Guild Wars 2

So, episode 3 starts today, lets get the discussion going

Obviously spoiler

Beware, i feel like a lot i will be writing will sound harsh, but believe me, i am mostly positive in my opinion

- Kasmeer gets pushed in the center again as the unvailer of the nightmare tower

- taimi is back to school… What about the whole Mordremoth etc.? urgency please…

- So Majory is just away for a short while… what was the point then… (well, we will see)

- The pale tree knew about Mordremoth since the roar… How about giving us a call?
Then the pale tree does not know how far it spreads… so she is only aware of his awakening and nothing more? Is her Mordremoth sense tingeling?

- So a summit now? I know that we have talked about it, but how about getting the pact more involved first. You know, the fighting force designed to fight eldar dragons?
I know it is urgent, but this Season beginns to feel like a rushed job…

- Is Mordrem the short form of Mordremoth, or do they use it to name it`s minions only. I feel like they use it for both

Will edit further later

Suspended due buggy questline… give me my flamethrower -_-

I spoke to her as a Sylvari and she said a lot more about Mordremoth than she was aware that he awakened. She confirmed the theories that Sylvari would be highly susceptible to his corruption if not for her protection.

Edit: Just went back and spoke to her on my human. She doesn’t mention the Sylvari corruption issue at all unless you’re Sylvari it seems.

The audience with the Pale Tree left me feeling like my PC is holding the idiot ball. I am one of the founding members of the Pact, formerly one of the highest ranking members of the Pact and arguably one of the most connected people in Tyria (YMMV depending on your suspension of disbelief). It’s not clear that Mordremoth is the threat and diplomacy seems to be the current mission, yet for some reasons I’m standing around like a moron with the biconics and not waypointing to speak with Trahearne.

The whole premise here was so sloppy – the audience with the Pale Tree was done via Kasmeer (despite it not making sense) because there isn’t a single biconic from the sylvari race (it even happens if your PC is sylvari). Now instead of taking the Elder Dragon information and going to the most logical place (the Pact – surely they have diplomatic channels and protocols for this exact scenario) we are pandering to the biconics again.

I felt like totally useless. You just click, and click and click.
The Pale Tree asks for my opinion, only one possible answer. Taimi sends you a letter ? You tell Kasmeer about it.

Rox is going to try to convince Rytlock. Yet, if Taimi doesn’t succeed in convincing Zojja, I’m the one who is supposed to go convince her because we’re “friends”. If Zojja is my friend, so is Rytlock.

And what the hell is the point of a summit ? The orders and now the Pact are in charge of fighting the dragons. That’s their mission, and up to now, they have one success.

And while I don’t generally criticize the voice acting, I can’t recall the particular line of the warden when he expressed surprised, but it made me laugh.

Eir’s voice actress sounded like she wasn’t really interested, or was half asleep. It was quite a contrast with the voice actor doing the voice of Braham.

It’s also a bit sloppy how all of a sudden there’s a magic crown that is conveniently split in 4 parts, and that some how helps us break the curse.

The conversation with the Pale Tree was bizarre. My guardian companion noted how the pale Tree wasn’t really being much help to us. Either she’s deliberately with holding information, or she just couldn’t be bothered to really help out.

I’m just happy the Pale Tree remembers meeting me before, and that her warden assistant remembers I was with Caithe killing a dragon . . .

so i’m stuck right after the pale tree conversation because bugs will be bugs.

but something about the tone of the instance with the pale tree felt very… unnatural. like, i felt like i was reading fanfic, or expanded universe, rather than a continuation of what we had in vanilla GW2. i don’t even know how to explain it, it’s just the way the characters (namely the pale tree) were written felt really odd to me.

also seriously, that was extremely useless.

PC: “so, i saw the eternal alchemy”
pale tree: “don’t do that!”
PC: “also, dragons everywhere”
pale tree: “that sucks”
PC: “we were kinda hoping you’d help us figure things out”
pale tree: “we’ll hold a summit! it has to be here though, because i’m a tree, i can’t exactly walk to divinity’s reach”
PC:“you sure you don’t have anything important to tell us? like a big revelation? anything?”
pale tree: “i think your friend is calling for you”
PC:" but—"
pale tree: “GO FORTH, FRIEND OF TRAHEARNE”

also, zojja barely knows me >.>

RedStar.4218:

And while I don’t generally criticize the voice acting, I can’t recall the particular line of the warden when he expressed surprised, but it made me laugh.

it was “(gasp) oh no!” and i laughed too :P

BrunoBRS.5178:

i felt like i was reading fanfic

This is how I’ve felt the entirety of Season 2 thus far.

Honestly, the writing is very amateur – Season 1 was probably as bad, maybe worse, but the poor writing was at least partially hidden by the fact that the mechanics in telling the story and delivering the writing was so mismatched and chaotic. Now we see that they tried new things, it didn’t work, so they’re going back to the previous establishment (Personal Story instances) with a hint of even older stuff (repeatable missions ala GW1), but this just shows how poor the writing is now.

As Season 2 progresses, I’m finding myself less and less interested in continuing. Only the completionist in me, the me that detests not completing something, is keeping me slugging along by this point. And probably will until I feel the story has become as bad as Twilight – the one and only story I ever put down before finishing without intention of picking it back up later.

While I can sit back and say not every episode is going to be good or as good as the previous, given that I’m stuck in Iron Marches during the first of the meta events, I do feel this was very pointless. There was all this interest in meeting the Pale Tree but she didn’t really give us any information. In fact, only if you’re a Sylvari, does she remark how “without me you would be susceptible to the dragon’s corruption.” Episode 2 had made it sound like it would be very important to meet the Pale Tree and here we are… with nothing really to leave with.

I didn’t expect a plethora of answers mind you but at the same time I wasn’t expecting filler text that gave us nothing new to speculate with. Nor did we get any real answers that we didn’t already know.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

BrunoBRS.5178:

i felt like i was reading fanfic

This is how I’ve felt the entirety of Season 2 thus far.

Honestly, the writing is very amateur – Season 1 was probably as bad, maybe worse, but the poor writing was at least partially hidden by the fact that the mechanics in telling the story and delivering the writing was so mismatched and chaotic. Now we see that they tried new things, it didn’t work, so they’re going back to the previous establishment (Personal Story instances) with a hint of even older stuff (repeatable missions ala GW1), but this just shows how poor the writing is now.

As Season 2 progresses, I’m finding myself less and less interested in continuing. Only the completionist in me, the me that detests not completing something, is keeping me slugging along by this point. And probably will until I feel the story has become as bad as Twilight – the one and only story I ever put down before finishing without intention of picking it back up later.

i wouldn’t go that far, but the writing does feel inconsistent. at times it’s interesting, or at least entertaining, and at times it feels a bit stiff and forced.

and then there are times it straight up sounds like fan fiction, like every dialogue related to the pale tree this season. i just wish i had a better way to describe this off-putting feeling i get from certain bits of dialogue.

Some of the writing in the previous episode was pretty solid. I liked the funny dialogues between Taimi, Rox and Braham. But the dialogues in this episode are wooden, stiff, and very poorly written. The Pale Tree conversation was weird. Really weird and unnatural.

A majority of the storywriting in the previous updates were passable, some parts downright good, but there were still obvious and amateur mistakes in each update. The third just has a lot more. Either way, my major issues of this update:

• The Pale Tree knew of Mordremoth’s awakening, yet told no one about it.
• In Iron Marches, after completing the events you tell a charr they’d need an army to eradicate the Mordrem, his response? “Just how I like my vegetables-dead.” Not only does this make zero sense as a response, but he said this to a sylvari…
• Eir says to go wipe out the Sons of Svanir camp alone, but the step is an open world meta – which requires the presence of NPCs, including a new one. This ignoring the zerg of players. Then Eir and Braham show up in an instance, implying they fought behind us… despite everything being dead. I did like Braham’s voice acting though. Kudos.
• When Rox and Rytlock talk about the Mordrem threat, Rytlock says in response to hearing them burrowing underground that “then the Shiverpeaks will block it.” And the player says they’ll just come through the Field of Ruins. This is despite the fact that Iron Marches is practically overrun with Mordrem. They’ve already come through the Shiverpeaks and we know that and as Tribune, Rytlock should to!
• Mordremoth is continuously referred to as “the greatest threat” that we must tackle first. But he’s only attacked select targets – mind you utterly destroying them – each having magical artifacts (krait obelisk shards, the caravan passing through Concordia, and artifacts in a Priory caravan in Iron Marches that they refuse – openly stating such – to explain what they’re transporting). This is no more dangerous than Primordus, in my view, making Jormag who’s clearly gained strength (as the Sons of Svanir have become more active, per the purpose of Eir’s request) and has been pushing south for the past century and a half.

The crown being required for the ritual is a nice twist on the “rightful heir of Ascalon” rumor, but breaking into four pieces feels a bit contrived. I’d rather they’d have had us do the Ascalon City meta to search the city ruins for the crown or something. Closer to the Barrowstead event chain that got turned into a meta.

I get the feeling the Pale Tree is up to something.
She refuses to give straight answers and she insists on gathering all of the major leaders on her home-turf.

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/401762/the-true-story-behind-thanksgiving

On the plus side, I wouldn’t mind riding Natalie Portman’s wormhole.

lordkrall.7241:

I get the feeling the Pale Tree is up to something.
She refuses to give straight answers and she insists on gathering all of the major leaders on her home-turf.

I do agree with this. After the little talk with mother tree I was certain that she didn’t want to tell me everything, for reasons unknown. It felt uncomfortable to talk with her. On the other hand, I was surprised to see some references to our past accomplishments, that was actually really nice to experience.

It took some time, but I really felt the awkwardness between Eir and Braham. It made me chuckle a bit, and I hope it will take some more time before all is well between those two. The events to get Norn support were a bit of a mismatch, but it didn’t bother me much. That’s just what you get on the first crowded days. I think it will feel palpitating with less people around.

That Rytlock didn’t know about the veins in Iron Marches was awkward, and somewhat troublesome for me to digest. The final cut scene however gave me a little grasp, like omg what is happening now?!

I agree Konig. And what was the deal with Whitebear being tied up with the Sons of Svanir? That camp is not really a fortress is it? We ran in there with about 4 people, no defenses to block us what so ever, used the crystal and instantly shattered it, and it was done in just a few seconds. Is this the huge problem that was keeping Whitebear from attending the summit? If so, can we vote for a new Norn leader?

Well… Rytlock is officially written out of the story now. For at least awhile anyway. He’s off to go on some wacky adventures in the Mists I guess.

As for the writing, I would definitely consider it a bit subpar, especially when judging it against the previous two episodes. I guess this has something to do with the different development teams they have working on the LS. The differences between the two groups, if that’s what happening, was a bit jarring to say the least.

My one huge critique of this episode was the seemingly total lack of urgency. The episode was about this huge threat to the entirety of Tyria slowly expanding over the land, and the dialogue, to me, didn’t really reflect that at all. That, as well as the events needed to complete the different parts, seemed to read more along the lines of “a calm stroll in the park” on the urgency scale.

• It’s nice for the Pale Tree to host the summit, even though she is obviously holding a lot secrets. Secrets that could have helped a lot of people if her actually put the information forward. I certainly hope she shared some of that information with at least Trahearne. You know, her trusted son, leader of the allied forces that deals with these sorts of things?

• Asuran bureaucracy I can understand, and its horribly sad that I have to agree with Phlunt of all people. Two weeks!? I know they are trying to sync it up with real time, but my character didn’t seem to bat an eyelash at that. Two weeks was enough time for Mordy to cross most of Tyria and ripe apart two forts, and add two weeks more, he seems to be doing a hostile invasion of the Iron Marches now. Two weeks is a long time, and my character should be deeply frustrated when hearing that.

• No human part at all.

• The Norn segment can probably be summed up with, “Let me and my son have an awkward off-screen family moment while you’re off to do a meta. It’s ok. There’s no rush.”
• The first part of the Charr segment read the same. Rytlock supposedly poured all this time into researching how to break the curse, yet he couldn’t seem to be bothered to finalize it by finding the last parts of the crown. While I didn’t mind going out to do the events, I don’t really think they belong as parts of the main story that way. Running up and looting a rubble pile, which I did for Bria’s part since it finished before I got there, isn’t all that heroic.

• I liked the second part, other than maybe the finale. Rytlock getting basically written off was foreseen by a couple people in the forums already, so it wasn’t that big of a surprise, but the acceptance on Rox and Smodur’s part was a bit off putting. Rytlock just flung himself who knows where into the Mists, and they just kinda accepted the whole situation without too many hard feelings. For all we know, he could have got dropped into a volcano fractual, getting torn apart by steam creatures, or maybe he got dropped into a reality where matter doesn’t exist. Because in the Mist, anything is possible!

In the end, my character has to twiddle his thumbs for two weeks canon time waiting for Taimi’s device and the summit to begin. All the while, Mordremoth is expanding at a fast rate, and it’s literally tearing up the countryside and killing who knows how many people…

On a side note, how many people want to bet Rytlock is somehow going to wind up in the Underworld? Because I can see them pulling Rurik’s ghost back to have a “touching” reunion with his father and possibly end the curse.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’m just happy the Pale Tree remembers meeting me before, and that her warden assistant remembers I was with Caithe killing a dragon . . .

This is what I mean by token recognition of the PC’s past. Yes it is mentioned in passing that we did some pretty big stuff two years ago, but it’s just “oh yeah, that happened and you were there shrug”. It’s another case of tell and not show.

It’s especially obvious here because the first instance is built off of Kasmeer securing us an audience with the Pale Tree. If the Pale Tree remembers me, if the Warden recognises me and my deeds, why in the Underworld am I using Kasmeer as my diplomatic channel to the Pale Tree?

This exact problem is repeated with the biconics throughout the rest of the release. I have personally worked with Eir in the past, we have a good relationship. I’ve also worked with Forgal, taken down an Elder Dragon and saved the norn from the Molten Alliance. I was actually vaguely interested in Eir and Braham’s story for a while now, but this was a very contrived way of going over it. If Mordremoth is such a threat, as a member of the Pact and close acquaintance/friend of Destiny’s Edge the path to assembling the racial leaders taken simply doesn’t make sense. It comes off as contrived simply to pander to the biconic’s role in the story. I still don’t know why I didn’t contact Trahearne and go through Pact channels to access the racial leaders (or at least Destiny’s Edge). Using Rox to contact Rytlock to contact Smodur was also silly. My main is a charr, so I have a good relationship with Rytlock. Even if I wasn’t charr, everyone has a relationship with him via the Personal Story – why use a charr who is on bad terms with him when the message is so important? Why not use our own stronger relationship (which Rytlock even recognises) to access him? Rox was pointless in this release.

Eir is probably my favourite member of Destiny’s Edge and I enjoyed seeing her again, but it felt like whoever was writing her didn’t really know what to do with her. She just came off as bland, it seemed like she was just there to give Braham something to talk at and act as a little exposition for why we can’t see Knut yet. She was a shadow of her former self. The Pale Tree was worse imo, she didn’t seem to be a racial leader – the scene with her felt like I was the one with the most authority and I was calling all the shots. She obviously knows a bit about what’s going on but it felt like I breezed in and took charge… of the Pale Tree.

The Ascalonian crown to solve the Foefire curse was one of the most obvious executions of deus ex machina I have ever seen. “Oh you know that curse that has been a huge pain in our kitten I found a book that told me how to lift it, there’s this crown that wasn’t mentioned before that can conveniently be assembled by a series of fetch quests utilising existing events”. Bria is actually one of my favourite DEs in the game and I wanted to know more about her situation, but this was just lame.

Finally, I think Mordremoth’s introduction and campaign is being poorly handled. First we have the mess with magically knowing his name, now our characters are going on about how Mordremoth is the greatest threat but that conclusion feels like it comes out of nowhere. Zhaitan raised a sunken content and corrupted the dead, Jormag killed several norn spirits and displaced several races including the norn, also corrupting them, Kralktatorrik corrupted a huge brand in the landscape as part of his morning stroll, who knows what Primordius and the DSD are up to? From what I’ve seen, I have to agree with Konig – it wasn’t established that Mordremoth is the biggest threat to Tyria. We say that to the Pale Tree, yet at the time all it had done was destroy two forts and some waypoints. Even when you include Mordremoth’s incursion into the Iron Marches, it’s still not clearly established that he is some great threat. This is another case of telling us and not showing us (it’s also subjective I guess). Given the context of what Elder Dragons have done in the past, I personally don’t think Mordremoth has been convincingly established as Tyria’s biggest threat.

It’s a shame. The last two releases were pretty good (barring a couple issues, primarily the Mordremoth knowledge one) and the trailer for this release was probably the most interesting one they’ve had yet, but the actual release itself felt terrible.

@Shiren. Thank you.

having finally played through the whole thing…

• the pale tree scene felt extremely underwhelming. we learn nothing, we do nothing, and the dialogue felt really weird there.

• taimi’s segment made the whole waypoint in lore thing more digestible to me, for some reason. i guess having a cranky, capitalist asura more worried about saving his waypoints so he can keep charging for them than he cares about the fate of the world is fun.

• Eir felt a bit like padding, though her actress was no more half-asleep than she was at launch. i thought the awkwardness between her and braham was delightful :P and whitebear has to be the most dense norn ever. every time we hear about him, it sounds like he’s covering his ears and pretending everything’s ok, if we just focus on sons of svanir nothing bad will happen.

• rytlock being unaware of the troubles in iron marches, and the player not mentioning it to him, reeks of a rewrite. this is the third chapter in a row where some big oversight goes live. they really need a new proofreader, like someone that’s kept in the dark until they come up with the final script for the episode.

• the crown was a bit of a maguffin, but at least it was one that made sense. the whole “the curse had been designed thousands of years ago” part raised more questions though. being broken in 4 parts was obviously made to pad out the episode a bit. i liked how hesitant my human character was to give the crown to rytlock, and pretty much forced him to promise he’d return it to me so i can give it to my race. i especially liked how catastrophically wrong the foefire ritual went, him being a charr and all.

• i’m actually excited to meet trahearne again next episode. it makes that whole summit make sense.

still think mordremoth’s name being common sense all of a sudden is a bit of a slap in the face. and since they already made the player magically know the name via his “pact contacts”, then i’d think all those leaders with no pact contacts at all should be briefed in, instead of being “yeah, him, i know”.

oh and Konig, him being the largest threat is pretty obvious. it’s clear he can attack anyone, anytime, regardless of how far he is. he has pretty much the whole waypoint network held hostage (for now), and he has unleashed attacks as far as ascalon, stopping by the shiverpeaks and kryta along the way. yes, localized attacks, but due to his very nature (pun unintended), the attacks can be unpredictable.

he’s like an army of shadow arts thieves roaming tyria to gank NPCs and backcap important places.

Each time a dragon woke up, it did something incredibly huge and terrible.

More than a few months after waking up, all Mordremoth has done is destroy a few forts and kill a few dozen of people. That’s not big.

RedStar.4218:

Each time a dragon woke up, it did something incredibly huge and terrible.

More than a few months after waking up, all Mordremoth has done is destroy a few forts and kill a few dozen of people. That’s not big.

Do not confuse in-game time with real-world time.

For all we know it has only been two weeks since the defeat of Scarlet.

I hate the awkward and cliche interactions between Brahm/Eir at the end of their storyline. They make it sound like they are a couple but it’s a mother/son relationship darnit.

Enough with the “yeah..” or “so yeaahh” or “umm”.
Very cliche, we don’t need that junk here.

lordkrall.7241:

RedStar.4218:

Each time a dragon woke up, it did something incredibly huge and terrible.

More than a few months after waking up, all Mordremoth has done is destroy a few forts and kill a few dozen of people. That’s not big.

Do not confuse in-game time with real-world time.

For all we know it has only been two weeks since the defeat of Scarlet.

Except that, wasn’t one of their excuse of changing the game calendar to fit with the real world calendar so they could established the time line more easily ? And we’ve already had examples of the 2 week span been mentioned in-game.

Plus, between Scarlet’s Death and now, we had the Zephyrite festival which didn’t last one day. Then they had to travel all the way to Dry Top and get shot down. Followed by us investigating and the meeting with the Pale Tree didn’t happen one or two day after us seeing the Eternal Alchemy.

I completely admit that time doesn’t pass as fast in game than in real life. But it’s been more than a few days since Mordremoth woke up. And unlike the other ED, its taking its sweet time to do something devastating.

lordkrall.7241:

RedStar.4218:

Each time a dragon woke up, it did something incredibly huge and terrible.

More than a few months after waking up, all Mordremoth has done is destroy a few forts and kill a few dozen of people. That’s not big.

Do not confuse in-game time with real-world time.

For all we know it has only been two weeks since the defeat of Scarlet.

they went through the trouble of syncing the calendar to disprove that kind of argument.

BrunoBRS.5178:

they went through the trouble of syncing the calendar to disprove that kind of argument.

And yet it would seem like the difference between Attack on Lion’s Arch and Retaking Lion’s Arch was just a day or so at most. Despite it being several weeks in real-time.

I know they used that argument for the changing of the calendar system, but I don’t think that proves that everything happens in real-time.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• The Pale Tree knew of Mordremoth’s awakening, yet told no one about it.

I can kind of see why, perhaps out of cautions because she didn’t want more Scarlet x Aerin cases. My issue was that in how it was delivered, we literally got nothing out of her and while I didn’t expect her to reveal everything – I wanted more hints. Rather than the simple, “Yes, I know what Mordremoth is.”

Well that’s great Pale Tree, we know you know – we used the machine you seem quite familiar with. Surely you’d know we know that you know… Miss Know-It-All…..>.>

• Mordremoth is continuously referred to as “the greatest threat” that we must tackle first. But he’s only attacked select targets – mind you utterly destroying them – each having magical artifacts (krait obelisk shards, the caravan passing through Concordia, and artifacts in a Priory caravan in Iron Marches that they refuse – openly stating such – to explain what they’re transporting). This is no more dangerous than Primordus, in my view, making Jormag who’s clearly gained strength (as the Sons of Svanir have become more active, per the purpose of Eir’s request) and has been pushing south for the past century and a half.

This is something that I’m struggling hard with in trying to suspend disbelief. I can see that Mordremoth would be a threat but I just find myself looking to the evidence of others and kind of tilting my head. Granted, the Icebrood and Branded have been squared off while Mordremoth is crossing territories in a stealth-like fashion. That to me doesn’t make him anymore serious than Jor, Kral, or Prim – just more crafty. Maybe the characters however feel confident in the others secluding themselves so they immediately look to Mord who is actively trying to break the pattern.

It has me worried as to what they’re going to do with the others or DSD….

What I did like: The atmosphere and looks of the new events, more charr and norn content never hurts.

Didn’t like the story line: No explanation why Mordremoth is the biggest threat, we simply need to take it for granted. Sure if they explained Mordremoth could disrupt organisation by preventing way point usage or is influencing multiple regions, I could have bought into that, but they did not explain anything at all. As a direct result from this the norn and charr also were quite easily persuaded to join the cause. The charr part to me felt the most reasonable and I enjoyed experiencing this part of the story. Could have made the game play a little bit more interesting though.

They could have gone a much better routes altogether, like first assessing the true threat, try to convince the norn and charr, and subsequently deal a significant blow to the threats both the norns and chars face( it just felt so short and rushed). Hell they could even have attacked the sons of svanir while making it look like it was mordremoths doing, effectively setting the minions up against eachother. Overall the norn and charr parts just felt to rushed.

Secondly, The main character has been in the same devise as scarlet ( just recently passed), yet nobody raises an eyebrow or cracks a joke about the mental state of the personal character. Sure they ask, you feeling fine boss? Or the pale tree mentions something like: The device could fry your brain, yet everybody treats the character like nothing happened.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I agree Konig. And what was the deal with Whitebear being tied up with the Sons of Svanir? That camp is not really a fortress is it? We ran in there with about 4 people, no defenses to block us what so ever, used the crystal and instantly shattered it, and it was done in just a few seconds. Is this the huge problem that was keeping Whitebear from attending the summit? If so, can we vote for a new Norn leader?

Actually, yes it is a fortress. The Burrowstead is one of the Sons of Svanir’s two largest outposts – the other being Svanir’s Dome. It’s said by one of the NPCs near one of the two outposts. It isn’t shown very well in-game given how easy it is for even a single person to wipe the floor with the entire area, especially Burrowstead as it’s always been a solo event chain, but our PCs are epic so shrug.

Shiren.9532:

The Ascalonian crown to solve the Foefire curse was one of the most obvious executions of deus ex machina I have ever seen. “Oh you know that curse that has been a huge pain in our kitten I found a book that told me how to lift it, there’s this crown that wasn’t mentioned before that can conveniently be assembled by a series of fetch quests utilising existing events”. Bria is actually one of my favourite DEs in the game and I wanted to know more about her situation, but this was just lame.

How it was presented was certainly at least borderline dues ex machina, however I felt that it was a nice explanation of the rumor that a “true heir of Ascalon” is needed to break the curse.

Probably would have preferred a “Blood of Doric” kind of thing required instead though.

having read what the pale tree says to sylvari PCs…

come on. i know sylvaris would get extra fluff, but it feels like most of the things i’d expect to hear from her are exclusive to a single race :/

After speaking to the pale tree, I felt like she should’ve been the one to tell us the name of the dragon. If we had gone through all of the Scarlet stuff and not learned the name then the name should’ve come from the Pale Tree.

Okay, i have still not finished through it, but I can really understand all your sentiments, since this is something i somehow expected from this episode (thanks to a bug i was unable to continue, will do so tommorow when i have time)

However, this Season 2`s writing feels more and more like a checklist they are ticking off.

It all sounds like: "And then they go after the roar, the roar is Mordremoth, then they find one of Scarlets lair and a ley line and then they find the big machine of omadd. the PC goes 2001: A Space Odysee. Oh and Belinda dies, since Majory is too kitten and is upstaging the PC, then Mordremoth attacks the Charr,.. but no, we cannot use the pact. We allready did combine the orders, lets go bigger.. Lets go and combine all greater races… yeah that will be the task to fight the next eldar dragon…

Seriously… do they know no pacing? The whole thing rushes through plotpoints like my Great Sword 1 pew pew through enemy lines… (Mesmer naturally, though i never use a GS).
I know we said Season 1 was to slow, but you do not have to go into overdrive now…

They are hyping us with trailers and possible mysteries, only to shrug them off in the next minute.

They jump through the story, skipping very important parts, like a jackrabbit only to push from one “epic” part to the next.

While the art direction and overall event design is great, the writing so far is hard to justify.

There are a lot of things, that you have allready said.
At this point i wish even the biconics gone completly, since I feel they are holding the PC back, then actually helping him (Though the pale tree said that we will do greater things then with Destiny`s Edge… Well nope, i thankfully decline that).

They established that everything happens after we are basicly a seasoned dragon fighting veteran and they still thread us and the whole world as stupid uncaring people…

I do not know, i just feel frustrated at the moment.
Maybe just because S2E1 was great and now the whole thing crumbled in just two episodes and now they are doing a mid season break, which measn we only got three episodes left?

While i do not expect the writers to say anything in that regard (they are only human after all and they have enough on their table allready), i just hope they really take all the crictic here and do something with it.
I mean it becomes hard to keep invested…

what happened to voice acting of my character(or all toons) some of npcs got voice acting during LS story like the warden or those asura during taimi story, i know voice acting cost that is why they can reduce voice acting of npcs and give voice to my character back like personal story stuff at least she/he can say somethings here and there.

on the subject of getting all 5 races to join forces and dedicate all their effort to a single cause in a pretty world peace VS aliens scenario… what will be the tension once mordremoth is dead? why can’t this super mega force just eliminate all of tyria’s problems, one at a time?

BrunoBRS.5178:

having read what the pale tree says to sylvari PCs…

come on. i know sylvaris would get extra fluff, but it feels like most of the things i’d expect to hear from her are exclusive to a single race :/

I’m hoping they redeem this by having her go into more detail during the Summit. That would make up for it and I’d be ok but as it were, yes – the player, if belonging to another race, ends up getting shafted.

Ronin.7381:

BrunoBRS.5178:

having read what the pale tree says to sylvari PCs…

come on. i know sylvaris would get extra fluff, but it feels like most of the things i’d expect to hear from her are exclusive to a single race :/

I’m hoping they redeem this by having her go into more detail during the Summit. That would make up for it and I’d be ok but as it were, yes – the player, if belonging to another race, ends up getting shafted.

How would you react if it turned out we were duped by an imposter seeking to kill off all of Tyria’s rulers in one fell swoop?

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Ronin.7381:

BrunoBRS.5178:

having read what the pale tree says to sylvari PCs…

come on. i know sylvaris would get extra fluff, but it feels like most of the things i’d expect to hear from her are exclusive to a single race :/

I’m hoping they redeem this by having her go into more detail during the Summit. That would make up for it and I’d be ok but as it were, yes – the player, if belonging to another race, ends up getting shafted.

How would you react if it turned out we were duped by an imposter seeking to kill off all of Tyria’s rulers in one fell swoop?

would you drop that already? it isn’t happening.

and it’s *impostor

Didn’t want to make a new thread and haven’t seen it being mentioned elsewhere (thank you, useless search function), but what does everyone think about the dialogue when Rox spits and Rytlock mentions she’s done that since she was a cub (paraphrasing here)?

Eluveitie.1290:

Didn’t want to make a new thread and haven’t seen it being mentioned elsewhere (thank you, useless search function), but what does everyone think about the dialogue when Rox spits and Rytlock mentions she’s done that since she was a cub (paraphrasing here)?

it’s not what you’re implying. she’s not his daughter.

she’s been shown as superticious (and doing that weird spit ring thing) forever now. it’s not unlikely that her superior is aware of that.

In the original ending of Season 1, it was revealed that Rox and Rytlock are half-sisters. This seems like that is still true, even if not revealed. Rytlock and Rox talk a lot about knowing each other for a long time, throughout the final step.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In the original ending of Season 1, it was revealed that Rox and Rytlock are half-sisters. This seems like that is still true, even if not revealed. Rytlock and Rox talk a lot about knowing each other for a long time, throughout the final step.

*siblings

if rytlock is someone’s sister, he has some serious issues :P

Yeah, this entire episode was rushed filler compared to the level of quality on the last two episodes. It still feels like the Pale Tree is keeping so much information away from us; especially when she did her checking of what we knew compared to herself. I really don’t like that idea at this point because it’s like someone else pointed out: it feels like someone has the idiot ball here. Either the Pale Tree is acting ignorant on purpose about her knowledge of Mordremoth or it’s really poor writing. I am hoping the next episode she does reveal some more information on Mordremoth before things get worse. Otherwise there is going to be more angst against the Sylvari. For keeping vital information away from the people that need it.

The other portions of us getting the leaders together is in the writers eye’s an excuse based on that it technically never happened during the PS. The leaders of the 5 major races of Tyria don’t seem to back the Pact, because of their own personal issues. If they do then it must be in a verily arbitrary way.

Now thinking for a moment on Trahearne mail. I still have this feeling that Trahearne is going to introduce a new character that will replace him for every dragon we fight. Basically there is other experts on each of the Elder Dragons that have been brought onto the pact themselves. As a matter of fact I believe we probably might be meet “E” in the next episode. Of course that’s my speculation on what might happen next. Also if “E” turns out to be another Sylvari then I beg of the writers not to screw up “E” with another bad personalty defect. It’s not cute or unique it’s just obnoxious.

On one final note I know that Captain Kiel is extremely busy, but should someone from the Captain Council be invited to this little shindig just for the sake of some representation?

if any captain was to be invited, it would be magnus. kiel is the rookie captain, magnus is the head of the lionguard. though i’d expect a “temporary decline” since LA is still licking its wounds, grossly undermanned and underpopulated.

Well you have to remember Arena Nets writing technique “out with old in with the new even if it’s terribly executed.” Hence why I asked about Kiel, because it would be predictable for Magnus to tell her to go due to that hindsight.

lion’s arch doesn’t work under a single ruler. a majority of the captains would have to elect a representative, and i don’t think the council is in the mood for a meeting right now.

Okay so i didnt really have much trouble this patch.
I did enjoy it alot, its just EVERYONE has a secret it seems and were not being told much.
i mean i know what a secret is but, i just feel like were getting all these strands off different stories and we are only focusing on one at the moment.
yea these strands are cool and id love to know where they go, but that dosnt seem likely, at least until mordys dead or they take another hiatus

… its just like u see Rytlock and ya know your not gonna find out about that story for another year or something

Love the patch just wish we could learn new things about other storys as well like any lore on dynamic event could be expanded on or maybe fractals… isnt there meant to be a dungeon team?
i unno.

sorry if this sounds to complainy it wasnt meant to.

i think i know what you mean. the story could definitely earn some points by diving into related story arcs, instead of being so narrowly focused on one single aspect. because it’s so narrow, but still wants to present more lore, it comes off as extremely rushed. you look at the GW1 campaigns, and there were several story arcs, chapters if you will, that were solved one at a time and led the player one step closer to the overarching objective.

it feels like instead of several arcs and an overarching story, there is a single arc, mordremoth, and everything else is just a detail. they went from one extreme (too many mini-arcs that were barely related and not particularly interesting) to the other (just one big arc). the problem with season 1 wasn’t the multiple story arcs, it was how disjointed they felt, and how uninteresting/hit-and-miss they were for the most part.

for example: the dragon’s reach is an excellent opportunity to delve into the lore of the races and their personal struggles, but we brush off sylvari, asura, norn and charr in one stroke, and humans happen off-screen. hell, that whole plot with rytlock trying to cleanse the foefire, failing, and trying to come back from the mists could’ve been a chapter of its own. provided enough context and work, each race could’ve had its own chapter. this isn’t unlike befriending the luxons and kurzicks in factions, it’s only done much faster.

now, of course, for the sake of pacing, it probably would be in the best of interests if these progressions happened simultaneously. so you’re getting a bit of each race at a time, maybe divide and only a few races appear in one chapter, then other races appear on other chapters, or whatever. the point is, all of this was solved incredibly fast, being brushed off in the span of an hour, maybe two, with a single mission per race (hell, not even that for the norns, humans and sylvari).

TL;DR: slow down, guys. you don’t have to slow down to a crawl, but you don’t have to rush through everything because dragons.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I agree Konig. And what was the deal with Whitebear being tied up with the Sons of Svanir? That camp is not really a fortress is it? We ran in there with about 4 people, no defenses to block us what so ever, used the crystal and instantly shattered it, and it was done in just a few seconds. Is this the huge problem that was keeping Whitebear from attending the summit? If so, can we vote for a new Norn leader?

There was supposed to be a pretty lengthy event chain that leads to blowing open the doors to the fortress, and a LOT of champion spawns before you can destroy the totem.

From the sounds of it, you got in right as the event finished.

Pretty unfortunate.

Erukk.1408:

Well… Rytlock is officially written out of the story now. For at least awhile anyway. He’s off to go on some wacky adventures in the Mists I guess.

As for the writing, I would definitely consider it a bit subpar, especially when judging it against the previous two episodes. I guess this has something to do with the different development teams they have working on the LS. The differences between the two groups, if that’s what happening, was a bit jarring to say the least.

My one huge critique of this episode was the seemingly total lack of urgency. The episode was about this huge threat to the entirety of Tyria slowly expanding over the land, and the dialogue, to me, didn’t really reflect that at all. That, as well as the events needed to complete the different parts, seemed to read more along the lines of “a calm stroll in the park” on the urgency scale.

• It’s nice for the Pale Tree to host the summit, even though she is obviously holding a lot secrets. Secrets that could have helped a lot of people if her actually put the information forward. I certainly hope she shared some of that information with at least Trahearne. You know, her trusted son, leader of the allied forces that deals with these sorts of things?

• Asuran bureaucracy I can understand, and its horribly sad that I have to agree with Phlunt of all people. Two weeks!? I know they are trying to sync it up with real time, but my character didn’t seem to bat an eyelash at that. Two weeks was enough time for Mordy to cross most of Tyria and ripe apart two forts, and add two weeks more, he seems to be doing a hostile invasion of the Iron Marches now. Two weeks is a long time, and my character should be deeply frustrated when hearing that.

• No human part at all.

• The Norn segment can probably be summed up with, “Let me and my son have an awkward off-screen family moment while you’re off to do a meta. It’s ok. There’s no rush.”
• The first part of the Charr segment read the same. Rytlock supposedly poured all this time into researching how to break the curse, yet he couldn’t seem to be bothered to finalize it by finding the last parts of the crown. While I didn’t mind going out to do the events, I don’t really think they belong as parts of the main story that way. Running up and looting a rubble pile, which I did for Bria’s part since it finished before I got there, isn’t all that heroic.

• I liked the second part, other than maybe the finale. Rytlock getting basically written off was foreseen by a couple people in the forums already, so it wasn’t that big of a surprise, but the acceptance on Rox and Smodur’s part was a bit off putting. Rytlock just flung himself who knows where into the Mists, and they just kinda accepted the whole situation without too many hard feelings. For all we know, he could have got dropped into a volcano fractual, getting torn apart by steam creatures, or maybe he got dropped into a reality where matter doesn’t exist. Because in the Mist, anything is possible!

In the end, my character has to twiddle his thumbs for two weeks canon time waiting for Taimi’s device and the summit to begin. All the while, Mordremoth is expanding at a fast rate, and it’s literally tearing up the countryside and killing who knows how many people…

On a side note, how many people want to bet Rytlock is somehow going to wind up in the Underworld? Because I can see them pulling Rurik’s ghost back to have a “touching” reunion with his father and possibly end the curse.

Watch the finale cutscene again. Its hard to hear, I only just noticed when i watched it a second time and the sound to the cutscene was muted because i was dead.
You’ll notice that after Rytlock says he has to go get the sword, Smodur yells at Rytlock and tells him to “Go” into the hole after his sword.
I think it would have been cliche if Smodur or Rox were all torn up at Rytlock jumping into the mists. Smodur takes it like a champ, but if you talk to Rox, you can tell shes a little shaken, but knows rytlock and hold his own.
I think it all fit pretty well.
We gotta remember, these are the Charr. Victory or death has been ingrained in them for the last milennia and they know that that sword is their one chance at victory against the foefire curse.