Guild Wars 2

Some of you know me from controversial topics such as, despising the use of real life agenda pushing in gaming media and the ever controversial, Taimi and the child protagonist problem dilemma!

I would like to offer my honest opinion about Season 2, the good, the bad, the ugly. In summary form for those that lack the patience and the interest in giving it a look, spoilers included, be warned.

The Story

Season 2 is significantly better than Season 1 in that it attempts to maintain a generally focal direction rather than trying to add too many random and disconnected events with a single plot device to join them.

However, glaring issues point to me that Season 2 was still flawed in a lot of respects, the most notable in my opinion being that while it was not as disconnected as Season 1, it still had its moments of going into where is this going ville.

Season 2, Part 1: Episodes 1-4

This is what I like to call the introductory segment of my analysis both good and bad things to come from this.

The Good
- Brought back the dark and edgy vibe of GW2 with the destruction of the Zephyrite Fleet. A real sense of atmosphere as one of the iconic festive groups of GW2 is now permanently out of festivities for good.
- Earlier episodes show a lot of character development for Destinies Edge 2.0
- Omadds Machine, Scarlet References, Trippin’ In The Machine
- Rise of a Dragon threat shown to its maximum capacity when the Pale Tree is injured by one of my favorite solo boss battles of all time (Shadow of the Dragon, ma buddy).

The Bad
- Taimi’s Mary Sue moment’s with her fantastic ability to invent things that wiser and significantly more versed inventors would have likely learned with far better ways to implement (Redeeming quality is that she actually got in genuine danger and needed saving at one point, showing shes just a kid, not a bad-kitten , which I liked).
- Belinda’s Death was too fast after only having one episode of introduction.
- The person that gave Aerin the message to take out the Pale Tree was never revealed, the entire plot goes nowhere.
- The same goes for the supposed bandit copper and the group responsible.
- Same goes for the Krytan Heir and Anise and Kasmeer’s little talk, and Kasmeers supposed ability to detect lies.
- Over all, a lot of unresolved plots that went nowhere.

The Ugly:
- The Dragons Reach Part 1, All of It, Save Rytlock’s Leaping into the Mists.

Season 2 Part 2 Episodes 5-8

The Good:
- Long, interesting introduction episode in part 2 that gave us MASSIVE lore development for the story. Meaty involvement with Glints Lair, a bit more heavy exposition as to the Master of Peace role with Glints egg.
- Stonehealer, nuffsaid.
- White Mantle References Galore, oh my yes please now more of this.
- Final Boss was pretty satisfying, the story surrounding his defeat and what we used to defeat him created some good questions rather than bad ones, leaving us interested in Divine Fire.
- Turai Ossa, nuffsaid.
- Treesus actually becomes likeable in Gw2, my god.
- Caithe’s memory seeds storyline a tragic but wonderful tale of her history and motivations giving a lot of depth to her character, even if the plot was quite predictable and basic.
- Sylvari are minions of Mordremoth, called it.
- That Pact Explosion, Oh Snap.

The Bad:
- Master of Peace dying was a waste of a perfectly interesting character.
- Master of Sun’s death was unnecessary brutality without any real character development.
- The companions we had in part 1 are more or less shuffled into the role of observers in part 2, making them feel surprisingly hollow after all that char development in Part 1 of the story.
- Destinies Edge shoehorned into the story for no other reason than having them there for the sake of having them there.
- Jory plot with Belinda gaining ghostly sword magic never has any relevance at all after that, ooh shiny Katana.
- Anise interest in following the pact with Canach isn’t even mentioned in Part 2.
- We still never learn who the person was that gave Aerin the letter.
- We never learn who the person was that supposedly lured the Shadow of the Dragon to the Pale Tree, the person with a “dark heart” (Was hoping it was the player character corrupted, inadvertently, wouldn’t that be an awesome twist).
- The Episodes between episode 5 and 8 were pretty shallow to be honest, again, the most noteworthy things that happen is the master of peace dying and the memory seeds.

The Ugly:
- Cliffhangers nearly killed the hype for Episode 8.

Over All Opinion

I give the Season a healthy 7.5 out of 10, it did well to make up for Season 1’s convoluted plot-lines but only created more convolutions that never had any conclusion.

It added chars that were killed too soon for shock factor rather than giving us chance to know and care about these chars before causing torment for their lives.

Heart Of Thorns Plot Tips

- Death has meaning, and relevance, do not just kill off characters like Johnny the Bakers Boy because his purpose is to die, characters must be given feeling and motivations, dreams and hopes, that are crushed and snuffed out in a candle of brutal or tragic or even heroic consequences.
- The Dark Ambiance of GW1 has finally returned to Gw2, I did say all along I prefer that and I have no qualms admitting that I have always found the idea of a battle for survival far more enjoyable than a heroes journey to kicking dragons in the face.
- With the Mordrem corruption I would point you to one of my favorite corruption story-lines in video gaming history, Homeworld Cataclysm, as an example of using the theme of things being corrupted in a meaningful and threatening way. The game used both game-play and story to tell us just how dangerous the threat of the beast was, making us feel hopeless against it while finally discovering and working out ways to end its existence and seeking allies from old times to do so.
- Don’t be afraid to kill off or injure MAJOR characters either, main characters dying is not an end but a symbol that you are willing to let important characters that could have had a hundred new stories to tell go, and find better and more interesting ones to replace them. Also dont be afraid to corrupt heroes, turning a good guy into a villain can be a really fun story if done right, but dont be too kitteny about it, the fall of a hero is a progressive thing, that involves the corruption of moralities, sanity, and eventually, their purpose.
- Introduce new characters that are not part of a super team, and make them as interesting to us as the ones we already know. For example, why not introduce a pair of Sylvari, one that ends up corrupted and one that remains true, while showing the contrasting beliefs of Sylvari persona’s with vengeance and hope being used in different thematic ways. What if the vengeful and angry Sylvari is the good guy? And the hopeful Sylvari ends up being corrupted, along with their hopes and dreams? Turn what is tradition into something new through tradition.
- Evil lies within the player too, players can be mixed about their opinions. Some hate being the bad guy, others like it, I myself love the option to be good or bad. Give us meaningful choices in HoT that regardless of action lead to the same destination, but perhaps have the option of being great, or terrible decisions regardless. As an example, we have to escape some unknown threat that could endanger us. Along the way, a group of saplings from another pale tree need our help, we can choose to save them and earn the greater reward of being a hero, or choose to leave them behind to save our own lives.
The morals leave more impact than the consequence based choice, because it means YOU have to live with YOUR decision to leave those people behind because it was easier, for you to do that. Regardless of the destination the journey is yours to decide.

That’s all for my PoV on the story for now, but I hope you’ve enjoyed reading! I ponder if anyone agrees with my thoughts on this or has their own small snippet posts on what they liked/disliked/would like in HoT?

I agree with your thoughts on the first 4 episodes. However, I differ on some things regarding the latter half:

- Long, interesting introduction episode in part 2 that gave us MASSIVE lore development for the story. Meaty involvement with Glints Lair, a bit more heavy exposition as to the Master of Peace role with Glints egg.

Glint’s lair was nice to look at, but that’s it. The distorted facet gimmicks got annoying/tedious after seeing them for a few minutes, and the crystal projections were all pointless to see except for the last one. And then it gets worse when Ogden reveals that he could’ve just told us instead of tricking us into going in there for a cheap laugh.

- White Mantle References Galore, oh my yes please now more of this.

Boring. Let me know if the Mursaat ever come back. Maybe then the White Mantle will be threatening, cause bandits don’t cut it.

- Final Boss was pretty satisfying, the story surrounding his defeat and what we used to defeat him created some good questions rather than bad ones, leaving us interested in Divine Fire.

Eh, no. The first fight with it was good because something was at stake there. Not this time. It just chooses to fight us because we happen to be around, instead of going after the egg like it was supposedly doing. And the divine fire is clearly a replacement gimmick for the Pale Tree binding it in the first fight, along with being the Deus Ex Machina for how we get through the door.

- Turai Ossa, nuffsaid.

Seeing him was fine. Doing those tedious mini-quests however, was not. Especially having to do it again and again and again for those annoying achievements.

- Caithe’s memory seeds storyline a tragic but wonderful tale of her history and motivations giving a lot of depth to her character, even if the plot was quite predictable and basic.

The only real tragedy in those flashbacks was Caithe’s incredible idiocy. Her love for Faolain (and vice versa) is never really shown nor explained how it got to that point. She has almost no personality, and Faolain’s only personality is being a prick who disagrees with the others all the time, just cause she don’t like being good, which makes Caithe look even dumber for supposedly being in love with her!

When they first hinted at Caithe’s secret back in Season 1, I hoped it’d be just a red herring, because otherwise it’s be something utterly ruinous to her character, much like making Eir suddenly having a son for no reason. And sure enough, they did that and more.

Had Caithe simply chosen to kill Faolain instead of Wynne, and then killed Cadeyrn and company outside, she could’ve probably avoided all of this.

They wrecked her character, they wasted potential to show her nicer side and Faolain having a nicer side before turning evil, and the cliffhangers and filler in between the first three flashbacks and the final predictable conclusion of Wynne dying all just left an awful impression.

- Sylvari are minions of Mordremoth, called it.

Yes, yes, that stupid theory that everyone and their extended kin who knew the lore either guessed or at least heard of.

“We came from the jungle dragon cause my Dream said so!”

Stupid reveal, crappy execution, and with plenty of questions/plotholes big enough to fly a Pact airship through. What’s next, the human gods are the dragons somehow?

Season 2 started off okay in the first half, save for the bad/ugly stuff you mentioned. But from the latter half of Echoes of the Past onward, they screwed up massively with annoying gimmicks, cheap twists and cliffhangers just for the sake of them, and a garbage reveal that they claim was their intention from the get go, yet screwed up so badly.

The last two cutscenes were amazing, I’ll admit. Seeing an Elder Dragon being an actual force of nature, along with us finally getting some substantial content in the future is great. But, I can’t help but be disappointed with all the dreck we had to go through to get there.

I think A-net decided they where doing an X-pack sometime during the first half of season 2. The second half of season 2 started to go nowhere, fast, and now we know why. All of it is just set up for the HoT expansion pack instead of actually having its own independent story. The 2nd video at the end kinda annoyed me, because it reinforced the fact that the end of season 2, it’s payout, climax and conclusion, is to hype up the expansion pack.

I like the fight though, and stomping on the shadow of the dragon face while imbued with that fire was a cool touch. If only the shadow of the dragon meant something, other than I pop up out of nowhere to fight you for no discernable reason.

PseudoNewb.5468:

The second half of season 2 started to go nowhere, fast, and now we know why. All of it is just set up for the HoT expansion pack instead of actually having its own independent story. The 2nd video at the end kinda annoyed me, because it reinforced the fact that the end of season 2, it’s payout, climax and conclusion, is to hype up the expansion pack.

This. The game itself basically ends on a giant cliffhanger. Wanna see what happens next? Buy the expansion!

They might as well have had the entirety of Season 2 as part of Heart of Thorns instead, since Season 1, even with all the problems it had, at least had a decent finale, while leaving the waking of the dragon for things to come. Now the core game feels incomplete.

“Same goes for the Krytan Heir”

Expect to see that expanded on in a later season. I like the fact that they don’t need to have everything tidy up in a neat ball, but are prepared to foreshadow things a long way in advance.