Living Story Season 3 predictions
While I agree that the HoT story was really incomplete, I disagree with your on the egg being a loose end – at least, to the point where it’s point blank painfully obvious that the egg isn’t really “part of the HoT story” – it’s “part of the GW2 story”, just like the Pact and the PC, it’s going to become highly important later on.
The main plot of HoT felt convincing up until and including Act 2. Or rather, up to and not including Buried Insight (or at least, not including Buried Insight’s finale).
You also have to keep in mind that Season 2 and Heart of Thorns is a singular story sold in sections.
If you want a scattered story play the Personal Story, where you have 6 segmented plots put one after the other, or Season 1. HoT is nowhere near as segmented as that.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Anet really needs to focus on their story. Sure you can give different pieces but in the end they must come to one end-the main story line. Even in the HoT story, the whole Egg and Rata Novus are big loose ends.
They’re only loose ends because the story ISNT FINISHED.
Alot of the this criticism about cliffhangers and unresolved plot is a result of the binge watching generation being too used to instant gratification
What you guys are essentially doing is like watching a few episodes of a show without finishing the last few seasons and then complaining about unresolved plot points.
reading the lore forums after EVERY update everyone is making some fan fiction of what is going to happen next while trying to connect what ever side plot or foreshadowing there is to the current main plot in some convoluted story as if the next update is going to be the last one and will resolve everything
Anet is building a complex multi layered story for the whole of gw2. Just look at how this entire mordremoth arc with the sylvari was planned out before the game launched over 3 years ago, these are long term interwoven storys, not episodes of a sitcom
People just need to be patient and let the stories be told instead of getting caught up complaining because a particular plot point wasnt immediately addressed
Years later when the plot has been expanded, this long interwoven storytelling will make for a much more engaging story then if each living story episode and expansion was its own self contained plot with a beginning middle and end
But Mordremoth is dead, the main focus of HoT is done and the rest is just some late consequences of its death. The HoT main story chapters are supposed to FOCUS on this topic: HOW to defeat Mordremoth. Did they do well? The egg provided very little help against the dragon, and Rata Novus was a giant waste of time. Did the main campaign of the story feel convincing? Not at all. We jump from scattered forces into march towards the dragon and the “kill it in the dram” came out from nowhere in the last chapter.
This is exactly what im talking about, both the egg and rata novus are FUTURE plot points, its people like you ASSUMING things about the story thats creating this issue. Your creating some fanfiction in your head where somehow the egg is supposed to help kill mordremoth and the rata novus would have something to do with mordremoths story directly. These are perfect examples of foreshadowing and setting up future plot points that will be expanded on later but your doing mental gymnastics to try to fit them all in the same part of the story and have them all resolved right away
Anet is laying the ground work and background lore for upcoming expansions, not everything in heart of thorns is about mordremoth and not everything is going to be resolved just because mordremoth is dead
Your thinking way too linear
This is exactly what im talking about, both the egg and rata novus are FUTURE plot points, its people like you ASSUMING things about the story thats creating this issue. Your creating some fanfiction in your head where somehow the egg is supposed to help kill mordremoth and the rata novus would have something to do with mordremoths story directly. These are perfect examples of foreshadowing and setting up future plot points that will be expanded on later but your doing mental gymnastics to try to fit them all in the same part of the story and have them all resolved right away
Anet is laying the ground work and background lore for upcoming expansions, not everything in heart of thorns is about mordremoth and not everything is going to be resolved just because mordremoth is dead
Your thinking way too linear
But the main focus-Mordremoth is dead, the most important arc of HoT has ended, and it’s clear that Anet didn’t do a good job on it. No matter what they do later, this arc’s failure isn’t gonna change. Why did they waste time on these, either unrelated, in a story arc which the main focus is obviously Mordremoth and made the main war very vague and disconnected?
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While I agree that the HoT story was really incomplete, I disagree with your on the egg being a loose end – at least, to the point where it’s point blank painfully obvious that the egg isn’t really “part of the HoT story” – it’s “part of the GW2 story”, just like the Pact and the PC, it’s going to become highly important later on.
The main plot of HoT felt convincing up until and including Act 2. Or rather, up to and not including Buried Insight (or at least, not including Buried Insight’s finale).
You also have to keep in mind that Season 2 and Heart of Thorns is a singular story sold in sections.
If you want a scattered story play the Personal Story, where you have 6 segmented plots put one after the other, or Season 1. HoT is nowhere near as segmented as that.
Then why did they spend so much time for it in HoT? If it’s not related to the main focus, then introduce it later rather than spending so much chapters for something that wasn’t related to the main story. Especially since the main story-war against Mordremoth was not told well.
Then why did they spend so much time for it in HoT? If it’s not related to the main focus, then introduce it later rather than spending so much chapters for something that wasn’t related to the main story. Especially since the main story-war against Mordremoth was not told well.
That is like asking why you spend time with Frodo and the Ring in the Two Towers, in Lord of the Rings, if this story becomes more relevant in the last book/movie, where he finaly throws the thing into the vulcano.
If there are several storylines running simultaniously, there is an expected loss of quality if the focus isn`t given in a balanced amount or at least to a satisfying degree.
What the Two Towers did great and HoT was missing is the build up, conclusion and information regarding the one ring.
We knew how many movies there were supposed to be is one of the major factors.
That is why we can focus on sidestories in the movies, without feeling cheated on a conclusion.
HoT didn`t have the fellowship to set things up. It had no given timeframe.
HoT had two prequel stories, which set up the majority of the story (Scarlet and S2) and introduced several subplots.
Usually if things are set up, conclusions will follow and depending how the story is structured (if there are continuatons planned), some will remain.
HoT`s story however did not do that. In fact it stumbled around many issues, keeping almost every mystery alive at its conclusion, just adding more questions to the tail, it is allready dragging behind.
Taking up the binge watching argument, even if you binge watch a season, you usually have a completed story ark and most connected sidestories are progressed to the point that it feels like a conclusion.
Good stories, be it in any medium, allow you to think it is concluded, just to add another element, that shakes up that element.
While that requires clever writing and there are enough examples of shows/books in which they have written themselves into a corner, there are enough who were able to create some of the best plot twists and interesting stories out there.
They were able to give an old character/information new meaning, more flavour, etc.
HoT was not handled as a conclusive story.
All mysteries that were added for it and all mysteries that could have been connected to it were barely used and their conclusion was postphoned to a later date.
As long as there is a certain balance, the audience will be satisfied. However if too many questions remain, concernign a product that usually offers a completed story, then it fails to deliver.
HoT is not only the war on Mordremoth. It also incompasses the prelude to it, as it is build around it.
HoT was build up and ended up as nothing more as a stepping stone.
HoT is no Empire strikes back , Two Towers, or if we call sequels (to the Zaithan story ark), no _Terminator 2 .
The ending is the best evidence, as they just made a cut. The whole storie had no conclusion and aside from the devs saying “Mordremoth is dead.”, the world doesnt know.
The world right now is standing still. We are still there, at the mouth of Mordremoth, while some are looking towards north in the raid.
Do I believe Season 3 will give us conclusions? Maybe. However not the one we might need.
Since S1 too many mysteries were left alone or added. I just hope, they are able to bring them to an end, before the game ends.
The ending is the best evidence, as they just made a cut. The whole storie had no conclusion and aside from the devs saying “Mordremoth is dead.”, the world doesnt know.
The world right now is standing still. We are still there, at the mouth of Mordremoth, while some are looking towards north in the raid.Do I believe Season 3 will give us conclusions? Maybe. However not the one we might need.
Since S1 too many mysteries were left alone or added. I just hope, they are able to bring them to an end, before the game ends.
Yeah, this is definitely evidence of unfocused writing. There is a useful convention in storytelling called Chekhov’s Gun: “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”
Good writing is about making promises to your viewership and then keeping them; foreshadowing events, then paying them off. An amateur mistake is to foreshadow random things in a desperate attempt to create mystery, intrigue or suspense. What this actually does is confuse the viewer, frustrate them or make them feel cheated.
Good writers ALWAYS pay off their foreshadowed events in a timely manner. If something is foreshadowed at the end of a book and left hanging, the payoff better be so epic that it feels worth the wait. If the payoff is weak, the viewers feel like they got their hopes up (and their wallets out) for nothing.
That is like asking why you spend time with Frodo and the Ring in the Two Towers, in Lord of the Rings, if this story becomes more relevant in the last book/movie, where he finaly throws the thing into the vulcano.
Because LotR’s focus is on Sauron and his minions. HoT is focused on Mordremoth. Too much unrelated issue would damage the story. Plus, it didn’t affect the quality of the Battle of the Helm’s Deep, unlike in HoT we got shattered wtf story in the war against Mordremoth and if they had saved the egg/RaTa Novus chapters for it, it would be different..
If there are several storylines running simultaniously, there is an expected loss of quality if the focus isn`t given in a balanced amount or at least to a satisfying degree.
What the Two Towers did great and HoT was missing is the build up, conclusion and information regarding the one ring.
LotR is mostly focused on 1, 1 enemy and his minions, we don’t see a book was filled with fighting Morgoth or Smaug.
We knew how many movies there were supposed to be is one of the major factors.
That is why we can focus on sidestories in the movies, without feeling cheated on a conclusion.HoT didn`t have the fellowship to set things up. It had no given timeframe.
HoT had two prequel stories, which set up the majority of the story (Scarlet and S2) and introduced several subplots.Usually if things are set up, conclusions will follow and depending how the story is structured (if there are continuatons planned), some will remain.
HoT`s story however did not do that. In fact it stumbled around many issues, keeping almost every mystery alive at its conclusion, just adding more questions to the tail, it is allready dragging behind.
Because too much was wasted on unrelated issue and still unsolved cliffhangers, when Mordremoth is down.
Taking up the binge watching argument, even if you binge watch a season, you usually have a completed story ark and most connected sidestories are progressed to the point that it feels like a conclusion.
Good stories, be it in any medium, allow you to think it is concluded, just to add another element, that shakes up that element.
No matter how many sidestories you wish to add, if a season add too much stuff in it and made this season’s main story weak, then it’s immediately a failure.
HoT was not handled as a conclusive story.
All mysteries that were added for it and all mysteries that could have been connected to it were barely used and their conclusion was postphoned to a later date.As long as there is a certain balance, the audience will be satisfied. However if too many questions remain, concernign a product that usually offers a completed story, then it fails to deliver.
HoT is not only the war on Mordremoth. It also incompasses the prelude to it, as it is build around it.
HoT was build up and ended up as nothing more as a stepping stone.HoT is no Empire strikes back , Two Towers, or if we call sequels (to the Zaithan story ark), no _Terminator 2 .
It is mainly about the war on Mordremoth, it was caused by the dragon, we went in because of the dragon. Yes it’s not related to Zhaitan, the Elder Dragons do not command each other, which is why the war against Mordremoth, should not serve as the stepping stone of any other stories at the cost of its own quality.
The ending is the best evidence, as they just made a cut. The whole storie had no conclusion and aside from the devs saying “Mordremoth is dead.”, the world doesnt know.
The world right now is standing still. We are still there, at the mouth of Mordremoth, while some are looking towards north in the raid.Do I believe Season 3 will give us conclusions? Maybe. However not the one we might need.
Since S1 too many mysteries were left alone or added. I just hope, they are able to bring them to an end, before the game ends.
But the dragon is dead, and we know that the war against it was told in a very crappy way, no matter how season 3 goes, it won’t heal the damage.
Yeah, this is definitely evidence of unfocused writing. There is a useful convention in storytelling called Chekhov’s Gun: “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”
Good writing is about making promises to your viewership and then keeping them; foreshadowing events, then paying them off. An amateur mistake is to foreshadow random things in a desperate attempt to create mystery, intrigue or suspense. What this actually does is confuse the viewer, frustrate them or make them feel cheated.
Good writers ALWAYS pay off their foreshadowed events in a timely manner. If something is foreshadowed at the end of a book and left hanging, the payoff better be so epic that it feels worth the wait. If the payoff is weak, the viewers feel like they got their hopes up (and their wallets out) for nothing.
And this is the problem of HoT
The “problem of HoT” is that it isn’t a complete story.
Yes, the “story of Mordremoth” is dead, but to use the above comparison to LotR, this is no different than victory at Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers. It is not the death of Sauron, it isn’t even the defeat of Sarumon who threatened Helm’s Deep. It’s just the current hurdle having been passed. Mordremoth’s death is the escape-from-Death-Star-as-Obi-Wan-dies in A New Hope, not blowing it up.
That’s all Mordremoth was – a hurdle with more to come. That’s what ArenaNet treated him as, unlike Zhaitan and Scarlet who were “the end boss” of their respective plots. Mordremoth was simply just another Blightghast or Shadow of the Dragon or Mai Trin. A checkpoint boss.
The “problem of HoT” was that unlike any proper release, it wasn’t a completed story. And not just in the ‘they overlooked so many plot arcs!’ but in the ‘they obviously did not intend for Mordremoth to be a climax.’
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
The “problem of HoT” is that it isn’t a complete story.
Yes, the “story of Mordremoth” is dead, but to use the above comparison to LotR, this is no different than victory at Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers. It is not the death of Sauron, it isn’t even the defeat of Sarumon who threatened Helm’s Deep. It’s just the current hurdle having been passed. Mordremoth’s death is the escape-from-Death-Star-as-Obi-Wan-dies in A New Hope, not blowing it up.
That’s all Mordremoth was – a hurdle with more to come. That’s what ArenaNet treated him as, unlike Zhaitan and Scarlet who were “the end boss” of their respective plots. Mordremoth was simply just another Blightghast or Shadow of the Dragon or Mai Trin. A checkpoint boss.
The “problem of HoT” was that unlike any proper release, it wasn’t a completed story. And not just in the ‘they overlooked so many plot arcs!’ but in the ‘they obviously did not intend for Mordremoth to be a climax.’
No, Mordremoth is the 6th Elder Dragon, nothing is above it based on current lore. Unless they decide to make some magical pull to give us some “Greater Evil”, which would damage the story mostly. Sauron is the big bad of the trilogy, Saruman was his servant. Defeating Saruman’s forces is making progress against Sauron. Mordremoth is the ultra big bad, the other dragon’s don’t command him.
Also the problem is: The Battle of Helm’s Deep is told well, the battle against Mordremoth isn’t due to lack of focus, we jumped from nowhere and there is NO foreshadow piece to mention the “defeat Mordremoth in its dream”, it all came out very oddly.
If I can jump on the Lord of the Rings comparisons: what we got was a Fellowship and Two Towers (S1 and S2) where Sauron was the menacing big bad throwing his pawns against us at every turn, secure beyond our reach, the destination of the heroic quest- and a Return of the King where we get sidetracked right in the middle of the assault on Gondor with planning for the rebuilding after Sauron’s defeat. And after that, instead of something happening to refocus our attentions, we kinda just trundle onward vaguely in Mordor’s direction, taking detours on any passing whim, until we trip our way into the heart of Barad-Dur and remember oh yeah, we need to get around to killing the Dark Lord. How lucky we happen to have this Ring now!
Oh, and the last six chapters are just missing.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
-snip-
I don`t really know what your points were. It is nice that you expanded on my compairson (good example vs. bad example), but did you just want to clarify it even more?
It is true that Mordremoth is supposed to be something bigger and thus it is a shame that he got the stepping stone treadment.
As for the dragon being dead. We as player know it for sure because the devs said so. The world of Tyria just asumes it for now.
Adding to that is the fact that we don`t know the true nature of the elder dragons, or in extension elder dragon energy , and thus are unable to predict if any of our actions will come back to bite us.
Like Zaithans energy gathering in a new host (for example we just destroyed the current Zaithan aka the eldar dragon energy that governs the dead, but not the source), like we predict will happen with Mordremoths energy, which is supposedly split into four parts.
The dev statement can just mean that yes, Mordremoth is dead (like Zaithan), but his energy hasn`t been dealt with.
However that is just a theory.
Should Mordremoths tale have been bigger, better and more impactful? Yes.
Nobody is argueing the hackjob they did. It wasn`t complete. It was unfullfilling and we got less answers than questions.
On your point about greater evil . I see no reason why there couldn`t be something else lurking in the background.
For all we know the EDs are presented as our biggest thread at the moment , but as much as we know they could really just be a regulating mechanism.
We just don`t know enough to make any asumptions at this point. We are defending against a thread at the moment. Nothing more. Two down, four more to go.
I would actually prefer if there was some twist, or that we will be able to get some subplots done, while fighting these giant draconic beings.
I wouldn`t even mind that some pupeteer behind everything. Something that was going on for thousand of years.
@Aaron Ansari you sum it up nicely. LotR wasn`t perfect and had it`s detours, but that made it more believable. Most sidestories helped world- and characterbuilding and were resolved in the near future, thus were mostly helpfull addtitions.
HoT + Prelude so far fails to conclude several plot threads it introduced and added more, making it more a Chapter 2 of the GW2 storyline: And then there was that time Sylvari became supposedly evil, I lost a friend and killed a dragon.
A Season 3 right now needs to do a lot of damage control and conclude things. Nothing more.
We need closure.
We have enough plot threads going on allready to go into several directions, but we don`t need to end up there yet.
Cut back the hydra head story we have so far to a reasonable size and then let us venture forth. Maybe open the sealed of gate near ebonhawk and end the season there.
I just want the plot to leave all the Sylvari, Asura and leyline bullkitten behind and move on to the Charr story.
They clearly can’t make interesting story out of all that magic, midgets and plants. Maybe better luck with Charr politics and cooler Ascalon/Brand areas?
[rude]Antagonistka – Revenant, EU.
[SALT]Natchniony – Necromancer, EU.
Streams: http://www.twitch.tv/rym144
[SALT]Natchniony – Necromancer, EU.
Streams: http://www.twitch.tv/rym144
(edited by Rym.1469)
The way I look at it is this:
For the Personal Story, the main problem was Zhaitan. Defeat Zhaitan, and problem solved (or so we thought, anyway).
For Season 1, the main problem was Scarlet… or, rather, the Idiot Ball that everyone else was too busy hugging to effectively oppose Scarlet.
From the start of Season 2, however, the main problem has not been any specific adversary.
It’s been magic itself, and what to do about it. Season 2 has been full of warnings that too much magic or too little can destroy Tyria as a habitable environment. The Elder Dragons threaten that environment because if not prevented they’ll consume too much magic… but each one that is destroyed risks releasing too much magic if there’s no way of containing it.
Season 2 has been focused more on this than Mordremoth himself. Mordremoth gives us an adversary that provides things for us to fight along the way, but much of the story was focused on learning more about magic, how the dragons influence magic, and introducing Glint’s legacy… which we now know is part of Glint’s plan to balance magic. In Heart of Thorns, while we’re given other reasons to go after Mordremoth, arguably the biggest threat Mordremoth poses is the threat that it poses to Tarir and to Glint’s legacy. We kill Mordremoth not because killing Mordremoth solves the problem, but because Mordremoth threatens what we believe is the solution.
Like Konig says, Mordremoth is a hurdle rather than the end boss. Still a climactic fight, but from the start of Season 2, the main focus of the story has not been any individual adversary (although up to now, Mordremoth was the biggest). It’s been on the need for magic to be brought into balance, and the role of Glint’s legacy (including the egg) in efforts to make that happen.
From that perspective, it all comes together. We have stuff that relates to Glint’s legacy, stuff related to how magic works, and we have Mordremoth, who up to now has been the biggest threat to Glint’s legacy, and we have the chak… who, as a thaumovorous species that seems less dangerous than the dragons, may someday be part of the solution themselves. It all fits together. (Except possibly Rata Novus.)
Come Season 3, we’ll probably begin facing other antagonists and obstacles, but at the bottom line, the focus of the story is no longer on any given adversary.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
From the start of Season 2, however, the main problem has not been any specific adversary. It’s been magic itself.
That is incorrect. It is blatantly obvious that Mordremoth was the primary antagonist of Season 2. From the very first chapter, the writers had been dropping clues that pointed straight to Mordremoth being a global threat. This threat was recognized by the ruling bodies of every nation in Tyria during the world summit which is why they all agreed to help the Pact fight Mordremoth.
The story tries to convince us that Mordremoth is somehow an immense threat to Tyria as a whole, and the very last moment of S2 was our fight against the dragon’s lieutenant which tried to take Glint’s egg, after which we saw a cinematic of Mordremoth annihilating the Pact fleet. All of this tries to establish Mordremoth as the Big Bad of the expansion.
-snip-
I don`t really know what your points were. It is nice that you expanded on my compairson (good example vs. bad example), but did you just want to clarify it even more?
It is true that Mordremoth is supposed to be something bigger and thus it is a shame that he got the stepping stone treadment.
As for the dragon being dead. We as player know it for sure because the devs said so. The world of Tyria just asumes it for now.
Adding to that is the fact that we don`t know the true nature of the elder dragons, or in extension elder dragon energy , and thus are unable to predict if any of our actions will come back to bite us.
Like Zaithans energy gathering in a new host (for example we just destroyed the current Zaithan aka the eldar dragon energy that governs the dead, but not the source), like we predict will happen with Mordremoths energy, which is supposedly split into four parts.
The dev statement can just mean that yes, Mordremoth is dead (like Zaithan), but his energy hasn`t been dealt with.
However that is just a theory.Should Mordremoths tale have been bigger, better and more impactful? Yes.
Nobody is argueing the hackjob they did. It wasn`t complete. It was unfullfilling and we got less answers than questions.
On your point about greater evil . I see no reason why there couldn`t be something else lurking in the background.
For all we know the EDs are presented as our biggest thread at the moment , but as much as we know they could really just be a regulating mechanism.
We just don`t know enough to make any asumptions at this point. We are defending against a thread at the moment. Nothing more. Two down, four more to go.
I would actually prefer if there was some twist, or that we will be able to get some subplots done, while fighting these giant draconic beings.
I wouldn`t even mind that some pupeteer behind everything. Something that was going on for thousand of years.@Aaron Ansari you sum it up nicely. LotR wasn`t perfect and had it`s detours, but that made it more believable. Most sidestories helped world- and characterbuilding and were resolved in the near future, thus were mostly helpfull addtitions.
HoT + Prelude so far fails to conclude several plot threads it introduced and added more, making it more a Chapter 2 of the GW2 storyline: And then there was that time Sylvari became supposedly evil, I lost a friend and killed a dragon.
A Season 3 right now needs to do a lot of damage control and conclude things. Nothing more.
We need closure.
We have enough plot threads going on allready to go into several directions, but we don`t need to end up there yet.Cut back the hydra head story we have so far to a reasonable size and then let us venture forth. Maybe open the sealed of gate near ebonhawk and end the season there.
The current story is like that.
We spent a lot of time on the One Ring, but later found destroying the One Ring wasn’t going to help fight Sauron, and in the end, it just jumped out from nowhere that someone could let us enter Sauron’s mind to kill him. Also we did some research through some ancient city and it told us that every Maia have a weakness.
If some bigger evil jump out from nowhere, then it’s even worse on storytelling.
No, Mordremoth is the 6th Elder Dragon, nothing is above it based on current lore. Unless they decide to make some magical pull to give us some “Greater Evil”, which would damage the story mostly.
Even ignoring the fact that four other Elder Dragons still exist and that they are all equally or more powerful than Mordremoth, in a way, they did give us this. But it isn’t a “greater evil” but rather a “consequence of removing evil”. It’s been known since Hidden Arcana in Season 2 and is the very core of the reason we care about Glint’s egg.
If you’re not mistaken, this ancient tome was written by someone known as the Apostate. It appears to describe something similar to what you saw in your vision of the Eternal Alchemy. The author calls it the Antikytheria, describing it as a cosmic mechanism made of many parts, all spinning around a central body known in ancient Krytan as Thyria. Six large bodies orbit the world, existing in primal symbiosis. The energies move with the push and pull of positive and negative, ever in motion. The Apostate says one thing that is especially troubling… “Should the energies become imbalanced, the world will tilt and all beings will fall off it into the void.” It’s probably a metaphor.
Ogden Stonehealer: “Too much magic, and the world spins out of control. Too little, and it crumbles into darkness.”
The Elder Dragons is not the main plot. Keeping the world alive is. And the method to this – as revealed in Heart of Thorns – is Glint’s legacy. Which is more than just the egg.
ArenaNet has presented a “character versus other character” conflict, but is twisting it into a “character versus environment” conflict.
There is no “greater evil” but there is a “greater threat” – it’s just that the greater threat is without consciousness and thus without moral and can therefore be neither good nor evil.
Currently, the Elder Dragons – Mordremoth included – are preventing that greater threat, at the cost of being a great threat themselves. Tyria cannot survive either threat (the reign of Elder Dragons or the collapse of the world).
Sauron is the big bad of the trilogy, Saruman was his servant. Defeating Saruman’s forces is making progress against Sauron. Mordremoth is the ultra big bad, the other dragon’s don’t command him.
But Mordremoth isn’t “the ultra big bad”. He is A big bad.
A single one of six.
Just like the plot wasn’t finished when we killed Zhaitan, the plot isn’t finished when killing Mordremoth.
Also the problem is: The Battle of Helm’s Deep is told well, the battle against Mordremoth isn’t due to lack of focus, we jumped from nowhere and there is NO foreshadow piece to mention the “defeat Mordremoth in its dream”, it all came out very oddly.
I don’t disagree regarding the quality of story telling. However, you are acting as if Heart of Thorns is a solid whole story. It isn’t. It’s a piece. A mere part of a series.
That is incorrect. It is blatantly obvious that Mordremoth was the primary antagonist of Season 2. From the very first chapter, the writers had been dropping clues that pointed straight to Mordremoth being a global threat. This threat was recognized by the ruling bodies of every nation in Tyria during the world summit which is why they all agreed to help the Pact fight Mordremoth.
Most stories try not to set the main villain out from the beginning. Half the time, you get a puppet villain, or a villain that’s established just to be revealed that there was another threat behind it.
Slowpoking is set on the concept of a “character versus character” story. But this is not the only kind of story there is – there are effectively three conflict-based plots:
Character versus other character
Character versus self
Character versus environment
The threat of the Elder Dragons – what we started seeing GW2 as – is character versus other character. This is what you and Slowpoking seem to continue to take GW2 as.
But Season 2, as drax said, introduced a different conflict behind it all: character versus environment.
This “different conflict” wasn’t really evident until Episode 5 of Season 2, but the seeds for it were planted even in the Personal Story, with a few more in Season 1 (particularly the end), and even more in the first half of Season 2.
Mordremoth, like Zhaitan, was just a “frontal main villain” – all the Elder Dragons are. However, where Zhaitan is treated as “the big bad” of his plot, Mordremoth isn’t – because by the time they reached Mordremoth’s true plot, ArenaNet had already set sail on revealing the true conflict to be had in GW2 (which, IMO, was a bad move – should have waited for the second dragon to die before doing this).
Yes, Season 2 tries to convince us that Mordremoth is a threat to all of Central Tyria, but this is done not to make Mordremoth “the antagonist” but to help emphasize just how horrible the true conflict of GW2 will be.
If Mordremoth, one of six lesser-but-still-great conflicts, threatens the entire known civilization, what does that say about what Mordremoth, and the other six lesser-but-still-great conflicts, are preventing from occurring?
ArenaNet has effectively pulled a Mass Effect but with a twist – where the galaxy can survive without the Reapers for a long period of time, only risking self-destruction by creating rebellious AI (which the oldest AI, maker of reapers, is convinced will happen regardless every time), Tyria cannot survive without Elder Dragons – but it cannot survive with the current Elder Dragons.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Even ignoring the fact that four other Elder Dragons still exist and that they are all equally or more powerful than Mordremoth, in a way, they did give us this. But it isn’t a “greater evil” but rather a “consequence of removing evil”. It’s been known since Hidden Arcana in Season 2 and is the very core of the reason we care about Glint’s egg.
If you’re not mistaken, this ancient tome was written by someone known as the Apostate. It appears to describe something similar to what you saw in your vision of the Eternal Alchemy. The author calls it the Antikytheria, describing it as a cosmic mechanism made of many parts, all spinning around a central body known in ancient Krytan as Thyria. Six large bodies orbit the world, existing in primal symbiosis. The energies move with the push and pull of positive and negative, ever in motion. The Apostate says one thing that is especially troubling… “Should the energies become imbalanced, the world will tilt and all beings will fall off it into the void.” It’s probably a metaphor.
Ogden Stonehealer: “Too much magic, and the world spins out of control. Too little, and it crumbles into darkness.”
The Elder Dragons is not the main plot. Keeping the world alive is. And the method to this – as revealed in Heart of Thorns – is Glint’s legacy. Which is more than just the egg.
ArenaNet has presented a “character versus other character” conflict, but is twisting it into a “character versus environment” conflict.
There is no “greater evil” but there is a “greater threat” – it’s just that the greater threat is without consciousness and thus without moral and can therefore be neither good nor evil.
Currently, the Elder Dragons – Mordremoth included – are preventing that greater threat, at the cost of being a great threat themselves. Tyria cannot survive either threat (the reign of Elder Dragons or the collapse of the world).
They don’t command each other. And Heart of Thorns is the story about Mordremoth. The LS setting was about it, the end of LS2 was to set it. You want some stuff to continue, sure, but DO NOT leave the main focus, DO NOT set these at the price of shatter the war against Mordremoth.
Tell me, should Mordremoth serve as a stepping stone of other EDs? As for the “too much magic energy”. Did Zhaitan’s campaign get butchered for this “greater threat”? No. Then why should Modremoth’ story suffer such fate?
But Mordremoth isn’t “the ultra big bad”. He is A big bad.
A single one of six.
Just like the plot wasn’t finished when we killed Zhaitan, the plot isn’t finished when killing Mordremoth.
The others are unrelated big bad, it’s not their xpc. There are other evils like the Barlog in LotR, did LotR focus too much on them? No. Why? Because it’s NOT their story. You need to focus on the antagonist of this chapter first.
I don’t disagree regarding the quality of story telling. However, you are acting as if Heart of Thorns is a solid whole story. It isn’t. It’s a piece. A mere part of a series.
Mordremoth is a solid Elder Dragon piece, and the story of the war against it had failed. This is the major problem. Even if it’s not the last season, you don’t let too much unrelated foreshadowing plot break the campaign against the current season’s antagonist. Especially Mordremoth is not commanded by other dragons.
I mean, you admit the problem of HoT and Mordremoth story, .
(edited by Slowpokeking.8720)
Having slept on it, I think the main reason I object to the idea that the story has merely shifted conflicts is that it’s only done so on the player’s level. For our characters, the protagonists actually driving this story, the little hints scattered about don’t seem to have made an impact. We the players have taken them, decided they’re relevant, and built predictions and extrapolations on their framework- but for the characters, the Apostate’s was only one of many, many irrelevant books in the library. Ogden’s comment was something of an aside in an answer that was itself meant for a very general question, and even then he qualified it as one theory out of several. The character’s only articulated motivation to seek the egg was that the Pale Tree was desperate that they should, and that they’d rather have a dragon as a friend than an enemy. No sooner did they say as much than Caithe let sylvari players know that wasn’t the half of it, but that hasn’t been elaborated on. While we players may see the signs that a shift is coming, as far as the character is aware, Mordremoth is the only thing to worry about at this point. They emphasize that at every opportunity, with a variety of NPCs pitching in to agree.
That, I think, is why the conflict in the expansion feels so muddled. Our character had an urgent mission, missing friends, an elder dragon being treated no different then Zhaitan, but abruptly veered partway through for the sake of writing on the wall that we could see but they couldn’t. Instead of making the necessary move to bring the character in on why that was important, this supposed true conflict gets left behind after a mere two instances and never mentioned in the rest of the story. At this point they should have doubled down on the Mordremoth conflict, but the detours we engage in ostensibly to that end don’t contribute anything. After that drawn-out lull, things become a jumbled rush. We practically trip into the final boss battle, and the story cuts off abruptly as soon as it finishes. I agree that it looks like ArenaNet is shifting gears for their story down the road, but HoT didn’t feel like a transition. It felt like trying to set the stage for the next conflict by sweeping the existing one out of the way, as hastily as possible, and since they were setting the pieces in their new place why not drag the player’s eyes out to watch? For all the extra voice work our avatars got, HoT hit a low in treating them less like characters than a mouthpiece for plot convenience, and it blunted the impact of- well, just about everything.
TL;DR: Foreshadowing is well and good, but when there’s a schism between the conflict communicated to the player and the one communicated to the character, the character’s is supposed to take precedence. HoT got this backwards.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)
They don’t command each other.
No one said they had to. Except you. And they don’t.
And Heart of Thorns is the story about Mordremoth. The LS setting was about it, the end of LS2 was to set it. You want some stuff to continue, sure, but DO NOT leave the main focus, DO NOT set these at the price of shatter the war against Mordremoth.
They didn’t leave the main focus. You claim that the egg and Rata Novus were leaving the main focus but they weren’t.
Mordremoth wanted the egg, so it was in Tyria’s best intrest to prevent Mordremoth from getting the egg. It paid off, while seeding in plotlines for the future.
Rata Novus was studying dragons and their weaknesses, so we went there to try to find Mordremoth’s. Unfortunately, it didn’t pay off – but that’s life. Not everything works out well. Rata Novus didn’t.
If everything worked out in the PC’s favor, then the story would be pretty bland, and that’s when things start becoming Mary Sues and variatoins therefore. You need variety – and Heart of Thorns has that, as does the personal story (greatest fear arc was just as much a distraction as Rata Novus and the egg were, yet you don’t complain about them).
Tell me, should Mordremoth serve as a stepping stone of other EDs? As for the “too much magic energy”. Did Zhaitan’s campaign get butchered for this “greater threat”? No. Then why should Modremoth’ story suffer such fate?
I never said Mordremoth is a stepping stone for the other Elder Dragons.
In the end, all six Elder Dragons are, equally, stepping stones for the conflict of saving the world.
You say that Mordremoth got butchered so that ArenaNet could present a “greater threat” – but he didn’t. He got butchered because ArenaNet rushed the plot – just like Zhaitan’s fight and plot got butchered at the end with that anticlimatic showdown.
The others are unrelated big bad, it’s not their xpc. There are other evils like the Barlog in LotR, did LotR focus too much on them? No. Why? Because it’s NOT their story. You need to focus on the antagonist of this chapter first.
And they did. Rata Novus was hardly a focus (it was just two story instances for gods’ sake), and the egg was a focus because Mordremoth was explicitly after it.
Mordremoth is a solid Elder Dragon piece, and the story of the war against it had failed.
This is a matter of opinion – that the story failed. I would say it didn’t. It had terrible parts, yes, but most stories tend to have one scene where you just go ‘is this necessary for the plot?’ The fact is that no story will ever be perfect.
HoT had fallacies, but the detour of Rata Novus in of itself wasn’t one. The dues ex machina revelation of killing Mordremoth in the dream was – and honestly, that could have been placed at the end of the Rata Novus story step (yes, story step – not arc – it wasn’t that long like you seem to think it was).
Even if it’s not the last season, you don’t let too much unrelated foreshadowing plot break the campaign against the current season’s antagonist.
Everything was related. Everything that was placed in was done so in a matter that made it relevant.
I mean, you admit the problem of HoT and Mordremoth story, .
There’s a problem, yes, but it isn’t the existence of the ‘detour’ of the egg or Rata Novus. It’s nothing that you’re complaining about.
The issue isn’t that they added stuff in they didn’t need to. The issue is that they didn’t add things they needed to – Malyck, the Nightmare Court, Pale Tree origins, sylvari-other races conflict, repercussions among the main races outside the Pact on the sylvari origin reveal, so on and so forth.
The last two can still be picked up in Season 3 – and in all honesty, it needs to if it is t o have any redeeming quality to it.
But the existence of the egg and Rata Novus you’re continuously bashing on neither interrupts nor detracts from the main plot. No more than the krait orb or Tonn or Syska does in the personal story, no more than the trip to the temple of Abaddon did which yielded nothing to the Pact, no more than killing one of many dozen eyes which again yielded nothing to the Pact.
You say Mordremoth’s plot got butchered because of these ‘detours’ while the Zhaitan plot had no such thing… but it had more such detours. That were just as long too – one, two, or three instances.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Having slept on it, I think the main reason I object to the idea that the story has merely shifted conflicts is that it’s only done so on the player’s level. For our characters, the protagonists actually driving this story, the little hints scattered about don’t seem to have made an impact. We the players have taken them, decided they’re relevant, and built predictions and extrapolations on their framework- but for the characters, the Apostate’s was only one of many, many irrelevant books in the library. Ogden’s comment was something of an aside in an answer that was itself meant for a very general question, and even then he qualified it as one theory out of several. The character’s only articulated motivation to seek the egg was that the Pale Tree was desperate that they should, and that they’d rather have a dragon as a friend than an enemy. No sooner did they say as much than Caithe let sylvari players know that wasn’t the half of it, but that hasn’t been elaborated on. While we players may see the signs that a shift is coming, as far as the character is aware, Mordremoth is the only thing to worry about at this point. They emphasize that at every opportunity, with a variety of NPCs pitching in to agree.
That, I think, is why the conflict in the expansion feels so muddled. Our character had an urgent mission, missing friends, an elder dragon being treated no different then Zhaitan, but abruptly veered partway through for the sake of writing on the wall that we could see but they couldn’t. Instead of making the necessary move to bring the character in on why that was important, this supposed true conflict gets left behind after a mere two instances and never mentioned in the rest of the story. At this point they should have doubled down on the Mordremoth conflict, but the detours we engage in ostensibly to that end don’t contribute anything. After that drawn-out lull, things become a jumbled rush. We practically trip into the final boss battle, and the story cuts off abruptly as soon as it finishes. I agree that it looks like ArenaNet is shifting gears for their story down the road, but HoT didn’t feel like a transition. It felt like trying to set the stage for the next conflict by sweeping the existing one out of the way, as hastily as possible, and since they were setting the pieces in their new place why not drag the player’s eyes out to watch? For all the extra voice work our avatars got, HoT hit a low in treating them less like characters than a mouthpiece for plot convenience, and it blunted the impact of- well, just about everything.
TL;DR: Foreshadowing is well and good, but when there’s a schism between the conflict communicated to the player and the one communicated to the character, the character’s is supposed to take precedence. HoT got this backwards.
This is exactly how I feel. They foreshadowed an epic, indomitable foe, then we suddenly get handed a magic bullet last minute. It’s a very poor ending, and the two chapters leading up to it do nothing to heighten the tension.
They didn’t leave the main focus. You claim that the egg and Rata Novus were leaving the main focus but they weren’t.
Mordremoth wanted the egg, so it was in Tyria’s best intrest to prevent Mordremoth from getting the egg. It paid off, while seeding in plotlines for the future.
And what happened after the egg was safe? Nothing, it didn’t even tell you why Mordremoth want it and how could it help you against Mordremoth. If it’s not going to help against the dragon, why not destroy it so we don’t have to worry about it?
Rata Novus was studying dragons and their weaknesses, so we went there to try to find Mordremoth’s. Unfortunately, it didn’t pay off – but that’s life. Not everything works out well. Rata Novus didn’t.
But we only got 16 chapters total to get into the jungle and fight Mordremoth, why shouldn’t it focus on useful stuff like assemble army and get some useful research against Mordemoth just like we did with Zhaitan? We didn’t succeed at the beginning but we got more and more useful info through the chain. Did it happen to Rata Novus? It’s like in LotR we spent a lone while on the One Ring and then we found out it’s not going to help fight Sauron.
If everything worked out in the PC’s favor, then the story would be pretty bland, and that’s when things start becoming Mary Sues and variatoins therefore. You need variety – and Heart of Thorns has that, as does the personal story (greatest fear arc was just as much a distraction as Rata Novus and the egg were, yet you don’t complain about them).
Look at Zhaitan for example, it’s not “work out in PC’s favor”, it didn’t make any progress in the story against Mordremoth, and the ending was very rushed partly due to such useless chapters.
I never said Mordremoth is a stepping stone for the other Elder Dragons.
In the end, all six Elder Dragons are, equally, stepping stones for the conflict of saving the world.
Then why did they do such a crappy job on the war against it?
You say that Mordremoth got butchered so that ArenaNet could present a “greater threat” – but he didn’t. He got butchered because ArenaNet rushed the plot – just like Zhaitan’s fight and plot got butchered at the end with that anticlimatic showdown.
The war against Mordremoth could have been much more convincing if they had saved those egg/Rata Novus chapters to let us assemble army, march into the forest and do some useful research to find the weakness, along with the entrance of Mordremoth’ dream. Just like they did it with Zhaitan, everything was fine other than the final fight.
Since Anet only got 4 maps and limited resources, why didn’t they focus it on Mordremoth first?
And they did. Rata Novus was hardly a focus (it was just two story instances for gods’ sake), and the egg was a focus because Mordremoth was explicitly after it.
And there were only around 10 story instances, there were only 5-6 story instances about how to fight Mordremoth, the rest is useless.
This is a matter of opinion – that the story failed. I would say it didn’t. It had terrible parts, yes, but most stories tend to have one scene where you just go ‘is this necessary for the plot?’ The fact is that no story will ever be perfect.
But this one’s flaw was quite obvious because of lack of focus.
HoT had fallacies, but the detour of Rata Novus in of itself wasn’t one. The dues ex machina revelation of killing Mordremoth in the dream was – and honestly, that could have been placed at the end of the Rata Novus story step (yes, story step – not arc – it wasn’t that long like you seem to think it was).
And why did it become a dues ex machina? Because it went from nowhere, because too much effort was spent on unrelated and useless stuff.
Everything was related. Everything that was placed in was done so in a matter that made it relevant.
How is it related to Mordremoth? Chaks? Rata Novus? The egg provided nearly 0 use against Mordremoth.
There’s a problem, yes, but it isn’t the existence of the ‘detour’ of the egg or Rata Novus. It’s nothing that you’re complaining about.
The issue isn’t that they added stuff in they didn’t need to. The issue is that they didn’t add things they needed to – Malyck, the Nightmare Court, Pale Tree origins, sylvari-other races conflict, repercussions among the main races outside the Pact on the sylvari origin reveal, so on and so forth.
The last two can still be picked up in Season 3 – and in all honesty, it needs to if it is t o have any redeeming quality to it.
But the existence of the egg and Rata Novus you’re continuously bashing on neither interrupts nor detracts from the main plot. No more than the krait orb or Tonn or Syska does in the personal story, no more than the trip to the temple of Abaddon did which yielded nothing to the Pact, no more than killing one of many dozen eyes which again yielded nothing to the Pact.
You say Mordremoth’s plot got butchered because of these ‘detours’ while the Zhaitan plot had no such thing… but it had more such detours. That were just as long too – one, two, or three instances.
Krait orb provided VERY IMPORTANT use against Zhaitan, the egg didn’t all it did was to show some vision.
The temple of Abaddon let you see the Eye of Zhaitan, and set a plan to defeat one to know more about Zhaitan, it worked, Rata Novus didn’t. No further research was used to defeat Mordremoth.
See the difference? Yes you have setbacks, you spent time on non-dragon minion enemies, but these setbacks are only the beginning of a chain and they paid off in the end, those krait’s orb is crucial against Zhaitan’s corruption. It didn’t happen to the egg and Rata Novus, both storylines provided little help in the war against Mordremoth, and the final chapter could have been a lot less rushed and forced if the whole HoT story chapters are focused on How To Defeat Mordremoth.
(edited by Slowpokeking.8720)
I try to jump in here and clear it up:
Mordremoth is A big bad guy, like Konig says. He is one of six.
He is a giant threat and the supposed story of Heart of Thorns was all about it.
He did a lot of dangerous things.
In therory, all the things you (and we) craved were there.
Then there is the execution. They just didn`t deliver.
End of Story
You can argue every detail and how they focused on other mundane things that weren`t part of this particular story, but it won`t change the fact that they failed to deliver Mordremoths story on par of Zaithans.
One little thing to add and that should not be forgotten.
The Eldar Dragons in total are the threat, not each individual. It doesn`t matter if they are working independently, or if they are working together. They are doing more or less the same and thus their combined efforts is the threat.
Zaithan was our introduction to the whole story. A story that will at least have eigth story arcs (depending on how they want to deal with the others. Maybe we have a ED vs ED szenario and we get a double take down in) and we just got 2/3 through the second.
We are in for the long run and the story has to be build arcordingly.
Thus there will be substories introduced that will don`t pay off in the current part, but later.
Like with the broken sword of Aragorn, seen in the first movie and ressurected in the last if I am not mistaken.
Difference between movie and game, though, is that with one we have a frame to work in. A game is more flexible and in this particular we don`t have any idea when or if things will be resolved.
Anet theory on how they deliver content is okay. They just start to shift to an unhealthy balance of sub- and mainplots.
That being said, the problem is more on the execution. They got better with HoT, no doubt, but they said so themselves: They wanted to make it tighter .
Unfortunatly they went way to tight and strangled the poor plot, leaving it limping thanks to lack of oxygen towards the end.
Glints egg. Chaks, Ratan Novus, etc. will have their place somwhere (hopefully) in the future and needed to be introduced alongside Mordremoth, as it would be foolish not to.
Yes, it is as you say. They took more time with no payoff.
Again. It is the execution, not the story.
We need to show them that the imediate story needs as much attention as the overall plot and that we are not satisfied with 2/3 of a great story. We like the whole 100% (or at least 90%, because this is Anet. Sorry, but there is always some butchery that will be resolved later)
Oh and who is the evil? Right now we only know about the ED, who take the world hostage and might shift it positively or negatively.
By all means it could be us who is the danger in the long run.
So please, can we stop and saying this is the endgame ?
We don`t know. All we know right now: Big dragon our doorsteps, PANIC
We just start to learn about the consequences.
There are so many directions this story could go. Even the existance of humans could be a problem, as they are actually aliens. It could go into the direction of banishing all magic and the rise of technology… (which could end up with GW3 being distopian future and the return of magic… shadowrun szenario.. oh come on make it happen).
There could even be someone who wants the ED energy for himself.
We don`t know what the endgame it. We just know this part was disapointing to a degree. So please let us stop saying this or that will hurt the story in the future.
Lets stay with: Element XYZ has distracted from the mainstory and thus it has lost an X amount of potential.
I think they know themselves what they messed up.
I just hope they get the resources to make it better in the future. I really hope so.
From the start of Season 2, however, the main problem has not been any specific adversary. It’s been magic itself.
That is incorrect. It is blatantly obvious that Mordremoth was the primary antagonist of Season 2. From the very first chapter, the writers had been dropping clues that pointed straight to Mordremoth being a global threat. This threat was recognized by the ruling bodies of every nation in Tyria during the world summit which is why they all agreed to help the Pact fight Mordremoth.
The story tries to convince us that Mordremoth is somehow an immense threat to Tyria as a whole, and the very last moment of S2 was our fight against the dragon’s lieutenant which tried to take Glint’s egg, after which we saw a cinematic of Mordremoth annihilating the Pact fleet. All of this tries to establish Mordremoth as the Big Bad of the expansion.
You’ve missed my point.
Mordremoth is the primary antagonist.
However, while we’re generally used to the primary antagonist and the primary problem being the same (particularly in the Guild Wars context), this is not always the case. Consider Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series – there are various antagonists, but the overarching problem to be solved is Thread.
In previous arcs, the primary antagonist and the primary problem are the same. From Battle of Claw Island on in the personal story (possibly earlier depending on which choices you make), every problem you’re dealing with in the personal story is caused by Zhaitan. In LS1, with the exception of Lost Shores and the holiday events, everything is directly or indirectly caused by Scarlet. In both cases, the primary antagonist is also the main thing driving the story – they are the problem to be solved.
In S2 and HoT, however, that is not the case.
In S2C1, the main focus is on the Zephyrite crash and the Master of Peace’s mission (which we can now be reasonably certain was to bring the egg to Tarir). It so happened that Mordremoth was involved in that, but at that stage, Aerin could just have easily have been in the pay of the Inquest. Meanwhile, we have the hylek storyteller with the story of the monster that was drinking all the water, but when a warrior kills the monster, the water is all released at once in a destructive flood – an obvious analogy to the elder dragons.
In S2C2, the focus is on learning more about the way magic operates, although Mordremoth starts being set up as a threat.
In S2C3 and S2C4, Mordremoth is being built up as a threat while other story elements are being set up – but even here, it’s apparent that part of the reason Mordremoth is such a threat may well be because of the increase of magic due to Zhaitan’s death (setting up the need to find some other means of containing the magic released before killing more Elder Dragons). We have the summit, and the attack on the summit, but the cutscene at the end shows the egg at Tarir, and Mordremoth’s vines closing in on Tarir. While at death’s door, the Pale Tree’s concern is not that Mordremoth will attack the inhabited regions of Tyria, but that Mordremoth would besiege and take Tarir and thus seize the egg.
In S2C5, the stage is set for the Pact buildup in the Silverwastes… but then it returns to the egg when we visit the Durmand Priory.
From Chapter 6 on, however, the focus is pretty much entirely on the egg. In Chapter 6, we’re trying to stop Mordremoth from getting the egg, and then Caithe steals it. In the final chapters, we’re chasing down Caithe, and then she escapes again.
Moving into Act 1 of Heart of Thorns, we regularly hear word of Caithe and the egg while we’re traversing Verdant Brink. Getting the Pact on a firmer footing and rescuing lost allies are also priorities, but the egg is still a priority, if not the priority for the time being.
Act 2 is then all about the egg until it gets deposited in Tarir. After that, the main focus switches to Mordremoth – but one of the things to keep in mind is that the Mordrem assaults on Tarir make it very obvious that the egg is simply not going to be safe until Mordremoth is removed as a threat.
Mordremoth is the primary antagonist – but this time, the primary antagonist is not the main problem faced by the protagonists. The main problem is finding a way to keep magic balanced (if you pay attention to some of what’s revealed in Tarir, in fact, contrary to previous assumptions the elder dragons do not serve to keep magic balanced: the dragons would consume all of the magic if they could, which would result in the death of Tyria, and it’s only through the efforts of others such as the Seers that enough magic has been hidden from the elder dragons to prevent that from happening). Glint’s legacy appears to be the solution, or at least a necessary part of the solution. Mordremoth is the primary antagonist not because it is a threat to Tyria in his own right (he is, but so are the other dragons) but because Mordremoth is the biggest threat to Glint’s legacy.
If you consider that Mordremoth is both the primary focus of the storyline and the primary antagonist, then yes, you could see that half of Season 2 and the egg-related instances of Heart of Thorns was wasted in diversions from the main storyline.
When you view it as Glint’s legacy being the primary focus of the storyline and Mordremoth being the primary antagonist because it is the biggest immediate threat to Glint’s legacy, though, with Glint’s legacy likely to remain a focus well after Mordremoth is gone, however, then placing enough of a focus on Glint’s legacy so we know what’s going on there is not only justified but necessary – certainly not an inappropriate diversion as some have claimed here. If anything, the problem might be because not enough attention has been paid to it in the primary storyline, making it easy to miss how important it is and for people to think that Mordremoth was actually still the main focus of the story.
In short: Mordremoth was the primary antagonist, but unlike its predecessors in the role of primary antagonist, it’s the primary antagonist because it’s competing for the MacGuffin that will be needed to solve the bigger problem, not because it is the bigger problem itself.
When we move into Season 3, I suspect that we’ll start facing secondary antagonists that are threats primarily because they’re obstacles in the way of completing Glint’s legacy.
Now, that’s not to say that the portions of HoT that were focused on Mordremoth couldn’t have had more time to make them more satisfying. They certainly could, and probably should, have been given more time. However, claims that the egg-related steps are wasting time that should have been focused on Mordremoth is missing the point – the egg isn’t a diversion from the main quest. Since Season 2 started, Glint’s legacy is the main quest.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
I appreciate your well thought out post, Drax. However, I’m unfortunately going to have to ignore most of it for the time being since it’s 4 am here and I want to skip straight to the discussion of HoT’s narrative as it stands before I forget what I was about to say.
Moving into Act 1 of Heart of Thorns, we regularly hear word of Caithe and the egg while we’re traversing Verdant Brink. Getting the Pact on a firmer footing and rescuing lost allies are also priorities, but the egg is still a priority, if not the priority for the time being.
We know this as the players, but try to see this from the perspective of the story’s protagonist: the Pact Commander. I believe that the writers failed to heed an important rule of writing: “Show, don’t tell.”
From the protagonist’s perspective, the main priority in Sct 1 is clearly rescuing Destiny’s Edge, not the egg. During our brief encounter with Ensign Wilton in the story step ‘In Their Footsteps’, the first question we ask him is “Marshal Trahearne and Destiny’s Edge were taken prisoner. I’m trying to track them down. Do you know anything?” It is only by accident that Wilton happened to see Caithe wandering nearby, which he tells us. Our response to this is… “Caithe’s here? When did you see her? Where did she go?” This makes it sound as if Caithe and the egg are an afterthought in our protagonist’s mind.
If the protagonist doesn’t see the egg as their #1 priority then neither will we as the audience. The protagonist is who we take our cues from. What is urgent to them becomes urgent to us, and they did not demonstrate a proactive interest in the egg. This is part of why it was such a forgettable plot point.
Act 2 is then all about the egg until it gets deposited in Tarir. After that, the main focus switches to Mordremoth – but one of the things to keep in mind is that the Mordrem assaults on Tarir make it very obvious that the egg is simply not going to be safe until Mordremoth is removed as a threat.
Actually, our protagonist is only passively interested in the egg at the beginning of Act 2. We weren’t even taking an active interest in Caithe or the egg at this point. The only reason we found either is because we were following an exalted named Ruka who allowed us to stumble upon Caithe where we witness the scuffle between her and Faolain. This is a huge problem because what we essentially have is a weak protagonist. The Pact Commander is a passive figure whom others are acting upon in this story arc. We do not seek out the egg; it seeks us.
Returning to my original point, the writers are telling us that the egg is important when they should be showing us that it is by having our protagonist take an active interest in its recovery. A protagonist [I]must[/I] by proactive, and their goals and desires heavy influence the story being told.
Mordremoth is the primary antagonist – but this time, the primary antagonist is not the main problem faced by the protagonists. The main problem is finding a way to keep magic balanced (if you pay attention to some of what’s revealed in Tarir, in fact, contrary to previous assumptions the elder dragons do not serve to keep magic balanced: the dragons would consume all of the magic if they could, which would result in the death of Tyria, and it’s only through the efforts of others such as the Seers that enough magic has been hidden from the elder dragons to prevent that from happening). Glint’s legacy appears to be the solution, or at least a necessary part of the solution. Mordremoth is the primary antagonist not because it is a threat to Tyria in his own right (he is, but so are the other dragons) but because Mordremoth is the biggest threat to Glint’s legacy.
We understand this as players. Our protagonist on the other hsnd seems to be blissfully unaware as they murder Mordremoth without a second thought.
By now I think I’ve made my point abundantly clear. The problem lies in the telling, not necessarily the story (though arguably, both are in dire need of improvement).
As the audience, our perspective is guided by the protagonist whose eyes we see through. If the writers want to communicate the significance of a plot point then they MUST show, not tell. We must see characters taking an active interest in the MscGuffin, not stumbling into situations where we are conveniently led by the hand to its doorstep. Secondly, our characters should express doubt that killing Mordremoth is the proper course or else it just looks like they are incompetent fools who can’t piece together the fact that killing dragons is potentially dangerous to the environment.
This stark absense of inner conflict, or even conflict between NPCs who are apprehensive about the dragon’s death, is why I say that they absolutely, without a doubt failed to foreshadow the upcoming plot of S3.
I kind of agree with you and I don’t.
On the one hand, I think one reason we’re having this discussion at all is that ArenaNet didn’t make it something whose importance is there to the typical player. For the people who pay close attention to all of the various dialogues from Season 2 onwards, including reading the plaques for A Study In Gold and badgering every Exalted available for information (ahem), the importance of Glint’s legacy in general and the egg in particular is evident. While some of this is stuff that can’t be avoided while doing the story, without doing that additional research the obvious conclusion would be that Mordremoth is the focus (rather than “just” the biggest current obstacle to the real focus).
Especially in the context that the entirety of Season 1 was building up to Mordremoth awakening. I think there’s been a significant shift in ArenaNet’s storytelling between S1 and S2, and I think it’s for the better in the long run, but there is a clear dissonance when we’ve spent more time building up to Mordremoth awakening than we did on fighting Mordremoth after it awakened.
On the other hand, I think the PC’s portrayal is actually fairly realistic, even knowing that the egg is important (although at this point the PC mostly knows the egg is important because the Pale Tree and Ogden say it is without giving a clear explanation as to why – it’s not until we reach Tarir that we get straight answers). We hear about the egg in Verdant Brink, but all we know is that it’s somewhere in the area: the Commander’s priority is on tracking down and rescuing friends while the trail is still hot rather than going on a wild goose chase. It’s made pretty clear, though, that the Commander still places a high priority on tracking Caithe and the egg down… it’s just a teensy bit lower than the more immediate (at the time) question of rescuing Destiny’s Edge.
When we meet Ruka and find out the egg is within reach, though, it immediately becomes top priority. We didn’t “stumble upon” Caithe – we followed Ruka because we knew the trail Ruka was following lead to Caithe, and given recent information the PC was in fact willing to allow the trail to the rest of Destiny’s Edge to go cold in order to secure the egg and bring it to Tarir. Afterwards, the PC recognises that leaving the egg in Tarir and going after Mordremoth is the best thing to do for the time being – the Exalted know what to do with it, while the PC knows how to kill things. The Exalted do their job, the PC does their’s, and the Luminate stresses that recovering the egg is more important than killing Mordremoth.
From there up to the end of HoT, the PC’s focus is on freeing Destiny’s Edge and killing Mordremoth – not because that’s the most important thing at the time, but because it’s the most important thing for the PC to do (keeping in mind that the PC is an expert at killing stuff, not at incubating dragon eggs). In the final cutscene, we see the payoff – some of Mordremoth’s released energy goes into the egg rather than being released into the general environment. It’s been hinted that S3 will go into the ramifications of that (I think it was hinted that the egg was going to hatch in S3, in fact). My expectation would be that the first thing the PC would have done afterwards would be to return to Tarir and find out what is happening – cutting off HoT without a denouement right after killing Mordremoth, however, meant ArenaNet completely failed in taking up the opportunity to foreshadow season 3 with the denouement.
Regarding inner conflict… I think it’s an ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ situation. I’m not sure how much the biconics and the PC are truly supposed to be aware of the bigger plot being woven by Glint’s followers and the Pale Tree, but it seems to be basically that at least some of the Elder Dragons have to be killed if the legacy is going to achieve it’s objective… and the Elder Dragon that presents the biggest risk to the legacy would of course be on the top of the priority list.
At the bottom line, though, I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of flaws with the storytelling for HoT and the post-Zhaitan story in general (your observation earlier regarding Chekhov’s Gun is very pertinent – we were promised E’s identity in Season 2, and we’re still waiting…). However, I don’t consider the time spent on the egg to be one of them, as the egg is at least as important as Mordremoth, and probably more so.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
Adding to that:
The egg wasn`t as important to us as the player at the point we meet Caithe.
yes, it was an objective, however it`s significant place in our fight was unclear.
We only had the word of odgen (who kept being mysterious for whatever reason) and the pale tree, the later which has been revealed of being part of Mordremoth (and withold information as well).
Caithe was also an unstable factor, as we didn`t know where her aligiance was.
Overall the focus was, save the pact, save DE, find a way to kill Mordremoth and execute a plan.
I think they checked these from the list, with varying success.
The PC and the Biconics ended up being nothing more than an elite team, that goes in first and clears the way.
The question that I have is, if S3 is the epilog to HoT, thus part of that arc, or is the cut permanent and we jus fall straight into the next expansion arc.
I prefer at least two seasons letting things settle, or at least get resolved. If that is not the case, be bold and have things settled simultaniously, while going forward, if you have to.
btw. I don´t really like the glint legacy storyline. The vision and being a puppet part starts to get a bit annoying for my taste.
As long as everyone and their mother keeps having secrets and just give us fractions of any details, then I stop caring.
Odgen, Pale Tree, Anise, Rytlock, whoever… come clear…
Honestly i was kinda hoping the egg+hot would pull us away from the “kill all the dragons” story direction. S2 LS was actually hinting at it being bad in the long run.
i was surprised hot didnt touch on it much.
i hope S3 will resume that story path.
You’ve missed my point.
Mordremoth is the primary antagonist.
However, while we’re generally used to the primary antagonist and the primary problem being the same (particularly in the Guild Wars context), this is not always the case. Consider Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series – there are various antagonists, but the overarching problem to be solved is Thread.
In previous arcs, the primary antagonist and the primary problem are the same. From Battle of Claw Island on in the personal story (possibly earlier depending on which choices you make), every problem you’re dealing with in the personal story is caused by Zhaitan. In LS1, with the exception of Lost Shores and the holiday events, everything is directly or indirectly caused by Scarlet. In both cases, the primary antagonist is also the main thing driving the story – they are the problem to be solved.
In S2 and HoT, however, that is not the case.
In S2C1, the main focus is on the Zephyrite crash and the Master of Peace’s mission (which we can now be reasonably certain was to bring the egg to Tarir). It so happened that Mordremoth was involved in that, but at that stage, Aerin could just have easily have been in the pay of the Inquest. Meanwhile, we have the hylek storyteller with the story of the monster that was drinking all the water, but when a warrior kills the monster, the water is all released at once in a destructive flood – an obvious analogy to the elder dragons.
In S2C2, the focus is on learning more about the way magic operates, although Mordremoth starts being set up as a threat.
In S2C3 and S2C4, Mordremoth is being built up as a threat while other story elements are being set up – but even here, it’s apparent that part of the reason Mordremoth is such a threat may well be because of the increase of magic due to Zhaitan’s death (setting up the need to find some other means of containing the magic released before killing more Elder Dragons). We have the summit, and the attack on the summit, but the cutscene at the end shows the egg at Tarir, and Mordremoth’s vines closing in on Tarir. While at death’s door, the Pale Tree’s concern is not that Mordremoth will attack the inhabited regions of Tyria, but that Mordremoth would besiege and take Tarir and thus seize the egg.
In S2C5, the stage is set for the Pact buildup in the Silverwastes… but then it returns to the egg when we visit the Durmand Priory.
From Chapter 6 on, however, the focus is pretty much entirely on the egg. In Chapter 6, we’re trying to stop Mordremoth from getting the egg, and then Caithe steals it. In the final chapters, we’re chasing down Caithe, and then she escapes again.
Moving into Act 1 of Heart of Thorns, we regularly hear word of Caithe and the egg while we’re traversing Verdant Brink. Getting the Pact on a firmer footing and rescuing lost allies are also priorities, but the egg is still a priority, if not the priority for the time being.
Act 2 is then all about the egg until it gets deposited in Tarir. After that, the main focus switches to Mordremoth – but one of the things to keep in mind is that the Mordrem assaults on Tarir make it very obvious that the egg is simply not going to be safe until Mordremoth is removed as a threat.
Mordremoth is the primary antagonist – but this time, the primary antagonist is not the main problem faced by the protagonists. The main problem is finding a way to keep magic balanced (if you pay attention to some of what’s revealed in Tarir, in fact, contrary to previous assumptions the elder dragons do not serve to keep magic balanced: the dragons would consume all of the magic if they could, which would result in the death of Tyria, and it’s only through the efforts of others such as the Seers that enough magic has been hidden from the elder dragons to prevent that from happening). Glint’s legacy appears to be the solution, or at least a necessary part of the solution. Mordremoth is the primary antagonist not because it is a threat to Tyria in his own right (he is, but so are the other dragons) but because Mordremoth is the biggest threat to Glint’s legacy.
If you consider that Mordremoth is both the primary focus of the storyline and the primary antagonist, then yes, you could see that half of Season 2 and the egg-related instances of Heart of Thorns was wasted in diversions from the main storyline.
When you view it as Glint’s legacy being the primary focus of the storyline and Mordremoth being the primary antagonist because it is the biggest immediate threat to Glint’s legacy, though, with Glint’s legacy likely to remain a focus well after Mordremoth is gone, however, then placing enough of a focus on Glint’s legacy so we know what’s going on there is not only justified but necessary – certainly not an inappropriate diversion as some have claimed here. If anything, the problem might be because not enough attention has been paid to it in the primary storyline, making it easy to miss how important it is and for people to think that Mordremoth was actually still the main focus of the story.
In short: Mordremoth was the primary antagonist, but unlike its predecessors in the role of primary antagonist, it’s the primary antagonist because it’s competing for the MacGuffin that will be needed to solve the bigger problem, not because it is the bigger problem itself.
When we move into Season 3, I suspect that we’ll start facing secondary antagonists that are threats primarily because they’re obstacles in the way of completing Glint’s legacy.Now, that’s not to say that the portions of HoT that were focused on Mordremoth couldn’t have had more time to make them more satisfying. They certainly could, and probably should, have been given more time. However, claims that the egg-related steps are wasting time that should have been focused on Mordremoth is missing the point – the egg isn’t a diversion from the main quest. Since Season 2 started, Glint’s legacy is the main quest.
No, you tried to say the egg is as important as Mordremoth.
But the whole LS and HoT story made us think it’s important because Mordremoth was keep sending its minions to get the egg. We knew and tried so hard to get the egg because we didn’t want Mordremoth to get it. It was keep hinting that the egg might be very useful against Mordremoth, but in the end it failed to show. Thus made this all pointless.
How is the main problem magic? It showed little danger, all of the threat and danger came from one thing: Mordremoth in HoT.
At the bottom line, though, I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of flaws with the storytelling for HoT and the post-Zhaitan story in general (your observation earlier regarding Chekhov’s Gun is very pertinent – we were promised E’s identity in Season 2, and we’re still waiting…). However, I don’t consider the time spent on the egg to be one of them, as the egg is at least as important as Mordremoth, and probably more so.
But the egg became important solely because Mordremoth was keep trying to get it and it failed to pay off.
It’s like the Fellowship worked so hard on the One Ring and found it’s not going to help fight Sauron in the end, then it’s immediately a fail of the story.
Yes, yes. I remember you. No time for nostalgia. Get to the point.
I need information about how to deal with Mordremoth.Actually, I think you need information about the meaning of your vision from the Pale Tree.
What? How did you—
The players went to know the egg simply because they wanted to know a way to fight Mordremoth. They thought the vision was related to it. Why did Pale Tree give us such useless vision when Mordremoth showed such threat and knock her out? It’s messed up with out a doubt.
We returned to the Priory and discussed our findings with Ogden. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we find the Master of Peace and help him protect Glint’s egg before Mordremoth seeks to destroy it.
If the egg’s use was simply drain some magic, why would Mordremoth want it so much? Would it even think it could be defeated? Why did the Pale Tree give it to us when Mordremoth was the top 1 threat? The egg was never hinted to be a separated lane, it was keep hinted to be related to the Mordremoth story, but it failed to pay off and went totally disconnected.
Honestly i was kinda hoping the egg+hot would pull us away from the “kill all the dragons” story direction. S2 LS was actually hinting at it being bad in the long run.
i was surprised hot didnt touch on it much.
i hope S3 will resume that story path.
Then why did they bring Mordremoth up when there were already 4 other dragons up alive? Why didn’t they focus on the aftermath of Zhaitan and let us work on magic?
On the one hand, I think one reason we’re having this discussion at all is that ArenaNet didn’t make it something whose importance is there to the typical player. [. . .] While some of this is stuff that can’t be avoided while doing the story, without doing that additional research the obvious conclusion would be that Mordremoth is the focus (rather than “just” the biggest current obstacle to the real focus).
That strikes me as a problem. To me, the point of writing a story is for it to be accessible to the average player. If only the most dedicated fans will appreciate it then you’re writing it wrong. At the end of the day, ArenaNet is a business. We pay them to deliver a compelling story, and many players were unsatisfied with the current one.
On the other hand, I think the PC’s portrayal is actually fairly realistic, even knowing that the egg is important (although at this point the PC mostly knows the egg is important because the Pale Tree and Ogden say it is without giving a clear explanation as to why – it’s not until we reach Tarir that we get straight answers). We hear about the egg in Verdant Brink, but all we know is that it’s somewhere in the area: the Commander’s priority is on tracking down and rescuing friends while the trail is still hot rather than going on a wild goose chase. It’s made pretty clear, though, that the Commander still places a high priority on tracking Caithe and the egg down… it’s just a teensy bit lower than the more immediate (at the time) question of rescuing Destiny’s Edge.
“Realistic” is a relative term in writing. Anything can be made to sound realistic if you create a logical sequence of events that lead a certain way. I strongly believe that by this point of the story, they needed to be dropping stronger hints that suggest a plot twist at the end.
When we meet Ruka and find out the egg is within reach, though, it immediately becomes top priority. We didn’t “stumble upon” Caithe – we followed Ruka because we knew the trail Ruka was following lead to Caithe.
Okay, I re-read the dialogue from Prized Possessions and I can see that now. We hear news from the Pact soldiers that Caithe is in the area and immediately go to help. Fair enough, but I still feel like our protagonist is far too reactive. We only go searching for Caithe because some NPC who we happened to be talking to conveniently saw her in the area recently. I really want to see evidence that my character’s priorities are changing. If the egg is becoming more important then we need to see that by having the protagonist take an active interest in it. By the end of the story, we need to see evidence that it is now, without a doubt, their top priority. Your idea of a denoument could have solved this.
My expectation would be that the first thing the PC would have done afterwards would be to return to Tarir and find out what is happening – cutting off HoT without a denouement right after killing Mordremoth, however, meant ArenaNet completely failed in taking up the opportunity to foreshadow season 3 with the denouement.
Agreed.
Regarding inner conflict… I think it’s an ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ situation. I’m not sure how much the biconics and the PC are truly supposed to be aware of the bigger plot being woven by Glint’s followers and the Pale Tree, but it seems to be basically that at least some of the Elder Dragons have to be killed if the legacy is going to achieve it’s objective… and the Elder Dragon that presents the biggest risk to the legacy would of course be on the top of the priority list.
But see, we all know that killing Mordremoth could have dire consequences. It’s a very popular fan theory and blatantly obvious to us, the players, so it’s frustrating when our protagonist is absolutely clueless.
At the bottom line, though, I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of flaws with the storytelling for HoT and the post-Zhaitan story in general (your observation earlier regarding Chekhov’s Gun is very pertinent – we were promised E’s identity in Season 2, and we’re still waiting…). However, I don’t consider the time spent on the egg to be one of them, as the egg is at least as important as Mordremoth, and probably more so.
Oh, I don’t consider it a waste of time either. The story itself isnt bad. I just want them to tell it better.
(edited by Athrenn.9468)
No, you tried to say the egg is as important as Mordremoth.
I didn’t try to say it.
I did say it.
While I agree with Jaken that our allies should stop being so xlemfrogomming secretive, and with Athrenn that by this time we should have been told what’s going on more explicitly rather than being left to the people who pay attention to figure it out, we’re given the pieces we need to know. Ogden tells us outright that both too much and too little magic would destroy Tyria. The Elder Dragons, although they don’t do so deliberately, play a part in preventing magic from going to the ‘too much’ side. When we kill an Elder Dragon, the magic is released, and if we kill too many of them without an alternate means of regulating magic, boom.
Glint’s Legacy and the egg is that alternate means, as is made very clear in Tarir. As an added bonus, there’s the possibility that if the hatchling absorbs enough magic, it could become an Elder Dragon-level ally.
Mordremoth is just one battle out of six. Glint’s Legacy means we actually have a shot at winning the war without being destroyed ourselves in the aftermath.
As for why Mordremoth wanted the egg: As an item imbued with a lot of magic it would serve as a tasty snack, while if corrupted it has the potential to be a powerful minion which, if it inherited Glint’s mental abilities, could potentially allow Mordremoth to do to the other races what it did to sylvari. Take your pick. Either way, if Mordremoth got the egg, then that would have at least significantly compromised the project to find a way to keep Tyria from being overloaded and destroyed by magic as more Elder Dragons are destroyed.
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
I didn’t try to say it.
I did say it.
While I agree with Jaken that our allies should stop being so xlemfrogomming secretive, and with Athrenn that by this time we should have been told what’s going on more explicitly rather than being left to the people who pay attention to figure it out, we’re given the pieces we need to know. Ogden tells us outright that both too much and too little magic would destroy Tyria. The Elder Dragons, although they don’t do so deliberately, play a part in preventing magic from going to the ‘too much’ side. When we kill an Elder Dragon, the magic is released, and if we kill too many of them without an alternate means of regulating magic, boom.
Glint’s Legacy and the egg is that alternate means, as is made very clear in Tarir. As an added bonus, there’s the possibility that if the hatchling absorbs enough magic, it could become an Elder Dragon-level ally.
Mordremoth is just one battle out of six. Glint’s Legacy means we actually have a shot at winning the war without being destroyed ourselves in the aftermath.
As for why Mordremoth wanted the egg: As an item imbued with a lot of magic it would serve as a tasty snack, while if corrupted it has the potential to be a powerful minion which, if it inherited Glint’s mental abilities, could potentially allow Mordremoth to do to the other races what it did to sylvari. Take your pick. Either way, if Mordremoth got the egg, then that would have at least significantly compromised the project to find a way to keep Tyria from being overloaded and destroyed by magic as more Elder Dragons are destroyed.
But we don’t see any consequence. We got a big dragon attacking from everywhere and causing huge threat, why should we waste time on such thing when we could all become Mordremoth’s snacks and hadn’t find a way to fight it? It was not just one battle, we were obviously losing at that time and must find a way to stop the dragon. Which we didn’t, we got a last minute magical pull to take it down.
Mordremoth is the imminent danger, you lose if you can’t find a way to fight it. This should be the NO.1 top priority. Why did we got for the egg? Because Mordremoth wanted it. It’s still about Mordremoth and it failed to connect to the dragon in the end.
So the egg is important because of Mordremoth in the story, why did it simply get disconnected in the final battle against it? If it’s not related with Mordremoth, then it shouldn’t play such a big part in the LS2&HoT story. Just like the One Ring didn’t become the focus of Hobbit while it was very very important against Sauron. That’s not how you tell a story, Mordremoth is the big bad of this chapter, then focus on it. If you don’t want, don’t bring it out and spend so much effort to show how scary and menacing it is, simple
No, you tried to say the egg is as important as Mordremoth.
I didn’t try to say it.
I did say it.
While I agree with Jaken that our allies should stop being so xlemfrogomming secretive, and with Athrenn that by this time we should have been told what’s going on more explicitly rather than being left to the people who pay attention to figure it out, we’re given the pieces we need to know. Ogden tells us outright that both too much and too little magic would destroy Tyria. The Elder Dragons, although they don’t do so deliberately, play a part in preventing magic from going to the ‘too much’ side. When we kill an Elder Dragon, the magic is released, and if we kill too many of them without an alternate means of regulating magic, boom.
Glint’s Legacy and the egg is that alternate means, as is made very clear in Tarir. As an added bonus, there’s the possibility that if the hatchling absorbs enough magic, it could become an Elder Dragon-level ally.
Mordremoth is just one battle out of six. Glint’s Legacy means we actually have a shot at winning the war without being destroyed ourselves in the aftermath.
As for why Mordremoth wanted the egg: As an item imbued with a lot of magic it would serve as a tasty snack, while if corrupted it has the potential to be a powerful minion which, if it inherited Glint’s mental abilities, could potentially allow Mordremoth to do to the other races what it did to sylvari. Take your pick. Either way, if Mordremoth got the egg, then that would have at least significantly compromised the project to find a way to keep Tyria from being overloaded and destroyed by magic as more Elder Dragons are destroyed.
Yes and no.
We don`t know the purpose of the egg for real. We are just assuming, based on the little information we got from everyone.
We as the pact comander don`t know what role the egg plays. We just know it is important.
That being said, Mordremoths interest in it could be more simple: The egg is a possible thread to EDs in general
Mordremoth is able to tap into minds, get complete control of his victims memories and he so happened to get a lot of information thanks to he pac crashlanding and feeding on Sylvari and other pact memories directly.
He was able to tap into Zoija and Logan. One genius and one suppose high ranking human officer, who is often just left out of the loop, but still a respected and capable person.
Even if he has no direct knowledge of what the egg is supposed to do (like us), it is easy to everyone involved that it a threat in some way.
Think about it. Mordremoth was the reason the zephirites were killed.
Aerin, who was part of them (and possible learned about some of their secrets), became active after he entered Mordremoths teritory (Dry Top).
He was described as normal before.
It is at least from that point on, that Mordremoth has information about the eggs (possible) existance and the danger it might posses.
Remember, EDs are not supposed to be dumb and our only way to fight them, is outwit them.
The ED plays several chessgames at once, against several enemies. The more he plays, the higher is the possibility he will loose some games.
These will more than often be his weekness and our only chance to push through.
@Slowpokeking: You keep bringing up the Lord of the Rings analogy.
What you’re missing is that we’re still at the start of the bigger story. Mordremoth isn’t Sauron, and we’re not at the stage of tossing the Ring into Mt. Doom.
Mordremoth is the Black Riders, and we just reached Rivendell. Our killing Mordremoth is the literary equivalent of the Ringwraiths being swept down the river by Gandalf and Elrond, earning the heroes a reprieve to make a real plan. Up to now we’ve focused on keeping the Ring away from the Nazgul, not on what we’re going to do with it ourselves.
The analogy isn’t perfect, of course, but the point is that you’re judging it as if it’s the end of the story when the truth is that we’ve barely finished the introduction. Mordremoth isn’t the end of the campaign – it was simply the immediate threat that needed to be dealt with before we could have the opportunity to get the Council of Elrond together and plan the campaign.
@Jaken: It’s pretty clear from the A Study In Gold achievement. The previous method of safeguarding the world’s magic against the dragons – infusing it into a Bloodstone – is no longer available. Glint’s legacy is the replacement. And the egg is part of Glint’s legacy.
Of course, not every Pact Commander is going to have completed that achievement, particularly since some of the plinths can only be reached with certain masteries. Hopefully, it will be explicitly spelled out soon. Currently, though, for people who have put together all the clues and dialogues, the only way it could possibly be more obvious is for someone to directly say “The purpose of the egg (and future hatchling) is to replace the Elder Dragons and the Bloodstones as a receptacle of magic keeping the magic level of Tyria at a safe level.”
To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.
Yeah. These are extra suplementing stuff, that might tell us the real purpose, but right now it is all hidden and as you say till it isn`t spelled out directly for us, thus creating a tension which just doesn`t have to be.
Right now, because everyone is acting as if they are doing the greater good , we get pushed around as puppets in a greater game, not being able break out of.
That being said, most of the things are declared as theories and no as facts.
Even the forgotten, the ones who are the oldest, are just speaking from their experiences.
Even in their time the dragons rose and started consuming magic. That time the bloodstone was created and the dragons were stopped or made belief that they fulfilled their duty and went back to slumber (sure, they killed most races at that time, but that is their colleteral i presume).
I doubt the Forgotten know the reasons for the EDs existance. Is it just power that created them (as there is no telling of one being slain, thus they might not know the true potential of the Dragon Energy and how it migh choose a new host), or do they have a deeper meaning.
We can asume that Glaust/Glint, might know more, as she lived longer then them and was actually part of the enemy, but that doesn`t mean she knows all.
In fact, it could put her in a more dangerous position in the whole story, but the glint is not as benevolent as she seems theories are not liked as much here.
That being said, our sources in that regard are pretty uneven.
I would like more sources to be found first and more sincerity from the ones who deliver these plans which are for centuries in motion.
We still got some old folks around and other sources to tap into. It would be foolish to follow a prophecy, without some more background checks.
On the other hand it could be as simple and the egg is our lord and saviour.
No, you tried to say the egg is as important as Mordremoth.
I didn’t try to say it.
I did say it.
While I agree with Jaken that our allies should stop being so xlemfrogomming secretive, and with Athrenn that by this time we should have been told what’s going on more explicitly rather than being left to the people who pay attention to figure it out, we’re given the pieces we need to know. Ogden tells us outright that both too much and too little magic would destroy Tyria. The Elder Dragons, although they don’t do so deliberately, play a part in preventing magic from going to the ‘too much’ side. When we kill an Elder Dragon, the magic is released, and if we kill too many of them without an alternate means of regulating magic, boom.
Glint’s Legacy and the egg is that alternate means, as is made very clear in Tarir. As an added bonus, there’s the possibility that if the hatchling absorbs enough magic, it could become an Elder Dragon-level ally.
Mordremoth is just one battle out of six. Glint’s Legacy means we actually have a shot at winning the war without being destroyed ourselves in the aftermath.
As for why Mordremoth wanted the egg: As an item imbued with a lot of magic it would serve as a tasty snack, while if corrupted it has the potential to be a powerful minion which, if it inherited Glint’s mental abilities, could potentially allow Mordremoth to do to the other races what it did to sylvari. Take your pick. Either way, if Mordremoth got the egg, then that would have at least significantly compromised the project to find a way to keep Tyria from being overloaded and destroyed by magic as more Elder Dragons are destroyed.
Yes and no.
We don`t know the purpose of the egg for real. We are just assuming, based on the little information we got from everyone.
We as the pact comander don`t know what role the egg plays. We just know it is important.
That being said, Mordremoths interest in it could be more simple: The egg is a possible thread to EDs in general
Mordremoth is able to tap into minds, get complete control of his victims memories and he so happened to get a lot of information thanks to he pac crashlanding and feeding on Sylvari and other pact memories directly.
He was able to tap into Zoija and Logan. One genius and one suppose high ranking human officer, who is often just left out of the loop, but still a respected and capable person.
Even if he has no direct knowledge of what the egg is supposed to do (like us), it is easy to everyone involved that it a threat in some way.
Think about it. Mordremoth was the reason the zephirites were killed.
Aerin, who was part of them (and possible learned about some of their secrets), became active after he entered Mordremoths teritory (Dry Top).
He was described as normal before.
It is at least from that point on, that Mordremoth has information about the eggs (possible) existance and the danger it might posses.Remember, EDs are not supposed to be dumb and our only way to fight them, is outwit them.
The ED plays several chessgames at once, against several enemies. The more he plays, the higher is the possibility he will loose some games.
These will more than often be his weekness and our only chance to push through.
Why would the egg be a big threat in the dragon’s eyes? Glint herself was smashed by Kralkatorrik.
@Slowpokeking: You keep bringing up the Lord of the Rings analogy.
What you’re missing is that we’re still at the start of the bigger story. Mordremoth isn’t Sauron, and we’re not at the stage of tossing the Ring into Mt. Doom.
Mordremoth is the Black Riders, and we just reached Rivendell. Our killing Mordremoth is the literary equivalent of the Ringwraiths being swept down the river by Gandalf and Elrond, earning the heroes a reprieve to make a real plan. Up to now we’ve focused on keeping the Ring away from the Nazgul, not on what we’re going to do with it ourselves.
I’m sorry but he is Sauron, the whole Scarlet arc was to set up for his awakening, LS2 was focused on its threat and the finale was purely to show his threat. The trailers of HoT is to show his threat. Even the HoT icon and the xpc’s name is based on the dragon and the place where we get into his mind.
The egg became important simply because Mordremoth wanted it badly.
The Blackriders were Sauron’s minions, Mordremoth isn’t anyone’s minion.
The analogy isn’t perfect, of course, but the point is that you’re judging it as if it’s the end of the story when the truth is that we’ve barely finished the introduction. Mordremoth isn’t the end of the campaign – it was simply the immediate threat that needed to be dealt with before we could have the opportunity to get the Council of Elrond together and plan the campaign.
Mordremoth is the giant story arc and it was finished badly, this is enough to say the story wasn’t told well.
If you want to focus on magic, don’t get Mordremoth up, let us develop magic through Zhaitan’s death. Otherwise, focus on the dragon. That’s how you tell the story.
Not the egg, but it`s purpose.
It is key to a greater sheme. Something we don`t know about yet in full.
We know parts of it.
If some of the theories are correct, then the egg could be dangerous to an eldar dragon (for example the benevolent ED theory, or the bloodstone substitute theory).
So yes. All of these are ways, in which the egg (and the sourounding things in motion) could harm Mordremoth or the other eldar dragons in the long run.
And no, he is only Sauron if we condense the story to only have it be HoT. However we are talking about a story that is much bigger.
Another example:
Darth Vader. Big bad guy for one movies, then suddenly second fiddle to the emperor who is real big bad.
It is all about perspective and I am sorry, Mordremoth is just a stepping stone for the whole story.
We will go through every dragon like that everntually, if there isn`t a plottwist changing the status quo.
The egg in that case would be the one ring, found in the hobbit, thus becoming relevant only years later in LotR.
Also, when do you understand that no one argues with you that the story execution was not done well?
The story they intended was sound. Why do you keep argueing that they didn`t focus enough on Mordy, etc… if almost everyone is agreeing with you that they botched the execution?
Also, we are offtopic with this whole thing anyway, so please, back on track? This is about S3 and not how good or bad HoT was.
Mordremoth is only elder dragon number 2 of 6, which means we are at most only 1/3rd of the way through the story of guild wars 2, likely not even that far, mordremoth is NOT the sauron of gw2 he would be more comparable to the balrog if anything, a large threat and that requires sacrifice to overcome but ultimately was just a hurdle and not the ultimate threat or antagonist itself.
Like i said in my previous post, slowpokeking your creating your own fanfiction through speculation and assumptions in your head and as a result your over-hyping what role mordremoth plays in the overall plot of gw2 and then dismissing what story actually IS being told just because it doesnt match up with the version if the story you made up in your head
You have to look at this in a “big picture” perspective, we arnt even halfway through encountering the other elder dragons, anet cant just keep creating cataclysmic final countdown “this is it” doomsday scenarios for every elder dragon because it will become redundant and will make the actual threat of too much vs too little magic on tyria seem less impactful.
Not the egg, but it`s purpose.
It is key to a greater sheme. Something we don`t know about yet in full.We know parts of it.
If some of the theories are correct, then the egg could be dangerous to an eldar dragon (for example the benevolent ED theory, or the bloodstone substitute theory).
So yes. All of these are ways, in which the egg (and the sourounding things in motion) could harm Mordremoth or the other eldar dragons in the long run.
And no, he is only Sauron if we condense the story to only have it be HoT. However we are talking about a story that is much bigger.
Another example:
Darth Vader. Big bad guy for one movies, then suddenly second fiddle to the emperor who is real big bad.
And HoT is a big story arc, why should you damage its own story as the stepping stone?
Again another example of “bigger bad”, the Emperor is Vader’s master and ruler of the Empire. Mordremoth isn’t anyone’s minion.
It is all about perspective and I am sorry, Mordremoth is just a stepping stone for the whole story.
We will go through every dragon like that everntually, if there isn`t a plottwist changing the status quo.
Then why do they use it as the icon of the xpc and set it with LS?
So every war against the dragon need to be disconnected and take some last minute magical pull? then it’s finished for the GW2 story.
The egg in that case would be the one ring, found in the hobbit, thus becoming relevant only years later in LotR.
Also, when do you understand that no one argues with you that the story execution was not done well?
The story they intended was sound. Why do you keep argueing that they didn`t focus enough on Mordy, etc… if almost everyone is agreeing with you that they botched the execution?Also, we are offtopic with this whole thing anyway, so please, back on track? This is about S3 and not how good or bad HoT was.
Did the Hobbit focus on the One Ring?
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.
Why?
Because the story is not about Sauron, understand it, then why should the story take so much effort on the egg but disconnect it from Mordremoth?
Because it would have been better if they spent all the chapters on Mordremoth, it would have told us a much better story.
Mordremoth is only elder dragon number 2 of 6, which means we are at most only 1/3rd of the way through the story of guild wars 2, likely not even that far, mordremoth is NOT the sauron of gw2 he would be more comparable to the balrog if anything, a large threat and that requires sacrifice to overcome but ultimately was just a hurdle and not the ultimate threat or antagonist itself.
But Mordremoth is independent and he is the antagonist of this xpc very obviously, the first priority was to tell his story well. They failed.
It’s like in GW1, both the Lich and Shiro are Abaddon’s servants, but Prophecies and Factions still mainly focus on their scheme rather than Abaddon behind it. In EotN we got some hint of Jormag but the story is still focused on the Destroyers. We helped Jora to get their support against the Destroyers. In HoT it had failed to connect.
Like i said in my previous post, slowpokeking your creating your own fanfiction through speculation and assumptions in your head and as a result your over-hyping what role mordremoth plays in the overall plot of gw2 and then dismissing what story actually IS being told just because it doesnt match up with the version if the story you made up in your head
You have to look at this in a “big picture” perspective, we arnt even halfway through encountering the other elder dragons, anet cant just keep creating cataclysmic final countdown “this is it” doomsday scenarios for every elder dragon because it will become redundant and will make the actual threat of too much vs too little magic on tyria seem less impactful.
I didn’t over-hype anything, Mordremoth’s story is over and we saw how bad did it go.
What “big picture”? We saw Mordremoth knocking on our door and causing huge threat, if you don’t stop him then the world is doomed. If Anet really wanted to show us the “big picture” is not just about the dragon, why did they set up to let a 6th dragon awake and keep show us how menacing it is, rather than let us spend some time to know the magic change in the aftermath of Zhaitan?
Mordremoth is only elder dragon number 2 of 6, which means we are at most only 1/3rd of the way through the story of guild wars 2, likely not even that far, mordremoth is NOT the sauron of gw2 he would be more comparable to the balrog if anything, a large threat and that requires sacrifice to overcome but ultimately was just a hurdle and not the ultimate threat or antagonist itself.
But Mordremoth is independent and he is the antagonist of this xpc very obviously, the first priority was to tell his story well. They failed.
It’s like in GW1, both the Lich and Shiro are Abaddon’s servants, but Prophecies and Factions still mainly focus on their scheme rather than Abaddon behind it. In EotN we got some hint of Jormag but the story is still focused on the Destroyers. We helped Jora to get their support against the Destroyers. In HoT it had failed to connect.
Like i said in my previous post, slowpokeking your creating your own fanfiction through speculation and assumptions in your head and as a result your over-hyping what role mordremoth plays in the overall plot of gw2 and then dismissing what story actually IS being told just because it doesnt match up with the version if the story you made up in your head
You have to look at this in a “big picture” perspective, we arnt even halfway through encountering the other elder dragons, anet cant just keep creating cataclysmic final countdown “this is it” doomsday scenarios for every elder dragon because it will become redundant and will make the actual threat of too much vs too little magic on tyria seem less impactful.
I didn’t over-hype anything, Mordremoth’s story is over and we saw how bad did it go.
What “big picture”? We saw Mordremoth knocking on our door and causing huge threat, if you don’t stop him then the world is doomed. If Anet really wanted to show us the “big picture” is not just about the dragon, why did they set up to let a 6th dragon awake and keep show us how menacing it is, rather than let us spend some time to know the magic change in the aftermath of Zhaitan?
Its pretty obvious by your replies that you have a fairly limited grasp on the story being presented in gw2, your way too caught up on a “big bad antagonist” mentality and are most definitely overhyping both mordremoths power and overall role in the games narrative
Our character doesnt necessarily know that killing the elder dragons could have negative effects and are learning this information about magic and glints legacy in the midst of our struggle with the elder dragons, we dont know these things, what we do know is mordremoth is the most eminent threat so that becomes the focus of the CHARACTERS, but the story is being told in a way where we as the chracters are acting on the immediate threats to stay alive while simultaneously being given hints that our actions may come back to bite us in the future, the chracters cant sit around and theorycraft about magic and how to solve the elder dragon problem after zhaitans death because they are STILL LEARNING as the fight continues, the mixing of the glints legacy plot points and the battle with mordremoth is essential in creating a continuing and COHESIVE story
Its pretty obvious by your replies that you have a fairly limited grasp on the story being presented in gw2, your way too caught up on a “big bad antagonist” mentality and are most definitely overhyping both mordremoths power and overall role in the games narrative
I didn’t overhype it, Anet did.
They spent 3 books and EotN to show us how scary and menacing the dragons are. They spent the whole Scarlet season for 1 sole purpose, to wake Mordremoth, the LS2 was also about Mordremoth, the end of LS2 was simply used to show how menacing and powerful the dragon was by letting it destroy the whole fleet. The xpc was named for its residence and the icon was based on the dragon. Now you are telling me that I’m overhyping it?
Our character doesnt necessarily know that killing the elder dragons could have negative effects and are learning this information about magic and glints legacy in the midst of our struggle with the elder dragons, we dont know these things, what we do know is mordremoth is the most eminent threat so that becomes the focus of the CHARACTERS, but the story is being told in a way where we as the chracters are acting on the immediate threats to stay alive while simultaneously being given hints that our actions may come back to bite us in the future, the chracters cant sit around and theorycraft about magic and how to solve the elder dragon problem after zhaitans death because they are STILL LEARNING as the fight continues, the mixing of the glints legacy plot points and the battle with mordremoth is essential in creating a continuing and COHESIVE story
I already listed how much did Anet show us about the dragon. The egg was also important because Mordremoth wanted it badly. It’s been put to our face to show us how dangerous and menacing the dragon is.
How is essential? Orr and Zhaitan’s fall is enough to study, nor do you need Mordremoth to bring up Glint’s eggs.
i wouldnt call Prophecies story focused xD (not saying it wasnt fun)
i wouldnt call Prophecies story focused xD (not saying it wasnt fun)
It wasn’t in the beginning of the charr chapter, but after we got to Kryta it was focused enough.
It’s gotten to the point that I don’t care anymore.
(Sorry for the rant, but simply thinking about this story makes me angry.)
First off, why the kitten did Mordremoth have to die so quickly? For an expansion called HEART OF THORNS, I expected to see alot of lore involving both him and the sylvari (which we never got btw). Honestly, it should’ve ended with us killing Faolain and giving Mord the boot after a year or so, like Anet did with Scarlet Briar. The only way they could’ve saved the current story from being crappy was having the final battle in Hearts and Minds be one giant trap, and that Mordremoth was tricking the heroes into believing he was gone.That could explain all the “What if Trahearne’s just bait?” foreshadowing and how he’s considered the elder dragon of the mind. Guess he’s really dead now, huh? Killed by a mostly destroyed pact without even being weakened.(Unlike Zhaitan, who was extremely weakened and had the entire pact going against him during the showdown in Arah). Makes absolutely no sense at all.
Second, why should we wonder about how the Black Citadel would react to Rytlock returning? The charr didn’t seem to care about him disappearing before.Why would they care now? And I don’t see a reason why The Shining Blade’s plans for Canach should be brought up either. My guess is that they’ll both just be random story filler.
Here are some questions that still need answering: What happens to the sylvari race now? Where’s Malyck? What does the future hold for the Nightmare Court and the Pale Tree? How are all those political problems in Divinity’s Reach doing? Arenanet left so many hanging threads that were never answered in the end and, if they’re truly moving on to the next elder dragon, probably will never get answered.
And do you know what’s sad? This expansion had so much potential. The cliffhanger at the end of LS2 was the perfect setup, along with all the lore and heavy plot points that were promised in the streams on Twitch. In the end, the story that we got was consisted of plotholes that you could easily fly a plane through all in just 16 chapters. (Seriously, it’s an expansion. IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS SHORT.)
I know that I should just be patient and wait for LS3 to come out before I judge,but I bet it’ll probably be just as disappointing.
The Elder Dragons could’ve been great if they weren’t victims of piss poor writing.