Guild Wars 2

So, I recently heard A-net has had an issue with the idea of creating new playable races, but there are two particular races (though we could include Kodan and other potentials like Mursaat/Stone Dwarves) that people have really screamed for since GW2 launched.

The Tengu, and the Largos.

Now, how would one go about creating these two as playable races you ask, and how would they fit into the Zhaitan storyline?

Short answer:

They wouldn’t.

Long Answer:

A new isolationist storyline that revolves around Steve (BubbleS) that features both Largos and Tengu fighting the Deep Sea Dragons minions just as we fought off Zhaitan.

How does this work?

Its easier for the developers to go for a new direction than try to relive the old, rather than fit these races into the Zhaitan story, where they had cameo’s but nothing more. It would be better to focus on a story that “does” include them lore wise and relevance wise?

How would Tengu’s storyline work?

The Tengu storyline would focus on the isolation of their culture, a potential invasion from Canthan Naval fleets now that the Risen have been suppressed which causes them to recognize the need for allies. Combine this with the sudden arrival of the deep sea dragon, causing Tengu coastal towns to be utterly annihilated.

Their starting zone would be level 1 to 40 to allow for a much smoother leveling experience, they would not receive the 3 choice personal story that we do but instead have their own private plot every 10 levels that revolves around becoming apart of the joint effort to fight Steve.

What about Tengu models, you realize you cant just make Tengu and Largos that easily, right?

Obviously not, at a first glance, but Tengu are very alike to Charr. All you would really need to do is what was done with Charr and Asura to Tengu uniforming male and female models to make the design of their gear significantly less hectic for the developers to make.

This allows Largos, being a male and female gender different race to be more heavily focused on when it comes to armor sets, and since most of the female ones are already available that just means adding cultural armor and a few extra sets in end game areas.

How would the Largos fit in?

Fan canon here but, lets put a few ideas together one idea I had was the Largos have some kind of giant fleet that they tried to single-handedly wipe out Steve with, the fleet got utterly trashed underwater just like the Pact did with Mordremoth and they recognize they cannot solo the Dragon.

Their capital would be some kind of giant submarine hub ship located underwater with bio-domes allowing land based movement inside.

Yet again, their starting zone, like the Tengu, would be level 1-40.

Isnt it a bit too early to think about this with HoT coming?

It is “never” to early to speculate and concept ideas that may or may not have some kind of impact, maybe just inspire the devs as much as we the players are eager to see things happen, we must be able to be realistic, but also idealistic to help aspire the game we want to see as much as we love seeing built!

Its food for thought on a later table, but hopefully it will get notice.

Thoughts?

What I think they should do is give Season 1’s most vital bits attention including Southsun while dividing them into smaller segments thus giving us a more fixed idea of who the chars are that were so relevant.

Example:

Southsun Arc

Episode 1: The Consortium

The Consortium needed my help to fix a mess that one of their individuals by the name of Canach started, I have been asked by Lionguard Ellen Kiel to help her investigate the matter.

From here, they reformat it into a personal story/living story season 2 style personal instance where you journey with Kiel to find and interrogate Canach, after that, you go to Southsun to relive a solo-able (With the option of group mode) version of the Karka Boss with a slightly altered storyline.

They can do this through subtle phasing without loosing the momentum of what they’ve already done, adding the stories piece by piece rather than adding the entire of Season 1 even as HoT launches.

So, again.

Southsun Arc

Episode 2: Canach

The Sylvari named Canach was sited in Lions Arch after he was removed from the Consortium, he seems to be up to no good, me and Kiel are investigating the matter once again in an effort to track him down.

This episode involves the second part of the Southsun story, which included our introduction of Kasmeer Meade and Lord Faren in a swimsuit. This could be used in a personal story instance to retell the plot with more dialogue and depth with Kasmeer and Kiel helping us find and track down Canach.

They can also use this to tell us a bit more about Kasmeers ability to “detect liars” and, have Kiels Norn Deputy help us defeat some rogue Consortium (since there’s the whole refugee/consortium thing).

By the end of it, we deal with the Consortium contracts while learning about where all these people they hired came from. This allows the plot to move into the flame and frost arc more naturally since it can be both a prequel and a sequel to this one.

In essence, you retcon the order of events and re-align it to make it more natural, while introducing pieces of Season 1 rather than the whole thing at once.

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?

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.

As a piken player I still see a fair share of role players, granted, their centralized in specific rp hubs as opposed to being everywhere like they used to be but its still a very viable rp community.

From the trailer and the assets available to the expansion presently I am going to say May to June. With the Pax Demo being available in only 6 weeks from now, and a potential closed beta coming very soon, it suggests to me they already have quite a few assets already made and are simply in the process of testing/implementing them, rather like EoTM had a beta.

Something that interested me, I believe someone put a twitter link on all the concept art, I cant find it but id appreciate it if someone looked for it.

Among the art I saw a strange pale tree with Sylvari that had Drider like qualities aka: half-humanoid half-spider and a tree in the background that didn’t look very healthy.

Will we see our first taste of true Mordrem Sylvari and if so will they still be Sylvari or will they have a different name?

http://i.imgur.com/K8S0B3n.jpg

Found the pic (Edit)

I had this haunting thought, it appears these may be pod-lings of a dead pale tree.

Idea:

Music plays fear not this night, but its a haunted, twisted, corrupted version with the singers voice breaking, whispering, going mad with subtle Mordrem under tones.

Lament of the Pale Tree…

Possibly, Malycks?

I agree with the points except for point 8.

Guild wars 1 was a moderately if not exclusively single-player game, the entire franchise was built on the point of solo viability, taking that away would be an extremely risky thing since you remove the entire point of the individual from the medium of the purpose.

What is a hero if the heroes destiny is everyone’s? Granted, your story is everyone’s story anyway but at least the illusion of individuality was there in Season 2.

Essentially, I believe this:

1. The Biconics need a break and need to be retired from the story for a while, they need to go their own separate ways and live individual lives than being the super-pals team.

2. We dont need any more “teams” we need individuals, noteworthy people that have meaningful progression relevant to the events and story-lines of current plot progression rather than random guys that are there for reasons sake.

Now, this does seem to be a thing with HoT, since Rytlock appears to be going his own direction in HoT rather than being apart of DE, which is frankly a major +10 from me because that means that Rytlock will be a focal character of the story, but also have relevance in driving it forwards.

This to me is what you need, its what GW1 had, when you go back to GW1 and look at Prophecies you dont see that many iconic names worth remembering. Its not until after Rurik died that you really have any worthwhile chars that will be remembered for times to come.

The Shining Blade felt like a group, a group you were apart of, fighting for the freedom of Kryta, for your own peoples survival as Ascalonian Refugee’s.

The story in season 2 did A LOT better than Season 1 and shone in a massive way by comparison.

However, it did have glaring flaws.

Belinda’s death was FAR too early in this season, and should have happened at least episode 7 when it might have worked better. She should have been around more frequently too, going with us into the Silverwastes.

What would have worked for me is if Belinda had died instead of the Master of Sun, maybe run in there and taken the bullet, dying in Jory’s arms or something.

There would have been a bit more impact, a bit more pain and torment, knowing she had a more meaningful demise than just, Red Shirt Moment.

As for the master of peace? He shouldn’t have died at all, his death was utterly meaningless and he actually had potential to be a far more interesting char.

Death is an art, in storytelling, you need to time the moment right.

An example in this is a story I watched recently in anime form, where one of the main characters makes a valiant charge at one of the main antagonists.

He knows hes going to die, but he does it anyway, but not before giving his companion whom throughout the story had development and progression with him a fond send off.

He used his power, charged straight into battle and as spears and arrows slow him down, and chains bind him, he gets ever closer to reaching his goal.

He is finally stopped dead, just before he is in striking range of the antagonist. Who smugly tells him that he could never have beaten him, but admired his strength and his resolve, and believes he deserved a place in “his world”.

The character dies with an acceptance that he has failed. And his companion just watches in tears, as the antagonist approached.

The antagonist confronted him, questioning if he wanted to die as well, but the character simply told him that he was his servant, and he had to live, it was his wish.

Respecting this, the antagonist leaves, and the character is left to tell the tale of the fallen hero.

This, is how you do meaningful and painful character death right, you establish the value of the char, the relationship between them and other characters. You develop it not just over one episode but over “many” episodes of story, and as we grow attached to them, we become fond of them.

This is why Sieran’s death for me as a Priory Player had so much meaning. I didn’t have lot of time to know Sieran and before Battle for Claw Island, I had assumed she was going to be with me significantly longer than that. However, she did at least get enough time to show me who she was, what she wanted with her life, and her aspirations and screw-ups that made me laugh and made me sob heavily when she passed on.

Sierans death had meaning, Belinda’s was nothing to me.

Go back to the battle for claw island, and the orders, and remember how those chars died and take a moment to consider the value of death.

Death has to happen at the right time, and if its too soon, or too late, it can loose momentum, and purpose.

A char has a reason to exist, to expand the plot, to give the main char, the player, a reason to keep going.

And sometimes that means they have to die to assure the player char has a motivation to avenge them.

That does not mean it is always necessary to kill a char off.

…That is all.

You’re welcome.

So, HoT, as we will call it for now, is quite likely going to be an expansion.

Lets talk, what could the plot revolve around from what we saw in the trailer teaser?

1. The Pact is divided:

The Pact brought armies not just from its own borders but from the Grove and other nations of Tyria to rally against the Mordrem. With the fleet crashing somewhere in the Maguuma (possibly Magus Falls even) the survivors are going to be bitter, and most of them will know who to blame.

This Xenophobia is going to be what likely starts events in motions both in exploring deeper into the Maguuma, and returning to Tyria to resolve threats there.

2. Queen Jennah could die/be injured!

Canach is clearly shown in D.R. before a very angry mob threatening to skewer him. I have no doubt we will have to save him from this unpleasant predicament.

As to why? Something big must have happened in the heartland of the human capital to trigger such a big response and nothing says big other than random Sylvari trying to kill the queen.

3. The Player Character might be Corrupted

We saw the vision that Scarlet Saw, this lowered her immunity to the corruption of dragon influences which essentially made her vulnerable in the first place. Her actions set in motion this entire event which leads one to believe that the player may end up being subject to Mordremoth’s mind magic later on in the expansion.

Imagine, if you will, the horror, of hallucinating a Mordrem attack, only to discover you singlehandedly slaughtered an entire camp of Pact Refugee’s.

Or the potential of fighting your own companions, as they attempt to bring you back to redemption, and “fight” destiny.

4. The Pale Tree might become an Elder Dragon.

Glint was supposedly capable and nearly at her potential of becoming one, even if she had been around a lot longer. Maybe Caithe’s plan is to sacrifice her child to make her mother into an Elder Dragon to fight the others?

5. If the above is true, dragon v dragon battle, 100% confirmed.

Godzilla, nuffsaid.

6. Mursaat or Guild wars Utopia Chronomancer?

A lot of theories on that mysterious fellow, but we still dont have an absolute answer yet, if its a Mursaat this could potentially play into the idea of the enemy of my enemy mentality.

We may find unexpected allies in old foes, more likely out of a necessity of mutual survival than anything else.

7. Treaherne might end up becoming a major antagonist.

His wild-hunt is over, his purpose questioned by Treesus himself at Zhaitans defeat, not sure what he was supposed to do.

He was just a humble scholar, never a leader, never meant to command armies.

Its evident hes also incompetent as a military strategist, but Mordremoth might change that once he has his brain on his side and his knowledge of Tyrians.

8. We might encounter other Pale Trees, but that doesn’t mean the Sylvari they create would be Humanoid.

Twitter posted some interesting pics from areas we haven’t seen in game yet, namely a pic of strange kittenroach/termite like creatures with glowing backs not so unlike Sylvari that was shown with Rytlock and the caption “they belong to the dragon now”.

As we see in the trailer for HoT, this quote is stated directly as Rytlock mentions “You cant trust the Sylvari, they belong to the dragon now.”

Corrupted Pale Tree’s may not produce humanoid Sylvari, keep that in mind.

As a fellow Piken my stance on this based on what I saw is, what Caithe said at the end, spoilers included.

Caithe basically said that the truth is going to come out anyway so there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

She only delayed the inevitable revelation from hitting her species, she never stopped it happening.

What does this mean?

1.

Mordremoths influence is going to spread further into the Grove areas since the Pale Tree is unwell and weakened, thus, Sylvari will start gradually showing signs of irregular and erratic behavior (Scarlet and Aerin were not like the Nightmare Court, keep in mind that Mordremoths influence on them seems to sent them into a wild schizophrenic frenzy).

This will not happen now, but as rpers we can safely say after the first week of the event we can start exploring ideas for this for fun as individuals with friends or as community events.

2.

The Influence does not affect everyone, however, no one is safe, not even the dreamers. It is evident a good number of the Sylvari on-board the pact ships were not just all Soundless, suggesting no Sylvari is immune to the touch of Mordremoth, some are simply more resilient than others.

I’m going to put this down to willpower, the weaker willed and more frail Sylvari will fall prey over time, the strong will survive.

3.

Non-Sylvari adversely will likely hear news of the Pact fleets destruction in a bout a weeks time, after this, rumors can begin circulating about the Sylvari being responsible and who is to blame, creating some interesting RP tensions between the Sylvari and the Non-Sylvari while people await confirmation of events.

4.

Finally, a few months down the line we can start seriously exploring Mordrem threats and forming Mordrem themed groups while equally forming groups to counter them.

As a roleplayer, I take what I see, and what I see is that inevitably, this is going to impact the game’s npcs and personalities.

The disappearance of a large pact fleet that big doesn’t just “go missing” when there’s an entire army comprised of lionguard, legionaries from the charr, norn fighters, asura geniuses, human seraph soldiers and pact officers.

A big army that big does not fade off the map unnoticed, people will start asking questions, panicking, spreading rumors true or not.

Anyone rping in a Priory guild particularly will already have some prior knowledge of Aerin and Scarlets corruption and thus be immediately suspicious of most Sylvari around them if they heard further word of something. The pact is more than likely going to be the first one to react to this.

But does this mean you have to follow this manifesto?

No, its a guideline, its a way that you might react to whats happened IC and how to keep your chars engaged!

Tbh, I quite hope they add the cinematic soundtracks too, I kinda feel sad we dont get the pale tree vision score, or the end cinematic/HoT trailer piece.

So… I have a hypothesis about the floating fellow in the expansion trailer.

Some are saying Mursaat, some are saying Seer, some are saying Margonite.

Here is a different angle to look at it.

What if this is none of the above?

At first I thought Mursaat, I never considered seer but I did consider Margonite.

However, looking at the architecture and the locale I begin to ponder three other possibilities it could potentially be, considering there is a lot of room for expandability in this universe.

1.

A member of the lost human civilization, The Druids.

We have never encountered the Druids to date and they have been mentioned in the lore previously as Humans that, well, became something more.

Its not impossible this fellow could be a Druid, the strange golden glow contradicts this but the odd green glow might also reinforce the remote possibility.

2.

A Kurzic.

This one is a big stretch, but I noticed a hanging bridge and a lot of mountains and high peaks, could this kittenovald Forest unpetrified?

3.

In the canceled guild wars Utopia expansion they created a proto race that would have been the Sylvari known as the Sidhe, based on actual mythology these are Fae like creatures that have an otherworldly connection to spirits, nature and fortune.

It could, be a Sidhe.

And of course number 4.

We have to consider that the entire lore is not just a linear book with a start and finish but a meld-able clay with new opportunities on the horizon.

We could be encountering a race we have never met, before.

Thoughts?

Ive been convinced that due to the childhood friend thing and a lot of other suspicions Countess Anise “is” the “real” Queen Jennah and Jennah is actually her body double.

Her appearance and attitude are a lot more royal than Jennah’s extremely democratic and logical look on things.

Anise seems like the kind of person that wants to have fun, why? Because she has a hidden responsibility that she does not want to be tied down to.

In the personal story she constantly calls the human PC “Pet” or “kitten” or “Puppet” in an almost demeaning and manipulative way, the kind one might expect of a hidden royal.

As to her “true” age, I dunno, Livia is a possibility but I actually “dont” want her to be Livia, that would be too obvious and equally make very little sense.

The idea of her being the true queen might also be somewhat obvious but I like the idea a lot more.

Notice it was her that wanted to drag Kasmeer off for a long boring chat about… things.

Could it be that she revealed to Kasmeer who she really is, and potentially Kasmeers “role” in events as the ‘other child’.

I dunno, there’s something about Anise that seems too interesting to make her Livia or something more obvious like an evil sorceress.

I get the feeling she is on the side of the crown, and that side is herself.

Do not forget, the Shining Blade were after all, the elite lead by Queen Salma in taking the throne of Kryta in the first place.

It would be a little odd that the queen does not have direct command over her own royal guard, no?

It is also a small gripe but the new Queen Salma Model and Anise own dress have the same color code, not to mention, Anise seems to have a slightly more obvious resemblance to Salma than Jennah does.

I kinda like to believe what your saying one thing that is crossing my mind is that the Season 2 finale will end with a big teaser trailer for an expansion.

To the OP, I’m sorry but we dont get to play the bad guy enough, this was pretty interesting. Its also worth noting “you” are not the bad guy but you are essentially the one dragged into the middle of Faolains actions so you are not playing the bad guy in the first place.

To be honest, I want to be the bad guy more, do questionable things, be tied to a darker chapter in the GW universe, because in Gw1, you did “a lot” of questionable things.

With only 2 episode’s left to go, Mordremoth’s minions are the only thing that are a core presence in this season, and we have been told the dragon is awakening, it hasn’t fully awakened yet.

To kill it off that soon would be too early and it’d be essentially a waste of a dragon, so I doubt we are going to see him die this season.

I have to be honest, I think E has been with us before we even met Marjory.

The thing is, what do we know about E:

- We supposedly know they have a deep voice, deep can be masculine but also feminine.

- They seem to take an interest in the affairs of most if not all situations transpiring.

- They have a habit of being in the right place when we need them to give us information or tip offs about certain events.

- Jory implied she has contacts in the Durmond Priory.

- Someone in the Priory recently showed us the key to its deepest archives.

- That person has also been with us as early as the Molten Alliance storyline.

Who then, is E?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magister_Ela_Makkay

That, is my bet.

Magister Ela Makkay

Magister

Mister

Ela

E

To be fair, she was recently promoted to Magister, but even then I have had my suspicions that this character being present as early as Molten Alliance and being around to inspect the Zephyrites in Season 2’s start is intentional.

She was in escape from Lions Arch around the Durmond Priory, asking questions about the survivors.

She’s a very inquisitive individual that to me, implies shes alot smarter than her matter-of-fact behavior suggests.

Its possible, though if I’m honest, the master of peace aligned a lot more with Saul than Reginald might that said, its not impossible.

Something that kept jumping in my mind ever since Episode 4, what if Caithe is actually Faolain, we know for a fact Faolain is a Mesmer so it is not impossible for her to disguise herself as Caithe to mislead us.

I cant help but feel that it is entirely plausible that we are looking at this from the wrong angle.

Caithe doesn’t openly stalk you, she doesn’t act queerly in front of others.

That said, when she said no time to explain I still wonder if this is genuine Caithe but she deceived us for some benevolent albeit very foolish idea such as trying to solo care for the egg.

Again I feel the Biconics should die as a result of the storyline, a failure to protect the friends you have bonded with up until this point would be a blow to the players personal character.

Its essentially a lesson of life.

You were their leader YOU cost them their lives, YOU are responsible for the people YOU lead.

It’d be good to add that level of depth to the story because then you could finally return to the members of destinies edge. Maybe not all of them at once but you could focus on them, on the players involvement as their glue that held them together against Zhaitan.

In essence, you could give the player the role of the leader they are supposed to be.

I also agree that Canach and Anise work well, Faren too. I was painfully let down that Belinda ended up being a token sacrifice, as it felt rushed and I was literally predicting it.

Tressus having some small role in part 4 was okay, but lets hope he actually does something now.

Master of Peace I hope to god wont end up being killed off in some dumb way considering he was an interesting char that could be a hero or villain or both.

Also, we need some attention on Kiel and Evon, I was told Evon was planning to do something in Season 2 and we haven’t even seen a teaser of that yet.

Story development and leading characters need to feel leading, player characters need to feel like they help develop these people.

For better or worse.

Equally, the player needs to feel at the forefront, in the end, its about your destiny not the edge of destiny (pun intended) so fighting a dragon alone even if that sounds obnoxious should really be the players journey.

For the content outside the story, there are big world bosses and potential raids to do.

Focus story wise, on making the players journey the most important thing, not their friends.

I know this may just be my personal opinion and I will not enforce people to agree with it but lately Ive noticed a growing, bad trend with A-net that worries me.

Guys, let me be clear, you will “never” make GW2 into an E-sport, it isn’t anywhere on “par” with League or DOTA, so it makes no sense to waste money on grandiose pvp competitions when nobody is honestly paying that great a deal of attention to it.

That money should be spent towards productivity of the game, not publication of it. Frankly it feels like my gem-store donations were thrown away on someone’s trophy pot.

Its not good business practice even if it may seem like a socially noble intention.

When I think of spending on the Gemstore, I think of the money being put towards new content for the game, being used to fund the developers that design it. I think of that money along many others that do pay, to continue fueling this games productivity because I want GW2 to do well.

But the idea of going down the route of “PvP tournaments” is not the right way to make the game thrive. Its blatantly clear that the WvW promotions this season did very little to add to the game to be frank, its lost a good chunk of its western market.

Maybe this works well in Asia, I’m not sure, but its not something you do in Europe and America.

I have NO doubt there is a chunk of the community that likes pvp and pvp tournaments but frankly its “too” soon to be thinking of that kind of thing when the games popularity is in decline.

It doesn’t publish the game well to try making money on something that only those playing the game are going to even notice or care about.

My advise is this:

Focus instead on putting that money “into” making an expansion. Its been put off long enough and after 2 years and 2 seasons between them its clear that living story was a dead idea that while having merit, takes too long to effectively deliver content that incentives your player base to keep playing your game.

I am not saying that PvP is bad, I am not saying Advertising PvP Tournaments is bad, I am saying it feels wrong and out of place.

The kinda sponsorship your looking for belongs in a MOBA more than an MMO.

One of those posts again, I know, everyone loves and hates to hear these, why cant we have expansions, or why don’t we just scrap Living Story.

The answer is this:

Living Story depends on DLC level content that comes in short and unsatisfying packages for the long term

Living Story is basically a DLC vs an expansion, the DLC is free too which is an up, but only for those that attend, which is down.

The problem with Living Story is that its story, its story that has great potential and evolution but looses the focus of what an MMO at its core should be a game, not a TV series.

If I want a TV series, I watch TV A-net, that is the cold hard truth of it, I watch Game of Thrones because its a TV series, I play World of Warcraft because its a “game”.

Living Story, has taken a concept that had an admirable idea in hypothesis, and delivered it poorly in the “long” term which is the problem here.

Adding a patch to a wound does not give people the right antiseptic and antibiotics to tackle the infection and stop its spreading.

People are tired, fed up, and need something GAME wise that they have not GOT since… pretty much the game launched.

You could say Fractals are a thing, but Fractals are just glorified dungeons with half the content.

You could say that potentially, we got at least two new zones over the course of two, long, years.

Including changes we also technically had about maybe three, four new zones within old zones that were altered to adapt to them.

How-ever…

There is a problem with this:

Arena Net’s philosophy has to this point been an idea of trying to focus entirely on the world of Guild Wars 2.

Let me elaborate where the problem lies in that:

The world, is not enough.

Why is Dark-souls a popular RPG franchise? Because its story is told through the environment, the game, the game play of the world, not through the story and dialogue and exposition of a singular cast of characters whose involvement is the only thing we ever get indulged with.

The Biconic’s are just people, people with interesting stories who we have been apart of yes, but just, people.

Our story is the one that matters and our story should never be told for us, the best story for any player to tell, is the one they tell themselves.

That, A-net, is why we need new environments, that, is why we need new bosses, new dungeons, new cities, new continents.

We need an expansion, because the story, tells us what we are supposed to learn about the world we ourselves should be choosing to learn about, at our own pace, in our own time.

Rushing people isn’t fun, nobody likes to be told to go to A-to-B-to-C.

We are the Stanley parables of the DND group, and everyone will want to go their own way.

A great narrative and a fantastic story could make for a great RPG, but this is an MMO-RPG, not just an RPG and in the end, the bigger priority is the one that gets you money, gets you players playing your game, and gives you reason to keep making content for those players to do of their own volition.

DLC, is not equal to a full blown expansion and never will be, which is why people “want” something bigger

The world is not enough A-net, we need more.

Actually I feel like my final post was a pretty biased and sharp one so instead ill try to leave with a lighter note.

I respectfully decline what I feel is a game that may not be for me, right now at least, maybe in time it will be again and the episodes do have merit, but its just not what I’m looking for.

The phrasing might make more sense to put it this way rather than posting at 5AM feeling tired and a bit fed up.

Simply put, I hope those that do enjoy the game for what it is continue to do so, but I myself feel like there is something I need before I can return to it, personally, and that is entirely my view.

I have heard similar things being said on Reddit, but I cant speak for weather they will all come out and say it openly.

I guess that’s just me.

Still, I wish everyone the best in terms of the game and I do hope that the story continues to develop in a generally enjoyable atmosphere to all, but eventually maybe expand to appease an even wider audience still, like those wanting something more.

Take care everyone, that’s it from me, for a while I suspect.

Simply put:

I don’t care if you like or hate men, I don’t care if you like or hate disabled people, I don’t care if its great that there’s lesbians or a lack of them in a game, because honestly, I don’t see the REASON for it in the first place.

Some may, some may even want to promote it but that’s cause fighting and it does NOT belong in writing, expressing such driven rebellions against social hierarchy can be done both SUBLIMINALLY and enjoyably, WITHOUT making a direct point about it.

Give me one reference in lord of the rings where Tolkien blatantly states that tanks invade Gondor and Germans are coming, that’s right, you cant, because he didn’t, but his entire story was about WW1 despite not having a SINGLE reference to it WHAT so ever.

That, is the genius of a well written tale, you don’t NEED to be blunt about it, you can be ENTIRELY subtle and the theme can fly right over someones head.

Instead, we need to tell everyone what this is and spell it out to them, like how Taimi is physically crippled, like how Kas and Jory spend every screen time hour loving each other in something that started enjoyable and has now become increasingly corny.

This is coming from someone that actually watched the Kas X Jory storyline BUILD UP to the point of their direct admittance of love, and when it happened it WAS enjoyable but NOW? Its forced, and it shows.

There is NO NEED to force these things and if your writing is good they can tell themselves without having to.

I don’t understand the fascination, but I will accept that given I am more or less quitting the game barring the episode updates that I will thus attain for free if I attend, I believe maybe the world I once saw in GW is all but dead under a veil of modern society and prejudice.

I miss the world that it used to be, not the one its becoming.

If female gamers are getting harassed because of their gender something is diametrically wrong, being someone that holds the coin with two sides.

Now understand my point of view:

I believe from what I am reading A LOT of this topic has gone WAY off track, this has ceased to be a single individuals opinion about the games lore and development conflicting with fantasy and realism and more a case of political views being flaunted around as if they had ANY point in this topic at all.

You are feeding my entire point, this extremist behavior is FEEDING my point that the GAME is loosing touch with its core roots.

What is GW2?

Its a fantasy MMO RPG where players are characters in a virtual and therefore un realistic world, a world, that does not need life based scenario’s to be injected into its world because they are tropes of reality that id rather had no place in any game, any fantasy, any movie, because they are irrelevant, in storytelling.

A good story, needs a good plot, I don’t need real issues to make the benchmark for a good plot, I just need creativity, and depth, good, evil, gender is irrelevant, bias is irrelevant because in a fantasy world, bias cannot exist.

Do you call someone a racist irl because they called your Asura Big Ears? Do you fine them for it?

No, you don’t, “realism” is destroying interesting story lines because we are being forced to embrace it, and that sucks, it takes away the JOY of the fantasy world for what it is, FANTASY at its core, does not need REALITY to enhance it because in the end it is, in the end, NOT, real.

Ergo, why bring real issues, why bring lesbians, disability, and other topics into a world that doesn’t NEED it? Why do it at all when there is NO value for it other than to acknowledge its existence in reality and make a tribute point that “hey we support that and were gonna write characters in our game that are afflicted by these issues”.

You may be trying to send a message of peace but not everyone reacts to it that way, I like Kasmeer, Jory, Taimi, Rox and Braham for what they are, CHARACTERS in a FANTASY world, not political STATEMENTS in that world.

Yet more and more I see the writing shifting towards forcing us to CARE about that statement and I don’t “want” to care about it, I want to get back to the flying rubix cube, the far away Asian province, I want to get back to the interesting things that were not held back by phobia’s and fears that not acknowledging modern day society and social behavior would loose credibility with the gaming audience.

No, it would ENHANCE the respect for the writers to ELIMINATE that element of the game entirely by moving back to the core of a fantasy universe and treating it as it should be treated, a FANTASY universe with UNREALISTIC scenerio’s and UNREALISTIC characters facing situations and EVENTS that we can RELATE to, but are not necessarily DIRECT references to the day to day problems and indeed afflictions of peoples social standing, physical and mental impediments or indeed statements about gender, race, age or anything else that is a tribute to the real world.

Why, do we need ANY of that, in fantasy?

I want my Charr to shoot at Humans again because it was fun, I want bias, I “want” those things because they are PART of the universes flavor and ENHANCE it by giving freedom to an author to EXPRESS their fantasy world WITHOUT the hindrance of reality.

A few examples of bad guys that you could go with:
- A player companion that causes trouble while seemingly helping you, maybe some kleptomanic that steals important relics that causes ancient traps to get set off all the time.
- An anti-villain that’s goals co-exist with yours but they have a darker way of achieving it, e.g. the death of thousands may save hundreds.
- A power hungry individual, be it a cult, or a power hungry character (Caudecus) that takes advantage of the dragon plight to gain power in their own homeland and influence, seemingly not a major threat at first, but once they amass enough power, they become one.
- A hero that will fall from grace over time, someone we fight side by side with only to eventually be turned by the dragons corruption against us and thus forcing us to kill a friend that was once an ally or even someone that may become a reoccurring enemy over time. Someone maybe naive enough to try controlling dragon magic only to be corrupted by it inevitably.

There’s a lot of doors for bad guys, and I think you A-net devs have been scared because of Scarlet but I say, don’t stop trying, look for more windows, for example, I dare say Anise could be a villain, but so could the Master of Peace (then again I’m the kind that suspects everyone so good luck catching me off guard, and if you do, I am genuinely impressed).

I generally find the best antagonists are chars that start as minor characters and over time become more major, they may have been the subtle hand behind everything all along and you just didn’t pay attention, they start off as little more than a char in a single episode that makes a very minor appearance and seems pretty small but as time goes on you begin hearing stories about someone with a familiar appearance and when you finally meet them again SURPRISE they actually had you fooled all along, maybe even getting you to kill their enemies for them.

THE best villains imho, are the ones hidden RIGHT behind the obvious one, the one that you SHOULD see coming but didn’t.

Rather than looking at this from an Expansion POV maybe it should be looked at more in the context of the Living Story itself and how can Season 2 and Season 3 improve where its already gone.

What has S2 done right

- The story is a lot more fluid (with the exception of DR part 1) and smooth, making the story more consistent and better paced.
- The Main Characters do eventually get some important character development.
- The Pact is back (finally).
- We got a new zone (minor yay) but heck it has a kick kitten soundtrack and visual detailing.
- We got a new backpack that has an interesting scavenger hunt mechanic to forge.

Now for the Bad:
- S2 so far has suffered from a lack of content, namely that it took 4 updates to give us a full Dry Top, of which the town of prospect had to change which may affect people doing episode 1 of this story for the first time.
- DR part 1 was a disaster, trying to tie world events into story progression was just ‘bad’ without an excuse to justify it.
- It feels almost too easy to do even if I myself am a casual gamer, and it lacks any real long term challenge, achievements aren’t motivating.
- Dry top is only ONE zone with no new sign of a dungeon any time soon, that took 2 months to “fully” make over the course of 4 updates.

What S3 and future updates should try doing:
- Focus less on weekly update, and more on what might be SIMILAR to an expansion, this means, longer development time, but bigger content chunks E.g:
- 3 month development time for the first part of season 3, it comes with the first 4 episodes of 12, 2 new zones and potentially 1 new world boss.
- It may sound like a lot of work for devs to make that much in only 3 months but since zones would be no bigger than dry top in expanse I don’t see an excuse why they cant in 3 months of dev time.
- Raid Boss Atunement, E.g. Certain parts of a zone are afflicted with THICK dragon corruption and give you an almost instant kill Debuff without atunement, thus you have to UNLOCK the right to fight the world boss, which has a special weapon set that only drops exclusively from that boss, and will guarantee you a chance to acquire it IF you can kill the boss in an associated time ONCE you are attuned (yes it sounds hard but its really not to develop or to do as a player).
- Less focus on the Biconics, while they are a group of heroes in the world it would be interesting to let them go their own way post S2 and give other things a chance to shine, like the cast of Lions Arch, or maybe minor chars, maybe the pact.
- Sub Antagonists, aka: Humanoid villains and not just the dragons, something like Scarlet, but done more concisely so that its less confusing, e.g. A Cult started in the name of the remaining dragons, or some looter taking advantage of the war, or maybe a few war hungry patriots on the human/charr conflict stirring trouble between the dragon problems, maybe another Anti-Villain like a Mursaat or something.
- Same as above, focus on a villainous character that we can get to know over time and not just some random guy we kill off after we keep hearing they did this or that, but rather someone that actively causes trouble while we are trying to fix it.

There’s a few things that’s for thought about S3 and what I think A-net should do with it.

Kim.4152:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Hey all, while the topics being brought up in the last couple of posts posts may be interesting to discuss, let’s all circle back to talking about the game and its characters in this thread.

Thanks much!

This topic only came up because of the OP falsely and unfairly blaming feminists for the aspects of Braham’s character he does not like. So, it is relevant to the opening post.

Interesting that you selectively ignore the rest of my points about the other characters but I digress, people will always nitpick the smallest details (ha I guess I can talk!)

Look, lets look at this from another POV: Sometimes someone has to say the other sides thoughts not just the “Taimi for President” group but the side that actually says “Look there are reasons people don’t all exclusively like the Living Story cast.”

Now then let me point out some new facts based on Dragons Reach Part 2 that I specifically would like to point out:

Taimi

DR Part 2 was exactly what I was saying with Taimi, a scenario where Taimi has to actually be supported BY the rest of the team finally happened (though I’m a little sad you didn’t at least add “Boss! Braham! Help me!” in that situation since I felt like a spare part >.>).

This was also the first time we got to see Taimi ACT like a Teenager, which I was happy with, Taimi actually behaved irrationally and stupidly just because she wanted a little glory hog for herself and as a consequence she got into more trouble than it was worth.

Some people might look at it in the context of “No she made it she deserves credit for it!” Yes she does but at the end of the day nobody should be given a cuddle for nearly destroying their own prototype save the world device.

It was good to see her have a little taste of Hubris gone wrong for a change and I do hope from this point on Taimi has a bit more respect for Braham instead of always calling him an idiot or making gentle reference jokes to it since he did essentially SAVE her.

Speaaaaking of which:

Braham

I didn’t like Braham in DR part 1, to be honest, DR part 1 was incredibly weak and the “off camera” mother/son dialogue was cringe worthy, I really hope they never try that stuff again because it was bad design.

I get they were trying to show Eir and Braham are estranged but it didn’t work, because for the most part, I did not get to see ENOUGH to see they were slowly warming to each other.

That said, I can at least see they are trying to make him smarter and grow over time which is showing, I just hope it sticks and evolves with the character which would make him a tad more interesting to interact with.

Rox

DR part 1 was the selling point for Rox, this was where she truly became the star of the show, obviously part 2 she didn’t have a major part to play but that’s fine, in Rytlocks story she was pivotal and it showed.

This was the first time I genuinely LIKED Rox since she broke away from her notice me senpai Rytlock fangirly behavior and moved into a more using her present logic to make a point of Rytlocks plan being pretty kitten risky.

She was genuinely useful and genuinely involving in this story.

Jory

I wanna know what she did with Bel’s body, if she actually tried to ress it and failed, or if she just buried it and met her family, because her story was obviously the weakest but considering there was virtually no char involvement that’s fine, I can forgive it.

Kasmeer

We obviously can see something big is going on with Kas and that’s an interesting thing, that said I fear Kasmeers interesting quirks were WELL overshadowed unfortunately by the EXTREMELY welcome return of our favorite cynic, Canach who essentially stole the show of part 2.

That said, Kas without Jory isn’t a first timer, she was introduced without Jory in south sun so its interesting that she’s conveniently in the same story content Canach is in.

I also liked Anise a hell of a lot in this present stuff, she was a big major player in what was going on, juicy things.

But focusing on the group:

Kas was okay, Jory didn’t have anything but its forgivable because of that, Rox got a lot better, Braham is slowly improving and Taimi finally got a lesson in humility.

Sooo, I’m happy, long story short.

I am entirely content and look forwards to Episode 5 though I do agree with a lot of people saying this game does need an expansion and I do also believe that as much as I like the Biconics or have come to, I believe we need a break from them when S2 is over and they need a break from us too.

Perhaps bring back minor chars like the consortium and Kiel and flesh them out in Season 3.

I was told Gnashblade had some big part to play in S2 somewhere, in an earlier interview about S2 (cant remember the exact words, something about him being angry at Kiel and slowly getting revenge for it).

Shrike, THANK YOU, firstly for being one of the few to point out exactly why the Biconics are not that special.

As much as I have liked my traveling with jory and kas, rox, braham and taimi, I feel like the points Shrike makes here are exactly relevant and perhaps exactly what I was trying to say with my own forum topic.

But thank you none the less for being one of the few that will openly stand up to the problem they present and why they just cannot carry the “living world” for us.

People need to realize the Living World has a plethora of potential that is being ignored, the consortium, the lions arch crew, the main chars of DE and the various races of Tyria, the Pact and the Orders.

Where the hell are they in this story about us and the 5 man nobodies?

As much as I like the crew and their potential I feel like they need to be their own deal and less of a thing “we” need to manage or care for since their presence has become less of an iconic value and more of a nuisance.

I feel that A-net needs to pull a sword art online with the Biconics, perhaps being a really good way to motivate the player to care about them.

What are you talking about, Sword Art Online?

In SA:O Spoilers Kirito the main character attempts to save a group of newbies that ultimately ends in their summary slaughter because of his own over confidence, this essentially means every member of that group dies leaving him a changed person because of the experience.

I, feel, the same thing, should happen to the Biconics.

Some might say that’s pointless after all we’ve been through but I argue its entirely the opposite, it would give them so much more context to show that having lost them meant something, we were responsible for THEIR deaths which could be a seriously impact evoking way to get the player to be more interested and invested in future regular characters and cast that we could in future try more to ‘save’.

This could give us a chance to bring DE back into the spotlight as the old crew we worked with once and are determined to never let something as tragic as the downfall of the Biconics befall again.

Personally, I feel their presence has been a decent try from A-net but its clearly not enough to make an entire season over and over about 5 people that are voice actor dependent and equally story dependent to progress the story itself.

This could give a lot of DE based progression too, Eir blaming you for her sons death, Rytlock furious at you for Rox and so, you’d have to make up TO them to earn their respect again and that actually makes SENSE rather than forcing it.

Every member of DE would have their own way of ‘re-acting’ to your mistake, maybe this is equally what makes treesus take your rights to pact commander away, feeling that maybe you’re not ready, and thus, causing a mutiny against you.

That, to me, is what would give actual progression, things that make sense, and drive the changes forward.

Someone asked about my opinons on Episode 3 and the characters development so ill give that:

Kas

Lil dissapointed that we didnt even get a single moment of interaction between her and Countess Anise whom is clearly a devilish flirt, its also a kitteneap that we missed the entire Jennah interaction completely.

Braham

Cant say I feel that he improved at all, I get it, I do, and I can see what A-net was trying to do this episode with Eir and Braham but it felt weak, the entire “off scene” fighting bonding thing was pretty cheap and evasive of what could have been an entire instanced scenerio showing a much needed Mother/Son Bonding and chance for char evolution.

Taimi

I actually like Phlunt acting as the balancing force to Taimi, a versed and elderly and obnoxious fellow that’s hard to like against a crippled prodigy that’s trying to become favored with the collages actually makes Taimi a bit more interesting to interact with now and I can accept this more.

That said, I’m more interested in what the heck shes doing with Omadd’s machine, I don’t fully trust her motives there, since that machine clearly was intended for seeing visions and I don’t believe for one minute she genuinely intends to use it to save the way point system.

Rox

For the first god kitten time I actually LIKED this character and I mean kitten did she get some NEEDED character development in this chapter, even if it was VERY small it was significant, very, significant.

Rox stole the show this time, and I feel both vocally she improved as-well as dialogue wise, she actually felt relevant this time and not just a “Notice me Rytlock Senpai” character but actually accepting she wont be part of his band yet still caring made me feel a bit more invested in her.

The story definitely tried to give the chars better context, but its still not quite there, however, I’m a lot happier in some respects though I disliked the WAY they did this patch more than the story itself.

Even so I do feel Episode 3 was very… lacking?

Id like to believe they will go the extra mile in future with char development arcs and instead of have us do an arbitrary world event actually give us more time with them to develop our interest in them, and their connections such as DE and their link to DE.

Something worth noting here with worrying concern is that with the removal of the Ghosts the ironic last real defense that the Ascalonian Humans have against the Charr is all but gone.

Not only that, but Mordremoths vines are extending southward from Iron Marches which will eventually mean they will head somewhere down coast.

Could this mean there will be an assault on Ebonhawke and thus the annihilation of the Ascalonian Race as we know it?

It certainly seems like a rather grim prospect for Ascalon.

If I had my own way id take down achievements completely and give people something else to do, since the entire concept of achievements is its own scourge on gaming.

Its such a cheap way to avoid making extra content and it shows.

Tbh I agree with the whole district thing, the mega servers need some kind of subtext menu to make things easier for players trying to get into the same server as their friends and equally into less crowded servers to get past tedious events.

A little surprise is waiting for those of you that did episode 2 in Fort Salma

A somewhat haunting memento, it even vanishes if you try to interact with it.

This actually made me care a little more about her, but I wonder if its foreshadowing something?

Will Beli make a return?

It is a change but you will notice now that her leaves are pulsing with magical energy when before they were static.

Coincidence?

I still don’t think that using world events to advance a story is ever a good idea, it just creates unnecessary clutter and in some cases just like fighting Zhaitan, the emphasis of personal looses its flare when you have to do a dungeon to finish your “personal” story.

People are upset not over the personal story but because the game lacks anything outside it to do “with friends” the story was never meant to be something you did “with friends” its meant to be “your” personal adventures in Tyria and thus the idea of making it part of a “you and whose army” vibe is a dumb way to sell a point.

Really, the game needs more features OUTSIDE personal story to give groupies their much needed dose of world event heavy stuff and a motive to “do” that stuff.

Right now the personal story “is” the selling point, and its a sad thing because it obviously cant cater to a group nor should it, rather, we need something else “to” do so that groupies get something on the side of their individual goals.

Firstly lets just admit here universally this idea was admirable but poorly implemented, and here’s why:

This Patch literally depends on World Events to advance the plot which causes Mega Servers to Lag and Bugs to happen frequently

I get what you were trying to do, try interacting more with the world, its not a bad idea, but the deliverance is terrible, and the fact it literally requires you to do certain world events to advance things is a lesson that should be learned.

A-Net, don’t do this again, its just a bad idea, there’s no reason to do this, period.

The last two episodes were pretty nice on the ride side of things but this one felt rough and surprisingly a little rushed.

I am hoping the next episode will be a little more indulgent and story heavy as this one felt more like a filler than a plot, granted, it is Part 1 of possibly 2 or 3 or whatever.

TL:DR?

What Worked:

- The Episode Story does continue and gives some interesting plot twists.
- The new backpack will be a time sinker.

What Doesn’t:

- Plot actually felt weak compared to the last two episodes, character bonds between certain characters could have been invested into more instead feeling hallow and a little empty.
- The method of advancing plot via World Events was just a bad idea, period.

How to Improve:

- World Events should stay separate from the story side of things, yet perhaps offer achievements and little ventures of their own to be rewarded for.
- While I wont spoil the story, I will say that A-net needs to avoid SHYING away from forcing char development on chars and literally doing things with them.

This is a vast, growing world that has potential.

Sadly, this episode, it felt more or less like a giant filler for whats coming more than a decent transition.

The ending was a little anti-climactic too, maybe its just me, but it just felt weaker than it needed to.

Logan is supposedly Ascalonian blood and could very well be indirectly related to the Ascalonian Kings down the Thackery Line.

We don’t know if the Thackery family has ever had connection to royalty but it does appear that a lot of his story revolves around eventually being tied to the ancient sword Rytlock currently carries.

What I do think is that the reason Countess Anise drove Logan away from Jennah during Season 1, is because in the book Edge of Destiny, Jennah had an almost SUPERNATURAL level of compulsion over Logan and I honestly believe that this is no coincidence.

Once again supporting the thesis that Anise may be the real queen, Jennah is just that powerful as a mesmer illusion that she herself may have slowly begun to gain awareness of her own existence, which may bode ill towards Anise.

If mesmers are clones, made from magic, then what does a clone think, feel, can it feel, can it think?

One wonders if perhaps it can even be its own person, independent of its creator over time.

Do remember that there is a lot of mystery surrounding Jennah and none of it seems too obvious.

It also seems almost metaphorical, that a queen of humanity would create clockwork golems designed as puppets to protect it.

Its almost like, a subtle hint, no?

Okay, for the love of, please read the lore if you’re going to say there are seven human gods.

There are actually EIGHT, Human Gods, including Menzies the Mad.

Abbadon, Dhuum, Menzies

There’s also Abbadon’s Predecessor, whom we do not know the name of, thus there are Nine, and the Arachnid God that came before them, thus that makes TEN.

The number of gods makes “very” little difference in the retrospect of things so the “seven dragons/seven gods” theory is bunk, sorry.

I’m not trying to crush speculation so much as put it in perspective, if you really want to speculate, stop using the six (and more) gods as a means to point out a link between two convinces.

Before you ask where I got that information:

There is a predecessor to Abbadon, the Realm of Torment “was” theirs, we do not know their name though but its possible they were a human god as well.

And before that predecessor there was an Arachnid, like an insect god, that ruled over that domain (implied to be Arachnia).

Either way, there’s too many variables to definitely say that the six gods and six dragons are the only connection.

I am pretty sure its in that same discussion about contacts she seems to imply something about a “Mutual friend” she keeps regarding as if she knows about E working for the priory.

It was during Escape from LA I believe during some idle banter between her and Kasmeer in Lornars Pass, I cant remember the exact dialogue, but I’m quite sure she implied it.

You say I lied? Id like to see exactly what statement, word for word I lied in vs a statement I contradict myself.

Now, aside from that:

Why would you let a Charr handle Asura Tech? Because Charr handle Charr tech, granted it isn’t as Dystopian and is clearly more Post Apocolyptic but I’m pretty sure some hot-wiring would have got the same result.

Also, it does not justify the fact that an extremely intellectually advanced being would suddenly launch herself into Omadd’s Machine KNOWING the consequences of her actions so that may have been a fault on the writers part for not keeping true to species culture.

However, What I dislike about Taimi is that Taimi is a Token Character.

She is the Child in Skyrim, the Anakin Skywalker in Episode 1.

She exists to be important in some way because shes supposed to be bright, quirky, clever, intellectual, brilliant, spunky, and a tad manipulative.

I get what she is, but that doesn’t change what she symbolizes.

Shes literally there to be exactly what the cardboard cutout says, with no depth, no complexity, she suddenly turns up in late S1 without warning, a literal “child” just being all clever and funny and at the time, I admired it, I even liked her for it.

But then I quickly began to realize.

This, character, will never be useful, ever.

You cant kill her, you cant wound her, you cant do anything to her that goes against PG13+ standards because by definition it would force the rating to go up.

…Yet… that’s not strictly true.

You can, hurt her, you just don’t have to KILL her, or physically injure her, hell you could even KILL the character and it would be plausible if done off screen.

I’m gonna quote the guy whose making the Warcraft Movie:

“There’s a hell of a lot you can get away with in a PG13+”

Hell, GW1, was 12+ and still managed to flourish despite it featuring:
- Graphically disgusting and horrifying monsters.
- Violent depictions of death.
- Entire civilizations being WIPED OUT virtually speaking.
- Implications of very dark and grizzly themes.
- You survive an apocalypse, you don’t save the world.

If you saved the world in Gw1, why was it that Ascalon was turned into a pile of ash and smoke, why was it that in Kryta people were being SACRIFICED ON AN ALTAR to fuel a ward that STAVED OFF A DEMONIC INVASION.

For the love of the six gods, this setting was never about child geniuses playing with dragon magic like a 10 year old with play dough, it was about dark, deep, intense situations that forced the player to survive some of the worst possible things that a universe can “throw” at you.

Even a traditionalist Gw1 player will be able to tell you by comparison to GW2, GW1 featured virtually no children, was set in a much darker universe to its modern day counterpart, and lived and thrived in very gritty elements of near apocalyptic situations.

What is Taimi to GW2? A representation of the direction we have radically flown away from, this phobia that a 12+ game cant have dark or edgy content is a very odd one to say the least, when the latter half of the game revolves around half the cast of your pact army being massacred by Zhaitan.

Simply put, I want GW2 to get back to what it was in GW1 and stick to its true nature instead of pretending to be something its not.

You cannot “rewrite” the universe just to conveniently accommodate a completely different happier toned setting, that’s called “fan-fic” and its a bad way to make a universe different.

Dragons destroying land is a good start, and taking lives away is yet another example of what the game needs.

It also needs signs of rebuilt civilization’s and signs that the races of Tyria are claiming land as well as loosing it.

Yet the struggle, the ambiance, the tone of joy against darkness feels wrong.

Take Dragon Bash.

Was Dragon Bash a good thing to have during the aftermath of Flame and Frost and the Southsun Cove events?

You’re going to suddenly make a happy joyous festivity out of a freaking slaughter?

I get the point, I do, but it feels like its delivered wrong.

And Taimi serves to prove what I’m trying to convey.

She isn’t a bad character, but she lacks the characteristics that make her apart of the ambiance naturally, rather instead, shes supposed to come across as some strong kid were all rooting for when really its like putting a brilliant minded child with epic machines in the middle of a dragon infested to- oh wait.

They did that, and rather than going in and saving her, we just literally get told shes fine.

I don’t get it.

There is no enmity to Taimi, just a feeling of uncertainty that this works, and hopefully who knows I will be proven wrong and this actually meshes rather well.

For now I remain unconvinced.

I don’t deny Mad Queen that it is more than likely this is just because her paranoid mother would probably blame Kasmeer for Bel’s Death and it would make more sense that she doesn’t want to cause problems for Kas.

However, I also feel Jory is the kind of person that doesn’t always think rationally even with her film noir logic, shes a very dark individual with very shadowy backgrounds and pasts, in all that time studying dark rituals I am pretty sure it has probably crossed her mind to practice a few.

Again, my theory with this goes back to the idea she could try to resurrect Belinda but it would probably go HORRIBLY wrong.

I’m honestly thinking that Anise is the real queen since she was the one that created the illusion of Queen Jennah in the crown pavilion.

She also “looks” like Salma, a lot more than Jennah herself does.

I think shes just afraid to take up the mantle of regalia because it means loosing her wayward, flimsy life.

It may also explain why she was trying to push Logan away during season 1 in the queens jubilee, since its possible shes afraid he might discover that Jennah isn’t the real Queen.

Well Episode 2 Came Out, my thoughts on the characters since it:

Kas and Jory:

They actually “did” strain their relationship which worked, see, Season 1 to its fair credit since I was there all the way from day freaking 1 of it did have a good build up to the Kas/Jory thing even if it did feel a little “predictable” in the end. But what I do feel is that it happened too fast and even if in this fictional world where characters worry about each others fates, throwing it down that right off the bat “kitten that was fast” is the only way I can put the Kas/Jory relationship.

I actually like the fact for the first time Jory doesn’t “want” Kas near her, because it gives them a sense of struggle for once, and struggle enhances relationship or ends it, which will be interesting to see what direction that goes.

That said, Belinda’s death “was” forced and nobody can deny she was just killed off purely as a token character which was a little bit too convenient.

Honestly I would rather she had died “later” than sooner if she had to die at all just so we had more time to know her.

Rox and Braham

I actually liked the fact that Rox is being motherly towards Braham, for once she actually feels useful in the group and not just because she suddenly remembered in the end of S1 she had some medical skills we never knew about, but because she genuinely actually does something in the game representing her ability to worry about him, even as far as to apparently dislike Taimi (if you read your personal story journal about Ep2).

Rox was the stand out this episode for me since this is the first time I actually liked her as a character outside her “N-n-notice me Senpai!” Complex for Rytlock.

Taimi

Well… being disabled myself with Tendonitis, Aspergers and Dyspraxia where do I start.

“The Golem Solves Everything”. This, to me actually annoyed me, a lot, we just suddenly find the prodigy child is just suddenly in her golem perfectly fine everything’s dandy and nothings wrong.

Yet again… they are trying to make her useful, but it feels like she is actually becoming the spotlight character since she has:

- Broken down Vines with a Golem when Braham could have done this.
- Started activating Asura machinery because machines and Charr have nothing in common right?
- Doesn’t even care that Belinda died.
- Fails at being an Asura by doing the incompetent thing of throwing herself into Omadds Machine despite the fact she KNEW what the consequences were going to be.

And people like her?

Oh don’t get me wrong, the fact she recognizes that “the boss” should play with the nasty Asura machinery to destroy inquest was a good twist but at the same time it still feels like people are too forgiving of this characters faults.

TL:DR
- Taimi does recognize you as the boss, fair enough, she also helps in her own way by hacking Scarlet’s old consoles.
- Taimi is an idiot for rushing into a machine she KNEW VERY WELL made Scarlet go insane, so much for that “Asura Genius” people keep preaching about.

I don’t have a bee under my bonnet for Taimi, I just don’t see the appeal of this character the same way other people do.

When she was first introduced, I liked her rather quirky and spunky attitude but now I find it highly annoying and a little bit obnoxious.

It also doesn’t help she practically serves as a-nets conduit to remind us we have to feel sorry for Scarlet because her biggest fan-girl never shuts up about her.

This character needs a giant wake-up call, something that will actually take her off Scarlet romancing and start to make her ambitious about her own dreams and aspirations instead of following in the shadows of another.

I did say I wanted a darker Taimi, and I got one, what I also want is for Taimi to eventually go down the road of her own life rather than living behind Scarlet’s and just becoming Scarlet MK2.

I also think that while you cant kill a prodigy I do think if Scruffy was to be destroyed we might see a very interesting side of Taimi that id like to see.

I want to know what shes like when she “isn’t” confident about herself.

I just think that Taimi in general needs to develop a bit more, being the youngest character in a setting where its roots come from destruction, she has the most POTENTIAL as a character to evolve from it all to become a good ‘or’ bad person in time.

I personally want to see all sides of Taimi explored from her strength to her weakness, and so far, we don’t see enough of her weakness.

Vulnerabilities enhance someone, we have yet to see a single moment Taimi genuinely suffered from her disabilities that made her feel like she was angry, upset, or frustrated about it, that makes her determined to overcome it or not be pitied.

Actually in Season 1 Jory mentions some reference to E being part of the priory I cant remember exactly where but it was during the battle for LA or escape.

She doesn’t know his identity to my knowledge but she does know he works for them, I cant remember where its referenced though.

GW2’s official version of the vision with a male human Vigil Character.

Now, we know that E, is part of the priory buuuuuuuuut, could this be him?

Did A-net just tease us?

So… did anyone else get this Shepherd reaper indoctrination theory yet?

Something worth noting, after scarlet saw Mordy she went insane, does that hypothetically mean Mordy is in our heads now.

Have we become dragon corrupted?

Interesting hypothesis, would certainly add a very personal element of the threat of Mordremoth to us I personally think.

Dunno about anyone else but I ponder, has what we have seen changed our characters fate forever?

Since you’re missing Menzies in that list of gods the seven gods theory is impossible since we don’t know weather Menzies is dead or not (which I think will be a plot device of a future living world season).

99% calling it regarding the Locket.

Its Anise.