Guild Wars 2

Obvious Spoiler to the end will follow. Be warned!

Now that the LS has concluded and our “beloved” Scarlet has died, i ask: What is your judgment?

How do you feel about the LS, Scarlet and other things? While i know things were allready discussed in the CDI, we can now give a conclusive rating about the Season 1 of the Living story (even if there is an epilog in the Dead End next release).

Scarlet
She has been talked about again and again. The problems are obvious and while the writers came up and tried there best to implement things better, explained elements in stories and forum posts, she still remained to the end a weak character.
She was supposed to be the outsider oddball crazy person.
Thts how she was described lately in an article: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/8279/Guild-Wars-2-Day-of-Reckoning-The-Battle-for-Lions-Arch.html
However even after we got that at the last minutes of this story, till the end her true goal or motivation was never revealed.
We only know that she was drilling and releasing the ley lines. Was she really hearing things, was it for Mordremoth, was it for herself? We do not know and with her dead it will always be a mystery…
She had a lot of potential, but bad pacing, to much unneccesary “mystery” and general writing and implementation problems (overpowered, unexplained, coming from nowhere,… the list is unfortunatly long) causes her to leave a sour taste in my memory.
Even as our character kills her in the end did not feel satisfying.
I felt meh… All the energy was drained… not even her “satisfied” smile in the last cutszene got any reaction out of me…

B-Team
To be honest i am not really invested in them. They are fun to be around but i cannot see them as “heroes”. Like with every shoved in supposed identified group of heroes they just felt out of place.
While Rox and Braham actually had a place in the beginning their later involvment felt a lot like fan-service. The introduction of Majory was nice, but i still do not understand how such a run off the mill detective is supposedly the only one with a brain in all of Tyria and able to piece Scarlets goal together. Kasmeer is there to play off of her and Taimi was to late introduced to have any kind of significance.

While they all got a good backstory and are individually satisfying i do not feel that the overall plot should have focused on them that much. The whole story just did not fit for a “simple” detective game, when there is just so much more potent characters around.
Sorry guys. It is nice that you exist, but i do not know why you are there.

The World
Was stupid. I am sorry, but it cannot be that in a fantasy world, where magic and technology is a daily occourence and hindrance, that there are no… i repeat no specialists or groups or anything who are able to deal with such a character like Scarlet apearing.
She did so many destructive things that she had to be public enemy number one. At the very least after her apearence at the Crowns Pavilion.
But we see no Announcements. No groups chasing her. No one trying to hack her teleport network, even though we did that right after she appeared. No bounty on her head. No interogations. Nothing has been done to get her.
In the end we know that she is being watched and that the priory takes her tech as artifacts…
I am sorry… but as it stands at this moment, the world did not care. Even Rythlock who came to LA did not seem to care.
(btw… LA not having any kind of a defense against air and water is stupid. There are dragons supposed to be in this world. flying and swiming enemies everywhere… even if there was the Karka attack, this is just happening)

This world is supposed to be filled with extraordinary people who do extraordinary things on a daily basis.
Groups like the Seraph, Priory, Order of Whispers, etc… are supposed to be the best of the best and still no one was able to get Scarlet. Even a Genius leaves traces.
This was just bad writing and rather hurt the story and world, instead of enhancing it.

Pacing
A hit and miss, but overall it got better towards the end. Still, the major mistake in my eyes was the unnecessary mystery till the end.
Instead of giving the story a satisfying ending we were hung on the whole reason behind it, which just damped the whole thing as it arrived.

You have a good pacing and tech now. Keep at it and perfect it, but also reduce the overall time of the next LS. It is just so much you can keep people hyped about one thing.

The future
I am looking positive into the future. However the reveal of Modremoth just got a sight out of me.
It felt rushed and unspectacular (yep, even with the destruction of LA). After Collin hinted at it in an interview, bringing him back into everyones minds i somehow knew that he will be coming.
Am i excited? Sure,… but not as much as you might me to. With the PS and the LS you really made a lot of people hate Sylvary. While i like the asthetic and there are questions about them i just cannot see them anymore.
Now with us going in their direction (okay and the Asura) it just feels like we have seen these things allready.
I really hoped we go somwehere else… Anywhere but there…

Rating
Overall the LS did what it should do. Be a filler. However it was just that. A filler and like one i sadly do not think my investment in it was right.
I should have taken it a bit easier and just enjoy it. However it did a good foundation for things to come.
I am satisfied with what we got, since it means it can only get better.
So if i had to give it any kind of rating it would be around 6/10. Not bad, but not good either…

Jaken.6801:

We only know that she was drilling and releasing the ley lines. Was she really hearing things, was it for Mordremoth, was it for herself? We do not know and with her dead it will always be a mystery…

It was for Mordremoth, she said Tyria will bow to a new master so she was definately under his controll. You have worded my exact opinion. I think a dev should take a look at this thread.

Story:

We havent really seen any good explaination for everything yet. I know we will get some dialogue in the epilogue but I think I have permission to say that I demand answers now. If we look at it:

Scarlet was under Mordremoths controll, fair enough, this is explained goodish imo. Not really anything to say about that. It could have been revealed a lot earlier she was under controll though.

We still dont know what was really the purpose of her Alliances, other than supporting the attack on LA. This is kind of a plothole.

Look, she is trying to find a way to awaken Mordremoth, and she discovers it can be done by disrupting ley lines at a certain moment. She needs a giant drill for this and the probes. Both of which can be made by the Molten Aliance. She has not really got a clue where the ley line intersection is. I assume this by the probes all over the place. Eventually she finds out that the intersection is in LA. This is during the Edge of the Mists. She obviously needs not to be disrupted so she nukes the place to take controll. This is the only place where she really needed the Aetherblades as a special forces team to attack the city. BUT: How could she have known she needed a huge army, when she didnt know where she needed to drill in the first place. If the intersection was at a random spot like in Harathi Hinterlands where no one cares about then she wouldnt have needed the Aetherblades at all apart from gameplay stuff.

Same goes really for Toxic Alliance.

This is written very poorly but I think I will update it soon but have no time now. Sorry

So in the end, while I am happy that we go to a new Elder Dragon, I am not satisfied as a lore fanatic (yet). I have the idea we didnt get rewarded in terms of big explainations for everything and that a lot is still left completely in the dark.

wookiee.4631:

Season 1 isn’t over until March 18. There’s an epilogue/aftermath type thing they will add in to properly wrap it all up. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Not that I think that whatever they add will make your points moot or anything.

Yes, we get the epiolog. Basicly everything is drifting out. However in any story we should know everything at this point.
The epilog is there to prepare us for the future, or telling us in which direction it will go from now on.
If they still need to explain something, then it is just too late. People have moved on and want something new.

Scarlet knew she would have to attack Lions Arch long before EotM. She knew before Dragon Bash which is why she tried to install Mai Trin.

I don’t get that part, what’s the purpose of the probes if she knew LA was the destination all along?

Were they also intended to locate Mordremoth as well? It doesn’t seem like she did anything to channel the ley line energy once the drill pierced it, it just kinda travelled to Mordremoth on its own. So why have probes all over Tyria and the Mists?

Scarlet was a bad character and still is, glad she’s gone. Kudos for letting us actually defeat her at the end though.

I do like Destiny’s Edge v2 and enjoyed their interactions with the player character, I hope they’ll be sticking around and keep building on the dynamic between us as well as each other. Braham needs a haircut.

LS story had bad pacing, and a really slow start, got better once we actually started getting some information (so around Origins of Madness).

I find it had a satisfying conclusion, and the long overdue return to focusing on dragons with the reveal at the end makes me optimistic about where the story will go next.

The Toxic Alliance was created to give Modremoth a greater army.

When we fight Modremoth we’ll be fighting both the Nightmare Court, the Toxic Alliance and the Aetherblades at once!

Faolain will be taking Scarlet’s place as Modremoth’s new head Champion.

The reason Arenanet created Scarlet instead of having Faolain be the villain is clearly because they want her to be fought alongside Modremoth.

We also see that Modremoth’s influence extends to Bloodtide Coast with it’s Jungle Wurm as one(Scarlet is the other higher ranking one) of the Champions inside Kryta(the two Champions of Maguuma Jungle are Faolain and yet another Jungle Wurm).

Shiren.9532:

I don’t get that part, what’s the purpose of the probes if she knew LA was the destination all along?

Were they also intended to locate Mordremoth as well? It doesn’t seem like she did anything to channel the ley line energy once the drill pierced it, it just kinda travelled to Mordremoth on its own. So why have probes all over Tyria and the Mists?

My interpretation?
She knew she needed to nullify LA, not that LA was going to be the target.

Why were probes in the Mists? If she wanted to channel the energy into Mordremoth, how would she do that from the Mists?

Why did the probe need to turn green?

Who is E and what is Caithe’s secret?
What did the Pale Tree mean when she said that the Sylvari needed Ceara and that she didn’t care?
What was Ceara’s very important destiny that she turned away from?
Why did the PaleTree think she is confused about power and authority?

These are good questions… however this is more supposed to be a place where you can go into yourself and talk about how you feel about the first LS.
What was good, what was bad. Giving you and us closure to the story in general.
While it is okay to ask questions, i would like it if you put it into a more constructive manner.

We allready have other threads to go over these topics.

Overall this is more a generalization topic. How are your feeling about the LS (story part)? Did you enjoy it? Did you hate it? If so, what did you enjoy, what did you hate?

You might of course highlight things that just do not work for you and stick out like a rusty nail in your mind, so be free to let them out.

However this should be from us who adore the lore and story to give feedback to the writers from our perspective.
- did they create a good and engaging story?
- did they build upon the world they created in a relateable way?
- etc…

While the writers are held back by the medium and some decisions from above to really portray the story as she should be, we can see that they tried their best in the time they had. It is new and experimental, but feedback is there for a reason.
So be harsh, be direct. Tell us how you feel, but be respectfull, since the people responsible might read this. While they are the real gods of Tyria, they are here but mortal men…

OK.

Well I did enjoy the LS in total.
I think it was an extremely bold experiment and that they learned a lot from the first season.
It is pretty apparent in the last couple of updates that they do take feedback into account.

I think it was a huge improvement in story delivery when the writers learned to script- the feel of the story has improved so much.
Putting the story in the game in the form of instances, dialog and ambient dialog has been a huge improvement.

I am glad to see that the LS is being used finally to drive the main plot.

The characters themselves:

I don’t have a problem with Scarlet- I never have, I realize I might be completely alone in this but meh.
She was driven and unusual in her focus and more than a little bonkers- my main problem (unless it gets addressed 18th March) is that nothing about her has been explained, even the little back story we have, has been left hanging.

I enjoy the biconics- they are a fun bunch and they are “younger” like the player character.
I have always had a problem with Destiny’s Edge, because even though they are mentors of sorts, who are very accomplished individuals they act like a bunch of angsty teens.
I don’t like any one of them

The biconics on the other hand seem much more real to me and their concerns and personalities just seem more real.
Except for Taimi- I have had very little to do with her but she seems like an add on to fill a roster- might be because I hate Asuras :p

I would like in the future to see the LS expand more on the lore in Tyria.
The problem has always been that the personal story keeps the world static- I have hopes that this is a step in the direction of separating the LS and the PS in terms of timelines so that the world can move on.

I would love it if we could finalize peace with the Charr, put the ghosts to rest, expand Ebonhawke ( great opportunity to expand on Logan’s character)
and finally cleanse Orr.

But those questions I listed- it really really bugs me and I can only hope that we will see the answers in the epilogue.

I think most of the implausibilities of the Scarlet story came early on and it has slowly been getting better. Despite much of the speculation, the scope of the story has been quite narrow in its fit to the in game clues. Anything we were told was relevant. Anything we inferred from the telling of the story was in fact just speculation based on the multitude of plot loopholes.

Anyway, in short summary, technology waking the dragon was a good storyline. The alliances were horribly written and still make no sense.

Plot-wise, the one thing I think the LS could have really used was a sense of humor.

If you look at the big picture, the LS is a sideshow. It’s low-effort, low-investment content trotted out to try to maintain player interest (and push the gem store) while the “real” content is being developed. There’s two ways you can look at this situation. It can be a sisyphean attempt to live up to and compliment the game’s main story that will always be hamstrung by a lack of time and resources, always trying feebly to live up to the “epicness” of the franchise without ever really having a leg to stand on. Or you could think of it as an opportunity to have some fun. Scarlet’s character especially begged for this, and seemed to almost bring it there but never quite made it. The LS could be a chance to lighten things up and poke fun at a game that takes itself too seriously as it is. Making people laugh would make them way more amenable (and maybe even genuinely appreciative) of this sort of thing. You don’t need much of a budget to be funny either, just ask Valve. Imagine what Portal would have been if it was as self-serious as the LS has been. Certainly not a hit. Humor appeals more to casual gamers, too.

That’s how I would approach it anyway.