Guild Wars 2

Oglaf.1074:

Gaudrath.6725:

Either way, you end up with a paradox. Because you cannot mix the two types of narrative in a single game, have major overlapping elements and still expect the result to be seamless and logical. However, I have written a number of extensive posts on the subject already and am in danger of spinning in circles, so I will leave it at that.

But that’s exactly what they did, like it or not. Moan about time travel if you want, but the zones do follow a chronological order. Which is why I raised the question of how Arah exploration makes any sense in the first place.

And my answer is that it doesn’t, they messed it up, and for my part I will choose the lesser evil, which is keeping the integrity of the game world intact (which means that zones all exist at the same time and do not follow a chronological order), over keeping the integrity of the personal storyline intact. It’s those undead fumes, they… confuse people.

Lore wise, you could argue that the undead of Orr are not, in fact, product of Zhaitan, but of the earlier curse, the same one that caused it to sink beneath the oceans in the first place. Zhaitan took over, but he is not the ultimate source of the undead:

“There are few who survived that day, now known as the Cataclysm. While the Charr were never allowed to step foot in Arah, few count what the king’s advisor did on that day as a victory. The resulting explosion felled the invading army where it stood, but so too did it sink the entire peninsula, leaving only a scattering of small islands in its place. The beautiful city of Arah was consumed. What’s left above water now lies in a pile of ruins, blackened by the Cataclysm and years of neglect. All that remains in the wreckage of Orr are the wandering dead—those souls unable to rest in the shadow of this great disaster.”

So killing Zhaitan still allows for Orr to be stock full of wandering undead. We just kill an usurper.

Doesn’t explain Tequatl, but what the hell, Zhaitan was so easily defeated he might as well be a liutenant himself.

Anyway, your personal preferences may be different.

Well, it is still possible that Orr sunk by some other force and then Zhaitan swooped in and raised the dead.

Gaudrath.6725:

I am listening, but your arguments just do not make sense. Tequatl can be killed repeatedly. Ingame this is explained by the fact that he is, like the Claw of Jormag and the Shatterer, not a unique enemy, but in fact a type of enemy, a liutenant. We can kill them, but a new one will arise to take their place, as long as the Elder Dragon behind them is alive.
Now, explain to me, if I kill Tequatl, then kill Zhaitan, then keep on killing Tequatl about 20 more times, which one of those times predates and which one succeeds the death of Zhaitan? If you say that all of them predate the death of Zhaitan, then your analogy of time travel just got literal. If you say that some of them succeed the death of Zhaitan, the original question of “but we just killed the reason these things exist” pops up.

What is suggested about the Claw of Jormag/ Shatterer is never suggested about Tequatl. He’s a named lieutenant, like all of Zhaitan’s lieutenants, and he is only ever killed once.

In story, he is killed once. In mechanics, you can kill him more than once, because the game mechanics allow you to revisit old areas. My book analogy holds. You’re revisiting an old chapter if you kill Tequatl after Zhaitan.

Gaudrath.6725:

Either way, you end up with a paradox. Because you cannot mix the two types of narrative in a single game, have major overlapping elements and still expect the result to be seamless and logical. However, I have written a number of extensive posts on the subject already and am in danger of spinning in circles, so I will leave it at that.

It’s easy to have more than one type of narrative in a game. Take Arkham City; it has the primary story, linear for the most part, and it has the Challenge Maps, in which you battle The Riddler in various other challenging ways.

Now, the Riddler is defeated in the main story. Playing the challenge maps after the main story wouldn’t make sense! But it’s fine— that is purely a mechanic. Anyone playing the game is going to know that lore-wise, those challenge maps happen while the Riddler is still at large. IE, before the end of the main story.

The game lets you play the challenge maps afterwards, or whenever you kitten want, because it’s not arbitrarily restrictive. People can separate story and mechanics.

Another example, a little more classic: Super Mario 64. You play through the castle, you grab Stars from the levels, you go and fight Bowser. At the end, you can revisit the old levels and go for whatever Star you want, even ones from bosses you’ve already beaten.

Does this mean the boss has been resurrected?! Why is he still guarding the Star if Bowser is already beaten?! No, none of that is implied at all. You’re merely playing through content again. It’s a mechanic to allow you greater freedom. It implies nothing about story.

Oglaf.1074:

Well, it is still possible that Orr sunk by some other force and then Zhaitan swooped in and raised the dead.

Not only that, but Zhaitan didn’t even raise the initial undead – he just corrupted them to his cause. Later risen he did raise, but Orr was both sunk by the Vizier Khilbron reading from a Lost Scroll in a desperate attempt to prevent Charr crushing his nation, which subsequently resulted in the sinking of Orr and the creation of the orrian undead (something similar to Foefire event).

So Zhaitan literally just took over what was already there and built upon that.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

What is suggested about the Claw of Jormag/ Shatterer is never suggested about Tequatl. He’s a named lieutenant, like all of Zhaitan’s lieutenants, and he is only ever killed once.

In story, he is killed once. In mechanics, you can kill him more than once, because the game mechanics allow you to revisit old areas. My book analogy holds. You’re revisiting an old chapter if you kill Tequatl after Zhaitan.

Ok, so then they messed it up even more. Your book analogy only illustrates that you still do not understand the concept of adapting the mode of storytelling to the medium in which the story is being told. You cannot apply conventions of a non-interactive narrative, to an interactive one. You can try, but then you mess it up.

It’s easy to have more than one type of narrative in a game. Take Arkham City; it has the primary story, linear for the most part, and it has the Challenge Maps, in which you battle The Riddler in various other challenging ways.

Now, the Riddler is defeated in the main story. Playing the challenge maps after the main story wouldn’t make sense! But it’s fine— that is purely a mechanic. Anyone playing the game is going to know that lore-wise, those challenge maps happen while the Riddler is still at large. IE, before the end of the main story.

The game lets you play the challenge maps afterwards, or whenever you kitten want, because it’s not arbitrarily restrictive. People can separate story and mechanics.

Another example, a little more classic: Super Mario 64. You play through the castle, you grab Stars from the levels, you go and fight Bowser. At the end, you can revisit the old levels and go for whatever Star you want, even ones from bosses you’ve already beaten.

Does this mean the boss has been resurrected?! Why is he still guarding the Star if Bowser is already beaten?! No, none of that is implied at all. You’re merely playing through content again. It’s a mechanic to allow you greater freedom. It implies nothing about story.

You just named more examples of poor storytelling in games. What, you thought GW2 is the only case? In this game they at least try to work around some of the problems, I have seen much worse.

I have also seen much better.

Those aren’t examples of “poor storytelling”. They’re examples of games in which no-one can really claim there’s a story inconsistency, just because the mechanics are there to allow you to revisit old parts of the game.

You’re failing to grasp the basis of the book analogy, which applies to books, films, games, truly anything with a linear narrative. I’m simply saying, you can revisit old content yourself as much as you want, and however you want. That doesn’t mean it happens twice in the story. It’s as simple as that. That is not a “convention of a non-interactive medium”, it’s a truth of any linear narrative.

Even if a game DID lock you out of old content (like FFX did, after you awoke the Dark Aeons). You could just start a new game file and play through the game again. This would not mean that all the events of the game happen twice! It just means that you’re playing through content you’ve already played!!

Please go back and reread my earlier post where I explained exactly why a book and a game are not the same where narrative is concerned. I also covered pretty much all of the points you just made. You cannot have a linear narrative sharing and changing major elements within a non-linear medium. Even the game makers acknowledge that, hence instancing as a mechanism to put a non linear world in line with a linear narrative and avoid emerging paradoxes in a multiplayer environment (not very successfully, mind you).

Gaudrath.6725:

Please go back and reread my earlier post where I explained exactly why a book and a game are not the same where narrative is concerned.

Here’s what you said:

Gaudrath.6725:

Your book analogy only illustrates that you still do not understand the concept of adapting the mode of storytelling to the medium in which the story is being told. You cannot apply conventions of a non-interactive narrative, to an interactive one. You can try, but then you mess it up.

First of all, you don’t actually make any specific points; you merely say I can’t apply the “conventions of a non-interactive medium to an interactive one”. I’m not applying “conventions”; It’s not a “convention” of literature or film that you can re-read old chapters or re-watch old scenes.

In a non-multiplayer game, you can re-play old levels, without impacting story.

In a multiplayer game, you can do the same. The only difference is that the game is not level-based, for the sake of leaving all content open and available, and letting you play with others.

How is this a contradiction!?

Gaudrath.6725:

I also covered pretty much all of the points you just made. You cannot have a linear narrative sharing and changing major elements within a non-linear medium.

You covered none of my points. You misinterpreted by analogy, claiming again that I’m equating book and game “conventions”, even though all I’m doing is stating that the mechanic that allows you to revisit old content in a game has no greater storyline impact than when you re-read an old chapter (or, if you prefer, re-play an old level in a single player game). That’s not a convention. It’s possible to revisit old content in every medium that exists, unless that content is immediately locked to you once you’ve experienced it once (which would be arbitrary and restrictive).

It’s a linear narrative. A series of events. You can miss bits out, and do them later, because the killing of Tequatl, in all honesty, is not that important to the overall plot of the game. Just like you can complete almost every modern game without taking part in every activity that game offers.

Ok, to quote myself:

The big difference guys, is that a book is a static narrative. It has a clearly defined plot development and of course that means there is no inconsistency if you just go back and read a previous chapter again. You, as the reader, are not participating or influencing the plot of a book or a movie in any shape or form by watching it.
But games are a completely different storytelling medium. The player has a direct say in how the story goes (unless we’re talking about those old-school movie/game hybrids which were extremely linear and rigid). The less linear the game, more influence the player has.
So if you have a very linear, single-player game, reloading an older save doesn’t influence the consistency of the player’s experience. That is literally “going back in time”.
But say you have an MMO, and even the most “linear” MMO is much more open and free than many single player games. You have this huge open world, where players are let loose to play the game and interact with the story. You HAVE to take that into account when creating the storyline, because the player is directly interacting with it.
This is important because player experience, unlike reader or movie watcher experience, is not passive, but active. Player actions have consequences in an interactive story. Ignoring those actions shatters the consistency of the player’s experience, something you don’t want to do (for example, what Bioware did in Mass Effect 3 ending).
MMOs add to this by their very nature of being non-linear as far as character storyline and progression in the context of gameplay are concerned. In MMOs, the narrative is always unbroken (reloading a save essentially breaks the narrative and resets it to an earlier point in a story). In an MMO, you cannot save your game. Your character cannot hop between various chapters of their experience like they can in a single player game. Your gameplay narrative remains unbroken – any gameplay mechanics that break that narrative is a sign the developer hasn’t grasped the concept of open-world MMO gameplay.
Second, continuity of the open world is paramount to maintaining this unbroken gameplay narrative, which is again very important in the social aspect of the game. In an MMO, it is not all about you, but you in a “living” world, a world which goes on even after you log off. That’s a major draw of MMOs. And that alone demands consistency of game narrative.

Gaudrath.6725:

Now, explain to me, if I kill Tequatl, then kill Zhaitan, then keep on killing Tequatl about 20 more times, which one of those times predates and which one succeeds the death of Zhaitan? If you say that all of them predate the death of Zhaitan, then your analogy of time travel just got literal. If you say that some of them succeed the death of Zhaitan, the original question of “but we just killed the reason these things exist” pops up.

I’m going to assume you haven’t actually killed Zhaitan, because if you had, you most likely would have seen the sheer numbers of those dragons flying in the air taking on the Pact Airships, and based on the rate that I’ve seen Pact Airships blow up vs. the champions, I’m going to say that he still has quite an army around after death.

That aside I still don’t get your confusion. Any time that you are in a lvl 50-60 area you are in the middle of the lvl 50-60 storyline. So what happened in the 50-60 storyline? Well let’s see. Claw Island was lost and we had to create the Pact to retake it. So the pact was just in the birthing stages, and Zhaitan was starting to make major incursions into mainland Tyria, well look at that, the storyline of 50-60 matches up with the storyline of Sparkfly Swamp, who would have thought?

So as a medium they have decided to make it so that every area is timelocked, I do not see what the issue is? It is not lore related at all, it is entirely mechanics. There is no time travel in the GW Universe (except for 1 asura storyline and some April fools quests) So you go back to Sparkfly Swamp and you don’t see the immediate change in the game after Zhaitan’s death, it is not a gamebreaker at all. Zhaitan’s death is only reflected in zones and events after Zhaitan was defeated (currently only including Lost Shores, Wintersday, and Halloween, which have no risen involved). In fact most every preference that you have brought up to “better” the game has seemed more of a gamebreaker to me than the way that it currently is.

@Gaudrath:

You believe there’s an inconsistency, essentially, in allowing people to revisit “old” content (story-wise) in an open-world game. I believe there is no inconsistency, that it is a purely a mechanic.

May I ask, what would you prefer? That once content is complete, it be locked to people who have progressed past it?

Or, maybe, that nothing in an MMO story happens that is of any major significance, to avoid paradoxes?

If I play the CoF dungeon (story mode), I kill the Flame Legion boss, Baelfire. If I enjoy that mission, and want to play it again a few months later because I liked the boss fight, I can fight Baelfire for a second time.

In my mind, there is no inconsistency there. A game mechanic has allowed me to do it twice. The story has not resurrected him. Would you disagree?

No Neilos, don’t you see. Nothing important can ever happen, because if anything important happened in an MMO it would have to be a one time event, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense, it would destroy lore, etc, etc, etc. You see the best we can ever do is to beat Zhaitan, Kralky, Primordus, Jormag, and Bubbles back into little caves and snap their snouts with a newspaper if they ever come out, because killing a bad guy in an MMO is a vile offense of the worst kind. I would say the best you can look forwards to in Gaudrath’s MMO is a single wide open world with a bunch of rats in it that you can kill, and you’ve got a few people that are in the high ranking rat killing guild that everyone has to bow to as they walk by. Any other type of content in an MMO is wrong.

Narcemus.1348:

I would say the best you can look forwards to in Gaudrath’s MMO is a single wide open world with a bunch of rats in it that you can kill, and you’ve got a few people that are in the high ranking rat killing guild that everyone has to bow to as they walk by.

That model’s already taken by a certain famous game that shall remain unnamed, I’m afraid

Honestly, I wrote a whole post twice attempting to illustrate my understanding of the discussion being had, and I feel the best way to say it is this; Gaudrath has pointed out that by the rather linear experience which GW2 offers to players in terms of story is not fully leveraging the thing that makes video games different then other forms of entertainment; they actively involve the player in creating the narrative, even if it is a side narrative of how you ran into a group of enemies who feared you off a cliff and you fell but managed to kill a third enemy by landing on it, and this is not being leveraged at the moment in the type of games that should have the ability to do this; MMO’s.

There was an MMO that showed promise of doing this, and if Arenanet ever decides to make a new franchise, I think they would do it well. The game was called Horizons: Empire of Istaria. It never really made it to what it’s developers wanted it to become, but I think if you looked into it Gaudrath, it might provide perspective on that ideas I think you may be talking about.

In counterpoint, Narcemus and Konig’s position is that you’re not getting the most out of GW2 if you’re expecting the above interaction; you are playing through several linear storylines at once, and the story presented is only at best semi-linear.

I apologize for the rant, and hope I haven’t got anything completely off about the above, I am not attempting to poke the hornet’s nest (well, not too much.)

This has got way off topic, but pretty much in answer to the origional post; Arah explorable makes sense because it is after the story mode as the other dungeons are; the Pact has defeated Zhaitan, and are wading into the city of Arah to better understand the ancient races fight against the Elder Dragons, and why they failed the first time. Why the Risen are still around has been answered very well by much better posters then me above.

Mularc Templare.5063:

Honestly, I wrote a whole post twice attempting to illustrate my understanding of the discussion being had, and I feel the best way to say it is this; Gaudrath has pointed out that by the rather linear experience which GW2 offers to players in terms of story is not fully leveraging the thing that makes video games different then other forms of entertainment; they actively involve the player in creating the narrative, even if it is a side narrative of how you ran into a group of enemies who feared you off a cliff and you fell but managed to kill a third enemy by landing on it, and this is not being leveraged at the moment in the type of games that should have the ability to do this; MMO’s.

There was an MMO that showed promise of doing this, and if Arenanet ever decides to make a new franchise, I think they would do it well. The game was called Horizons: Empire of Istaria. It never really made it to what it’s developers wanted it to become, but I think if you looked into it Gaudrath, it might provide perspective on that ideas I think you may be talking about.

Now I might not understand exactly what you are saying, but are you stating that the game should take player initiative into account more often? The best thing I can think of at the time is say players run off to a risen territory and wipe it out, then pact forces can move in and fortify the location, as opposed to just sitting there waiting for the DE symbol to show up so you can do it. If this is what you mean, I 110% agree with you. This type of thing would make the game much more interesting in my mind.

Now if you are saying that it’s something more like, you create this vast open world where players can just go in and do whatever they really want in. There is no major story pointing them in what they should do, but instead they create their own character, rules, story, etc… I can see that done, but not in the instance of Guild Wars 2. And honestly, I personally would have no interest in that type of world. I am a very largely story oriented person, and I will play through games with terrible graphics and gameplay as long as the story is strong and keeps me intrigued.

This is why I love the Universe of Guild Wars. It has a very rich lore base, and the stories of the original Guild Wars when mixed with Guild Wars 2 is something I can really sink my teeth into. I find myself theorizing in my down-time at work about lore that we do not know fully, and I thoroughly enjoy it

Narcemus, I believe we have pretty similiar interests in games.

I’d honestly never thought about the former, I actually though more about having their one-off event chains (with say more actual events then the Lost Shores, which was in effect one thread with repeating events as an added bonus) have multiple endings; if a server fails one of the events in the chain, the next one is a different event then they would’ve received if they succeeded.

The end result that being if the area introduces a new permenent event, it could be different depending on which events a server succeeded or failed in; if a server wiped out most of the new enemy for example, the new area has very few of these enemies. If they failed in some of these events, the area is teeming with them. When the guesting feature eventually gets released, this would allow players to see more then one variation of the zone by visiting other servers.

Because they’ve only done one of these such events, they may well have designed it as such and no server simply failed. It would be a lot of work to get these to work as such, but could be story-driven and take into account player input slightly more then currently happens.

What you explained I’d honestly never thought before, and that would be amazing as well, maybe even more so then what I’ve prattled on about above. Thanks for taking the time to respond

Gaudrath.6725:

Now, explain to me, if I kill Tequatl, then kill Zhaitan, then keep on killing Tequatl about 20 more times, which one of those times predates and which one succeeds the death of Zhaitan? If you say that all of them predate the death of Zhaitan, then your analogy of time travel just got literal. If you say that some of them succeed the death of Zhaitan, the original question of “but we just killed the reason these things exist” pops up.

All of them precede, but its not literal time travel. As I said, you’re simply playing events that, timeline wise, take place before the events you’ve already played through.

This is why I’m saying you’re not listening. “Listening” perhaps isn’t the right term – you’re like my father, taking the term as meaning only “hearing and paying attention” but there’s a second meaning to the word, the meaning I’m using: understanding and not disregarding what I’m saying.

Play order != story order

Simple as that. It’s not literal time travel – your character isn’t jumping into the GW TARDIS and going back 1 month repeatedly to kill multiple Tequatls (personally, I doubt that Tequatl is multiple creatures – unlike the Shatterer and the Claw of Jormag, I don’t think Tequatl is ever mentioned to be replaced by another, or for there to be more than one Tequatl, and unlike those other two, Tequatl is a unique name). Rather, you’re simply playing through events that took place before other events you played through – like going back a level in a single-player game. Its just that because there’s no save points in MMOs, that in order to go back, you simply change locations.

I can’t see how you’re not understanding this. I’ve been saying the same thing in many different ways to try to help you understand what I’m saying, but you seem to not be grasping – or paying attention, or not disregarding, or whatever – what I’m saying.

Gaudrath.6725:

And my answer is that it doesn’t, they messed it up, and for my part I will choose the lesser evil, which is keeping the integrity of the game world intact (which means that zones all exist at the same time and do not follow a chronological order), over keeping the integrity of the personal storyline intact. It’s those undead fumes, they… confuse people.

You do realize that kittens up the story even more right? Because that’s just not how it’s done.

If you do it that way, then you have folks praising and wanting to kill Baelfire after his death. You have the dredge ignoring the fact that they’ve realized their leadership is corrupt (everywhere from level 65 on areas with dredge feature some sort of rebellion and working with outsiders – from Sorrow’s Embrace explorable on). You have the Pact trying to get into the Crucible of Eternity after it blew up (completion of Explorable path of the dungeon and the meta to get into said dungeon). You have as you pointed out, endless dragon champions after Zhaitan’s death.

How you desire to explain it makes no sense. Because it is not the situation. Zones have a chronical order – this is a fact – and it does not mess things up, except the fact that you’re experiencing things that happened before events you already played through, which when you realize this, makes perfect sense for why there are Flame Legion in Plains of Ashford still saying how Baelfire will make everyone burn, and how there are Iron/Ash/Blood charr saying they want to kill Baelfire (they wouldn’t be saying this after he’s dead, they’d say something else).

Gaudrath.6725:

Lore wise, you could argue that the undead of Orr are not, in fact, product of Zhaitan, but of the earlier curse, the same one that caused it to sink beneath the oceans in the first place.

No. No, you can’t. That’s like arguing that demons don’t come form the Mists (they do, proven in Nightfall), or that the Flame Legion never worshiped Titans. That’s called fanon discontinuity – and it’s not lore, it’s not canon. So no, you can’t argue such lore wise.

Yes, there were undead made by the Cataclysm – but said undead were taken out of Orr by Vizier Khilbron. And Zhaitan had made brand new undead since. So no, you cannot argue that no Risen is made by undead.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Yes, there were undead made by the Cataclysm – but said undead were taken out of Orr by Vizier Khilbron. And Zhaitan had made brand new undead since. So no, you cannot argue that no Risen is made by undead.

I always thought that the Risen in the Orr maps were the original Orrians – they have corals and stuff growing on them which would seem, to me at least, indicate that they spent a lot of time at the bottom of the sea.

Then you have the “new” Risen that launch attacks on Tyria, these do not have corals and stuff growing on them because they are made up of the recently deceased in Tyria.

I do believe that somewhere I read that upon awakening Zhaitan took control of the shambling undead of Orr that were left after Khilbron was destroyed.

I just looked it up and the article I was thinking of was the wiki page of the GW2 wiki for Zhaitan, and it was uncited.

If your lvl 2 character goes to the Straits of Devastation, the Pact is formed and Fort Trinity has been built. There are also many event bosses, such as Taidha Covington, that have died thousands of times. Whether you like it or not, this ‘time travel’ does exist.

Oglaf.1074:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Yes, there were undead made by the Cataclysm – but said undead were taken out of Orr by Vizier Khilbron. And Zhaitan had made brand new undead since. So no, you cannot argue that no Risen is made by undead.

I always thought that the Risen in the Orr maps were the original Orrians – they have corals and stuff growing on them which would seem, to me at least, indicate that they spent a lot of time at the bottom of the sea.

Then you have the “new” Risen that launch attacks on Tyria, these do not have corals and stuff growing on them because they are made up of the recently deceased in Tyria.

Narcemus.1348:

I do believe that somewhere I read that upon awakening Zhaitan took control of the shambling undead of Orr that were left after Khilbron was destroyed.

I just looked it up and the article I was thinking of was the wiki page of the GW2 wiki for Zhaitan, and it was uncited.

Some of the undead seem to have remained in Orr (the less militant individuals at least) while the soldiers are the ones who appear to have followed the Vizier. Most of the soldiers seem to have been destroyed while those remaining in Orr seem to have wandered. We don’t know how long it takes for typical undead to “die” due to decomposition though. We also know that Zhaitan raided the Orrian crypts as well so some of the Orrian Risen, such as royalty and nobles, were already completely dead at the time of corruption. My theory is that those undead who were locked in a state in which they didn’t know they were dead are the ones who we see as nobles, servants, animals, and farmers. Perhaps little magic was needed to corrupt living corpses which explains why they aren’t as powerful as the champions and lieutenants. This doesn’t account for the Risen giants though. My theory there is the giants wandered into Orr some time after the Cataclysm but before Zhaitan’s awakening and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being larger could mean more magic was involved in the corruption resulting in them seeming more powerful than the common Risen but still not as intelligent. Possibly the magic needed for minimal corruption increases with the size of the corruptee?

AlexMc.2083:

If your lvl 2 character goes to the Straits of Devastation, the Pact is formed and Fort Trinity has been built. There are also many event bosses, such as Taidha Covington, that have died thousands of times. Whether you like it or not, this ‘time travel’ does exist.

And it indicates bad storytelling. Which is my entire point. Say I make a Lord of the Rings MMO. You go through all that epic journey, throw the ring into Mount Doom, then, you being one of those pesky roleplayers who actually care about character development and continuity, you decide to go back, a hero returning to his home.

Only you can’t. Because it is “in the past”. Because everybody is stuck in time, there are other heroes just setting out to deliver their own personalized One Ring to the melting pot, and other confused veterans wondering what the hell is going on and why are those orcs still there.

I just made a mess of a story. I did not respect the medium I was delivering the story in. I wanted to write a book instead of a MMO. So I got a weird, disjointed hybrid.

And you can claim otherwise all you want, but that, my friends, IS a fact.

Shame, really. They got Orr down just right. The uphill struggle, the hopeless odds. Holding onto captured areas tooth and nail (and often having to fall back). Sets a really nice mood. It’s war.
And it should last for years.

But I understand that is not everyone’s cup of tea. I like to have a solid background where I can make my own story, not have one forced down on me. And it would be ok (and in fact really is, I am not that bothered by all this) if the personal story was not made to do just that. Force itself on everyone, whether they like it or not.

They went from one extreme, which is no personal story at all, to another, which is an utterly definitive personal story. If you really follow through with it, there is literally no character development there. Hence, for those of us who care about such stuff, the personal story is there to be enjoyed, then discarded and henceforth ignored.

Oglaf.1074:

I always thought that the Risen in the Orr maps were the original Orrians – they have corals and stuff growing on them which would seem, to me at least, indicate that they spent a lot of time at the bottom of the sea.

Then you have the “new” Risen that launch attacks on Tyria, these do not have corals and stuff growing on them because they are made up of the recently deceased in Tyria.

Narcemus.1348:

I do believe that somewhere I read that upon awakening Zhaitan took control of the shambling undead of Orr that were left after Khilbron was destroyed.

I just looked it up and the article I was thinking of was the wiki page of the GW2 wiki for Zhaitan, and it was uncited.

Well of course not all corpses were made undead/taken by Khilbron – based on GW1 models, he only used the Orrian army that were turned undead. The villagers, nobles, and ancient royalty from the crypts were made risen by Zhaitan.

Narcemus – the article you are thinking of would be The Movement of the World which states: “Risen from the ocean by the will of a powerful undead dragon, Orr no longer stands under human control. The beings roaming those lands are twisted, perverted remnants of Orr’s once-magnificent culture. Drowned by magic and then raised into service by the will of a monster so terrible there are only whispers of its nature, they now serve a dragon more horrible and more powerful than any other being in Tyria.” and “Many of the corsairs who inhabited the island chain before the peninsula rose again were subsumed by the dragon’s power, twisted by its breath, and enslaved to its will. Ships with black sails, built from seized corsair vessels, sail along the Strait of Malchor, west of Orr. These vessels surround the Fire Islands, manned by undead minions of the dragon that fear neither fire nor sea.”

Note that it never once states that it corrupted former undead. It only mentions corrupting the corsairs which were hiding out in the islands of Orr. Though we do know that many of the Risen in Orr are Orrian, it was never said those were ever made undead by the Cataclysm or Khilbron.

@Gaudrath.6725: No, I’m sorry, but that’s not bad storytelling. That’s a limitation of an MMO – because everyone’s able to experience the same location at the same time, it cannot progress further in the story with your character otherwise you’ll have a mesh of earlier and later events together in the same location – you’ll have NPCs shouting “I’m going to kill Zhaitan!” next to NPCs shouting “Ding dong, Zhaitan’s dead!” And that, my friend, is bad storytelling.

If it were a single-player game like Elder Scroll games, or if the game wasn’t in persistent areas like in GW1, then it’d be a different case. You can have the whole world together progress as one. Alternatively, you can have it where earlier locations are blocked off.

You blame storytelling, but your qualms are in the medium that is called “massive multiplayer online game.”

Because everyone can experience the same location at the same time, that location has to have a set storyline – this means it has to be in a set location, otherwise you’re getting multiple stories in the same spot, and all stories are seen by all. The only real alternative you get is where you separate world from story, and you have the story progress in time where the world doesn’t.

But that still doesn’t work to your liking, because you’ll eventually confront the big bad (any story where the big bad isn’t defeated is a flunking story that’ll be hated by the community – if you want an example, take RAGE which held no final boss and left the general run free), and once you kill the big bad, in this case Zhaitan, it makes little sense for him to still be a threat in the world, in this case for there to be endless undead.

The only solution for an MMO to not hold the “bad storytelling” that you claim GW2 has is to have no story progression. At all. And that, my friend, is just as bad as never confronting and beating the big bad.

The only solution for an MMO to not hold the “bad storytelling” that you claim GW2 has is to have no story progression. At all. And that, my friend, is just as bad as never confronting and beating the big bad.

Nope. If you think you need a big bad boss at the end to have story progression, or even just to have an epic story, you haven’t read enough good stories.

Again, I invite you to play Planescape:Torment – where the central plot is in fact, all about you. One great example of how to have a very personalized story and very personalized epic ending and still leave everything else open.

But of course, we have to kill the big bad dragon. Again. How original.

Another way to create a good epic, open story where everyone who wants can participate, is to make it fully player driven, and open-ended. Make the entire world a warzone like Orr. Make it so that, if players don’t put in some effort, most of the world gets taken over and then players have to work together to retake it. Then the world is the prize, and once secured, it has to be defended. The war never ends.

Introduce innovative mechanics where players can, through teamwork, establish and maintain impromtu bases and save havens, so that people have spots to regroup in. Make it so that they can actually fail. Center everything around players, including the story. Fit the way you tell the story to the capabilities and potential of the medium you are telling the story in.

Of course, then it would be something else than a scripted experience and I understand that stuff doesn’t sell too well, which is why I’m happy we at least have something new like the dynamic events.

By the way, interesting you should mention the Elder Scrolls series, since the MMO variant has something similar – the war never ends, there is no big bad boss at the end to defeat, because, ultimately, it is all about faction warfare and who gets to claim the world (and eventually, lose it again).

Of course, PvP is not everyone’s idea of fun, but same or similar principles could be used for PvE.

Bottom line is, if you make your readers/viewers/gamers go and say “but wait, how is that possible”, you didn’t do a good job telling your story. Ironically enough, I remember watching one of the videos before GW2 launch where someone said pretty much the exact same thing – (paraphrasing) “we don’t ever want you to go in and kill some important boss, then see them respawn a few minutes later”.

Sure, they did that, but in the process they caused half the world to not make sense, regardless of how much people want to explain it with “it’s just a game mechanic”. We’re not discussing MMO mechanics, we’re discussing why stuff doesn’t make sense if you kill off Zhaitan.

Konig

Narcemus – the article you are thinking of would be The Movement of the World which states: “Risen from the ocean by the will of a powerful undead dragon, Orr no longer stands under human control. The beings roaming those lands are twisted, perverted remnants of Orr’s once-magnificent culture. Drowned by magic and then raised into service by the will of a monster so terrible there are only whispers of its nature, they now serve a dragon more horrible and more powerful than any other being in Tyria.” and “Many of the corsairs who inhabited the island chain before the peninsula rose again were subsumed by the dragon’s power, twisted by its breath, and enslaved to its will. Ships with black sails, built from seized corsair vessels, sail along the Strait of Malchor, west of Orr. These vessels surround the Fire Islands, manned by undead minions of the dragon that fear neither fire nor sea.”

Note that it never once states that it corrupted former undead. It only mentions corrupting the corsairs which were hiding out in the islands of Orr. Though we do know that many of the Risen in Orr are Orrian, it was never said those were ever made undead by the Cataclysm or Khilbron.

No, the article I was thinking of is this one http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zhaitan. Note that on the page it says, “Zhaitan used its powers to take control of the wandering dead of Orr, forming a massive army known as the risen.”

Note as I said, I read this long ago and took it as fact, but the statement is uncited, and thus I don’t have proof to back my old belief.

As to Gaudrath, I’m done here. Have fun with your endless cycle with Konig, there will never be a winner.

Narcemus.1348:

As to Gaudrath, I’m done here. Have fun with your endless cycle with Konig, there will never be a winner.

Primary purpose of any discussion is to exchange and compare ideas and views, not to “win”. Cheers.

Except there is no comparison or exchange of ideas. Just us telling you how the game is, and you giving terrible ideas as to how to change the game to how it “should be”.

For the comment about the Sons of Svanir continuing after Jormag’s defeat – that actually would happen, wouldn’t it? The Sons, largely, aren’t constructs or automatons. They’re Norn who went, “Hey, that Dragon looks tough. Let’s follow him!”. Just because Jormag is dead doesn’t mean they’ll stop acting ‘in his memory’ or hoping he’ll come back to life. There are still shamans of Owl, after all, and she’s been dead a while.

Son of Elias.5420:

For the comment about the Sons of Svanir continuing after Jormag’s defeat – that actually would happen, wouldn’t it? The Sons, largely, aren’t constructs or automatons. They’re Norn who went, “Hey, that Dragon looks tough. Let’s follow him!”. Just because Jormag is dead doesn’t mean they’ll stop acting ‘in his memory’ or hoping he’ll come back to life. There are still shamans of Owl, after all, and she’s been dead a while.

If Jormag gets destroyed, they definitely will scatter and disappear. They’ll go

“Hey, that Dragon wasn’t so tough after all. Leg it!”

Oglaf.1074:

If Jormag gets destroyed, they definitely will scatter and disappear. They’ll go

“Hey, that Dragon wasn’t so tough after all. Leg it!”

This is a group whose reaction to Jora killing her brother was to name themselves after the defeated brother and decide that all women are weak and unworthy. Logic is not in their ballpark.

Gaudrath, you’re just describing completely different ideas for games now, ones that do not relate to GW2 or what ANet have tried to do.

They went a route that has just as much logical consistency as most other games out there. A linear story, with elements that are personal and others that are communal, and the ability to revisit old areas.

May I ask, in an open-world game, would you insist that every ‘event’ happen only once? Is it too unrealistic that a giant attacks the town of Nageling several times a day, or are we, perhaps, supposed to take this with a pinch of salt? Is it unrealistic to have a named boss die multiple times, and therefore, the game should forsake named enemies altogether?

Even in instanced gameplay, we have the option to revisit it. To restrict that would be arbitrary, and would serve no purpose, much like restricting what can happen in the open-world to only things that make sense at any stage of the storyline.

I dunno.

Giants are known for being very, very persistent creatures!

Oglaf.1074:

Son of Elias.5420:

For the comment about the Sons of Svanir continuing after Jormag’s defeat – that actually would happen, wouldn’t it? The Sons, largely, aren’t constructs or automatons. They’re Norn who went, “Hey, that Dragon looks tough. Let’s follow him!”. Just because Jormag is dead doesn’t mean they’ll stop acting ‘in his memory’ or hoping he’ll come back to life. There are still shamans of Owl, after all, and she’s been dead a while.

If Jormag gets destroyed, they definitely will scatter and disappear. They’ll go

“Hey, that Dragon wasn’t so tough after all. Leg it!”

Actually, they won’t. Whether people prefer to explain it with some ridiculous theory about linear progression or simply the fact that you can’t just remove elements of the game because of new players, doesn’t matter. Risen are here to stay, Sons are here to stay, so kick that suspension of disbelief into high gear, cause you gonna need it.

Narcemus.1348:

Except there is no comparison or exchange of ideas. Just us telling you how the game is, and you giving terrible ideas as to how to change the game to how it “should be”.

/shrug As far as I am concerned, your ideas are terrible. Everybody’s got an opinion.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

May I ask, in an open-world game, would you insist that every ‘event’ happen only once? Is it too unrealistic that a giant attacks the town of Nageling several times a day, or are we, perhaps, supposed to take this with a pinch of salt? Is it unrealistic to have a named boss die multiple times, and therefore, the game should forsake named enemies altogether?

Dunno. Maybe my english is not so good. Did you even read my last post? Why would such an event only have to happen once? Is the giant named Bob, or just “a Giant”? If it is the latter, then kill away. There are more where that one came from and they’re kitten because you killed their buddy.

If it is a giant named Bob, then yeah, if you kill Bob, kill him only once. Or attach a random giant name generator and presto – named giants for those who like to get to know their enemies. You can put a whole story into place around that, you could have a tribe of giants sending attacks against Nageling for whatever reason, and then have a randomly named chieftain players can defeat. When that chieftain is dead, another one takes his place, maybe put some bonuses like unique traders and such in the tribe when it gets pacified so that players have incentive to bring the fight to the giants when they inevitably get riled up again.

Basically, all I just described is already in game, so don’t pretend it is something far-fetched ANet would never do. They already did and it is called Orr. All I said is, shame the rest of the world isn’t as dynamic as that. Dynamic events and fluent seesaw story arcs are the only thing that sets this game apart. They should have played that card a bit harder.

Of course they won’t vanish in-game.

But lore-wise, the Sons would definitely be finished if Jormag was killed.

Oglaf.1074:

Of course they won’t vanish in-game.

But lore-wise, the Sons would definitely be finished if Jormag was killed.

Again, no, they wouldn’t be. They’d be lesser, because Jormag gives them a lot of power, but it’s unreasonable to expect that they’d just dissolve into nothing, that every Norn who had declared themselves to be a Son of Svanir would just shrug, admit that he was wrong, and go back to being a normal Norn.

Lore-wise, they’d keep making trouble for a long time before eventually fading, slowly, into history.

Where did I say that they would go back to being normal Norns?

They would dissolve, scatter. Not return to their former lives.

They’d remain a roaming nuisance, for sure. But only because most of them are too far gone as Icebrood to ever live another life.

Oglaf.1074:

They would dissolve, scatter. Not return to their former lives!

And go where? And do what? If we’re looking at this from an in-universe perspective, they can’t just up and vanish. Largely, the Sons are brash, arrogant, and violent Norn. They aren’t the type who would shrug, admit defeat, and go live quiet lives out in the mountains. There would be cries of vengeance, retaliation, destruction – essentially, all the stuff they do now anyway.

They’d still be around causing trouble, is my point, even after Jormag’s defeat.

Well, to be fair, the Sons of Svanir aren’t even considered evil in Norn society. They are even allowed to live in Hoelbrak.

Oglaf.1074:

Well, to be fair, the Sons of Svanir aren’t even considered evil in Norn society. They are even allowed to live in Hoelbrak.

True. The Norn don’t really have a concept of evil. Or of infamy. Someone who’s famous because they murdered a hundred people is just as respected as someone famous for rescuing a hundred people. It’s the fame that matters, not how you get it.

Heck, there’s one little girl NPC who debates whether she wants to grow up and be a warrior who’s feared or one who’s respected. It’s hilarious; she acts it out.

Gaudrath.6725:

Nope. If you think you need a big bad boss at the end to have story progression, or even just to have an epic story, you haven’t read enough good stories.

Again, I invite you to play Planescape:Torment – where the central plot is in fact, all about you. One great example of how to have a very personalized story and very personalized epic ending and still leave everything else open.

[…]

Another way to create a good epic, open story where everyone who wants can participate, is to make it fully player driven, and open-ended. Make the entire world a warzone like Orr. Make it so that, if players don’t put in some effort, most of the world gets taken over and then players have to work together to retake it. Then the world is the prize, and once secured, it has to be defended. The war never ends.

I know you don’t need to defeat a big bad boss at the end of a story, but when one is presented – and several are in GW2 – then the story will be fairly unrewarding to players. You might be into the story of an endless conflict, but the vast majority of players enjoy a real sense of accomplishment – that they ended the conflict. That they were the driving force of such.

I have Planescape: Torment, though I never finished it due to having to change computers and all my progress lost, leaving me unwanting to redo all that progress when I have other games still, however that remains no different than the Elder Scrolls – it’s a single player game and thus is an invalid example of how an MMO should act.

And again, endless warfare is not enjoyable to everyone, because people like an ending to their story. And stories which end without the main conflict ending are generally leaving people yearning. It’s fine to leave some conflicts open – this makes it feel more real, because in reality all the problems of a society are never solved together, but you normally need to close the conflict that is the main focus of the story.

Oglaf.1074:

Where did I say that they would go back to being normal Norns?

They would dissolve, scatter. Not return to their former lives.

They’d remain a roaming nuisance, for sure. But only because most of them are too far gone as Icebrood to ever live another life.

Wait, it sounds like you’re in agreement with Son of Elias because you’re saying the Sons will still be around, just not in large communities. And SoE is saying they’ll still be around.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Gaudrath.6725:

Nope. If you think you need a big bad boss at the end to have story progression, or even just to have an epic story, you haven’t read enough good stories.

Again, I invite you to play Planescape:Torment – where the central plot is in fact, all about you. One great example of how to have a very personalized story and very personalized epic ending and still leave everything else open.

[…]

Another way to create a good epic, open story where everyone who wants can participate, is to make it fully player driven, and open-ended. Make the entire world a warzone like Orr. Make it so that, if players don’t put in some effort, most of the world gets taken over and then players have to work together to retake it. Then the world is the prize, and once secured, it has to be defended. The war never ends.

I know you don’t need to defeat a big bad boss at the end of a story, but when one is presented – and several are in GW2 – then the story will be fairly unrewarding to players. You might be into the story of an endless conflict, but the vast majority of players enjoy a real sense of accomplishment – that they ended the conflict. That they were the driving force of such.

I have Planescape: Torment, though I never finished it due to having to change computers and all my progress lost, leaving me unwanting to redo all that progress when I have other games still, however that remains no different than the Elder Scrolls – it’s a single player game and thus is an invalid example of how an MMO should act.

And again, endless warfare is not enjoyable to everyone, because people like an ending to their story. And stories which end without the main conflict ending are generally leaving people yearning. It’s fine to leave some conflicts open – this makes it feel more real, because in reality all the problems of a society are never solved together, but you normally need to close the conflict that is the main focus of the story.

Eventually, yes, perhaps. Certainly not right away, and not in the manner it was done with Zhaitan.
What I am trying to say is that you can easily create a personalized storyline which doesn’t create paradoxes in the open game world. I mentioned Torment because that game has such a storyline, even though it is single-player. The story is deep, and meaningful and in the end you do accomplish many things, but all of those things are directly related to your character and nobody else. You do not go and kill a god, instead an epic journey is concluded in an appropriate fashion and the story is nicely self-contained.

What ANet should have done, in my opinion, is create such a story for players to enjoy, without tying the open world conflict into it directly. The story should have been, also, far less linear. It is not a personal story if all choice is reduced to a handful of predetermined junctions. If they wanted to have a personal story, they should have made one.
It is not even as though the players get that sense of accomplishment (many are complaining about Trahearne stealing their thunder, among other things).

And where is that sense of ending the conflict, when they step out of Arah after killing Zhaitan, only to hear the same old thunder of battle and see the same risen infesting the countryside?

That is why I think things could have been done much better. The dynamic events should be far more important to the gameplay, the open world should be crafted to be longer lasting lore-wise and the elder dragons to be far, far more powerful. Not something you simply kill off in a dungeon instance. Ending such world-defining enemies could only be done in a Cataclysm-like remake of the game world, and that when the game has run its course and needs to be refreshed.

So you’d like a multiplayer, open-world game in which you can accomplish epic feats that genuinely affect the world around you in a lasting and large-scale way, with such feats being completely unique to your own character?

I assume after someone’s completed such a world-changing feat, other people cannot complete said feat, because that would be contradictory. So an impossibly-large team at ANet must work night and day to keep creating these events, as they can only occur once each.

I’m just trying to get this straight, so I can get to creating this masterpiece.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Wait, it sounds like you’re in agreement with Son of Elias because you’re saying the Sons will still be around, just not in large communities. And SoE is saying they’ll still be around.

In a way. They’d still be a round in the sense that they wouldn’t just stop existing, but the organization/faction known as the Sons of Svanir would crumble with the defeat of Jormag.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

So you’d like a multiplayer, open-world game in which you can accomplish epic feats that genuinely affect the world around you in a lasting and large-scale way, with such feats being completely unique to your own character?

I assume after someone’s completed such a world-changing feat, other people cannot complete said feat, because that would be contradictory. So an impossibly-large team at ANet must work night and day to keep creating these events, as they can only occur once each.

I’m just trying to get this straight, so I can get to creating this masterpiece.

Not at all, but I am not surprised you really just skimmed across what I wrote, eager to argue. What I actually said, is that ANet should have made the world story more open-ended and player driven, and personal story more tailored to each character and more personal. The personal story should in no way seriously affect happenings in the open world.
The notion that the player must be “crowned king” or otherwise highly elevated in order to have a sense of accomplishment is an utterly false one. Especially in an MMO, the sense of accomplishment should primarily come from things one has achieved in the social environment, .i.e the open world.

Case in point, I don’t care if you killed Zhaitan – the act is meaningless, because its success is predetermined. Soloing certain lesser champions is more difficult than killing Zhaitan and gives a greater sense of personal accomplishment.
That is because the possibility to fail is an important part of the sense of having accomplished something. This possibility is not presented to the player in any shape or form during the personal storyline. The choices are linear, few and predictable, and they all ultimately converge to the same conclusion – in other words, there are no choices and every “personal” story is the same.

So again. Personal storyline should have been created in such a way that it offers true choice and variation to the player, but not so that it interferes with the open world and the larger events in it.

Open world, on the other hand, should have been created with a much greater degree of player interaction and impact in it (the before mentioned war against dragons throughout the world), with game-changing epic events reserved only for most special occasions, such as Blizzard did with Cataclysm, or ANet did with the Karka event. They changed the world forever, and they did it only once.

Such special events should NOT be available for players to determine, especially when it comes to removing something from the world, such as an elder dragon. Same goes for directly confronting one. You can have godlike beings that can smash continents apart, or you can have loot pinjatas for paltry bands of players to defeat. Not both at the same time.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

So you’d like a multiplayer, open-world game in which you can accomplish epic feats that genuinely affect the world around you in a lasting and large-scale way, with such feats being completely unique to your own character?

I assume after someone’s completed such a world-changing feat, other people cannot complete said feat, because that would be contradictory. So an impossibly-large team at ANet must work night and day to keep creating these events, as they can only occur once each.

I’m just trying to get this straight, so I can get to creating this masterpiece.

Precisely! This is what Anet did with the Ancient Karka. Remember how that was?

No, thank you. I’ll pass on having more content like that. I don’t want to miss such stuff, but I certainly don’t want to sit an hour or two through massive horrible lag again either!

Oglaf.1074:

In a way. They’d still be a round in the sense that they wouldn’t just stop existing, but the organization/faction known as the Sons of Svanir would crumble with the defeat of Jormag.

I disagree due to how individualistic norn are.

So long as there is at least a handful of norn still revering Jormag and seeing Svanir as their martyr, there will be Sons of Svanir.

You don’t known Norn. They worship Jormag as a Spirit of the Wild and when Spirits die, so does their worship. Sons of Svanir are in that sense no different than the countless Bear/Wolf/Snow Leopard Shamans scattered all over Hoelbrak.

They won’t be revering Jormag as “Dragon” once he/she(?) is killed. All the Spirits of the Wild devoured by Jormag have all but vanished from Norn society/culture; only a few die-hard fans maintain the very basic of shrines to them.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

So you’d like a multiplayer, open-world game in which you can accomplish epic feats that genuinely affect the world around you in a lasting and large-scale way, with such feats being completely unique to your own character?

I assume after someone’s completed such a world-changing feat, other people cannot complete said feat, because that would be contradictory. So an impossibly-large team at ANet must work night and day to keep creating these events, as they can only occur once each.

I’m just trying to get this straight, so I can get to creating this masterpiece.

Precisely! This is what Anet did with the Ancient Karka. Remember how that was?

No, thank you. I’ll pass on having more content like that. I don’t want to miss such stuff, but I certainly don’t want to sit an hour or two through massive horrible lag again either!

Technical details. I missed the Karka event on purpose – I was content just to have new stuff made available for exploration and wanted to avoid the massive lag which happens when you do such things in such a manner. There are other ways, you can stretch things out quite a bit, create medium-term goals for the server communities to strive for and finalize the event in a less “everybody come to this here ONE spot where EVERYTHING will happen!” and more massive but spread out manner.

Obviously, you don’t know norn. Go to Snowden Drifts, go to the southwestern corner of the map. You got multiple followers of Owl still. Most of the skaalds still go on about Owl’s tale too.

Owl is dead. Yet she is still revered and remembered by the norn.

In the same light, Sons of Svanir will have some remaining die-hard fans (as you put it), and you’ll have a lot more remember the story of Jormag (in both lights).

Oglaf.1074:

You don’t known Norn. They worship Jormag as a Spirit of the Wild and when Spirits die, so does their worship. Sons of Svanir are in that sense no different than the countless Bear/Wolf/Snow Leopard Shamans scattered all over Hoelbrak.

They won’t be revering Jormag as “Dragon” once he/she(?) is killed. All the Spirits of the Wild devoured by Jormag have all but vanished from Norn society/culture; only a few die-hard fans maintain the very basic of shrines to them.

And yet I will still have to beat the crap out of them every time I want to hunt around Hoelbrak. :p

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Obviously, you don’t know norn. Go to Snowden Drifts, go to the southwestern corner of the map. You got multiple followers of Owl still. Most of the skaalds still go on about Owl’s tale too.

Owl is dead. Yet she is still revered and remembered by the norn.

In the same light, Sons of Svanir will have some remaining die-hard fans (as you put it), and you’ll have a lot more remember the story of Jormag (in both lights).

Have you even been to that shrine? It is in ruins! Overrun by enemies and all matter of nasty critters! There is only one Owl Shaman there to my recollection, a skill challenge. A far stretch from the glorious ice statues of Bear, Wolf and Snow Leopard in Hoelbrak and their Great Lodges.

To think that the Sons would remain as an organized force after the eventual defeat of Jormag is quite unthinkable. Their whole organization is founded on the superiority and sovereignty of Jormag as Dragon,