Guild Wars 2

Overall I enjoyed it. I’m very excited to finally be delving into GW1 lore. The bloodstones and Mursaat are some of my favorite parts of the first game. The new map is fun, if a bit more simplified than previous maps. It reminds me of how Dry Top was when we only had access to the first part of it, so I wonder if future updates will open up more of Bloodstone Fen? Either way there will be a longer wait till the next release which is a little rough, but I’m glad there’s new ascended trinkets and a backpiece and crown to go for.

The story was pretty good in the first half, but the second half was a bit thin. The worst part for me was the very end when freaking Lazarus the Dire shows up out of NOWHERE and acts like a stereotypical ego-maniacal cartoon supervillain. Seriously he pops out of nowhere yelling “I AM YOUR GOD!! MWAHAHA” which was very stupid and infantile in my honest opinion. He even does the gesture where he holds his hands up and leans back as if he is drunk with evil and power. You might as well have given him a big curly mustache to twirl and a black cape to flip aside dramatically.

Lazarus is the LAST living member of the most powerful magical race from the last time the elder dragons rose. In GW1 he was a big deal. In fact he is supposed to be dead! How did he come back to life? I remember a very small mention of “resurrection” at some point but there was honestly no cause to connect those dots at any point. Having him appear suddenly at the end like that has got to be the worst instance of deus ex machina in GW2 to date. He randomly appears, kills all the remaining enemies for you, and allows your main nemesis for the story (Caudecus) to escape. Very unsatisfying. I really hope they treat Lazarus better in the future. His race are supposed to be kittenes, not a caricature of kittenes. Seriously I’m getting PTSD flashbacks of Scarlett… Please Anet… Don’t do it!

Anyway, end of critique/rant. TL;DR I liked it overall. It’s a bit short but on par with past releases, and the only thing that stood out to me as a distinct negative is the deus ex machina of Lazarus the Cartoon Supervillain.

Edit:

Also the sudden addition of “Primordus!!” right after the sudden deus ex machina was just double jarring… The Primordus reveal really could have waited until next release. There was literally no reason to shove it in there.

I disagree with you on Lazarus, I thought Lazarus was presented well as a threat to all of Tyria. Caudecus and Lazarus also seemed to have some tension with respect to their plans. That tension could come into a play and is a good build-up in the plot, IMO.

Also, Primordius? Really? You KNOW we’re going to fight them all ANYWAY, what’s there to reveal? The dragons will all be active eventually. We know dragons feast on magic and their deaths release it de-stabilizing the world. I don’t think there’s much storytelling potential with the dragons themselves, I mean they’re forces of nature, pretty straight-forward.

We always knew that Lazarus was the only mursaat we knew of that survived all Gw1 events (though not 100%).

He didn’t kill the remaining enemies for YOU, but just wanted to kill all unfaithful people, including you.

Also, the way Caudecus escaped.. Seems to me he would have escaped either way.

Xenon.4537:

The new map is fun, if a bit more simplified than previous maps. It reminds me of how Dry Top was when we only had access to the first part of it, so I wonder if future updates will open up more of Bloodstone Fen?

The map was a lot of fun. When I first entered the map I thought (in a positive way), what drug did the designers took to make such a chaotic map.

But I do not think the map will be expanded. On the north and east borders of the map are the raid maps, on the west border is the guild hall map and on the south border is Verdant Brink.

Xenon.4537:

The worst part for me was the very end when freaking Lazarus the Dire shows up out of NOWHERE and acts like a stereotypical ego-maniacal cartoon supervillain. Seriously he pops out of nowhere yelling “I AM YOUR GOD!! MWAHAHA” which was very stupid and infantile in my honest opinion. He even does the gesture where he holds his hands up and leans back as if he is drunk with evil and power. You might as well have given him a big curly mustache to twirl and a black cape to flip aside dramatically.

Lazarus is the LAST living member of the most powerful magical race from the last time the elder dragons rose. In GW1 he was a big deal. In fact he is supposed to be dead! How did he come back to life? I remember a very small mention of “resurrection” at some point but there was honestly no cause to connect those dots at any point. Having him appear suddenly at the end like that has got to be the worst instance of deus ex machina in GW2 to date. He randomly appears, kills all the remaining enemies for you, and allows your main nemesis for the story (Caudecus) to escape.

The Caudecus story was predictable. I never thought we catch him in this episode.

Lazarus really was a badly presented deus-ex-machina.

Players of the last raid wing will know that he was (kind of) resurrected (or at least it was tried) and maybe there was a NPC in the map that did a story recap of the raid story part, but he should have been introduced into the LS3 story much better.

Zok.4956:

The Caudecus story was predictable. I never thought we catch him in this episode.

Lazarus really was a badly presented deus-ex-machina.

Players of the last raid wing will know that he was (kind of) resurrected (or at least it was tried) and maybe there was a NPC in the map that did a story recap of the raid story part, but he should have been introduced into the LS3 story much better.

Ah I see. At the time I wrote my review I didn’t think about the raid story. I haven’t had the opportunity to do any raids yet, so maybe that is the thing that would have filled in the gaps. However even though I support the existence of raids, I firmly believe essential story elements should not be hidden away in a raid, and players shouldn’t rely on a vague recap of a raid to understand the main story.

JTGuevara.9018:

Also, Primordius? Really? You KNOW we’re going to fight them all ANYWAY

This is no excuse for poor storytelling. Anyone who saw A New Hope knew that Luke Skywalker would eventually confront Darth Vader, defeat him, and defeat the emperor. Why? Because we know Luke Skywalker is the protagonist of that story. So why bother with all the complex storytelling across 3 films? Because that’s how good stories are done. It’s about the journey, not the destination.

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

We always knew that Lazarus was the only mursaat we knew of that survived all Gw1 events (though not 100%).

He didn’t kill the remaining enemies for YOU, but just wanted to kill all unfaithful people, including you.

Also, the way Caudecus escaped.. Seems to me he would have escaped either way.

The semantics and minutia are debatable. However, the fact is Lazarus was a straight up deus ex machina. “Deus ex machina” means “God from the machine” and was a plot device used in greek plays to resolve a seemingly unsolvable situation. Instead of resolving an issue through character interaction, they would literally have a magical man on a rope come down and use magic powers to force the story to a conclusion. That’s what Lazarus did. He popped in, waved his magic hands, and the story came to an abrupt end. There you have it; deus ex machina by definition. Writers only use this either as a joke, or as an escape option when writing themselves into a corner and can’t think of anything better.

Now if you want to argue whether Caudecus would have escaped either way… Who knows? It’s pretty obvious the reason he ran away at all is because Lazarus killed all of his minions and left him no other choice. Whether Caudecus coulda/shoulda/woulda is irrelevant because the cause was Lazarus. That’s what they call a “red herring”.

I don’t see him as a deus exc machina, after all, yuou had just killed all of the enemies but Caudecus and a few guards, and he escaped. he could have done the same without Lazarus perfectly, Lazarus didn’t solve anything, he just appeared to let us know he’s alive and that the white mantle is divided now.
I love that we’re fighting another dragon, but I so wanted it to be Krakaltorric (SP?) dark crystals are much cooler than just meh fire…

I thought it was good stuff, though I’ll admit being a little miffed that lazarus didn’t even acknowledge my existence.

I mean I know he thinks I’m not important, but at least a “Get him, yeeeargh” punctuated by lazarus saying some bad guy ‘silence insect’ or somesuch and striking us down in a single blow of spectral agony would have been nice.

In stead he just roasted the remaining white mantle, talked smack to Caudecus, and left without even acknowledging me at all. I thought I was important to the story QQ.

I mean that’s what made mursaat so terrifying in the first game originally. They knew you were there. They just killed you with a hand wave like swatting a fly before you got infused.

I agree that Lazarus was introduced very poorly. He just appeared out of thin air and was all LOOK AT ME I AM IMPORTANT BECAUSE THIS AND THAT. That was just plain bad. No true overlord worth his salt will ever stoop to telling people who he is, people should already know from the story! But he is barely presented in the journals, and so few people have done the raids… And the story tells you close to nothing about him…

Lazarus is a cool dude, the mursaat were awesome in GW1, and he deserves better than this.

Another point which made me really angry is how they dumbed-down Almorra and Rytlock.

Almorra is a useless yesman (yescharr?) who basically does nothing, instead of being the kitten leader of a highly militant order. And how does she come to offer the marshalship to the PC!? It is clearly and overabundantly stated in the original story that the leader should be from outside the orders, while you are a very important member of one of them! I understand that you were instrumental in killing 2 dragons and how this may have changed perspective somewhat, but I don’t think that is reason enough. Oh, and don’t get me started on how the story now makes it to appear like the PC-s efforts were what killed Mordremoth, with no mention of the thousands upon thousands of pact and allied forces trudging through the jungle to make it happen…

And Rytlock… My god, what have they done to Rytlock! Where is the kitten Charr high commander and the awesome tactician and leader of armies?! He is now just an angry bloke who scowls all the time. Seriously!? Why would you degrade the character like that?! I get that there are hints at dissension between him and the Legions and I really hope they do him justice through this plot device, but right now he has been transformed into a weak character and I don’t understand why.

If you’ve read the novel, by comparing him to there he’s actually slipped back to how he used to be before he became Tribune. He’s well known in the books for snarky comments and lack of respect for authority figures

I mean seriously, you need only read what he does to a certain commanding officer near the start of the book to get that idea xD

I thought Lazarus was fine. He wasn’t a DEM because he didn’t solve anything for you. Caudecus was gonna slip through our fingers anyway (unless you thought the build up to him and this LS was going to be resolved immediately) the only difference is that you would’ve been the one to kill the white mantle fodder (it’s not like the 10, 20 or so that popped up would’ve been a real threat). In GW1 he was kind of a kitten too.

As for his ‘resurrection’, he has been confirmed to be the only mursaat survivor of the Flameseeker Prophecies because he split his energy/magic up and reformed himself later. That’s from GW1.
Edit: For some reason, based on what I’m reading (haven’t gotten that far in it so idk the specifics), the raid story seems to contradict this?

As for his sudden appearance, idk. I’ve expected him to show up since before HoT. Heck, I predicted that it would be him from the moment I set foot in Bloodstone Fen, and was a little validated when it was revealed that someone absorbed all the magic.

Yeah, Rytlock was kind of goofy in this, but, especially according to the novels, he really isn’t out of character or anything. The only real wtf moment for me was him tripping on the trap at the end. Other than that he doesn’t come off as any weaker than previous portrayals. Maybe a little distracted and irritable. Nobody’s perfect.

Almorra offering you the title of Marshal is no different from what you do with the pact in the personal story, living story, and HoT. They talk and talk about how it should be a neutral party, but you make all the decisions and literally command the pact. Even if the ‘neutral party’ thing was a serious dealbreaker, literally no one would care that the commander who actually led the pact to victory against two elder dragons got promoted.

The only issue with Lazarus was his voice over for me. Didn’t quite gel with how he was presented. Otherwise everything seem to fit. It was a pleasant surprise to see him so soon.

Adding Primordus was excellent storytelling. Finally we are getting past this style of poor fantasy writing where everything gets dragged out unnecessarily. Good fantasy works better usually (Tolkien aside) when it just gets a move on. The episode built well to the final 2 reveals and unlike old seasons, we didn’t have to wait a season or 2 for any progress.

It makes absolute sense for at least one Elder Dragon to take notice of this magical activity. If diverting a leyline right to Mordremoth can wake him fully, then an exploding bloodstone is going to very quickly draw the attention of another.

The quality was very high through this epsisode. A few minor issues for me, like the sudden transition from Rata Novus to Bloodstone Fen, but nothing to bring the episode down. I take on board comments about its length though. I am OK with it, but after 9 months, perhaps they should have begun with a double length “pilot” episode.

,,The story was pretty good in the first half, but the second half was a bit thin. The worst part for me was the very end when freaking Lazarus the Dire shows up out of NOWHERE and acts like a stereotypical ego-maniacal cartoon supervillain. Seriously he pops out of nowhere yelling “I AM YOUR GOD!! MWAHAHA” which was very stupid and infantile in my honest opinion. "

The part with ,,out of nowhere was answered in the raid. At the end of W3 you find something like an opened coffin with the shape of Lazarus(and that time you did not know who he was). And there is a dialog like ,,Looks like they were trying to ressurect something or someone". That’s the part that announce the return of Lazarus. I know, it was put into raid, but everyone can see it in an opened instance.

I just hate the 7 minutes of standing around for the first instance. That will be 1 hour 24 minutes between all my characters. >_<

I dunno, I really liked Lazarus’ voice work.

It also like that they basically just showed up to tell Caudecus who’s boss. That wasn’t really out of the blue, everything leading up to that point in the journals and episode pointed to a schism between “true belivers” in the White Mantle’s original goal (to serve the unseen, and use the bloodstone to recombobulate Lazarus) and Caudecus’ self-serving implementation (Using the manpower of the White mantle for personal ends, to take the krytan throne)

Lazarus didn’t really show up out of nowhere. He just showed up to afform all of the hints suspicios that yep, that’s the guy, that the whole episode had been leading up to.

That said I still wish I’d have gotten at least a nod or a sneer.

Here’s hoping Lazarus recognizes players with linked GW1 accounts with a dialogue line or two in the future.

The Mursaat were like that in Gw1 also tbh.
Heck they dragged Saul off to who knows where for not believing in them.
Frankly I was hoping he would smite Caudecus while he was at it.

I liked where we are going with all the GW1 enemies and Primordius it feels like we are coming in full circle.

However, the lead up to Caudecus being the confessor was weak. He just “ran away” from Divinity Reach? Caudecus was supposed to have been a master level planner with plans within his plans. I would have expected a much more complex and devious strategy from him.

I loved the interaction between Canach, our character and Rytlock. The way we said good-bye to Eir was also very touching. Taimi is awesome, as always. That final line was delivered to perfection.

I thought Lazarus and Caudecus where both very well placed withing the story.

The resurrection of Lazarus and him taking the WM’s leadership has long been teased in the raid story, and the sudden appearance made perfect sense as well: He is a “Unseen One”, so he is invisible by default and can make himself visible whenever he wants to. I guess he observed for quite a while, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Just when Caudecus was basically defeated by us, he shows up to show everybody that Caudecus is weak and he is the true leader of the WM. I don’t know why he didn’t kill him right there, maybe he hopes to get him on his side once Caudecus realizes that he has lost the WM to Lazarus. Also worth noting is that Lazarus didn’t kill us. In his lates video WoodenPotatoes speculates that maybe we will forge some kind of fragile alliance with the Mursaat against the elder dragons. They fought them before and in GW1 they used the Bloodstone and allied with (used) the Humans to keep the Door of Komalie closed.

I guess Caudecus’ strategy was to do what he can from within to prepare the Human kingdom for an invasion. Then he thought the right time to strike had come, so he left DR to lead the assault. Sounds like a good strategy to me, he just didn’t know about the whole Lazarus thing.

I also didn’t like sudden introduction of Primordus just at the end. I mean it was hinted at for quite a while that either Kralkatorrik or Primordus would become active, and it makes perfect sense right after the death of Mordremoth and the Bloodstone explosion. I just wished they would have made this moment of truth a bit more special than just “Oh yea, Primordus is active now, you know? Just came in the news.” right at the end of the fight against Lazarus/Caudecus. I felt like they needed to squeeze that in there at the last moment and had no more devtime left to give it a proper buildup. But maybe sometimes things don’t need to be epic, sometimes you just get the news and go from there.

What I really do not like is that the new map is pretty empty in terms of story. There are these notes all over the place, the small Pact encampment and (afaik) two notable (named) event bosses. Other than that it could very well be a Super Mario map, without any RPG elements whatsoever. Like: Those WM soldiers are just standing around the Bloodstone shards, evenly spread out, picking daisies and waiting to be killed. It’s as if some dev used a special painting brush to let one spawn every 15m and call it a day. No patrols, no resting miners, no campfires, no named NPCs with little stories, no piles of Bloodstone ore, no ways to transport the orr, nothing. And most events are just “here are some random mobs spawning because magic, please kill them”, without any stories behind them, apart from the overall setting itself. Why not let us help some named creature get back to where it came from or have a small rebellion withing the WM or see how they deal with this apparent Bloodstone frenzy? I’m sure Anet devs could come up with great little event stories, but they just didn’t.

It makes this map feel shallow to me and that’s really sad, because the gameplay is actually quite good, the art design is brilliant and the story behind this map is great as well. Why not fill the map with a few stories (apart from just notes) that make it feel believable?

++ = Very Good
+ = me like
- = would’ve done differently
— = ABSOLUTELY KITTEN

++ 1: The new map:
From the first step I took until today, I’m in an equal awe, I love the ruined zone, it really looks like a post-apocalyptic bloodstone area.

++ 2: The story chapters:
They were really good, the depth, the dialogue, the events, it was all really good.

+ 3: Difficulty:
Now, this may be more of an issue of getting used to it, rather than it actually being difficult, but I enjoyed being able to move through the content well, but being punished for slacking.

+ 4: Events:
I also really like the new events, they spur some memories of GW1, so it might be nostalgia talking, but I think they were well made. I’m not giving this a ++ because they’re on a really weird schedule making it very hard to know whats going on in the map at any given time.

- 5: Chapter Size and achievements:
Now, there are 5 instances I could rush through in a day, and the achievements I all got on the first runthough, making me think they were a bit too easy. Some achievements I even got without being aware of them. Dodge all the falling debres, well, duh, when you make such violent-looking aoe-markers my first response is ‘get the hell away from there’ so dodging all the debris was more of a given than a challenge.

— 6: Really Cheap Deaths
You can’t glide down the Maw without being sniped down a few times, and I tries using the gliding skill and the dodging, but nothing really seems to help. YOu just get hit and fall to your death. This is not difficulty, this is just cheap death.

++ The map is probably my second favourite, next to Verdant Brink. I love the gliding aspect of the game, so, that’s no surprise.

-+ I found the last two parts of the story great. The first chapter… I’m conflicted about, on the whole it was great, but forcing you to complete objectives to pay respects complete felt like it took away from the experience. The meaning behind paying respects is kind of lost when the story literally requires you do do it.

- I found the difficulty, a bit… lacking. It felt like a complete cakewalk for the most part.

+ The events felt a bit easy, and with the exception of the Vale Guardian when hardly anyone is paying attention to the green circles, it’s hard to feel like you’re having much of an impact, I’ve barely seen any fail, and the ones that are difficult scale really poorly, to the point where the shielded clerics are almost, if not entirely impossible solo, but as spectacles rather than challenges, they were pretty enough to look at.

— The chapter sizes were ridiculously small. It felt like I spent almost as much time grinding the counter magic master as I did actually playing them. Compared to Living World Season 2, the achievements were incredibly disappointing. There were barely any, and the ones that they did have were incredibly easy. It feels like they merged the Living Story achievements with the Bloodstone Fen ones to hide how little there was involved with it.

Neutral: I only ever ran into one cheap death, but it was very quickly alleviated by just putting my glider away and base jumping down the maw, only opening the glider at the last second instead of gliding the whole way.

To be fair, the whole map exists within the, what, hour or two directly after a bloodstone exploded. There’s not enough depth in that space to pad out stories aside from the central plot.

Remember, the whole area was a hidden white mantle base which just recently exploded. That doesn’t lend itself to to depth of event storytelling you’d find in magumma, with its ages old native civilizations, or queensdale, with the daily lives of normal people going on.

The only things that make sense are a hasty pact camp, and crazed mantle directly affected by the bloodstone explosion running around.

Could we have used a little more variety in the floor events? Yeah. I thing the cleric shield event is a little overused. However, the narrative element is largely served by the state the map is in. It’s not a living slice of the world at this point. It’s the aftermath of a bloodstone explosion.

I’d imagine an Ascalon city in the hours after leoric’s shattering of Maghder would feel very much the same. A few lucky charr in a camp or two, and lots of kittened off ghosts running around everywhere for no apparent reason other than they happened to be there.

PopeUrban.2578:

To be fair, the whole map exists within the, what, hour or two directly after a bloodstone exploded. There’s not enough depth in that space to pad out stories aside from the central plot.

Remember, the whole area was a hidden white mantle base which just recently exploded. That doesn’t lend itself to to depth of event storytelling you’d find in magumma, with its ages old native civilizations, or queensdale, with the daily lives of normal people going on.

The only things that make sense are a hasty pact camp, and crazed mantle directly affected by the bloodstone explosion running around.

Could we have used a little more variety in the floor events? Yeah. I thing the cleric shield event is a little overused. However, the narrative element is largely served by the state the map is in. It’s not a living slice of the world at this point. It’s the aftermath of a bloodstone explosion.

I’d imagine an Ascalon city in the hours after leoric’s shattering of Maghder would feel very much the same. A few lucky charr in a camp or two, and lots of kittened off ghosts running around everywhere for no apparent reason other than they happened to be there.

I have yet to see a successful cleric shield event. Most just wait until the timer expires and then kill the cleric. Usually there are not enough people to take out the seekers to drop the shield in the required time Mostly it seems they are otherwise occupied in the other ground events going on at the same time in the vicinity.

Overall, I do like this map. For me it is just enough within the story progression. I got a nice bit of lore and have some things to mull over in regards to the next story progression. What I had to do within the map/story is challenging enough for me and satisfying as I got it in manageable bits. I realize for the hard core players this may not have been what they wanted but for an average joe/jane player it might have been just right. Possibly a hard mode can be added for those who want even more challenge to the story.

The biggest plus for this map for me was it challenged my flying skills especially having to avoid the shooters and the balls of energy while trying to get at the unbound magic motes floating around. I really improved my flying tremendously. The other day when Verdant Brink was one of the dailies I was by the area with Bugs in the Branches and said what the heck and went in and did it. I got gold on first try! I definitely feel it was all the practice flying in Bloodstone Fen and really trying out my flying skills to a degree not afforded before. So for me the new map was a big win/win.

I am looking forward to the next story. I wish though we could get access to the Durmand Priory Basement without having to replay the story so we can get a look at the books down there as well as the Special Collections section again. I so feel there were/are some clues down there…..

Just wanted to give quick shout out to ANET for the latest zone.

Finally a fun way to use ley lines and updrafts. Very cool gliding abilities. Fun Champ mechanics. Salvage that gives low level mats-combined with another couple sinks for bloodstone; makes champ bag opening more diverse (now have to weigh my needs and not just open all on bag opener). Tons of gathering and an additional way to get bloodstone as well. Wp’s not too far from anything. Interesting things to buy with map currency. *Achieves not tied to gear**. Night and day cycles. No mega loot ( love AB multi but kinda ridiculous).

I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff but in a nutshell, I think this map was well planned and pulled together components already in game to a logical end. Been a pleasure to play.

One thing , wheres the stat changable stat accessory? oh well with so much good, hard to complain too hard.

There are no accessories and only one ring in this LS episode because they want to bring them in as rewards in later episodes.

I’ll also praise BF for finally letting the the highest gliding mastery have some love and meaning.

I will however critique it’s visuals – we basically got red branded zone mixed with jungle. I love to bits the jungles of this game, especially verdant brink and auric basin. I hope the next map will feature less “red sun world” and more natural jungle beauty. If you need a new theme for it, as to not be copy-pasta of already existing jungle maps, do try mixing high tops where gliding matters a lot (or a long fall) – like super canopy from Verdant Brink) along with mountain ranges that are less sandstone (like in VB case) and more solid rock, but drilled into swiss cheese by water streams, creating caverns full of luminescent moss, and darker foliage.

Kinda combination of VB base level +canopy (more terrain like on base level, but higher like foliage) with Chinese style giant vertical rocks, riddled with natural water-stream-made mazes occasionaly pierced by outside sunlight from hollows and rifts in their structure.

I’d buy that for a dollar!