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Feedback: Official Living World Season 4 Episode 3 Feedback [MANY SPOILERS]

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Twyn.7320

Twyn.7320

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@DorDor.8617 said:

@Twyn.7320 said:I'm looking forward to effectively like playing Lord of the Guild Wars 2: Return of the King. Like, it's not original or plausible so far, so I hope it gets better later on!

Would you mind going into detail?

What exactly is not plausible? And why would it have to be original? The characters in the story are pretty original no? Not like settings can only ever be done once

Generally, the Scarab Plague is an airborne disease, so if Amnoon isn't crippled by a mass outbreak, it's a bit silly. Additionally, Gorrik wandering around as a test subject is equally as dumb, and no one challenges the concept. They're so passive to the idea of letting an Asura wander around despite being contaminated. Even if it 'doesn't affect anything other than Humans', it could still spread to Humans by just being around Gorrik.

The characters are effectively stereotypes, and are in real need of character development that's well-written. I hope Braham actually gets treatment this time, instead of being drowned out by Taimi because 'reasons'. It's been said multiple times by multiple people, all of which are being objective, but Guild Wars 2 needs to choose its story tone. Is it trying to be a Disney-type adventure, or is it trying to be more mature? If it's a Disney-type adventure, spend more time with Taimi and Gorrik. If it's a mature story, spend more time with characters like Rytlock, Kasmeer and Braham. Of course, it's my subjective opinion as to which characters fit a more mature tone, but Guild Wars 2 stands out as being a bit too... 'no consequences, big actions'. The obvious answer to all of this is: 'Stop playing if you're so negative about it.' However, it doesn't fix anything. There are problems with Guild Wars 2 right now, the most important being a lack of communication and a lack of understanding of what the community actually wants. If Guild Wars 2's community declined until only blindly optimistic people remained, it wouldn't be financially viable to keep the servers open. The irony is that Guild Wars 2's community is trying to stop ArenaNet from destroying something with so much potential, but either through lack of attention or lack of staffing, they aren't able to fix the right things efficiently. (I know I've deviated from the main point, but it's important to get it out there with a new, buggy and largely underwhelming release.)

It's fine for settings to be re-done, but it's a setting that's over-done. We're collecting a spectral army to fight an immense evil, and banish them from the realm of the living. It's a quick fix, with no trials in the way, because it's the only way to fight and defeat Joko. We literally ask them to help and they say: 'Yah, gucci, let's go!' And then, we're meant to portal off to fight him. (Which no one can do at the moment, SoonTM.) But the main issue is actually the question you've asked to me...

'Why would it have to be original?'

This is a problem. Every game should strive to have an original storyline. Yah, you can borrow aspects from other things, it'd be impossible not to. However, you shouldn't rip entire story points, identically from another piece of media, and expect people to not notice. The ghost army is, dialogue-excluded, ripped off from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. And I might be wrong in the approach, but if the Primeval Army is the primary reason as to why we defeat Joko, it'll be a carbon copy. Though, I don't want Joko to die, because he hasn't been developed. Though, I guarantee that he's going to die today, or be banished from the storyline.

Question: How are you, and you alone, the arbiter of "what the community actually wants?"

Because I'm very active in this community, and from what I've seen, you're in the minority on this. General consensus on Reddit, on Tumblr and within the game itself (frankly, everywhere but the main forums) is pretty positive on Path of Fire, occasional storytelling blunders aside. I've seen a lot of very passionate critics praise the direction the game's taken, just months after taking them to task for the writing problems in Season 3. As far as community opinion goes, it's a far cry from the dark days of the Scarlet arc.

Your opinion is your opinion and I'm sure there plenty of people who agree with it. Heck, I can certainly agree with parts of it, even if I don't agree with the main point. But for better or worse, Arenanet IS listening to us. You just don't like the ideas they're listening to.

I haven't claimed to be the sole arbiter of 'what the community actually wants'. However, a simple flick through the forums shows that notoriously, the community desires things and hardly get them. The community wants raiding information, and they've been unable to gain it. The community wants balancing in PvP, but the correct balancing, and it's never arrived in full force, and trashed specs that didn't need to be trashed in the first place. Sections of the community desire a particular story focus, and regardless of where you stand on the issue, it objectively hasn't changed since Living World Season 3. The community wants more general communication on any releases or issues, but still, Anet's provided nothing to remove the painful desire.

I'm equally active in this community, and from what I've seen, I'm in a clear majority. If the general consensus of everywhere APART from the main game's forums is positive, but the game's forums are wholly negative and controversial, wouldn't it be safer to say that it's split down the middle? Naturally, official game forums make up the 'majority of accounts' for that game. However, it's a stab in the dark, and without actual figures, I can't say it's a definite and neither should you. Additionally, players of Guild Wars 2 (EU) regularly complain in-game of a lack of content to do, at least from my experience. EU players are usually more cynical, however, from experience.

The problem with comparing the community with the basis of 'the dark days of the Scarlet arc' is that this was 4 years ago. Naturally, Guild Wars 2 has progressed since then into a completely different experience. However, some of those complaints are still current. In the villain department, I've seen many players regularly complain about the lack of a compelling antagonist that they feel is both realistic and adheres to a degree of pathos, which is important for any narrative paradigm. If we don't feel for the villain's actions, or understand why they've acted in a particular way that seems plausible, backed with snazzy dialogue, villainy is pointless. This is a problem that was common in 2014, and is still common in 2018. If the same issue exists in a four-year time span, there's a clear problem. It's the same with balancing, but I'm not going to go into that aspect because other people who know 'numbers and percentiles' can do it far better than I can!

The thing that I need to ask you is: Can you give me a number of examples/instances where Anet has listened and implemented a requested change over a long-term, since the start of Living World Season 3? If Anet produces a good change, I step back, smile and nod. But I'm yet to see a change that actually feels worthwhile and is overtly different. The only change is 'Mounts', IMO. They're still developing for them, and in this case, I smiled and nodded in acceptance. Provide at least four others.

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Inculpatus cedo.9234

Inculpatus cedo.9234

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@"cptaylor.2670" said:In the first story instance behind the ship while fighting the boss, in the water near the mastery point and near the point of interest for old amnoon there is a reflection of almost a bright rainbow of colors. But there's nothing above it to reflect those colors. Is this a weird graphic glitch, an affect? It doesn't really bother me, just wondering if anyone else noticed it.

It may be from the statue in the hold of the ship that was glowing during the fight(s).

I'm curious what happens if one does not destroy the statue, now, as that was the option I chose. I suppose I will have to take another character through, and choose not to.

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Bast.7253

Bast.7253

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@"cptaylor.2670" said:In the first story instance behind the ship while fighting the boss, in the water near the mastery point and near the point of interest for old amnoon there is a reflection of almost a bright rainbow of colors. But there's nothing above it to reflect those colors. Is this a weird graphic glitch, an affect? It doesn't really bother me, just wondering if anyone else noticed it.

It may be from the statue in the hold of the ship that was glowing during the fight(s).

I'm curious what happens if one does
not
destroy the statue, now, as that was the option I chose. I suppose I will have to take another character through, and choose not to.

I must have missed this. When I got to the ship or approached it it said that I was leaving the instance? Hmmm...

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Zalani.9827

Zalani.9827

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So far I liked the first instance, especially Jokos lines and the secret on the ship. It's also nice that your choice in Amnoon effects his dialogue.

Currently I only managed to get to picking up Blish's arm but I am looking forward to continuing the story.

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DorDor.8617

DorDor.8617

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@Twyn.7320 said:

@Twyn.7320 said:I'm looking forward to effectively like playing Lord of the Guild Wars 2: Return of the King. Like, it's not original or plausible so far, so I hope it gets better later on!

Would you mind going into detail?

What exactly is not plausible? And why would it have to be original? The characters in the story are pretty original no? Not like settings can only ever be done once

Generally, the Scarab Plague is an airborne disease, so if Amnoon isn't crippled by a mass outbreak, it's a bit silly. Additionally, Gorrik wandering around as a test subject is equally as dumb, and no one challenges the concept. They're so passive to the idea of letting an Asura wander around despite being contaminated. Even if it 'doesn't affect anything other than Humans', it could still spread to Humans by just being around Gorrik.

The characters are effectively stereotypes, and are in real need of character development that's well-written. I hope Braham actually gets treatment this time, instead of being drowned out by Taimi because 'reasons'. It's been said multiple times by multiple people, all of which are being objective, but Guild Wars 2 needs to choose its story tone. Is it trying to be a Disney-type adventure, or is it trying to be more mature? If it's a Disney-type adventure, spend more time with Taimi and Gorrik. If it's a mature story, spend more time with characters like Rytlock, Kasmeer and Braham. Of course, it's my subjective opinion as to which characters fit a more mature tone, but Guild Wars 2 stands out as being a bit too... 'no consequences, big actions'. The obvious answer to all of this is: 'Stop playing if you're so negative about it.' However, it doesn't fix anything. There are problems with Guild Wars 2 right now, the most important being a lack of communication and a lack of understanding of what the community actually wants. If Guild Wars 2's community declined until only blindly optimistic people remained, it wouldn't be financially viable to keep the servers open. The irony is that Guild Wars 2's community is trying to stop ArenaNet from destroying something with so much potential, but either through lack of attention or lack of staffing, they aren't able to fix the right things efficiently. (I know I've deviated from the main point, but it's important to get it out there with a new, buggy and largely underwhelming release.)

It's fine for settings to be re-done, but it's a setting that's over-done. We're collecting a spectral army to fight an immense evil, and banish them from the realm of the living. It's a quick fix, with no trials in the way, because it's the only way to fight and defeat Joko. We literally ask them to help and they say: 'Yah, gucci, let's go!' And then, we're meant to portal off to fight him. (Which no one can do at the moment, SoonTM.) But the main issue is actually the question you've asked to me...

'Why would it have to be original?'

This is a problem. Every game should strive to have an original storyline. Yah, you can borrow aspects from other things, it'd be impossible not to. However, you shouldn't rip entire story points, identically from another piece of media, and expect people to not notice. The ghost army is, dialogue-excluded, ripped off from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. And I might be wrong in the approach, but if the Primeval Army is the primary reason as to why we defeat Joko, it'll be a carbon copy. Though, I don't want Joko to die, because he hasn't been developed. Though, I guarantee that he's going to die today, or be banished from the storyline.

Question: How are you, and you alone, the arbiter of "what the community actually wants?"

Because I'm very active in this community, and from what I've seen, you're in the minority on this. General consensus on Reddit, on Tumblr and within the game itself (frankly, everywhere but the main forums) is pretty positive on Path of Fire, occasional storytelling blunders aside. I've seen a lot of very passionate critics praise the direction the game's taken, just months after taking them to task for the writing problems in Season 3. As far as community opinion goes, it's a far cry from the dark days of the Scarlet arc.

Your opinion is your opinion and I'm sure there plenty of people who agree with it. Heck, I can certainly agree with parts of it, even if I don't agree with the main point. But for better or worse, Arenanet IS listening to us. You just don't like the ideas they're listening to.

I haven't claimed to be the sole arbiter of 'what the community actually wants'. However, a simple flick through the forums shows that notoriously, the community desires things and hardly get them. The community wants raiding information, and they've been unable to gain it. The community wants balancing in PvP, but the correct balancing, and it's never arrived in full force, and trashed specs that didn't need to be trashed in the first place. Sections of the community desire a particular story focus, and regardless of where you stand on the issue, it objectively hasn't changed since Living World Season 3. The community wants more general communication on any releases or issues, but still, Anet's provided nothing to remove the painful desire.

I'm equally active in this community, and from what I've seen, I'm in a clear majority. If the general consensus of everywhere APART from the main game's forums is positive, but the game's forums are wholly negative and controversial, wouldn't it be safer to say that it's split down the middle? Naturally, official game forums make up the 'majority of accounts' for that game. However, it's a stab in the dark, and without actual figures, I can't say it's a definite and neither should you. Additionally, players of Guild Wars 2 (EU) regularly complain in-game of a lack of content to do, at least from my experience. EU players are usually more cynical, however, from experience.

The problem with comparing the community with the basis of 'the dark days of the Scarlet arc' is that this was 4 years ago. Naturally, Guild Wars 2 has progressed since then into a completely different experience. However, some of those complaints are still current. In the villain department, I've seen many players regularly complain about the lack of a compelling antagonist that they feel is both realistic and adheres to a degree of pathos, which is important for any narrative paradigm. If we don't feel for the villain's actions, or understand why they've acted in a particular way that seems plausible, backed with snazzy dialogue, villainy is pointless. This is a problem that was common in 2014, and is still common in 2018. If the same issue exists in a four-year time span, there's a clear problem. It's the same with balancing, but I'm not going to go into that aspect because other people who know 'numbers and percentiles' can do it far better than I can!

The thing that I need to ask you is: Can you give me a number of examples/instances where Anet has listened and implemented a requested change over a long-term, since the start of Living World Season 3? If Anet produces a good change, I step back, smile and nod. But I'm yet to see a change that actually feels worthwhile and is overtly different. The only change is 'Mounts', IMO. They're still developing for them, and in this case, I smiled and nodded in acceptance. Provide at least four others.

Sure I can. My first example is Living World Season 3. The whole concept.

After Heart of Thorns, there were a ton of complaints about the content droughts the expansion caused. There were complaints about how small and unsubstantial Season 2 episodes ended up being. And there were especially complaints about the direction of the story, and how it was ignoring certain storylines that fans desperately wanted to see play out.

Arenanet responded with nothing short of a complete, comprehensive overhaul of their entire company structure. They established multiple Living World teams, each capable of delivering an episode with a full map's worth of content. They created a system of staggered releases that allowed Episodes to be released in a tight, closely-followed schedule. And they deliberately went for storylines tailor-made to appease old-guard fans: the White Mantle, Livia, the fate of Saul D'Alessio and the reappearance of the Gods. It was created to be a crowd-pleaser, a means to win back the trust of the people, and though it didn't always succeed in that, it does show us the mindset Arenanet's been in since the failure of HoT.

Of course, Season 3 had plenty of criticism as well, and the Path of Fire devs addressed those criticisms when it was their turn for a release. There were complaints about Season 3's bloated cast and scattered plotting, so they went out of their way to tell a more focused story with a smaller cast of characters. Season 4 continued that trend, taking us back to a much-requested location, Istan, and giving Braham some much-needed development after what they did with him in Season 3. Now, Episode 3 is bringing us Gandara (another heavily requested setting) and Roller Beetles (a mount I've seen a ton of people clamoring for).

They've been a bit less proactive on the PvP/WvW side of things, but one cannot overestimate the impact the overhaul of Ranked play had on the PvP scene. The addition of Seasons, Automated Tournaments, the larger map pool and even that little free-for-all Murder Arena in the Heart of the Mists were all stuff the PvP community requested and received. Also, have you heard about those changes coming to World vs World in the not-too-distant future? That whole Guild Alliance system? I've heard requests for exactly that sort of thing since I first joined the community. It's not in the game yet, but it's coming, so I figure it makes the list, too.

I understand how you came to the conclusion that Arenanet doesn't listen. You get your information from the forums, the place our entire community goes to vent where they know the devs will hear them. This is a big, giant complaint box. But that kind of focused negativity isn't a fair impression. Arenanet is one of the most transparent game developers I've ever seen. It's why I'm willing to cut them so much slack when they do screw up. They earned my respect.

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Mrs Lana.2506

Mrs Lana.2506

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Welp, impressions so far aren't great. I checked the mount mastery and saw it was locked behind a collection, whatever, that's nbd, but then the experience that you give as a reward for the first two instances goes toward nothing. Why even bother giving it out in the first place?

Fortunately I arrived at the second instance just before the fix for it went up, but to release it at this state - as someone else mentioned in the thread - is unprofessional bordering on incompetent. Finishing the instance itself was fine, I enjoyed the stealth option, but was severely disappointed with being unable to get into the new map.

How about before letting PR run away with the hype, hold them back and make sure the release is actually playable first.

I'm off to play something that actually works.

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Rauderi.8706

Rauderi.8706

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@Pifil.5193 said:My initial impressions aren't great.

Same.I waited until the post-reset build to start, so my play time was limited, but I'm.. not content.

Story is progressing smoothly.Not happy about the re-replay nature of some of the achievements.

The stealth toolkit was actually pretty grand. (Possible upcoming Thief Elite with kits? :3)...it's just a shame most of my problem solving got blunted by hyper-active AI able to see me do every tiny thing, and trebuchets I couldn't do anything about until I was allowed to. Bad conveyance. Bad.Kinda the same for keeping track of Canach. His little target marker and the tiny green bomb squiggle weren't very visible.

Conveyance is critical

Also, real talk, if we're going to have high places that require springers, please stop putting things directly over our heads. We cannot look up. Again, conveyance. And the mastery point that was supposed to be a weird springer cavern climb? Bad. It was stupidly cramped, ledges overhead, slippery terrain that doesn't read well.. Again, conveyance was desperately required.

Jacarundas and Ibogas join the CC-parade, again. I suspect that once I'm done, I'll be avoiding big chunks of this zone, just like Istan. Seriously, the CC and condi barrage is a big problem throughout the entirety of the game that needs a permanent fix, right down to revising original design philosophy for enemy creation.

Bug: Can't put the new scroll in the book. C'mon, ANet, this is basic stuff by this point. :(

And another Condi/healing set. Why? Can we get a decent Power/Conc/Heal or Power/Prec/Conc/Heal somewhere? Please?

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TexZero.7910

TexZero.7910

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General Impressions

For something that was delayed we have a lot of issues here. I've only recently been able to get into Kourna and there's various storyline bugs with transformations that are questionable.

There's also extremely poor server performance, I'm sure these are all being worked on though. (Crashes, Extreme latency)

The collection for the mount is interesting and i hope to have it done, but i question why we aren't earning experience in the mean time ?

Have not touched other content yet to comment on their states, but the Open World and Story are in bad shape and i hope to be able to give better feedback once resolved.

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Calliope.8675

Calliope.8675

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Things I like...New storyReturning characters (the twin queens, faren)Canach is a obviously growing to be a crowd favorite, please, can we have more of him (short stories, "current events," or something?)Braham isn't acting like a little bitch at the moment, still a snot thoughNew fractal is really cool, it seems a little underwhelming (on T4) compared to other fractals

  • the 3rd puzzle (getting across the chasm) took a while to spawn/complete

Things I don't like...So many issues with the instancesUnskippable dialogue (I like hearing it once, but I should have the ability to skip it if I don't want to waste 20min of progress listening to it again)Having to do hearts on all of the new maps to progress the story, busy work is not fun (even Faren said as much)Traps in Be My Guest spawn too quickly and deal too much damage to compensate, this makes disabling the traps in the halls difficult

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Blocki.4931

Blocki.4931

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Has anybody figured out how exactly "Trip the Quantum Fantastic" is supposed to work? I've tried about everything that came to mind

"Disorient Awakened using the Quantum Mass Displacement Matrix" but porting into them doesn't do anything. Using it while standing on top of them doesn't do anything. Since it says trip I've tried getting in front of them as they move but that doesn't help either

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Brother.1504

Brother.1504

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@KronosBaelfire.6289 said:For now, I'm glad I didn't call off work. Hopefully, when I get off in the morning it'll be fixed. I actually wasn't planning on playing this until I get my time off from work starting on Friday so as long as it gets fixed by then I have no complaints.

Not complaining about the broken content patch, been playing mmos many years, kinda goes with the genre. I’m in the same situation, glad I didn’t take time off work for the patch. Hopefully bugs fixed by days off starting Friday morning.

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SunTzu.4513

SunTzu.4513

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Okay i'm done with the story. Overall story telling 8/10. I like how Joko is acting like a mix of a real bad villain and an narcissistic psychopath with a strange sense of humor. Faren appearence gives bonus points ^^

Overall difficulty 7/10. Nothing really hard crosses my way.

Build up/misson design 5/10. Overall it's okay but imo some of the story parts are just too long. This overshadows the good design for me. Please put in some saving points or cut them into smaller pieces. Also i'm getting really tired of these sneaking parts.

The new map: 5/10. Normaly i would rate the map itself higher (about 7/10 thematically it's great) but it has one great letdown for me: The bug mount. I know some people love collections and i also agree to the point if you want something let's do something for it. But for me personally collections are just boring and i have to force myself into them. Now one will come and tell me: don't do them if you dont want it. I normally would agree, but it seems i need the bug to break trough walls to get into some hidden rooms on the map. If the bug would like the griffon (wich is just some kind of a qol mount wich takes from the PoF launch till two weeks ago to for me to complete) i would say it's a cool feature but so it's just painfull to get for me and pushes the game into a direction i really dislike.

Edit: I've done the beetle collection. It's not the worst one the biggest issue is that all the specific mob spawnpoints are hopless over farmed. The rest were okayish but not really fun to me. Now i got this beetle pod racer and can do 100% of the map. Still thinking that a mount wich is needed for 100% of the map should not be gated behind a collection.

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Blocki.4931

Blocki.4931

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@SunTzu.4513 said:Okay i'm done with the story. Overall story telling 8/10. I like how Joko is acting like a mix of a real bad villain and an narcissistic psychopath with a strange sense of humor. Faren appearence gives bonus points ^^

Overall difficulty 7/10. Nothing really hard crosses my way.

Build up/misson design 5/10. Overall it's okay but imo some of the story parts are just too long. This overshadows the good design for me. Please put in some saving points or cut them into smaller pieces. Also i'm getting really tired of these sneaking parts.

The new map: 5/10. Normaly i would rate the map itself higher (about 7/10 thematically it's great) but it has one great letdown for me: The bug mount. I know some people love collections and i also agree to the point if you want something let's do something for it. But for me personally collections are just boring and i have to force myself into them. Now one will come and tell me: don't do them if you dont want it. I normally would agree, but it seems i need the bug to break trough walls to get into some hidden rooms on the map. If the bug would like the griffon (wich is just some kind of a qol mount wich takes from the PoF launch till two weeks ago to for me to complete) i would say it's a cool feature but so it's just painfull to get for me and pushes the game into a direction i really dislike.

Sadly collections are the only way to get people to play older content. In case of these collections most of it is simply exploring the map and pressing F on spots, something that would be very natural. The bad part to me was only that you have to play the story up until then to unlock them and I already explored before, leaving me ever so slightly annoyed.

And I don't think a reminder that the Leyline Anomaly exists is that bad. It's one of the few events I've never bothered chasing but now I'll have a reason to.

This is as close to quests as we will ever get

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