Guild Wars 2

WARNING: In this post I am giving away major spoilers that will ruin the content if you haven’t played it yet. You have been warned.

~~SPOILER~~
~~SPOILER~~
~~SPOILER~~
~~SPOILER~~

So… Where do I start.

First I want to say that this is a kind of negative post. I know there may be more posts like this and that you might be sick of it but I got to say what has been bothering me since yesterday, because believe me, it has been bothering me. I am glad people like this patch and the way this story is directed and please share this too, but I think I should give my opinion because I want to know if more people feel this way. Remember that this is just my own opinion.

Introduction
I have been following the Living story from the start and played through everything and I think I read every dialogue. I know what all the story elements are. I was enthusiastic about the living world from around Scarlet’s appearance and started to join in the theorycrafting. This is not a hate to Scarlet post. In fact I kind of liked her.

Points of criticism

1. Before this patch, we were promised answers. Answers as to why Scarlet really needed those alliances, how she found out she could awaken Mordremoth, in what way Mordremoth corrupted or influenced Scarlet, who is E, what was Caithe’s secret, what were Scarlet’s ulterior motives? By motives I don’t mean awaken Mordremoth but what was her original plan, if nothing went wrong and we didn’t crash the party. As far as I know, these questions and probably another few haven’t been answered. I can’t put to words how disappointed I am with this. I know we will get an epilogue with some dialogue, but after waiting for over one year for these answers, while they were constantly being hyped and promised, but I think I deserve them NOW, and that I will not need to wait two weeks once more. At most an epilogue should be a teaser and a “they lived happily ever after theme.”

2. I knew in advance this was supposed to be a filler arc between two dragons and that made the fact this story would lead to a dragon trivial, although I often speculated otherwise (this is not an I called it post). But it still seems to me that this story could have been implemented so much faster and the mystery didn’t live up to all the effort people put into speculation. It could have been Primordus instead of Mordremoth and everything would have fit together and this saddens me. The point of speculation is that the more hardcore speculators are able to figure out what it is with what they are given and not that they should look at it from the Dhuum angle or the Primordus angle and then start to tie everything together and try to come to a reasonable answer.

3. The alliances were just recycling content that didn’t bother me at the moment itself but looking back on it I feel like a lot of great story has been stolen from us in some way. It speaks for itself that there are no dialogues longer than four clicks. I don’t know how it is with other people of course but it doesn’t really bother me if some things the NPC’s have to say to progress the story isn’t voice acted. I can read!

The Elder Dragon Issue
This is something I am really concerned about. In Guild Wars 2 the main plot and the whole world is kind of centred around the threat of the Elder Dragons. These are supposedly unstoppable forces of nature that consume magic and let nothing get in their way. So: what could possibly be worse than an Elder Dragon??? NOTHING. This is concerning, given the fact that the other villains can’t or shouldn’t be taken seriously imo. The plot of Guild Wars 1 gave a very good build up to Abaddon, with interesting sub villains like Shiro. At this point this was considered a real threat because we didn’t know about the Elder Dragons. If an Undead Lich (Vizier Khilbron) shows up now I’d be like: Meh, we already killed the undead Elder Dragon so if we rally, we will beat him too. I think a lot of players have this subconscious feeling and that is why they hated Scarlet and wanted to go to an Elder Dragon. THAT is the real threat! People just didn’t take Scarlet seriously and the Mary Sue image only amplified this. The only way another villain that is not a dragon or a minion of a dragon could be interesting is when they introduce a new realm where we can go to (Underworld, Steam Universe). Just another villain in Tyria won’t do the trick anymore now the dragons are all awake.

Then there is the issue for the design of the Elder Dragon himself. How do you make him an interesting villain? Someone who just irks you and who you really want to be dead, not just an endless minion spawner. Well obviously, you let him be dangerous, like, you let him attack a major city or something.. … … … But… Wait! A servant/champion already did this! How do you make it interesting now. Frankly I have no idea and I wish I had, I really do. Players will play the content nonetheless because they get to explore new maps etc. But if the main goal is to kill a dragon then new maps aren’t enough to motivate the player. It will be interesting to see how ArenaNet will implement Mordremoth in another way than Zhaitan, never showing up and only having a few plain, not in depth minions.

So that is kind of it I think.

TL;DR: The gamer in me says: Holy kitten! A dragon, AWESOME! But the Lore and story enthusiast feels left alone. I thought the last patch was going to be our patch where we could shine. Where we could see things directly when others were still looking. The majority of the gamers and not so story centred people would get the rewards and the huge Escape from LA event and we would get the story. I feel like this moment has been taken away from me. The big reveal turned out to be not so big.

Cheer me up!

1. Yes we won’t get all the answers about Scarlet’s plans, but the community as a whole commanded Braham’s dialogue: he/we didn’t want to hear about why she did it, we wanted her gone. I personally didn’t hate her, but you’ve seen the outpouring of hate. It’s what we deserved for wanting her gone and moving on.
2. You mean that which dragon was awoken would not have mattered based on prior hints? I think not. Primordus contacting her would have been a big difference from his MO from what we know before. It’d be a bigger shift than say some krait working with “lesser races” to get religious artifacts. It’s not impossible but Mordremoth makes more sense. He’s not awake yet, he’s plant-affiliated. Plus being out WEST in the cutscene, past Rata Sum and Thaumanova… it fits well.

3. I agree, early on the dialogue was kitten poor and small. But it’s improved substantially so far. I trust Anet to shape up really well for Season 2.
On the topic of it taking time for the story to lead to greater scope and something DRAGON SIZED, well… that’s how stuff should go. We shouldn’t have constant action. Things of this scheme took and do take huge planning efforts. Scarlet was going on schedule I’d say. (That’s why she was never kittened at what we did, anyway.)

If you think the EDs are the only threat worth mentioning, then you’re disgracing yourself as a fan of the lore. Even forgetting the lore, in the Tyrian planet you have more to worry about than forces of nature out on the periphery of civilization. Tyrians adapted to the remaining dragons and only Jormag is severely affecting anyone imo (the Kodan), and perhaps Kralk with the Brand invading Charr lands from time to time (we don’t know how that’s going tbh).

You’re on the cusp of how to make an ED humanizable, it’s right here! Their effects on Tyrians. Such as a champion! Scarlet was extremely interesting (not a Mary Sue really) and she showed how dragons can cause tragedies. Scarlet is a tragic figure.

And really, do you NEED villains to be relatable? That’s sort of cliche.. Not everyone has a good reason for what they do or whatever. Sometimes hurricanes happen and there can be human interest stories within them but the hurricane doesn’t care. That’s an Elder Dragon.

You’re not alone Blurk, and thank you for your write up on your opinion.

I was not suprised, but also not let down because I already expected this.

You are correct in a lot of unanswered questions, dropped plots (Zephyr Sanctum??), and the lack of supsense in the finale.

Make the best of it and enjoy the little things that the game has to offer. There are still valuable points to have hope for (Tengu, Wizards Tower, Crystal Desert, and maybe even…. Cantha!??)

I agree that this living whole living story has been “wishy-washy” with the entire overarching narrative. While I enjoy new original plot lines even if it’s a sub-plot to the main story. I don’t enjoy them if they are overly ambiguous, poorly structured, and horribly executed. It does not help when the writers constantly come in and say “we have all the pieces of the puzzle, but you have to fill in all the plot holes.” Especially when we are missing crucial information in order to make sense of any of it all. Furthermore If the writers have to continually answer story elements outside of the game (short stories, interviews, developer posts, wiki and so forth), then your presentation in game failed to convey proper story delivery elements.

I’m sorry, but the information we got about Scarlet’s scheme/motivation should have not been back loaded to the end of the story. Certain things should have been there since the Flame and the Frost narrative. So by the time we got to these last 4 living world updates it did not feel like the writers were legitimately insulting our intelligence. There should have been more character depth so we actually cared what was going on, and Scarlet should have never been introduced the way she was. It was not smooth. It’s probably what made people disdain her character from the beginning. She should have been eased in into the story. Perhaps even show her before she became Scarlet Briar. Or had an investigation of her background before her grand reveal.

In all honesty GW2 probably would have had a better structured narrative if they were not rushing everything out the door. It’s one mistake they have not learned from since launch, and still practice within the living story “test-project” so far. You may rush out narrative in a large quantity, only it does not make it the best quality. What may even more kitten ing is if you take the two stories of GW1 beyond content (War in Kryta & Winds of Change). Those were presented better as a structured narrative and that was with a small team of (5-10) people. Compared to the 200 plus people they have now at Arena Net, which fluctuates to do one portion of the living story. It’s also pretty hypocritical when you say you “only release things that are fully fleshed out (complete),” but when it arrives it’s partially complete.

I agree with the OP. I think all the explanations you were waiting for have already come and gone at the Dead End. Scarlet has an army of aetherblades at her disposal since she is super nasty and bullies them. There you go. We’re never going to know anything else.

Don’t forget that we still have one actual final update on the 18th of March that show’s the aftermath of the whole living story. Hopefully we’ll get some of our answers there and possible in game confirmation that it is Mordremoth ( I know it as plain as anything but at least an acknowledgement by some of the main NPCs like Destiny’s Edge or the DE 2.0)

The thing is we do know quite a bit. All the evidence we examined. The short stories. The living world. The contributions of the NPC.

Scarlet is the epitome of genius and madness are two sides of the same coin. She went too far, and in my opinion was introduced to the part of her that knows she and the other Sylvari are dragon minions. The Pale Tree tried to warn her away, knowing that without her influence Ceara would go mad. This plays in to the idea that the Pale Tree (and perhaps other trees like her) are keeping the Sylvari safe from dragon influence.

Scarlet ignored this and went in to Omadd’s machine, where the dragon took hold. Her vision of the vine wrapped around the Pale Tree was not, imo, Scarlet herself but the dragon. When she got out her purpose became walking Mord. She forged Alliances by claiming she would give each group something they craved. This is where she got all the tech and shock troops required to form a big enough distraction from her drilling.

I mean what more is there to know? Caithe’s connection, yes, and confirmation about dragon minions, but they’re going to draw that out because frankly it makes for more and imo better story if not every single detail is spelled out in a single update.