Guild Wars 2

So… Rather than talk about episode 6 I figured id now give my over-all opinion of the entire season as a whole. One of many opinions no doubt, but this one is mine:

The Delivery:

Season 3 has been a very… wild ride shall we say, of various plot twists and plot points that seem to have come and gone in less than an episode. The biggest strength and weakness of this is every episode feels like its own adventure, which in theory, works.

In practice…

The Execution:

The problem with Season 3 to me, is that alot of the plots just go into random directions, get rushed into short-to-the-point endings and feel like it was meant to be a series of closures for alot of plots that could have been explored in alot more depth and needed to be.

The Review:

On the upside… each episode, such as the much needed closure for Eir in episode 1… is countered by mysteries such as False Lazarus and Primordus awakening aswell as Jormag, only for us to put them down later on in a highly, sudden, and abrupt manner.

Season 3 feels like the pacing is all over the place. Its like a-net, you wanted to tell us a story that had alot of depth and direction but you decided to rush it to the specific points, rather than just, taking your time. We didnt need to rush Primordus, we did not, need to Rush Jourmag.

We also did not need to rush the white mantle, caudecus and lazarus in such a forced, and sudden way. I understand that to people who played GW1 this may feel like a satisfying closure, but for those of us that didnt, it feels like a rushed tale with no real idea what it wanted to be.

Constructive Feedback:

Going forwards, I suggest the following:

- No more Dragons Watch, or Destinies Edge or reoccuring characters, the next adventure should be entirely about new characters, with new vistas and new interactions, and the commander, having our personal story.

- More male characters, this season has been very very heavy in its amount of female leads and ironically feels like it suffers the opposite problem of most modern games today with just a sheer lack of male characters having any spotlight save maybe Canach and Logan, Rytlock was just a token and Braham is apparently annoying while we can forgive Livia and Anise for being extremely kitteny and to some extent, downright creepy.

- More depth on one plot as opposed to little on many. Season 2 did this right with having a specific focus on one character, while having enough story centered around their presence that it allowed for alot of story to tell because of it. Season 1, and Season 3, suffer from the same problem of telling too many smaller stories, instead of one great one.

- More antagonists that are actually people ironic I know considering I said we had no need to rush the dragons, but the Balthazar thing has been… interesting so far, one has yet to see how it will close off in the future. But we do need more antagonists like Balthazar or at least antagonists with faces, and personalities as opposed to giant dragons with little depth.

- Finally: A Norn and Charr heavy story. Asura have had some love, Sylvari have had too much and Humans are getting their fill with this story as it is. The next expansion and the story beyond it really need to deepen the lore of the current races, if that means some retcons are needed to make them better and more deep, please, retcon away, and add some layers, Norn and Charr feel so empty compared to the other races, especially in terms of lore attention over the last 5 years.

Praises:

- Balthazar as Lazarus was an interesting approach, though executed chaotically it worked to some extent but gave just enough intreague that his character could be made into something more engaging.

- Canach was just the star of the show in episode 4 with some of the best, witty lines, ever, kudos.

- Caithes closure was quite touching and so was Eir’s, both needed to be done in their own way, though Caithe does need to stop appologising now, we get it, shes sorry.

- Jory was quite quirky with her ambition and I quite liked that risky methodology behind her interests, but id still like to know exactly why she followed Lazarus around.

- The Zone stories have been hit and miss, but generally have been surpisingly engaging, especially the finale zone which to me, is actually one of the best pieces of enviromental storytelling this game has ever seen. More of Siren’s please.

- Taimi has grown on me, alot… I really do like the witty humor and her character quips plus the method of her interaction with us could be quite an itneresting thing to explore in the future in the games story.

Either way, thats my take on things, over all, its been an interesting ride, im not sure im entirley happy with the way it was done, but with improovement, it could certainly be perfected to a standard that could finally tell a cohecent but well written story, which this got half right.

Season 2 was a more coherent story. This was a mess, albeit it did start of as a string season. Too often the writers tried to cram various side stories in and it rarely worked, leaving hanging thread, lore contradiction, plot holes in the wake. The writers need to realise we don’t know the overall thread like they do, so they need to give us a string central narrative to grip and pull us along with. For episode 6 not to end as a finale is further evidence of this

Where the Season got it right was in the unique map design and the individual map stories – with the exception of this new one, which had almost none of this.
Most of the maps were a joy to play in, with string events and immersive storytelling in each.

I’ll have to split this in two, because message limit, so I apologize beforehand…

So, if I have to sum up Season 3 overall impression…
I’m going to focus pretty much only on story delivered with this season. I will say that while map design, music and combat would deserve their own in-depth posts, I generally liked what I saw this season in those departments. But the story… well. Let’s take a look.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
First of all, I’ll take a little side-nook and look at two things that are somewhat unrelated but came in the same release window: the three new Fractals and the Bastion of the Penitent. I have nothing but praise for both, and not just in mechanics that are fun, diverse and entertaining, but surprisingly, in their story. “DDR” fractal set offered closure for a setup done long time ago in Thaumanova release and did it very well. Arkk was a fun character, and there was enough clever foreshadowing for me to be able to guess who he is based on dialogue from Nightmare Tower just before the final conversation unfolded. It was sweet, it was well-thought out, it was well-acted. Unlike most of the Living Story, but I’ll get to that later.

Bastion of the Penitent had a great setup in the three raid wings before that. Despite me knowing or caring an absolute nothing about White Mantle or Mursaat, it showed through slow exposition and dialogue alone, and in the end, delivered a great payoff in the decomissioned Mursaat prison. Saul’s storyline was presented pretty much entirely through fight mechanics and dialogue quips, and actually successfully pulled it off. I felt sorry for the old coot in the end, and the dialogue with Glenna after the final boss was a great closure. Setup, payoff and closure is also something the LS failed to do, but again, I digress.

And finally, there was one more thing unrelated to the LS that came about, and that was the Knight of the Thorn. It was the best little surprise past few updates had for us, and despite not being a Trahearne fan (I don’t hate him, just… don’t really care), I found it touching, and it was a great sendoff to pretty much all of Heart of Thorns. The story felt personal, despite not being all that bombastic or important or in the middle of current events.

SCOPE AND SETUP
The setup of these episodes were some bombastic plot twists and arches. And it was obviously too many for the short timeframe of the episodes to carry. Mursaat, Bloodstones, Caudecus plot and White Mantle, Balthazar and human gods, Jormag, Primordus and now Orr, all of these pop up, toss around a few convoluted threads and basically disappear. It’s simply too many. Contrast the examples above. Knight of the Thorn, Fractals, Bastion, all those work because they’re given proper time to develop, to go somewhere, and thus, have an emotional impact on us as the player. By giving us less, but more carefully packed, they gave me way more than all of the Living Story episodes combined: they made me care.

The worst part is, the general idea and heading always seems nice and interesting, but it gets dropped and stomped to dust before it gets properly developed, explained or carried out. I did start the past three episodes genuinely curious where this was going, instead of bitter and jaded as this text makes me seem, but always ended up punched in the face somewhere down the road.

As for setup… quite simply, there is none. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. For people who didn’t raid, for people who didn’t do or remember the human personal story, for people who didn’t play Guild Wars 1. While our main character seems to have a pocket encyclopedia of human lore, it just drives the wedge between me and him further, because while he gets excited about Mursaat or White Mantle plots or whatever else, I’m here, scratching my head, yelling “who the f* is Livia?!”. Or Lazarus. Or why is this Demmi girl is staged as such a big deal (in a bizzarre twist, I know the latter well, but that’s when my commander shouldn’t, since he’s a Vigil).

Overall, the biggest failure was the story counting on us being invested and care before we could even realize what’s going on. Care about human politics while non-human, care about characters we possibly never met, care about payoffs to plots we haven’t witnessed starting. It’s basically just like that Caithe episode in LS2, where people complained about not caring because they possibly haven’t even met Caithe, let alone care for what she does. Well, this time around, the whole season felt like that. Not a fan of that feeling, really.

ANTHROPOCENTRISM
The worst part about this Living story for me as a non-human player was how blatantly human-centric the whole plot was. Heart of Thorns, while being a sylvari-dominant storyline, pulled it off very well, but current Living Story never cares to explain why should a sylvari, an asura, a norn or a charr care about human politics, human centuries-old conspiracy groups, human secret orders, human gods or human kingdoms. There’s rarely any explanation why is Ragenar, a male charr commander, such a lore buff on White Mantle, why is he so eager to stop a plot against Krytan queen, why would he join Shining blade on a whim, and if there is, it’s so blatantly patched-on and hand-waving the issues it’s basically just an afterthought. (I laughed when Logan introduced me to the Blood legion emissary in Lake Doric, saying something along the lines “Looks like even the charr are concerned enough to help.” No really, Sherlock. I’m standing right here.)

Crowned by latest episode, where you’re explicitly mentioned as “Protector of the kingdom” never to “act out against Kryta”. I’m sure imperator Smodur and Blood legion tribunes will be thrilled to hear I basically serve the enemy now. Thanks.

TONE
Tone is not just something you let mr. Diemer to carry for you (and holy smokes, did he, ms. Chappelle and the others do a dam great job since the HoT release), it’s an integral part of the story. And that’s where this season fails most of all. In comparison, contrast Heart of Thorns, in which the player character (most noticably male human) matured in the face of the loss of the Pact and having to pretty much stare down an elder dragon. It felt like a natural progression.

All that is now forgotten. Our pact commander is a snarky teenager exchanging sassy quips with Anise, Marjory, Lazarus (!) and others. It may be my paranoia, but it reeks of Joss Whedon influence. All these dialogues seem to be the result of your writing team bingewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in one night and then getting to write all the dialogue in the hangover morning after. Problem is, good comedy requires timing, and when everything you say taht isn’t a witty remark is a sarcastic quip instead, timing goes outta the window faster than even Tides of Time can carry it.

SINGLE ISSUES
Some more small eyesores that didn’t help…

• Character consistency. Seriously, pretty much everyone was a pain in the neck. General Almorra Soulkeeper? Reduced from a dignified old warhound to a hysterical errand boy shrieking orders left and right. Braham? I get it, his mom died, but the turn he took from me feeling sympathetic towards the boy to me wanting to punch the spoiled brat in the face was sharp enough to pack a few Gs. Caithe? Constant apologize-trust-mistrust-apologize glockenspiel that got so kitten old. Some of the dialogue even points out how odd that is, but when the response is basically just “Eh, yeah, I’m different now, so what, just roll with it”… I’m actually not sure what to say at this point besides putting a neon sign with “THIS IS WRONG” all over it.

• Voice acting. That was a royal let down overall, especially in the day and age where studios focus more on driving their actors to their limit and bring out stellar results (so we have a lot to compare it to, if somewhat unjustly). It’s probably worse for me being part of the player base that got hit with the player voice change, as my pact commander is a male charr, but generally, very few people I could say did a great job. Almorra sounded jarringly off-character (either voiced by someone completely different who didn’t even try to mimic the old voice, or just bad). Livia/whatever her name was sounded so forced and stilted and with a completely wrong tone it kept dragging me off. And while Lex Lang’s handling of the male charr PC got consistently better throughout the season (and the sound editors finally figured out a good filter), it still doesn’t hold a candle to Ron Yuan’s performance (there are some instances he does sound just fine, so again, nothing against him, he just has a high bar to break). The only positive I remember was Logan and maybe Rox, but she didn’t really have enough dialogue to judge.

• Mini-plots. You know, sometimes things are better left unresolved. It’s definitely preferrable to the alternative of all the characters turning up, saying something along the lines of “hi, here’s my storyarch ending” and disappearing. It was like that with Rytlock’s magic, Braham’s Jormag hunt, Logan’s queen issues, and worst of all, player commanding the Pact. All of those were “resolved” by three or four sentences and tossed aside without care or consequence. Even worse, all of them, unlike the whole Mursaat/White Mantle/other “important” stuff actually did have good setup and players were already invested.

• Raids as a mandatory story prequel. Which is something you explicitly said you wouldn’t do. I am a raider, my boss kills clock somewhere between 600-700, based off LI on both my accounts. And yet I still hate that you made it part of the personal story. It’s a horrible decision, to have a story that’s so short on the setup even shorter if the player is not part of the raid elite (which you yourself again specifically stated to be a thing).

In short… ANet, I love you. I love your game. Really. I spent over five thousand hours lost in your world, exploring Tyria and living in it, I had tons of fun with your game, I grew attached to your lore and your characters. But this was bad in pretty much all of those regards. I still look forward to the expansion, and I hope that whatever I said here will help you get it done right next time. It’s just that this season, unlike previous personal (and mostly unreplayable) stories, I won’t be coming back to. It just isn’t worth it.

Looking at season 3 overall, I’m disappointed. I’m sorry to say, gw2 needs to step up their storytelling. It is sloppy. It is a mess. The story is clearly trying to do too many things at once. Too many plot elements: Lazarus, Balthazar, Dragon’s Watch, Jormag/Primordus, now Shining Blade?! Livia?! The writing needs to pick a narrative and stick with it. Otherwise, you just confuse people. Season 3 started off ok, but then it just fell flat.

That being said, I’m glad that the Mursaat story is officially over. At least season 3 ended the way it was supposed to.

I agree with the lack of personal flavour on our character’s actions thiss is supposed t be our story overall not is sitting and watching while our pc does his thing. Now i understand that theres a storry that needs to be told but you cna at least give us option to add our personal flavour to it either with choices in the episodes or with the answers we give. Much like the 3 types of asnwers system that existed that with a va answer unique to each of the 3 would go some way to make it more personal id say.

Se2 did the pace and the focus on one plot better with an overall less interesting story, if se3 has the same pace and focus with its interesting story it would easily be the best se so far

It pains me to say but imo ep3 needed to never happen it didnt add anything to the plot it closed the thread that it started in a unsatisfactory way and braham got a meh character developement (even tho i liked it).

Instead an episode which focuses more on Lazarus and the wite mantle (cadecus’ trip to janthir) and had some teases for who lazarus really is would go a long way making ep 5 feel more expected and realistic and would fix quite abit of the pace and direction problems the season had.

I believe this would be a great se if it focused on Lazarus the WM and their downfall and left the meaningless " i cracked a tooth" part out.

JTGuevara.9018:

Looking at season 3 overall, I’m disappointed. I’m sorry to say, gw2 needs to step up their storytelling. It is sloppy. It is a mess. The story is clearly trying to do too many things at once. Too many plot elements: Lazarus, Balthazar, Dragon’s Watch, Jormag/Primordus, now Shining Blade?! Livia?! The writing needs to pick a narrative and stick with it. Otherwise, you just confuse people. Season 3 started off ok, but then it just fell flat.

That being said, I’m glad that the Mursaat story is officially over. At least season 3 ended the way it was supposed to.

Tbf it was fiting that the shining blades ended it. The WM were their arch enemies and mursaat their masters im glad it was the blades that helped us finish it.

zealex.9410:

JTGuevara.9018:

Looking at season 3 overall, I’m disappointed. I’m sorry to say, gw2 needs to step up their storytelling. It is sloppy. It is a mess. The story is clearly trying to do too many things at once. Too many plot elements: Lazarus, Balthazar, Dragon’s Watch, Jormag/Primordus, now Shining Blade?! Livia?! The writing needs to pick a narrative and stick with it. Otherwise, you just confuse people. Season 3 started off ok, but then it just fell flat.

That being said, I’m glad that the Mursaat story is officially over. At least season 3 ended the way it was supposed to.

Tbf it was fiting that the shining blades ended it. The WM were their arch enemies and mursaat their masters im glad it was the blades that helped us finish it.

… which would be great if it were setup in the actual story, not somewhere deep in Guild Wars 1

Changer the Elder.2948:

zealex.9410:

JTGuevara.9018:

Looking at season 3 overall, I’m disappointed. I’m sorry to say, gw2 needs to step up their storytelling. It is sloppy. It is a mess. The story is clearly trying to do too many things at once. Too many plot elements: Lazarus, Balthazar, Dragon’s Watch, Jormag/Primordus, now Shining Blade?! Livia?! The writing needs to pick a narrative and stick with it. Otherwise, you just confuse people. Season 3 started off ok, but then it just fell flat.

That being said, I’m glad that the Mursaat story is officially over. At least season 3 ended the way it was supposed to.

Tbf it was fiting that the shining blades ended it. The WM were their arch enemies and mursaat their masters im glad it was the blades that helped us finish it.

… which would be great if it were setup in the actual story, not somewhere deep in Guild Wars 1

I dont remember prev episodes itss been a whle since i did them but im sure the fact that the WM are sworn enemies of kryta and Lazarus a sworn enemy of the humans was touched upon. Dont forget there were current events as well with shining blade and WM

zealex.9410:

Changer the Elder.2948:

zealex.9410:

JTGuevara.9018:

Looking at season 3 overall, I’m disappointed. I’m sorry to say, gw2 needs to step up their storytelling. It is sloppy. It is a mess. The story is clearly trying to do too many things at once. Too many plot elements: Lazarus, Balthazar, Dragon’s Watch, Jormag/Primordus, now Shining Blade?! Livia?! The writing needs to pick a narrative and stick with it. Otherwise, you just confuse people. Season 3 started off ok, but then it just fell flat.

That being said, I’m glad that the Mursaat story is officially over. At least season 3 ended the way it was supposed to.

Tbf it was fiting that the shining blades ended it. The WM were their arch enemies and mursaat their masters im glad it was the blades that helped us finish it.

… which would be great if it were setup in the actual story, not somewhere deep in Guild Wars 1

I dont remember prev episodes itss been a whle since i did them but im sure the fact that the WM are sworn enemies of kryta and Lazarus a sworn enemy of the humans was touched upon. Dont forget there were current events as well with shining blade and WM

Offhand mention doesn’t count as setup. I’m aware there’s some connection between Mantles, Blades and stuff, but this episode didn’t get as much as a reminder. Especially in an arch that’s already juggling enough plots to choke a walrus, it’s crucial to set your plots properly. When you already toss around enough factions and names that put an appendix section of a WW1 documentary to shame, it’s easy to get them lost in a clutter. You can’t just say “I told you once a few years ago, what else do you want”. That’s basic storytelling and writing. You “not remembering previous episodes” is actually a sign in and of itself.

Current events were centered on White Mantle and their connection to bandits, not Shining Blade.

Changer the Elder.2948:

zealex.9410:

Changer the Elder.2948:

zealex.9410:

JTGuevara.9018:

Looking at season 3 overall, I’m disappointed. I’m sorry to say, gw2 needs to step up their storytelling. It is sloppy. It is a mess. The story is clearly trying to do too many things at once. Too many plot elements: Lazarus, Balthazar, Dragon’s Watch, Jormag/Primordus, now Shining Blade?! Livia?! The writing needs to pick a narrative and stick with it. Otherwise, you just confuse people. Season 3 started off ok, but then it just fell flat.

That being said, I’m glad that the Mursaat story is officially over. At least season 3 ended the way it was supposed to.

Tbf it was fiting that the shining blades ended it. The WM were their arch enemies and mursaat their masters im glad it was the blades that helped us finish it.

… which would be great if it were setup in the actual story, not somewhere deep in Guild Wars 1

I dont remember prev episodes itss been a whle since i did them but im sure the fact that the WM are sworn enemies of kryta and Lazarus a sworn enemy of the humans was touched upon. Dont forget there were current events as well with shining blade and WM

Offhand mention doesn’t count as setup. I’m aware there’s some connection between Mantles, Blades and stuff, but this episode didn’t get as much as a reminder. Especially in an arch that’s already juggling enough plots to choke a walrus, it’s crucial to set your plots properly. When you already toss around enough factions and names that put an appendix section of a WW1 documentary to shame, it’s easy to get them lost in a clutter. You can’t just say “I told you once a few years ago, what else do you want”. That’s basic storytelling and writing. You “not remembering previous episodes” is actually a sign in and of itself.

Current events were centered on White Mantle and their connection to bandits, not Shining Blade.

There were current event whe shinning blade hunt down white mantle and rewarded you for taking them down

I personally loved the fact that we did multiple things and didn’t stay on one story path the whole time I think it really showed just how chaotic things were and they handled delivering it.

I’m pretty sure though this living story episode was mean’t to build up a lot of major points were going to see in the future tbh, imo thats what a living story should do especially seeing how were going to have another expansion which will most likely have that same singular story similar to HoT but who knows I loved it all.

i actually liked it… a lot.

Sure it was a little all over the place but that’s how they’ve done all the living world stories so far. They give a few answers and a lot of new questions. Closure? Ha come back a few seasons or expansions from now.

I am curious as to why balthazar returned? Where has he and the others been all this time? Why does he suddenly not care about us or tyria?

Chrono.6928:

i actually liked it… a lot.

Sure it was a little all over the place but that’s how they’ve done all the living world stories so far. They give a few answers and a lot of new questions. Closure? Ha come back a few seasons or expansions from now.

I am curious as to why balthazar returned? Where has he and the others been all this time? Why does he suddenly not care about us or tyria?

A little? Try a lot. Season 2 wasn’t like this. Season 2 had a central focus: Modremoth and the dragons. All the sub-plots: exposition of Scarlet, the rise of Mordrem, the attacks on Salma/Concordia, the assist of the races and the gathering of world leaders, Ogden, the story of Caithe. They all revolved around Mordremoth.

Season 3, on the other hand, was a mess. It started off ok with Lazarus, then it just lost focus. It couldn’t decide which direction to go. The central focus of the story kept changing with each episode. I’m just there thinking, “What is the story trying to communicate to me? It’s doing way too much.” I just became more confused as time went on.

“We’re going after Lazarus!”
“Wait, Jormag/Primordus are awake!”
“Ok, we’re going after dragons!”
“Wait we need a machine.” “Ok, we got the machine!”
“Wait, Balthazar is here! Lazarus is a fake…”
“Rrggh—ok—we’re going after Balthazar….”
“Wait, we’re going after Lazarus again!”
“……seriously?……fine whatever”

Granted, I will give credit that the Lazarus and Mursaat story is officially concluded. Still, the Mursaat have been dragged through the mud thanks to this sloppy writing and I just wasn’t as invested as I was in the beginning of the season.

Honestly, the storytelling needs to step it up. As it is now, I am NOT excited for the expansion.

I thought Season 3 was pretty awful.

The story lacked cohesion and was all over the place. And some aspects felt forced like they were trying to hard to just wrap up story lines. The White Mantle/Mursaat plot was a huge victim of this. I’m pretty disappointed with the story at the end and just bringing Lazarus back to kill him off immediately. It was really lame to me as a fan of GW1 lore. And Livia was too much out of the blue. She should have had a role to play all for several episodes instead of just being crammed randomly into the last.

It’s such a shame. GW2 has good GW1 lore to pull from. They can create really great stories off that base. But instead they just made a huge mess of things. Like they just slapped things together without a care. You can’t just throw in GW1 lore and expect us all to be happy. You need to do a good job bringing it into the world of GW2, but Anet failed miserably I’m afraid.

Oh and don’t even get me started on that travesty of a storyline forcing me (a CHARR) to make an oath to a human organization. Ridiculous. I was so angry when I played through that. This is where Anet got very lazy. If they were going to do that they needed to have two story paths. One where you agree to take the oath and one where you refuse.

Anet, you need to learn a thing or two from Blizzard. WoW has all sorts of problems (mainly QoL issues), but one area it has you beat is story. Legion pulled from WoW’s past, only they did a great job with it. They been engaging, fun and emotional with the storytelling this xpac. With GW2 I find, I just don’t give a kitten . Seriously, I just don’t care about any of the characters. I guess if the old Destiny’s Edge characters were more involved I might care a bit more, but they are never really around. I’m kind of concerned for the story of the next GW2 xpac if this is going to continue being the kind of storytelling we are going to get.

Episodes 5+6 of season 3 were story wise the worst so far.

What was good in season 3:
I realy liked “Out of the Shadows” and large parts of “Rising Flames” and “The Head of the Snake”
The White Mantle stepped out of their hidings and resurrected Lazarus who absorbed the magic of a bloddstone. So he is even stronger than before and a real thread to Tyria.
Boom! What a nice introduction to the story of season 3.

Then Lazarus appears again to help us defend Aurene against a hord of Destroyers.
He claims he has changed and offers us his help against the dragons.
Has Lazarus really changed? If yes he would be a valuable ally against the elder dragons.
But is it wise to trust a Mursaat?

After that the White Mantle starts a large attack against Divinity’s Reach…

“A Crack In The Ice” was the most expendable episode of this season.
Story wise it was good average but didn’t provide any real progress to the story since there was no fight against Jormag and we never dealed with Braham after this.

What was bad?

“Flashpoint”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lwd/Spoiler-Lazarus-identity-a-poor-plot-twist/page/2#post6595694

and especially “One Path Ends”
The magical death oath is something I realy wanted to avoid even as a human main.
I thought “No I don’t want to take this oath. If you don’t want or can’t say what you have planned with the aspects I keep it myself. I don’t want be a part of the Shining Blade nor do I have the time for this.”
And after the revealing: “Yeah, you are insane! We already dealing with a mad god and don’t have the time do deal with another threat in form of a living Mursaat. I deafinitely keep the aspect. Maybe give it to my Order to keep an eye on it while hunting Balthazar”.
For other races especially Charr that was even worse.
So what happens if we have to discuss the events with our guild? Drop dead the moment we are saying one wrong word?

So after a short visit to the new map we enter Abaddon’s reliquary.
After we deal with some traps we resurrect Lazarus, only to kill him 9 minutes Later.
He could disappear right after we resurrected him or before the final hit.
But no he died just to be done with the Mursaat ark.
What a disappointing end for this season and especially for the Mursaat.

Oh by the way Kerida is Livia, no need to introduce her properly. You already know her from GW1 and maybe the books.
Even if this were true for all palyers, a proper introduction in a previous episode would have add some connection to her and the introduction didn’t felt so rushed.

IMHO a better way to tell the story (if Lazarus has to die):
Lazarus is really resurrected at the beginning of the season and absorbs the bloodstone.
He unites the White Mantle under his leadership and plans his revenge against Kryta.
The White Mantle attack Divinity’s Reach with the help of an army of Jade Constructs.
We are barely able to defend the city as suddenly Lazarus appears.
An epic boss battle starts.
With the bloodstone magic Lazarus is extreme strong but with the help of our friends we are able to weaken him.
Suddenly Balthazar appears, kills the weakened Lazarus and absorbs his power…
=> Cliffhanger Ending for the Add-On and a more meaningful end for Lazarus.

I’m going to have to agree that the story was a mess. It was all over the place, with more plot threads than it needed or could handle. Rather than break it down chapter by chapter, I’ll just give some overall thoughts.

First, we could have had the two dragons not wake up at all. If Taimi had said “There’s a spike in the energy on Primordus”, that would have left us wondering if it was awake or not and we could have found out for ourselves. The spike would have been the cause of the new types of minions, but there would have been much less expectation of a Primordus fight.

Second was Jormag, Braham, and Rox. With Primordus spiking in power, we could have ASKED Braham to check and see if Jormag was stirring any, and Rox would have easily gone with him. Instead of Braham the Brat, we would have had him acting like an adult, and our character acting like the leader of a guild focused on taking out the Elder Dragons.

Third, the leaving of the Pact and joining of the Shining Blade. I’m putting them together because they’re both total rubbish and for some related reasons. With the Pact, we know that we work better as our own little group with the Commander in charge, but we also know we have allies in the Pact and will pass on to them any information we have that they need to know. We shouldn’t have tried to leave, just get ourselves set up as a special investigation and problem solving group that works on our own, but still linked to the Pact. Why we would NOT do this with the Pact, and then do it with the Shining Blade is something that makes no sense. Also, we only have the Countess’s word that we’re going to be considered ‘honorary’ members. That wasn’t in any part of the oath we were railroaded into, and we all know the Countess will do what she feels she has to do, including manipulating people.

The maps were hit and miss. I would love to praise Bloodstone Fen, but if you don’t have nearly mastered Gliding Mastery, you may as well not go there. Considering that some newer players may not play all of HoT before jumping in there, that’s really bad. In fact, a lot of the map problems are summed up as “too complex” and “full gliding is required, not a shortcut”. Also, the really high skill JPs need to stop. For some people, they discourage exploration because why bother if it’s just going to be a death trap? Aside from those issues, though, the maps were great.

The leather farm. Just… no. That was stupid.

Finally, the Masteries. The first one was good. The lava tubes were great! But the others were lacking. Badly. Any mastery, even a fun one like the Oakheart grapple, should be used in more than one zone. If it’s for just one zone, it should not be a mastery. I count the gliding skills here, too. Used in one zone, and the enemies were given ridiculous ranged attacks to counter them. They did see very small use in another zone, but honestly it wasn’t worth it.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to “tried too hard”. Tried too hard to make the zones complex. Tried too hard to make the JPs challenging. Tried too hard to have a new mastery in every release. Tried too hard to keep things happening all over the place. It all wound up overdone and under-focused. It has good parts, yes, but those bad parts need to be learned from and fixed.

I just finished Head of the Snake and cannot express how dissapointed I am with the story. It’s really bad. Not just the story, but the fights and the boss fight too. It’s terrible. Who is writing this? A 16 year nerd who reads only DC comics? And all the new maps in season 3 are so ugly compared to HoT, or core maps. They feel chaotic, confused and rushed – stark landscapes with random mobs – like in some low quality MMO. There is no character in environment and events, no soul. Please, Developers, you are destroying a great game that is Guild Wars 2.

LS3 should have stuck to two threads: the White Mantle and Lazarus show, and Primordus (with Primordus mostly being problem-of-the-week stuff, and setting up the expansion). Putting Jormag in the mix spread things too thin for 6 episodes. Given that so much of the story revolved around the WM and Mursaat, introducing Exemplar Kerida in the final episode for a minor side quest (rather than someone introduced shortly after Lazarus makes an appearance) seemed like a real missed opportunity. And Lazarus (in any incarnation) didn’t really get enough screen time for any of the plot points about him to feel relevant. If we had worked with him more closely, his heel, face, heel, different-heel-under-the-mask turn would have been a little more stinging.

Something like this might have worked better:

Ep1: Out of the Shadows was basically fine as is, a good season opener for a narrative arc about the White Mantle.

Ep2: Rising Flames: PotW episode, Primordus is destabilizing the volcano. Stop it from erupting (play up the consequences for Tyria more). Put the Aurene instance in the front, and then let us work with “Lazarus” closely for the rest of this one to build up the character, and emphasize his affinity for fire magic.

Ep3: (PotW) Introduce Kerida. Go to the Isle of Janthir and deal with some issue (recover an aspect, stop a plot to reactive Mursaat superweapons, whatever). We could also emphasize that the Mantle is a threat to everyone in Central Tyria (by showing plans for war with the Charr, a desire to purge the Sylvari as dangerous dragon minions, and to support the Inquest in seizing control of Asura society) to build up the stakes for non-human PCs. We could also incidentally find some Mursaat anti-dragon research that Taimi could use against Primordus, setting up Flashpoint.

Ep4: (PotW/Arc) Help Kerida track and destroy the Eye of Janthir, following the events of BotP. Could be to Siren’s Landing, or somewhere else. In the end, we learn about her identity, find and fight the real L, and learn that the other one is an imposter. And no death-oaths!

Ep5: Flashpoint. Basically as-is, but without Jormag in the equation.

Ep6: Head of the Snake. No time to follow up on Flashpoint, because word rapidly got out about “Lazarus” and the death of the other one, after which the Mantle unified under Caudecus and launched an all-out assault on Divinity’s Reach. Time to put down this threat once and for all. Kerida can fight with us (as Kerida) on this one.

I’m pretty sure that the shining blade should have all died right then and there as my party member could hear all the conversation and secrets going on, while not being able to take part in taking the oath at the same time as me.

This Oath thing is very badly executed.

JTGuevara.9018:

Chrono.6928:

i actually liked it… a lot.

Sure it was a little all over the place but that’s how they’ve done all the living world stories so far. They give a few answers and a lot of new questions. Closure? Ha come back a few seasons or expansions from now.

I am curious as to why balthazar returned? Where has he and the others been all this time? Why does he suddenly not care about us or tyria?

A little? Try a lot. Season 2 wasn’t like this. Season 2 had a central focus: Modremoth and the dragons. All the sub-plots: exposition of Scarlet, the rise of Mordrem, the attacks on Salma/Concordia, the assist of the races and the gathering of world leaders, Ogden, the story of Caithe. They all revolved around Mordremoth.

Season 3, on the other hand, was a mess. It started off ok with Lazarus, then it just lost focus. It couldn’t decide which direction to go. The central focus of the story kept changing with each episode. I’m just there thinking, “What is the story trying to communicate to me? It’s doing way too much.” I just became more confused as time went on.

“We’re going after Lazarus!”
“Wait, Jormag/Primordus are awake!”
“Ok, we’re going after dragons!”
“Wait we need a machine.” “Ok, we got the machine!”
“Wait, Balthazar is here! Lazarus is a fake…”
“Rrggh—ok—we’re going after Balthazar….”
“Wait, we’re going after Lazarus again!”
“……seriously?……fine whatever”

Granted, I will give credit that the Lazarus and Mursaat story is officially concluded. Still, the Mursaat have been dragged through the mud thanks to this sloppy writing and I just wasn’t as invested as I was in the beginning of the season.

Honestly, the storytelling needs to step it up. As it is now, I am NOT excited for the expansion.

there are two center axises of LS season 3 – and yes it did take me a re-run to arrow it just to two of them.

1. Taimis research on elder dragons
2. Wite Mantle and the Mursaat

We start off with White Mantle going “out of shadows” for full re-apperance with – what they thought was resurrected lazarus – and immediate split in it between two factions, in the backgroudn we are getting info on Taimi doing more research on certain aspects of dragons and dragon magic.

Following the reveal of Primordus going active we go back to taimi’s research on dragons. and get info on a message from braham on jormag being active too – which we assume being valid thing because we still totally trust Braham’s judgement on that matter.

Little discourse with very-handy-simulator room get’s interrupted by information that the game has changed – so we go to get samples for taimi – while gettign them we take a little detour to actually stabilise the island cause islands blowing up is never a goot thing.

Next we continue on with Taimi’s research – the samples from destroyers haeve provided enought information for taimi to form a thesis, and we go to the only other active dragon’s territory to obtain samples to check the theory out.

And we end up running into braham and talk him into waiting for Taimi’s research to give more valid info before rushing out which he ignores and rushes out for the dragon.

Then on queens request we pay a visit to divinity’s reach – and we are shifting out attention to the white mantle again – not without a siege of invitation to do just so – in the end we cut off the head of the – apparently stronger side of the splintered white mantle and end up accidentally stumbling upon a “proof” that lazarus is no lazarus.

research of taimi on dragons yields fo a result – machine allowing to kill off two at same time – due to convenient meeting we have a chance to pursue the lead of who exacly is the bloodstone powered guy who pretends to be a mursaat, and he cames out to be no one more but balthy himself – and he steals the ominious machine and runs away.

since we do not like when stuff is stolen from us, especially when it is prototype untested tech we go on after the trails we’ve got, during which tiem taimi goes back to research of things and realise that activating said machine is no good idea at all – so we prevent dragons getting killed and then go onto the track of our fresh new plotline born from White mantle path and dragons reasearch path combined, to seek answers on what this guy is into and “accidentally” end up finishing once and for all – white mantle and the mursaat path.

so we had 2 main “paths” that were intertwined, and have given birth to the third one that grows to the main path of the next expac, while killing totally off one of said parent lines – please bear in mind that I did not mention aurene path here, because by no way it was anyhow “main” path – it was ocasional sidetrack running in the background of a thing that was started in heart of thorns, goes on slowly in the background and is supposed to be – sooner or later – a major plot thing – but we are far from that point yet.

really the acusation of it beign all over the place with no logic is false claim – although somewhat justified because of two major lines and a side line being mixed together like that in releases spanning of two months+ breaks between establishments can createa feel of everythign jumpign aroudn with no sense or logic behind it – but we should focus on actuall issues and not “feels” of issues which in this case means that we should focus on pointing out that such mixing does not work well for stories with such breaks between them so AN gets the point and reserves those parts of planned plotline for expacs storylines while givign us a more focused living story seasons so the complex stuff gets to be played in short time of span so you do not get lost in stuff due to passage of time – and in the times where compent is goign out in more slowy pace there is nothing to be confused about.

Provided we get the “sleeping” dragons later and that’s just a way to take a break I’ll be happy

I just wonder. What is determined a Shining blade secret and what is not and how is that determined?

I mean, you will die speaking shining blade secrets. But how would you know what is a shining blade secret and what is not.

Things I liked about the story. – The maps, most of the story was fine to me. I loved Siren’s landing, ( Especially Hiffa) But I didn’t really like the storyline portion we got from it. The sass was hit or miss (the asura female VA is great saying her lines mostly.) The whole Shining Blade Oath portion was where it really fell flat. The VA was bad, the oath was bad, the logic was bad. No sir not a fan, try to avoid doing something like that again please.

One thing seems to be unanimous. The designers of maps are still, by far, the strongest point of Anet. These guys deserve a toast with good beer. The state of the art HoT maps were bring into Ls3.

ugrakarma.9416:

One thing seems to be unanimous. The designers of maps are still, by far, the strongest point of Anet. These guys deserve a toast with good beer. The state of the art HoT maps were bring into Ls3.

Agreed. Great map design started all the way with Silverwastes and it’s definitely something to be proud of in both Heart of Thorns and LS3.
I’d also like to once again point out music, which was amazing in both releases as well. I grew up attuned to Jeremy Soule’s tunes as any other gamer, but with the music torch being passed to the team both current and gone but not forgotten, Guild Wars finally found its own voice instead of sounding like the step-brother to Elder Scrolls. I just hope Path of Fire as well as some of the tunes from LS3/Raids get a decent release.