[Spoilers] Terrible story

[Vyrulisse.1246]

The whole Aurene thing fell flat with me anyway because I never really felt as attached to her as A.net seemed to think I did as a player. We barely spent time with her, an instance here or there but I'm supposed to be sad she "died"? I was like "That sucks" and moved on.

I'm also not a fan of the reliance on melodrama Anet seems to be obsessed with. It's just getting tiresome that everyone is soo dramatic all the time and to a lesser extent I don't like how modern vernacular snakes its way into the dialogue continually. When I play a fantasy MMO I don't want to hear people sound like they could be chatting together at a Mall or bus stop or whatever, it just takes me out of it. I admit that's a personal thing and probably petty to some but it's just how I feel.

A big issue they still seem to struggle with is pacing. Everything always feels so rushed and compressed when a lot of big moments need time to simmer a bit.

[daydreamer.3092]

one of the worst, if not the worst story part ever. Completly lack of character development. I think its possible to exchange the NPC story characters (Taimi, Rox, Canach, Zafariah etc) with anonymous ones like Zephyrites and most people wont recognize, because they do only act in the most common uncreative ways anyways.

Concerning gameplay its just a port and run story and it does feel unfinished with regard to this matter too. Pretty sure its the result of the brain drain in the team and i hope they can regenerate.

Last story part was great, this one is boring af

Maybe add a single player challenge mode so i have to help my pet

[TheBravery.9615]

the story would have been better with aurene dead.

[Genesis.8572]

@TheBravery.9615 said:the story would have been better with aurene dead.Nah.

[yann.1946]

A death doesn't need to be permanent to have impact tho.One thing we can't say is that their where no breadcrumbs along the way.

And Joko's magic got eaten what was important. Not the eating of joko itself

[zealex.9410]

@yann.1946 said:A death doesn't need to be permanent to have impact tho.One thing we can't say is that their where no breadcrumbs along the way.

And Joko's magic got eaten what was important. Not the eating of joko itself

Didnt have to be permanent, just more than 5 ingame minutes.

[lezbefriends.7516]

@zealex.9410 said:

@yann.1946 said:A death doesn't need to be permanent to have impact tho.One thing we can't say is that their where no breadcrumbs along the way.

And Joko's magic got eaten what was important. Not the eating of joko itself

Didnt have to be permanent, just more than 5 ingame minutes.

Why? So people can waste time being sad over someone who’s not permanently dead?

[sigur.9453]

@Mortifera.6138 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@"yann.1946" said:A death doesn't need to be permanent to have impact tho.One thing we can't say is that their where no breadcrumbs along the way.

And Joko's magic got eaten what was important. Not the eating of joko itself

Didnt have to be permanent, just more than 5 ingame minutes.

Why? So people can waste time being sad over someone who’s not permanently dead?

No, but it would have been interesting how "we the commander" manage the complete new situation. Do we find another plan? Do we give up completly? How would the group dynamic change? (looking at you, easy to lose your head norn) How does Krak change after "the only threath is gone"? How would the whole of tyria react?Nope. Denied. Cutscene.

As it is now, the whole "dead" scene was nothing more than a cliffhanger. Comparable to "simple" TV shows that normaly do " 1 case a week" but went with a 2 episode story this time as season highlite. Formular = End of first episode: everythings lost. Start oft 2nd Episode: Istant redemption begins.

[Doghouse.1562]

@hugo.4705 said:What kill me is they very rapidly killed Joko JUST because it was needed for AurenePerhaps, but frankly it seems pretty blatant that the Joko arc was only even present to give Aurene a way back, and let them use her to round off the dragon problem. And, frankly, I think it was long enough; anything much longer would have detracted (I should say, detracted even more) from the actual main story arc. Although I wait with some curiosity to see what direction the next episode takes, because that one felt very much like an end.

[derd.6413]

gw2 is a soap opera set in a fantasy world with lot's of fighting.

[Menadena.7482]

@McPero.3287 said:When I saw Aurene get resurected in first instance I just Alt+F4 the game. If you are gonna bring her back at least don't do it immediately, what was the point of her dying if she is instantly back. Terrible story telling. You kill a quality villain in the first fight (Joko) and bring back a mute dragon (which yes speaks now) that had no character to it but was just liked by people because it looked cute and shinned. Not sure if I'll even play this episode now maybe if Taimi dies I will. Does she?

Actually, I like it so far. I have not done the final instance (I looked at some spoilers and since I have epilepsy will want to do it with a group) but I just LOVE the idea of doing a story again rather than killing a neverending horde.

Oh, and if your complaint is Aurene's back? Look at the end of the chapter. They did it in a way to satisfy both the people that wanted her back and the people that wanted her to stay dead.

[derd.6413]

@Menadena.7482 said:

@McPero.3287 said:When I saw Aurene get resurected in first instance I just Alt+F4 the game. If you are gonna bring her back at least don't do it immediately, what was the point of her dying if she is instantly back. Terrible story telling. You kill a quality villain in the first fight (Joko) and bring back a mute dragon (which yes speaks now) that had no character to it but was just liked by people because it looked cute and shinned. Not sure if I'll even play this episode now maybe if Taimi dies I will. Does she?

Actually, I like it so far. I have not done the final instance (I looked at some spoilers and since I have epilepsy will want to do it with a group) but I just LOVE the idea of doing a story again rather than killing a neverending horde.

Oh, and if your complaint is Aurene's back? Look at the end of the chapter. They did it in a way to satisfy both the people that wanted her back and the people that wanted her to stay dead.

i think you misunderstood the ppl that wanted her dead if you think that ending was meant to satisfy them

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Vyrulisse.1246" said:The whole Aurene thing fell flat with me anyway because I never really felt as attached to her as A.net seemed to think I did as a player. We barely spent time with her, an instance here or there but I'm supposed to be sad she "died"? I was like "That sucks" and moved on.For me it has more meaning, because it allowed us to see commander (and the whole bunch) failing, and having to deal with it. That usually is an important arc in many stories.Too bad though, it turns out we didn't fail, and we didn't have to deal with it. We weren't challenged with having to think up a last ditch desperate plan. We didn't have to overcome the failure, and the psychological burden it placed upon us. No, Aurene was still here to save our behinds.

The suddenly caring Kralky (after all we heard about how the elder dragons are more natural disasters than people) was just a cherry on top here.

Too bad Anet never had the stones to go for more complex stories, and preferred to go for the more simplistic approaches. Maybe they're afraid that players aren't mature enough to understand anything more complicated.

So, personally not a fan.

[derd.6413]

@Astralporing.1957 said:too bad Anet never had the stones to go for more complex stories, and preferred to go for the more simplistic approaches. Maybe they're afraid that players aren't mature enough to understand anything more complicated.

given the forums and reddit, i don't blame them for having that worry

[De Bourgogne.9642]

@Knuckle Joe.7408 said:Ifd you didn't see it coming you're dumb, dragons absorb magic, and Aurene absorbed an immortal lich's magic. You're missing out on what is probably the best living world episode anet has ever done.

And you missed a gigantic plot hole. Everytime Kralk would kill a magical being he would absorb their energy. So either he absorbs Aurenes magic which stupidly includes Jokos ability to be immortal or he would realise Aurene is not dead and would keep trying to kill her, maybe eat her like she eats Joko. He can definitely sense her magic. There is no explanation to why he would just leave her alive inside the crystals.

[saye.9304]

they had to finish the elder dragon story arc after 7 years, although i agree with you they did it, in a lazy way, bringing back aurene fast and finishing crystal dragon in one episode so they can move on to other stuff, it was kinda lazy and bad story telling, but on the other hand i am glad the elder dragon story is basically finished and we might get something new and more interesting in the future, i hope they learn from their mistakes and we get better story telling in the future.

[Shiyo.3578]

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@McPero.3287 said:

Just because it is a MMO doesn't means bad story telling is acceptable. No reason to encourage mediocrity. They have so far been putting most of their effort into Living Story Episodes, that is why WvW and PvP and such a bad state. I expect at least story to be good if that is their main focus.

THIS is the main issue people have with them spending so much effort on living story. This games story never has been, and never will be good. This is a MMO, and they should focus on MMO aspects, not waste all their time and resources on meh story.

This is a MMORPG, not an purely competitive Action MMO. While PvP and WvW could use more resources, I will never want them to be this game's main content. Most people would leave if your wish came to be.

I said MMO content, not pvp and wvw only content. Meaning instanced PvE content, huge open world events(this map added that, at least) and high replayability. Previous LS releases were single player experiences with ~10-15(being generous here) hours of content in each map. That isn't sustainable or acceptable in a MMO.

The bulk of Anets resources should be going into MMO content, not single player story content. People need to repeat this until Anet understands what game they're making(hint: it's not a single player rpg).

[derd.6413]

@saye.9304 said:they had to finish the elder dragon story arc after 7 years, although i agree with you they did it, in a lazy way, bringing back aurene fast and finishing crystal dragon in one episode so they can move on to other stuff.

like that's gonna happen

[Poormany.4507]

Everyone knew she was going to get resurrected at some point anyways and Kralk's story had to end this episode without dragging him on longer than already. The alternative would have been some even bigger deus ex solution and much worse in my opinion. Don't mind having Aurene back so soon.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"saye.9304" said:they had to finish the elder dragon story arc after 7 years, although i agree with you they did it, in a lazy way, bringing back aurene fast and finishing crystal dragon in one episode so they can move on to other stuff, it was kinda lazy and bad story telling, but on the other hand i am glad the elder dragon story is basically finished and we might get something new and more interesting in the future, i hope they learn from their mistakes and we get better story telling in the future.Yes, "finishing up loose ends" was the name of the game of the late storytelling at Anet. They managed to write out of the story Lazarus (and the Mursaat in general), Gleam, human gods, Joko, and now are on their way towards sweeping out the dragons. And i did notice how sneakily they've just written out all the god realms people kept asking about (Melandru's realm? Fissure of woe? underworld? It's all empty! Kralky's already eaten everything in those!).

It's like they have a beef with their lore and would rather start a new game...

[hugo.4705]

I waited for way far more, they killed joko rapidly because it wasn't the main villain but when I see what they've done to kralky, it was supposed to be THE vilain nah? The start was very promising and way too short. The fight between dimensions flying with aurene shooting on him avoiding tail using rifts was awesome, could have continued with jumping on his back hitting everything... that final kamehameha to cut one of his wings really felt cheap and odd plus, I mean seriously, so that's it, it just crash in middle of the ocean, just have to destroy its heart? I never saw a so POOPY ending , EVEN WORST THAN JOKO which was already cheap.

WASN'T IT STATED TO AVOID KILLING DRAGONS?

And what is that BS kitten of giving kralk feels? Bouh bouh i'm corrupted... bouh I was always nice... not my fault... those magics inside me... literally KILLED ITS PERSONNALITY. Not killed what he loves, what its minions? Lol Joko or him, they deserved way far more. A very disapointing season ending. And plz, enough of ignoring death... kralk was that stupid to not eat aurene and becoming immortal? Since when dragons are nice whereas the lore always depicted them as stone heart destroying everything? There is a REAL issue of logic between the story and the lore. And whut, we just got its blood in two seconds? Also ok so no quests, pact arrive here, just bring waypoint, build everything in 2 mins and already know the technologies to disperse brandstorms?! Why they haven't made it before? I took that as a troll. Hostile environment plus unknown and they are all like nice to fight want some tea? Wandering tranquilly with their mounts.(Map is okay however, don't know gw1 version so I found it gorgeous and interesting.)

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

I used to care about the story years ago, but the predictable tropes and over used plot devices turned the story meaningless. The good part of living story releases are that it provides a new map to explore and potentially some fun meta content.

[Menadena.7482]

@Poormany.4507 said:Everyone knew she was going to get resurrected at some point anyways and Kralk's story had to end this episode without dragging him on longer than already. The alternative would have been some even bigger deus ex solution and much worse in my opinion. Don't mind having Aurene back so soon.

Exactly, a comparable situation would be the ending to the avengers movie last year. Not going to spoil it but everyone knew what was going to come of that .... it was only a question of how it was done.

Personally I liked how it was handled with Aurene. We got to see the whole pact sad at the beginning of the story, then putting ep 5 behind them in a few minutes, a whole different aurene during the chapter, then ending her arc and the season with a fitting ending (or not an ending maybe).

[Goettel.4389]

Still a better story than twilight.Sorry, couldn't resist :)

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

What they should have done is made it a risk to remove the Brand Crystal from Aurene. A mission or two where we actually worked towards making Aurene better before we remove the Brand Crystak at the risk of losing her if we didn't do it carefully. Ya know... all hope or no hope scenario.

We actually got to play the game to get that free rez after Balthazar deep sixed us. Just us watching Aurene rez felt really off because it was purely deus ex, there was literally no effort made to get her back.