[SPOILERS] Season 2 is still better

[SPOILERS] Season 2 is still better

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Posted by: JTGuevara.9018

JTGuevara.9018

Now that season 3 has come to a close, I have to say: I’m disappointed. Season 3 is a mess. It’s incoherent. The story lacked focus and was clearly rushed to promote the expansion. Honestly, it failed. It didn’t promote me and hold my interest. It was juggling too many plot elements at once. Dragons, Dragon’s Watch, Lazarus, Balthazar, Shining Blade!! Frankly, I’m burnt out. Livia was just…meh. I just didn’t care as much anymore.

In comparison, season 2, imo, was much better. First-off, the story had a clear focus and theme: Mordremoth. All the events in season 2 revolved around Mordremoth. The exposition of Scarlet, the rise of Mordrem, the assisting and gathering of world leaders to combat Mordremoth, the Pact campaign into Maguuma Wastes, access to Priory’s Special Collections, the exposition of the Zephrite mission to protect Glint’s offspring. The story was told pretty well. It took its time, it was not rushed. It was detailed and easier to follow. It was engaging.

I worry for the story in this next expansion. In any RPG, even MMOs, you just can’t be reckless with your story. It breaks immersion. Do not think that players don’t notice. We may not say it, but we know it. The story doesn’t have to have all these plot twists and turns, it just needs to be engaging and coherent. The personal story, for example, had a simple goal: Kill Zhaitan. That’s it! It had a magnificent ending. ‘Fear Not This Night’ brings a tear for me to this day.

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Posted by: Inculpatus cedo.9234

Inculpatus cedo.9234

For me, Season 3 was much, much better than Season Two.

I guess it’s all just a matter of taste. Thus, it makes it difficult for the Devs to know what to do to please the playerbase.

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Posted by: DreamyAbaddon.3265

DreamyAbaddon.3265

I actually agree with you on this OP.
My favorite is Season 2 because I love how coherent it was and immersive it was because it had a clear focus. Season 3 was a mess. Everything was all over the place. I rather we get no new maps and more new content with new stories from existing maps for new Seasons while Expansion packs provide both new maps and larger story. But hey that’s just my opinion.

The only things Season 3 did better was giving us the player character our voice back And improving the map mechanics tied with masteries. Boss fights where done better too, specially the last episode which had puzzle element too it.
Hope ArenaNet reads this.

(edited by DreamyAbaddon.3265)

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Posted by: flog.3485

flog.3485

Matter of taste as well for me. Season 2 might have a clear goal but it was soooo slow, only started to pick up at the middle of the season and in the end, personally, I am more willing to replay season 3 all over again with a new character than season 2.

You dislike it’s chaotic nature, OP, but the story wants it to be chaotic. And it is chaotic because we killed a freaking dragon which released a lot of magic in the world as well of having a bloodstone that exploded. I would say though that the character of Kerida felt poorly introduced to the story.

As for the next expansion, it seems like, based on the trailer, that we are back to having one major story point to focus on: stopping Balthazar from messing around with the world. So I don’t really understand your fears.

And please, seriously, I fail to see how “magnificent” the ending of Zhaitan was. We all know that the final instance was sooo lackluster and even Anet admitted they didn’t have enough time to design a proper endboss fight.

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Posted by: JTGuevara.9018

JTGuevara.9018

Matter of taste as well for me. Season 2 might have a clear goal but it was soooo slow, only started to pick up at the middle of the season and in the end, personally, I am more willing to replay season 3 all over again with a new character than season 2.

You dislike it’s chaotic nature, OP, but the story wants it to be chaotic. And it is chaotic because we killed a freaking dragon which released a lot of magic in the world as well of having a bloodstone that exploded. I would say though that the character of Kerida felt poorly introduced to the story.

As for the next expansion, it seems like, based on the trailer, that we are back to having one major story point to focus on: stopping Balthazar from messing around with the world. So I don’t really understand your fears.

And please, seriously, I fail to see how “magnificent” the ending of Zhaitan was. We all know that the final instance was sooo lackluster and even Anet admitted they didn’t have enough time to design a proper endboss fight.

If a story is too chaotic, it means there’s too much going on. If there’s too much going on, the story can’t really communicate much to the audience. There’s too much conflict. If the story can’t communicate, the audience will get confused! Hence, what happened with me in the later half of the season. I was like, “Balthazar? Wha….?” You had the ‘fake Lazarus’, then you had the REAL Lazarus….I’m just like _

Also, we don’t know anything about the next expansion. On the surface, it seems that the expansion will primarily focus on Balthazar’s trek to the desert, but…we’ll see.
Also, after a lack-luster ending to HoT and season 3, with its constant shifting of focus, I think I’m right to worry a little bit. Season 2 was slow, but it was worth it, imo. I suppose season 3 had promise, but they should’ve stuck to Lazarus and built Balthazar from there, say revealing him at the end of ep 6. _That_would’ve been a blockbuster to get people interested. Eeh..whatever. I’m no writer. I just give an opinion as a part of the audience, nothing more.

You’re right about the Zhaitan fight, but I’m primarily talking about after the fight: the celebration at Fort Trinity. That was a pretty good ending!

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Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Now that season 3 has come to a close, I have to say: I’m disappointed. Season 3 is a mess. It’s incoherent. The story lacked focus and was clearly rushed to promote the expansion. Honestly, it failed. It didn’t promote me and hold my interest. It was juggling too many plot elements at once. Dragons, Dragon’s Watch, Lazarus, Balthazar, Shining Blade!! Frankly, I’m burnt out. Livia was just…meh. I just didn’t care as much anymore.

You forgot Caudecus.

Caudecus was behind the White Mantle, but Lazarus was revived and replaced Caudecus and became the new head of the White Mantle. The White mantle attacked Divinity’s Reach. But hey, it was not Lazarus, it was Balthazar. Ok, then lets revive Lazarus ourselves, just to kill him easily. Oh, and the magic maybe woke up a Dragon, or two.

In think that was the “main” storyline of Season 3 in short.

Maybe Guild-Wars-1 fans get goosebumps when some Guild-Wars-1 characters where re-used. But the story writing failed in introducing them properly, so that GW2-players care about them enough and they are not just “flat nonames with a name”.

Every season has good and bad episodes. I do not know if Season 2 is better or worse than Season 3. Season 1 also has bad episodes. But for me, the best, epic and emotionally engaging episodes are still in Season 1.

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Posted by: marelooke.9708

marelooke.9708

It just felt like a terrible tv-series, hopping from “awesome reveal” to “awesome reveal” in each episode without a thought to the overarching story. Clearly LS2 had its problems but the writing and direction of the story were much more coherent and the characters were a lot more maturely written (compare Braham from LS2 to Braham from LS3, for example), moreover the plot was revealed at a much more sane pace.

I simply have no idea why Livia and Lazarus had to be dragged into this last episode at all, they were badly introduced and the entire thing just felt horribly convoluted and just plain unnecessary.

They simply crammed way too much into LS3 episodes and half of it doesn’t even make any sense without watching WP’s lore videos and/or extensive use of the Wiki.

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Posted by: Lord Trejgon.2809

Lord Trejgon.2809

And please, seriously, I fail to see how “magnificent” the ending of Zhaitan was. We all know that the final instance was sooo lackluster and even Anet admitted they didn’t have enough time to design a proper endboss fight.

Background music – this is all that made the Zhaitan killing for me to be honest.
[on a somewhat related note reusing the track in the final fight of restoring caladbolg have felt out of place :| ]

As for the season 3 and it’s comparision with season 2.

Personally I have real troubles with replaying Season 2 content – be it for achievements, or just to complete the story on other characters, and so far I have not encountered those when replaying Season 3 content [haven’t run different characters throught it though]

The main issue I see at this point with season 3 is how some things didn’t really play out due to 2-3month release schedule. for example after finishing the story of “out of shadows” I was really amazed by the amounts of weight just dropped… and the “cliffhanger” attached.

but then the time passed and within this time I managed to bore myself out jump into 3 other games, nearly forget about a thing and jump back into GW2 just for the rising flames. And as I think about it right now even at that point their release schedule made it impossible to truelly capitalise on “out of the shadows” ending.

at this moment I do not remember if they dropped jormag on us on the ending of rising flames, or during crack in the ice already so I have hard time putting it here into this case.

Head of the Snake was direct follow up to out of the shadows and at this moment of going throught story one may have a feeling that previous two episodes could just as well not happen, and nothing would change, with following up flashpoint tying them actually back into the context.

One path ends suffers from few major things here: firstly – leaks of the next expansion attached to the season finale announcement have set already expectation for many that this episde must send us off into specific area – with people after flashpoint wondering how the heck even could that be sensibly done. Secondly it came out of plot thread and jumped into resolving and completing the other leaving a hang up on said thread we came out of, which may or may not be a bad method of storytelling but for sure is controversial one.

To summarise and maybe deliver some sort of TL:DR to this post – Season 3 Majorly suffers in my opinion from the clash of the story type with releasing schedule – this story could probably fell out much better with episodes released at least one per month if not even more often, but with so long breaks between the episodes, the ties between them gets lost for many which leads to feeling of randomly hoping back and forth without any real sense.

as for my future “advice” to AN – if you feel that current release schedule is good for you – try to adapt the ways of yoru story telling more to fit into delivery method – so your story don’t suffer from longish breaks between episodes

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Posted by: jheryn.8390

jheryn.8390

For me it is a mixed bag.

I thought the storytelling in LS Season 2 was much better and cohesive. Season 3 was disjointed and the guild was in shambles so you were not working with anyone really except for Taimi. I liked the lore from GW1 being infused in Season 3, but it felt forced and gratuitous at times. It also felt like the storytellers were kittened that they had to use lore from GW1.

We got more new areas with season 3 so that was a bonus. I like the areas for the most part.

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

I liked S3 more and I didn’t find any issues with the story itself or it’s cohesiveness. Maybe it’ll help to play them again in a single setting and/or read the plot summaries.

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Posted by: Blockhead Magee.3092

Blockhead Magee.3092

Season 3 was an incoherent mess when taken as a whole. Left over plot lines. Contrived reveals.

It started off with a bang! 2 dragons and then…… Livia, for some off the wall reason, shows up to revive a Mursaat so we can kill it. The 2 dragons fizzled. Balthazar ended up being lame. Our ‘guildies’ are about useless.

Bad story telling is bad.

SBI

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Posted by: Xenon.4537

Xenon.4537

I agree with OP. Season 3 is pretty messy. It juggles too many plot lines. They introduce things and then never deal with them (braham, rytlock) and they do a poor job of treating old characters with respect. They tease a fake lazarus for several episodes and then all in one episode they bring back the real lazarus and then kill him immediately… Not to mention I think it is just beyond the pale that we are treating the human gods like villains now… I can only hope the expansion has a plot twist to rectify this.

I hate how Taimi is there to solve all the worlds problems. I hate how she never makes a mistake. She ALMOST makes a mistake, but catches it in time to save Tyria. Not to mention she conveniently has a heat shield right after we had to go do an annoying quest for a heat shield. But what I hate most about Taimi is how she calls us constantly on her cell phone. This is a fantasy game, and yes I get it we have Asuran technology. But cell phones in this type of game is just annoying and breaks the immersion. I hate it. Feel free to disagree, I don’t care. This is Guild Wars, not Kim Possible.

Overall I think season 2 had WAY better story and it was focused on a clear narrative. I think people love season 3 mostly because it added a bunch of new maps… I’m sorry but Maps =/= story. Maps are nice, and I love them, but maps =/= story.

Again… Maps =/= story.

P.S.

I’m sick of Marj and Kas’s lesbian relationship being shoe-horned in every other episode. I want them to actually be real characters with a real story that is actually relevant to the elder dragons and Balthazar. All they did throughout season 3 is sit around off-screen and show up to flaunt their relationship for 5 minutes. I. Just. Don’t. Care. About. Their. Personal. Life. It is irrelevant to the story. I want them to be treated as real characters with a real story that actually matters.

(edited by Xenon.4537)

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Posted by: JTGuevara.9018

JTGuevara.9018

I agree with OP. Season 3 is pretty messy. It juggles too many plot lines. They introduce things and then never deal with them (braham, rytlock) and they do a poor job of treating old characters with respect. They tease a fake lazarus for several episodes and then all in one episode they bring back the real lazarus and then kill him immediately… Not to mention I think it is just beyond the pale that we are treating the human gods like villains now… I can only hope the expansion has a plot twist to rectify this.

I hate how Taimi is there to solve all the worlds problems. I hate how she never makes a mistake. She ALMOST makes a mistake, but catches it in time to save Tyria. Not to mention she conveniently has a heat shield right after we had to go do an annoying quest for a heat shield. But what I hate most about Taimi is how she calls us constantly on her cell phone. This is a fantasy game, and yes I get it we have Asuran technology. But cell phones in this type of game is just annoying and breaks the immersion. I hate it. Feel free to disagree, I don’t care. This is Guild Wars, not Kim Possible.

Overall I think season 2 had WAY better story and it was focused on a clear narrative. I think people love season 3 mostly because it added a bunch of new maps… I’m sorry but Maps =/= story. Maps are nice, and I love them, but maps =/= story.

Again… Maps =/= story.

P.S.

I’m sick of Marj and Kas’s lesbian relationship being shoe-horned in every other episode. I want them to actually be real characters with a real story that is actually relevant to the elder dragons and Balthazar. All they did throughout season 3 is sit around off-screen and show up to flaunt their relationship for 5 minutes. I. Just. Don’t. Care. About. Their. Personal. Life. It is irrelevant to the story. I want them to be treated as real characters with a real story that actually matters.

Don’t even get me started on Mary Sue Jr, Taimi. She takes after her mother! (Scarlet) Every time that communicator came on, I’m just like, “Nope, stop calling me! I don’t care about freakin ley-lines! Your voice through that kitten device is shattering my ears.” I’m with you, she hardly makes mistakes. Like Scarlet, she makes the Asura colleges and councils look like amateurs. I get that she’s a prodigy, but come on.

The handling of Lazarus was just pitiful. At the start of the season, I was truly invested in the last Mursaat, the White Mantle but then it just fell apart. Balthazar just popped in out of nowhere. The dragons were mishandled. Jormag/Prim woke up for 5 minutes only for Balthazar to put them back to sleep. Livia came in for 5 minutes to resurrect the real Lazarus only to put him back down. THIS is the big mission of the Shining Blade? Stupid. Why not just destroy the artifacts? At least try. Or here’s an alternative, attempt to destroy the artifacts and fail and he resurrects anyway. That would’ve made more sense. It’s like nothing that happens has a direction or purpose. You might as well just left it blank.

I suppose I’m somewhat interested in the expansion and what Balthazar will do next. But…meh. I’ll tell you all this. The expansion had better step up their storytelling considering the rush-job done in this season to justify it. Still, I don’t have that much confidence in it.

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Posted by: Randulf.7614

Randulf.7614

Season 3 started strongly, but a weak narrative meant it lost its way as it tried to throw way too much in. Content wise, we got a lot of nice new maps, which is always a great thing, but Season 2 kept a more varied story structure and more interesting instance play. Maps were not simply a case of complete hearts for the story, they used instanced sections to tell a stronger and crucially more relevant story.

If they can somehow take the tighter, focussed storytelling of Season 2 and keep to the one map an episode philosophy, then they will nail the formula.

Overall, I enjoyed aseason 2 a lot more. Season 3 was formulaic in structure and just didnt have the focus it needed to tell a good story.

(edited by Randulf.7614)

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Posted by: Hannelore.8153

Hannelore.8153

My big beef with season 3 is that, once again, they tried to put too much of the lore in the open world, just as with core and HoT. Yes, making us do the hearts does encourage us to accidentally encounter the lore this time around, but it still doesn’t ensure it compared to say, putting us in an instance for it.

This is alot of why people feel the season was disjointed; after playing the story go back to every map, talk to every NPC, listen to every conversation. You only catch a very small amount of it during the first playthrough.

For example, its stated that the reason we [non-Human races] are helping the Humans and their kingdom is because the White Mantle are a threat to all the races in Tyria because of what they have done to the bloodstone. This is why we find Unbound Magic as far east as Bitterfrost Frontier, but because this isn’t explained very well in the story itself, people assume its from killing two dragons.

Now they’re crazed magic-hungry lunatics and there’s still two other bloodstones out there, did you think they were just going to stop at one?

And there’s bloodstone elementals invading Ascalon and the Charr don’t care?

This is largely why season 3 focused on completely eliminating the threat of the White Mantle, Caudacus, Lazarus, Jade Constructs, or anything else that could make use of this magic to be a danger to Tyria; because sometimes we face threats other than the dragons and they just kinda woke up halfway through our efforts and that is why it all started to become a convoluted mess.

But for anyone who doesn’t understand the whole point of LS3, I’ll explain it: Killing two dragons made things bad. Bloodstone double bad. White Mantle triple bad. Mursaat quadruple bad. Unbound magic and pop-up ley lines all over the world is basically accelerating the degeneration we caused in PS/LS2/HoT.

The planet is on the verge of bursting at the seams. Make sense now?

Now, Balthazar.

Daisuki [SUKI] LGBT-Friendly Guild Leader | NA – Jade Quarry
I’m usually really sweet… but this an internet forum and you know how it has to be.
/i’m a lesbiab… lesbiam… less bien… GIRLS/

(edited by Hannelore.8153)

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

Season 3 was better in some respects – like music, map design, writing quality, and voicing.

But Season 3 also tried to do too much. They had too many plots going, and still not all are solved. Maybe if they went 8 or 9 episodes instead of 6, things could have been better.

I always felt that Season 2 was too short too, but it didn’t have as many focuses and by episode 7 it really felt contrived with how they were stretching things out with Caithe and the illogical “go into the past to find answers for the present” situation (WHY would anyone think what Caithe did 20 years ago would lead us to where she went now?). I feel like the ideal length for a LW Season is 12 episodes, but only if they have enough plot to cover it – which they did with Season 3, but those plots were either ignored partway, or closed way too fast (Demmi and Livia for example).

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: Rasgalinj.2763

Rasgalinj.2763

Didn’t enjoy S2 as much kitten that’s for sure. Had a lot more fun doing the content and getting the masteries for each episode in this one. It’s all about personal taste anyways.

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Posted by: Chadramar.8156

Chadramar.8156

LS3 is a complete debacle, and it really does not bode well for the expansion. At this rate, PoF will repeat every mistake from HoT and then some — at least LS2 has focus, as others said, and its expansion still ignored a lot of important plot aspects and was rushed, shallow and in parts utterly nonsensical. LS3 has no focus because it had everything and the kitchen sink thrown at it, often with the apparent expectation that we should squeal with glee just because it’s GW1-related — completly disregarding the fact that many people probably never played that. And even if we did, our characters did not, so where’s their connection to all this, their role in it, their purpose except to go “ooh!” and “ahh!” at all the “awesome” NPCs and doodads?

It’s a shame, because the very first scene, Eir’s memorial, was actually very good IMO … but after that it just went downhill fast. It started the neverending Taimi-knows-and-does-everything-spam-because-she’s-the-best-ever spam, then callously made us dump the Pact at a time when it needs help rebuild after its terrible losses, which is not something my characters would ever do. And the very thing we were made to dump the Pact for i.e. our so-called “friends” can’t be bothered with us for some contrived reason or other, oh and we are also selfish and overbearing. Which is a funny accusation for the writers to make, considering how overbearing it is to be subjected to constant NPC drama-llamaing while having no arc of my own, and how selfish it is for the NPCs to receive all sorts of support, concern and interest while offering none in return (even in moments of extreme duress, like a sylvari PC going through HoT).

Add the way various other NPCs also enjoy talking down to us or yanking us around or generally acting overly familiar in completely unearned ways (Anise, Jenna, “Kerida”), and it makes me wonder if we’re back in some nightmare high school scenario where everyone is trying to out-sneer each other to look “k3wl”. It’s a very good way to sour me on characters very quickly, to the point that the only ones from this season whom I’d ever want to see again are Caithe and Rytlock, maybe Logan if he’s actually free of Jenna’s chains now (and that’s a big “if” because we haven’t seen it tested yet), and the Exalted/Aurene.

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Posted by: Taglor Anwamane.9468

Taglor Anwamane.9468

They had different teams working on LS3 and on the expansion, and I think the majority of writing talent was on the expansion team. LS3 was disorganized, a slew of one-shot gimmick plots. The Lazarus-Balthazar-Lazarus switch was handled poorly. Worst of all, they took hanging plot threads, and rather than developing them to their full potential, they snipped them off. Caudecus and the White Mantle starting a new War In Kryta should have/could have been a season-spanning thing (or even multi-season), but the whole thing was over in one episode. And now we’ll never see any proper use of the Mantle, Caudecus’ corruption, Krytan politics, or the area north of DR ever again.

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Posted by: Lord Trejgon.2809

Lord Trejgon.2809

LS3 was disorganized, a slew of one-shot gimmick plots.

actually if you play throught all of episodes in short span of time [like you would for example with personal story, or HoT story] you will notice that actually LS3 delivers quite a coherent story – but a multithreaded one or should I say – bi-threaded

basically you have two main threads that are intertwinning themselves and leads up to the thrid one, with first one being completed, nd the other one still going on – with one thread running slowly up in the background.

but again – the problem is that alot of connections gets “lots” in reception when you get average 70 days of break between each episode.

tbh I think the story of LS3 would sell more as a single-package-expansion. hopefully AN learns their thing and in future saves sotry multithreading like this for expacs and gives us more…. single-minded story in Season 4

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Posted by: Chadramar.8156

Chadramar.8156

It’s not that LS3 doesn’t have a vague overaching plot, it’s that they threw way too much at it, and that there’s no bloody depth anywhere. It’s like a one-hour sightseeing trip of a major city — the tour guide barely manages to belt out two sentences about an attraction before the next three pop into view. And one of the primary things that suffer in such a rush is tying the supposed protagonist into it.

There are interesting aspects to the season, in my mind, but they’re all background fluff at best and go nowhere at worst. I like the kodan lore, and the sylvari and royal ghosts in Orr. Aurene has potential if we ever get to actually spend time with her again and the devs drop the “overly cutesy” act. I also like the hints that the mursaat were unfairly over-vilified in a “history is written by the victors” kind of way, but instead of exploring that we help some vengeance-crazed zealot murder the last of them in a story arc that perfectly showcases how the plot has become all about the NPCs with no place for the player character except tagalong, lackey or punching bag.

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Posted by: Lord Trejgon.2809

Lord Trejgon.2809

I also like the hints that the mursaat were unfairly over-vilified in a “history is written by the victors” kind of way

well for me, and this is also kind of a thing I actually “liked” about GW1 lore on mursaat is that they were explained in that story to not be your typical bad guy. They were just a bunch of fellas who were ready to do ANYTHING to preserve their race [and you can’t really blame them for wish to survive right?] this of course have let to multiple moraly controversial acts – like using souls of people to power up batteries on a barrier designed to keep doors of khomalie shut forever.

Of course folks from that nation that was slaughtered would feel bad about it and the funny thing really is that all it would take to secure mursaat’s more would be finding someone who is not hard coutnered by titans and streak a deal for them to get to the other sides of doors of komalie and just casualy slaughter up residends of the foundry of failed creations, or if that’s too harsh – just setup the fortress guarding the doors on the other side of it and keep a guard on it – of course that would require mursaat to pay back a favour somehow, and maybe they have felt that what they were doing to krytans was exacly this kind of deal…. expect they forgot to tell krytans about it.

and after all mursaat had a huge chunk of history when they’ve struck accords with other races only to betray them as soon as it requires to put any mursaat in the harms way, and frankly they have overlived their span for quite a bit – I may sound a little judgemental here, but I do not find mursaat race to be worthy of outliving seers, forgotten, dwarfs.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Now that season 3 has come to a close, I have to say: I’m disappointed. Season 3 is a mess. It’s incoherent. The story lacked focus and was clearly rushed to promote the expansion. Honestly, it failed. It didn’t promote me and hold my interest. It was juggling too many plot elements at once. Dragons, Dragon’s Watch, Lazarus, Balthazar, Shining Blade!! Frankly, I’m burnt out. Livia was just…meh. I just didn’t care as much anymore.

You forgot Caudecus.

Caudecus was behind the White Mantle, but Lazarus was revived and replaced Caudecus and became the new head of the White Mantle. The White mantle attacked Divinity’s Reach. But hey, it was not Lazarus, it was Balthazar. Ok, then lets revive Lazarus ourselves, just to kill him easily. Oh, and the magic maybe woke up a Dragon, or two.

In think that was the “main” storyline of Season 3 in short.

Maybe Guild-Wars-1 fans get goosebumps when some Guild-Wars-1 characters where re-used. But the story writing failed in introducing them properly, so that GW2-players care about them enough and they are not just “flat nonames with a name”.

Every season has good and bad episodes. I do not know if Season 2 is better or worse than Season 3. Season 1 also has bad episodes. But for me, the best, epic and emotionally engaging episodes are still in Season 1.

Okay Lazarus didn’t replace Caudecaus. Lazarus and Caudecus split. That is to say some of the white mantle followed one, some of the white mantle followed the other. But Balthazar had interest in the bloodstone and it’s power, not the white mantle itself. Once he had that power, he was pretty much off to do his own thing, which we know know is getting more power.

The white mantle that were loyal to Caudecaus were the ones who attacked DR. I did follow the story and it’s not as bad as you’re making it out.

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Posted by: Ider.1276

Ider.1276

and after all mursaat had a huge chunk of history when they’ve struck accords with other races only to betray them as soon as it requires to put any mursaat in the harms way, and frankly they have overlived their span for quite a bit – I may sound a little judgemental here, but I do not find mursaat race to be worthy of outliving seers, forgotten, dwarfs.

Actually if the lore tablets from Ember bay are true mursaat and forgotten were the only ones who tryed to assault the elder dragon (Zhaitan). And they were completely trashed in the process while dwarfs and jotun were cowering at their homes and seers theorising in their cosy labs over bloodstone. If that information is true it explains why mursaat said “screw you guys we are going home”. Just imagine nowarday Pact, the final assault on Orr, and the only ones who show up on a D-day are asura and sylvari. In result asura lose all their golems and half of military personal. I would not blame them if they said: “We are evacuating to the fractals of the mists now, have fun with dragons on your own”.
Of course, the lore from Ember bay tablets could be false, but we will never know now (thanks, Livia).

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Posted by: Lord Trejgon.2809

Lord Trejgon.2809

and after all mursaat had a huge chunk of history when they’ve struck accords with other races only to betray them as soon as it requires to put any mursaat in the harms way, and frankly they have overlived their span for quite a bit – I may sound a little judgemental here, but I do not find mursaat race to be worthy of outliving seers, forgotten, dwarfs.

Actually if the lore tablets from Ember bay are true mursaat and forgotten were the only ones who tryed to assault the elder dragon (Zhaitan). And they were completely trashed in the process while dwarfs and jotun were cowering at their homes and seers theorising in their cosy labs over bloodstone. If that information is true it explains why mursaat said “screw you guys we are going home”. Just imagine nowarday Pact, the final assault on Orr, and the only ones who show up on a D-day are asura and sylvari. In result asura lose all their golems and half of military personal. I would not blame them if they said: “We are evacuating to the fractals of the mists now, have fun with dragons on your own”.
Of course, the lore from Ember bay tablets could be false, but we will never know now (thanks, Livia).

well I must admitt I didn’t read those tablets [yet] and was basing more on earlier establishments of mursaat lore [mostly gw1 stuff]

although I have hard time believing in dwarves “cowerign at their homes” considering how berserk they went on destroyers in Eye of the North…. [dunno much enought about jotuns to say anything about expectations of their behaviour]

and then asura evacuating into the fractals would not be just as bad as what mursaat ended up actually doing… [also ironically earlier lore establishments says that mursaat withdrawn “in crucial moment” so it could just be a case of like seers developping a weapon, everyone else holding their ground in ait for those weapons and mursaat with forgotten just deciding to leeroy onto zhaitan cause who needs weapon, which mursaat loosing alot to it and then decided to blame everyone else for not actually being there, and then they decided to go hide and we get logan case over again….. or maybe a precursor to that case, as in due to lack of one of members everything collapse before the right guy has a chance to do “the thing”

“-Shield is meant to be broken!”
“-and on this occasion I keep mine plate armors”
discussion about offensive/deffensive playstyles

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

Actually if the lore tablets from Ember bay are true mursaat and forgotten were the only ones who tryed to assault the elder dragon (Zhaitan). And they were completely trashed in the process while dwarfs and jotun were cowering at their homes and seers theorising in their cosy labs over bloodstone. If that information is true it explains why mursaat said “screw you guys we are going home”. Just imagine nowarday Pact, the final assault on Orr, and the only ones who show up on a D-day are asura and sylvari. In result asura lose all their golems and half of military personal. I would not blame them if they said: “We are evacuating to the fractals of the mists now, have fun with dragons on your own”.
Of course, the lore from Ember bay tablets could be false, but we will never know now (thanks, Livia).

To be fair, all other sources tell us that the mursaat had the strongest offensive and defensive magic to be used against the Elder Dragons (spectral agony and their invisibility respectively), which all the other races lacked. On top of that, their betrayal was not leaving into the Mists, but rather nearly committing genocide on the Seers before leaving into the Mists, which the tablets neatly forget to mention even in trying to make mursaat the good guys in the mursaat-seer war. The tablet also completely ignores the fact (and we know it is a fact) that the dwarves were busy fighting Primordus and Jormag to varying degrees during the last dragonrise.

To use your comparison, it’d be like the asura creating a magical device that had an easier time fighting dragon minions and refusing to share it with the other members of the Pact, and on the proverbial D-Day of invading Orr, only the sylvari showed up with them while the norn are busy studying the sky, humans investigating god relics, and the charr have their hands full with the Dragonbrand, and after the asura lost most of their military might they turned to humans and said “screw you guys in particular”, wiping out all of Kryta leaving just Ebonhawke barely alive, and then fleeting into the Fractals of the Mists.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: Ider.1276

Ider.1276

Actually if the lore tablets from Ember bay are true mursaat and forgotten were the only ones who tryed to assault the elder dragon (Zhaitan). And they were completely trashed in the process while dwarfs and jotun were cowering at their homes and seers theorising in their cosy labs over bloodstone. If that information is true it explains why mursaat said “screw you guys we are going home”. Just imagine nowarday Pact, the final assault on Orr, and the only ones who show up on a D-day are asura and sylvari. In result asura lose all their golems and half of military personal. I would not blame them if they said: “We are evacuating to the fractals of the mists now, have fun with dragons on your own”.
Of course, the lore from Ember bay tablets could be false, but we will never know now (thanks, Livia).

To be fair, all other sources tell us that the mursaat had the strongest offensive and defensive magic to be used against the Elder Dragons (spectral agony and their invisibility respectively), which all the other races lacked. On top of that, their betrayal was not leaving into the Mists, but rather nearly committing genocide on the Seers before leaving into the Mists, which the tablets neatly forget to mention even in trying to make mursaat the good guys in the mursaat-seer war. The tablet also completely ignores the fact (and we know it is a fact) that the dwarves were busy fighting Primordus and Jormag to varying degrees during the last dragonrise.

To use your comparison, it’d be like the asura creating a magical device that had an easier time fighting dragon minions and refusing to share it with the other members of the Pact, and on the proverbial D-Day of invading Orr, only the sylvari showed up with them while the norn are busy studying the sky, humans investigating god relics, and the charr have their hands full with the Dragonbrand, and after the asura lost most of their military might they turned to humans and said “screw you guys in particular”, wiping out all of Kryta leaving just Ebonhawke barely alive, and then fleeting into the Fractals of the Mists.

We actually don’t know the timelines of seer-mursaat wars. But I strongly doubt it happened during the dragon rise. It makes much more sence that after the dragons fell asleep and the dust settled mursaat returned and had a clash with a seers. That chain of events is much more plausable than mursaat trying to exterminate seers during dragonrise (why bother? The dragons will get them anyway) and seers somehow succeding in creating bloodstones after being almostly wiped out.
As for the dwarfs and jotun, who were busy with Primordus and Jormag… Again, if the tablets are true, look were isles of Janthir are and then were Orr is located. Zhaitan was not directly threatening the mursaat. They were either helping the Forgotten or picked the weakest dragon to kill. So the reaction of other races “not my dragon, not my problem” is quite kittenish. kittenish enough to fill someone with salt and make them re-concider being a good guy. The current races would not succeed if they were not all uniting and taking the dragons one by one.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

We actually do know when the war happened – we were told it happened around the time of the Tome of Rubicon’s original writing, which happened during the previous dragonrise.

Also, there’s more than enough reason to believe Zhaitan wasn’t in Orr until the end of the last dragonrise. The Altar of Glaust is located in Arah, and we were told that the purification magic requires geographical locations to work; since the Forgotten lured Glint there, Zhaitan could not be there at that time. So Orr was likely Kralkatorrik’s territory (who we know was in the Crystal Sea area too, having fought and bled there). The tablets never mention Orr, just assaulting Zhaitan, and it is never mentioned that Zhaitan was directly threatening anyone, mursaat or otherwise, so we don’t know if it actually was or wasn’t – nor is it ever indicated where the mursaat lived (even to this day, there is no proof that the “inhabitants of Janthir with the gift of true sight” were the mursaat). Meanwhile, Jormag and Primordus were directly threatening the dwarves – so it seems more of an ass move to assault a dragon that might have been leaving everyone alone at the moment, rather than the one on an ally’s proverbial front door (like Zhaitan is in core GW2). Going back to the example: it’d like the asura and sylvari deciding “let’s go fight the DSD!” ignoring Zhaitan, Jormag, and Kralkatorrik that are threatening humans, norn, and charr then being upset that no one else joined them.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: Tasida.4085

Tasida.4085

Hey OP….WRONG….Season 1 was and will always be the best Glad some of us were there to experience it all….

Noble Dragons (NOBL) rocking GW’s since 2005 now rocking the Sorrow’s Furnace Server!

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Posted by: Pifil.5193

Pifil.5193

For me, Season 3 was much, much better than Season Two.

I guess it’s all just a matter of taste. Thus, it makes it difficult for the Devs to know what to do to please the playerbase.

I preferred Season 3 up to a point but I thought that the story part was too condensed. Season 2 had more story instances and so more time to actually tell a story, the story in Season 3 felt a bit rushed to me, there were too many plot lines to do them all justice. Wrapping up the white mantle story line felt good to me though.

I really liked the maps though.

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Posted by: zombyturtle.5980

zombyturtle.5980

I havnt finished s3 but im finding myself with no desire too. Its a total mess. Plots all over the place introducing characters and then having them disappear less than 1 chapter later. I dont know what they were thinking….

Why on earth make balth an enemy, thats basically retconning the lore which sucks. Lore was good to begin with. And why move away from fighting the dragons. That was THE core plot of gw2 and it worked fine. Yes lots of people were bored with the formula of :
-dragon wakes up, makes minions
-commander joins random groups together to form an army
-dragon gets killed

but thats just due to bad writing. Theres plenty you can do to keep the story unique and interesting while still working in the confines of having the dragons the ultimate enemies to defeat. And why make human gods the focus. That’s just favouring 1 race (already the most popular) which sucks for other races because they get 0 lore introduced. Yes we are going to vabbi but even so… Urgh theres so much I dislike about the direction of the writing atm.

I honestly feel like I could write a much better story in 10minutes than what gw2 currently has.

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Posted by: Jemmi.6058

Jemmi.6058

Hmm lots of Taimi hate in this thread. Personally, I really enjoyed her character.

I just returned after a very long break and raced through S2→HoT→S3 in the past 1.5 weeks or so. I agree that S3 had some disjointed points. Lazarus was particularly confusing, I’m not sure why we brought him back just to kill him.

I found many of the side characters to be pretty annoying. I liked almost all of them in S2, but Braham, Marjory and Kasmeer were definitely annoying in S3. Rox was kind of just there, in both seasons. Rytlock was decent but just kinda disappeared. I actually liked Caithe throughout, and Canach was decent too.

I think I would have preferred more time in the story to explain things like bloodstones, and less time creating unnecessary plot points like Lazarus.

I wasn’t unhappy with S3, like it seems many of you are, but there are definitely some legitimate critiques.

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Posted by: Ashantara.8731

Ashantara.8731

For me, Season 3 was much, much better than Season Two.

I guess it’s all just a matter of taste.

Nope. You seem to be confusing plot and quality of writing (i.e., the way the plot is being presented). There is no “question of taste” when it comes to good writing and bad writing, only about the content of the writing (the plot).

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Posted by: otto.5684

otto.5684

LS 3 was fully voiced, stronger dialogue and you visit much more locations. It also had much more interesting game play. That makes it much better. As for the story, LS 2 played mostly as one continuous story, LS 3 was more episodic.

In terms of story, LS 3 had many heavy handed narratives to either open new venues to be addressed in PoF or close old ones (white mantle). I think the most apparent questions was “which Dragon will we kill next?” something that LS 3 did not provide and answer for. LS 2 was simpler and more coherent, addressing primarily one narrative; Mordremoth.

On the bright side, I like that we are heading to PoF without a clear goal. Will we kill Balthazar? If so, what about the locals, branded and undead? It is far more interesting narrative than HoT.

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Posted by: Eponet.4829

Eponet.4829

I preferred S2 to S3 as well to the point where I ended up actually completing the achievements in S2. It definitely felt more coherent, but more importantly, the characters just felt a lot more like reasonable adults (other than Caithe, but, we can blame Mordremoth for that).

A lot of the internal conflicts don’t really feel like genuine conflicts so much as they feel like unnecessary misunderstandings caused because the people on this side just refuse to actually talk things through with each other. It would make me want to bang my head against a wall if I didn’t know that that was a terrible idea.

That said. There is one aspect from it that I’m pretty excited to see develop. Logan.

(edited by Eponet.4829)

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Posted by: Corax.7381

Corax.7381

I’m pretty indifferent to S3, both liking and disliking many of its aspects for different reasons. Overall, I agree with the sentiment that it was rushed and would have benefited from an extra chapter or two. ANet felt, rightfully so, like they had to simultaneously explain the consequences of killing two Elder Dragons and set up the next major conflict in the saga of Tyria. I’m fine with that conflict NOT being against another Elder Dragon, at least initially, but introducing Balthazar so early might have been unwise.

I’d have started the same way: reintroduce the White Mantle and the apparent resurrection of Lazarus. Allow Caudecus to develop as the antagonist while exploring the effects of Zhaitan and Mordremoth’s deaths on both the world and other dragon minions. Continue to cast doubt about Lazarus and his true purpose as Caudecus makes his move against Divinity’s Reach and fails. Then, allow Taimi to make her revelation about how to deal with the remaining Elder Dragons.

The major changes would be that Jormag and Primordus don’t suddenly “become more active”, or however they worded it in the story since both have been awake for decades. Yes, a massive surplus of magic would logically cause them to do, well, something, but it didn’t have to be so soon. It could have been tackled in Season 4, with plenty of hints and foreboding being sprinkled throughout S3. Additionally, Balthazar’s identity would not be revealed until the very last chapter, giving us a reason to go to the Crystal Desert but without shoehorning in the real Lazarus. Kerida could have tracked Balthazar as Lazarus, thinking he might be the real deal, so she could still be in the story. Then, PoF would deal with Balthazar as the main antagonist, Palawa Joko as a minor one, and Kralkatorrik as the looming threat to be dealt with in Season 4.

If I had to say the most disappointing thing about S3, it’d be how easily we, by way of the Terrific Taimi and her Miracle Machine, dispatched two EDs at the same time. What a letdown.

“Quaggan will kick your tail so hard it slaps you in the face!” – Willoo

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Posted by: Jokubas.4265

Jokubas.4265

I followed Season 3 as it came out, but I just played through it all at once myself finally.

I definitely agree that Season 2 was better. Honestly, Season 1, 2, and Heart of Thorns still play out a pretty decent arc. It starts out as seemingly disconnected events, has the big reveal that Scarlet planned it all, then she wakes up Mordremoth. Then you deal with Modremoth waking up, the consequences of that, you set up a counterattack, then everything falls apart. You pick up the pieces and take the fight to Mordremoth directly.

There were some side plots, like the egg, but once it was revealed that there was a main plot, it stayed pretty focused.

Season 3 is a lot better when you play it through all at once (and when you know where it’s going), but it seems to dawdle around a lot more. Episode 1 continues pretty well off of Heart of Thorns, but Episode 2 is practically filler. Sure, there’s a good reason you want to stop the island from erupting, but that part of the story could easily have been cut. The relevant parts of Primordus are addressed in Episode 5.

Episode 6 is a really weird finale, seeming to have almost nothing to do with the rest of the season. The Shining Blade stuff is almost certainly going to be really important in the future, but for now it really came out of nowhere, and the map had almost nothing to do with the story so far.

I don’t think there’s an innate problem with them running multiple stories: the Dragons, the White Mantle, and “Lazarus” going at the same time certainly help to build the world if handled well. The problem was that it felt like the story somehow knew both too much and too little about where it was going.

The whole, Lazarus reappears, takes part of the White Mantle and tries to redeem himself, is suspected to be an impostor, suddenly loses his White Mantle and replaces them with mercenaries, then turns out to be Balthazar with his own worshippers and wanting to destroy the world after all, just feels really disjointed. A lot of it also feels like the characters knew where it would go before it went there, which could be seen in all the speculation about Lazarus at the end of Episode 4, and how many people disagreed with the player character that it was suspicious.

At the same time, if feels like certain things weren’t planned entirely and left some jarring twists that felt entirely unnecessary. As I’ve said before, the whole thing would have made a lot more sense if Balthazar really was just Lazarus all along. The entire Season would have felt cohesive then, and the finale would have been a finale to the Season’s story.

Alternately, it being Balthazar all along without any deception could have been equally cohesive. The White Mantle try to start something, and then one of the actual human gods arrives (thanks to hearing news about us taking down another Elder Dragon), making Caudecus look even worse for his accusations of false gods. We still might have been cautious, but would have accepted him as an ally, with his only deception this time being that he’s hiding his diminished power.

Balthazar doesn’t help much with our investigations of Primordus and Jormag because of that, but gives an excuse, and then Caudecus makes his move out of desperation, since a god has now allied against him. After the White Mantle is put down, we think the coast is clear and we start to enact Taimi’s plan. She realizes it’s actually a bad idea, but Balthazar finally reveals his true nature when he reveals that he doesn’t care. We try to stop him, but all of the worshippers that have begun to follow him since his return become his new army.

I’ll admit this version would still have an issue with the final episode, but it at least would have had a cohesive topic from the beginning that would have smoothly transitioned into the expansion like Season 2 did.

The fact that I think you could change so little to fix Season 3 means it’s not as bad as it sounds, but those little things add up to making it a lot more jarring than the previous outings.

(edited by Jokubas.4265)

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

I never quite figured out why there was a special “Lazarus Resurrection Room” in Abaddon’s reliquary, and why Balthazar trapped the place.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

I would like to say that I loved season two. It had a lot going for it. Much that was filled with potential.

But the instant progression was gated behind requiring me to trade in my male human ranger with a bow, sword, and axe for a dagger wielding female sylvari thief that potential was lost. If I wanted to play a female sylvari dagger wielding thief I would have created one.

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Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

S2 had focus and great replayability imo. S3 had way more interesting story and exciting sad that story telling was weaker and the maps had way less replayability value. Id preffer less more fleshed out maps.

S2 had also these amazing story missions with glints lair and caith’s flashback. Imo se2 should ahve never brought braham troubles and Jormag in the mix keeping it whitemantle focushed on ep would fix alot of things.

U could put in ep3 livia the shining blades and teasers for lazaru’s fake identity. Instead we got a filler episode.

(edited by zealex.9410)

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Posted by: DarcShriek.5829

DarcShriek.5829

Hey OP….WRONG….Season 1 was and will always be the best Glad some of us were there to experience it all….

I enjoyed season one. However, about a year after season one, I was struck by how much effort the devs put into it, only to have so little of it remain. I like season 3 best myself.

My only issue with season three was Livia. I would have liked to met her alias in ep 1 and again in ep 4, before her reveal in ep 6. It bothered me back when ep 4 was released that Livia wasn’t in it considering her devotion to Kryta.

(edited by DarcShriek.5829)

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Posted by: Jokubas.4265

Jokubas.4265

I never quite figured out why there was a special “Lazarus Resurrection Room” in Abaddon’s reliquary, and why Balthazar trapped the place.

Yeah, that was really weird. I feel like the episode should have ended with the White Mantle fort instead of starting with it. It would have made more sense to find a resurrection circle there.

My only issue with season three was Livia. I would have liked to met her alias in ep 1 and again in ep 4, before her reveal in ep 6. It bothered me back when ep 4 was released that Livia wasn’t in it considering her devotion to Kryta.

Yeah, that was weird as well. You don’t even get the name of her alias right away, and then it’s revealed to be a fake name not long after. It’s an odd way to deal with a reveal like that, when there would have been context to introduce her earlier.

I actually remembered something else I was going to say in my last post. This is a bit wish listy, but it occurred to me that Season 3 would have felt really cohesive not just if Lazarus was Lazarus all along, but if the Exalted in Heart of Thorns were Mursaat like many of us originally assumed. Of course, this wouldn’t have tied into Path of Fire, but it would have created a direct line between the various plots of Heart of Thorns and the Episodes of Season 3.

The Mursaat, always obsessed with self-preservation, would have been able to mostly fill the role of the Exalted. The Pact and the Commander, having actually defeated an Elder Dragon before, would be people that the Mursaat would actually have reason to support, especially if they don’t want to join the fight against Mordremoth themselves. We could take care of their problem, and they’d have reason to believe we could do it.

Then the Season could pick up with Lazarus revealing that was there and he’s back, but he’s interested in true redemption, not simply supporting us in a mutually beneficial situation. We’re still highly suspicious and keep him at a safe distance, with Marjory still keeping an eye on him.

Ultimately, most things would still play out the same, with him ultimately revealing that his intentions aren’t as noble as he claimed after all, and we have to stop him from destabilizing the world. At the end, Livia would still help us get revenge on him specifically. The biggest difference here is that it wouldn’t be the end of the Mursaat, but it would only take some dialogue changes to get that to fit.

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Posted by: SiebenNine.6849

SiebenNine.6849

I feel the same.

As someone who never played GW1 I felt confused most of the time, and sometimes a little bit angry.
The final was just aweful. My main is a human but I still was not interested in joining Anises secret death club at all.
I felt for my wife who is a Charr Fan and needed to do so. (Also; yes lets summon the real Lazarus, while a idiot God tries to kill a dragon, which could destroy Tyria – what could go wrong?)

While season 2 was Silvary focused, you could play it with every other race and it still made sense AND you Besti NPC did some THINGS! Honestly beside kittening, Kass Braham etc do nothing. (Except Timi, Timi is awesome.)
This season lacked focus. While I enjoy some twist and turn – at the end of the season I just waited for the next “twist” (i did not understand anyway because I did not play gw1) to be over.
I also felt like my commander has some serious personality issues. He/she gave Caithe so much sh*** in HoT but is totaly fine with Majory and Braham being idiots.

And while I like the new maps I kinda get the feeling that having a new map with “every” new chapter just made the story far more “jumpy.”

In generell; A net, please think about the players who did not play GW1 (if I hadn’t watch the trailer analyses from WP I still had no Idea who Livia is) and take your time, if you can’t put all important NPCs in all chapter maybe let them give us mail updates. (Rox could tell us that Braham is still an idiot etc.)

I DO like the generell diraction of the story, (killing all Dragons wouldn’t be a good , that a human war “god” wants more power, Caudecus is finally dead) – but kitten Season 3 was a hot mess.

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Posted by: JTGuevara.9018

JTGuevara.9018

In all this discussion, I forgot to mention HoT. So I replayed HoT, and beat it. I have to say, I enjoyed it more the second time around.

The beginning was good. The final battle was well done. Though the story felt short, I like that I don’t have to grind masteries anymore. Trahearne had an honorable death. That he resisted Mordremoth’s control to the bitter end solidifies my respect. As the Pact Commander, I was sad that I had to put him away. I never had the absurd hatred that SOME in these forums had over him. “Wahhh!! My PC needs moar attention!!1!” Pffahh—-cry me a river.

However, HoT clearly had flaws. Eir’s death was weak. She should’ve had a more heroic death. Faolain was just shoe-horned in, no explanation. I knew she had a role to play, but it should’ve been properly explained. The Rata Novus reveal was….lame. “Dragon weakness” lol Noooo really? I could’ve told you that!

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Posted by: ilmi.5369

ilmi.5369

Since an overwhelming part of players seems to dislike season 3 it seems unnecessary to highlight this again but I hope that some moderators read this and pass it on to the creation teems. As someone who never has played GW1, I totally see the weakness in a storytelling that just does not catch me. Although being commander of the pact, I’m feeling like a nobody running around with stupid side kicks that do nothing to support my personal story or my personal success. Neither are they interesting so that a focus on the “epicness” of these heroes would be satisfying and could be excused. I totally don’t care about Taimi, Trahearne, Majory and who else. They are boring NPCs with boring lives, and mostly no story contribution.

Furthermore the whole design around the pact and my character being an essential part of it, does not feel epic. The character creation at the start of the game kicks off with a lot of choices that should have influence on the way you experience the story – but none of this lasts long and really matters later on in the living story. All I do is permanently helping my boring side kick NPCs to kill a monster or opponent I hardly heard of – no character development hence you played the personal story. You actually could skip that first part level up with scrolls and still be able to “enjoy” the living story.

Certainly, a MMO cannot have the intensive story like a single player title, such as the Witcher or the early Diablo and Warcraft titles. But if I think back to the missions and some cut scenes in WOW, for example when you march on Undercity with Jaina and Vrynn or the alliance and the horde dying together at the entrance of the icecrown citadel due to the treason of the Undead, then I see intelligent usage of the NPCs backgrounds woven into a meaningful story.

Compared to this especially seasons 3 but also the rest of GW2 PvE could make use of some improvements and a better narrative: perhaps a more meaningful story for my character, that evolves over time, maybe reveals some dark secrets or a hidden agenda, less half baked loser NPCs that randomly appear and disappear, better cut scenes, more epic cinematics that are worth watching twice and that really drive the story, less reference to GW1 and a plot that is interesting out of the box and provides the dramatic peaks that every good tale needs. I’m curious if PoF will offer that but never give up hope ;-)

[SPOILERS] Season 2 is still better

in Living World

Posted by: Chadramar.8156

Chadramar.8156

I also felt like my commander has some serious personality issues. He/she gave Caithe so much sh*** in HoT but is totaly fine with Majory and Braham being idiots.

For the most part, the “commander” doesn’t even have personality, or a history, or a culture, or any other distinguishing features. That is probably my biggest gripe with a story that we were supposed to be the protagonist of. We are a faceless wad of putty that is molded in whatever way the writers decide to make the NPCs look good, or at least bring out their personality, and move their story along. Doesn’t matter how nonsensical, and of course with no hint of player input allowed. That would only distract from the NPCs.

One mindboggling example of this was when they spoke about Kasmeer as “the player’s proxy” in PoF regarding Balthazar and player reactions to him. I have a proxy, and it’s the commander. Why can’t my character react to him?

For me, the only enjoyable piece of storytelling was the non-LS mini episode about Caladbolg, because my sylvari were actually treated as sylvari, even if just for a few lines of dialog. It does make a difference. If every LS episode contained two or three diverging bits of dialog based on the PC’s race, it would be a massive improvement IMO. Likewise, it was really refreshing that tiny bits of Ep4’s final mission varied depending on whether you have played the Caudecus Manor dungeon or not, what class you were playing, or what Order you chose for that particular character.

In generell; A net, please think about the players who did not play GW1 (if I hadn’t watch the trailer analyses from WP I still had no Idea who Livia is)

Seconded.

[SPOILERS] Season 2 is still better

in Living World

Posted by: zealex.9410

zealex.9410

In all this discussion, I forgot to mention HoT. So I replayed HoT, and beat it. I have to say, I enjoyed it more the second time around.

The beginning was good. The final battle was well done. Though the story felt short, I like that I don’t have to grind masteries anymore. Trahearne had an honorable death. That he resisted Mordremoth’s control to the bitter end solidifies my respect. As the Pact Commander, I was sad that I had to put him away. I never had the absurd hatred that SOME in these forums had over him. “Wahhh!! My PC needs moar attention!!1!” Pffahh—-cry me a river.

However, HoT clearly had flaws. Eir’s death was weak. She should’ve had a more heroic death. Faolain was just shoe-horned in, no explanation. I knew she had a role to play, but it should’ve been properly explained. The Rata Novus reveal was….lame. “Dragon weakness” lol Noooo really? I could’ve told you that!

Would be all the better if right after hot i could have replayed the chaladbolg reforge questline.