LWS1 - Ep 5 Discussion

[Zuberlan.7894]

Are they really going to skip Origin of Madness and Edge of the Mists?  I can't see how the story will make much sense to do so and go straight into the Lion's Arch stuff without meeting Taimi first.

[Ashen.2907]

TBH I just want season one to be over, so any skipping they do is alright by me.

[Danikat.8537]

They're probably grouping them together like they did with previous ones. A lot of Season 1 releases were fairly light on story so to fit them into the new format they've grouped them together. Flame and Frost was originally 4 releases, and the others were 2 each.

The Twisted Marionette is already in the game and there's an achievement prompting players to fight it after completing The Tower of Nightmares. The story aspect was pretty minimal so that, and the bit from Edge of the Mists could be used as introductory steps to the Battle for Lion's Arch storyline.

[Omega.6801]

1 hour ago, Zuberlan.7894 said:

Are they really going to skip Origin of Madness and Edge of the Mists?

We won't know until the episode is released. So maybe spare the "ZOMG HOW CAN THEY DO THIS?!??!?!?!?"-hyperbole for when it's actually in game and we can talk about what is actually the case.
Also we've technically met Taimi at the marionette event iirc, although I have to admit, they don't really point her out to players doing the instance.

[Kalavier.1097]

2 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

They're probably grouping them together like they did with previous ones. A lot of Season 1 releases were fairly light on story so to fit them into the new format they've grouped them together. Flame and Frost was originally 4 releases, and the others were 2 each.

The Twisted Marionette is already in the game and there's an achievement prompting players to fight it after completing The Tower of Nightmares. The story aspect was pretty minimal so that, and the bit from Edge of the Mists could be used as introductory steps to the Battle for Lion's Arch storyline.

Tower of Nightmares was like what.. 4-6 weeks condensed into one episode? Including on screen "weeks later" time skips.

Same with clockwork chaos, skipping the entire festival period that was before the opening and closing instances.

 

 

1 hour ago, lokh.2695 said:

We won't know until the episode is released. So maybe spare the "ZOMG HOW CAN THEY DO THIS?!??!?!?!?"-hyperbole for when it's actually in game and we can talk about what is actually the case.
Also we've technically met Taimi at the marionette event iirc, although I have to admit, they don't really point her out to players doing the instance.

Which is also kinda true of the original time too. If you didn't stick around you'd miss her entirely, with her wandering off to the waypoint with Logan.

I recall lots of little dialogues that were easy to miss during those periods.

[TGMChrist.2678]

The question is also how they will incorporate the Lion's Arch part into the story.

If we go to Lion's Arch are we ported to the original Lion's Arch or even Lion's Arch Under Attack map (public instance ála Tower of Nightmares next to the Strike mission) or are there instanced parts of the map?

[Danikat.8537]

Sometime I'd like to try doing Season 1 over the course of a year so I can encorporate the festivals as they originally fit in, fot example do the first part of Clockwork Chaos, then have the anniversary event which includes the Queen's Pavillion, then do the second part after that. I'm not sure how practical it would actually be for me given I'll almost certainly be away at awkward times sometimes, but I'd like to try and see how it goes.
 

40 minutes ago, TGMChrist.2678 said:

The question is also how they will incorporate the Lion's Arch part into the story.

If we go to Lion's Arch are we ported to the original Lion's Arch or even Lion's Arch Under Attack map (public instance ála Tower of Nightmares next to the Strike mission) or are there instanced parts of the map?

I assume it will be a seperate map, with the whole of Lion's Arch in one rather than instanced parts. They're done a good job of re-creating what we actually had in Season 1 for everything else, I'd be surprised if they broke the finale up into little bits instead of bringing the whole thing back.

[TGMChrist.2678]

I some kinda hope that the location where you start The Twisted Marionette will move from the Eye of the North to it's original location in Lornar's Pass to make it easier to get there.

[Debesyla.7102]

They forgot our buddy Canach 🙁

[costepj.5120]

5 hours ago, TGMChrist.2678 said:

I some kinda hope that the location where you start The Twisted Marionette will move from the Eye of the North to it's original location in Lornar's Pass to make it easier to get there.

I don't use the confused reaction, but I am confused my this post. We have a portal scroll that takes us straight to EotN; how is running from LA to the farthest corner of Lorner's Pass easier than that?
Or if you plan to waypoint to Lorner's Pass, you can also waypoint to EotN.

[TGMChrist.2678]

5 minutes ago, costepj.5120 said:

I don't use the confused reaction, but I am confused my this post. We have a portal scroll that takes us straight to EotN; how is running from LA to the farthest corner of Lorner's Pass easier than that?
Or if you plan to waypoint to Lorner's Pass, you can also waypoint to EotN.

I mean if the Origins of Madness/Edge of the Mists story stuff is in Episode 5 then the Twisted Marionette public instance should be in Lorner's Pass to make it more logical for the story than when you go to the Eye of the North. Just like the Tower of Nightmares instance in Kessex Hills.

Edited October 9, 2022 by TGMChrist.2678

[Danikat.8537]

You have to get a character to the EotN to be able to buy the portal scroll. If someone is playing through the story in order they won't have been there yet when the reach the point where the Twisted Marionette should appear so they won't have the scroll.

It's also pretty unintuitive to go there to play part of Season 1 when the EotN is otherwise focused on Season 5 and strike missions and unless you've already been there I think it's unlikely you'd know that's where to find the Marionette.

My other MMO has this problem, between releases which can be played in any order but are written with a clear order in mind (so characters will reference past events in newer releases) and developers constantly trying to funnel everyone into the newest areas even experienced players need to check a guide sometimes to play the story in order. I'd prefer it if GW2 can avoid having the same problem if possible.

Raids have two entrances - one in the part of the world where it occurs and one in the Aerodrome. I don't see why a strike mission couldn't do the same.

[costepj.5120]

I think we got sent single use EotN portal scrolls at different stages of the IBS story; maybe they need to at least repeat that after Tower of Nightmares?  

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

On 10/9/2022 at 6:31 AM, Zuberlan.7894 said:

Are they really going to skip Origin of Madness and Edge of the Mists?  I can't see how the story will make much sense to do so and go straight into the Lion's Arch stuff without meeting Taimi first.

Twisted Marionette is already in-game, so the only thing missing from Origin of Madness is the Energy Probes being active, and a single instance.

We do not yet know what the final episode will entail, it can easily include that missing instance + Edge of the Mists' story.

On 10/9/2022 at 6:59 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

They're probably grouping them together like they did with previous ones. A lot of Season 1 releases were fairly light on story so to fit them into the new format they've grouped them together. Flame and Frost was originally 4 releases, and the others were 2 each.

Tower of Nightmares was 3 releases.

Battle for Lion's Arch arc was originally 3 releases technically (Escape from Lion's Arch, Battle for Lion's Arch, and Battle for Lion's Arch: Aftermath), but they might include the one story instance of Origins of Madness + the 2 non-combat story instances + 2 open world dialogues of Edge of the Mists.

So we'll see.

On 10/9/2022 at 6:59 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

The Twisted Marionette is already in the game and there's an achievement prompting players to fight it after completing The Tower of Nightmares. The story aspect was pretty minimal so that, and the bit from Edge of the Mists could be used as introductory steps to the Battle for Lion's Arch storyline.

Main issue with the Twisted Marionette and being in-game is that there's zero prompting to the Twisted Marionette in the story, unlike the fractals or Aetherpath. Similarly, there is zero prompting nor achievements for Thaumanova Fractal, which was foreshadowing Origins of Madness and the finale.

And I would greatly disagree that the story aspect was minimal, because it was our first and primary exposure to Taimi. Taimi has 4 main and 1 very minor appearance in all of Season 1:

• Twisted Marionette
• A Moment's Peace
• Edge of the Mists open world dialogue with Braham
• Text-only dialogue existence in Gendarran Fields refugee camp during Escape/Battle
• Aftermath finale at The Dead End

If they do not include The Origins of Madness or Edge of the Mists stuff, then all of Taimi's exposure to people following just the story journal and its mail prompts is the very finale. In which we'll just have this random crippled asura girl walk in and talking about "we're all in this together".

It'll be even more odd and off-putting than going straight into Season 2 after the personal story.

On 10/9/2022 at 7:34 AM, lokh.2695 said:

Also we've technically met Taimi at the marionette event iirc, although I have to admit, they don't really point her out to players doing the instance.

On 10/9/2022 at 9:08 AM, Kalavier.1097 said:

Which is also kinda true of the original time too. If you didn't stick around you'd miss her entirely, with her wandering off to the waypoint with Logan.

I recall lots of little dialogues that were easy to miss during those periods.

At least in the original release, players were prompted to the follow-up instance even on TM failures. So people got a lengthy dialogue which paired Taimi and Braham together (by order of the Seraph and Taimi being a shrewed little kitten).

12 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

You have to get a character to the EotN to be able to buy the portal scroll. If someone is playing through the story in order they won't have been there yet when the reach the point where the Twisted Marionette should appear so they won't have the scroll.

When Twisted Marionette was added, the Eye of the North became accessible to all level 80s even to F2P accounts. You have to waypoint there, but you can still get there long before IBS. but yeah, it's a bit unintuitive and they really should add the NPC to Lornar's Pass as a double.

And add a mail after completing Tower of Nightmares. Same with Thaumanova Reactor Fractal.

[TGMChrist.2678]

Do you also think the Battle for Lion's Arch patch will also provide a way to revisit the OG Lion's Arch map before destruction at any time or is that just wishful thinking?

Edited October 11, 2022 by TGMChrist.2678

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

I imagine we'll likely get a story instance in pre-destroyed LA, assuming they include Edge of the Mists storyline to the release (if they don't do that, I can't imagine people caring very much for the returning story at all and will be mighty surprised at the sudden out-of-nowhereness with the absolute lack of foreshadowing OG LWS1 had).

 

But if you mean a version of LA you can access at any time without story to fully explore? That is indeed wishful thinking. The only possibility of that is if Lion's Pride is an ascended rarity lounge pass as people have been speculating. But that is still very thin possibility and an ascended trinket (possibly a precursor) is more likely.

[TGMChrist.2678]

15 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

But if you mean a version of LA you can access at any time without story to fully explore? That is indeed wishful thinking. The only possibility of that is if Lion's Pride is an ascended rarity lounge pass as people have been speculating. But that is still very thin possibility and an ascended trinket (possibly a precursor) is more likely.

Well, looks like I'll never be able to visit the original Lion's Arch map outside of the story unfortunately. 😔 I've always wanted to visit the original Lion's Arch outside of the story because I played GW2 since early 2015 and I only knew the ruined Lion's Arch and the current Lion's Arch. The current Lion's Arch is nice but I've seen every corner of this version. It's sad but not bad.

Maybe not all dreams come true, but one can still hope. 😉