Guild Wars 2

Jaken.6801:

I just leave this here, for that particular matter:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dev-quotes-from-Reddit/page/5#post6099708

I like both answers given.

Kalavier.1097:

They apparently cut out an entire nightmare court arc, which probably would explain why everybody has this giant hate-kitten for Caithe and considers her the biggest traitor in the world.

I would’ve tweaked the Eir/Faolin scene, and heavily changed the Egg-subplot.

They also cut Malyck from the early drafts. They also originally had Eir die in the first story instance, but pushed it back to the end of Act 1 (and good thing too).

They apparently cut off a lot of plot – for the sake of going for a ‘blockbuster movie’ feel of a plot (which just does not work for games like GW – has never, will never). Which I really, really, think they shouldn’t have. Even if it meant waiting 5 more months.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Kalavier.1097:

They apparently cut out an entire nightmare court arc, which probably would explain why everybody has this giant hate-kitten for Caithe and considers her the biggest traitor in the world.

I would’ve tweaked the Eir/Faolin scene, and heavily changed the Egg-subplot.

They also cut Malyck from the early drafts. They also originally had Eir die in the first story instance, but pushed it back to the end of Act 1 (and good thing too).

They apparently cut off a lot of plot – for the sake of going for a ‘blockbuster movie’ feel of a plot (which just does not work for games like GW – has never, will never). Which I really, really, think they shouldn’t have. Even if it meant waiting 5 more months.

I agree with their comments about pacing though.

The storyline they chose, with the fleet being destroyed makes any real ‘pause’ feel horribly out of place and jarring. The more they delayed from the “Get to Trahearne/destiny’s edge, and regroup the Pact to fight Mordremoth!”, the more plot holes and blargh they spawn.

Hell, the egg arc itself is shoved in to finish that stuff from living story off, and it feels out of place to me.

‘The egg arc’ is just two instances, one of which is half about regrouping with the Pact. How the hell is that out of place? Hell, the primary objective before finding out the Pact Fleet fell was getting the egg to Tarir (though the PC didn’t know what or where Tarir was – just that it was a golden location).

You forgot the second primary objective given at the beginning of HoT: recruiting local allies, and that’s exactly what “the egg arc” does – and is why we detour to Rata Novus, why we would help out Malyck, or investigate the Nightmare Court.

The problem, to me, is that they gave us a bunch of new objectives and set them to all be the end goal, rather than incrementing our objective-goal situations. For example, if we had rescued Destiny’s Edge halfway rather than at the end, then there’d be room and reason to spend a bit of time doing other things. And even then, you can have a race-against-the-clock plot without having it short. Act 2 was half the size of Act 1, and Acts 3 and 4 were each half the size of Act 2.

The further we progressed, the less content we got. And the less continuity between open world and story (a Durmand Priory camp in the story instances suddenly becomes an Order of Whispers camp in the open world – referring to the one in Roots of Terror).

Not going to say the plot was bad, but it wasn’t great, and I think pacing was the issue here. Most ‘epic adventure’ stories have 1 overarching goal and several incremental smaller but still primary goal – HoT had 3 overarching goals (recover Pact, rescue DE, kill Mordy) and 1 smaller primary goal (bring Egg to Tarir). There should have been 1 overarching goal (kill Mordy) with 4/5 smaller primary goals (bring Egg to Tarir, rescue DE, recover Pact, recruit allies, and hold off a new push of Mordremoth’s forces heading towards Central Tyria is what I would have gone with – the ‘recruit allies’ would include Nightmare Court and Malyck along with Exalted/Itzel/Nuhoch that we got).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

‘The egg arc’ is just two instances, one of which is half about regrouping with the Pact. How the hell is that out of place? Hell, the primary objective before finding out the Pact Fleet fell was getting the egg to Tarir (though the PC didn’t know what or where Tarir was – just that it was a golden location).

“Okay guys, we need to rescue Destiny’s Edge and get the Pact up on it’s feet fully!”

“Oh, commander, I saw Caithe going that way.”

“kittenING CAITHE, GET OVER HERE!”

You forgot the second primary objective given at the beginning of HoT: recruiting local allies, and that’s exactly what “the egg arc” does – and is why we detour to Rata Novus, why we would help out Malyck, or investigate the Nightmare Court.

The more you delay, the more holes appear in the storyline they set up. Hell, the egg arc only causes that by ‘accident’ in terms of Lore. The commander had zero plan or idea what to do with the Egg after securing it, which makes the Exalted just kinda… spawn in there. And the Exalted don’t do much in terms of the story either beyond that point. They aren’t present in the final fight.

The problem, to me, is that they gave us a bunch of new objectives and set them to all be the end goal, rather than incrementing our objective-goal situations. For example, if we had rescued Destiny’s Edge halfway rather than at the end, then there’d be room and reason to spend a bit of time doing other things. And even then, you can have a race-against-the-clock plot without having it short. Act 2 was half the size of Act 1, and Acts 3 and 4 were each half the size of Act 2.

In order to make any extra side arcs happen, we’d have to rescue Traehearne/Destiny’s Edge early on. Without that, it makes more detours seem weird, out of place, pace-breaking or simply “What the kitten?” plot hole. I agree it doesn’t perhaps have to be ‘short’, but you have to keep a pace going. It’s like, Mass Effect 2 I guess. “OMG, WE HAVE TO DO THIS MISSION ASAP!” “Eh, okay.” goes and does side missions and exploration for 5 days of gameplay.

The further we progressed, the less content we got. And the less continuity between open world and story (a Durmand Priory camp in the story instances suddenly becomes an Order of Whispers camp in the open world – referring to the one in Roots of Terror).

IIRC, the npc we talk to in the camp is OoW, the group is a mixed group that just escaped from a prison convoy, and the ranking officer was a Priory member. The tents were OoW and nothing states much about the camp other then “Hey, there is a Pact camp up here!”

Not going to say the plot was bad, but it wasn’t great, and I think pacing was the issue here. Most ‘epic adventure’ stories have 1 overarching goal and several incremental smaller but still primary goal – HoT had 3 overarching goals (recover Pact, rescue DE, kill Mordy) and 1 smaller primary goal (bring Egg to Tarir). There should have been 1 overarching goal (kill Mordy) with 4/5 smaller primary goals (bring Egg to Tarir, rescue DE, recover Pact, recruit allies, and hold off a new push of Mordremoth’s forces heading towards Central Tyria is what I would have gone with – the ‘recruit allies’ would include Nightmare Court and Malyck along with Exalted/Itzel/Nuhoch that we got).

What HoT fails at, IMO, is the Pact. After Verdant Brink and the very first mission in Auric Basin, we do next to nothing with the Pact at all in the story. For example, in Rata Novus we are the first people in, and then leave. Go to open world and we have OoW people trying to secure a base inside of it. Why couldn’t we have had part of that happen within the story mode? Or a mention. “Taimi, you’ll be okay until the Pact gets here? Won’t be long.” instead of implying that Taimi is being left utterly alone without any backup coming while the Commander, Braham, and Canach leave.

Extra arcs could work if they had the Pact reinforced and secured early on (alongside Destiny’s Edge) which would remove a bit of the urgency. Oh, and having the Pact actually play a part in almost the entire storyline instead of mostly disappearing. :P

I do feel like some of the stuff they cut out they forgot to actually edit things that were left behind, leading us to get the irrational, utterly crazy and sudden “I HATE CAITHE WITH MY ENTIRE SOUL!” attitude and Braham calling her explicitly a traitor.

Kalavier.1097:

“Okay guys, we need to rescue Destiny’s Edge and get the Pact up on it’s feet fully!”

“Oh, commander, I saw Caithe going that way.”

“kittenING CAITHE, GET OVER HERE!”

You need to replay Prized Possessions. You make it sound like we dropped everything to go out of our way to get Caithe and the egg, but you have to remember that we were meeting up with survivors (the Priory camp) when Caithe was right there in front of us. Rather than lose her – again – we took literally a few steps to keep Mordremoth from getting the egg.

Kalavier.1097:

The more you delay, the more holes appear in the storyline they set up. Hell, the egg arc only causes that by ‘accident’ in terms of Lore. The commander had zero plan or idea what to do with the Egg after securing it, which makes the Exalted just kinda… spawn in there. And the Exalted don’t do much in terms of the story either beyond that point. They aren’t present in the final fight.

If you talk solely about the story instances you’d be right. But keep in mind that the HoT story is told in both instance and open world, and the Exalted do more in the open world. Furthermore, it’s indicated in various story instances that the Pact began using Tarir as a recovery camp after the events of Act 2. So the Exalted were defending the Pact members incapable of fighting (like Destiny’s Edge after they were rescued).

And I disagree with your first statement. Length in of itself does not add holes to a plot. Bad writing does. They’re not the same.

Kalavier.1097:

In order to make any extra side arcs happen, we’d have to rescue Traehearne/Destiny’s Edge early on. Without that, it makes more detours seem weird, out of place, pace-breaking or simply “What the kitten?” plot hole. I agree it doesn’t perhaps have to be ‘short’, but you have to keep a pace going. It’s like, Mass Effect 2 I guess. “OMG, WE HAVE TO DO THIS MISSION ASAP!” “Eh, okay.” goes and does side missions and exploration for 5 days of gameplay.

Which is EXACTLY what I said. They established every goal to be the ‘end-game goal’ but if they had only one goal be the ‘end-game goal’ and the others being incremental (solved throughout the plot) then it’s less of an issue. And in all honesty, that’s the only way to have made it work, because how it works now simply doesn’t in terms of pacing.

Regarding ME2, that’s not really how it is, because keep in mind that colonies weren’t disappearing day by day but rather month by month. So there was leeway for them, and you can’t just rush into things without preparation – that’s something not many people seem to get when it comes to war. And something I find disjointed about GW2’s plot. Both the personal story and HoT has 0 preparation. You can’t go from a shattered army to taking down a gargantuan force without preparing a force to replace what was lost or repairing that broken army. And while both does such to a degree, not enough to really be believable.

Yes, it means that the enemy gets stronger, you just need to establish a faster rate of increase than the enemy.

Kalavier.1097:

IIRC, the npc we talk to in the camp is OoW, the group is a mixed group that just escaped from a prison convoy, and the ranking officer was a Priory member. The tents were OoW and nothing states much about the camp other then “Hey, there is a Pact camp up here!”

Except in the open world it’s a 100% OoW group. Every single individual. And in the story instances, most wore Priory armor.

Kalavier.1097:

What HoT fails at, IMO, is the Pact. After Verdant Brink and the very first mission in Auric Basin, we do next to nothing with the Pact at all in the story.

Everything past City of Hope feels incompetent compared to Act 1.

Kalavier.1097:

I do feel like some of the stuff they cut out they forgot to actually edit things that were left behind, leading us to get the irrational, utterly crazy and sudden “I HATE CAITHE WITH MY ENTIRE SOUL!” attitude and Braham calling her explicitly a traitor.

Braham calling her a traitor makes some amount of sense though, given that he knows nothing about her and what little he does know mostly revolves around how she took the egg without explanation.

The ones who shouldn’t consider Caithe a traitor would be Rytlock, the PC, and Canach – of those active at the time (naturally, I’d include Eir, Faolain, Trahearne, Logan, and Zojja in that group). Especially if the PC was a sylvari.

Ironically, Rytlock never distrusts sylvari in HoT, despite his opening line in the first HoT trailer being “you can’t trust sylvari, they belong to the dragon now” – the closest thing to sylvari distrust is a casual asking Braham if Canach could be trusted during The Jungle Provides.

This sadly makes me wonder where Mordy got the template for his minion wolves

The wolves don’t seem to be clones- everything that comes out of the blighting pods are planty, but the wolves have skulls and fur. Either they’re the result of more standard dragon corruption, or the blighting trees made parasitic plants which afterwards infested wolves.

trub.1657:

This sadly makes me wonder where Mordy got the template for his minion wolves

Also they were around before HoT. So maybe they are just some old bones he found or just some other wolves he assimilated.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Narcemus.1348:

The real question is, if he’s alive (which I would assume, since they didn’t just give us a corpse) what are they going to do with him.

Tame him, new pet for Rangers being Dire Wolves, please

I would cry tears of mixed joy/grief if this came true.

He was probably severely injured, and nursing his wounds, but was probably still trying to get to Eir.

Perhaps he does finally find Eir, or at least where she was buried, and there, while mourning, recovers from his injuries.

Assuming Eir doesn’t pull a Jon Snow, I think something else will happen, of great enough importance to pull Garm from Eir’s resting place.

And I think this will be when he’s re-introduced to the party.
Maybe, we hear that Taimi is under siege, and while she’s holding, her defenses are falling fast, and her new golem isn’t complete.
Player party is getting close, but can’t make it in time, as another champion lvl enemy appears, and is about to kill her. Maybe the golem will be complete enough to move an arm, blocking the initial attack, but still not enough, and then a black mass falls from the trees above and lands on the enemy.

Maybe too cliché lol.

Maybe afterwards, he’ll growl/woof a bit, and it gets translated to “Never again”

Konig Des Todes.2086:

We could easily see Braham becoming GW2’s first dual profession, given he’s already stated he’ll be taking Eir’s shortbow (yes, it’s a shortbow not a longbow that she uses!) and will take care of Garm.

The weapon when wielded by a player is a longbow. There is a shortbow with her name but it looks different from the one she uses.

If you’re talking about skills, well Rox uses both longbow and shortbow animations so NPCs clearly do w/e they want when it comes to combat skills.

I recall seeing her using the shortbow model. As well as shortbow skills (particularly shortbow 2 and 3).

kinda look like Eir using old/unique bow skills with 1 skill oddly GW1 barrage like

Same to what happened to Ramsey’s hounds in opening episode of GoT Season 6 – he fell through the story loophole.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I recall seeing her using the shortbow model. As well as shortbow skills (particularly shortbow 2 and 3).

In one trailer she does a “Leap backwards and fire an arrow” skill.

But ingame I’m pretty sure she purely uses longbow.