Guild Wars 2

This could have been made so much better, so much more in-depth, think something along the lines of finding the triforce pieces in Wind Waker.

But instead, it is a rushed, hand-held. pseudo adventure, that has a zerg going from point A to point B.

So much potential, but it seems so rushed and squandered

Yeah, that was a poor way to handle that story. It tied into some of the lore though, but it was silly that these valuable pieces were just out in the open, instead of hidden somewhere deep. There should’ve been legendary champions guarding them.

it was super easy for me by the time i got to each one everything was dead that was surrounding it. :/

Well considering it was supposed to be some legendary, long lost artifacts….they were just there and it was “here→there” and found them all in under 5 minutes…

I was disappointed as well. The same thing can be said about the kitten scavenger hunt for the backpiece.

Perhaps, once again, they should take a look back at this awesome game called Guild Wars. There was this really cool scavenger hunt once.

I have to admit, I was hoping for something more involved than “run to green circle, run to green star, press [f]” times three.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I have to admit, I was hoping for something more involved than “run to green circle, run to green star, press [f]” times three.

Wait, there where green circles? I just went from green star to green star. Yes this was a let down. I did think it would be a little more…… Epic.

And I agree the Black Moa Chick hunt in Guild Wars was amazing. Lots of fun.

I think something as simple as the game not telling us exactly where they are would have been a good start >.>

There could have easily been a story quest PER piece. I agree that this part was simply rubbish and felt very rushed. I don’t know how else to put it.

I found our comment to Rox hilarious.
Did the people who wrote the dialogue never play the content?

I found it ludicrous that the crown pieces were just laying around all this time and that getting each one was no more difficult than walking up to a green star and pressing F. After all the tremendous work that went into Dry Top this seems supremely lazy. Although I liked the episode overall I found this part of it very disappointing.

Yeah, re-doing DE’s that were in game from launch seemed a lazy way to handle something apparently so big lore wise. Rytlock could have easily got them long before we arrived!

Really needed more focus in an episode or something more epic at the very least.

If the pieces where ‘’the true gems’’ why the charr spell failed ? :P

sigh.. i noticed this too but i’m not disappointed..
this patch has been one of the better ones despite bugs.. it’s arena net’s attempt to get players to Actually play the game.. seriously, i’ve had a “omigersh there’s something to do in iron marches? i remember this place from blazing through map completion while getting trolled down by every mob in tyria!? 2 years ago” feeling.. up until now, i could have said this mmo isn’t much of an mmorpg.. but now i might actually recommend it to people…

the lore is solid.. the quest was flawed..
it needs a rewrite
Rytlock – “i’ve personally hunted down the pieces of this crown but to keep it mended i need it infused with residual foefire magic.. i’m entrusting it to you right now.. it’ll lead you to places in ascalon where the energy can be absorbed sufficiently.. 3 should be enough”
Player character – “will do.. but you haveto call me boss or something, because i’m a special snowflake”

I admit I was a bit disappointed that my character somehow knew exactly where each crown shard was and that he could just run up and pluck it whether the event was there or not.

A bit more detective work would have made it better imo.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

If the pieces where ‘’the true gems’’ why the charr spell failed ? :P

Because he is a filthy Charr and not the true heir to Ascalon.

A few mini-dungeons or something, even if they were the size of Provernic Crypt, would have been a lot more satisfying.

I guess I can understand why they didn’t spend too much time on this, since it’s only one step out of several in this single LS episode. But perhaps that’s the more fundamental problem. The ghosts of Ascalon are rather significant. So trying to get rid of them should have been a big deal instead of being given the same amount of attention as smacking some Svanir around.

Lol when talking to rox after she says that finding the crown peiceswas no easy journey…

Lolwut rox?

This was definitely a low point in an already unfortunately lackluster release. Hunting down and acquiring an artifact on the same level as Magdaer and Sohothin seems like it should be important enough to have very well been its own release with multiple story instances involving learning of each piece’s whereabouts as well as acquiring them.

Alternatively, another way to handle it which would have been much better would be scrapping the “four pieces” idea and leaving it whole, with the addition of a new Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon path involving retrieving it.

The sudden introduction of a very powerful human artifact tied so deeply with Sohothin, Magdaer, and the Foefire, and then immediately trivializing it through its implementation, was very disappointing.

The problem was that the shards were centered around events and many people did it on launch day where everyone was zerging everything in a mad rush.

Out of the three I had to get two of them weren’t completed and I did the events and it actually felt meaningful and like I was hunting down pieces. Then on another character every event was finished so I just looted them and would WP.

I can bet a week or two from now, if you replay this story and get the pieces, it will be much slower and more enjoyable. Also, for those saying that it wasn’t some EPIC quest or something, you obviously weren’t paying attention to Rytlock. They were all fragmented and scattered when a couple of people broke it. That doesn’t immediately mean that each one is in a secret cave behind some guardian, it just means that they ended up buried or lost somewhere (like how we found them).

I mean, in all honesty, how likely would it be if someone found a shard piece and immediately said “A shard of the ancient crown of Ascalon! I must hide it behind 20 different traps and a boss”!"

They probably just saw a broken fragment of a crown and dismissed it as garbage. Hence why we find them buried or in rubble since they were considered junk.

SPOILERS

I don’t like to defend bad writing, but I don’t think this WAS bad writing. (Bad events, maybe.)

When he sends you after the crown, Rytlok says “The crown was designed to break into four parts. When the fragments are separated, they’re hard to see. This was a safeguard to keep this powerful item from falling into the wrong hands.” To me, that sounds like it’s actually enchanted to not be noticed when it’s separated. You break it apart, and hide it in plain sight.

He also says “The fragments work like magnets to each other. Once you have one, you’ll feel a pull towards the others.” That explains why you knew where to go, and about where to look.

It’s all spelled out for you why it’s like this, right before you go looking for the parts. It surprised me to see people complaining that we somehow knew where to look for it and how the parts were in more or less plain sight.

Zelkovan.2630:

Also, for those saying that it wasn’t some EPIC quest or something, you obviously weren’t paying attention to Rytlock. They were all fragmented and scattered when a couple of people broke it. That doesn’t immediately mean that each one is in a secret cave behind some guardian, it just means that they ended up buried or lost somewhere (like how we found them).

I mean, in all honesty, how likely would it be if someone found a shard piece and immediately said “A shard of the ancient crown of Ascalon! I must hide it behind 20 different traps and a boss”!"

They probably just saw a broken fragment of a crown and dismissed it as garbage. Hence why we find them buried or in rubble since they were considered junk.

No, I’m pretty sure most people were paying attention. People aren’t taking issue with the hunt to find them not matching up with Rytlock’s dialogue. We’re taking issue with just how lame the hunt itself was. Trying to assign such plot importance to something that involves hopping to a couple waypoints, possibly doing an event you’ve likely already done multiple times before, and then looting a pile of rubble is just a huge buzzkill. This crown is supposed to be the missing piece in an enormously important plot hook to the world of Tyria involving the Foefire, Ascalon, Sohothin and Magdaer. And that’s how they resolve it. With no buildup aside from Rytlock’s “oh, by the way, I found out about this broken crown,” and a 10-15 minute romp through areas we’ve already explored doing events we’ve already done time and time again.

From both a storytelling and a gameplay perspective, it was completely and utterly unsatisfying in every possible way.

Palador.2170:

SPOILERS

I don’t like to defend bad writing, but I don’t think this WAS bad writing. (Bad events, maybe.)

When he sends you after the crown, Rytlok says “The crown was designed to break into four parts. When the fragments are separated, they’re hard to see. This was a safeguard to keep this powerful item from falling into the wrong hands.” To me, that sounds like it’s actually enchanted to not be noticed when it’s separated. You break it apart, and hide it in plain sight.

He also says “The fragments work like magnets to each other. Once you have one, you’ll feel a pull towards the others.” That explains why you knew where to go, and about where to look.

It’s all spelled out for you why it’s like this, right before you go looking for the parts. It surprised me to see people complaining that we somehow knew where to look for it and how the parts were in more or less plain sight.

I am not complaining about the writing, I am glad to see it finally going back to some solid lore. But the way we handle the lore, the events, everything…is just bleh

I can understand them being veiled and hidden, even when in plain sight, but they just appear after an event in a pile of rubble….

In Guild Wars 1 (a little taboo around here) there was a quest in the Tarnished Coast I can remember doing, that involved using a meter, to hunt an area, and use proximity to try and find Facets to defeat.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Divination

Even if the part will have commander tags all over it…why the hell could it have not been like that?! at LEAST >.>

Zietlogik.6208:

Palador.2170:

SPOILERS

I don’t like to defend bad writing, but I don’t think this WAS bad writing. (Bad events, maybe.)

When he sends you after the crown, Rytlok says “The crown was designed to break into four parts. When the fragments are separated, they’re hard to see. This was a safeguard to keep this powerful item from falling into the wrong hands.” To me, that sounds like it’s actually enchanted to not be noticed when it’s separated. You break it apart, and hide it in plain sight.

He also says “The fragments work like magnets to each other. Once you have one, you’ll feel a pull towards the others.” That explains why you knew where to go, and about where to look.

It’s all spelled out for you why it’s like this, right before you go looking for the parts. It surprised me to see people complaining that we somehow knew where to look for it and how the parts were in more or less plain sight.

I am not complaining about the writing, I am glad to see it finally going back to some solid lore. But the way we handle the lore, the events, everything…is just bleh

I can understand them being veiled and hidden, even when in plain sight, but they just appear after an event in a pile of rubble….

In Guild Wars 1 (a little taboo around here) there was a quest in the Tarnished Coast I can remember doing, that involved using a meter, to hunt an area, and use proximity to try and find Facets to defeat.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Divination

Even if the part will have commander tags all over it…why the hell could it have not been like that?! at LEAST >.>

Same goes for the items for the new backpiece. Oh the item description contains a hint about where i might have to take it, better just double click to have it show me the exact spot i have to go to on the map. meh… I d much rather would have had a proper scavenger hunt like the black moa pet one from Gw1, or heck, even the Mad King Memoire Ones from the first halloween. that was fun and enjoyable, going by hints alone. I dont need arenanet to take my hand and guide me to EVERYWHERE because i am THAT kind of special snowflake.

nearlight.3064:

Lol when talking to rox after she says that finding the crown peiceswas no easy journey…

Lolwut rox?

I was wondering if she ment she was going to do something epic while I was away. But no, she didn’t. And Rox, it was a cake walk. Probably won’t be a year down the line when I’m doing it with a newly levelled alt.

I believe the story itself was properly laid out. Whether or not you like what happened is up to you.

Some points:

-The crown was broken into pieces and then hidden.

-Rytlock said that the charr (they’ve had how many hundreds of years?) found the pieces but they were “mishandled” and taken and/or lost again. Meaning, the pieces are probably easier to find than if we were to go looking for their original resting places

-As was pointed out previously, finding one piece allows you to sense the other pieces. They attract each other like magnets. If there is anything to complain about, it’s that Rytlock did the really hard part for you and already found one piece. He also explained that he came to this and the ritual after spending a lot of time buried in books with Priory scholars.

-The events themselves, if done with only a few people can be somewhat challenging and are interesting in their own right.

The problems where:

1. Day 1 bugs where the events didn’t happen at all or bugged out.

2. So many people wanted to run through the story you end up with large zergs rolling through said events. Mega-servers only compounded this problem.

3. You could potentially show up just as an event ended and all you had to do was walk up to the pile and press F. This has more to do with the way open world events work. A workaround obviously could be if you could only see or interact with the pile if you got participation credit in the event. But that could then lead to people complaining that they had participated but the event never gave them credit, etc.

I know whats the problem is.
As the living story is permanent from now on, this parts must be able to be done by a single person now and in future.

Anyway … this hunting down of the crown was really the first part of the story i was a little dissapointed with. Epic-factor = 0 for an epic crown …

With all the complaining going on, remember this is a biweekly free release you get for free. What else did you expect, new event lines with deep enriched story on a biweekly basis? Yall need to get off the clouds and back to the solid ground.

sazberryftw.3809:

There could have easily been a story quest PER piece. I agree that this part was simply rubbish and felt very rushed. I don’t know how else to put it.

I found our comment to Rox hilarious.
Did the people who wrote the dialogue never play the content?

yeh i loled hard when i read that

“actually it was a stroll, i even found a piece next to someones house….a house…..how did nobody spot it when they built the house” -.-

The addition of the royal crown had great potential — for about a minute — but got turned into another pathetically implemented story element.

As I said in another thread in the lore section, the writers managed to screw up previously established lore again:

Tribune Rytlock Brimstone: “It is. When Adelbern enacted the ritual with Magdaer, he became a ghost. But the crown was preserved and found by a charr who entered the area later. They toyed with it, and the fragments were lost.”

The ghost of chief courtier Savione: “For many years His Majesty prowled through the city, salvaging armor, weapons, and anything of value. He sealed it in the vault of the royal treasury.”

— Page 336, Ghosts of Ascalon

I don’t think this needs further explanation. Everything of value (one would think a sort of magical crown forged by the gods would be included in that group) was hoarded into the vaults. Every attempt to loot the ruins of Asalon City — both by charr and humans — was foiled by the ghosts up until Dougal Keane’s second break in. Conclusion: either in fragments or in whole, the crown should’ve still been inside the vaults (of which there is a thorough description later in the quoted book). Instead of a cool, instanced mini-dungeon we got three lackluster, random events and three piles of rubble where magical fragments of a very pretty crown were casually dumped.

Now, let’s assume they didn’t have the resources to make a new instance of the royal vaults for that story step. What could they’ve done to make the hunt for the lost fragments more believable and at least contain significantly more epic? For example:

• Fragment #1: A Flame Legion charr who miraculously survived the Foefire in Ascalon City found one of the pieces (it was so pretty he was drawn to the precious) in the first minutes of the aftermath and bolted with it with the ghosts on his heels. He made it to their camp in Oldgate where the newly risen ghosts caught up and slaughtered him and his friends. Fast forward into the present: the release could’ve added the skeletal remains of a charr still grasping the crown fragment in ghost-infested Oldgate.

• Fragment #2: Bria is the sole spirit who was cursed in the Foefire yet managed to escape Adelbern’s influence. Before returning to her evil ways of feasting on children’s souls, she had an unpleasant fallout with the king where she fled with the last fragment of His Majesty’s crown (a theft of revenge to get back at their wrongdoer for this miserable fate). Fast forward into the present: Scholar Abel binds Bria’s ghost after her defeat, and she confesses just how exactly she broke free of the Foefire curse. At the end of our dialogue with her, she reluctantly tells us the location of the crown fragment inside her house. At least she can have her revenge on Adelbern by participating in the breaking of his malign reign.

• Fragment #3: Before the fateful day of the Foefire, Kendrick Redstaff was tasked by the king himself to take one of the fragments to Serenity Temple and hide it in a secret niche in one of the goddess’ statues. He died in the terrible magical calamity shortly after his mission was completed. Fast forward into the present: after defeating him at the end of the event, Priestess Rashenna (an unaffected ghost from before the Foefire) appears and shows us the niche where the fragment is hidden. With her task done, burden lifted and finally knowing there’s a chance to break the Foefire and grant final release to her tortured countrymen, she passes on into the Mists.

As to how each fragment should’ve been located? Rytlock gives us his own piece as well as some hints about Fragment #1’s location (in Diessa). We WP to Diessa and find a new bar on our UI similar to Divination from Guild Wars 1. The fragment we have would pull at the one nearby, and the closer we get, the fuller the meter would become. After finding the fragment, we’d get a dialogue panel where we’d feel the two joined pieces pulling us east, toward Bria’s house. In Iron Marches we get the “Crown magnet meter” again until we arrive at the manse. After acquiring the third piece, we’d get another message where the three fragments are drawing us southeast, into the Steppes. Rinse and repeat until we get to the ruins of Serenity Temple.

Cliff.8679:

No, I’m pretty sure most people were paying attention. People aren’t taking issue with the hunt to find them not matching up with Rytlock’s dialogue. We’re taking issue with just how lame the hunt itself was. Trying to assign such plot importance to something that involves hopping to a couple waypoints, possibly doing an event you’ve likely already done multiple times before, and then looting a pile of rubble is just a huge buzzkill. This crown is supposed to be the missing piece in an enormously important plot hook to the world of Tyria involving the Foefire, Ascalon, Sohothin and Magdaer. And that’s how they resolve it. With no buildup aside from Rytlock’s “oh, by the way, I found out about this broken crown,” and a 10-15 minute romp through areas we’ve already explored doing events we’ve already done time and time again.

From both a storytelling and a gameplay perspective, it was completely and utterly unsatisfying in every possible way.

Which is what i’m saying, people were expecting some dramatic and long-epic quest to find these things, which usually isn’t the case with forgotten relics (especially in the real world). Yes, you could argue that they are important for the Foefire in breaking the curse and thus deserve such special attention, but SPOILER: he didn’t break the curse meaning that he did something wrong, so how important really is the crown?

I will agree, however, the way they dropped it on us was pretty lame. It kind of came out of nowhere when Rytlock was telling us to get the other pieces with no build up what so ever and this is in part due to bad storytelling. However I think the gameplay mechanics were fine for it, Rytlock even specifically states that the fragments are meant to look nothing special and as such people disregarded them so there was no need for this journey or quest of some sorts, anti-climatic as it sounds. I do think, however, they shouldn’t have put a star on our map for us to find it. I think they should have given us a large, broad area to search and that would have been much better.

I agree, that portion was poorly done. I mean, we are talking about trying to reverse THE Foefire, and it was summed up into about 10 minutes of running around, followed by an annoying boss battle. Granted it failed, but the ritual was incomplete, so it still could happen, but I would have thought they would have put more time into it when dealing with such a huge event from GW History. At least all the other “assist XXX” quests before were based on “Quell the enemy for a bit but destroying XXX”. This one was “Help me stop the the entire ghost army in one swoop”, and it turned out to be a hand-holding fetch quest.

@Thalador: good job, I would have massively enjoyed that.

So many good ideas…coming from their previous game >.>

I have to agree with OP

I enjoyed this story segment but the buggy world events blocking progress and the really dull crown piece collecting were pretty big disappointments..

I do like ths story direction this is going though but I would prefer it to remain instanced for the most part
I do not like getting excited for new content only to get screwed by a progress blocking bug.. and that crown piece gathering was nothing more than a waste of money traveling from Wp to Wp with nothing even making the cown a challenge to obtain

hell how did our pc even know where they all were?
Rytlock didn’t give us his piece to find them
he just said.. oh we need this broken crown go find it… it only took me years to find this one piece but im sure you will magically know where the rest are…. sorry but that was really kitten and disappointing

Siobhan.6027:

I was disappointed as well. The same thing can be said about the kitten scavenger hunt for the backpiece.

Perhaps, once again, they should take a look back at this awesome game called Guild Wars. There was this really cool scavenger hunt once.

Linsey Murdock was primarily responsible for the Moa Chick scavenger hunt, if I remember correctly.

She was also supposedly working on a “precursor hunt”, but we wound up with the horrid Ascended weapon crafting instead.

My only ascended weapon has come from a chest in WvW. No plans on crafting any.

Minos.5168:

Siobhan.6027:

I was disappointed as well. The same thing can be said about the kitten scavenger hunt for the backpiece.

Perhaps, once again, they should take a look back at this awesome game called Guild Wars. There was this really cool scavenger hunt once.

Linsey Murdock was primarily responsible for the Moa Chick scavenger hunt, if I remember correctly.

She was also supposedly working on a “precursor hunt”, but we wound up with the horrid Ascended weapon crafting instead.

My only ascended weapon has come from a chest in WvW. No plans on crafting any.

I completely forgot they wanted to implement a better way to get precursors…how long ago was that now…

Instead of making the plot-device crown. I think it would’ve made more sense if someone found a hidden descendant of Rurik (Rurik had a fling with one of the Ascalon refugees during GW1.) Then the mission would be haul their butt to Ascalon, take the sword and end the curse. Then of course things wouldn’t go smoothly…

AVM.5746:

Rurik had a fling with one of the Ascalon refugees during GW1.

Now you got me… this is something I have no recollection of. Could you provide the source, please?

nexxe.7081:

Yeah, that was a poor way to handle that story. It tied into some of the lore though, but it was silly that these valuable pieces were just out in the open, instead of hidden somewhere deep. There should’ve been legendary champions guarding them.

By default, I don’t think there should be legendary champions defending them, I think it’s good that they are gated by non-group events, because in the future people running this story line will find that a lot fewer people are doing these events, they shouldn’t find their progress stalled because no-one else is around at that time.

That said, I like the way these events scale now, I’ve done the Rhell Crankmane event a dozen times or more (nearly always on my own before now) but last night was the first time I’ve seen it scale up to a champion, it was a nice “finale” and I enjoyed it.

I’m really enjoying the way the living world is now a mix of permanent open world and story instance.

sharkstein.2109:

With all the complaining going on, remember this is a biweekly free release you get for free. What else did you expect, new event lines with deep enriched story on a biweekly basis? Yall need to get off the clouds and back to the solid ground.

This argument doesn’t hold anymore.
It’s not “free”. It’s an investment. They want people to stick around, so they can buy stuff from the Gem Store, or entice people to buy the game. If it was truly free, there wouldn’t be any Gem Store, or other monetary gains in the game.

I actually prefer that they’re not, like, deep in some mysterious dungeon and/or guarded by a powerful entity.

Why?

Because why weren’t they found sooner if they were being guarded by an obvious guardian?

In a world full of adventurers and the like, dungeons and deep, ancient caves will have been picked clean by scavengers and someone would have come across it at some point. But who’s going to look in a random pile of rocks next to a small house in a haunted forest? At best, they’ll scavenge through the house and ignore the rubble because it’s rubble. If you were going to rob a house of its valuables (don’t), would you climb the tree in their yard expecting their jewelry to be hidden up it?

I think it makes it more believable that they’re not found if they are just sitting in unassuming, random places with nothing special about them, because special things attract attention. If you find an ancient vault guarded by Legendary Champion Elite Veteran Cerberus backed by his own lethal squad of ninja cyborgs, you are going to loot it.