Would have been better if eveyone died in the end?

[Teratus.2859]

Don't agree but also do.

I don't think it's the right move for a game like Gw2, or any MMO tbh.
But in general I do like the darker concept of a game ending with complete failure.

It's rare you see such a thing especially in games.
Always gotta follow that trope that the "good guys" win.

Honestly it's a lot more interesting when we don't win..
And for Gw2 specifically that's part of the reason I loved Season 4 so much too.
And why it was so disappointing when Aurene was just revived the following episode.. should have dragged that out longer, made us actually believe she'd been killed off for good.

Would be nice if more games told darker stories, especially if they ended in failure and the player had to watch all their efforts amount to nothing in the end.. watch all the characters they bonded with get cut down like they were nothing.
You want to make a truly bad*** villain then that's how you do it imo.

There's good reasons why characters like Sephiroth, and games like Shadow of the Colossus are so beloved and timeless.
It's because their developers were not afraid to do things that most games wouldn't dare to.

Permanently killing off severely important and integral main characters.. Ending their game with your reward being to get utterly screwed over..
It's narrative gold if you ask me.

[Kalavier.1097]

3 hours ago, Teratus.2859 said:

Don't agree but also do.

I don't think it's the right move for a game like Gw2, or any MMO tbh.
But in general I do like the darker concept of a game ending with complete failure.

It's rare you see such a thing especially in games.
Always gotta follow that trope that the "good guys" win.

Honestly it's a lot more interesting when we don't win..
And for Gw2 specifically that's part of the reason I loved Season 4 so much too.
And why it was so disappointing when Aurene was just revived the following episode.. should have dragged that out longer, made us actually believe she'd been killed off for good.

Would be nice if more games told darker stories, especially if they ended in failure and the player had to watch all their efforts amount to nothing in the end.. watch all the characters they bonded with get cut down like they were nothing.
You want to make a truly bad*** villain then that's how you do it imo.

There's good reasons why characters like Sephiroth, and games like Shadow of the Colossus are so beloved and timeless.
It's because their developers were not afraid to do things that most games wouldn't dare to.

Permanently killing off severely important and integral main characters.. Ending their game with your reward being to get utterly screwed over..
It's narrative gold if you ask me.

It works, but it doesn't always work.

IIRC, Sephiroth only kills off one major party member in that game from what I've heard? So the death is impactful and a huge thing. If he carved up several party members, each one has the strong risk of losing it's impact.

The reward being screwed over likewise works... in some cases. In a lot of cases, it doesn't, or ends up bouncing back in a negative way that affects the players viewpoint.

[Guy.9207]

I like character deaths.

I don't like meaningless character deaths.

By the end of EoD, I don't really see a reason to kill off any "significant" main characters,  such as Braham, or Taimi. Logan could have died sure, but he has always been more of a side character since forever, so his death wouldn't really make an impact either way.

And with how the story is presented, killing off everyone would have been a terrible idea for several reasons:

1. Game over = end of Guild Wars 2 stories, and you can't really continue beyond that.
2. Bad ending requires a followup that eventually "fixes" said ending, or it will leave a bitter taste in your mouth.
3. Not technically feasible considering the MMO nature of the game (actually even single player RPG might have issues with bad endings if you have like, open worlds to roam about).

What could have been done however, is a "non-canonical" bad ending that you can get for not doing meta before proceeding with EoD final instance. There, everyone can just die, but then it's shown to be non-canon, and you are encouraged to play it again after doing a meta, if you want to.

Side node: if you really want someone to die, I would prefer seeing it in a conflict between you and your (former) allies, where you slowly turn to the dark side (let it be cynicism or just general evilness) and your friends die trying to bring you back to the good side.

[Teratus.2859]

5 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

It works, but it doesn't always work.

IIRC, Sephiroth only kills off one major party member in that game from what I've heard? So the death is impactful and a huge thing. If he carved up several party members, each one has the strong risk of losing it's impact.

The reward being screwed over likewise works... in some cases. In a lot of cases, it doesn't, or ends up bouncing back in a negative way that affects the players viewpoint.

It really depends how it's done more than anything and more importantly how much the loss impacts the rest of the game.

In Final Fantasy 7's case yea it was just 1 character who was killed off but the impact of that death was felt for the rest of the game.
In many ways she was the life of the party, many of the other characters jumping between angry, sad, bitter and trying to remain positive despite them all being tormented and messed up by their pasts etc.

So the loss of the one who was always such a stand out for being positive, innocent and full of life was very evident, and even mechanically as well.
Most characters in the game have either mostly or completely offensive special abilities, but her abilities were completely support based and extremely useful in all of the game she was present for, and would have been for all of the game she was not around for as well.
It's because of that world very much felt like a lesser place after her death.. and even after death she remains such an important part of the story as well.

It is a beautifully well written story and to this day still one of the best and most impactful characters deaths ever done in a video game.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

I think OP needs to give a listen to this very fine piece of a trope talk, by OSP:

 

[Fipmip.7219]

18 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

I think OP needs to give a listen to this very fine piece of a trope talk, by OSP:

 

theres nothing in there that strictly prohibits the "everyone dies in the end" trope. she mainly talks about characters that get killed individually as a huge plot point, which is a separate topic. Imo every member of DE and DW could die in one long cutscene at the end complete with slow motion and sad music, or maybe split up into segments a little so we can breathe a bit before continuing with the wholesale cast massacre. I'd like to add that some shows and movies have pulled this off decently. saving private ryan was one. honestly the bar is so low for GW2 storytelling that it would probably work fine. its the series finale so why not? probably the best time to do it. OSP talks about the impact character deaths have on the rest of the cast. tell me, has anyone mentioned trahearne since S3?(honestly they might have but thats not the point). Every character combined in GW2 is worth 1 good character from a good show. so killing them all at once is what it would take to have literally any effect on me. and which character would that impact? the commander. this would be a rare opportunity for some actual character building for our main! with their whole crew gone, we could spend a season exploring that impact. and then in the next one, we can show them moving on when they decide to go on another adventure later, with a new more focused cast, without all the current baggage we still have.

[Kalavier.1097]

Besides the fact that EoD is not the end of GW, and your opinion is not universal on character worth.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

6 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

theres nothing in there that strictly prohibits the "everyone dies in the end" trope. she mainly talks about characters that get killed individually as a huge plot point, which is a separate topic. Imo every member of DE and DW could die in one long cutscene at the end complete with slow motion and sad music, or maybe split up into segments a little so we can breathe a bit before continuing with the wholesale cast massacre.

Of course nothing prohibits author from doing whatever they want, but as far as whole page one of this thread goes, pretty much every argument mentioned either by you or people reacting to you are addressed in linekd trope talk.

"every member of DE and DW could die in one long cutscene at the end complete with slow motion and sad music,"
this is specifically killing of characters as a "big plot point", with all the downsided covered by Red in the trope talk.

Just because there are shows and movies that pulled that trope fine does not mean it should be hamfisted into a story writing of other media, without regard to the downsides of the usage - and especially - overusage of the trope.

Rest of the post is your heavilly opinionated take on the quality of GW2 writing, and hardly relevant to your inquiry about "would it be better ending", so I won't be wasting everyones time addressing it.

[DarcShriek.5829]

No, only John needs to die in the end.

[Fipmip.7219]

10 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Besides the fact that EoD is not the end of GW, and your opinion is not universal on character worth.

its the end of the main dragon plot: any new story has to be set up from here as a new plot

 

6 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Of course nothing prohibits author from doing whatever they want, but as far as whole page one of this thread goes, pretty much every argument mentioned either by you or people reacting to you are addressed in linekd trope talk.

"every member of DE and DW could die in one long cutscene at the end complete with slow motion and sad music,"
this is specifically killing of characters as a "big plot point", with all the downsided covered by Red in the trope talk.

Just because there are shows and movies that pulled that trope fine does not mean it should be hamfisted into a story writing of other media, without regard to the downsides of the usage - and especially - overusage of the trope.

Rest of the post is your heavilly opinionated take on the quality of GW2 writing, and hardly relevant to your inquiry about "would it be better ending", so I won't be wasting everyones time addressing it.

 

No, she's talking about a separate topic: the impact of character death and how to deal with it, and ways to convince your audience characters are dead. There is no unfinished plot or thread or secrets that need to be wrapped up with any of these characters, and the reason is because they are not interesting, their stories are not planned out from beginning to end, and they've been done for a while. there is no meta reason to keep them alive. which is why this ending would be fine. 

Also, "everyone dies" is not overused. its actually a trope most shows are afraid to use.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

12 hours ago, Fipmip.7219 said:

its the end of the main dragon plot: any new story has to be set up from here as a new plot

Untrue, there are several dangling plot hooks left even from the core game and GW1 which could be picked up by the next overarching storyline of GW2.

There's no need to set up the new story from scratch.

[Kalavier.1097]

Also.

"We kill everybody and introduce a brand new set of characters." runs a big risk.

A: Alienate/make the people who like the current characters (in any level, from mild to a lot) mad.

B: run risk of the new cast not being liked by anybody.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I'm not sure what major characters you think are still part of the story. Nearly every season has pushed the old out and brought the new in, sharing only a few members of the main cast. There's been so much cast turnover since the original Personal Story that hardly anyone from that era even remains.

 

Someone said the other day on here "Taimi ruined Path of Fire". How, by doing what? She wasn't even there, and aside from some voicechatter helped with all of one mission. She helped some with End of Dragons too but still wasn't physically present for almost all of it.

 

The same goes for alot of other characters. We haven't had all of Dragon's Watch together even once. (Braham was missing from the big finale almost entirely.)

 

I don't know what to say anymore. Do you actually pay attention to the game?

Edited September 21, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Kalavier.1097]

20 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I'm not sure what major characters you think are still part of the story. Nearly every season has pushed the old out and brought the new in, sharing only a few members of the main cast. There's been so much cast turnover since the original Personal Story that hardly anyone from that era even remains.

I'm not sure where I even talked about major characters being part of the current story anymore? Or anybody else.

Also, every season has introduced local characters who don't go on. We have Destiny's edge and dragon's watch characters present, but how many HoT introduced characters are present? Not nearly so much cast turnover, as reasonable "Hey this local leader we recruited to deal with local threat? He stayed back on Istan instead of charging to the far shiverpeaks!"

20 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Someone said the other day on here "Taimi ruined Path of Fire". How, by doing what? She wasn't even there, and aside from some voicechatter helped with all of one mission. She helped some with End of Dragons too but still wasn't physically present for almost all of it.

The same goes for alot of other characters. We haven't had all of Dragon's Watch together even once. (Braham was missing from the big finale almost entirely.)

First part is because people around here are so fixated on their hatred of a character that anything that slightly includes said character is instantly ruined. Taimi's voice even being present in path of fire is enough to ruin it for them.

And sure, we haven't had all of Dragon's watch together, but some have joined late, others had jobs. Unlike Destiny's Edge where "Destiny's Edge" WAS their job, a lot of Dragon's Watch does the guild as well as other tasks, especially as time went on. Rytlock went from just being an adventurer to being blood legion tribune, then got to adventure again, and now that there is a lot of work back home, he has to do that.

Kasmeer is part of our guild, but she's also regained her noble status and has even joined the Queen's court as a diplomat and representative.

Rox joined, then found some people she truly felt she could connect to and live with (outside of the legions), and settled down, leaving the guild. etc

These characters "come and go" depending on the story chapter because it makes sense. Hey, Kasmeer isn't prowling around Echovald with us because she's sitting in the Empresses court chambers representing the queen. Braham isn't with us because he's not feeling fully recovered from IBS. Rytlock is busy with Legion work he cannot ignore.

These styles of come and go work a lot better then just killing them off, because it means we can pluck an established character back in the future and fill a role. Not only that, but they obviously wanted to end EoD on a more positive, hopeful note. A bunch of old friends gathering around to see a proposal is a lot happier then the Commander, or a few friends standing around a funeral.

21 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

I don't know what to say anymore. Do you actually pay attention to the game?

I do, and I don't believe "killing a whole bunch of characters" is at all the right more for GW2's story or setting.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

3 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

I do, and I don't believe "killing a whole bunch of characters" is at all the right more for GW2's story or setting.

If nothing else, you and I can absolutely agree on this.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

On 9/20/2022 at 12:45 AM, Fipmip.7219 said:

No, she's talking about a separate topic: the impact of character death and how to deal with it, and ways to convince your audience characters are dead.

Yeah, you didn't watch the video. Or failed to pay attention to it's content.

On 9/20/2022 at 12:45 AM, Fipmip.7219 said:

Also, "everyone dies" is not overused. its actually a trope most shows are afraid to use.

the "overused trope" I was refering to was "killing off a major character just for the shock value of them dying".

On 9/20/2022 at 12:45 AM, Fipmip.7219 said:

its the end of the main dragon plot: any new story has to be set up from here as a new plot

and can still be using characters clearly established in previous plots, which is quite common in any franchise that was able to get through more than a single plotline.

[ugrakarma.9416]

but this already exists in the game.

1.run for the meta.

2.fail it.

[Fipmip.7219]

On 9/20/2022 at 11:04 PM, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Untrue, there are several dangling plot hooks left even from the core game and GW1 which could be picked up by the next overarching storyline of GW2.

There's no need to set up the new story from scratch.

except for taimi's illness think having some sort of payoff in the end i cant really think of one. And even then, you could use that to justify her sacrificing herself. you've been arguing yourself that the characters have been written out. at the point of the finale in EoD, they had barely any relevance.

 

22 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Yeah, you didn't watch the video. Or failed to pay attention to it's content.

 

I did watch it. You should use quotes from the video to justify that argument.