Guild Wars 2

There are obviously a myriad of reasons the PC should know this name and have some knowledge of this newly awoken Elder Dragon, but the first utterance of the name in any Personal / Living World Story was handled rather poorly, in my opinion.

A simple addition of the following lines, would have eased the name into player minds a bit easier:

“It looks like the work of the most recently awoken of the Eldar Dragons, to me.”

“You mean it’s Mordremoth, from Maguma Jungle?”
……

But that’s just my 2 cents. I believe any player would admit the sudden use of the name was rather “jarring”.

We got our “explanation”.. yeah…

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/22/flameseeker-chronicles-introducing-guild-wars-2s-dragons-reac/#continued

not really convincing…

Or that the player’s character did research of the enemy they were up against, the information was given to them very likely when Pact was established.

Even if it’s only Zhaitan, you’d cross-reference stuff if there is something useful, like weaknesses and etc.

Jaken.6801:

We got our “explanation”.. yeah…

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/22/flameseeker-chronicles-introducing-guild-wars-2s-dragons-reac/#continued

not really convincing…

I agree. Lame.

“…although Waller did say that the writing could have better explained how the player character came by that knowledge.”

No, really?

/sarcasm

I defend a lot of lore things out of these two games, this is not really one thing to “defend” so much as “sigh, shake head, and accept before moving forward”. I mean, the other option is to get upset and invent my own fiction about what the lore really is and how everything revealed would actually hint at the true story they can’t for some reason come out and say.

But having watched someone do that in another game, loudly and repeatedly enough to get it stitched into lore because it had been “known fact” for so long? Nope. Not appealing.

Thalador.4218:

I think Roy meant when Yoda came up with Qui-Gonn’s return as a Force ghost out of the blue and urged Obi-Wan to learn this technique during his self-exile on Tatooine.

Yes.

jheryn.8390:

Jaken.6801:

We got our “explanation”.. yeah…

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/22/flameseeker-chronicles-introducing-guild-wars-2s-dragons-reac/#continued

not really convincing…

I agree. Lame.

Also yes. Very yes.

This means that the Pact and my character know the name of the deep sea dragon as well. So what is it? Why isn’t it mentioned anywhere in the game? Is there a way I can ask my character what it knows? Maybe send mail to the Pact to ask them to repeat all the secrets they told me off camera a year and a half ago? No?

I’m quite disappointed with the answer from Steven Waller. We spend so much time with Destiny’s Edge 2.0, following Scarlett’s foot steps meticulously, only to suddenly have the answer to this mystery basically solved off screen by the NPC and player character. Pacing and procedural logic are so important for good story telling, so this is obviously rather jarring. Quite the anticlimax, at least character revelation wise.

I imagine it’s all a conclusion. There are some references to six elder dragons (and the name Mordremoth is as meaningless as any other name – why is Zhaitan named Zhaitan?). The player character has a bunch of little blocks to work with:

*Dragons feed off of magic (the entire Personal Story led us to this conclusion)
*Leylines are like rivers of magic across Tyria (Season 1)
*Scarlet had seen something in Omadd’s Machine (Season 1)
*Scarlet had FOUND a leyline and was going out further, trying to disrupt it (Season 1 & 2)
*There’s a probability for a 6th dragon (in-game dialogue and Inquest)

Really at that point, the player just takes shots in the dark. What would be even more interesting, however, is letting our character build a story – and then make that story completely wrong. Throughout the Personal Story and the Living Story so far our character has been a superlative genius with inductive reasoning. I think it would be much more human if they turned out to be wrong about something that caused something fatal to happen – such as any of our friends getting killed.

hannah mee.7925:

I imagine it’s all a conclusion. There are some references to six elder dragons (and the name Mordremoth is as meaningless as any other name – why is Zhaitan named Zhaitan?). The player character has a bunch of little blocks to work with:

*Dragons feed off of magic (the entire Personal Story led us to this conclusion)
*Leylines are like rivers of magic across Tyria (Season 1)
*Scarlet had seen something in Omadd’s Machine (Season 1)
*Scarlet had FOUND a leyline and was going out further, trying to disrupt it (Season 1 & 2)
*There’s a probability for a 6th dragon (in-game dialogue and Inquest)

Really at that point, the player just takes shots in the dark. What would be even more interesting, however, is letting our character build a story – and then make that story completely wrong. Throughout the Personal Story and the Living Story so far our character has been a superlative genius with inductive reasoning. I think it would be much more human if they turned out to be wrong about something that caused something fatal to happen – such as any of our friends getting killed.

Zhaitan is named Zhaitan because that’s what his minions call him. Undead minions that speak refer to Zhaitan as their master. Unless they’re working for someone else and the whole personal story was just a big misunderstanding, that means the Undead Elder Dragon refers to himself as Zhaitan.

Furthermore, if we just made it up, why do the others recognize it? And if it had been such a common topic of conversation, why did it seem like such a surprise to them? They were all like, “Oh, yeah, Mordremoth. I know that guy. But… Do you really think he would do something like this?”

And yes, everyone has to have a name. It’s intelligent enough that it plans things, so it has to think of itself somehow. And even if that’s just how its minions refer to it, that’s as good a reason as any to call it that.

Unlike the servants of Zhaitan, Jormag, and Kralkatorrik, Mordremoth’s minions haven’t been very chatty yet. I’m not sure what the deal is with Primordus, but we seem to have taken the dwarves’ word that one. I suppose we need a brief cinematic in which we discuss the subject with Ogden.

jheryn.8390:

Jaken.6801:

We got our “explanation”.. yeah…

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/22/flameseeker-chronicles-introducing-guild-wars-2s-dragons-reac/#continued

not really convincing…

I agree. Lame.

Yeah, made me sad. Lazy writing is lazy. And it wouldn’t have stood out as much if it wasn’t for the fact that it was in the middle of such an otherwise well-written story. And that it would be very easily improved by simply adding a text bubble like “I’ve seen references to a plant dragon in a lot of Scarlet’s research named Mordremoth”. I seriously hope they took away the idea that this was a misstep and not that we’re being nitpicky. Because we ARE being nitpicky, but also not wrong.

Thalador.4218:

I think Roy meant when Yoda came up with Qui-Gonn’s return as a Force ghost out of the blue and urged Obi-Wan to learn this technique during his self-exile on Tatooine.

Actually Yoda did hear in Qui Gonn’s voice calling out at the same time Anakin made his attack on the sand raiders in Attack of the Clones. It also looks like Qui Gonn might have made an appearance in Revenge but it either got cut early on from the script or on the cutting room floor in editing.

Ariella Goldstein.3562:

Thalador.4218:

I think Roy meant when Yoda came up with Qui-Gonn’s return as a Force ghost out of the blue and urged Obi-Wan to learn this technique during his self-exile on Tatooine.

Actually Yoda did hear in Qui Gonn’s voice calling out at the same time Anakin made his attack on the sand raiders in Attack of the Clones. It also looks like Qui Gonn might have made an appearance in Revenge but it either got cut early on from the script or on the cutting room floor in editing.

I was referring to the way everyone was baffled by what Obi-Wan did at the end of A New Hope, and they expected it to be somehow made apparent in the prequels. And then, just as we were thinking, “Well, this was his last chance… I guess they really didn’t care,” Yoda slips it in with, “Hey, Obi-Wan, before the closing credits roll, let me tell you about how Qui-Gonn taught me the secret to immortality! We’ll cover the details off-screen.”

I still don’t get why it was such a great idea to let Vader kill him, though.

RoyHarmon.5398:

Ariella Goldstein.3562:

Thalador.4218:

I think Roy meant when Yoda came up with Qui-Gonn’s return as a Force ghost out of the blue and urged Obi-Wan to learn this technique during his self-exile on Tatooine.

Actually Yoda did hear in Qui Gonn’s voice calling out at the same time Anakin made his attack on the sand raiders in Attack of the Clones. It also looks like Qui Gonn might have made an appearance in Revenge but it either got cut early on from the script or on the cutting room floor in editing.

I was referring to the way everyone was baffled by what Obi-Wan did at the end of A New Hope, and they expected it to be somehow made apparent in the prequels. And then, just as we were thinking, “Well, this was his last chance… I guess they really didn’t care,” Yoda slips it in with, “Hey, Obi-Wan, before the closing credits roll, let me tell you about how Qui-Gonn taught me the secret to immortality! We’ll cover the details off-screen.”

I still don’t get why it was such a great idea to let Vader kill him, though.

Aha, understood. And yes, either because of the editing or the script revisions it ended up being really kludged, and I understand the point… The only thing I can think of about Vader killing him was to motivate Luke, the bloody shirt as it were.

As for the knowledge of M, I’ve just kind of given up at this point. It makes my head hurt.

Omg, can’t our toons read forums too? :-/

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I assumed mine heard of it because of his connections to some people who have secrets to keep. Now, where did I leave those apples?

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Speaking of apples. I still miss Tibult. T.T

Aerin Dark Water.6283:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I assumed mine heard of it because of his connections to some people who have secrets to keep. Now, where did I leave those apples?

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Speaking of apples. I still miss Tibult. T.T

I still do.

I mean, he’s dead and not moving. Maybe I need to stop drinking the Elonian Wine.

Such a disappointing explanation, if it was intended to be like this from the start. People here on the forums and in the game came up with several better ways to give the reveal, and less than a day after release. Sure, we already had the writers’ framework to build on, but they really should’ve seen those options themselves.

I wonder if maybe it was just an oversight, due to working on the story for so long, or another one of those “it wasn’t in our lore wiki, so we wrote it like this”.

Would it be a good thing that it is told in an interview and not in the game, thus malleable? I wouldn’t be against a story-patch in cases like this.

So I was just thinking, “Well, it’s all in the past now, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” Except it’s not!

With the addition of the Season 2 story journal, players can repeat the episode and new players can play through it in the future. So if they fix it now, we’ll see it if we repeat the episode, and new players will see it when they get to level 80 and play it later!

If the developers realize this, all may not be lost!

As someone just now going through season 2, something I found disconcerting was that upon my arrival in Prosperity, it was already covered in mordremoth vines. It’s clear that said event isn’t supposed to happen until between episode 1 and 2 of season 2 (the point at which you get a letter from Braham about an attack on the town). From a few videos and the wiki it’s apparent that this wasn’t always the case, but hey, anet is a fan of this one time world change business. Perhaps with the addition of heart of thorns they just figured everyone had already seen that event in the story, so why not have it reflected permanently? Not a fan of that approach.

Even stranger, is that during a segment of S2 e1, you’re asked to talk to the NPC’s in prosperity, and it’s clear that the dialogue of the Charr in the bar was tinkered with to reflect the already boned state of the village/dead npcs. Is this a simple case of anet not being able to make up their mind? Both this and the issue the OP brought up are things I’ll just have to accept if I’m going to enjoy myself, but I can’t help feeling this was sloppy.

VanEinstein.5019:

As someone just now going through season 2, something I found disconcerting was that upon my arrival in Prosperity, it was already covered in mordremoth vines. It’s clear that said event isn’t supposed to happen until between episode 1 and 2 of season 2 (the point at which you get a letter from Braham about an attack on the town). From a few videos and the wiki it’s apparent that this wasn’t always the case, but hey, anet is a fan of this one time world change business. Perhaps with the addition of heart of thorns they just figured everyone had already seen that event in the story, so why not have it reflected permanently? Not a fan of that approach.

Even stranger, is that during a segment of S2 e1, you’re asked to talk to the NPC’s in prosperity, and it’s clear that the dialogue of the Charr in the bar was tinkered with to reflect the already boned state of the village/dead npcs. Is this a simple case of anet not being able to make up their mind? Both this and the issue the OP brought up are things I’ll just have to accept if I’m going to enjoy myself, but I can’t help feeling this was sloppy.

It is a compromise. Not a good one, however with no phasing in GW2, there is no other way at the moment.
Theoreticaly they would have to instance that part of the story, to make it more coherend, however as it is now, you have to have a strong suspension of disbelieve and just roll with it.

Trust me, this is one of the smaller problems of their storytelling.

Our characters obviously knew Mordremoth back from high school when they used to hang out together.

He’s always been like this, sticking his tendrils all up in everybody’s bidness.

Yah, no matter how they try to patch it up, it’s a big bombshell, quite a sloppy one at that. Loopholes do happen, but we’ll judge based on their courage to admit errors. Btw: to Anet people: we weren’t born yesterday, you know. I don’t have good first impression for the writing to begin with. the non-original GW1 people just make crazy stuff up as they go along that makes you roll your eyes, even with the consideration that the lore is work of novel. the dialog are way too cheezy to digest, especially the strangely passive-aggressive feminism. It is not a surprise at all that lore bombshell like these occurs at all.

Lol, still no developer response. They must be so ashamed.

RubberDougie.2750:

Lol, still no developer response. They must be so ashamed.

Or maybe they just don’t feel like stepping on landmines marked “please let me explode” . . .

RubberDougie.2750:

Lol, still no developer response. They must be so ashamed.

lol they are probably so ashamed that you didn’t bother to play the game xD or you’re one of those players who thinks cut scenes = bathroom break o.O

Here’s some SPF PWNNNNNNNNNN for what Bobby posted though

BobbyStein.2315:

RubberDougie.2750:

Lol, still no developer response. They must be so ashamed.

Or maybe we already did in another thread from a year ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Naming-Mordremoth/page/2#post4236417

I wish I could +1 more than once.

I think somebody just got aced.

First, I feel pretty special having a thread necro’d like this. I also have a strange craving for brains…

Second…

I want to address the comments about the player character’s knowledge of Mordremoth and how that fits into the story. For some players, this may have felt like it came out of nowhere. Up to this point, the only explicit mention of Mordremoth in the core campaign was on the Teeth of Mordremoth skill in Crucible of Eternity.

Season 2 of the Living World assumes that the player character has completed the Personal Story, killed Zhaitan, and has attained the rank of Pact Commander. It also assumes completion of season 1, that the player character killed Scarlet, and has a friendship with Rox, Braham, and the rest of the crew. Because of the PC’s assumed rank in an organization that deals in fighting dragons, and that such knowledge isn’t really a secret (but isn’t widely known as characters in the world have no reason to openly discuss it until now) we wanted the player to make the call by identifying the dragon in a conversation among friends. In hindsight, there should have been more build up or discovery before reaching that point. Lesson learned.

We want to seed Tyria with lore bits and other items that can better educate adventurous players seeking more knowledge on the subject. Keep your eyes open in future releases. Thanks so much for taking the time to post your feedback regarding episode 2.

The problem’s not really about the feasibility of a high-ranking officer in a dragon-hunting organization knowing the name of a dragon.

It’s about the feeling of surprise you get when your own character boldly proclaims some truth that you weren’t aware of. It has the effect (for me, at least) of making me think I missed something— some story step, some object I was supposed to interact with— that would have revealed it to my character before I declared it to the rest of the group.

It’s that sense of dissonance. That confusion. That moment when you say (in my case, to my wife playing next to me), “Whoa! What was that? Who is Mordremoth, and how do I know him? Did I miss something? It’s like I’m making this up as I go.”

So it’s great that you can say, “We thought it was obvious that the leader of the Pact would know about dragons,” but I think the most important promise you made was:

Lesson learned.

So, in the past year, has anything been done about it? I wouldn’t know because I actually haven’t played through it since last spring, but clearly there are those who have and found it lacking. Are there any plans to improve this part of the story and streamline the experience a bit?

Well, yeah. Given how much time has passed, a little refresher dialog wouldn’t hurt.

“Hey Commander, remember when we figured out Mordremoth was behind all this?”

Except better.

Or you didnt play living world season 2 or you rush thrue youre story

Jeffrey.1426:

Or you didnt play living world season 2 or you rush thrue youre story

No, Mordremoth’s name didn’t come from anyone anywhere until I think Marjory dropped it casually. It didn’t even exist in game except as part of a skill name for a boss not everyone is going to fight and see the text naming the skill.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Jeffrey.1426:

Or you didnt play living world season 2 or you rush thrue youre story

No, Mordremoth’s name didn’t come from anyone anywhere until I think Marjory dropped it casually. It didn’t even exist in game except as part of a skill name for a boss not everyone is going to fight and see the text naming the skill.

“Marjory”? Really?

Wow.

It was the player character. Out of the blue. Remember?

RoyHarmon.5398:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Jeffrey.1426:

Or you didnt play living world season 2 or you rush thrue youre story

No, Mordremoth’s name didn’t come from anyone anywhere until I think Marjory dropped it casually. It didn’t even exist in game except as part of a skill name for a boss not everyone is going to fight and see the text naming the skill.

“Marjory”? Really?

Wow.

It was the player character. Out of the blue. Remember?

No, not really. That’s how quickly it went by.

I just played through the Personal Story and now I moved on to Living World Season 2. This is still an issue! Come on, there’s gotta be an easy way to fix this and just change a character dialogue or receive a mail before Entanglement from an Order of Whispers agent or even E. It’s stupid how our character plainly knows the name without ANY exposition whatsoever. Please, read all the arguments these guys have written before me. Nobody nor any book ever mentions the dragon’s name before our player character.

All this could be fixed through a mail saying ‘Our pact intelligence agents have reported that bla blah..’

Seriously, this has to be solved somehow for the hundreds if not thousands of players that play through this content and have no idea how their character learned of the name.

I’m pretty sure the knowledge comes with the waking. How did anyone know the names of the other Elder Dragons? Jormag and Zhaitan’s minions say their names sometimes, but Primortus’s do not talk at all ever. I feel that because of the weird nature of the dragons and their link to the eternal alchemy the knowledge of them is built into magic itself and so when they wake their names just become known without having to learn it.

Mordremeoth is never referenced in the story at any point before suddenly being name-dropped there. The only prior appearance of the name at all in the game is in the combat text in crucible of eternity.

May I suggest re-recording the scene in Season 2 where the player character does NOT know an elder dragon named Mordermoth exists, and Timia explains the possibility of another elder dragon that these vines are based on so that people new and returning can have that sense of discovery when we build up to attacking Mordermoth?

The player character should not magically know what the player does not so to keep the story feel consistent it would help if you took my suggestion. Barely anybody remembers season 1 so it shouldn’t matter, and the new players never got to experience it anyways.

These days I’ve noticed a lot of new and returning players are watching my Guild Wars 2 – The Complete Season 1 Movie and even my movie doesn’t mention mordermoth or his name anyways. So it would cause no harm to re-record the dialogues for Season 2 for that scene. It would make it more consistent

Btw if anyone is wondering, my Season 1 complete movie is found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joLmVI5URak