Hypnowulf.7403

I really don't like that we never saved Blish. I mean, Kralk is right there. It's just another aspect of how the game doesn't really seem to have any empathy for anyone. I guess that's fine for an MMO, but it's the primary factor that drove me away from it. The writing of Guild Wars 2 is very heartless and unfeeling. That's why I find the more left-leaning characters to be disingenuous, more like a marketing team of execs trying to make something appealing by "doing what hte kids like" rather than having any real empathy behind it. I've gotten that impression from some of the writers I've seen on Twitter too, it's more marketing than writing. I wish I'd known that before I'd allowed myself to be hurt by it as an empath. Still, the fate of Blish still upsets me for exactly the reason Konig points out. He's there, trapped in an unending void, dark, without sensation, going crazy with only his own thoughts, unable to pass on to the Mists... And we just left him there because that's fine. Dragon's Watch really does strike me as kind of psychopathic. I suppose it's no different than Zojja though, is it? With all of the trivialities that we make time for while the world is in danger, I think that finding a cure for Zojja could've been on the list. I don't know. I mean, feel free to hit me with the confused emojis if'n ya likes, but it does seem very heartless to me that these characters were treated so poorly. Even Ryland's treatment was horrifying. He was traumatised, he lost everyone he loved, and... I... What Crecia said to him was unforgiveable. There is no excuse for that. That really was quintessential psychopathy. I suppose... At least things worked out for Rox. Edit: Yeah, I want to save everyone. That's the kind of hero I want to play as. Like Yuu in The Cruel King and The Great Hero. Why is it that most fantasy "heroes" outside of fiction aimed at kids or young adults tend to be so psychopathic and murder-happy? I get the dopamine hits and all but still... Do we ever really save anyone in Guild Wars 2? Ever? Edit II: You might be able to see what weighed so heavily on me in this game now right up until they broke me with Jormag—who just wanted to be a protective mom and break the cycles of tribal abuse and hatred. We never got to save anyone and it's just really been so oppressively depressing.

There's no point in being tribal about the Gift of Battle. I think that no one benefits when that happens. Is it true that ArenaNet treats PvP players unfairly, even like garbage? Yes. Is it true that it's cruel to force people with social anxiety issues into PvP? Yes. It isn't people who play PvE that resent PvPers having fun, that's all on ArenaNet. Frankly, I don't think most PvE players would mind giving up a zone if it meant that WvW players got one instead. There's just no need to be tribal about it, it's all messed up. The real problem is just how ArenaNet manages to mismanage the hell out of everything. Frankly, if it were me, I'd have just let the Jade Bot thing stand because I—with apparently better business acumen than ArenaNet—realise that the good will that would generate from PvP players is worth it. I mean, maybe tweak the rewards if it's affecting the economy and be very transparent about that and talk with the community about it first, but don't just pull it. It's funny how they're only communicative before an expansion drops. They really should've spoken to you lot about this first.

The way they originally wrote it, I don't actually think it's either. I don't think they're corrupted or bonded. Ryland is an example of having the bond, yes, but the Svanir don't seem to be corrupted, per se. The way I see corrupted is that they really have absolutely no agency, they're just drones, like the husks in Mass Effect. However, we see so many examples of the Svanir having free will and acting in a sapient way. Not only the ones at Hoelbrak, and the mysterious stranger that was added to the original Claw of Jormag meta, but also—my favourite example—the Svanir who're just chilling out in hotsprings, quite happily in fact, until the Blood Legion get up in their faces about it. There's something about it that... Here's the thing. I think you're both right. Ryland is bonded, as Jormag said. The others however aren't corrupted. They don't talk or behave like corrupted. What Jormag does is described as a gift. They've never given anything to anyone who hasn't asked for it, and Word of God gave it to us in no uncertain terms that Jormag doesn't lie. This is where I find Kalavier's terminology interesting. It's something that isn't bonding, and also isn't in any way we understand it dragon corruption. Jormag, despite being battered by both Primordus's ongoing telepathic assaults and the Dragonvoid, was more salient than any of the Elder Dragons other than Soo-Won herself. It's likely that they had a way to utilise their magic that wasn't just corruption. Jormag had never given anything to anyone who didn't ask for it, that power was a gift. That's why I find Kalavier's terminology so compelling. Jormag's whole bag was always persuasion, give-and-take; They gift their power in the hopes of ongoing allegiance. I think of it in terms of protection. Jormag was driven so batty by being assaulted on all sides by Primordus and the Dragonvoid that their attitude, to me, seemed to be if I can't save myself with my power, I'll protect anyone who'll listen. This, thanks to the Dragonvoid, lead to paranoia. That was what the Dragonvoid did to Jormag, in my opinion, and they were still fighting that until the very end. It's the whole notion of ice protects. They're being a protective mother. A very paranoid, protective mother. Please listen to me, let me protect you, let me give you my power so you won't be tortured the way I am. It's what I always got from them. I think part of the reason they reached out to Aurene was that if Aurene could've helped them with Primordus, Jormag could've protected Aurene. There were quite a few instances of Jormag quite obviously stressing a desire for Aurene, they wanted her. And ice protects. The way they talked to Aurene too suggested that, before they were spurned. And when she was spurned, in comes the Dragonvoid to amplify that paranoia. So I think it's a little... I don't know. I don't think it's in any way intentionally so, but a little reductive to call what Jormag did simply corruption. If it was corruption then they'd be behaving the way that all other dragon minions did, which clearly wasn't the case. The Svanir still had their culture, their art, their leisure time, and none of that suggests corrupted to me. Like I said, I think what Jormag did was much more like a very overprotective mother than a corruptor. I honestly feel that matronly side of them was shown too in how they dealt with Bangar. They gave him a bit of an embarrassing time out, made him go sit in the corner. He got to wear the dunce cap. Finally, I think the matronly, motherly aspect of Jormag was expressed with their children too. This is why I didn't do those events, because they actually traumatised me a little! Haha... Ha... Drakkar was a baby. An actual baby. Sure, a large baby, but one who was teething on Jhavi's shield, just batting it around like a puppy, and very confused about what was going on. I think that were Dragon's Watch not so set on killing Drakkar, he could've been distracted by a giant ball of yarn. I mean, really, go watch the public meta with him and see for yourself... Then there's the Claw of Jormag, who's acting a lot like a scared kid too. The Drizzlewood Coast meta Claw, I mean. When you invade his home, he's hiding behind an ice pillar, twitching, uncertain, lots of scared-looking body language. He's terrified of the invaders, but he doesn't want you to kill his mom who's trapped in the ice. He's a loyal kid. Of course, once you shoot him out of the sky he has a panic attack. Dry heaving, staring off into the middle-distance (not looking at those whom you'd think he was "attacking"), weakly flailing... I'm serious about this. Go watch the meta. It's unnerving and upsetting! I didn't do that meta for the same reason. The point is is that Jormag as a mother is driven home further by them having kids that act and behave like kids. Jormag is a paranoid mother who wants to protect all the babies. That's the way they treat all mortals—like children. You can hear it in how they talk about mortals to Aurene, even. The children need to be protected, they don't know what they're doing, they're children. So, yes, some persuasive nudging rather than anything more domineering and manipulative (like Mordremoth) fits their profile perfectly. And again, that's what I see. I've explained my thoughts on this elsewhere. So, Jormag's own aren't corrupted, they're gifted and they may get nudged a bit but... I dunno. I'm not of a mind to think that doing art and lounging in hotsprings is the hallmark of corrupted. Of course, that makes it all the more harrowing what happened to Jormag but.. That is what it is. Edit: Oh, right. Lake Doric. That was another example of Jormag being I must protect the babies. Since if they hadn't intervened, a lot of nth-degree burns would've been doled out that day by Primordus. If Jormag has them frozen in icy cribs, they can't go getting themselves in danger. Jormag is very much like this. Excessively overptoective to a paranoid degree, but not domineering. That's why I don't think theirs are corrupted. Edit II: Oh, and anyone who didn't catch that Ryland was trying hardcore to be a mommy's boy? I don't know what to tell you. It was something he needed though after losing everyone he loved and his parents were so very bad at being anything emotional with him.

I think the only way to get a sense of how many agree with you is to go and see how many people are doing the events in End of Dragons, how full the zones feel. From what I've seen and heard, the pop's only been dropping since launch. I feel that most agree with you. The thing is is that a lot of them have just moved on to other games. I know of a good few whom I talk to who're playing one of two other games instead. I think it's against the forum rule sto mention which, so I won't do that. The big problem for ArenaNet is that they managed to alienate all groups who give them money, which is just such startling and dizzying incompetence that I don't know what to make of it. The only group they really appealed to this time around was raiders, and they plan on having more required raids (and hardmode raids) as time goes on too. The problem is is that raiders convert gold to gems, so their cash store is going to dry up exactly the same way as it did after the release of HoTs, an expansion that almost bankrupted them. The thing is though is that EoD, in my opinion, doesn't have nearly the imagination or intrigue to it that HoTs did, so it won't draw back the people who left even if they do fix it. So all of the disappointed people, like the OP, will stay gone when they go. The casuals, the PvP players, and every other group who actually spent money and was alienated by this expansion? Well, they're either going or gone. Expansion sales don't mean anything, it's all about the cash-shop sales. And frankly, going by the API, I don't even think that expansion sales are as rosy as ArenaNet makes out. Again, going by the API, I don't even buy that it sold better than PoF. It doesn't matter though because, yeah, cash-shop sales over the long-term are what matter. That's why NCSoft forced an expansion in the first place—player retention. It's had the opposite effect. So, I'm disappointed. A lot of people are. I think ArenaNet made some really bad decisions here, and I don't think that it's going to get any better any time soon.

The Fallout 4 editor thing was a pretty sick burn, the clipping is astoundingly bad. It was the story that got me though. Let's bring in the Creation Goddess. She's the loveliest person to have ever existed, kind, caring, if a bit depressed. Now let's just murder her. We murdered The Goddess of All Creation! Which totally isn't jumping the flarkin' shark! And we murdered her because of some Vague Wibbly-Wobbly Ooze, the most creative villain to have blessed any fiction! Gosh, after having killed The Goddess of All Creation, how are we going to top that? It also means that Soo-Won knew everything about our reality so we're not going to find anything out there that's more fantastic that what we already knew but... That's okay! Um, it was probably silly to introduce The Goddess of All Creation, let alone kill her when we could've purified her and had her hang around as a background character but errr... It's fine! It's fine! We'll figure something out! Our hero is now on a power tier equal to The Goddess of All Creation, but we'll... We'll figure it out! We totally didn't jump the shark guys, honest! We'll do something with our remarkably vague ooze, there are certainly a lot of creative avenues for it! Believe us! It just doesn't bode well for the future.

What I see as one of the biggest signs that a game is failing is the desperation to slight anyone with a truly legitimate complaint as "haters." Of course, the new term is "doomers" co-opted from anyone who's tired of climate disaster denial, which really isn't a good look. (Yes, that's where that came from, it's what's used to attack people who point out climate disaster science in order to shut them down to serve climate-denial. It doesn't look good to apply it here.) I've played so many MMOs now. I played the MUDs, I was there for Meridian59 and The Realm. Was it called The Realm? I think so. It was a long time ago. It was this odd side-scrolling thing. I've played a great many and one recurring feature of a title in its death throes was the loyals and the marketing folk flooding the forums with how the haters are terrible people. If a game is healthy, there wouldn't need to be this defensiveness. It's only when a game is unhealthy, and even the most loyal fans know it that we see this sort of reaction. It's denial. When the game's doing well, the most obsessive fans will just shrug off the complaints as they know that they aren't going to have any effect on the game's reputation. If a game's hurting though, and they know it's hurting? That's when you see them roll out the bilious ballistas to pelt the upset hordes with dialectic bombardment. They're dishonest, they're just haters. They're here to destroy the game as part of some dark conspiracy to the many-angled, eldritch Ur-God Trolliflex. It's silly, but it's what happens every time. Of course, there are so many complaints because people who were very loyal fans now feel betrayed. It can't be that someone with very sincere feelings about how betrayed they were is driven to air those feelings. Nah, they're haters, they're trolls, and they're doomers. It isn't the haters who're causing the problem, it's those who won't accept that these complaints are sincere and it's creating an obnoxious, toxic environment. And that's what signals the death knell.

@DarcShriek.5829 That's... kind of obnoxious. I mean, some of us actually do. Let me lay this out for you. I've been playing Guild Wars 2 since beta. I got a bunch of stuff from the original game because I had also played that. Now, I'm an abuse survivor and one of my coping mechanisms was dragons. I'm a plural traumagenic, so one of my headmates has identified as a dragon for the longest time to help me. I'm extremely fond of them so I can empathise with them very easily. I can stand fighting dragons as villains, but only if they're really just nothing more than a force of nature. LWS4 changed all that. We found out that Kralkatorrik was being actively tortured by an outside force, that he didn't wnat to be the way he was acting and that something had been literally eating at him for a long time. We now understand that this was the Dragonvoid. I recall... that I didn't like putting him down, it was painful. Thinking of doing harm to dragons just makes me thinkof harm to my dragon, and that brings up a lot of old traumas. When The Icebrood Saga rolled around, they had a tagline with it. Along the lines of "We're going to learn uncomfortable truths about the Elder Dragons, that they're nothing like we think they are." Yay, I thought to myself, we might actually get to save an Elder Dragon, that'd do me a goodness. Jormag was... dangerous for me. The thing is is that the story with Jormag is that they'd been abused long term by Primordus, that Primordus had been putting them through telepathic abuse. Jromag was written as an empath who wanted to protect people with her ice, whereas Primordus just wanted to kill, kill, and kill. The thing ist hough ist hat Primordus would use his connection to his minions to get a front-row seat of the suffering he was causing, and he'd force Jormag to watch. I mean, that'd drive anyone with any amount of empathy mad. So, this worried me. I broached the topic with Tom Abernathy—the lead writer at the time—multiple times. I was assured I had nothing to worry about. It was fine. It would all work out okay. Oh, I remember thinking to myself, I know what you're doing. You're using Jormag to make a point about the just-world fallacy and how people vilify victims. Before you continue, you should... look into the just-world fallacy. They were going to use a dragon to cover a topic that had a lot of meaning to me! Hooray! That you shoudln't judge someone based on how they're being punished because they're a victim. I was elated. I'd poke Tom a few more times... Again, reassurance. The title 'End of Dragons' worried me, so I asked Tom about that and he said that if hew knew how much ArenaNet cared about dragons, I'd know I had nothing to worry about. Okay then, cool, ArenaNet was going to use Jormag to confront the just-world fallacy! Oh, in Champions they really are, Jormag is making it really clear that they're being tormented and tortured, so they're actually going to do this. I mean, I was worried about the content prior, much of it that I couldn't do but... It looked like it was going to happen. I felt relieved. There was one tell though that tweaked at my mind and left me feeling betrayed. The Claw of Jormag in Drizzlewood. Okay, so... This actually disturbed me. It begins with a little home invasion as many things do, but then the Claw is hiding behind an ice pillar. This drove home to me that they're a scared kid who wans to protect their mom who's trapped in ice right now, but they're still scared of the invading forces. The kid's literally twitching and trembling behind that little ice pillar of his. It's destroyed, and he flies off only to be shot out of the air. And this is where it gets really harrowing... Thanks to my empathy, it was easy to read what happens to Claw as a panic attack. He's dry heaving, staring off into the middle-distance (not really looking at anything), and weaky flailing. This isn't a hostile creature attacking you, this is a very scared—if very large—kid who's just freaking the heck out because they know they're about to die. I wasn't the only one who saw it, either. I showed that to a few other empaths I know and they were more than a little unnerved by it. It was disturbing. Whuuf. Okay, on we go. So, Jormag's enduring what we now know was the Dragonvoid and Primordus's continuing abuse. They have to watch both their kids getting killed (Drakkar just acts like a confused puppy for the most part), they've endured so much, and they're just begging Aurene for help. Why do they all go mad? I mean, I guess try dealing with a force that's trying to corrupt you, while also dealing with being abused by telepathic assaults for millennia, while also having to watch your kids get murdered. See what that does for your sanity. What happened with Jormag left me feeling hurt and betrayed, honestly. Instead of challenging the just-world fallacy, they drove Jormag to commit suicide. That's a lovely message for abuse survivors. No one's ever going to care about you, just kill yourself. I didn't want to give them yet another chance with End of Dragons, but I thought... I'd at least look into it. The trailer was quite promising, the conversation between Soo-Won and Kuunavang. That seemed to set things off right, so perhaps this time we'd get to save an Elder Dragon for a change instead of torturing them and then butchering them (with a side order of killing their kitten kids). Kralkatorrik and the way they advertised The Icebrood Saga changed the narrative of Elder Dragons in my head. You know how End of Dragons went, and they couldn't have hurt me more with it if they tried. So, we learn about the Dragonvoid. In other words, none of the Elder Dragons were evil—they were all victims to this corruptive force and none of them deserved to die. Every time Jormag lapsed, it was due to the Dragonvoid taking control for a moment just as it did with Soo-Won. We learn that before Primordus turned into an evil, abusive person he was a momma's boy. Why would you do that to me? How had I wronged you, ArenaNet? I'd always been a loyal customer. Like I said, I was there for the first Guild Wars. I bought everything. In GW2 I actually have 90~ per cent of the mount skins as I was enjoying myself and I thought that a game was going to use dragons to help teach people about the just-world fallacy. I brought that up with Tom Abernathy too. The thing is? I think Tom empathised, because he's gone now. I don't think this is the story Mr. Abernathy wanted either, because he's now with Bungie. I just don't think he could stand being a part of it considering the story he wanted to tell and what they did tell. He probably knew how much it would hurt people like me. Or maybe just me. Soo-Won though... See, I've been a loyal customer for years. So many years. I brought my partner and others into this game, I bought lots of things for them because I was a massive fan. I dug ArenaNet. I was all in for GW2. Does that sound like a hater to you? With End of Dragons, it sounded like they'd learned their lesson. Soo-Won was written to be the most benevolent, loving, caring, kind, considerate person in the kitten canon, far more so than Aurene or anyone else. See, for a moment, I thought... Oh, this is what they're going to do to set it right. Through Soo-Won and Aurene we'll fight the Dragonvoid, maybe we'll be able to purify the Elder Dragons and cast the Dragonvoid out of them. It wouldn't hurt anything, they could just be background characters as we go off on our adventures to fight the Dragonvoid. Okay, that'd be really cool. Admittedly, I was fooling myself. But I was fooling myself because I had faith in ArenaNet. But it's all just profits, isn't it? If some fans are tired of the dragon plot, you have to ensure you that you cause as much suffering as possible! You can't just let them be background characters. It's kind of evil. Frankly, it makes the Commander look like a psychopath. How often has the cast, using thaumababble, come up with some Deus Ex Magicka to explain away some nonsense? I'm an empath, I like saving people. It's what I want heroes to do. I would've liked to have been able to save Blish and Zojja too, but that was never on the cards. I worried a lot for Taimi who's... just been terminally ill for a long time, now. It just feels like Guild Wars 2 has become a story for people who think that suffering is novel. There's no hope, no one's going to be okay, and everyone is just going to suffer. I've laid into Wings of Fire and The Cruel King and the Great Hero for my dragon content of late and both of them have helped me heal after what ArenaNet did. You think I'm a hater? You think I'm complaining because I hate the game? You couldn't be more wrong. I'm just airing my sincere feelings because I loved this game and ever since The Icebrood Saga, everything's been a mess. If they had just left these dragons as more of a force of nature? I would've been okay! I could've handled that! But they keep showing that these poor beasts are just victims of circumstance! That everything bad that's happened to them is because of the Dragonvoid, and no one really gave a kitten. No one bothered to try to save them. I would've. I thought that's what I would've had the opportunity to do. As an abuse survivor who's lived the just-world fallacy, who was being actively abused while people were calling me a manipulator, to the point where I had to save myself from abuse? I was... really hoping that ArenaNet was going to do something special. It would've been the most meaningful thing in the world to me had they used dragons to counter the just-world fallacy. I felt betrayed. I don't feel so betrayed by Tom Abernathy anymore though as it's clear that they really stabbed him in the back and twisted the knife, too. He wouldn't be at Bungie now, otherwise. So I forgive him. Sometimes your hands are tied because people are jerks. What I don't understand is... Why? So, yes. I'm upset, I feel betrayed. I read the forums, and I found that a lot of people felt betrayed. PvP/WvW players got nothing. EoD is kind of a buggy, rushed mess. Even if everyone didn't feel betrayed, some of them felt a little disappointed. And it's frankly wretched, disingenuous, and outright venomous to suggest that anyone who has anything negative to say is just a troll who's out to hurt the game. No one's going to read this, but I had to speak my mind. Edit: The name Hypnowulf, if you're curious, is... Well, I do wonder if given my life's experiences it looks like I'm broadcasting my manipulative nature. Nah. I have a vested interest in hypnotherapy. After what I'd been through? I've spent a lot of my life wondering how I could help others who'd endured much the same, and I have actually helped some. When you've endured something like that, you want to provide succor. This is what I assumed Jormag's deal was with ice protects. That hey, if Jormag can't save herself with her power, then maybe at least she can save you. As an empath, and as an abuse survivor? I can really empathise with that. You're really driven to. I thought that Jormag's lapses were due to the torment she was enduring, that she was being overprotective and didn't trust your friends. Now I know I wasn't far off the mark. The Dragonvoid was likely making her paranoid. Didn't help that, y'know, we killed her kids. It just doesn't feel right. Nothing about GW2 does ever since LWS4. Heck, if you want to know more about the kind of person I am. If it can in any way prove my sincerity? I don't want to share too much about myself in case my standing with this community puts others I care about in danger of being doxxed and mistreated but... I've gotten into Wings of Fire a lot as a coping mechanism. I have an OC. Can you guess what they are? If you guessed hypnotherapist, you'd be right. https://toyhou.se/15034267.shimmer If you care enough to learn, I wanted you to understand the kind of person I am and why I felt so betrayed and hurt by Guild Wars 2. See, if Tom's bosses had been honest with him so he could've been honest with me? It would've been fine. If Tom had been like No, sorry. It won't go the way you want, it's better if you stop now. Then that would've been okay! Sincerity! I would've respected that and just stopped playing at that time. That isn't what happened though. I was lead along just to be hurt. And it still hurts. I'm sorry if that's offensive or that makes me a hater, but there you go. Edit 2: And I don't want any of you to feel like garbage over this. I just... wanted my position to be better understood.

I'm a little weary of the sudden influx of positive users saying much the same thing after the reception has been so negative for so long. I think some might be sincere but, yes, it smells a little like marketing. Right now, there are still too many issues. And the story is very hit or miss, depending on what you want from it you'll either love it or hate it. And the ending is just a mess that makes the Commander feel like a psychopath. The advice is the same I would sagely give to anyone, and it isn't either of thoe poll options. My advice: Wait. Look into the story. If you like the look of it, that's fine. There's a lot of melancholy, pseudointellectual nihilism, Millennial-speak, and rushed aspects going on where things feel like they're just beginning to get fleshed out before getting discarded. And again, that ending. The game has a lot of bugs right now. A multitude, you might even say it has a plethora. It is a great many bugs, an insecte ménagerie. It has lots of bad graphical issues, balance issues aplenty, and... Just read some of the threads here. It's a mess. Like the Jade Maw meta being only doable if you have below 10 people (impossible with 15+), the Dragon's End meta being... the Dragon's End meta... There's stuff that won't get fixed such as the zones being so oppressively empty, lacking in environmental storytelling, sidequests, and the like. Hence, wait. Some of these issues will be resolved. If the storyline is to your liking and you don't mind the whole thing feeling half-baked and empty? Grab it for cheapsies. You'll do better just researching for a bit, reading around, watching some videos, and so on. Impulse buys never helped anyone. They just lead to cognitive dissonance and the sunk-cost fallacy. You're really better off just waiting to see how much they fix and improve.

How didn't killing Soo-Won make you feel like a pile of trash? I don't know what it is, but there's this really bizarre lack of empathy in the GW2 community. If it doesn't look like me, I hate it! I mean, I recall the very acerbic, vitriolic reaction to the charr. There will always be the patronising and sardonic sorts who'll—and it's so droll—ask if one can tell the difference between reality and a story, without at all realising that a very imaginative, very empathetic person can get very immersed in a story. And it can feel uncomfortable to play a character who seems like they often act in very psychopathic ways. The truth is is that the writers could've easily have written in a way of saving Soo-Won, I mean. I did it myself in a few seconds and it reads at least as well as any magical macguffin bolstered by thaumobabble that the writers themselves have mustered up to. Joon: I've been using my technology to study Aurene's unusual thaumaturgical matrix and I think I've finally nailed the facet of it that grants her immunity to the Void. Give me—Give me a moment, I think I can reconfigure the extractor to modify Soo-Won's matrix to cast out the Dragonvoid and keep it out. Cover me while I push some buttons! Other than for shock value—ooh, so drama, suffering is such a novelty—there isn't a single good reason why Soo-Won couldn't have remained alive. I've also provided a story path too in which Soo-Won could've served as a background character while the player heads into a second story arc in the Mists, against the Dragonvoid. I just... I don't understand why it isn't upsetting. Soo-Won is written to be the most benevolent, loving, caring, kind character in all of Guild Wars 2. She created the world, after all. Why feel nothing for her? Why cheer and boast at her death? I don't really understand. Plus, we still have the story holes of how Aurene can somehow filter things that six dragons—including Soo-Won herself, who's much more powerful—couldn't filter the Void while she somehow can. And also now that the Commander has killed the one Goddess of all creation, what do you fight next? Killing the Goddess of all creatin is kind of jumping the shark. How do you up the ante now? It's either going to get really ridiculous or the Commander will end up narratively nerfed for some reason. It isn't a story that worked well for me. It had a decnet enough start, and it had some highs earlier on, but I haven't seen such an incredible inability to write a compelling ending other than Chibnall's era of Doctor Who. I'm just... I'm disappointed and a little heartbroken (again, after what happened with Jormag as if that wasn't bad enough). I don't know how anyone could want to play as the kind of psychopath who'd want to kill someone like Aurene. As I've also said prior, my Commander would put their foot down and demand that Joon, Taimi, Gorrik, and whatever other resident geniuses we have put their heads together to find a way to save Soo-Won. Edit: No, I'm not going to hit you with a Confused emoji or anything ridiculous like that. Your opinion is your own. I just don't understand it. I can't relate to it. I never will.

I honestly don't know what's going on with this. I mean, it's one thing to have poor quality content and writing. That can be explained by cynicism, it being a cashgrab, and general laziness. What's the goal of... locking a PvE open world mastery behind forced raid content though? Isn't forced raid content what people cam eot GW2 to get away from? That, in particular, confuses me. There's a lot that confuses me about GW2. Which is why I think some saw the tide turning and got out while they could. Such as Mr. Abernathy being at Bungie now. See, this feels like corporate sabotage. Otherwise I just don't get it. It makes absolutely no sense. It was baffling to me that they brought back Colin, that fool almost sank ArenaNet with Heart of Thorns... He's been given another chance to sink it again? The thing is is that the turtle being locked behind the Dragon's End meta, the Dragon's End meta being the way it is, and then requiring a strike that's very difficult and stressful for people who don't raid? That has Colin Johanson written all over it and it feels kinda like corporate sabotage! The kind of person who plays GW2 is a casual, for the most part. Now, consider that someone with a case of extreme social anxiety, who's made ill by being forced to interact with others not on their own terms, gets their turtle and finds out that they now have to do a strike to complete it? That person is gone. I've heard from a lot of people like that, and that's why I'm convinced that End of Dragons is a flop. The question is, WHY? That's what bothers me. It feels like with End of Dragons they did everything so perfectly to alienate as many of their demographics as they could. * They went overboard with the millennial speak, to a valley-girl extent, for an expansion set in an analogue of Asia; * They made their metas unbalanced to the point of being unplayable for anyone but organised raid groups; * They made jade bots as hostile to players who roll alts as possible, despite them being the largest demographic; * The open world zones feel oppressively empty of the kind of content that most GW2 players love, and you're forced to get around them with ziplines due to the lack of waypoints; * The colour usage feels intentionally puke-y, to the point where it actively affects people with motion sickness (and they refuse to add accessibility options for those people to help them); * Everything from the writing, to the visual asset clipping (as Jaunty pointed out), to the asset flipping (reuse) feels bizarrely lazy compared to all past content, even The Icebrood Saga; * PvPers were given nothing, and the e-specs didn't provide a new meta; * They force you to kill Soo-Won—written to be the loveliest and most benevolent person alive—when instead you could've used Aurene's immunity to give her immunity and force out the Dragonvoid, but no, you get to feel like a psychopath (I know I'm not the only person bothered by this). Again, the question is WHY? I hate to be a conspiracy theorist but too much of this feels like design. I don't really understand Capitalism so maybe there's a reason for that, some nonsense about stocks or what have you, but... I don't know, it just feels like sabotage. I wouldn't have believed this but they've just done so much that it's been driven comically over the edge into something that couldn't have all been intentional. It's just too much. It's a spectacular feat to do everything wrong, so that you alienate almost all of your demographic beyond hardcore raiders. That's a special achievement. How can that not be intentional? I can't wrap my mind around incompetence of that magnitude, so I don't believe that it is. It can't be. There has to be some reason as to why End of Dragons was designed to be so dreadful and of such poor quality. This is dizzying to me.

It doesn't really explain the analytics that show not many people even have the first achievement of End of Dragons, nor does it explain the sheer emptiness of the zones. If this was going well, there'd be lots of people doing the biggest metas just as there were with previous expansions. I'd like you to take a look at Dragon's End and tell me how many players are there, currently. You can go and look, I'll wait. From everything I've read, all of the metas are dead. It isn't just Dragon's End, it's just... everything. The people who're still playing took their turtle, their skiff, and got out. They're playing other content if they're still playing at all. That strike to the overall faith of the playerbase isn't going to do well when the next expansion rolls around. The Icebrood Saga was of poor quality due to being rushed, End of Dragons was of poor quality due to being rushed. Who's to say the next thing won't also be? Or the one after that? That's if there even is one, because according to what I've heard, the financial success of ArenaNet wasn't taking into account the strength of the won at the time, but even if you forget to take that into account it still performed incredibly poorly against every other existing IP that NCSoft has. Riddle me this, friends: Lineage III—now known as Throne and Liberty—will be out soon. At that point, Guild Wars 2 will seem like a money sink to NCSoft as ArenaNet is just not performing nearly as well as they want. And what happens to titles that don't perform as well as they want? May I direct your attention to City of Heroes and WildStar? If you really think that the poor quality of End of Dragons is going to save ArenaNet, well... I'll let you keep thinking that, but you're only hurting yourself.

@Blood.7254 You've summed up my feelings perfectly. Months before release I was saying that with the lurid colours, excessive clipping (that Jaunty also pointed out), graphical glitches, and how empty and dead everything looked? It just felt like a cynical cashgrab. For me, the most cynical part was killing Soo-Won. I saw one person defend this by saying that it was right that she die because otherwise we'd have to deal with the consequence of her continuing to live. Oh, I'm sorry. You mean that the writers would actually have to challenge themselves to write something decent for once? That they'd have to care about continuity? That they'd need to come out of their comfort zones and try something new rather than writing the same story over and over? Oh, how awful. It just felt especially cynical to me and now none of the story makes any sense. So, we killed the creator of the world. Not only are we a psychopath for doing so, but we killed the creator of the world. How can anything else be a challenge? And how is Aurene filtering what six dragons (and a mother) couldn't? No, sorry, there's still no explanation for that whatsoever. Excuses? Yes. Explanations? No. And saying that we didn't have a choice is just patently ridiculous too. We can do anything the writers permit us to! Here, let me help you all... Joon: I've been using my tech to scan Aurene's thaumaturgical matrix and I've managed to nail the aspect of it that grants her immunity to the Dragonvoid. Give me a minute, I think... I think I can reconfigure the extractor to modify Soo-Won's matrix in the same way, forcing the Dragonvoid out! Cover me while I push some buttons! That was just something I came up with in five seconds, I could do better if you give me longer. The point is is that the story is filled to the brim with lots of magical macguffins, why couldn't our new resident genius Joon come up with a plan to save Soo-Won? It just feels cynical, cold, and like an insult to my intelligence. Killing her was completely and utterly unnecessary. And like I said, now we have to deal with the power creep of we killed the creator of the world. What threat could even stand in our way now? What will they come up with next? Or will we be mysteriously nerfed before the next threat comes along? It's just lazy writing, which is the worst kind of writing. It isn't even simply bad, it's phoning it in. Even the name feels cynical. I know they've said that this isn't the end, but I don't believe them. I think that this is a final breath, a cashgrab before whatever the next big thing is. They're going to milk the community with skins for the turtle and the skiff, and when that's no longer profitable NCSoft will sunset the game. Everything about it feels lazy, like a cashgrab. It's like you said, though, some fall under the spell of marketing and hype way too easily. What we're seeing now though with Dragon's End and actually being forced to play this content, more and more are waking up to just how bad it is. They're being faced with cognitive dissonance now, and once they get past that you'll see the general tone regarding End of Dragons turn much more sour. The spell weaved around the poorly made product with customer loyalty through marketing, that's all that the positivity is. Plus, loyalty from when GW2 was good. I get that though, I loved Path of Fire and most of LWS4. It was great. But that won't save anyone from the reality that End of Dragons is just really, really, really, really bad. and again, it's not just bad, it's cynical. I'm really wondering how long they'll keep up the pretence of actually adding new content to GW2 before it gets sunset.

From what I understand of the situation there are a few incorrect statements here, which I just want to point out as somoene who's been following the whole debacle. First of all, there are still some people from the prior expansions around, it's just that they're the wrong people. Colin Johanson almost sank ArenaNet with what he forced into Heart of Thorns, that was really bad. They brought him back to lead End of Dragons and... Well, here we are! Here we are. I know that a few important writers left because reasons. And they were writers who were wroking on Guild Wars 2 itself. And they're gone now, because reasons. Including one big name who's now at Bungie. On top of that, ArenaNet's leadership was beheaded before Colin Johanson was brought on board due to a tiff between him and NCSoft. He wanted to do sagas, NCSoft pushed for an expansion. NCSoft "won" by firing him. Also, there were layoffs of those working on Guild Wars 2 too. So to say that all of the people that got laid off were working on ArenaNet's unnaounced projects is contrary to what I've read. It's not like it was one layoff that NCSoft was responsible for, either. No, NCSoft hit ArenaNet with the layoffs stick numerous times. I think that hsows in End of Dragons. In my opinion, Path of Fire and most of LWS4 was the height of Guild Wars 2, and that's when ArenaNet had the right people working on this game. The wrong people were dealt with after the mess that HoTs made. And the right people got pink-slipped somewhere amid LWS4. Basically, ArenaNet has been a few different groups due to cycling employees. And which part of GW2 you like or not tends to depend on which particular group was developing it. ArenaNet hasn't always been the same group, but some leave, and others leave then return again to GW2's detriment. And the righ tpeople never seem to return.

Was it, was it really now? Alright. Where do you draw the line? When does it stop being acceptable for a hero to butcher instead of saving those in need? Where does your empathy kick in that you'd feel bothered by an unnecessary death? If Rytlock and Crecia were mind-controlled, would we put them down in cold blood without care or conscience? What about Marjory and Cass? Caithe and Aurene? Where do you draw the line? Where's the line in the sand, for you? Worst of all, to say we should kill because we don't want ot deal with the consequences is, quite frakly, the most evil and cowardly of reasons. Especially if the consequences are that the writers wouldn't have to be lazy and that they'd actually have to deal with continuity for a change. I mean, that's a bit of a jab but any loremaster here will know exactlywhat I'm talking about. ArenaNet has to be one of the worst developers when it comes to continuity, they're the Marvel Comics of video games. I like continuity. It was supposed to be that the willy-nilly butchering of dragons would be bad for the world. This lead to retcons, atop retcons, layered with retcons, sprinkled with further retcons. It's dizzying, honestly. I don't expect WoW to have great continuity because it never held itself up to an especially high standard, but ArenaNet did... originally. Why would it be an "asspull" to save someone for a change? To spare a life? To rescue someone instead of just killing everyone because that's easy? I'm so, so tired of fantasy stories relying on murder for the laziest of lazy writing because, hey, when they're dead you don't have to worry about continuity! I'd have loved to see Soo-Won around in the story more. I'd loved to have rescued the other EDs too so that they could be recurring characters. The story needn't be focused around them anymore, but they could've been around. It's just lazy. It doesn't give me any confidence in the story when your no. 1 way to deal with things is the most lazy way to do so, and from an in-Universe perspective? The most psychopathic. I mean, if it were my Commander? They would've put their foot down and demanded that the geniuses come up with some way to cleanse Soo-Won of the Dragonvoid, they would've pulled everyone together to keep Soo-Won distracted for as long as it took. I mean, what if in a superhero comic book a bunch of civilians were mind-controlled and the hero up and murdered everyone? Is that acceptable? If it's not, then the death of Soo-Won isn't either. I'm tired of the glorification of psychopathy. I'm tired of playing psychopathic characters. As a hero, I want to save people for a change, instead of butchering them. But apparently empathy is an "asspull," it's better to make excuses for lazy writing. Whuuf. Yeah, that about sums it up. Spineless. They could've had the bravery to accept the long-term consequences of letting a character live, but they chose the craven, lazy, easy route of killing anyone they don't want to have to deal with later.

I've always wondered why duellists don't go to an arena. It always seemed like the perfect solution to me. Here's how I'd set it up... There's a duelling zone that people can hang out at and socialise, a colosseum of sorts, if you will. There are rows of seats, like an auditorium, where players can sit. When a duel is initialised, both duellers are brought to this zone—once the duel is done with, they're taken back to where they started from. In order to not cheese things, a duel can only be instigated from an outdoor area. There's a short time before a duel begins where the players watching can bet an amount of gold on their favourite fighter, with their PvP stats determining the betting odds. The winning money is split between the winner of the duel and the winner(s) of the bet. Team duels (3v3) can also be initiated. Players can have a PvP outfit setup to signify their team, such as via colour. Though they'll get a colour outline to indicate that regardless to make it easier for one team to identify the other within an enclosed space. In this way, duelling can be done without disrupting anyone, while also giving duellists the crowd they desire. The betting system would draw in people and the colosseum would provide an area for PvPers to hang out and chat. If a developer wanted to, they could even have a PvP duelling track where solo fighters (1v1) or teams (3v3) can register for a tournament with prizes at the end. That's how I'd go about duelling anyway.

Is that actually true, though? I came to the forums because the story left me kind of distraught and upset, as they pulled the same nonsense again. I wanted to know what kind of unempathetic sorts tehy were trying to appeal to with this, and if anyone felt the same way. EoD kind of feels like a social experiment, it's bizarre. "Okay, let's make the most benevolent and kind character we can. She's loving, empathetic, caring, and she created the world. She genuinely cares for everyone on it. Now, let's see how many people think that possession is a reason for slaughtering her, rather than demanding the chance to cure her of her affliction instead. "How many are going to boast and celebrate her downfall... Oh. Oh! That many? Really?? Well..." I'm a true empath so psychopathic things happening in a story can bother me a lot, especially if I have some kind of connection with it—like a playable character. I mean, I've mentioned this before but... We have so many geniuses on-site, is it really that unreasonable to think that they couldn't come up with some thaumobabble and Deus Ex Magicka to reconfigure the extractor to kick the Void out? That's what I would've gone with. I would've done something a little bit more brave and interesting. Here's how I would've handled it, if it were me: We rescue Soo-Won from her affliction and cast out the Void. With the help of her and Aurene, we build new bodies for the ghosts of her children, purify them, and restore them. This leads to a shift in Guild Wars 2, setting up for future content. You have to roll a new character, as sort of a NG+. Your old characters are still accessible, but they're now restricted to the old world. A new zone makes for the starting grounds for all new characters with the player as a private of the New Pact, this allows for new races to be added to the game. Instead of Cantha having the new starting area with the tutorials, it's here. Players can choose to start in the old story, or the new one. The new one having access to new races and the like. Since there's been a time jump, you could bring in any number of new races. The notion is is that the Elder Dragons have been restored. A part of character creation is that you can choose to represent one of them, including Aurene, or maybe none if you don't want those particular trees I guess? The new zone is in the Mists. And we're tehre, backed up by the power of the dragons, to confront the Void (or Dragonvoid, if you prefer, or even Torment). This takes things to an entirely new stage, one far larger than Tyria. It opens the devs up to being able to create abstract zones with strange aesthetics and odd physics, unbound by GW1 or even prior GW2 zones. By having everyone start as a private of the new pact in Arc 2 of the story—as I said, you could bring on all kinds of new races over time. Skritt, tengu, dredge, or whatever else you might think of. And the New Pact is a taskforce for dealing with the Void in the Mists, with an ED lending you their power as they stay to be the vanguard against the Dragonvoid back on Tyria. We could finally find out where those mushrooms from the Jahai Bluffs came from, and have even more fun with that. Like I said, it'd be something very, very different. Like WoW's Outlands, but more. This is a very alt-y game, so I don't think people would've objected to having to roll a new character to join the New Pact in their Mist missions, either. It'd have a new cutscene and everything, and provide some overall new mechanics. It'd be fun. With a game this old, that's what I would've done and really pushed the paradigm as far as I could, to see what can really be done with GW2 and its engine. That's just me, though. I mean, this idea may not even be very appealing to any of you. It would've just rocked for me, though. I would've loved to see all of the dragons returned to life (even Glint and Vlast), with all wrongs righted, everything put back, and the suffering undone. Plus, it'd give us more to do with all of these dragon aesthetics we have. It'd be neat too in that it'd move the story away from the dragons being the focus (as antagonists) to something completely new without having to end everything on constantly sour, bitter, horrible notes. Shrug. Just my two pence anyway. That's the GW2 expansion I would've hoped for. A small part set in Cantha just to handle the story of kicking the Void out of Soo-Won and bringing back her kids (which would make her so happy, and I'd like that), then rolling a new character for the real content in the Mists! But hey, maybe this isn't an idea that would appeal to anyone but me. Maybe GW2 was never for me. I'd be okay with that if the story hadn't actually ended up hurting me so much by lacking empathy to such a profound degree. Edit: I just thought aswell that it'd be fun if the New Pact were kinda-sorta-but-not-entirely Ghostbusters in a sense. Essentially, players get a purification mechanic to kick the Dragonvoid out of creatures it's afflicted, weakening it. So instead of killing everything in sight, we weaken creatures then do the equivalent of a finisher to just punt the Dragonvoid out and save whatever it had afflicted. Which would feel more heroic to me than just murdering everything. But again... Just me. It'd be fun to have an abstract like that as a foe, just continually acting to weaken it until we can go for a big confrontation backed up by the EDs.

I can't get over that after what happened in The Icebrood Saga, they basically went ahead and told the same story twice. Kick a person when they're down, why don't you? What really bothered me the most is the handling of Soo-Won. So, here's this incredibly benevolent, kind, compassionate dragon who's been aiding Cantha for some time now and... she gets possessed and then butchered! How about no? I mean, we have so much Deus Ex Magicka on our side. We have Taimi, our eternally terminally ill hypergenius, Gorrik, our gaspy-lass Aurene, and now Machiavellian corporate mastermind Joon too. I can't accept that this lot couldn't cobble together some device and cook up some mad thaumobabble to purify Soo-Won. Soo-Won, of all the dragons, didn't deserve to die. See, my Commander isn't a psychopath. She never was. I mean, she's pretty great like that. Thus, she would outright refuse to kill Soo-Won and demand another way be found, regardless of what it takes. That's just the empathetic, decent, kind, and just thing to do. I mean, if it'd been Marjory or Kass this happened to, I can't imagine most would accept that. I can't accept this for Soo-Won. The situation with Jormag wasn't great. I mean, the whole story of IBS was basically "Hey, let's drive Jormag completely batshit insane by murdering their kids and ignoring their pleas for help as Primordus uses telepathy to torture them by beaming burbling death screams and visions of people being split stem-to-stern and boiled alive into their head. If we poke their go-crazy button enough by torturing an abuse victim even more, we can goad them into committing suicide and taking Primordus with them! Hooray, we are such heroes!" I mean, that felt like psychopathy already. Soo-Won though is that++. I can't deal with it. Why is such an untenable level of psychopathy expected of the players? I wouldn't want to celebrate Soo-Won's passing. I wouldn't want to boast about that, or be prideful about it. I'd be devastated and traumatised. It's so wrong. And they could've written such a different story. The dragons aren't the problem with the story, the real issue is that there's just too much psychopathy. I don't know what that says about the writers, the designers, and the producers but I'm really not a fan. I'm not a person who gets off on murdering loving, kind persons or abuse victims. It was one thing when the dragons were mindless forces of nature. That's one thing. If you give them a personality, an identity, then you should expect that anyone with empathy is going to want to save them, to rescue them, you know, like an actual hero would. Not everyone wants to be a psychopath??? I really liked Path of Fire. LWS4 was really iffy for me as I'd learned that Kralkatorrik basically had a torment parasite that was driving the bus by torturing him and now he gets to die for that. That... wasn't okay. I didn't know how bad things would get after that, though. Up until LWS4's end, I'd say the writing was mostly okay. The Disney rot they pulled with Aurene was really ridiculous too. I mean, was it really necessary to kill her just to revive her in the next episode? You could... Oh, I don't know, not kill Aurene? That's an option! This is why I get weird Dark Triad vibes from the writers, because you shouldn't play with people like that. But what do I know? So, no. End of Dragons sucked for me, just as The Icebrood Saga sucked for me. And again, the problem was never the dragons, just the apparent and clear psychopathy in the writing.

I decided to stop by and see what people were saying after being gone for so long. I felt I had to comment on this, out of empathy. It's important to remember that people can lie. I mean, I was emotionally invested in The Icebrood Saga. I had reason to be, it touched on neurodiversity, pluralism, and the trauma that comes from abuse and how desperate it can make someone. I was very interested in seeing a story told about that in a more mainstream piece of entertainment that might actually get that out there. I asked them about this. They swore up and down that this wasn't just another black & white story about killing evil creatures, that they were doing something actually different this time around. Fool that I was, I believed them. That's on me, I know. The thing is is that lying isn't exactly an alien concept to MMO developers. I have no doubt in my mind that End of Dragons is one, last push for profit before GW2 is placed into maintenance mode. Especially with some of the things I've heard coming out of NCSoft. You need to consider that NCSoft wouldn't be doing layoffs after layoffs if they didn't think of it that way. Bringing back Colin Johanson feels like the marketing push fo a last sigh. Just a way to make the last bit of money fromt his IP. It's a very NCSoft thing to do. ArenaNet is beholden to NCSoft, basically chattel, owned by them. We've seen that time and again, NCSoft isn't afraid to behead ArenaNet's leadership if they disagree. That's what it's worth remembering, that it isn't ArenaNet pulling the strings here but NCSoft. What do you think NCSoft wants out of this? Do you think that a continuation of Guild Wars 2 fits their bottom line? Look, all I'm saying is... Don't set yourselves up for a huge disappointment. In my opinion, End of Dragons is the last content drop for GW2, after which it's going into maintenance mode. MMO fans always do this to themselves, they always... No, it's me too... We always defend them, delude ourselves, say everything's going to be okay. You do you, but it's worth acknwoledging the possibility. There's just something about the wording of it and the way NCSoft has behaved up until now. I think this is it. So there you go, you can do you. But remember how many MMO projects have failed dedicated fans in the past. WildStar et al, and who owned WildStar again? Oh yes...

I need to stop being a masochist and reading these in the hopes that something will come of it. It is vindicating though to realise that people are so far entwined in their own realities to bother to understand anything of what I was talking about. Why would I want the kodan to be special? I'm not invested in them whatsoever. It's always fascinating to see what people think of me, though. I guess I'll just put it down to neurodiversity and life experiences. All I've been vocal about is how it's both disappointing and problematic that an intelligent and hardly neurotypical character has been perceived as a psychopath and a manipulator with no challenge from ArenaNet regarding that. For victims of abuse, those with above average intelligence, and neurodiversity in general? The public perception of what a manipulator is has been damaging for us. Jormag never struck me as a manipulator. They were incredibly desperate, yes. They wanted to be freed from suffering. And they were even clever to boot. Apparently now though I am the patron saint of kodan? That's... kind of intriguing. I'm not really sure why that is. I suppose this is what I suspect, though. It's why my curiosity drew me back. It's something that psychologists have been studying for decades now—why is the perspective of neurodiverse and introverted people more accurate? Why do autistic people in particular have a very clear perspective of reality? It's the absence of delusion. I just look at what's there, without bias. You're all so wound up in your biases founded by your own delusions, it's the same kind of issue that leads people to magical thinking or to believing in hoaxes. I don't even think it's that people want to be "special," it could be that they want to be a part of something though. I couldn't say for sure. I am amused though that I've been purple-monkey-dishwasher'd and I'm now the patron saint of kodan. I guess that's a thing. It even gives me an interesting new perspective on certain mythological and Abrahamic figures who seemed entirely too confused about how they ended up in the position they were in. This web of delusions, cognitive dissonance, and biases isn't anything I'd have any truck with. All I wanted was for an intelligent, non-neurotypical character to be shown as compassionate, and to challenge the worship of stupidity that leads to enabling actual psychopaths. Were Jormag indeed the victim, as the evidence had suggested, that would've meant the story had something to say about victim-blaming. There aren't enough stories out there that really cover that. It's something I hope for as the just-world bias is destroying our world but... The media will continue to fortify delusions rather than shatter them. There was much within the evidence presented that indicated Jormag's willingness to be mutual, to coexist, and that all they wanted was for Primordust o stop abusing them by basically feeding them HD torture gore porn over their mind-link. They collared Bangar to stop the momentum of war, they took Lake Doric to ensure that Primordus couldn't force them to watch more atrocities, they had Asgeir lead the norn South so that the quixotic nature of legend-seeking norn culture wouldn't bring them into conflict. There was something that could've been done there that would've at least challenged the perceptiont that anti-intellectualism is somehow inherently noble, and that any sesquipedalian speaking kind words is a manipulator using "honeyed" words to manipulate them. I tire of that perspective. I feel that anyone who believes that true manipulation has anything to do with "honeyed" words, slow seduction, intelligence, or anything they could so easily measure should be put through a gauntlet of phone scammers and actual con artists. All you need to be a proper manipulator is charisma, confidence, animal cunning, and the ability to intimidate your quarry. It's an almost instinctive thing and that's what leads true manipulators to be chameleons. It's almost like the status quo has even evolved to support and enable them too because the just-world bias will lead to onlookers making excuses for the abuses of a real manipulator, that their victims must've done something to deserve it. I was hoping for Jormag to be shown as a victim, that an intelligent, clever, soft-spoken sesquipedalian can be a victim. That they don't deserve abuse just for being smart, and that being smart isn't a deus ex machina that grants one freedom from abusive situations by figuring out how to not enrage their abuser or how to escape from their abuser. I expected too much, that's all. I mean, I admit, part of it is that I'm fond of dragons so I was especially invested in this story having that to say about anti-intellectualism, victim-blaming, and the just-world bias. I admitted I was wrong. I own that. I'm still sad, I still feel disappointed that this will once again help with the vile confirmation bias of intelligent, neurodiverse persons being manipulators but... I can't do anything about that. Like I said, though... I am tickled pink that I'm now the patron saint of kodan. That's just fascinating to me. I think though that there really is nothing left to see. I guess that's why I came back for one, last look. I wanted to see self-awareness. Oh, there are glimmers but... Shrug. I suppose being hte patron saint of kodan is better than a shot in the arm!

Unexpected. An outcome that managed to please no one. I suspect that at least one of their interested groups would've come out of this satisfied. I'm heartbroken, of course. That's dealt the killing blow for me, I can't remain invested in something that's going to hurt me. With the loss of so many employees, I can't imagine there's anything worth sticking around for. Well, that's an expenditure to strike off. I mean, I've spent an absolutely, ridiculously absurd amount of cash money on Guild Wars 2. Hm. I do wonder how many whales this will cost them? The majority of players just convert gold to gems, after all. I'm aware that a number of dragon fans who were also whales are calling it quits so this might hurt their bottom-line. Well, whether it does or does not, whether Guild Wars 2 succeeds or succeeds not, my journey with it ends here in much the same way as Stephen's does. I'd wanted his theories to be right, I tend to want cleverness from video games but it seems I'll never learn that that never really happens outside of the independent space. Maybe I'll learn this time? Hopefully, though I can be stubborn an IO Interactive has something with dragons in the works. I'm just such a sucker for dragons, and take that however you will. I'm not entirely sure I'll miss this game; It's been a grind, and most of it has been anguish that I've not enjoyed. There's so much I had to emotionally deal with. The "death" of Aurene and the actual death of Blish to begin with. I was messed up by having to fight Kralkatorrik's brain parasite that forced mind controlling invasive thoughts upon him but I wasn't able to save him, that hurt me a lot. It was such a meaningful moment... I was so ready to save him. I wanted to save him. I only came back because of Aurene, yet her character and the lack of development thereof—regression being stubbornly the only thing we saw from her throughout these stories—has disappointed me greatly. At the end of the day, she reminds me a little too much of Trahearne. It hurts me to be so blasé about a dragon, but Aurene has just been such a letdown. I had so much hope. LWS4 ending with Kralkatorrik's death shook me but the ascent of Aurene spurred me to give this game another run. The story of how murdering dragons would lead inevitably to the destruction of the world perked me up, perhaps we'd find ways to deal with dragons and coexist with them rather than outright murdering them as part of some insecure power fantasy about how big our swords may or may not be. I'm not even angry. I'm just sad and disappointed. There was so much potential here and it was squandered. I do suspect that in all likelihood this post will disappear in not too much time, as my posts do, so it'll be as entirely ephemeral and pointless as my own journey with this game has been. That's how I'm left feeling at the end... An emotionally fraught waste of time.

Though this can be put down to design problems, it can also be explained by Ryland caring about Jormag's position that everyone should listen more—you can't reason without listening. So for a while he was keeping his cool and trying to please Jormag. We're still not 100 per cent sure why it is so for him in particular, but he's clearly invested in Jormag. The pained expression when Ryland and Jormag first converse—as if Jormag realises something regarding his nature that no one else does—seems to have struck him a certain way.

So! Neither Jormag nor Primordus will die. That doesn't mean that nothing transformative will happen, however.

As I suspected, this has been a time for popcorn. The thing is is that the writers have decided that it's time for mutualism. In prior stories, there's been a lot about parasitism and the divides it causes, with gods and kings serving as parasites driving a wedge between peoples. The thing is, there's only so many ways you can tell this story, and another problem is is that there's no way to really end it. Oh, I get that it seems exciting at the outset—all those mens in their shiny bits et al—but there isn't anywhere for it to go. This is true historically aswell. The parasitism of charismatic, greedy leaders just leads to a whole lot of pointless death and people scratching their heads and wondering why they did any of that to begin with. Following that, a time of uncertainty between the sides as the last throes of propaganda-induced brainwashing subside before trust returns. It's sad that so many can have their reward systems hijacked to end up in wars in the first place, really. It's not inspiring. Mindlessly obeying parasites isn't inspiring. Bangar's hubris brought so much death before he was finally humiliated and laid low by Jormag and their magic collar—which I loved. The message being that any who dare to be the next Bangar will be humiliated just so aswell, putting the fear of dragon in the parasites so they won't have another go at it. The truth is is that war is pathetic. It's just a greedy parasite controlling a huge body of hosts who lack the self-awareness to question why they're going to war for a monster. In the after-effects of a war, as I said, it's just people wondering why they even did it in the first place. It didn't serve any end. It wasn't helpful to them. It was all pointless. Just a pointless waste of life. There's only the shame of being slaves to a parasite left. Whether that parasite is Caudecus, Bangar, Balthazar, Joko, or anyone else who's served that role in the story. The end result is just people feeling stupid and trying to put their lives back together after the spell is broken. The spell has been broken for charr and humans alike—they're now awake and looking at the world they've created, and they have a lot of hard decisions to make about their future. This is why I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a khan-ur, since this is the time for it. After the collaring of Bangar, many charr will be looking at war and realising it isn't this glorious, fantastic thing where you can be some lauded warrior-hero. It's just... very shameful. This is going to send shockwaves through charr culture. Another angle to look at this from? The Olmakhan and the Efram's Flame legion. There are sources the charr can turn to to channel their energies in other ways, toward a more productive industrialised society. They can take the technologies they developed in war and find new uses for them in a different world. As the last threats are defeated, the world of Tyria is moving ever more toward an era of peace. Charr with it. I feel that many charr will look at the Olmakhan and wonder if their warlike culture is all it's cracked up to be. Humans and charr working together, the ghost problem could very soon be solved, and this would only cement their trust and lay the firmament for a truly united future. Mutualism is just so much more logical, after all. Until a race fully detaches from nature—nature's need for diversity cannot be ignored. I mean, I imagine we're all familiar with inbreeding. Nature loves diversity. There were so many charr who died in this pointless war, there's so much shame to be owned for it, that the charr will look at themselves as a peoples, as a culture, and as a society in order to figure out where they want to go. The entire charr race is facing a tumultuous time of great uncertainty, it's the perfect time for a khan-ur to rise. Let old hatreds be done with. It's just parasite brain-hacking anyway, that's the reason behind all prejudice. At some point, some parasite wanted to exploit a resource and they used their talents to hijack the reward systems of the masses to have them dehumanise the resource they wanted to exploit. See: Slavery. It's shameful. There's no pride in it. All it says is that you were hacked, all prejudice says is that you were hacked and you don't possess the wherewithal to unhack yourself. Whether Tyria or the real world, mutualism is always the most logical approach. Let old hatreds rest, all they are is old shames that should be left behind and moved beyond.

I think that "there exists" is being conflated with "there exists a connection." The only case in which this is actually true is the original storyline—because unless you played sylvari, you'd miss out on a lot of context and nuance. "Who is this Trahearne guy? Why is he the leader now? Where'd Destiny's Edge go? Why is taking credit for darn nearly everything I do?? Did Tyria get mind-taken in its sleep?" After that, they learned their lesson. There exists focus on different races past that point, but it's nonsensical to think that you'd be missing out on anything important by playing whatever race you chose. I mean, for example, there are a few lines of dialogue in the Icebrood Saga which occur if one plays a charr, yet one wuoldn't be missing out on anything by not seeing those, really. For thoe most part, the links that exist now are largely inconsequential. The main focus right now is Aurene. So whichever race you so choose, you're going to be the focus of the storyline as her champion. You could be a quaggan, but so long as you were her champion, the storyline revolves around the both of you. This is how they disentangled the story from being about the player races, by making it about the dragons. I'm fond of that choice, as it doesn't give unfair import to anyone. As such, I don't think it matters who one rolls. All of the races get a look-in, perhaps least of which the asura—but I think that's because they're difficult to write for as they can be a very fourth wall-breaking presence. A lot of that has to do with how their magitech doesn't especially make a lot of sense, so it's easy to fall into the Star Trek technobabble problem where every issue is solved by gobbledegook. I do feel bad for them as I've been fond of a number of asura characters—notably Taimi, Gorrik, and Blish. Even still, the asura do get a look-in every now and then. And due to the aforementioned factor regarding being Aurene's champion, the Commander's race isn't of great import. In other words, feel free to roll whatever you like. You won't miss out.

Delusional neo-luddites, then? Grey, are you familiar with the concept of Word of God? It's when the leader of a creative team informs a fanbase of something, often to put an end to the likes of Indoctrination Theories. Narrative lead Tom Abernathy told us that Jormag doesn't lie, manipulate, or mind control. It not only isn't their style, but it isn't how they function. Denying Word of God leads to Indoctrination Theories. It's really worthwhile to pay attention to what the people actually making the game are taking the time to tell you. This is their passion project, it's their joie de vivre, it's what they love doing. There's no more true of a source than the people who're actually creating the work. It's like asking an artist what they think their art means, then dismissively shaking one's head at them and saying "Nah, that isn't it. It has nothing to do with that." It's confidently arrogant, I'll give you that, but it doesn't lead to anywhere worthwhile. Word of God says Jormag doesn't lie. I'm sorry, but that's that.