SOTO writing is great and is on right direction. [spoilers] [Merged]

[Kalavier.1097]

37 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

The reason they mostly avoided the ancient Cantha stuff was because (in my opinion): 1) Budget. They have limited room to tell a story, and if they spent half that time rehashing old Canthan history, it means they have less room to work with for the GW2 story they want to tell. and 2) Winds of Change set up a cultural revolution in Cantha that would inevitably lead to several erasure events, as these things tend to do in real world settings as well.

 

Remember when EoD first came out and there was at times equal complaints of "Not enough of GW1 Cantha areas" and "Too much of GW1 Cantha areas"?

Also at Arborstone you can explicitly read the plaque of the GW1 hero, who is nameless because Purity tried to erase them from history.

[mandala.8507]

5 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Remember when EoD first came out and there was at times equal complaints of "Not enough of GW1 Cantha areas" and "Too much of GW1 Cantha areas"?

Also at Arborstone you can explicitly read the plaque of the GW1 hero, who is nameless because Purity tried to erase them from history.

The irony is, Arenanet did so much justice to the GW1 lore in Cantha will all the collections and histories and such for EoD.

But like I said in my previous comment, nothing can stand up the subjective perfection that is one's own head canon, and so it's all "underwhelming" or "not what they'd hoped for".

[Morvran.8265]

10 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

The thing is those elements are from the Movement of the World/Gw beyond.

Dwarves being living and not stone goes back to pre-EOTN, and Beyond/movement of the world established that Cantha would be changed drastically if we ever returned.

Movement of the world was written by people hired around Factions/Nightfall. These were already people who didn't have any attachments to the foundations of GW and wanted to redefine the entire universe when put in charge.

Movement isn's some holy text from GW1 writers that cared, it's a mission statement to reboot the GW universe by people who wanted to supplant the old.

EoD merely dialed that up to 11.

[Kalavier.1097]

1 hour ago, Morvran.8265 said:

Movement of the world was written by people hired around Factions/Nightfall. These were already people who didn't have any attachments to the foundations of GW and wanted to redefine the entire universe when put in charge.

Movement isn's some holy text from GW1 writers that cared, it's a mission statement to reboot the GW universe by people who wanted to supplant the old.

EoD merely dialed that up to 11.

So Gw1 only counts when we talk about Prophecies, according to you? That's extreme, even for the "GW1 is best" crowd.

[mandala.8507]

4 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

So Gw1 only counts when we talk about Prophecies, according to you? That's extreme, even for the "GW1 is best" crowd.

And Factions came out exactly one year after Prophecies, so in their opinion, anyone not around for the first 365 days of GW1 is "new blood who didn't understand the true Guild Wars lore."

Do people actually think Arenanet has been hiring and firing entire narrative departments on a yearly cycle?!

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

6 hours ago, Morvran.8265 said:

Movement of the world was written by people hired around Factions/Nightfall. These were already people who didn't have any attachments to the foundations of GW and wanted to redefine the entire universe when put in charge.

Movement isn's some holy text from GW1 writers that cared, it's a mission statement to reboot the GW universe by people who wanted to supplant the old.

EoD merely dialed that up to 11.

By this line of mentality then nothing but Prophecies, and maybe Factions if you stretch it, is from people who had attachments to the foundations of GW.
Despite the fact that most of these writers who worked on Prophecies also wrote Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North, Beyond, and core GW2.
Despite the fact these writers include Bobby Stein and Matthew Medina, who still work at ArenaNet.

I'm among the first in line to tire of the constant nostalgia baiting that GW2 does, where they surface level call back to GW1 but fail to actually deliver on expanding the feeling or foundations of worldbuilding that GW1 held when it happens (and it happened quite a lot post-HoT, imo). But that stance is just clown makeup meme to the maximum. And while ArenaNet has been an unfortunate revolving door of writers in a general sense, it certainly isn't to such a huge degree that even Nightfall lacks "attachment to the foundations of GW" - something that simply isn't true, which is pretty evident if you watch The Making of Guild Wars Nightfall that was in the collector's edition.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Morvran.8265]

10 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

So Gw1 only counts when we talk about Prophecies, according to you? That's extreme, even for the "GW1 is best" crowd.

That's not what I said. Try again.

[mandala.8507]

The issue is, @Morvran.8265, is that you are offering a characterization of events that you have shared no basis for. Can you show us evidence that justifies WHY you believe the writers for Movement of the World and others hired around the Factions/Nightfall era were only interested in supplanting the lore from Prophecies? Because I think it's unfair to say things like that unless you have proof of these sentiments from the writers from that time that you could share with us.

Developer fan fiction is a huge problem on this forum, so just allowing you an opportunity to substantiate this claim that developers from that time didn't care about the lore and world building from Prophecies by offering us some tangible evidence of this; or even just a thorough breakdown of the specific lore you think they wrote that demonstrates this, in your opinion.

[Kalavier.1097]

50 minutes ago, Morvran.8265 said:

That's not what I said. Try again.

You certainly implied that anything that didn't come from Prophecies wasn't done by "anybody who cared"

[mandala.8507]

4 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

You certainly implied that anything that didn't come from Prophecies wasn't done by "anybody who cared"

That's what I gleaned from their comment as well, but I'm more than happy to read a clarifying comment from them that articulates what led them to this conclusion.

[Morvran.8265]

19 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

That's what I gleaned from their comment as well, but I'm more than happy to read a clarifying comment from them that articulates what led them to this conclusion.

Imagine you get hired to write for a game. It's somewhat new but already has a playerbase, established lore, tone, themes, characters. You can still inject some of you own stuff, but all these things put you in a box, and you still have superiors to guide you.

Then you're put in charge of the sequel. What do you do? Put your ego aside and keep the original's legacy going, or decide to tear it all down and start over with your new vision.

To me it seems extremely obvious which one of those ended up happening, and after 10 years I don't understand how can anyone look at GW2 objectively and tell me this was done out of love and appreciation of the original rather than the opposite.

Every location and culture was destroyed, every foundation of the lore retconned and belittled.

If you like the new lore, fine. I like some parts too. But stop telling us it wasn't explicitly made to undo GW1, because Anet's actions don't support your narrative.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Just adding my two cents here:

Agreed. It had a good depth, the villains were done straight but not cheesy and had good presence, it created room for possible write-ins of previously extinct or known-to-be wiped out groups (which is something I normally don't see stories this massive do, special props for selling that), -and- it tied up some relationship arcs in a neat little bow. It's obvious that the writers had fun with this and feel much less limited now that they're all done with the Elder Dragon stuff. I'm a little disappointed in how quickly they shelved 

Spoiler

Mabon

But that is something I tend to expect, so it wasn't exactly surprising. 

Edited September 21, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, Morvran.8265 said:

To me it seems extremely obvious which one of those ended up happening, and after 10 years I don't understand how can anyone look at GW2 objectively and tell me this was done out of love and appreciation of the original rather than the opposite.

Every location and culture was destroyed, every foundation of the lore retconned and belittled.

If it's so apparent and objectively true, then show me. You are just waving your hands with this comment and still offering no basis for these opinions. You've provided nothing of substance to back up what you are claiming. If you have a point, you should make it by providing me an example of lore you think was trampled upon by the writers that came shortly after Prophecies.

Needless to say, I don't agree with you based on my own experiences with these games, but I'm asking you to show me. Pick ANY detail and explain why it validates your opinion that the writers didn't care. I'll hear you out. But there's nothing to discuss if you just make it about how you feel about it vs how I feel about it, because of course I'm going to value my own feelings over those of other players unless they can convince me otherwise by showcasing why they feel differently. Who knows, maybe I'll agree with you.

But if you can't tell me why, then there's nothing more to discuss and I have to just accept that I don't agree with you and think you are incorrect. Because in my experience with Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, there is so much love for the first game that shines through the world they built in the second.

[Kalavier.1097]

6 hours ago, Morvran.8265 said:

Imagine you get hired to write for a game. It's somewhat new but already has a playerbase, established lore, tone, themes, characters. You can still inject some of you own stuff, but all these things put you in a box, and you still have superiors to guide you.

Then you're put in charge of the sequel. What do you do? Put your ego aside and keep the original's legacy going, or decide to tear it all down and start over with your new vision.

To me it seems extremely obvious which one of those ended up happening, and after 10 years I don't understand how can anyone look at GW2 objectively and tell me this was done out of love and appreciation of the original rather than the opposite.

Every location and culture was destroyed, every foundation of the lore retconned and belittled.

If you like the new lore, fine. I like some parts too. But stop telling us it wasn't explicitly made to undo GW1, because Anet's actions don't support your narrative.

Okay, now how does this fit with some of the original writers still working at Anet, or the fact that some of those same original writers worked on EOTN and movement of the world? 

Yes, things change. It's been 250 years. Not every location or culture was destroyed. And those that were, was reasonable.

Ascalon: Already on the edge of death in GW1.

Kurzick and Luxons: Hated by the Ministry of Purity.

Kourna: Hated by Joko.

Istan: Home of the Sunspears, an enemy of Joko.

Dwarves: Turned to stone in EOTN.

It's fair to not like how the story goes, but to act as if the writers of GW2 were mailiciously dumping everything about GW1 out to replace it with their own stuff ignores... everything that GW1 setup and they worked off of.

Locations are affected by shifting groups. Some races don't hold as much value to the location as humans did. The world became less focused on humans only, and allowed other cultures to expand and thrive.

You can provide your dislike of it, but that doesn't mean it was done with an intent. Especially when much of these build off events from the span of GW1. Because if you limit that to only Propechies, then yeah things changed hard. but why not just say "I only really loved Prophecies"?

You bring up "Objectively" yet I've played all of GW1 and I've played a lot of GW2 and I see an expansion and continued world that appreciates what came before and moves forward. You mean subjectively, as it is your opinion.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

7 hours ago, Morvran.8265 said:

Imagine you get hired to write for a game. It's somewhat new but already has a playerbase, established lore, tone, themes, characters. You can still inject some of you own stuff, but all these things put you in a box, and you still have superiors to guide you.

Then you're put in charge of the sequel. What do you do? Put your ego aside and keep the original's legacy going, or decide to tear it all down and start over with your new vision.

You realize there was barely a box for making the culture and history of Cantha and Nightfall, right? All the lore created for those places was literally the name, and Turai Ossa having defeated a lich lord called Joko and then took people onto a doomed colonizing expedition. Cantha had less - just the dialogue from the one NPC in Lion's Arch, who literally just says "Cantha is a land far too the south beyond the other lands in Tyria and the ocean itself".

So what kittening box are you even talking about?

And the vast majority of core GW2 lore was building up off of Prophecies and Elona anyways - Usoku's stuff was created with the Movement (again, written by GW1 writers, including folks from Prophecies days).

Most GW1 devs were gone by the time GW2 released - they left with the sequel's release - but not all of them, as some are still there, and are now the Lead Narrative Designer and one of the two lead writers on SotO (the other being a major GW1 fan who got hired a couple years ago after writing the biggest lore release since GW2 launched that was more faithful to GW1's lore than anything after Season 2.

Your argument literally makes zero sense and is based off a bunch of assumptions. While I agree there definitely were some (arguably several) writers in GW2's lifetime that wanted to tear down the legacy and do their own thing (this is how I honestly feel about most of IBS and EoD in all honesty), to say the entirety of GW2 was this is... just plain stupid. Because the writers are even more confined to a "box" with core GW2 than they were with Factions and Nightfall!

[Jzaku.9765]

I'm not sure what the hell this thread descended into but I agree with the OP. 

The setting and characters for SOTO are a significant improvement from EOD and seem to actually have depth to them. There are darker aspects of the "good" Wizards faction hinted at and Peitha is evidently intended to be a lighter aspect of the "bad" Kryptis faction. 

That said, I doubt the writers at Arenanet will be able to actually follow through. Already in the story we can play through now, what's being set up is a very straightforward good vs bad plot where the good Wizards beat back the Evil Eparch. All the nuance is brushed off so Zojja can have a guilt-free new "Found Family" (actually voiced in-game, that was real cringe).

• The commander is super supportive of Zojja memory wiping herself voluntarily, which is really quite messed up
• Mabon is a super nice guy but in the Skywatch meta, the second Lyhr remembers anything about his past, he gets outraged about what he has lost, which the Commander supposedly has no opinion on
• Waiting Sorrow (Dagda's mentor) is never actually mentioned on the Golden Path story content, despite having quite a fleshed out backstory hinting that the Wizards faction is not all good, so I doubt we'll see any pay off regarding that

 

[Kalavier.1097]

10 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

• The commander is super supportive of Zojja memory wiping herself voluntarily, which is really quite messed up

 

The commander is supportive of Zojja making a choice, even if that means it may make her forget her past. It's not a for sure thing, but it happens. It's about Zojja's happiness and choice, not the commander. Zojja has been some form of miserable for a very long time, since Snaff died. Her taking a chance to actually be happy and accepted by a set of peers that is not the politics of Rata Sum is a big step.

[Imba.9451]

19 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I'm not sure what the hell this thread descended into but I agree with the OP. 

The setting and characters for SOTO are a significant improvement from EOD and seem to actually have depth to them. There are darker aspects of the "good" Wizards faction hinted at and Peitha is evidently intended to be a lighter aspect of the "bad" Kryptis faction. 

That said, I doubt the writers at Arenanet will be able to actually follow through. Already in the story we can play through now, what's being set up is a very straightforward good vs bad plot where the good Wizards beat back the Evil Eparch. All the nuance is brushed off so Zojja can have a guilt-free new "Found Family" (actually voiced in-game, that was real cringe).

• The commander is super supportive of Zojja memory wiping herself voluntarily, which is really quite messed up
• Mabon is a super nice guy but in the Skywatch meta, the second Lyhr remembers anything about his past, he gets outraged about what he has lost, which the Commander supposedly has no opinion on
• Waiting Sorrow (Dagda's mentor) is never actually mentioned on the Golden Path story content, despite having quite a fleshed out backstory hinting that the Wizards faction is not all good, so I doubt we'll see any pay off regarding that

 

I think they followed up very well on Zojja. They kinda even made her absence into an integral part of her character arc: She felt isolated. Ignored. Not fitting into the world anymore, while others were out there doing great deeds. I dunno if this is a personal thing you need to have experienced, but watching others getting ahead on life while you seemingly are not moving forward can hit hard. Especially after having suffered from a critical life incident. So for her, finding people she felt a strong connection towards, a found family doesn't sound cringe to me at all. To me, it was rather wholesome. (And if you haven't already, read her journals. Unlike the Gyala-episodes, I think Anet portayed depression rather well here.)

Also, the open enden things you described can still be expanded upon in the following content releases. I am fine with not having all parts of the puzzle yet. Doing some setup work that does not get resolved immediatly is a sign of writers actually thinking things through. If they follow up, that is, but we will have to wait in order to see how this plays out.

And lastly, we do have Peitha, who hints at a demon society that, while still being rather feral, isn't what Eparch forces them to be. With her being an ally, that we will help with stirring up a civil war against Eparch, the Kryptis are set up to be alot more nuanced than the Elder Dragons have ever been.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Imba.9451

[Kalavier.1097]

20 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

I think they followed up very well on Zojja. They kinda even made her absence into an integral part of her character arc: She felt isolated. Ignored. Not fitting into the world anymore, while others were out there doing great deeds. I dunno if this is a personal thing you need to have experienced, but watching others getting ahead on life while you seemingly are not moving forward can hit hard. Especially after having suffered from a critical life incident. So for her, finding people she felt a strong connection towards, a found family doesn't sound cringe to me at all. To me, it was rather wholesome.

A funny thing really thinking about it. Zojja has always placed great importance on Snaff after his death, to the point (IIRC the early Asura story I did) of having her barging into a place to defend his work or the Snaff prize being met with "Of course, Zojja's here. because Snaff. Ugh." When generally Asura society doesn't seem to care about heroes that much. Did an important thing, get a prize/thing named after you, everybody moves on.

So then she basically dies, and Rata Sum immediately moves on. They don't invite her to speak at any colleges anymore. Nobody wants her opinion on golemancy or lab stuff. She's basically put into her house, an aide told to make sure she gets food/water, and left to rot away and die.  It's not even about falling behind on tech, society itself has deemed her a dead hero and moved away. 

Before SOTO I made a comment of "If they require her to pass an intelligence test before rejoining Rata Sum public, like that one jailed for being stupid... she may never pass the test with her injuries." I made the mistake of treating "She's addled, drooling." as if she was a human, where she's basically non-functional, vs as what an Asura would consider that, which could very much still be intelligent and active, but not to "Asura" inflated levels of ego and smarts.  Another case of "Asura don't really have health-care or medical systems" like how Taimi showed.

So we have this interesting part of Zojja being lifted from what has been a life of just misery, isolation, and rage at the world since Snaff's death, embraced by a new group who encourages her to explore her stunted magical powers (I personally loved the line about how the Asura have great magical protentional, but suppress it by constantly going into Golemancy and tech). She's almost explicitly offered to become one of the Wizards, an incredibly rare gesture from Isgarren and the court. And then she's torn because it's what she wants, and these people around her (even moreso then Destiny's Edge perhaps) truly accept her, but the idea of her memories fading or going away slams into the Asura upbringing. Her achievements, her papers and inventions. Losing all of that is hell for Asura, but she's already died in the eyes of Rata Sum.

It's why I loved Uenno as well. her jabs at how the Arcane Council/city of Rata Sum continues to send her money thinking she's off in a jungle studying plants, because they can't be bothered to actually check to see if all the Stipend individuals are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing.  I guess in a way this also explains some Inquest bases. Rata Sum's bookkeeping is bloated and wasteful.

[Imba.9451]

33 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

A funny thing really thinking about it. Zojja has always placed great importance on Snaff after his death, to the point (IIRC the early Asura story I did) of having her barging into a place to defend his work or the Snaff prize being met with "Of course, Zojja's here. because Snaff. Ugh." When generally Asura society doesn't seem to care about heroes that much. Did an important thing, get a prize/thing named after you, everybody moves on.

So then she basically dies, and Rata Sum immediately moves on. They don't invite her to speak at any colleges anymore. Nobody wants her opinion on golemancy or lab stuff. She's basically put into her house, an aide told to make sure she gets food/water, and left to rot away and die.  It's not even about falling behind on tech, society itself has deemed her a dead hero and moved away. 

Before SOTO I made a comment of "If they require her to pass an intelligence test before rejoining Rata Sum public, like that one jailed for being stupid... she may never pass the test with her injuries." I made the mistake of treating "She's addled, drooling." as if she was a human, where she's basically non-functional, vs as what an Asura would consider that, which could very much still be intelligent and active, but not to "Asura" inflated levels of ego and smarts.  Another case of "Asura don't really have health-care or medical systems" like how Taimi showed.

True. One could go on and find dozens of ways to describe how this works as an allegory on western society, broadly speaking (staying "relevant", being "diligent", being "loyal", etc.). Individuals are measured on how they contribute to their society, based on societal values, not on their own merit and rarely get the chance to develop a sense of self. (Actually, this makes Asura not too dissimilar from the Charr in that regard). And such expectations do take their toll on all those left behind for whatever reason. I really liked how they shed a light on the darker side of Asuran society, apart from the funny Technobabble goblins. Come to think of it, the wizards court are to Zojja what the Olmahkan are to Rox.

41 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

So we have this interesting part of Zojja being lifted from what has been a life of just misery, isolation, and rage at the world since Snaff's death, embraced by a new group who encourages her to explore her stunted magical powers (I personally loved the line about how the Asura have great magical protentional, but suppress it by constantly going into Golemancy and tech). She's almost explicitly offered to become one of the Wizards, an incredibly rare gesture from Isgarren and the court. And then she's torn because it's what she wants, and these people around her (even moreso then Destiny's Edge perhaps) truly accept her, but the idea of her memories fading or going away slams into the Asura upbringing. Her achievements, her papers and inventions. Losing all of that is hell for Asura, but she's already died in the eyes of Rata Sum.

I don't think that is Asura specific though. Losing your memories is losing yourself. Even though they tried to adress this by "It's not really gone, it's just put away", the thought is still scary.

[Kalavier.1097]

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

True. One could go on and find dozens of ways to describe how this works as an allegory on western society, broadly speaking (staying "relevant", being "diligent", being "loyal", etc.). Individuals are measured on how they contribute to their society, based on societal values, not on their own merit and rarely get the chance to develop a sense of self. (Actually, this makes Asura not too dissimilar from the Charr in that regard). And such expectations do take their toll on all those left behind for whatever reason. I really liked how they shed a light on the darker side of Asuran society, apart from the funny Technobabble goblins. Come to think of it, the wizards court are to Zojja what the Olmahkan are to Rox.

Yeah I was thinking about (partly from the "I was approaching her being labeled as addled/out of it from a human angle, not an Asura angle") how each society looks at such things and came up with the idea how the Asura are kinda... the darkest? Like an old/crippled Norn may go to become a Skald/storyteller or teach others a trade. Humans generally respect their elders. Sylvari it's kinda up in the air but I'd assume kindess and respect in the Grove. Charr would relocate you to teach the Fahrar's if you aren't able to work. Asura, based on Zojja? Just kicked her out.

I've always felt a lot of people buy into Asura propaganda about how great they are, better then everybody else, and SOTO went ahead and shined a light on that. Uenno living on the outskirts of DR, teaching humans math and "statics" (unsure exactly what was meant by that) was just a fun detail.

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

I don't think that is Asura specific though. Losing your memories is losing yourself. Even though they tried to adress this by "It's not really gone, it's just put away", the thought is still scary.

I kinda mis-worded that but I was meaning from the angle of how vicious Zojja has been in defending Snaff's research/inventions and the Snaff prize from people trying to steal it/misuse it. I figure a part of her self is screaming about how becoming a Wizard and risking the memory loss would basically be fully declaring herself dead to Rata Sum, and that she'd be busy at the Tower/Amnytas so people wanting to misuse her own papers/inventions and research, or Snaff would be able to do so without challenge.

[Jzaku.9765]

On 9/22/2023 at 3:52 PM, Jzaku.9765 said:

I'm not sure what the hell this thread descended into but I agree with the OP. 

The setting and characters for SOTO are a significant improvement from EOD and seem to actually have depth to them. There are darker aspects of the "good" Wizards faction hinted at and Peitha is evidently intended to be a lighter aspect of the "bad" Kryptis faction. 

That said, I doubt the writers at Arenanet will be able to actually follow through. Already in the story we can play through now, what's being set up is a very straightforward good vs bad plot where the good Wizards beat back the Evil Eparch. All the nuance is brushed off so Zojja can have a guilt-free new "Found Family" (actually voiced in-game, that was real cringe).

• The commander is super supportive of Zojja memory wiping herself voluntarily, which is really quite messed up
• Mabon is a super nice guy but in the Skywatch meta, the second Lyhr remembers anything about his past, he gets outraged about what he has lost, which the Commander supposedly has no opinion on
• Waiting Sorrow (Dagda's mentor) is never actually mentioned on the Golden Path story content, despite having quite a fleshed out backstory hinting that the Wizards faction is not all good, so I doubt we'll see any pay off regarding that

 

Just wanted to revisit this thread 1 year later to say that I was completely correct and you too should be wary about expecting too much from Anet's writing. 

[ugrakarma.9416]

16 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Just wanted to revisit this thread 1 year later to say that I was completely correct and you too should be wary about expecting too much from Anet's writing. 

yeah the history become very "nerfed". LOL.

They take out demon mystery and turned them into another generic plot "hey we are normal  ppl like tyrians, just using a demon skin".

The Eparch fights  is too simplistic, only losing to Zhaithan fight, its make Cerus seems the big boss.

[maxwelgm.4315]

19 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Just wanted to revisit this thread 1 year later to say that I was completely correct and you too should be wary about expecting too much from Anet's writing. 

At least we know the next first expansion patch will be absolute fire 💥 and full of the coolest plot threads we won't see followed up later on, personally I can't wait 10/10