A Returning Player's Take on A Bug in the System

Let me start off by saying that I recently got back into GW2 and I've been playing catch-up through all the story content with a friend. We did Path of Fire and then started on Living World Season 4. Daybreak was actually pretty good. An interesting intro with neat new characters and developments. It felt like an all new adventure. But...ah, then we come to Episode 2. It started off decently enough if a little silly, which I didn't mind. Infiltrate an Inquest base as a golem. We had fun with that! But then...then...we met a certain Charr and it all went downhill from there. Sharply downhill. Like a train plummeting off the side of a bridge with all the souls inside screaming.

I don't even know where to start with this tribe of Charr, these noble savages who escaped from the clutches of the Flame Legion. Was the dialogue and exposition heavy-handed enough that my friend and I were both actively cringing throughout the entire thing? Oh, you know it was. Were the attitudes of the Charr in question so alien to everything their culture had been that they might as well have not been Charr at all? I think you know the answer here.

That entire scenario was so cringe-worthy that we were both caught between grimacing and laughing at the attempts to make it touching and the efforts at serious tragedy. I was rather critical of the original game's somewhat clumsy attempt at storytelling but that was Grade A writing next to this. I find myself unable to express how ridiculous the entire thing was and how utterly jarring compared to the rest of the story and Charr culture in general. Not in a good way, either. It didn't shock us. It didn't humanize the Charr more. It just made both my friend and I shake our heads incredulously at this ham-fisted attempt at storytelling.

This is not a criticism for the story of GW2 in general. We both overall enjoyed both Path of Fire and Episode 1. Which is what made this transition so abrupt and, in my opinion, ill-conceived.

Needless to say, the two of us, after we were done cringing, set out to distance ourselves from this oh so noble and caring tribe as fast as humanly possible. Which led to us finishing the rest of Episode 2. While not as cringe-worthy as the segment with the Charr, it still felt distinctly inferior to the story we'd experienced thus far (and keep in mind that I'd previously played through HoT and some of Season 3 before this, so I'm comparing it to that as well). I understand that the intention was likely providing some more touching and personal moments but in my opinion it failed horribly and just left me feeling like I just sat through a bad B-movie. The scene at the end with the portals was fun, though, admittedly.

The saving grace of the entire experience was incredibly unintentional. Braham, who I wasn't a big fan of prior, managed to redeem himself. Not through dialogue but through what he did. At the part when we were getting the passwords from the terminals there is a room where a bunch of scientists are running around in a panic. After acquiring the password and getting the transmission from one of the two Asura brothers, we walked out to find Braham taking pot shots at the Inquest scientists as they ran around in a panic. Just casually butchering them as they ran and screamed. I laughed so hard at this unintentional butchery that I was crying. I thought to myself: "Wow, Braham is COLD!".

The thing that cinched it though was when we had defeated the Awakened Commander and were on the weird space rock, she begged to be shown the mercy of death. Not a second later, with us both standing there, we see a charged arrow just rocket past us to slam into her head and just take her out. Cue another round of laughing hysterically because apparently Braham has become a stone cold killing machine. The heart to heart right afterward just made it priceless.

So that is my take on Episode 2 of Living World Season 4. I'm hoping, going into Episode 3, that the story will get back on track. I'll likely be playing through it later today with my friend. It isn't my intention to insult the people who write the stories...overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed said stories. This particular one just stood out to me as being so out of place and heavy handed that I felt I needed to share my thoughts on it. If people disagree, that's perfectly fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'm still enjoying the game and looking forward to getting a Roller Beetle. I'm curious what others' thoughts on this are.

Braham does a nice funny after some proding from Joko (in Episode 3) and that’s all I’ll say. The bit in episode 3 is what finally redeemed him in my eyes. You will enjoy it.

@moonboi.1764 said:Braham does a nice funny after some proding from Joko (in Episode 3) and that’s all I’ll say. The bit in episode 3 is what finally redeemed him in my eyes. You will enjoy it.

I'm looking forward to it! The humor has always been a favorite of mine in the story.

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:

@moonboi.1764 said:Braham does a nice funny after some proding from Joko (in Episode 3) and that’s all I’ll say. The bit in episode 3 is what finally redeemed him in my eyes. You will enjoy it.

Then you will die laughing. I still giggle about it. You will know it when it happens.

@moonboi.1764 said:

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:

@moonboi.1764 said:Braham does a nice funny after some proding from Joko (in Episode 3) and that’s all I’ll say. The bit in episode 3 is what finally redeemed him in my eyes. You will enjoy it.

So far Rytlock and Canach have been my favorites for humor. Let's see if Braham can get up there with them!

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:

@moonboi.1764 said:

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:

@moonboi.1764 said:Braham does a nice funny after some proding from Joko (in Episode 3) and that’s all I’ll say. The bit in episode 3 is what finally redeemed him in my eyes. You will enjoy it.

They still hold their own at the end of Episode 3 but I thought his was the highlight. Just my opinion.

Yeah, the Olmakhan did not impress me much either, for exactly the same reasons. It was like they'd been genetically lobotomized.

@Ben K.6238 said:Yeah, the Olmakhan did not impress me much either, for exactly the same reasons. It was like they'd been genetically lobotomized.

Harsh, haha. I do know what you mean though...maybe it's the dialogue that just feels so incredibly stilted.

Funny, at the time of release, the Olmakhan were generally favorably met.As said, each to their own.

Welcome return.

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Funny, at the time of release, the Olmakhan were generally favorably met.As said, each to their own.

Welcome return.

Thanks for the welcome! My issue with them isn't really their culture in general (I can accept this even though I feel it's a bit of a stretch, it's doable). It was with how the storytelling during the scenario that introduced them was the equivalent of being smashed in the face with a baseball bat. It kind of gets shoved down your throat how good and noble they are. This combined with "Outlander, we are exceedingly suspicious of outsiders and just met you and didn't trust you a moment ago but go check on our tribe's children unsupervised would you?"

It felt rushed and heavy-handed overall and made me dislike them instantly when I probably could have appreciated them far more if it had been presented with a lighter touch and one in which you draw your own conclusions by interacting with them normally rather than being force-fed their culture and ideals. The...very stilted dialogue does not help.

Might want to add a spoiler alert to your thread title?

I guess it just goes to show that no matter what you do you can't please everyone. A lot of people seem to hold up A Bug In the System as one of the better Living Story releases, at least recently and highlight the Olmakhan as one of the best parts of it.

So warriors becoming pacifist is bad writing, but emotional guys becoming cold murderers is a good feature. Hmm...

I am still absolutely floored that when someone expresses a different opinion, several people just start jumping all over them. I’m so glad that the few people on the forums Do Not represent the rest of the player base. Like shit get your panties out of a bunch.

@moonboi.1764 said:I am still absolutely floored that when someone expresses a different opinion, several people just start jumping all over them. I’m so glad that the few people on the forums Do Not represent the rest of the player base. Like kitten get your panties out of a bunch.

I go commando thank you very much.

@Linken.6345 said:

@moonboi.1764 said:I am still absolutely floored that when someone expresses a different opinion, several people just start jumping all over them. I’m so glad that the few people on the forums Do Not represent the rest of the player base. Like kitten get your panties out of a bunch.

Hahahaha. I can accept that.

@moonboi.1764 said:I am still absolutely floored that when someone expresses a different opinion, several people just start jumping all over them. I’m so glad that the few people on the forums Do Not represent the rest of the player base. Like kitten get your panties out of a bunch.

The OP presents his opinion in a way that implies other people must agree with him. That's the reason of the rejection, not the criticism itself.

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:Were the attitudes of the Charr in question so alien to everything their culture had been that they might as well have not been Charr at all? I think you know the answer here.

The answer is: of course they were. After a hundred or two years of isolation, we'd expect people to be unfamiliar with their cousins form of culture, especially if the reason for the separation was to escape said culture.

I'm sorry that you and your friend didn't like it.

@Ardid.7203 said:

@moonboi.1764 said:I am still absolutely floored that when someone expresses a different opinion, several people just start jumping all over them. I’m so glad that the few people on the forums Do Not represent the rest of the player base. Like kitten get your panties out of a bunch.

Well, the OP did state that it was his opinion.

@kharmin.7683 said:Might want to add a spoiler alert to your thread title?

I considered this, but I figured that the title was fairly self-explanatory about the fact that I'd be covering the events of the chapter.

@Danikat.8537 said:I guess it just goes to show that no matter what you do you can't please everyone. A lot of people seem to hold up A Bug In the System as one of the better Living Story releases, at least recently and highlight the Olmakhan as one of the best parts of it.

They're certainly entitled to their opinion! I wasn't trying to present this as objective in any way. It is wholly and unapologetically my opinion, and I hold absolutely nothing against those who thoroughly enjoyed the storytelling of it. Different strokes for different folks!

@Ardid.7203 said:So warriors becoming pacifist is bad writing, but emotional guys becoming cold murderers is a good feature. Hmm...

I think you either missed the point or are deliberately misconstruing what was said. I know that in story Braham did not do any of that. It isn't canon in any way, shape, or form. What made it so hilarious to us was how incredibly unexpected and ridiculous it was. It was a quirk of the game AI that just so happened to provide humorous circumstance in a situation. Twice.

If this had happened in canon it wouldn't have been amusing at all.

@Ardid.7203 said:

@"moonboi.1764" said:I am still absolutely floored that when someone expresses a different opinion, several people just start jumping all over them. I’m so glad that the few people on the forums Do Not represent the rest of the player base. Like kitten get your panties out of a bunch.

It wasn't my intention to do so. If you're referring to the use of the word "we", that is denoting my friend and I who as stated played through the episode together. If you're talking about the part where I wrote "I think you know the answer here", I can honestly state that it was meant as humor and that the reader could guess what I was intending, whether or not the reader themselves held a similar opinion. So I know for a fact that at least one other person at the time of the writing agreed with me, but outside of that I made no assumptions and even went into this figuring that people would have vastly conflicting viewpoints.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:Were the attitudes of the Charr in question so alien to everything their culture had been that they might as well have not been Charr at all? I think you know the answer here.

I don't really have a logical means of disputing this other than to say that cultures rarely change that drastically so quickly, but I'm willing to allow for the fact that circumstances dictated that they did. Yes, it irked me, but that's my opinion and not an objective view. My main issue was how it was presented with all the storytelling subtlety of taking a baseball bat to the face and the, in my opinion, truly horrendous and cringy dialogue providing exposition.

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:Were the attitudes of the Charr in question so alien to everything their culture had been that they might as well have not been Charr at all? I think you know the answer here.

I didn't at all mean to suggest that there was something to dispute: you didn't like the story. I'm sorry for that.

But I hope you realize that you're phrasing made it seem as if there is an objective view: "I think you all know the answer here" isn't neutral. It assumes that everyone cringed when you did, whereas to me, it made complete sense. As obvious as it is to you that a bunch of charr shouldn't have forgotten what other charr were like in a mere 200 years, it was that obvious to me that of course they would. I'm not trying to suggest that my point of view is correct; I'm pointing out that both are points of view.

For that matter, it's a common literary device to turn certain characters into expository eunuchs (they have been neutered of all other meaning) except to give enough background that upcoming events will make sense, especially when there's too little time to show things like 200 years worth of evolution of culture or topography. It's not great dialogue and it's somewhat of an annoying shortcut, but it's par for RPGs.

I enjoyed ep2. I thought the charr tribe were excellently done and their whole area of an already great map, brought something a bit lighter to the story. It succeeded really well and balanced out the inquest in a ying/yang kinda way. In fantasy such as this, that is a trope that works

For me, ep3 is where it goes off the rails spectacularly. I wont spoil why, but given the significance of the episode, it felt rushed to get some cool, fun dialogue later and the story suffered to the point it was actually the first time in 6 years my motivation for playing story stuff just went.

But that is me. Ep3 is one of the most divisive episodes and some seemed to love it so feel free to post your thoughts on this thread once you have played it.

Friend here. Boy been a while since I dusted off the forum account. Spoilers ahead if you didn't already know this'd be discussing the episode's meat.

Please keep in mind these are personal thoughts and not meant to represent your own. Having different opinions are totally valid and awesome. ;)

I'd say I'm probably more critical of GW2's story telling than perhaps even Star is. That said, I don't dislike the "new Charr" for what they are, but the fact that the introduction, characterization, cultural defining, trust building, and general pacing during that episode was... "wow" is about all I can say. I'd hearken it back to trying to make us care for a person we never met "YOUR BEST FRIEND" from the personal story on the human side at launch, but even that had a little buildup compared to whatever the Olmakhan had.

They just don't feel fleshed out at all to me. The dialog was hurried along with trope after trope in such rapid fire that it was comical to me. If there was supposed to be a sad moment in that whole episode, I never saw it. If there was supposed to be a tough decision in that episode made by any character involved, I never saw it. From the "I'm stubborn and gonna pay for it" trope that executed itself as soon as it appeared to the "noble sacrifice" that happened in almost the same breath, and even the "we can fight too!" that was resolved in the same breath as the other two... It just couldn't endear me in any form as the deliveries were so blunt as to be a copy paste from a "How To" book. Set backs never occurred to anyone involved, nor were any lasting scars introduced that affected... well anyone involved. They were swept aside as soon as mentioned. There are some hanging strings that might play into later episodes, but over-all the delivery was just deadpanned. Not unfix-able, however.

When you're trying to tell me a story, I expect a story. This is glaringly worse to me on the heels of the first episode which, while I strongly disagree with the narrative, felt infinitely stronger than this one did.

The set piece this all took place on was interesting and probably the small saving grace. It had a few interesting mechanics an ideas as well as the return of some tried and true... But the execution was rough and something I'd expect more from a Half-Life 2 mod. Not one of those nice ones either cause those do exist. The general lab incident was quite alright, and the locale was generally pretty filled with activities, but anything regarding character building suffered not only from moderately (IMO) poor writing but poor triggering as well as actions fired off didn't really make me think I was watching a story so much as a child's reenactment of a scene. From odd timings abounding to the hilarity of Braham's shot suddenly slamming into the downed enemy begging for a mercy killing nearly as soon as they'd asked to the near next moment poetic waxing that took nary a breath to pause and think about the gravity of anything that just happened.

I mean, I'd nearly forgiven "Suddenly magical clan with druid-like summoning magic and all" popping out of nowhere like prime time Nickelodeon show when they had us leading a raid being a fully trusted out-lander that they'd give all their hopes and dreams towards. They were shown as strong and independent but peaceful and proud Charr one moment only to FULLY rely on the commander the next in a supposedly massive brawl after leaving the commander to honor duel a robot just previously. Hell the older episodes showed a fight in the background, here these big fights were regulated to some radio chatter about how awesome it was. I am being a bit harsh as there was that one assault to lead up to it, but you were more or less shepherded along by Braham for most of that. Pacing is important and I believe Anet took many steps back to almost land back where they started when they first began and I railed against it then. That's a shame to me given I had just praised the last few episodes for that very thing.

Unless they're trying to make out the commander as becoming jaded enough that this all flies past them anymore, I really don't know why they took the breakneck delivery they did. I also doubt that's the case as time was given to mourn briefly for characters I never met before now with little motivation to me other than "I was used." or "Stubborn" were brought past in rocket speed. I got a feeling of dread knowing what I'd already seen was coming in that lab coming to fruition and I felt for the "test subjects" reading the callous reports of their only implied suffering despite having seen this coming miles away. The elder burial scene that our character didn't have to attend where I think I was supposed to feel sad for them judging by our characters dialog? Not a thing was felt, and the elder had dialog.

If you enjoyed it, though, keep enjoying it. Me personally, I had to mention that I did not.

So far, I'll say the set pieces have gotten far better than when GW2 started, however. The infamous thing that was that last straw for me back in the day was the beach assault on Claw Island. Back when "Here comes their army!" was met with five dudes running up a beach to fight five other dudes. This was when it was mechanically far different and each individual veteran felt like a boss fight in their own right and even trash mobs were pretty tanky, so I'm glad to see some correction there. I remember those days and compared to the army scene of scouting beyond the wall in the first game, paled in comparison. This is no longer the case. (And from what I gather hasn't been for a while as I did pop in from time to time.) I actually only just recently started touching back on the story and relatively enjoyed the newer bits even if I didn't care for the retconning GW2 likes to give old GW1 characters in morality and narrative.

Still a good game, no one denies that. Just hoping a bit more for the story than I should be it seems.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:Were the attitudes of the Charr in question so alien to everything their culture had been that they might as well have not been Charr at all? I think you know the answer here.

My intention with that quote was more to say that I was certain people could infer what I was to be saying next, not that all should share my viewpoint. It was also made clear through the aforementioned heavy-handed dialogue that they hadn't forgotten what other Charr were like but had instead wholly rejected it as a people. Which again, can sort of work but the contrast was jarring to me. It certainly can work from a lore standpoint. I don't think the circumstance is likely, but it could happen. It was just presented, in my opinion, very poorly.

While I acknowledge that such is a common literary device, I'd argue that it's a decidedly poor one that can be handled far more eloquently. That's opinion, of course. My complaint here is that I expected better from them given recent stories. Ultimately it doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the game, I still think that it's overall really fun and an enjoyable story. This was simply a bit of a letdown for me after the last bit I played through.

@Randulf.7614 said:I enjoyed ep2. I thought the charr tribe were excellently done and their whole area of an already great map, brought something a bit lighter to the story. It succeeded really well and balanced out the inquest in a ying/yang kinda way. In fantasy such as this, that is a trope that works

For me, ep3 is where it goes off the rails spectacularly. I wont spoil why, but given the significance of the episode, it felt rushed to get some cool, fun dialogue later and the story suffered to the point it was actually the first time in 6 years my motivation for playing story stuff just went.

But that is me. Ep3 is one of the most divisive episodes and some seemed to love it so feel free to post your thoughts on this thread once you have played it.

In giving balance I suppose it does work, and aesthetically speaking the Charr tribe (the Olmakhan) are actually really neat. The set pieces are fantastic overall. My main complaint is with the delivery of the story and their culture. As someone who enjoys studying subtleties and finding hidden meanings in things, it was an exercise in blunt force trauma.

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Starlightmagus.8654 said:Were the attitudes of the Charr in question so alien to everything their culture had been that they might as well have not been Charr at all? I think you know the answer here.

@Randulf.7614 said:I enjoyed ep2. I thought the charr tribe were excellently done and their whole area of an already great map, brought something a bit lighter to the story. It succeeded really well and balanced out the inquest in a ying/yang kinda way. In fantasy such as this, that is a trope that works

For me, ep3 is where it goes off the rails spectacularly. I wont spoil why, but given the significance of the episode, it felt rushed to get some cool, fun dialogue later and the story suffered to the point it was actually the first time in 6 years my motivation for playing story stuff just went.

But that is me. Ep3 is one of the most divisive episodes and some seemed to love it so feel free to post your thoughts on this thread once you have played it.

Gw2 doesnt really ever have much time for that given the short, episodic format and the type of fantasy we are in, doesnt lend itself to too much subtlety within the main narrative. High Fantasy i find works best when it just lays it all out and tells a strong epic story. For me, that is why ep3 failed so hard, but ep2 laid out what it wanted to achieve in the confines of an episode and did it without messing around.