personal gripes with the story [spoilers obviously]

Before I start this rant I want to say I love the new gameplay. The design of the lands, the way the mounts work, and all the quips of Canach, absolutely love them.That said, I also have a few gripes with the story that are only answered by a few thoughts in the back of my head, so maybe others agree they are strange, or there are better explanations than I have. Anyway, I'll try to keep them brief:

Firstly, Abaddon's punishment, compared to Balthy's:Abaddon and Balthazar. When Abaddon went rogue, he fought the other gods are a near stalemate, until their bundles powers struck him down. This was after a long war that ravaged both the people and the lands below, turning nations against one another, and brandishing the sapphire sea into a sulphorous wasteland. Yet when Balthazar confronted the others, all they needed to do was strip Balthazar of his power, and chain him down. And secondly, Abaddon required years of meticulous planning and a culthood of priests to break free, which didn't even succeed, but Balthazar could get out by a random Charr who didn't even know what he was doing.My only answer to this issue is the one changed factor: kormir. Knowledge was on Abaddon's side in the previous war, but maybe Kormir learnt of a way to seal another god without risking war. If anyone have a better explanation, please share.

Secondly, the bloodstone. While they were designed to regulate the flow of magic into the world, there's no doubt their value is in any way negligable. Balthazar absorbing one bloodstone, and subsequently dying releasing all magic for Aurene to be absorbed, this would have, and should have, dire, if not catastrophical effects on nature and the way magic flows. In GW1 the effect: Curse of Bloodstone (reducing reanimation skills) was the same in both Bloodstone Fen and Abaddon's Maw bloodstone, so I can't tell which bloodstone specifically is lost. I have no explanation for why this is possible without side-effects, and if anything, we should see effects because of this.

And thirdly: Palawa Joko.From how I understood it, Palawa Joko has been imprisoned by Balthazar in the unholy land, where restless dead rest.. (paradox, yaaay)anyway, my theory in this regard is that Balthazar used Lyssa's Mirror not only to impersonate Lazarus in Kryta, but also to impersonate Palawa Joko in Elona. He most likely tricked Palawa Joko into going into the Primeval tomb which had the ghosts so riled up against our coming, and then he used Lyssa's Mirror to take his place, until we broke it. After that, the Archon had simply been in command following the last orders of Joko.

(I wont discuss Gleam/Vlast here as I believe almost everyone already has a quaggan opinion on this regard (if I am to believe the ingame community and the forum)Enough rants, a little positive feedback is good, too:I loved the mounts, and their vivid animations. They seem truly alive, and not like 'another engine' the way I felt about most mounts in other games. One piece of feedback in this regard would be the use of a emotes while mounted, and also a better method of switching mounts. A pivotal menu like the map markers sounds like a good idea to me.

Map difficulty is also great, to me. When I played the beta I was genuinely worried the forged were WAY TO WEAK, I cut through them like butter. So I'm glad to see it has become a little more challenging. I really hope they never get nerfed.

And a small idea for the future: If Palawa Joko is really out of the picture now (or he comes back in LS4) I can think of no better window for a new playable race: Awakened.They have a human skeleton, so in regard of animations, armor design, etc, it should be not too difficult. As for personal story.. hm... At the start, create a human and an awakened. Then you play your normal personal story until you get approached by the orders, but instead of meeting trahearne, you follow your chosen order to Elona, where in your level 70 story you die, and get reawakened, and then at the end Palawa Joko gets taken Balthazar and since you know this, you can 'rebel'. I mean, it's just an idea..

anyway, sorry for the long post,

Balthazar personally forged and empowered Abaddon's chains while in the case of imprisoning Balthazar himself the other Gods used what they had available which was clearly not as good as what their prisoner could create especially against something he empowered(funny how two objects empowered by him led to the deaths of two Gods: himself and Abaddon).

While I'm at it: It's also funny how Balthazar's Fire Magic has a Purple Tinge to it just like Mordremoth, portions of Zhaitan's corruption, Abaddon and Kralkatorrik do.

I didn't understand the final cutscene, someone care to explain me why in the midst of Kralkatorrik destruction we see a shot of a smiling Aurene?

@Susy.7529 said:I didn't understand the final cutscene, someone care to explain me why in the midst of Kralkatorrik destruction we see a shot of a smiling Aurene?

She's not smiling. The influx of magic has caused her to grow and/or age and the structure of her face has changed.I'm not even sure she is physically capable of smiling. She doesn't have lips.

@Susy.7529 said:I didn't understand the final cutscene, someone care to explain me why in the midst of Kralkatorrik destruction we see a shot of a smiling Aurene?

the big question is it looked like that was Amnoon that was being branded, was Crackletoes Going after the commander deliberately to make Him/Her into a minion?

@Ayakaru.6583 said:Firstly, Abaddon's punishment, compared to Balthy's:My guess is that after the fight with Abaddon, they learned that they can't just have an open war against one of their own and hope that there is no collateral damage from the scuffle. That's why they made certain to power Balthazar down before throwing him into the Mists, all chained up with the hopes of him staying there. And it's not exactly a bad plan, either. There aren't a lot of mortal creatures wandering around loose in the Mists. Rytlock was an anomaly on that front, and that he would have the legendary sword Sohothin with him made things even more improbable. Even Rytlock didn't know he had set Balthazar free, or why the man was chained up the way he was.Secondly, the bloodstone.The bloodstones are vessels of great magical energy which the gods tapped into to give humans magic. When the one in Bloodstone Fen exploded due to reckless tampering, it devastated the area and drove those caught in the blast who weren't instantly killed bloodstone crazy. Now, I haven't seen the final scene, but it's possible that Aurene is either far more efficient in absorbing the released magic, or she was closer to the epicenter than Balthazar was when he sucked up Bloodstone Fen's magic. I'll tell you once my game patches and I have a stable connection again.And thirdly: Palawa Joko.From how I understood it, Palawa Joko has been imprisoned by Balthazar in the unholy land, where restless dead rest.. (paradox, yaaay)anyway, my theory in this regard is that Balthazar used Lyssa's Mirror not only to impersonate Lazarus in Kryta, but also to impersonate Palawa Joko in Elona. He most likely tricked Palawa Joko into going into the Primeval tomb which had the ghosts so riled up against our coming, and then he used Lyssa's Mirror to take his place, until we broke it. After that, the Archon had simply been in command following the last orders of Joko.No, just... no. One of Balthazar's powers is probably to open portals into the Mists, allowing him to travel through realms. He probably created the one that sent Rytlock back after freeing Balthazar. I'm not quite sure why he needed Palawa Joko to find the Land of the Dead (for lack of a better term), but it certainly made for a good place to trap a possible rival once he had outlived (out-un-lived?) his usefulness. No one ever claimed Joko was replaced, but his powerful agents like the Vizier, probably propagated the myth he had established about himself and just coasted on that so that they could be in power without having to actually overthrow his leaders. After all, one of the first hearts you find in Vabbi is that new Awakened are no longer being sent to serve them, which means no one is making new ones.

I loved the mounts, and their vivid animations. They seem truly alive, and not like 'another engine' the way I felt about most mounts in other games. One piece of feedback in this regard would be the use of a emotes while mounted, and also a better method of switching mounts. A pivotal menu like the map markers sounds like a good idea to me.I agree that each animal definitely has its own personality, and feels truly unique from one another. I just wish the springer wasn't quite as slippery when it comes to hopping up narrow platforms. I also agree that it would be nice to somehow be able to switch directly from one mount to another without having to dismount if we have bound hotkeys for each mount. It's probably a technical issue with might be fixed later if it becomes an issue.And a small idea for the future: If Palawa Joko is really out of the picture now (or he comes back in LS4) I can think of no better window for a new playable race: Awakened.They have a human skeleton, so in regard of animations, armor design, etc, it should be not too difficult. As for personal story.. hm... At the start, create a human and an awakened. Then you play your normal personal story until you get approached by the orders, but instead of meeting trahearne, you follow your chosen order to Elona, where in your level 70 story you die, and get reawakened, and then at the end Palawa Joko gets taken Balthazar and since you know this, you can 'rebel'. I mean, it's just an idea..Surprised no one is commenting on how much this is a rip-off of the Undead faction from WoW. We don't steal ideas from WoW. At least, not so directly. I don't know what's going to happen with Joko, but he seems to have a strange knack for getting himself imprisoned. As the player characters, we've never had to directly oppose him, which is a really curious feeling when you think about it, and especially if you look at the two maps that are squarely in his kingdom. Perhaps this will change? Or perhaps this is an intentional writing direction.anyway, sorry for the long post,Oh, please. In the Lore forum, this is nowhere near the longest post we've seen. Yes, we lost the archives, but there's a lot of lore to discuss, much of which many players just aren't aware of because it's tucked away in a corner few people dare to explore. Besides, more details is much more useful than "OMG thiz storee liek SUCKS! Change it plz kbye!" Details means we can have a discussion, rather than just a complainfest.

Palawa Joko will be back in LS4 for sure, it was Balthazar's power keeping him chained in the Domain of the Lost.

Is my undead idea that much of a ripoff?

@Ayakaru.6583 said:Is my undead idea that much of a ripoff?Not a complete ripoff, no, but creating an undead faction? I believe it's a very different approach to how the Scourge faction works in WoW, but it definitely had shades of it. Uh, no pun intended. Plus, there'd be the awkwardness of having to fight the other Awakened in The Desolation and beyond, or at least have a good reason for it. Having you flagged as on their team would feel like a real imbalance in difficulty.

On punishment: from what Kormir shows us, there's two important differences. By the time Abaddon declared he was set for a fight, he had an army of riled followers to draw on, whereas Balthazar seems to have thrown down his gauntlet while he was apparently alone at a meeting with the other five. When Abaddon rebelled, Tyria was the battlefield; the confrontation with Balthazar took place in the Mists, where collateral damage was presumably less of a concern. And from what we see, there certainly was a fight.

That doesn't explain why they left him unguarded, or how they were able to strip him of his power, but it's not a huge surprise that Sohothin was capable of breaking his chains once we see what it does later on (which is it's own set of questions, but at least not something the gods would've reasonably needed to account for).

On the explosion: It's easy to miss if you're looking the wrong way, but your character does mention it later on. Aurene sucked up enough of the epicenter to save you and level up to her next evolution, but most of Balthazar's energy got sucked down Kralkatorrik's maw- similar outcome to what Balthazar did with the bloodstone, but with an entity that's specialized to consume magic. Supercharging an Elder Dragon is going to have its own consequences, but we're already starting to see those.

On Joko: From what I understand of the timeline, I don't think Balthazar came into contact with Joko until after the mirror was broken. He doesn't seem to have turned attention to Elona until after his shot at Primordus was blown, and his first order of business would've been forging (heh) an army to replace the mercenaries he'd left behind. We don't know how much he knew going in, but contacting Joko, who was a military and magical power and had a history of cutting deals for his own benefit, would've been a logical step regardless. As far as Joko's kingdom goes, his imprisonment wouldn't have made a difference to them. All they know is that their god-king left, on his own business, and hasn't come back yet. We see some of the higher-ups getting antsy about how long it's been, but they have no way of knowing that Joko had been out of the picture entirely.

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:Supercharging an Elder Dragon is going to have its own consequences, but we're already starting to see those.

I'm calling it. The next expac will be - Guild Wars 2: Crystal Apocalypse!

Either that or: BRAND OF DOOOOOOOM!

@Ayakaru.6583 said:Firstly, Abaddon's punishment, compared to Balthy's:Abaddon and Balthazar. When Abaddon went rogue, he fought the other gods are a near stalemate, until their bundles powers struck him down. This was after a long war that ravaged both the people and the lands below, turning nations against one another, and brandishing the sapphire sea into a sulphorous wasteland. Yet when Balthazar confronted the others, all they needed to do was strip Balthazar of his power, and chain him down. And secondly, Abaddon required years of meticulous planning and a culthood of priests to break free, which didn't even succeed, but Balthazar could get out by a random Charr who didn't even know what he was doing.My only answer to this issue is the one changed factor: kormir. Knowledge was on Abaddon's side in the previous war, but maybe Kormir learnt of a way to seal another god without risking war. If anyone have a better explanation, please share.

The differences actually make some sense. Abaddon was imprisoned with all his strength and might, but held down by chains created by Balthazar, and his power was held back by the eight gates in the Realm of Torment. They learned their lesson with Abaddon well, knowing to just outright drain Balthazar's power. But they similarly had no god to make ultimate chains like they did with Abaddon, thus allowing an outside source to fell them.

@Ayakaru.6583 said:Secondly, the bloodstone. While they were designed to regulate the flow of magic into the world, there's no doubt their value is in any way negligable. Balthazar absorbing one bloodstone, and subsequently dying releasing all magic for Aurene to be absorbed, this would have, and should have, dire, if not catastrophical effects on nature and the way magic flows. In GW1 the effect: Curse of Bloodstone (reducing reanimation skills) was the same in both Bloodstone Fen and Abaddon's Maw bloodstone, so I can't tell which bloodstone specifically is lost. I have no explanation for why this is possible without side-effects, and if anything, we should see effects because of this.

More than just Bloodstone magic, also magic from Primordus and Jormag. However, you seem to have greatly missed something in the ending. Kralkatorrik absorbed almost all of that power - there was very little, if any, ambient magic left. And we see the effects of that in the epilogue instance.

Also, the Curse of the Bloodstone effect in Bloodstone Fen and Abaddon's Mouth were caused not by the Bloodstones, but by the soul batteries attached to the Bloodstones.

@Ayakaru.6583 said:And thirdly: Palawa Joko.From how I understood it, Palawa Joko has been imprisoned by Balthazar in the unholy land, where restless dead rest.. (paradox, yaaay)anyway, my theory in this regard is that Balthazar used Lyssa's Mirror not only to impersonate Lazarus in Kryta, but also to impersonate Palawa Joko in Elona. He most likely tricked Palawa Joko into going into the Primeval tomb which had the ghosts so riled up against our coming, and then he used Lyssa's Mirror to take his place, until we broke it. After that, the Archon had simply been in command following the last orders of Joko.

That's a probable deduction, in all honesty. Though we know they also went to Kesho together, so Balthazar had to appear before Joko as, well, something or another. Maybe as Lazarus - I could see Joko of all people willing to work with Lazarus.

I'm not sure what's ranting here though.

@Ayakaru.6583 said:And a small idea for the future: If Palawa Joko is really out of the picture now (or he comes back in LS4) I can think of no better window for a new playable race: Awakened.They have a human skeleton, so in regard of animations, armor design, etc, it should be not too difficult. As for personal story.. hm... At the start, create a human and an awakened. Then you play your normal personal story until you get approached by the orders, but instead of meeting trahearne, you follow your chosen order to Elona, where in your level 70 story you die, and get reawakened, and then at the end Palawa Joko gets taken Balthazar and since you know this, you can 'rebel'. I mean, it's just an idea..

It's pretty obvious they're setting him up to be a future villain. Firstly, he was imprisoned by magic powered by Balthazar. Balthazar dies, magic prison fades. Secondly, we antagonize the hell out of Joko before leaving, ensuring that he will want the Dragon Slayer slayed.

I remember leaks from... episode 2's release? Which claimed Lazarus was Balthazar, Expac2 would go to the Crystal Desert where we deal with Kralkatorrik and Primordus, and Season 4 go into Elona to deal with Vabbi.

At the time it seemed silly since the plot was going towards Primordus and Jormag, and there was no real indication that Balthazar was Lazarus (and there still wasn't until episode 5), but if one were to replace "Kralkatorrik and Primordus" with "Kralkatorrik and Balthazar", well, leaks would be 100% spot on.

@dusanyu.4057 said:

@Susy.7529 said:I didn't understand the final cutscene, someone care to explain me why in the midst of Kralkatorrik destruction we see a shot of a smiling Aurene?

That looked like the Domain of Vabbi to me. I had thought Kralkatorrik was flying further south or something, again.

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:On Joko: From what I understand of the timeline, I don't think Balthazar came into contact with Joko until after the mirror was broken. He doesn't seem to have turned attention to Elona until after his shot at Primordus was blown, and his first order of business would've been forging (heh) an army to replace the mercenaries he'd left behind. We don't know how much he knew going in, but contacting Joko, who was a military and magical power and had a history of cutting deals for his own benefit, would've been a logical step regardless. As far as Joko's kingdom goes, his imprisonment wouldn't have made a difference to them. All they know is that their god-king left, on his own business, and hasn't come back yet. We see some of the higher-ups getting antsy about how long it's been, but they have no way of knowing that Joko had been out of the picture entirely.

Going to disagree here with when Balthazar began dealing with Joko. While Balthazar was going after Primordus first, he made it clear he always intended to go after all the Elder Dragons. Further, the dialogue in The Way Forward in Kesho makes it clear that he learned things from the Exalted he turned into Forged there - which he did with Joko's aid - and that may easily include the knowledge about Aurene and Tarir, thus explaining how he knew where to go in Rising Flames when the egg was hatching (and in hindsight, we now know why Balthazar saved Aurene - he needed her and/or Vlast alive to kill Kralkatorrik easily, though why he didn't just use any branded champion is questionable, because they're less hostile I guess?).

He also would have needed time to prepare that Forged army, more than just a couple months if he was working with Joko to make them, and the letters from the Herald make it sound as if Balthazar had recruited the souls of his Eternal Army for the Forged for quite some time.

He's had since the beginning of HoT when Rytlock returned - 1328 AE - to be doing things in the background. So it'd make sense he'd spend a year to learn things and make truces with questionable beings he can betray at a moment's notice (Joko, Bauer) to build an army, before showing up as Lazarus in 1329 AE.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:On Joko: From what I understand of the timeline, I don't think Balthazar came into contact with Joko until after the mirror was broken. He doesn't seem to have turned attention to Elona until after his shot at Primordus was blown, and his first order of business would've been forging (heh) an army to replace the mercenaries he'd left behind. We don't know how much he knew going in, but contacting Joko, who was a military and magical power and had a history of cutting deals for his own benefit, would've been a logical step regardless. As far as Joko's kingdom goes, his imprisonment wouldn't have made a difference to them. All they know is that their god-king left, on his own business, and hasn't come back yet. We see some of the higher-ups getting antsy about how long it's been, but they have no way of knowing that Joko had been out of the picture entirely.

I actually expect it's the other way round- his encounter with the Exalted in Tarir may have given him the motive and direction to seek out Kesho and the idea for the Forged. This is going to come down to a matter of personal judgement, but I feel that Tarir would be easier to find first than Kesho. (On the other hand, if he had already known what Glint was planning at the time he was imprisoned, Kesho would've been the more logical choice.)

As far as timing goes... I'm not convinced that the scale of his forces correlates to the time spent building them. Scarlet (and by extension, Jennah) pulled armies out of thin air as needed during Season 1, and it took Mordremoth no time flat to make Mordrem Guards the bulk of his jungle-based horde. Reasonable explanations could be speculated on for both those cases, but to me, it makes more sense to write this off the same way we ignore the bandits mechanically outnumbering the Seraph by an order of magnitude, or the predator population density in Tyria far exceeding that of their prey.

My hesitation over the idea that he'd been tricking Joko for years boils down to A.) during their visit to Kesho, Balthazar was identifiably himself, and if the Exalted was able to recognize him it beggars belief to think Joko couldn't; B.) the Forged were nowhere in evidence in Draconis Mons, not even in the privacy of the caldera to guard the pivotal moment of triumph; and C.) Balthazar was being very careful not to tip his hand to the other gods until he felt ready to deal with them, which siphoning off Eternals from the Fissure of Woe likely would've done.

I also have a niggling feeling that something in the dialogue also suggested a short timespan, but until I go back and check I can't swear by it.

I really enjoyed the story, for the first two acts.Unlike most of my friends who rushed through the content, I took my time to go through slowly, map completing as I went, I hadn't got out of the Desert Highlands before guildies were flying around on griffins.The pace of the story through the first two acts allowed me to do this, and I had enormous amounts of fun exploring and completing events, until act 3, where the story pacing changed and suddenly felt rushed and pushed me out of the Desolation before I had finished it and into Vabbi, where again the story climaxed before I was even 20% explored here.It feels like there was a lot cut out (due to time constraints?) or maybe, because I've only done the sunspear path and not the other two I'm missing some story elements.More could (should) have been done with Kasmeer and Canach, Canach is my favorite member of Dragons Watch, but both of them felt like bystanders throughout the story, Kasmeer only being there to provide illusions the story needed to progress plot and Canach only there for light comic relief, where a much better job was done of this for "The head of the snake".

All in all, I just hope this isn't it for Joko, since for me he was one the main characters of elonian lore

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:I actually expect it's the other way round- his encounter with the Exalted in Tarir may have given him the motive and direction to seek out Kesho and the idea for the Forged. This is going to come down to a matter of personal judgement, but I feel that Tarir would be easier to find first than Kesho. (On the other hand, if he had already known what Glint was planning at the time he was imprisoned, Kesho would've been the more logical choice.)

I would say he did learn of Glint's plan beforehand. One of Glint's memory crystals talks about the Forgotten communicating so much with the Six, and her wondering just how much the Forgotten told the gods but not her. I could easily see the Forgotten telling the gods about Glint's plans to save the world. Especially if they were treating her plans like their own, like Vlast believed.

@Safari.3021 said:I really enjoyed the story, for the first two acts.Unlike most of my friends who rushed through the content, I took my time to go through slowly, map completing as I went, I hadn't got out of the Desert Highlands before guildies were flying around on griffins.The pace of the story through the first two acts allowed me to do this, and I had enormous amounts of fun exploring and completing events, until act 3, where the story pacing changed and suddenly felt rushed and pushed me out of the Desolation before I had finished it and into Vabbi, where again the story climaxed before I was even 20% explored here.It feels like there was a lot cut out (due to time constraints?) or maybe, because I've only done the sunspear path and not the other two I'm missing some story elements.More could (should) have been done with Kasmeer and Canach, Canach is my favorite member of Dragons Watch, but both of them felt like bystanders throughout the story, Kasmeer only being there to provide illusions the story needed to progress plot and Canach only there for light comic relief, where a much better job was done of this for "The head of the snake".

Yeah, the end does feel a bit rushed there. HoT was similar, and hell so was the Personal Story, Season 2, and Season 3. Arguably even Season 1. But HoT and PoF moreso than the rest.