The new (or old) enemy. [The new LW Lore discussion]

[Lord Korag.8439]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Recently got told of those mushrooms, and I find them very weird.

I wonder if either those or the risen corrupted corals

Well those shrooms are from the mists. If demons and other folks of the mists could leach into the area, why couldn't a few spores of those branket mushrooms?

 

As for the corals, they are in the part of a former sea floor. Corals without the water die. Just like they died in the air when Orr was above the sea again. Sure, few of those in Orr are underwater too, but keep in mind we are talking about deep sea corals - not capable to grow near the shore (too much sun, moving water level or even no water sometimes etc) so they went *bleh* over the time. You would be surprised how easy it is to kill a coral reef even in rl.

 

I, personaly, am more concerned about those tentacled parts last seen in Karka hives. This could theoreticaly mean Karka lived even in the Jade Sea, however where are jadded fossils of them? I mean we can see even the jellyfish and those are basically a toughter slime.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

17 hours ago, Lord Korag.8439 said:

Well those shrooms are from the mists. If demons and other folks of the mists could leach into the area, why couldn't a few spores of those branket mushrooms?

Aren't the mushrooms said to be from another world. Hence their name otherworldly mushrooms?

Same with Branded Rift Stalkers.

17 hours ago, Lord Korag.8439 said:

As for the corals, they are in the part of a former sea floor. Corals without the water die. Just like they died in the air when Orr was above the sea again. Sure, few of those in Orr are underwater too, but keep in mind we are talking about deep sea corals - not capable to grow near the shore (too much sun, moving water level or even no water sometimes etc) so they went *bleh* over the time. You would be surprised how easy it is to kill a coral reef even in rl.

The thing is there are other corals seen in other places, even on the surface, and these aren't just corals - you also have trees that were sunk and coral grew on them then raised up to the surface again, for example. And the model is more distinctly undead coral so... even weirder.

Also not sure I'd ever really call sunken Orr as being deep sea - it was sunk to being islands, not completely and totally submerged. If the jagged towers of Orr can stick out of the sea, then it couldn't have been all that deeply sunk. We're talking meters, not leagues.

17 hours ago, Lord Korag.8439 said:

I, personaly, am more concerned about those tentacled parts last seen in Karka hives. This could theoreticaly mean Karka lived even in the Jade Sea, however where are jadded fossils of them? I mean we can see even the jellyfish and those are basically a toughter slime.

Huh. I haven't seen the mysterious karka tentacles in the new map. Where at? They were always weird because they were treated as a mutation brought on the karka, and not natural karka stuff.

Also, it would make sense for karka to have lived in the jade sea - in GW1, there were a crustacean species known as Leviathan Eye which resemble karka, just with two legs. ANet has made larger changes to GW1 species, like hydras going from three-headed T-Rexes, to what we got in GW2, or the design on Giants going from what is basically GW2 ogre to a much larger cyclopes.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[anninke.7469]

18 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

And all of that should be secondary to actually putting in a story. All we really got was “something weird is going on in the mines”. That’s not enough right now given it’s been a year of no new story. All the tea party stuff, the ptsd stuff is fine as long as it fits around a strong central narrative. Which it didn’t. Basic story structure seems to be missing here and that’s highlighted by the fact we should have got 2-3 times more than what we got.

I don’t mind the long wait between episodes, if we don’t lose out on quantity and quality. If you compare this with Ls4 eps 1&2 and 4 where we got real meaty and emotional episodes on a tight schedule, there’s now big expectation for a massive second part here next quarter.

I can't really disagree with that (nor do I want to). Except for the long wait. I hate those 😄

Edited March 2, 2023 by anninke.7469

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

The thing is there are other corals seen in other places, even on the surface, and these aren't just corals - you also have trees that were sunk and coral grew on them then raised up to the surface again, for example. And the model is more distinctly undead coral so... even weirder.

Also not sure I'd ever really call sunken Orr as being deep sea - it was sunk to being islands, not completely and totally submerged. If the jagged towers of Orr can stick out of the sea, then it couldn't have been all that deeply sunk. We're talking meters, not leagues.

Except we see the coral grow as far as the very tops of these towers, and see it even at the summit of "The Arm of Abbadon", one of the tallest structures in Orr, showing that, at least some parts of Orr, did get entirely sunk to massive depths. The Arm of Abbadon even has a ship wreck on its very top. Either from a ship that sank over it, or a pirate ship that got stranded there when Zhaitan rose Orr.

Also, I don't see anything in the new map thats "undead" coral. The only thing close to what people consider "undead" are the little eyes/mouth things growing on some coral structures, but those are called out to be polyps back in Orr, not something of Zhaitan's corruption.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Bobby Stein.3612]

👀

[Bobby Stein.3612]

19 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Basic story structure seems to be missing here

Gotta disagree with you there. There's:

• the status quo (calm after EoD) followed by an inciting incident (trouble in the mines)
• a central conflict (unruly workers, a hint of malevolence)
• rising action (evidence of otherwordly threat)
• climax (showdown with said threat)
• a resolution (loss to said threat, with a plan to regroup in the next installment)

 

Totally open to hearing feedback about it not being what you expected or dissatisfaction with quantity or creative decisions. But the structure is there.

[Bobby Stein.3612]

Not to mention multiple character subplots...

[Bobby Stein.3612]

Also, apologies if it seems like I'm picking on you, Randulf. I'm not. Just trying to make sure that when we all communicate here we're using shared terminology so that I understand the feedback and opinions that folks have.

[anninke.7469]

1 minute ago, Bobby Stein.3612 said:

Not to mention multiple character subplots...

Maybe the problem lies in the subplots being not... that much relatable. Because the relation between the Commander and other characters is a bit one way (yes, I'm the one who nagged about not-caring-enough NPCs on Twitter).

To elaborate on this a little more - I replayed the last two instances of EoD not so long ago and was baffled by this: the Commander is running around and trying to chat/small talk with others. But while they answer his (my main's a male) questions, none of them ever asks "And what about you, how are you coping/what are you gonna do/ or something like that. The whole conversation thus feels more like interrogation than a friendly chat.

So I guess I'd like to either have some the regular NPCs express interest in the Commander's general state of existence (written dialogues with us having two or three answer options), or that one patricular person the Commander can go to and chat a bit (again written only; up-to -date with story progress would be brilliant).

And because I just can't resist - could we one day see Laranthir finally finding love? 🙂

Sorry for my somewhat weird English. I hope I've written what I meant to... 😅

[Bobby Stein.3612]

6 minutes ago, anninke.7469 said:

Maybe the problem lies in the subplots being not... that much relatable.

Oh, so I'm referring to the following:

• Rama's love interest
• Gorrik wanting to take a leadership role
• Yao defending Chul-Moo
• Chul-Moo confronting his leadership failure

 

The main plot is handling the PC grappling with unresolved trauma.

 

There is more to come in the next release. Don't want to spoil where it goes, but some of what you mentioned might be covered there.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Bobby Stein.3612

[Bobby Stein.3612]

7 minutes ago, anninke.7469 said:

Sorry for my somewhat weird English. I hope I've written what I meant to... 😅

You're doing great! No worries. 🙂

[Randulf.7614]

23 minutes ago, Bobby Stein.3612 said:

Also, apologies if it seems like I'm picking on you, Randulf. I'm not. Just trying to make sure that when we all communicate here we're using shared terminology so that I understand the feedback and opinions that folks have.

Pick away I don’t mind. I prefer the communication and reasoning behind it. Otherwise it’s feedback into a void. Much better to have back and forth and all sides involved. And I didn’t  take it personally anyway

I disagree there’s climax here though. As others stated we never progressed. We are still exactly where we were before the caves, with no explanation, no understanding, no real development and a focus on reusing old subplots about hallucinations

We have waited some time for new story and we spent the episode mostly going in a circle. It all fell apart after your third bullet point. There should be some reveal by now otherwise we have just unnecessary slow pacing over a long delivery cadence. If there’s debate over whether structure exists, I’ll be fair and say it’s partially there, but it is neither full or complete - you only have limited time and space in an episode and it wasn’t fully used.

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Randulf.7614

[anninke.7469]

38 minutes ago, Bobby Stein.3612 said:

Oh, so I'm referring to the following:

• Rama's love interest
• Gorrik wanting to take a leadership role
• Yao defending Chul-Moo
• Chul-Moo confronting his leadership failure

 

The main plot is handling the PC grappling with unresolved trauma.

 

There is more to come in the next release. Don't want to spoil where it goes, but some of what you mentioned might be covered there.

Subplots: I guess my problem with them is they feel too distant. Detached. I failed to have any deeper feelings about their protagonists because some of them I don't really know much and the rest are at co-worker level at best (totally subjective).

The main plot: I love that one.

The "more to come": Oooh, that'd be terrific!

Last but not least - thank you.

Edited March 2, 2023 by anninke.7469
typo

[Bobby Stein.3612]

5 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

We are still exactly where we were before the caves, with no explanation, no understanding, no real development and a focus on reusing old subplots about hallucinations

Counterpoint:

• At the beginning, we only knew that workers were being "rebellious"
• We discovered the haze and its effects on jade and the workers
• We discovered that the PC is especially susceptible to the effects of said haze
• We now know how the demon is leveraging emotion to weaken its prey
• We discovered a ley-line power source that is potentially a solution toward the energy problem, but also a source of healing for the demon

 

This is a multi-part story, so we weren't going to answer all the questions in one go.

 

All that stated, though, I totally hear you. There were elements that fell flat for you (or just weren't enough). I appreciate you sharing that with us.

[Randulf.7614]

You also have to remember you see the full arc and everything ahead. We see what’s out in front of us now and have to wait unspecified time to see where we go next. We can’t turn the page at our leisure like a book or tune in next week like a series. In fact it could be months. We need some answers - even if only partial - in every story drop. We can’t have three months of not understanding and not knowing what’s going on.

This is something I pulled up on way back in ls1 where there was no looking at it from a player point of view. You got better at that and putting aside other feedback, ls3 and ls4 had episodes which were well contained, moved things forward and pushed the story forward. Things were resolved, new questions were raised.

These half episodes resolve nothing and keep opening more doors.

Deal with the main story, then add the subplots. Right now, it’s all about the subplot and the central story is barely there. Or if it is, it’s not showing itself to (some of) us.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Randulf.7614

[Bobby Stein.3612]

Just now, Randulf.7614 said:

You also have to remember you see the full arc and everything ahead. We see what’s out in front of us now and have to wait unspecified time to see where we go next. We can’t turn the page at our leisure, we need answers - even if only partial - in every story drop. We can’t have three months of not understanding and not knowing what’s going on.

I completely agree. I have insight into the big picture and sometimes forget that players are only seeing a slice of it, hence the frustration and/or questions. Thanks for the reminder.

[Randulf.7614]

Just now, Bobby Stein.3612 said:

I completely agree. I have insight into the big picture and sometimes forget that players are only seeing a slice of it, hence the frustration and/or questions. Thanks for the reminder.

No worries. I like seeing you here justifying things whether we agree or not. 

[Bobby Stein.3612]

Related to all this: where do folks think the story is going based on what you know right now? (I'm sure there are theories earlier in the thread and I intend to read through it all when I'm on break. Currently in a VO session so I gotta step away from the forums for a bit.)

[mandala.8507]

Gorrik mentions briefly that, according to our extracurricular research on the Haze's interactions with Jade, the magics therein seem to imprint on the jade base. Could this have something to do with why Joon was having so much trouble attuning amber to capture the Void magic? What other force imprinted on the amber in Cantha previously that would make "turning" it for the purposes of capturing Void so difficult? 👀

[TheOrlyFactor.8341]

1 minute ago, Bobby Stein.3612 said:

Related to all this: where do folks think the story is going based on what you know right now? (I'm sure there are theories earlier in the thread and I intend to read through it all when I'm on break. Currently in a VO session so I gotta step away from the forums for a bit.)

 

Honestly, I'm digging it. It may be because Doom is my favorite game franchise of all time (don't like Doom Eternal tho), but the fact we're dealing with demons is something I can get behind. Based off what I played of the story, I like the idea of demonic energies being a different kind of magic. It could have some serious implications, like (and this is just a personal hope as well as me thinking more long term; I'm keeping my expectations level) Aurene can't filter every type of magic, that trying to could very well impact her negatively, and that the Commander and company will have to figure out another way to deal with these demonic magics while also dealing with the trickery and manipulation of these demons.

 

In short, I'm on board for this so far.

[Randulf.7614]

2 hours ago, Bobby Stein.3612 said:

Related to all this: where do folks think the story is going based on what you know right now? (I'm sure there are theories earlier in the thread and I intend to read through it all when I'm on break. Currently in a VO session so I gotta step away from the forums for a bit.)

To be honest I have no real idea, I’m not sure what I’m meant to be latching onto from an assortment of scattered bits. It feels like just an epilogue to EoD where we secure a new energy source before we move out of Cantha. More feels like a side story than an overarching arc. The pc trauma I’ve largely skipped over because it’s been added in half a dozen times already and no longer has the impact it might once have (which is a shame because as a subplot, it’s got merit, but we’ve been there, done that now)

Compare this to Grothmar which is close to a perfect episode - story told through action and activity in the instances, wonderful map storytelling, subplots woven in amongst it all and a satisfying ending which got straight to the heart of where we were going and leaving us wanting more. We didn’t get much of any of that and I don’t think it was unfair to expect a repeat of that kind of content and story.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Randulf.7614
Added in a Grothmar example

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

18 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

To be honest I have no real idea, I’m not sure what I’m meant to be latching onto from an assortment of scattered bits. It feels like just an epilogue to EoD where we secure a new energy source before we move out of Cantha. More feels like a side story than an overarching arc.

I personally don't see us moving out of Cantha just yet.

Anet repeated themselves with both HoT/LWS3, and PoF/LWS4, in regards how they handled the living world seasons post expansion. The expansion focusing on a big threat(Mordremoth/Balthazar) and the LW season focusing on both a smaller local issue(White Mantle/Joko), and a larger issue(Primordus+Jormag Rising/Kralkatorrik).

EoD has seemingly set up a similar post story thing set up. EoD heavily hinted at both the Risen and the Purists, with the Purists trying to manipulate the Risen into attacking the city to wipe out the Empress's government and take control, and the Deep Sea Monster being more active around Cantha. I could see both being focuses of upcoming mini-expansions now that LW is gone.

What if the Deep Sea Monster is some horrible demon, now in control of the Oni? What if the monster in Raisu Palace is a demon that found a way to co-opt the Risen now that Zhaitan is dead? Both are obvious continuations of EoD and this current story.

We also have to consider that

1. No one spends the time to create the large library of new assets they did for EoD, only to use them in that expansion, and then move somewhere else entirely. Like, If PoF came out like it did, and then Anet switch to a mini-expansion formula, I would 100% bet we would get mini-expansions to cover other parts of Elona because it would be a massive waste of dev time on the resource set of PoF to only use them for PoF.
2. With the yearly mini-expansion format, and the general focus on less LW content in favor of more focus on other systems, balance, QOL, etc. Anet really doesn't have the time to make totally new asset sets for each mini-expansion. That would be doing far MORE work on LW than they did before, not less. I would expect to see more reuse, though obviously there would be new models/textures when needed, going forward.
3. The vast majority of the remaining GW2 plots don't even logically take place otuside of established zones. So this idea we would be going to totally new locals each mini-expansion doesn't even really makes sense.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Randulf.7614]

2 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

I personally don't see us moving out of Cantha just yet.

Anet repeated with both HoT/LWS3, and PoF/LWS4, how they handled the living world seasons post expansion. The expansion focusing on a big threat(Mordremoth/Balthazar) and the LW season focusing on both a smaller local issue(White Mantle/Joko), and a larger issue(Primordus+Jormag Rising/Kralkatorrik). EoD has seemingly set up a similar post story thing set up.

EoD heavily hinted at both the Risen and the Purists, with the Purists trying to manipulate the Risen into attacking the city to wipe out the Empress's government and take control, and the Deep Sea Monster being more active around Cantha. I could see both being focuses of upcoming mini-expansions now that LW is gone.

What if the Deep Sea Monster is some horrible demon, now in control of the Oni? What if the monster in Raisu Palace is a demon that found a way to co-opt the Risen now that Zhaitan is dead?

We also have to consider that

1. No one spends the time to create the large library of new assets they did for EoD, only to use them in that expansion and then move somewhere else entirely. Like, If PoF came out like it did, and then Anet switch to a mini-expansion formula, I would 100% bet we would get mini-expansions to cover other parts of Elona because it would be a massive waste of dev time on the resource set of PoF to only use them for PoF.
2. With the yearly mini-expansion format, and the general focus on less LW content in favor of more focus on other systems, balance, QOL, etc. Anet really doesn't have the time to make totally new asset sets for each mini-expansion. That would be doing far MORE work than they did before. I would expect to see more reuse, though obviously there would be new models/textures when needed, going forward.

I’d love to believe much of that, but that’s fourth wall stuff. Relying on asset development time to indicate where we are going shouldn’t replace rock solid storytelling in the game to lead me there.

We are back to hints and what ifs. And they are great things for a game to have to keep speculation going, but sometimes that’s all we have. I want meaty, episodic story. The subplots about love affairs and detective agency seem to be taking on too much importance in an action based epic fantasy. 
 

Give me those deep sea monsters. Give me purists sending in risen to overthrow the capital. I’ll take all that. I love the ideas. Tea parties? Love affairs? Put that in after or around it to break things up and flesh out the main story if there’s time and space to do it.
 

Episodes are now shorter and less often. I’m fine with that, but the trade off can’t mean less story. Look at ep2 of season 4. We covered big overarching plot and used the map and a downtime in the middle to address the subplots and world building. I’d love more of that quality. But, with deep sea monsters and purist risen armies and other things you just listed.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

19 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I’d love to believe much of that, but that’s fourth wall stuff. Relying on asset development time to indicate where we are going shouldn’t replace rock solid storytelling in the game to lead me there.

I wasn't relying on asset development time, you can completely remove that part and still reach the same conclusions. And 4th wall stuff is absolutely something one can, and should, use.

There is a reason why narrative meta-concepts like the "Heroes Journey/Monomyth" exist. Good writing follows patterns, and can be predicted so long as the author did the set up properly. Do note that begin able to be predicted isn't the same as being predictable.

19 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Tea parties? Love affairs? Put that in after or around it to break things up and flesh out the main story if there’s time and space to do it.

So like the recent release where those things were a super small minority of the overall narrative time?

Edited March 2, 2023 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[starhunter.6015]

Honestly am happy for the Oni to return. But I want Kanaxi to stay dead/defeated. They can reveal his boss or even replacement and I would be ok with that.