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Taimi should probably die.


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I don't understand what all the fuss is about, especially people saying the story is "Asura-centric".

Asura have almost no place in the core story except for a few story dungeons, everything is pretty much solved by the Orders and most of the prominent characters were either Human or Norn, with a few Asura, Charr and Sylvari tossed in.

Personal story (Orr) was mostly Sylvari-centric, with Trahearne, the Pale Tree, etc.Season one was Charr, Norn and Sylvari-centric with a side of Dredge, Krait and multiracial pirates. Taimi joined late in the game. Scarlet got her knowledge from the Asuran colleges, but they can't be credited for a significant presence in the story.Season two was Sylvari centric.Heart of Thorns was Sylvari centric.Living World Season 3 was multifaceted, and did start to focus on Taimi alot, but wasn't Asura-centric. The Asura couldn't even fix the problems in Ember Bay without the help of ancient stone Dwarf who knew what was going on.Path of Fire was Human centric, and very GW1-like.Living World Season 4 is ..still very Human centric. nearly all the NPCs that you meet are Human, although we have met some Charr too.

As you can see, the Sylvari have actually had the most exposure of any race, with Humans in second place.

The only significant Asura presence in almost all the storylines is the Inquest, which have admittedly been the bad guys in season one, season two, and season four. But they are never the main bad guys, they are always being used by someone (Scarlet, Joko, etc.).

I'm sorry..but if you think the story is Asura centric, you're wrong..and it is my personal opinion that, seeing alot of technology in a fantasy MMO is refreshing, its a welcome break from the "wizards can do it all" approach that ~hundreds~ of other games take, where you have entire empires built of spells and never see any sort of advanced technology beyond like...a catapult or primitive flying machine.

If anything, i would like to see GW2 have even more advanced technology, i would love for us to meet another advanced race besides the Asura, even if it ends up being the isolated, xenophobic Humans of Cantha.

Progress waits for no one, its just how things are.

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@particlepinata.9865 said:Why does every character always have to die? And why does everyone or everything always got to be 'hated'. Is is me or is this forum becoming more and more immature?

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:(...)* I am not a fan of what I feel to be overly emotionally manipulative writing, of "kill off this beloved character simply for the thrill of it or because it allegedly, in some warped mind, 'strengthens the story' or simply because, as a writer, I can do that." (...)

Yeah, I agree, let's just kill them all, that would certainly create an impact.If Taimi dies she would be the third GW2-character that dies whose name starts with a T and who is a favorite of mine: Tybalt, Trahearne and then Taimi? If it comes to that I should really make an effort never to like any characters whose names start with a T again in GW2.

This idea that you have to kill (important) characters in regular intervals to create an impactful story certainly seens to be the latest fashion - it is the same with television series. True, if a story does not show the consequences of actions, if walking on an extremely dangerous path does result in any casualties the story can feel predictable. But killing important characters in regular intervals can get predictable too. After a while, as any repetition does, it dulls you. At least it dulls me. I get used to the idea that characters I like will die. And then I somewhat start to care for them less, simply because there is a chance that they will die anyway. So why bother to invest in them emotionally?

To "kill off this beloved character simply for the thrill of it", as Gaile put it, does not equal meaningful story telling and I agree, it feels more manipulation than anything else. There are many ways to make a story impactful. Character death is one of them, but not the only one.

There are ways of more subtle story telling. But the modern way of story telling sometimes seems to forget that. At least I just thought that recently when in the TV-remake of a classic childrens/young adult book an in the original book very subtle scene was changed into something far more dramatic in the television version.

Or maybe, in the end, I just don't want to see another beloved character of mine die. Stories that are told should be meaningful, moving, dramatic and also depressing at times. But if a story gives me nothing else but depression and a dark mood I start to wonder why I bother watching/reading/playing it.

And btw: If the deus ex machina aspect is the problem, there would be other surely ways to solve that than killing of all asuran technicians.

Sorry, I didn't read the entire thread, just had to give my two cents to the topic since it was bothering me all day yesterday ever since I played the episode.

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A sarcastic post followed by a 6 page thread, nice one.

If we're going to murder every character anyway, can't we just have thanos use his infinity glove ingame? Like, where you do a story arc and suddenly half the NPCs go missing... may help with rendering issues!

And for ArenaNet the question that should've been answered was: "Why are the hero's helpers so inconsequential that they can be killed off so easily?". Think about this for a second: every time someone dies, nothing happens. If the right story arcs were chosen, the general response would be "good thing that idiot is gone, all (s)he did was whine whine whine". There is no repercussion for the team losing its member(s) because ultimately these members are completely expendable in terms of abilities and knowledge. And often the characters that are designated to die then die in the most retarded way imaginable (Eir's death for example).

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@Twyn.7320 said:Gorrik is basically 'Phlunt Lite', being 'on the spectrum' and still has more potential than Taimi. Honestly like, they could save Kasmeer and Rytlock, kill off the rest and the Dragon's Watch story wouldn't lose anything and would probably become better. They've character-assassinated Braham, Rox is basically invisible, along with Marjory, Taimi's never been developed and acts as a stereotype, and Canach's devolving every single episode.

There's a misguided argument at the moment that there's too much death in Guild Wars 2.

There isn't enough consequence in the narrative. The Commander walks into one of the most dangerous places in the world, with almost the full roster of Dragon's Watch, and no one dies or gets injured. The only character that gets injured off-screen is Faren, and everyone on the forums claps and cries: 'Amazing story, best thing ever.' It's beyond predictable and terribly written. I can't understand how people play through the same formula over and over, and feel that it's amazing.

The Living Story Formula: Instance, Instance, Hearts, Final Instance.

It never deviates, and it never works. The Hearts aspect is just lazy, at least they changed it slightly for Episode 3 so we're not just doing the Hearts, but it just sets up the Hearts for a later date, as everything that we do contributes to the yellow bar. The first Instance always has a dramatic event, and it's poorly handled. The second Instance involves travelling to the new zone. The final Instance is the big conclusion that always has a strange ending. It never changes. We wait 3 months, and we get the same formula. Why can't we deviate from this? How about we travel to the zone in the first Instance, and then the whole story takes place in that zone? How about we do a mini-quest that isn't tied to the Hearts and takes place in a ruin, or something? You can't change the final Instance, I understand that... but at least handle the dramatics with good writing. ANet has only hit the mark once with an ending, and that was: Living World Season 3 Episode 1, which still remains the best Living World Episode IMO, and probably the best story that they've ever told. Everything else has either been filler or a huge let-down with missed opportunities, and most of these missed opportunities comes from character-assassinations, or just bad writing. It's actually quite frustrating to see so much potential wasted by a family-friendly, predictable narrative team, and forced representation.

A final note: Forced Representation + Bad Writing = Horrendous, Insulting Characters. Gorrik is actually an insult to people who are 'on the spectrum'. Anet's portrayal of Gorrik isn't accurate, and it's just glorifying something that's quite intricate to write. There are positives and negatives to all situations, but if you only focus on the positives, the character loses all sense of reality and becomes forced.

Right on, even after a certain dialogue with Blish near the end of the episode, I already knew what was going to happen. A lot of things are quite predictable, which kills it a bit for me.

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I would have preferred keeping Blish around. I felt that they achieved something with Blish that I had not really experienced with other asuras: vulnerability. A golemized asura was also something different. Sure, the same could happen with Taimi, but the problem with Taimi is that she already exists as a Wunderkind. Wunderkinder are boring.

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As I said in another thread, I think she should die. Not because I hate her, in fact, it's just the opposite. We've all known for a long time that she was "different" and had a debilitating condition. We also knew she was only in remission, and not cured. Now that she is going to die, let her. She has shown that disabled people are just as capable as those who are not, and she has provided a hero's portion of help from the day we met her. Let her go with dignity. Don't make her into some shadow of herself by merging with Scruffy or some other golem/Asura hybrid.

Besides, maybe her death will cause Braham to go home and get married, have kids and be a dad instead of traipsing all over the world complaining about everything.

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@"Fat Disgrace.4275" said:Wow people actually have hatered for this little rat?

Yeah it's a fat disgrace isn't it? Personally though I hate how she sounds through the communicator (too loud and hyper is my impression). Gives me headaches. In direct conversation with her that was always a lot better.

What I do find a shame is that they doubled up on the drama, not giving either the attention it deserves. I mean, Blish was proving to be a likeable character that had to stay behind in the mists and that is a sad moment and then his farewell words have to do with not keeping secrets and boom we get the admission of an incurable disease. I think I would've preferred a little time between the two, because I felt sort of bad for Blish's lot and when Taimi made her announcement it was like "oh, ok" to me cause I was still with the Blish outcome at that moment. They could've spaced that a little better.

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What came to a blow to the head was that in some cutscenes she even walks normally, so i though "hey, she must be getting better!", then pop goes the bubble. I know they said that her condition is terminal, but i really hope they find a way to save her somehow. Dragon Watch its the succesor of Destiny´s Edge and they have barely started to shine, if would look horrible if one of their members died so fast. Besides Taimi has been the whole brains behind the team since, well, since she appeared basically, i don´t imagine the team finding a way to deal with the remaining Elder Dragons without her brains.

Maybe she does die but takes a leaf out of blish and transfer her mind to Scruffy?

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Ultimately, it's up to the writers. If they want her to accept her fate, or die a martyr, or refused to accept it but still die of boneitis, then they will write it that way.

If they want to save her, there are loads of ways. Merging with a golem is the obvious one, but there are lots of other transformations that take biological weakness out of the picture: becoming exalted, adapting the rite of the great dwarf for asura, or having aurene turn her into sort of a free-willed branded, minus the purple.

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I can...mostly deal with characters dying, though I hate doing it for the shock value or just because they're liked. Let them do it in a meaningful way. (If my personal favorite - Canach - dies, it had better be when we go back to a revamped Southsun and he somehow sacrifices himself to clean up his residual mess on the island, for instance.)

I'm fairly ambivalent about them nowadays so I'm fine with Faren wising up and being our human representative and continuing to evolve (and despite How He Is, he has), but please please please if you take Kas and Jory completely out of the storyline just let them go off and live in a house in DR and have their biggest problems be picking curtains they agree on.

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@Blockhead Magee.3092 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:If it comes down to a choice to Destroy kralkatorrik or save Taimi then i'll say this much.Tyria better get used to being branded.

Not to worry, after your clan has been branded, I'll skewer that annoying plot device, kill the dragon and have a nice cup of tea.

Not if I feed you to an Elder dragon first :P

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@Twyn.7320 said:

@Twyn.7320 said:Gorrik is basically 'Phlunt Lite', being 'on the spectrum' and still has more potential than Taimi. Honestly like, they could save Kasmeer and Rytlock, kill off the rest and the Dragon's Watch story wouldn't lose anything and would probably become better. They've character-assassinated Braham, Rox is basically invisible, along with Marjory, Taimi's never been developed and acts as a stereotype, and Canach's devolving every single episode.

There's a misguided argument at the moment that there's too much death in Guild Wars 2.

There isn't enough consequence in the narrative. The Commander walks into one of the most dangerous places in the world, with almost the full roster of Dragon's Watch, and no one dies or gets injured. The only character that gets injured off-screen is Faren, and everyone on the forums claps and cries: 'Amazing story, best thing ever.' It's beyond predictable and terribly written. I can't understand how people play through the same formula over and over, and feel that it's amazing.

The Living Story Formula: Instance, Instance, Hearts, Final Instance.

It never deviates, and it never works. The Hearts aspect is just lazy, at least they changed it slightly for Episode 3 so we're not just doing the Hearts, but it just sets up the Hearts for a later date, as everything that we do contributes to the yellow bar. The first Instance always has a dramatic event, and it's poorly handled. The second Instance involves travelling to the new zone. The final Instance is the big conclusion that always has a strange ending. It never changes. We wait 3 months, and we get the same formula. Why can't we deviate from this? How about we travel to the zone in the first Instance, and then the whole story takes place in that zone? How about we do a mini-quest that isn't tied to the Hearts and takes place in a ruin, or something? You can't change the final Instance, I understand that... but at least handle the dramatics with good writing. ANet has only hit the mark once with an ending, and that was: Living World Season 3 Episode 1, which still remains the best Living World Episode IMO, and probably the best story that they've ever told. Everything else has either been filler or a huge let-down with missed opportunities, and most of these missed opportunities comes from character-assassinations, or just bad writing. It's actually quite frustrating to see so much potential wasted by a family-friendly, predictable narrative team, and forced representation.

A final note: Forced Representation + Bad Writing = Horrendous, Insulting Characters. Gorrik is actually an insult to people who are 'on the spectrum'. Anet's portrayal of Gorrik isn't accurate, and it's just glorifying something that's quite intricate to write. There are positives and negatives to all situations, but if you only focus on the positives, the character loses all sense of reality and becomes forced.

I wish I could like this 100 times. Absolutely spot on. The story is a predictable cadence at this point, and nothing shocking actually happens. Some scenes in Long Live the Lich were pretty good, funny even, albeit predictable. We all knew Joko would be no more after this. But that is the point of how any game is, you're the hero, they're the enemy. Ofcourse you'll triumph.There's no sense of desperation, nothing that makes you feel for the story, the characters, or the call of battle. I don't know if this is because I've gotten older, or if it's down to the writing, but good writing should give me this sense of, 'The world needs me, or we're truly doomed'. This was, oh plague, ok, let's squish some bugs. Joko's personality is what I like in an enemy, cunning, smart, and his monologue at the very end was probably the best dialogue of the entire Episode. Some home truths, and self reflection.

If the two of you knew before hand that Joko was not going to live beyond this episode that is prescient, there was actually no reason to think we would be taking him down this episode at all. As a matter of fact the more logical(and groan worthy) step would have been for us to attempt to defeat him only to lose and have to regroup, however, once it became clear he was going down the method of his demise was perfectly well orchestrated(yes, it was orchestrated, if you didn't know that Aurene would kill him then you didn't pay attention in the first instance).

As for your contention, it's a game, it has to flow from point A to B to C to end, it really can't deviate from that script without throwing everything for a loop, and believe it or not, you do not have to do the hearts to continue the story(in all cases, sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't), they are ancillary and not integral to completing the story line.

It's not actually prescient. It's a trend with Guild Wars 2's story-telling, and that's why the format's become extremely predictable. It basically works like this:

Does the character do something that could result in a world-ending or race-ending threat? If yes, they'll die in the next story that involves them.

This was the case with Caudecus. He posed a real threat to Divinity's Reach in Out of the Shadows, and so, he was executed in the Lake Doric narrative. It was also the case with Lazarus. He posed a real threat if he was able to be resurrected in the White Mantle narrative, so Livia put an end to him with our help in One Path Ends. It was also the case with Balthazar. He posed a world-ending threat in Draconis Mons, and became the villain of Path of Fire, so he died in its conclusion. Joko is just the most recent villain to die in the next story that involved him. He posed a threat to all of the Human nations by collecting the Scarab Plague in A Bug in the System that could wipe them out in days or weeks, so he was going to die in Long Live the Lich. This is what I meant by 'the narrative is very predictable', because the formula never changes. The villains never win in any large or small way, except in one instance: Scarlet.

Even though Scarlet died, her effect on the world still exists to this date. She caused the awakening of Mordremoth, which in turn, led to the magical explosions that we've seen in recent Episodes. It's not a surprise that this type of story-telling died with LWS1. Anet is petrified of repeating LWS1's formula, due to its controversial history. It's been several years since then, and I doubt that they'd mess it up like that again. Just because one aspect of LWS1 went wrong, it doesn't mean that the whole thing was terrible.

As for the hearts, you actually have to complete them in some Episodes to progress the narrative. For instance, Daybreak made the player complete the Astralarium heart in order to progress into the Sunspears' sanctuary. Without doing that, you couldn't carry on with the story, and it was ultimately dull story-telling to introduce players to the hearts in the zone of Istan.

As for the 'it's a game, it can't deviate from a set formula or script', that isn't the case. A script goes through multiple edits as the chapter's being made, so it's possible to deviate from a formula, they're just choosing not to. For instance, Peter Fries admitted that LWS4 was originally going to have a huge sub-plot where Joko instructed an Awakened Assassin, likely a lore character, to hunt down and eliminate members of Dragon's Watch to weaken his opposition. At the end of Episode 3, we'd have to fight the Awakened versions of the eliminated Dragon's Watch members. However, they decided to cut this because it was 'too dark'. Despite being the most interesting idea to come from the Narrative Team in a LONG time IMO, they're very quick to cut anything or edit anything that may deviate from the traditional formula of Guild Wars 2's story-telling.

And finally, as for Aurene killing Joko. I think that's one of the most predictable aspects of Long Live the Lich. By the time that they hadn't introduced anything to do with 'how to kill Joko', which was just before Be My Guest, I knew that Aurene would be the cause. I just hoped that Aurene wouldn't be the cause of Joko's death because the narrative needed a few more Episodes with Joko, IMO. However, I'd already said my goodbyes to Joko when the Official Trailer released for Long Live the Lich. The title basically gave it away, because at the death of a monarch, the people usually chant: 'Long Live the Queen/King'.

Anyway, this is why I feel that the story is noticeably predictable, and why I've been able to predict the narrative trends since Living World Season 3. You may choose to disagree with me, as if I can't be a prophet in that way. However, it's very simple to work out what's going to happen if you look at the narrative trends of Guild Wars 2. Until this changes, I'm going to be a really snazzy prophet with a diamond crown and a golden goblet of wine. ;)

I'd like to get your take on the direction of the story now, because if I understand your reasoning we would kill off Kralkatorrik in Ep5 with Aurene taking his place, which I highly doubt will happen in Episode 5 since we know Season 4 has 6 Episodes.

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