post-Episode 5 pending arcs/rumours.[heavy spoilers]

[Randulf.7614]

@Daniel Handler.4816 said:Where are Marjory and Kasmeer? Do their voice actors have full schedules?

I'm not sure that's been fully answered. Canonically they have been helping evacuate villages and assist the local populace. In Thunderhead keep, Taimi has a remote dialogue interaction with them about what they are up to and general chit chat, but that is pretty much all we have had in the latter part of ls4.

[Susy.7529]

OP, by writing "Episode 5", you actually mean Episode 6, don't you?

[Sykper.6583]

Hm.I don't want to get too deep but the 'Facets' during the last instance that are supposed to be reflective of the spheres owned by Gods and EDs kind of make me ponder something:

With Kralkatorrik's 'Torment' and the Facet of Mordremoth's 'Madness', maybe the ED have a sphere based upon the subjectively 'darker' aspect of a force.

For Mind? I would say Sanity vs Madness, or Insanity if you will. I suppose it could be the reason why keeping our minds intact allowed us to fight Mordremoth, but that's kinda wimpy.

Zhaitan was Shadow but we more or less decimated him through an long and arduous process, though I guess if you consider cleansing Orr and firing a giant laser instances of 'Light' to his shadow.

So Kralkatorrik was 'Torment' or pain more specifically. Maybe Soothing, or the lack of pain is what is attributed to that aspect? In fact, the Herald from the Revenant Elite Spec has a heal skill that converts damage to healing, an inversion of what would be negative is positive.

The Gods likely ruled over the Spheres in their more neutral way, Balty's 'War' is pretty negatively toned but War isn't abnormal, wars are fought for a variety of reasons.

If we presume this to be the line of thinking, I think a large part of what eventually makes an Elder Dragon, at least before Aurene, happen is when a being becomes too aspected to any negative part of their sphere.

[Bast.7253]

Well, I’m wondering if despite the suggestion that the spheres of influence are taken in completely by a chosen dragon, if they’re not actually splintered or fragmented somehow and able to be used in a lesser form by multiple dragons. Thus why Mordremoth and Zhaitan used their base spheres so much more and other elder dragons using their spheres merely as enhancements or extra tools when they need to but stick to their primary spheres as it’s what they’re naturally most attuned with. I guess you could say it’s simply because of what they’re used to, or that those abilities are so new to them they don’t know how to use them. But i could see it just as easily being that they simply aren’t capable of wielding them with the same amount of power as their original host.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:They write what they think seems cool, then afterwards go "okay, how can we make this fit in?"

Which is, imo, a bad way to write a very long story arc, because it results in inconsistencies and retcons frequently.

They pretty much just admitted they don't exactly know how the original approach to the game's narrative was going because they weren't there when GW2 was more recent.

I mean the FQA Team member sounded like they knew more lore (especially GW1 lore to tie it to GW2) than the current narrative team did cuz they actually researched it. They should revise things before they do anything more in my opinion.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@"cptaylor.2670" said:

On the note about them talking about Kralk saying mother, they mentioned that it was intentional and hinted at it being a story thread moving forward, they also later answered a question about Aurene being the first of her kind in terms of being born from an egg, and that they don't actually internally know the origin of the elder dragons or how they came to be.

So from that we have to consider, this "mother" Kralk mentions, may be the predecessor to Kralk but I think it's pretty safe to say from that answer that this mother isn't somekind of origin of all elder dragons or anything. They said if you listen closely and pay attention during this, the mother bit may give more clues.

I don't get this. Why would they leave intentional hints about something in there when they don't even know what that something is supposed to be yet. The line about not knowing the origin of elder dragons internally makes no sense to me. Even if the mother hint refers to Kraik specifically and not EDs in general, they should already know the origin of at least one. Him. I didn't watch the guild chat but from what you posted it looks like they are making it up as they go along. Not a good way of telling stories long term in my opinion.

@"cptaylor.2670" said:

Apparently Phlunt was going to be a major antagonist this season, and they scrapped that. I'm glad, personally, but it definitely seems like that would be a bit annoying to have to work around for the people developing these episodes. Because at any moment, they could change their minds and have to rebuild future releases to fit that episode.

Phlunt??? Were they serious about that? A literal joke character, only ever used for comedic bits with Taimi, as a season's main antagonist? Just the fact he was considered is disturbing enough.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:I don't get this. Why would they leave intentional hints about something in there when they don't even know what that something is supposed to be yet.

ArenaNet's GW2 writing in a nutshell.

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:Phlunt??? Were they serious about that? A literal joke character, only ever used for comedic bits with Taimi, as a season's main antagonist? Just the fact he was considered is disturbing enough.

Not main antagonist, just a major one. From that_Shaman's findings, it seems Phlunt was to be a major Inquest honcho who allied himself with Joko.

[ugrakarma.9416]

Good thing they did not go forward with this Phlunt thing, episode 2 over-saturated with inquest stuff is enough. history about asura's internal conflicts over greed for research and technology is boring and exhausting.

The only thing cool envolving asuras plot is dark humor., like these lines:

Approaching the live samples labInquest Technician: Let me out! This hurts! I don't want to die here!Elite Inquest Operative: Stop whining. I need these results, and in case you haven't noticed, we're running out of time.Elite Inquest Operative: Yes, the experiment will probably kill you. But it will also advance the Inquest's march toward total world domination.Elite Inquest Operative: Subject 6 is nearly ready. Now pipe down and take your medicine. Some of us intend to survive this fiasco.Elite Inquest Operative: Wait! you can't slime me to death. I'm your creator! Aaaah!

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

I don't get this. Why would they leave intentional hints about something in there when they don't even know what that something is supposed to be yet. The line about not knowing the origin of elder dragons internally makes no sense to me. Even if the mother hint refers to Kraik specifically and not EDs in general, they should already know the origin of at least one. Him. I didn't watch the guild chat but from what you posted it looks like they are making it up as they go along. Not a good way of telling stories long term in my opinion.

Your interpretation may vary, but what I got from the guild chat is less 'we have no ideas whatsoever' and more 'we've had several ideas floated and aren't locking ourselves into any one option at this time'.

Ditto for the bits about scattering seeds and not knowing the original intent behind some of the story elements. It doesn't sound like they're taking a shotgun approach, where they're throwing things out blindly and then stumbling over a few of them again later. I suspect they do have hopes to revisit each and every one of them, but no way of knowing whether it's possible. It sounds like many of the high-level story decisions are based on things out of the writers' hands; they mentioned, for instance, that the decision to make Kralkatorrik the main antagonist of S4 and up the stakes to world-ending proportions was informed in part by the fact that they didn't know at the start what was coming next- S5, or an expansion, or something else altogether... and if it was going to be S5, they didn't know what changes might be made to the format that would impact the stories. I believe they mentioned that decision wasn't made until around Episode 3, and I doubt it's a coincidence that they also said that's the time where they really began working out the finale and Episode 6.

Not that any of this is new- we heard similar statements about S3 and HoT. I agree that it's likely been detrimental to their ability to tell long-term stories, but the company seems to believe that's worth the trade-off of being able to iterate on things that don't work and and adapt to changing visions and goals.

[Bast.7253]

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

I don't get this. Why would they leave intentional hints about

something

in there when they don't even know what that

something

is supposed to be yet. The line about not knowing the origin of elder dragons internally makes no sense to me. Even if the mother hint refers to Kraik specifically and not EDs in general, they should already know the origin of at least one. Him. I didn't watch the guild chat but from what you posted it looks like they are making it up as they go along. Not a good way of telling stories long term in my opinion.

Your interpretation may vary, but what I got from the guild chat is less 'we have no ideas whatsoever' and more 'we've had several ideas floated and aren't locking ourselves into any one option at this time'.

Ditto for the bits about scattering seeds and not knowing the original intent behind some of the story elements. It doesn't sound like they're taking a shotgun approach, where they're throwing things out blindly and then stumbling over a few of them again later. I suspect they do have hopes to revisit each and every one of them, but no way of knowing whether it's possible. It sounds like many of the high-level story decisions are based on things out of the writers' hands; they mentioned, for instance, that the decision to make Kralkatorrik the main antagonist of S4 and up the stakes to world-ending proportions was informed in part by the fact that they didn't know at the start what was coming next- S5, or an expansion, or something else altogether... and if it

was

going to be S5, they didn't know what changes might be made to the format that would impact the stories. I believe they mentioned that decision wasn't made until around Episode 3, and I doubt it's a coincidence that they also said that's the time where they really began working out the finale and Episode 6.

Not that any of this is new- we heard similar statements about S3 and HoT. I agree that it's likely been detrimental to their ability to tell long-term stories, but the company seems to believe that's worth the trade-off of being able to iterate on things that don't work and and adapt to changing visions and goals.

It also seems like with something as linear in narrative as this season was, that make things work as we go methodology may have been an unnecessary obstacle to overcome when designing these episodes. Season 3 was kind of all over the place and much more open in scope, so I think that probably worked well for them. But with this story I can imagine how it could have resulted in some major setbacks or redesign as people changed their minds. Probably part of the reason we had such issues with Kourna. And I can’t imagine how hard it was to keep what consistency they could manage with different teams working on different episodes.

You’d think, even if the details are small, there would at least be some overarching story timeline guiding them enough that those changes required during those decisions are at least minimal enough they don’t require whole episode reworks or new conception.

And they may be, it just felt like that wasn’t the case and hasn’t been for quite some time.

[AlexxxDelta.1806]

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@"AlexxxDelta.1806" said:

I don't get this. Why would they leave intentional hints about

something

in there when they don't even know what that

something

is supposed to be yet. The line about not knowing the origin of elder dragons internally makes no sense to me. Even if the mother hint refers to Kraik specifically and not EDs in general, they should already know the origin of at least one. Him. I didn't watch the guild chat but from what you posted it looks like they are making it up as they go along. Not a good way of telling stories long term in my opinion.

Your interpretation may vary, but what I got from the guild chat is less 'we have no ideas whatsoever' and more 'we've had several ideas floated and aren't locking ourselves into any one option at this time'.

Ditto for the bits about scattering seeds and not knowing the original intent behind some of the story elements. It doesn't sound like they're taking a shotgun approach, where they're throwing things out blindly and then stumbling over a few of them again later. I suspect they do have hopes to revisit each and every one of them, but no way of knowing whether it's possible. It sounds like many of the high-level story decisions are based on things out of the writers' hands; they mentioned, for instance, that the decision to make Kralkatorrik the main antagonist of S4 and up the stakes to world-ending proportions was informed in part by the fact that they didn't know at the start what was coming next- S5, or an expansion, or something else altogether... and if it

was

going to be S5, they didn't know what changes might be made to the format that would impact the stories. I believe they mentioned that decision wasn't made until around Episode 3, and I doubt it's a coincidence that they also said that's the time where they really began working out the finale and Episode 6.

Not that any of this is new- we heard similar statements about S3 and HoT. I agree that it's likely been detrimental to their ability to tell long-term stories, but the company seems to believe that's worth the trade-off of being able to iterate on things that don't work and and adapt to changing visions and goals.

I'll have to watch it myself, looks like it sheds some light on some things going on behind the scenes. For starters it kinda confirms my suspicion that Joko was supposed to be the main villain of LS4 with its finale leading to the Kralkatorik-themed third expansion. But it all changed around e3 and I suppose that's when they decided they are not doing another expansion for the time being. Which also indicates that decision had nothing to do with the February layoffs as I have seen mentioned here so often. I guess that's why LS4 felt so disjointed to me. It starts as a confrontation with the revenge-seeking Joko, plus some inquest sprinkled in (for some reason), but after e3 it shifts radically towards a more traditional, pact against ED plot.

I 've lost interest in GW2's main narrative since the end of HoT. Both Cadacaeus, Balthazar and Joko felt like villain caricatures and unnecessary distractions. And while PoF had its moments, like that beautiful library instance, the main narrative went nowhere. It felt to me like the writers kept finding excuses to avoid dealing with GW2's main overarching plot, the ED threat, trying to extend and delay resolutions as much as possible. With the exception of the "balance" revelation during PoF, the only time the dragon plot moved forward in recent years was War Eternal's final instance. Which also happens to be my favorite part of an otherwise mediocre S4. They definitely have to sit down and decide what's their narrative plan going forward and what's LS5 going to be from start to finish. Being able to iterate and adjust on the fly may work for the company but if it results in diminishing quality, it affects the end product on the consumer side.

[Zola.6197]

Honestly I'm not even sure what I want from GW2's story content anymore. I guess Bubbles? Malyck? Zojja? Those plot threads I've always wanted them to pick up again, and yet they never have. I'm pretty sure they'll be ignored like DE's redemption that narratively should have happened this episode, but they simply don't seem to care about delivering satisfactory conclusions for a lot of their old threads.

I suspect Taimi's illness will be a plot point next season, but with the nature of S4's resolution they could really go anywhere. Whether that's picking up old threads or starting a new one is hard to say. Honestly, I could see them ending GW2's story with this if they wanted to.

EDIT: I would like to see more repercussions surrounding the events of this season and PoF (like the fragile political state of Elona) and also an update on what is happening on the social/political side of the racial city-states. In general bringing back some NPCs from the Personal Story would be nice.

EDIT2: ALSO, desperately hoping we get into the Dominion of Winds soon and learn more about the Tengu there.

[borgs.6103]

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:.....

2. Malyck......

On my deathbed, I will tell my grandchildren the story of the Harbringer and how Anet just totally abandoned it.

[Bast.7253]

I think for season 5 I'd like to visit Aurene in her new form at some point, even if just to catch up for a hot minute before getting back to another plot.

But I'd like to see something a bit more spread out, exploring areas we never have before. Maybe a few smaller sub plots like Deepstone Fractal baddy, where'd the Cliffside giant go?, Malyck's tree, more stuff involving the gods, resolution of the Foefire (though I'm not sold on the idea of a Charr civil war focused expansion), Isle of Janthir/Woodland Cascades and the demons.. the weakened barrier up there with the mists or whatever.

I like Taimi, I really do, but I don't really want to spend a season searching for a cure for her. Honestly, I don't get why Aurene didn't just offer to brand her in an attempt to cure her of her ailment.

[Zychuu.7294]

Absence of Zojja, including even minor mention of her by ANYONE when old DE members are facing off against Kralkatorrik is ridiculous and disappointing.

[ugrakarma.9416]

@"cptaylor.2670" said:I think for season 5 I'd like to visit Aurene in her new form at some point, even if just to catch up for a hot minute before getting back to another plot.

But I'd like to see something a bit more spread out, exploring areas we never have before. Maybe a few smaller sub plots like Deepstone Fractal baddy, where'd the Cliffside giant go?, Malyck's tree, more stuff involving the gods, resolution of the Foefire (though I'm not sold on the idea of a Charr civil war focused expansion), Isle of Janthir/Woodland Cascades and the demons.. the weakened barrier up there with the mists or whatever.

I like Taimi, I really do, but I don't really want to spend a season searching for a cure for her. Honestly, I don't get why Aurene didn't just offer to brand her in an attempt to cure her of her ailment.

same, i not gonna fill any complaint, if her cure came from a ex-machine from "heaven" and done,

[Mem no Fushia.7604]

Maybe Aurene will revivie Blathazar as her champion.