Anet used Mordremoth too early

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Randulf.7614" said:There was a lot about S1 people didn't like and not being obviously connected to the Dragon story was def one of them.

There was people frequently speculating ties in to the Elder Dragons, but I wouldn't say "Season 1 not being connected to the Elder Dragons" was a major complaint.

Incidentally, "always dealing with Elder Dragons" was a complaint of S3.

There are people who want little else but Elder Dragons, and people who want as little Elder Dragons as possible, and those who want a decent mixture. They're all vocal all the time. I wouldn't consider any of them a "major complaint".

@"Slowpokeking.8720" said:No, they were set as huge threat they need to be dealt with. If you want to keep them as background they should not be posed as the all evil immediate threat from the beginning.

If we want to get technical, they weren't. They were included, yes, but if you look at Ogden's Benediction, the plots in EotN, and The Movement of the World/The Ecology of the Charr, the Elder Dragons' placement and actions are almost entirely done just to move factions about and set the stage. The Elder Dragons only "become an all evil immediate threat" in chapter 6 of the PS hence why the plot takes a strong right turn to Zhaitan. Depending on your story choices you could say Jormag is from the get go for norn, and while EoD does set Kralkatorrik as such it also sets Kralkatorrik up as need to retreat and become inactive for a while.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

Considering that

, back in 2009, was exclusively about the fight against Zhaitan (well, that and the 'look how pretty our game is' shots), I think it was a given we were going to have the storyline focus on that fight.

It was not a given that said story would end with Zhaitan getting barraged to death.

Before launch, we were told that each of the three orders had very different ideas of what could reasonably end the ED threat. Whispers were scheming to put them back to sleep, the Priory were trying to dig up some ancient ace in the hole, and only the Vigil was on board for bludgeoning them over the head. That was an interesting dispute, one that could have filled a good chunk of the personal story in a compelling manner, and instead all it gets used for is a single story chapter, and there, only so that faction reps can take potshots at each other instead of focusing on the emergency they're supposedly responding to. Fast forward three more chapters, and from day one, the Pact is all-in on the Vigil's goal, which turns out to work just fine in the short term, and immediately afterwards the Priory's goal is shown to be a dead end. (The Whispers strategy never once comes up, even if you're a member of the order yourself.)

Imagine a GW2 where the Pact instead threw itself into a far-ranging hunt for mysteries of the past, and discovered the elder races actually did have a solution, one that amounted to more than hiding under a rock until the monsters went away. Or a storyline where we engage in a master plan to maneuver Zhaitan into a position where the centuries of mystical knowledge the Whispers are sitting on allow the Pact to put it back into hibernation- maybe even bringing in the racial dignitaries who referred us to the orders in the first place and requiring them to make more than a token contribution to the cause. I'd argue either of those would be at least as compelling as the Orr campaign that we got.

Or what about a decisive victory over Zhaitan that wasn't framed as a final victory? Our airships push the dragon away from our shores, but it has the sense not to fight to the death, and we're left with ample cause to celebrate, but also to wonder if it'll return someday and how it'll affect other lands. Or maybe we do blast it out of the skies, but it turns out the dragon of undeath isn't so easily killed, and it remains an immobile heart of corruption contained within Orr. Now that we know ANet has no plans to reclaim the kingdom for the living races in the near future, that wouldn't even change much for us... except that it would leave Zhaitan in play as a story element for the future, and save us from the impression that the elder dragons are just another monster waiting for someone to come along with a big enough sword.

Hell, if they paced it differently, I can even see an alternative where Blightghast or Tequatl could've served as a satisfying end boss. After all, as far as we knew at that point, no one had ever succeeded in killing a dragon, and few people had been to Orr and lived to tell the tale. Those two elements alone would've made for a major sense of accomplishment, properly framed. It would've likely meant no dragons as world bosses, but those never turned out to be the hit that the devs hoped they'd be anyway; it may have meant no Pact, at least not until the very end, but I know people who would argue their absence would've been good for the story.

[Slowpokeking.8720]

@"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:Considering that

, back in 2009, was exclusively about the fight against Zhaitan (well, that and the 'look how pretty our game is' shots), I think it was a given we were going to have the storyline focus on that fight.

It was not a given that said story would end with Zhaitan getting barraged to death.

Before launch, we were told that each of the three orders had very different ideas of what could reasonably end the ED threat. Whispers were scheming to put them back to sleep, the Priory were trying to dig up some ancient ace in the hole, and only the Vigil was on board for bludgeoning them over the head. That was an interesting dispute, one that could have filled a good chunk of the personal story in a compelling manner, and instead all it gets used for is a single story chapter, and there, only so that faction reps can take potshots at each other instead of focusing on the emergency they're supposedly responding to. Fast forward three more chapters, and from day one, the Pact is all-in on the Vigil's goal, which turns out to work just fine in the short term, and immediately afterwards the Priory's goal is shown to be a dead end. (The Whispers strategy never once comes up, even if you're a member of the order yourself.)

Imagine a GW2 where the Pact instead threw itself into a far-ranging hunt for mysteries of the past, and discovered the elder races actually did have a solution, one that amounted to more than hiding under a rock until the monsters went away. Or a storyline where we engage in a master plan to maneuver Zhaitan into a position where the centuries of mystical knowledge the Whispers are sitting on allow the Pact to put it back into hibernation- maybe even bringing in the racial dignitaries who referred us to the orders in the first place and requiring them to make more than a token contribution to the cause. I'd argue either of those would be at least as compelling as the Orr campaign that we got.

Or, if they paced it a little differently, what about a decisive victory over Zhaitan that wasn't framed as a final victory? Our airships push the dragon away from our shores, but it has the sense not to fight to the death, and we're left with ample cause to celebrate, but also to wonder if it'll return someday and how it'll affect other lands. Or maybe we do blast it out of the skies, but it turns out the dragon of undeath isn't so easily killed, and it remains an immobile heart of corruption contained within Orr. Now that we know ANet has no plans to reclaim the kingdom for the living races in the near future, that wouldn't even change much for us... except that it would leave Zhaitan in play as a story element for the future, and save us from the impression that the elder dragons are just another monster waiting for someone to come along with a big enough sword.

Hell, I can even see an alternative where Blightghast or Tequatl could've served as a satisfying end boss. After all, as far as we knew at that point, no one had ever succeeded in killing a dragon, and few people had been to Orr and lived to tell the tale. Those two elements alone would've made for a major sense of accomplishment, properly framed. It would've likely meant no dragons as world bosses, but those never turned out to be the hit that the devs hoped they'd be anyway; it may have meant no Pact, at least not until the very end, but I know people who would argue their absence would've been good for the story.

The whole theme of vanilla was about use something new, not rely on the old past to fight the dragons. It would not be a good idea to rely on them as well since the 5 races aren't nothing.

And no, Zhaitan was handled all perfectly except the final fight. Which should be focusing on him instead of wasting too much effort on his minions that we have fought before.

[Randulf.7614]

@"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:Considering that

, back in 2009, was exclusively about the fight against Zhaitan (well, that and the 'look how pretty our game is' shots), I think it was a given we were going to have the storyline focus on that fight.

It was not a given that said story would end with Zhaitan getting barraged to death.

Before launch, we were told that each of the three orders had very different ideas of what could reasonably end the ED threat. Whispers were scheming to put them back to sleep, the Priory were trying to dig up some ancient ace in the hole, and only the Vigil was on board for bludgeoning them over the head. That was an interesting dispute, one that could have filled a good chunk of the personal story in a compelling manner, and instead all it gets used for is a single story chapter, and there, only so that faction reps can take potshots at each other instead of focusing on the emergency they're supposedly responding to. Fast forward three more chapters, and from day one, the Pact is all-in on the Vigil's goal, which turns out to work just fine in the short term, and immediately afterwards the Priory's goal is shown to be a dead end. (The Whispers strategy never once comes up, even if you're a member of the order yourself.)

Imagine a GW2 where the Pact instead threw itself into a far-ranging hunt for mysteries of the past, and discovered the elder races actually did have a solution, one that amounted to more than hiding under a rock until the monsters went away. Or a storyline where we engage in a master plan to maneuver Zhaitan into a position where the centuries of mystical knowledge the Whispers are sitting on allow the Pact to put it back into hibernation- maybe even bringing in the racial dignitaries who referred us to the orders in the first place and requiring them to make more than a token contribution to the cause. I'd argue either of those would be at least as compelling as the Orr campaign that we got.

Or what about a decisive victory over Zhaitan that wasn't framed as a final victory? Our airships push the dragon away from our shores, but it has the sense not to fight to the death, and we're left with ample cause to celebrate, but also to wonder if it'll return someday and how it'll affect other lands. Or maybe we do blast it out of the skies, but it turns out the dragon of undeath isn't so easily killed, and it remains an immobile heart of corruption contained within Orr. Now that we know ANet has no plans to reclaim the kingdom for the living races in the near future, that wouldn't even change much for us... except that it would leave Zhaitan in play as a story element for the future, and save us from the impression that the elder dragons are just another monster waiting for someone to come along with a big enough sword.

Hell, if they paced it differently, I can even see an alternative where Blightghast or Tequatl could've served as a satisfying end boss. After all, as far as we knew at that point, no one had ever succeeded in killing a dragon, and few people had been to Orr and lived to tell the tale. Those two elements alone would've made for a major sense of accomplishment, properly framed. It would've likely meant no dragons as world bosses, but those never turned out to be the hit that the devs hoped they'd be anyway; it may have meant no Pact, at least not until the very end, but I know people who would argue their absence would've been good for the story.

Some cool ideas in here. I like them a lot

[Yasai.3549]

Actually I felt like they used Mordremoth well.They definitely used the Balthazar plot too early.

It was so sudden, bringing in two Elder Dragons Jormag and Primordious, but then putting them both aside to chase Balthazar while they watch/sleep.Then after Balthazar was done, we were chasing Kralkatorik while Jormag and Primordious still remained at large.

It would make more sense to me that after yu beat Balthazar in LW3, he would retreat to plot.During this time the Elder Dragons he dabbled with Jormag and Primordious would awake simultaneously and start clashing, both gathering armies.

The plot should have resolved these two then and there, after which we see Balthazar step back into the spotlight, unveiling his plan to capture/kill Kralkatorik and has begun his work in the desert.

But I guess Path of Fire expansion had to be released and they wanted to bring us to the desert ASAP.

[voltaicbore.8012]

Just because Zhaitan was such a large presence in my early memory of the game, it's hard for me to properly imagine how things could have been different if his chapter was delayed and placed elsewhere. I can, however, appreciate the alternatives put forth by Konig and Aaron as they spelled them out.

Ultimately, my take on the earliness vs. just-rightness of Zhaitan's timing in the story is it's a moot point to me. The devs (imo wisely) retconned ways of keeping dead dragons in the game with the concept that when we kill dragons, their magic gets splashed out all over the world and absorbed by other dragons. They already put it to decent use in the DS meta and HoT in general, where powerful mordrem were specifically reanimated until we found ways to put them down long enough to get to Mordremoth himself. I presume if the inherently this-is-so-hard-to-deal-with aspect of undead would prove useful farther down the line, we'll see it again and it will be consistent with how Anet set things up thus far.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

@voltaicbore.8012 said:Just because Zhaitan was such a large presence in my early memory of the game, it's hard for me to properly imagine how things could have been different if his chapter was delayed and placed elsewhere. I can, however, appreciate the alternatives put forth by Konig and Aaron as they spelled them out.

Ultimately, my take on the earliness vs. just-rightness of Zhaitan's timing in the story is it's a moot point to me. The devs (imo wisely) retconned ways of keeping dead dragons in the game with the concept that when we kill dragons, their magic gets splashed out all over the world and absorbed by other dragons. They already put it to decent use in the DS meta and HoT in general, where powerful mordrem were specifically reanimated until we found ways to put them down long enough to get to Mordremoth himself. I presume if the inherently this-is-so-hard-to-deal-with aspect of undead would prove useful farther down the line, we'll see it again and it will be consistent with how Anet set things up thus far.

SPOILERS for POF and LS4

Kralkatorrik also made significant use of the dead, several of the major battles were fought by himself, his lieutenants and undead, which allowed him to conserve the majority of his Branded army until the last few chapters. He also used Zhaitan's powers to create Branded Awakened, and revive his generals such as the Wrathbringer in a similar way to Modremoth.

And let's not forget about Tequatl, who also somehow absorbed some of Zhaitan's power, who to this day remains the most powerful Dragon Champion we've ever faced, I mean he was even stronger than Death-Branded Shatterer became.