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Whispers in the dark reactions? [spoilers]


Daniel Handler.4816

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Main story felt a bit short, but otherwise fun chapter.

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:Suitably creepy. Jormag's invitation seems like it would obviously backfire, unless there is some sort of twist. Rip Almorra

Oh? Don't you invite all your guest by possessing corpse of the recently deceased? Otherwise this is a obvious trap and since we cant kill Jormag, it's has all the cards.

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Mostly a dreadful episode. Some good atmosphere, nothing wrong with the dialogue and the end cutscene was really interesting. Everything else was just a huge step backwards. A lack of map storytelling and low story content really hurt it. I've left more detailed feedback elsewhere on the forums, but yeah this was not good at all overall.

All the promise is there. They have the right direction with the story, some really well thought out dialogue, good throwbacks to past events and the end really sets up some fantastic possibilities. But, there's just no substance to cling onto here apart from a bit of creepiness. I want big, sprawling Pof style maps, but with tundras, glaciers, mountains passes, open snowfields. Not some cramped paths, empty caves and a few forts smooshed together in a map not organically designed

I really expected more from the Bone Skinner. Maybe stalked like in Resident Evil 3 throughout the story. I think the fight lasted less than 2 mins and that's with the full achievement first time...

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I think it was a good episode except for the Boneskinner, when they revealed the Saga, they showed concept art for it, then, when we hit 100k on the Extra Life charity, they gave the name and date with the sub title of, "The Boneskinner is coming" or something like that, and THEN, in the actual trailer, they gave the Boneskinner it's own special cut-scene/time in the spotlight and a voice that might've belonged to it (though the voice was probably Jormag). So when I started the episode Iwas really excited on what this thing was the epic battle with it, but it's not even alluded too in the entire episode and just becomes an event/strike mission. Which I found incredibly disappointing, They hyped it up so much, and then it wasn't even an element in the episode, which was a huge let down.

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I enjoyed it although it did feel increadibly short..

New map is a little on the small side too although I expect it'll get expanded with the next patch.

For me story is the main reason I keep playing so I was a bit disappointed by how quickly I got though it, even though I took my time, explored a lot and did most of the map completion as I was doing the story stuff.If I had just gone from mission to mission and rushed through it I could have probably done it all withing half an hour or less.. so glad I didn't.Considering how long we have to wait between patches that really would have bummed me out tbh

I'm hoping this improves with future patches or tbh I really don't see what the difference is between living world and "sagas" aside from Saga's having less busy work than previous living worlds so their story content ends up feeling much shorter than what we're used to.

But yeah, it was fun, story was short but good and the new map is pretty good but small.. just hope future releases are longer, if not then I at least hope that they come out a bit quicker..If that too is a nope then even though I enjoyed this release I'll still have to stay strong on my stance that what we really need right now is Gw2's 3rd large scale expansion.

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The interesting part to me is, Jormag is asleep. This is Jormag's "resting" mode, similar to in Gw1 speaking through Drakkar (who has been implied to been awake, just trapped under the ice, or... resting?).

That creepy smile Jormag has Fraenir do though... lol

Various interesting bits, like the implications of Jormag letting the Norn go, even letting Asgeir take a tooth to cause the Norn to follow him.

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@Randulf.7614 said:A lack of map storytelling

You and I got different impressions on this part. I felt there was ample map storytelling. Granted, it's not in your face with subtle undertones like Grothmar Wardowns, but there is plenty of map storytelling if you look.

I think my biggest issue is that this felt like a prologue far more than Bound by Blood did. And I'm disappointed they killed Almorra like they often do to nobody NPCs.

I want big, sprawling Pof style maps, but with tundras, glaciers, mountains passes, open snowfields. Not some cramped paths, empty caves and a few forts smooshed together in a map not organically designed

They shrunk the size of the LW teams to make a fourth one. After the loss of over 100 employees. And you want expansion sized maps. You want open fields, in a mountain range.

I think you just have unreasonable expectations, tbh.

I really expected more from the Bone Skinner. Maybe stalked like in Resident Evil 3 throughout the story. I think the fight lasted less than 2 mins and that's with the full achievement first time...

It's also a strike mission boss, so the boneskinners are not done with. There's more than one Boneskinner, and several points of lore around them. And the one we fight in the open world does stalk before it shows up, in a similar manner to the Mossman fractal anomaly (pops in, attacks, disappears). Just too short of a chain. I'm not really disappointed it's not part of the main story, though it certainly was hyped up as if it were.

@"Scraggy.3814" said:I think it was a good episode except for the Boneskinner, when they revealed the Saga, they showed concept art for it, then, when we hit 100k on the Extra Life charity, they gave the name and date with the sub title of, "The Boneskinner is coming" or something like that, and THEN, in the actual trailer, they gave the Boneskinner it's own special cut-scene/time in the spotlight and a voice that might've belonged to it (though the voice was probably Jormag). So when I started the episode Iwas really excited on what this thing was the epic battle with it, but it's not even alluded too in the entire episode and just becomes an event/strike mission. Which I found incredibly disappointing, They hyped it up so much, and then it wasn't even an element in the episode, which was a huge let down.

I can agree here. Would have probably been better as a second meta, imo.

Don't think the voice is Jormag's though. Jormag's voice is different in the final cinematic, and Jormag even says "I should do you the honor of talking to you" - so the whisperer isn't Jormag. We don't know who it is, but it seems subservient to Jormag (and based on NPC dialogue, pretending to be Jormag, which is even more interesting).

@"Slowpokeking.8720" said:I think the "terrible thing"Jormag mentioned was Primordus, it wanted to use us to eliminate the fire dragon because its power was Jormag's biggest threat.

Not really "beyond the horizon" though. I am gonna jump onto the "deep sea dragon" bandwagon people created based on that one shot in the trailer of the krait near shipwreckage.

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I'm gonna be honest, killing Almorra just to have an excuse to go to Jora's keep was disgusting writing.

She was a character with tons of history in GW2, in the books, and with the dragons. And in the end she was dumped unceremoniously in a cave under a bunch of debris.

Blish had a bigger build-up and emotional payoff than her, and he had way less history. What a waste of a character.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:It's also a strike mission boss, so the boneskinners are not done with. There's more than one Boneskinner, and several points of lore around them. And the one we fight in the open world does stalk before it shows up, in a similar manner to the Mossman fractal anomaly (pops in, attacks, disappears). Just too short of a chain. I'm not really disappointed it's not part of the main story, though it certainly was hyped up as if it were.

We also literally make a new boneskinner in the one achievement.

You can find two scouts who tell the tale of the boneskinner. The achievement with the Kodan is helping him give into the hunger. So yay, we actually made a kodan start transforming into that thing.

It's also kinda implied one of his companions is the boneskinner we kill in the event, as I got the "What's happening?" book from defeating it (A kodan transforming into the boneskinner, talking about how good it felt to kill a vigil norn and their claws were growing longer as they got hungry). The Kodan we hand food to refers to having lost one of his fellows recently, who "Wanders the woods, as a dead thing."

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@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:A lack of map storytelling

You and I got different impressions on this part. I felt there was ample map storytelling. Granted, it's not in your face with subtle undertones like Grothmar Wardowns, but there is plenty of map storytelling if you look.

I think my biggest issue is that this felt like a prologue far more than Bound by Blood did. And I'm disappointed they killed Almorra like they often do to nobody NPCs.

I want big, sprawling Pof style maps, but with tundras, glaciers, mountains passes, open snowfields. Not some cramped paths, empty caves and a few forts smooshed together in a map not organically designed

They shrunk the size of the LW teams to make a fourth one. After the loss of over 100 employees. And you want expansion sized maps. You want open fields, in a mountain range.

I think you just have unreasonable expectations, tbh.

I really expected more from the Bone Skinner. Maybe stalked like in Resident Evil 3 throughout the story. I think the fight lasted less than 2 mins and that's with the full achievement first time...

It's also a strike mission boss, so the boneskinners are not done with. There's more than one Boneskinner, and several points of lore around them. And the one we fight in the open world does stalk before it shows up, in a similar manner to the Mossman fractal anomaly (pops in, attacks, disappears). Just too short of a chain. I'm not really disappointed it's not part of the main story, though it certainly was hyped up as if it were.

@"Scraggy.3814" said:I think it was a good episode except for the Boneskinner, when they revealed the Saga, they showed concept art for it, then, when we hit 100k on the Extra Life charity, they gave the name and date with the sub title of, "The Boneskinner is coming" or something like that, and THEN, in the actual trailer, they gave the Boneskinner it's own special cut-scene/time in the spotlight and a voice that might've belonged to it (though the voice was probably Jormag). So when I started the episode Iwas really excited on what this thing was the epic battle with it, but it's not even alluded too in the entire episode and just becomes an event/strike mission. Which I found incredibly disappointing, They hyped it up so much, and then it wasn't even an element in the episode, which was a huge let down.

I can agree here. Would have probably been better as a second meta, imo.

Don't think the voice is Jormag's though. Jormag's voice is different in the final cinematic, and Jormag even says "I should do you the honor of talking to you" - so the whisperer isn't Jormag. We don't know who it is, but it seems subservient to Jormag (and based on NPC dialogue,
pretending to be Jormag
, which is even more interesting).

@"Slowpokeking.8720" said:I think the "terrible thing"Jormag mentioned was Primordus, it wanted to use us to eliminate the fire dragon because its power was Jormag's biggest threat.

Not really "beyond the horizon" though. I am gonna jump onto the "deep sea dragon" bandwagon people created based on that one shot in the trailer of the krait near shipwreckage.

For this one rare occasion I have to fully disagree with most of this. I don’t think my expectations are unreasonable at all in fact I feel like we have gone backwards in an alarming way.

For me this was one of the worst and under utilised maps yet. There is little excuse now to be churning out small, low concept maps like this when we know they can pull out organic, well thought out maps.

Sure they lost lots of people but most weren’t working on the main game so to slip standards like this is not something I should be prepared to accept. This was as bad as Kourna and Thunderhead in terms of shallowness.

Sure there is some minor storytelling, but it is massively below what they are capable of and what they have always shown to be a great strength. This is a map that isn’t even up to core map standards let alone a sign of progression in Season quality.

I do agree this feels like a second prologue though. A short quick throwaway episode which certainly hit the right atmosphere and had intriguing story bits in what minuscule amount of story they produced. But otherwise, this was an extraordinarily disappointing episode for me. A squandered chance for something big, new and exciting.

Compare this to ep1 of season 4 and the drop in quality is worrying for this stage of the “saga”

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@Daniel Handler.4816 said:Suitably creepy.It was barely creepy at all. And every time it JUST STARTS to get a bit creepy, Anet dropped it.

That aside, the story was too short. The prologue felt longer, even without the events farming part of it.At first I was shocked to only see one Waypoint, but with the map being so small, it makes senseI was positively surprised we were able to use mounts there, unlike the last mission of the prologue.That they killed Almorra so cheaply didn't sit well with me.

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@Slowpokeking.8720 said:

@Slowpokeking.8720 said:I guess the next map will be Drakkar Lake?

The next map is the rest of this one. The encompassing of Drakkar's lake seems like a logical conclusion (altough I haven't compared gw1/gw2 map to see where we are)

Drakkar will be the world boss, so I guess it should be the lake.

But we already have the walking Icebrood construct world boss in this map.I think it would make more sense to complete this map in Episode 2 and release Drakkar with a new map in Episode 3.

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@Fueki.4753 said:

@Slowpokeking.8720 said:I guess the next map will be Drakkar Lake?

The next map is the rest of this one. The encompassing of Drakkar's lake seems like a logical conclusion (altough I haven't compared gw1/gw2 map to see where we are)

Drakkar will be the world boss, so I guess it should be the lake.

But we already have the walking Icebrood construct world boss in this map.I think it would make more sense to complete this map in Episode 2 and release Drakkar with a new map in Episode 3.

If memory serves Drakkar will be a part of ep2, just not at launch.

I think Drakkar is meant to be a proper World Boss ala Tequatl, Gerent etc but could well be upped to Triple Trouble difficulty given Drakkars status

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@"Slowpokeking.8720" said:I think the "terrible thing"Jormag mentioned was Primordus, it wanted to use us to eliminate the fire dragon because its power was Jormag's biggest threat.

It could also be bubbles, due to the ship sinking in the original trailer reveal. I think having bubbles be the one who is the big bad and maybe even the one who corrupted the other dragons would be cool~ Either that or its something in the mists coming for us. As seen in the map the svanir are able to make portals to the mists, but I thought we fixed that in the norn personal story if we chose to defend the spirits? We shut them out. Why are they in the mists? What are they doing? Asgeir and jormag came to an understanding? Jormag SPARED the norn because it values life? I feel like Jormag is shaping up to be an anti-hero, and whatever it's speaking about will come and inevitably we will turn to it for help because Aurene simply wont be enough.

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I liked the story overall. It was a bit shorter but I think it had greater quality than some previous episodes. Atmosphere was great and gave me chills on few ocassions.

I think all characters were well implemented, and I think they did a good job presenting how our character looses sanity and standards (at least for human male pc it was well presented).Final exchange between Braham and PC was also good. Braham asked the same question that I thought to myself. And commanders response was exactly how i felt about the situation

My question is, what is spirit essence? How does it differ from "normal" magic and why does Jormag have it? Or do you folks feel it was implemented for purely gameplay reasons and has no broader lore to it.

Overall 9/10 for me. Only thing i didnt like is that screen can sometimes get way too blurry due to blizzard effect. And honestly essence manipulation feels like completely unnecessary feature

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

Don't think the voice is Jormag's though. Jormag's voice is different in the final cinematic, and Jormag even says "I should do you the honor of talking to you" - so the whisperer isn't Jormag. We don't know who it is, but it seems subservient to Jormag (and based on NPC dialogue, pretending to be Jormag, which is even more interesting).

I think you're looking too much into it, or expect a twist in the story where there is not meant to be one - I'm sure the whisperer is Jormag. It's just saying it will talk to us "directly" via the svanir, face to face, instead of whispers and agents.

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The story was Meh... too much annoying factors and too much guessing to really enjoy the story line.Death of such a great hero felt as something put in later. Short, emotion-less, in a cave, 2 minute time. Such a shame.

The new map is... well horrible. Designed to keep you slowed down and in combat forever, while map completion... did 3 toons already and the 3rd took me 12 minutes.

  • New mastery does not give ANY noticable difference when stacked.
  • Sheer amount of Condition Damage, specially stuns and a slow-downs are so many that no amount of cleansing can deal with that. I walk instead of run 99% of the time during the events. Bad design.
  • The constant reminders when you have something not trained yet is annoying, I am not a level 2 that dodges for the first freakin time.
  • Design of Raven Locks are deliberately put in place to get you in combat. You HAVE to dismount, click the unlock, 2 or more veterans appear, sometimes elites, with a respand rate of what... half a second?!?! Seriousy?!?!
  • Storm ice effect on the interface is... PURE AND UTTERLY DISCRIMINATION of Arenanet towards ANY visually impaired player. BY DESIGN! ON PURPOSE!

Yes Arenanet, IT IS! Do NOT deny it, if you even considered Visually impaired players for HALF A SECOND, you would have TRASHED that design IMMEDIATLY

Simply put: Another map to NOT to return to once done. There is ZERO reason for me to do so.

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@Thornwolf.9721 said:

@"Slowpokeking.8720" said:I think the "terrible thing"Jormag mentioned was Primordus, it wanted to use us to eliminate the fire dragon because its power was Jormag's biggest threat.

It could also be bubbles, due to the ship sinking in the original trailer reveal. I think having bubbles be the one who is the big bad and maybe even the one who corrupted the other dragons would be cool~ Either that or its something in the mists coming for us. As seen in the map the svanir are able to make portals to the mists, but I thought we fixed that in the norn personal story if we chose to defend the spirits? We shut them out. Why are they in the mists? What are they doing? Asgeir and jormag came to an understanding? Jormag SPARED the norn because it values life? I feel like Jormag is shaping up to be an anti-hero, and whatever it's speaking about will come and inevitably we will turn to it for help because Aurene simply wont be enough.

is basically like the Saint-Seya plot, where Saga the apparent "villain" was just overwatching the real big threat coming: the invasion by other gods.

Evil Saga says he is the only one who can protect this world from the invasion of other gods such as Zeus, Hades and Poseidon and whoever stands in their way must die.

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