’t formally reunited. But via the events of the dungeon story mode, they do reunite, just in time for the final assault in Zhaitan – it is then that they formally join the Pact.

If they were not formally part of the Pact, they would have no place in Camp Resolve during the events of Season 2.

trianglecubed.3750:

And at the end of S2 if the commander had been traveling with a squad of soldiers since the beginning it only makes sense that they’d have been assigned to the commander at that point, thus not on the fronts, crucial for defense, or on the fleet.

The Commander has been, technically, traveling with a squad of trusted fighters.

The biconics.

(Rox and Marjory both have formal military training; Canach and Braham both have informal combat training; and Kasmeer and Taimi both have first hand battle experience via fighting Scarlet).

Again, the Pact had 0 involvement at the beginning of the story, and by the time they did the Commander had the very sensitive subject of Glint’s egg to deal with. Why would the Commander 1) take forces away from the Pact when they’re needed most, 2) trust unknowns with said sensitive subjects (when said unknowns could view the egg as a threat to destroy – the entire reason the egg was kept secret in the first place), and 3) take people of unknown capabilities with them?

Plus, look at this from a narrative viewpoint: would you in the middle of a story toss out all of your cast but the main character, just to bring in brand new characters? Unless the removal was a plot central point (they all die, for example, or turncoat), you wouldn’t. In most stories where an group goes from adventuring to war, they do not disband but face the war together. Even when only one was part of the army.

They didn’t have to be new characters, though. The last chapters of the Personal Story had already established a set of highly skilled Pact operatives that we worked well with. I don’t mind the biconics, but I do think that Zrii, Afanen, Carys, Octavian, and Jeyne would’ve made a better fit, and I would’ve been more interested in fleshing out existing characters than having new ones pitched at me. As members of the individual orders (Carys excepted), they could have had as much reason as Braham or Rox to be involved in Flame and Frost, and just giving a little more hint that there was a power behind the Molten Alliance could’ve provided a thread for them to pursue all the way through S1 and into S2. Their preexisting working relationship with other characters also could’ve brought some of the other favorites from the personal story into the plot as appropriate- Snarl, Galina, Elli, Laranthir. Vivian could’ve filled the scholar role.

Most of the biconics are enjoyable, nuanced characters, but playing through S2 again, it struck me that all the work put into them still hasn’t gotten past the problem of the terminal disconnect from the preceding story, exactly what you’re saying doesn’t make sense narratively. I don’t agree with most of triangle’s points, but where that group is concerned, I do think ArenaNet missed a better opportunity.

If they were kept around for Season 1, sure, though the story method ArenaNet was aiming for – that Season 1 and Personal Story were both happening “now” – kind of prevented such. They only firmly established that Season 1 was post-Zhaitan with Season 2.

Though all of those choices probably wouldn’t have worked since you don’t meet them all in any singular playthrough… unless you’re a sylvari Vigil who did Act with Wisdom or Vigil who did Apatia fear.

Which I think was part of the problem: the NPCs from the Personal Story were too varied in who you ended up meeting. You’re only guaranteed to meet DE, Trahaerne, Snarl, Galina, Vivian, and Gorr no matter your choice. And they couldn’t bring in DE’s voice actors on a regular basis, while it wouldn’t make sense for Trahearne to triapsying about doing random things.

I think it would have been nice if we met up with early PS characters such as Quinn or the warband, but again: too varied, ergo too many voice actors to bring in regularly or resulting in the same effect as just bringing in brand new characters for most players.

From a developer’s standpoint, the best ideal for the situation was to find a small group of voice actors who could show up regularly, and either bring back or make up characters for such – they chose to make characters. Of course, such isn’t so important now since it’s bimonthly rather than biweekly updates.

I wouldn’t say it was the same as bringing in brand new characters. After all, every paid account comes with five slots, and while I’d hazard the majority of the community didn’t have five 80’s that first February, once they did they’d likely have met most if not all of the above.

Even if they hadn’t, other players had, and that could have encouraged story discussion and speculation and an interest in playing through unseen branches of the personal story. At worst, it’d be no more jarring than Rox and Braham; at best, it would’ve been much preferable.

The timeline shenanigans would have been a pain to play around, but it wouldn’t rule things out. Like I said, excepting Carys (whose connection to Tegwen would realistically disqualify her in the no-spoiler limbo) and Jeyne (who could’ve been replaced with Tenstrikes), my list are all members of their individual orders, and could’ve been sent into Flame and Frost in that capacity. It would’ve worked the same way that we ended up getting anyway- give the Pact and your position as Commander a nod if you’d gotten that far in the story, and ignore it if you hadn’t.

EDIT: As for overly specific characters, Faren proves they at least toyed with the idea in the past. I think the issue was less that they were worried that the player base wouldn’t recognize them, and more that, given how disconnected S1 was in general to everything they’d done before, with new story elements, factions, and characters at every turn, they couldn’t find places where it made sense for their original cast to tie in.

The thing is, it’s time for war again. We had our fun with the kiddies, but none of these people are emotionally or physically prepared for this war. They helped bring down a Scooby Doo villain AFTER the villain had won. They couldn’t even keep tabs on Scarlet, this insane salad that was massing all these resources to build these utterly ridiculous doomsday devices.

It was fun while it lasted, not nearly fighting a war against Dragon-levels of stress, but with Mortie out and about it’s time to drop the kids off to daycare and get with some real soldiers again, people who aren’t emotional wrecks that have the training and skill to not weigh the PC down when the four out of the five of them get downed by a single Vinetooth.

Or when one of them has a hissy-fit and almost gets herself killed by Inquest, or.. well.. you get it.

The fact that we even have the kid with us should be legitimately criminal if it already isn’t. She’s a crippled child and we’re just somehow OK bringing her along? WHAT?!

The fact of the matter is these five have had their time in the limelight, it’s time for other people, perhaps compelling characters from before that are real soldiers, to step up. This season should not have been all about the Scooby Doo gang. Frankly WE, as the PC, are just too important and too good to be fighting a WAR with these four slightly skilled adults and one CHILD.

While I will give you that, sure, maybe they did have their place and time and we weren’t really working on Pact things, that time is OVER. It was OVER the moment that the Scooby Doo gang failed to stop Scarlet. It was over when Mortie made himself known to the world.

They should never have gone with us and their role should have stopped well before now, but, at least, it should most definitely stop now. They do not belong here, we do not belong with them, and right now we, the player, are playing the role of Scrappy Doo, the six person in the ol’ Mystery Machine. The one that simply does not belong with these street-level crime fighters.

Yet the game is about us, it follows us, our movements, our actions, whether we’re the main character or not that’s how it goes, so it’s time to shift the light onto other characters. It’s time for the player character to move to greener pastures, to ditch “DE 2.0” and get together with some actual soldiers to do some soldierin’ and fight this WAR.

Really, these “biconics” kitten many are calling them for some bizarre reason (they literally have nothing to do with what biconic actually means,) are done. DE 2 is over, these civilians should go back to their day jobs and let the pact, actual soldiers, and myself handle this war.

These people had their own goals, their own lives to live, and yet, for some unknown reason, they’re still here.. with us.. getting into situations they can’t handle that we have to constantly bail them out of. The fact that they’re all alive still is literally just plot armor, they should be dead, they can’t handle this war, they simply aren’t good enough to be with us on our /real/ journies to fight our /real/ fight.

trianglecubed.3750:

It just doesn’t seem right to take these civvies, including a crippled kid, up against all these mega-threats and into all these high-danger environs when there’s got to be at least one “commando squad” or some “A-team” of soldiers that would have worked out better than civvies, right?

I cede this point. It would make more sense that the Commander would grab a necro and mesmer from Whispers, a ranger and engineer from the Priory, and a guardian from the Vigil.

But the main character clearly likes working with kitten s. kitten s that die and/or get entirely forgotten. That’s the main’s entire history.