The Path of Failure in Story & Lore [PoF Spoilers]

[Luindu.2418]

Agree with the OP.On the old forum I discuss with Konig about Balthazar plot, but now we have a Lore mess...Balthazar that doesn't move a finger in his own domain, FoW (Gw1), and we have to do all the work... now is anger and want war with ED? pfffI lost the hope of a plot twist with Kormir (another reason for me to hate her) and his "I sacrifice myself as human for Tyria's future...now with divine powers i can't do nothing for this future"Even if i enjoy the mechanics of most of the missions and have a love/hate with the mind of Joko's people...Dear Anet, read your own Lore, please.

[ugrakarma.9416]

I have no complaints except to stay in this loop between "gods" and "dragons" is getting nauseous.. If the PoF events meant burying the gods at once, then it was a good thing. I also hope I do not see more white mantle, Mursaat, Glint in future xpacs, all this has already given what had to give. I hope the next expansions will have more PoF: wars, wars, and wars. I hope that after the fall of Kralkatorric, all Tyria will descend into a civil war between the races. its time close Kralk sht once for all too.

[Jaken.6801]

@Rognik.2579 said:

@Jaken.6801 said:

@Rognik.2579 said:Jaken, did you rush through the story and not do much of the open world content? I get the feeling you didn't play the first game - which is fine - but I think that most NPCs explain the significance of the locations when you get there. Try going back and completing the heart quests around the desert. Talk to the named NPCs. Listen to the ambient dialogue. Guild Wars 2 is designed to be sauntered through, not bulldozed like most other MMOs I could name but won't.

I don't think it is right for the story to mostly rely on open world and old game information.It should be cohrend on it's own.Not sure if you noticed, but GW2 is about 90% open world information and maybe 10% of the story is exclusive to the personal story. The early steps are a bit more lore-rich, since each race has a couple of things to educate us on.This is our first time as gw2 players to get into this part of the world.So we should act like we rediscover everything and not like

everything

is common knowledge.Storywise we wouldn't go around as much, as we do with many of the side activities and heart quests.I've been playing Guild Wars since Droknar's Forge was actually home to an arena (old school GW players will get that reference), so I've got some heavy nostalgia goggles on, but I don't feel like my character knows all that much about the desert, as he asks every NPC for more information, mostly the heart quest givers but others as well.The open world should enhance the story, instead of being relied upon that heavily.In PoF I really felt that.And it does. Augury Rock? Does nothing to the story if you don't do the quests. Mouth of Torment? Aside from map completion (PoI, Hero Challenge and Mastery point), there's no reason to go there. I haven't even seen any events kitten that go there. Tomb of the Primeval Kings? Well, that's actually explored in the story, so it's not a good example.HoT have you a much more reasonable tour through the areas and lore in my opinion.Admittedly, the Maguuma Jungle wasn't heavily settled in GW1, so there's a lot more that needs to be explained as we meet the Itzel, the Exalted and the Nuhoch. Even Bloodstone Fen, while a place we visited in GW1, was basically killing a bunch of centaurs than a fight against Justiciar Hablion (unless I'm confusing 2 different missions there). You might think Path of Fire is weaker story-wise, and perhaps it is, but try living in the world and listening the people talking rather than just pushing for that story completion notch in your belt (or wherever you mark them).

Also, can you do me a small favour, if you really are a GW2-only player. Can you talk to Dunkoro at the Lair of the Forgotten, and see if he says that your soul seems familiar? I'm curious if that's because I have my account linked to GW1 or all Commanders are reincarnations of old GW heroes.

First up I played all of GW1 and I am familiar enough with the lore and everything (I look up Donkuro if I find him and call you back).It makes sense for me. I never said that It doesn't.Look, I get what you want to educate me about, but I clearly said, that this isn't what I am critizising.Everyhing I said is based upon my experience with the story, the presented narrative, because that is where the story falls flat.

Again, it doesn't matter how it is, but in what it results. If you just want to play and enjoy a story you get an disjointed and lackluster experience. You don't want to do homework on something that is on the level of a saturday morning cartoon (sorry, but Balthazar is evil and gods are going, etc. is not that well and thoughtful presented. At least for me).

You want to experience a coherend story, that doesn't have you go out and read up on additional material. If I wanted to do that I would play Final Fantasy XV again, or any other media that belives it can put these things outside... oh wait. Guild Wars 2 did that too and got flak (crucial character information in LS1) for it.

It is weird that you don't understand that I think that it isn't helpful that they put so much outside of the stories narrative.You mentioned Augyr Rock etc.? On one hand it is great that they completly skip it, as it isn't part of the story, but then again, they set barely anything else up. We just go to places and things happen.We don't discover new things, we just go to places that are already known by people. If they are known and if we are there, I would like to know why I am here storywise.Most we get is: "Oh, he is going that direction." with us saying: "Okay, then we meet there." or "it is at that place". I felt like a tourist just rushing through all these marvels, disregarding them as I had to go "south".They want us to feel connected and have feeling to things we have never seen before. I was in front of the Bone Palace. I didn't even recognized that thing at first, more so how easy we got in there in the story. It could be some random bone place to train some of Jokos army, for all I cared. Or the Order of Shadows. Yeah, there was a guy, we met him two times I believe.The endfight... I was just looking around for the generals, got them pretty easy and enjoyable (loved the overlord minion mechanic) and then it skips right to the final battle.Last thing I knew was that Balthazar captured Aureen and was building a big weapon. Suddenly we know he has finished and exactly where he wants to attack and we just jump in without any real plan.

Or something not place related. Remember the Sunspear, independed or Joko choice right at the begining? We got a backpack and I never met a Sunspear in the story, except at the end and I have no idea who she was. Heck most people there were random NPCs or people we had one little conversation with. Even the mount trainer got in.

If I have no idea where, who or what everything is and want to use the story as some kind of guide. Only played the PS, LS and HoT, then PoF does a very bad job in explaining why I am somewhere. Don't get me started at some logic leaps and things we just have to accept.If I played the LS and HoT, or most of the PS, I felt more inclined to suspend my disbelief, then here.

Bottom line. The open world suplement not replace story. Running around following green circles should be enough to get me all the information. Expecting us to go further and beyond should not be neccessary.

[PopeUrban.2578]

@Rognik.2579 said:Rather than try to defend this choice, I'm curious how you would handle the script for the 10 different versions of the characters. More, if we take the personal stories into account.

I'd have had the player excercise a few meaningful choices. Like the choice that determines which banners and ambient dialogue you get in amnoon, which backpack skin, and literally nothing else.

I'd have let the player choose a course of action literally every time someone else chooses for him. That fortress? The dialogue literally sets it up to choose "front door" or "sneak" and then... makes it a non-option anyway. You go in the front door and pretend to sneak by killing a few named NPCs. Taking over Joko's army? That should have been a choice. You could replace Joko's army with sunspears or cavaliers in the final battle and have the same resolution but the path there could have diverged on a few missions.

It could have used a bit of alternate dialogue for human characters when speaking to Kasmeer about a human crisis of faith. Or When Talking to Kormir about how the gods are abandoning everyone. Or Any time Balthazar shows up if, you know, the human character selected "blessed by BALTHAZAR" at creation.

It could have fleshed out several sections where it hands you two or three tasks and made them choices. Why isn't there a "Zalambur path" and a "Council Path" through act one, allowing the player to choose how to go about getting the required information to move forward? Why is the Commander the one randomly checking out sentry posts in stead of making decisive decisions about what to do with the RESULTS of checking out sentry posts?

Why isn't freeing Joko even an option? It could obviously be useful to us, and would have maintained the same plot structure for the final act with very few changes, arguably even less work than letting us choose our army.

And these are all such minor changes its not even funny. The plot started strong, then veered off in to nothing but exposition about dragons (again), only to finally become interesting again as you impersonate the mordant crescent, only to become trite and predictable and boring again by the final boss fight, and slide straight in to "this is how you write a badcliffhanger" in the epilogue.

See, you don't have to write a script for ten different versions of a character. You SHOULD address those characters that may logically have a drastically outlook on events based upon the rules YOU SET UP YOURSELF in your universe. And, when you're writing an RPG, you should invest the player with more than a token ability to play a role in their own adventure by making impactful decisions.

PoF doesn't even PRETEND to make the "Leader" of his party decisive. Not even to fake it with dialogue. People tell him to do stuff and he does it. It's like being a low level character in a tutorial, only for the duration of an entire expansion.

it is mired in overbearing "fate of the universe" stuff that somehow fails to feel important or meaningful because there's nothing the player cares about at risk. You know the UNIVERSE isn't going to end, and thuis you know its all going to work out. The problem is you don't have anything at stake as a character any more. Aurene literally Deus Ex Machinas all over the plot and she's the closest thing you have to a risk of loss in the whole deal. The HoT story where it was theoretically possible you could lose members of DE (as foreshadowed by the plot actively killing one of them) and being forced to sacrifice a character for the greater good (Traherne) was ultimately more engaging because you gave a shit.

Are we supposed to be sad about Vlast, a dragon we never met? About Glint? A dragon that died so long ago we're all past it? Snaff? I am really fucking tired of hearing about Snaff. I NEVER cared about Snaff because I never MET snaff. Snaff was only interesting in what he added to the inciting incident of the DE subplot in the release storyline. How is Rytlock still not PAST it? DE getting PAST it was literally the entire dungeon plot of the game at release.

I have literally nothing to care about, as a character, in the plot of this expansion. Balthazar is running around Elona, a place I have no connection to, and I'm given no local ties that would make me give a shit of the Elonian people got wiped off the map over the course of this war. I'm just doing hero things because I'm a hero. I have no choice in the matter and no emotional stake in it.

Contrast that with release GW2, where I was given a series of close personal relationships to manager, all of which culminated in a dragon fight that closed several character arcs for DE, added validation for avenging your mentor, AND just so happenned to save the world. Contrast it with HoT wherin the same plot beats exist. I was introduced to and made friends with many local factions, was given a complex personal narrative to navigate with my relationship with Caithe and OUR relationship with Faolain and Traherne, and in the end wrap up long running plot threads and character arcs AND just so happenned to save the world again in the process.

In PoF... I just chase a fire god around because he's evil and watch Rytlock and Canach be snarky with each other, and stuff shows up to solve my problems or spoon feed me information.

[Jaken.6801]

@PopeUrban.2578 said:

@Rognik.2579 said:Rather than try to defend this choice, I'm curious how you would handle the script for the 10 different versions of the characters. More, if we take the personal stories into account.

I'd have had the player excercise a few meaningful choices. Like the choice that determines which banners and ambient dialogue you get in amnoon, which backpack skin, and literally nothing else.

I'd have let the player choose a course of action literally every time someone else chooses for him. That fortress? The dialogue literally sets it up to choose "front door" or "sneak" and then... makes it a non-option anyway. You go in the front door and pretend to sneak by killing a few named NPCs. Taking over Joko's army? That should have been a choice. You could replace Joko's army with sunspears or cavaliers in the final battle and have the same resolution but the path there could have diverged on a few missions.

It could have used a bit of alternate dialogue for human characters when speaking to Kasmeer about a human crisis of faith. Or When Talking to Kormir about how the gods are abandoning everyone. Or Any time Balthazar shows up if, you know, the human character selected "blessed by BALTHAZAR" at creation.

It could have fleshed out several sections where it hands you two or three tasks and made them choices. Why isn't there a "Zalambur path" and a "Council Path" through act one, allowing the player to choose how to go about getting the required information to move forward? Why is the Commander the one randomly checking out sentry posts in stead of making decisive decisions about what to do with the RESULTS of checking out sentry posts?

Why isn't freeing Joko even an option? It could obviously be useful to us, and would have maintained the same plot structure for the final act with very few changes, arguably even less work than letting us choose our army.

And these are all such minor changes its not even funny. The plot started strong, then veered off in to nothing but exposition about dragons (again), only to finally become interesting again as you impersonate the mordant crescent, only to become trite and predictable and boring again by the final boss fight, and slide straight in to "this is how you write a badcliffhanger" in the epilogue.

See, you don't have to write a script for ten different versions of a character. You SHOULD address those characters that may logically have a drastically outlook on events based upon the rules YOU SET UP YOURSELF in your universe. And, when you're writing an RPG, you should invest the player with more than a token ability to play a role in their own adventure by making impactful decisions.

PoF doesn't even PRETEND to make the "Leader" of his party decisive. Not even to fake it with dialogue. People tell him to do stuff and he does it. It's like being a low level character in a tutorial, only for the duration of an entire expansion.

it is mired in overbearing "fate of the universe" stuff that somehow fails to feel important or meaningful because there's nothing the player cares about at risk. You know the UNIVERSE isn't going to end, and thuis you know its all going to work out. The problem is you don't have anything at stake as a character any more. Aurene literally Deus Ex Machinas all over the plot and she's the closest thing you have to a risk of loss in the whole deal. The HoT story where it was theoretically possible you could lose members of DE (as foreshadowed by the plot actively killing one of them) and being forced to sacrifice a character for the greater good (Traherne) was ultimately more engaging because you gave a kitten.

Are we supposed to be sad about Vlast, a dragon we never met? About Glint? A dragon that died so long ago we're all past it? Snaff? I am really kitten tired of hearing about Snaff. I NEVER cared about Snaff because I never MET snaff. Snaff was only interesting in what he added to the inciting incident of the DE subplot in the release storyline. How is Rytlock still not PAST it? DE getting PAST it was literally the entire dungeon plot of the game at release.

I have literally nothing to care about, as a character, in the plot of this expansion. Balthazar is running around Elona, a place I have no connection to, and I'm given no local ties that would make me give a kitten of the Elonian people got wiped off the map over the course of this war. I'm just doing hero things because I'm a hero. I have no choice in the matter and no emotional stake in it.

Contrast that with release GW2, where I was given a series of close personal relationships to manager, all of which culminated in a dragon fight that closed several character arcs for DE, added validation for avenging your mentor, AND just so happenned to save the world. Contrast it with HoT wherin the same plot beats exist. I was introduced to and made friends with many local factions, was given a complex personal narrative to navigate with my relationship with Caithe and OUR relationship with Faolain and Traherne, and in the end wrap up long running plot threads and character arcs AND just so happenned to save the world again in the process.

In PoF... I just chase a fire god around because he's evil and watch Rytlock and Canach be snarky with each other, and stuff shows up to solve my problems or spoon feed me information.

Bravo, that's exactly what I was missing and thinking off throughout my play.What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Where am I even heading?

[etsubmariner.4690]

I discovered about 1/2 way through the story that I had simply stopped listening to Balt rant in the cutscenes. I then decided to actively try to hear what he was saying thereafter, and still I found it all not not much more than a rant. It wasn't mysterious. It wasn't deeply spritual or dismal. Just a rant. I too come from GW1 and found a few lore "book" achievements in GW2 that told the story of Balt seizing a soldier and eating his soul, stating he was carrying that coward for the rest of us as his own (Balt's) penance. Now we find him ranting, and there was so much ranting that I tuned him out. I wanted to know what my NPC friends and NPC agents were thinking.

In the one instance/attack he kept resurrecting me, ranting about how it wasn't a good fight yet, etc etc. Uh . . . yeah. No. Then I have a mighty sword that can kill him. I honestly didn't expect to fight him to the death at all. Oh we did it with Abo, but like you said, copy/paste/find all/replace all.

[Zaklex.6308]

I have two things to say...one is that Bobby Stein knows the lore of GW1, he worked on it, and two, how do you even know that they didn't have this whole story line story boarded out since the beginning? You don't and never will know this...and find me any story that goes over multiple seasons or sessions and I'll tell you how it ends, and maybe even how it gets there, all without having interacted with it...because almost all, if not all, multi-part stories have the same basic beginning, middle and end. The only thing that changes is the characters, the location and themes.
P.S. - Has Konig commented on the story yet? I'd actually like to read his opinion, at least it would probably be more readable.

[PopeUrban.2578]

@Zaklex.6308 said:I have two things to say...one is that Bobby Stein knows the lore of GW1, he worked on it, and two, how do you even know that they didn't have this whole story line story boarded out since the beginning? You don't and never will know this...and find me any story that goes over multiple seasons or sessions and I'll tell you how it ends, and maybe even how it gets there, all without having interacted with it...because almost all, if not all, multi-part stories have the same basic beginning, middle and end. The only thing that changes is the characters, the location and themes.

P.S. - Has Konig commented on the story yet? I'd actually like to read his opinion, at least it would probably be more readable.

"Knowing the lore" is not the same thing as "writing a good story"

George Lucas "Knew the lore" of Star Wars, but that didn't prevent him from making completely awful storytelling decisions in the prequels. because, you know, it tkes a village, and most of what made Lucas' original trilogy good were the people around him constantly checking him and making him change things because he hadn't ascended to the status of "Lucas the Unquestionable" yet.

Bobby Stein may know the lore, but that's the problem. PoF's "story" is just a huge exposition dump, completely lacking in character development or emotional resonance. It's boring despite how much to explains about the background lore.

The Narrative team's decisions regarding any "old guard" lore are just executed poorly, and the things they are replacing them with are edging ever closer to Michael Bay territory where "being epic" is more important than being INTERESTING.

On paper the final boss fight of POF probably sounds pretty epic. In practice it's really quite boring because there aren't any stakes the player cares about. Just boilerplate "fate of the universe" stuff and another hilariously unthreatening elder dragon in the background of a small sparring match with the GOD OF WAR whose powers apparently amount to "makes a sword float and yells" and "summons a totally managable number of henchmen on occasion" oh and just in case he wasn't already unthreatening enough, you manage to give up Rytlock's OP magic sword, which we don't actually need FOR ANY REASON. (No really, you can stow it and do the entire mission without it and it's not even that hard)

The exact opposite problem HoT had, with a final boss that sounds dumb on paper, but in practice is an emotional whirlwind full of cool mechanics, character moments, and set pieces.

I'll go ahead and say it. I don't care about the magical balance any more. It is far too impersonal a threat for me to care about, and as far as PoF is concerned, it seems like it was pretty determined to work itself out anyway regardless of my involvement. I almost WANT to fail so I can end up in a more interesting magical post-apocalypse in stead of constantly waffling back and forth about what to do with dragons.

[Jaken.6801]

@Zaklex.6308 said:I have two things to say...one is that Bobby Stein knows the lore of GW1, he worked on it, and two, how do you even know that they didn't have this whole story line story boarded out since the beginning? You don't and never will know this...and find me any story that goes over multiple seasons or sessions and I'll tell you how it ends, and maybe even how it gets there, all without having interacted with it...because almost all, if not all, multi-part stories have the same basic beginning, middle and end. The only thing that changes is the characters, the location and themes.

P.S. - Has Konig commented on the story yet? I'd actually like to read his opinion, at least it would probably be more readable.

A recent interview with former narrative writer Angel Macoy, revealed that they have must of the story planned out already.

Koenigs comment on the story it's, that he is mostly okay with it.At least with the general story beats.I don't know his stance on the overall narrative execution.

[jwhy.9657]

Well said. The entire time I got that Destiny lazy writing vibe. There were so many 'Why even bother if it doesn't even matter' moments.

Why make us decide on who to ally with?Why even bother with Vlast?Why the useless weapon?Why set us on a journey to find the god(s)?Why make us spend the time doing the quests and making our way to meet the gods when that whole encounter was useless as well?Why even bother helping Glint + her kids if they were wrong about everything anyways!!and so on and so on ---

There are so many things wrong with GW2; design, mechanically and story.

[Basara.3810]

Wank wank wank

[Thalador.4218]

@Malthurius.6870 said:BalthazaarAnyway, I'm not too bothered by Balthazaar being motivated by wanting to kill the elder dragons where the gods did not. I don't think this conflicts with his character as the god's choice to leave Tyria in fear of destroying the elder dragons and thus destroying Tyria wasn't something that was decided when they were sealing away Abaddon... or when Abaddon was killed. The six had no plans of leaving at that point (as far as I can tell), so Balthazaar had no reason to disagree at the time.

They've known about the dragons well before the war of the gods, with Abaddon's actions of gifting magic to the races now gaining another layer of intention: to speed up the awakening process of the ED and deal with them ASAP. The Balthazar of old chose to prevent global conflicts and genocide by agreeing to limit the release of magic as well as to intervene and stop Abaddon from realizing his plans. He even withdrew himself from Tyria because their presence endangered humanity. When would've PoF Balthazar cared about endangering "mortal insects" and preventing global conflict? His actual godly character was destroyed completely to raise a power hungry, raging madman who only cares about slaughter and the amassing of power. As I said in another thread, I would've completely accepted the reason of him calling out the other gods for wanting to abandon Tyria and humanity without a fight; that they just give up so easily and he won't be a coward to run from overgrown lizards and let them kill their people. Instead, he just lusted for an "epic" dragon-hunting safari and the chance to munch on more power, all the while destroying Tyria and the race they'd been protecting for millennia. Batlahazar was never about these principles and values until he got character-butchered.

@Malthurius.6870 said:PacingI think the pacing was fine, much better than HoT. We had a smooth introduction to the Desert, there was a good twist with Balthazaar arriving to kill the player and giving some urgency to the plot. Speaking of which, I believe the stakes on the Departing instance wasn't whether or not the player character would remain dead... it's a given that we won't. The main drive of that section was the uncertainty of what was happening to Aurene. That created some urgency to the plot that was absent before that point.

Well, if only the writing was successful in making us actually care about Aurene. Don't get me wrong, she's very cute and it was brave of her to try and come to our rescue, but that's about it. Furthermore, because of how cute and small she is (and that annoying Taimi unfortunately falls in the same category, even though she isn't cute at all), there was about 0,1% chance of her getting hurt - I was certain we were going to successfully rescue her and fight together once more, and I would've been very surprised if there had been a twist in that. Actually, I've been hoping for a colossal twist to happen all the way up to when Balthazar had less than 1% health left and he went invulnerable for the cinematic, then BAMM... everything plays out in the most predictable way. The evil, character-butchered, unreasonable Abaddon 2.0 dies, Kralkatorrik survives and becomes more powerful.

As I wrote in the OP and as I agree with you, Act I had great pacing and interesting, logical build-up + introduction to the plot. Act II started falling short with all the retcons, lore butchery and similarity to Nightfall. And Act III was a dash through the mess of changing banners, killing a few Awakened + the second highest ranking official in Joko's empire in a blitz, and all of a sudden we're commanding King Joko's empire (although I loved the Troopmarshal's mission - "give me 20 good Awakened mummies and I'll take down all the Elder Dragons under a single day"). And then without any hint or tell we figure out that Balthazar is going to attack Kralky through Kodash and amass there for the big showdown... How? How come we knew his course of action at that point? He could've easily entered the Brand somewhere north in the Crystal Desert with all his armies and rolled down south until he ran into the dragon, avoiding any settled areas.

@Malthurius.6870 said:Disrespecting Established LoreI understand that there is a certain amount of disrespect from Anet when it comes to their established lore and actually recalling and understanding it. I cannot deny that the motivation you proposed for Balthazaar would be much better and well integrated into the lore that already exists... but I don't find it offensive. I don't find the events that took place in the story to be unreasonable, and I find the entire thing superior to HoT's by a wide margin... but still far from top tier.

While HoT felt a bit rushed, too, by the end, and important plots like Malyck's tree and the Nightmare Court's stance on Mordremoth were cut plain and simple, I found the quality and the way of how we got from A to B and then to C significantly better. There was actually a lot at stake, with how Mordremoth was spreading all across Tyria and the only organization capable of bringing it down had been laid waste (god, I love that soundtrack). Here it was all about following in Nightfall's footsteps, making choices that shatters suspension of disbelief and makes the player second guess his or her own character, with little to no amount of care stirring in one's heart for Elona or the characters (I think I felt more interest in the ghost Nenah's fate than in all of Dragon Watch combined - and it was good to escort her back to the Judge and see her get her due reward of a peaceful afterlife). As PopeUrban and Jaken put it in their own posts, our journey in PoF made little sense many times and we got from A to D by skipping B and C.

@Dried Donkey.8504 Yeah, there is no doubt about Palawa Joko's return in Season 4 (and with him Palawa-themed costumes, weapons, gliders and mount skins in the gem store...), but what I had gripes with is how anticlimactic his handling was in this expansion. He's sitting in a cage, being a joke who got played at his own game, and being snarky... I remember my time with him in Nightfall and there he felt actually threatening, dangerously smart and wielding a morbid humor at the same time. He was great, now he is just a generic undead king who's got a superiority complex.

@Rognik.2579 said:Not sure if you noticed, but GW2 is about 90% open world information and maybe 10% of the story is exclusive to the personal story. The early steps are a bit more lore-rich, since each race has a couple of things to educate us on.

And that is a terrible ratio for how lore is divided between "necessary to understand the main storyline" and "side stories that expand on the world's history and depth." In Guild Wars you got at least 30-40% if not more just by doing to main quests leading from mission to mission, interacting with NPCs and objects in the mission staging area, doing the actual missions with bonuses (in the case of Prophecies' at least), then watching the cinematics. And then you could easily go about and gather quests in outposts and towns that expand on lore and add more nuance to the main plot as well as the side stories. This is an open world, true, so they cannot do this anymore; however, at the very least they could tell more through the main storyline so that we don't have to resort to headcannoning stuff that make little sense or raised too many questions or need tremendous amount of lore wriggling to get out of the plot holes they hit along the way. And also not hide the lore relevant to understanding the main storyline: scattered throughout a literal desert, buried under sand or hidden among oceans of NPCs and enemies.

@Zaklex.6308 said:I have two things to say...one is that Bobby Stein knows the lore of GW1, he worked on it, and two, how do you even know that they didn't have this whole story line story boarded out since the beginning? You don't and never will know this...and find me any story that goes over multiple seasons or sessions and I'll tell you how it ends, and maybe even how it gets there, all without having interacted with it...because almost all, if not all, multi-part stories have the same basic beginning, middle and end. The only thing that changes is the characters, the location and themes.

P.S. - Has Konig commented on the story yet? I'd actually like to read his opinion, at least it would probably be more readable.

It is obvious they haven't planned this out since the beginning. The story and the lore has already gone through many retcons and iterations that were considerable in size and implications already - and continues to do so to this day. Just the fact that when the lore forum went up in flames after one of the leading writers downplayed the importance of bloodstones, or when later on she asked why the mursaat are interesting, what makes them so special that people want them back, these things suddenly started appearing once more and going through a surge in importance. Same with the Six Gods; people were getting tired of the dragons, and now voila; here's Nightfall 2.0 for you with Balthazar grinded into an edgelord Abaddon 2.0 format because you guys really liked Nightfall, and we thought you'd like the same plot rehashed once again.

Having played and worked on Guild Wars is not the same as having the passion and the drive to get your lore straight and respect it while building on it for future installments. The writers' urge to just retcon the life out of lore to make way for what they think is cool-looking time and again is a good indicator they don't care about writing the stories in a way that respects what has been established. For example, there's the case of the Branded Forgotten appearing all over the place - even claiming they were present at Glint's death when Edge of Destiny clearly showed they were not - despite the fact that by that point they had all departed from the world. Even their own kind of recent lore from HoT supports that notion with the speech of the last Forgotten in Tarir.

Also, why such passive aggressive enmity? Did I insult you or someone close to you? Maybe someone on the writing team? If that is the case, my apologies.

[borgs.6103]

The story went sour for me after the Lazarus reveal. I think it all went downhill from there. Before that, I was really into it and I actually cared. While playing LS3E05, I was entertaining these thoughts that "maybe Balthazar will eventually be our ally because we're gonna fight TWO dragons! Maybe we'll explore more of the Human Gods' Pantheon! Or even better, we're going to see some Divinities and Dragons Mist Brawl!"

NOPE.At the end of the episode, the story went full Omadd. The two hyped dragons went back to sleep and Balthazar was established as the big bad on the next expansion.

Then LS3E06 came - which only added to my disappointment because of that immensely lore-breaking Shining Blade ritual if your Commander's race isn't human just to tie up the raid stories. After that, I stopped caring for the game's story.

I haven't bought the expansion and OP's post has only strengthened my resolve.

[TriEdge.5149]

When u buy the expac u are technically buying all the living world content also, so try to see what living world brings us and then comment. That is how I look at things :bleep_bloop:

[Farzo.8410]

@TriEdge.5149 said:When u buy the expac u are technically buying all the living world content also, so try to see what living world brings us and then comment. That is how I look at things :bleep_bloop:

But it's also the wrong way on how to look at things like this. Then you'll just end up waiting, and waiting and waiting, because "wait until the next part comes out before you comment on things."

This is what we were given in an expansion story, and there's absolutely no point in waiting to give critique, especially when you want things changed before it's done. According to ArenaNet, their stories are prepped at least 3 - 5 months forward, or something in line of that. If they see the critique now, they might be able to re-direct the story another way.

Perhaps not in a way that we will like, but at least in another way that would make more sense.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

Whew, that's a long post. However I disagree with the idea that Balthazar is the god of war. According to Kormir, there is still Six gods not counting Balthazar.

Seeing that Rytlock found Balthazar chained meaning he had lost his powers as the god of war, thus he seeks to draw the Dragon's powers, for which Kormir confirmed that this power is greater than the powers of the gods. Balthazar is no longer the same god the humans worshipped in GW1. The fact of the matter is, the humans worshipped the god of war and called him Balthazar because they only know of Balthazar. Just imagine how misinformed and confused the humans are who worshipped Ares not knowing that Kratos already killed him and become the current god of war. This Path of Fire plot closely resembles the God of War game than a rehash of Nightfall. It seems that ArenaNet has created their own "Kratos" who kicked out Balthazar and left him in chains.

The problem I see here is that the OP seems to have elevated the GW1 storyline to a higher standard not realizing that the GW2 writing is on par with GW1 as it always has been -- not that great. In other words, the GW1 story paths and timeline were also messed up and immersion breaking. I still don't buy a lot of the plot lines and stories in Gw1, for example, the Charr attacking Orr (lol what? logistically not possible), the survival of Gwen without sympathy from other Charr, and many other. What I'm saying is, I think the OP is forgetting how bad the GW1 storytelling was that the player community has to come up with the lore explanation in an attempt to make sense of it all. In GW2, nothing really has changed, in some cases, they even improved.

[DresdenAllblack.1249]

You put more writing in your wall of text than they did in plotting.

It was better than HoT. And if the ending is any indication, LW will be right around the corner.

I will say this, I miss the biting sarcasm of Palawa Joko from the original. He was reduced to a whiner in his cage.

(And an obvious front runner for future antagonist in LW.)

[Roxhemar.6039]

I don't know about that wall of text rant. But personally, I freaking loved Path of Fire. That scene where Balthazar launches his god-sword of death at your face and your screen goes full doom style, I loved every second of it. Even if I knew that my character would probably be ok, it was a chance to visit something new and see someplace new - Grenth's domain.

[Pax.3548]

You guys sure love to rant, but I'm pretty sure if any of you worked on this game, the story wouldn't be as near as good as you think you would make it.

[Thalador.4218]

@TriEdge.5149 said:When u buy the expac u are technically buying all the living world content also, so try to see what living world brings us and then comment. That is how I look at things :bleep_bloop:

True, and as I said, I'll still go through all the episodes of Season 4 as it's free. However, just adding one more thought to what Farzo already perfectly explained; in your view, we shouldn't criticize anything that's part of a series (an episode in a TV series, a book or movie in a trilogy, a game/expansion in a franchise), because we haven't seen the whole product. That is wrong. They released a solid expansion with a beginning, middle and end that is great and immersive in its aesthetics, mechanics, music, combat and side-content, but the story and lore-handling failed miserably once again. You have to provide feedback and call out these problems so that they may change direction and fix these issues for future installments. Similarly, their storytelling has been criticized since the vanilla release, which wasn't even that bad to begin with, and instead of getting better, it has slowly but steadily gotten worse and worse with a few rare moments of improvement. It has been brought to their attention many times, during previous releases, yet they continue to pursue this direction blindly.

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:Whew, that's a long post. However I disagree with the idea that Balthazar is the god of war. According to Kormir, there is still Six gods not counting Balthazar.

Seeing that Rytlock found Balthazar chained meaning he had lost his powers as the god of war, thus he seeks to draw the Dragon's powers, for which Kormir confirmed that this power is greater than the powers of the gods. Balthazar is no longer the same god the humans worshipped in GW1. The fact of the matter is, the humans worshipped the god of war and called him Balthazar because they only know of Balthazar. Just imagine how misinformed and confused the humans are who worshipped Ares not knowing that Kratos already killed him and become the current god of war. This Path of Fire plot closely resembles the God of War game than a rehash of Nightfall. It seems that ArenaNet has created their own "Kratos" who kicked out Balthazar and left him in chains.

I'm genuinely interested; where does she say that there are still Six Gods and not only five? Because there's absolutely 0 evidence for what you're claiming: first off, it seems they can now strip divinity from one of their own without consequences as if it was a simple demotion (a huge retcon in and of itself). Second off, Balthazar's forces in the Fissure of Woe (Devona, his Eternal generals, officers and soldiers who volunteer to be cast into Forged bodies) are still insanely loyal to him. One would think the gods would send out the memo to his forces staging in FoW that there is a new god of war in town taking over regular business after the PoF "Balthazar" disgraced himself with pride, wrath and insanity.

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The problem I see here is that the OP seems to have elevated the GW1 storyline to a higher standard not realizing that the GW2 writing is on par with GW1 as it always has been -- not that great. In other words, the GW1 story paths and timeline were also messed up and immersion breaking. I still don't buy a lot of the plot lines and stories in Gw1, for example, the Charr attacking Orr (lol what? logistically not possible), the survival of Gwen without sympathy from other Charr, and many other. What I'm saying is, I think the OP is forgetting how bad the GW1 storytelling was that the player community has to come up with the lore explanation in an attempt to make sense of it all. In GW2, nothing really has changed, in some cases, they even improved.

Because the stories told in Guild Wars campaigns and expansions were coherent, sensible, meaningful with journeys that were logically built-up and respected the lore established in previous installment and made sense in their connecting of dots from previous games. There were flaws, there was room for improvement, but they actually formed an enjoyable whole that made sense and didn't require to switch your suspension of disbelief into overdrive.

If the examples you brought up showcases the caliber in general of issues you had with the plot and the lore of Guild Wars, then I imagine you're playing GW2 with some very powerful, rose-tinted glasses that screen out all the nonsensical, immersion-breaking solutions, retcons, as well as character and lore butchery that goes on in there.

@Roxhemar.6039 said:I don't know about that wall of text rant. But personally, I freaking loved Path of Fire. That scene where Balthazar launches his god-sword of death at your face and your screen goes full doom style, I loved every second of it. Even if I knew that my character would probably be ok, it was a chance to visit something new and see someplace new - Grenth's domain.

Correction: that wasn't his sword, just a glob of fiery energies he hurled at you.

It's good that you enjoyed it, I'm glad. Sure it is indeed enjoyable when you shut everything out and focus on the plot without bringing in established lore from previous releases.

@Pax.3548 said:You guys sure love to rant, but I'm pretty sure if any of you worked on this game, the story wouldn't be as near as good as you think you would make it.

I'd gladly accept the challenge; believe me, if the possibility presented itself, I'd join the writing team in a heartbeat. And let the Scourge of the Prideful be my judge, but I'm confident I could have done a better job in making the plot of PoF coherent and more believable without having to resort to the use of retcons.

Still, it would be greatly appreciated if you were to put the effort into countering the criticism and the arguments raised by many who didn't enjoy the plot as you did, instead of just berating them as rants.

[Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324]

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The problem I see here is that the OP seems to have elevated the GW1 storyline to a higher standard not realizing that the GW2 writing is on par with GW1 as it always has been -- not that great. In other words, the GW1 story paths and timeline were also messed up and immersion breaking. I still don't buy a lot of the plot lines and stories in Gw1, for example, the Charr attacking Orr (lol what? logistically not possible), the survival of Gwen without sympathy from other Charr, and many other. What I'm saying is, I think the OP is forgetting how bad the GW1 storytelling was that the player community has to come up with the lore explanation in an attempt to make sense of it all. In GW2, nothing really has changed, in some cases, they even improved.

Exactly my thoughts.

I really enjoyed Prophecies both from world-building and story perspectives, even if the twist about the vizir was more than predictable. Good characters, great locations, some interesting moments. Overall one of the best entries.

Factions failed to get me interested, because there was really only one clear villain, and in my opinion a rather weak one.

Nighfall had great world-building, but it desperately tried to cling to Kormir while this character kept doing mistakes and failed to match her characterization prior to the beginning of the story. In that regard, the choices of the PC were highly questionable (again, the Gandara-rescue mission made no sense, and the NPC that briefs us about it doesn't say otherwise).

In PoF, so far (I'm writing the dialogues for the French wiki), I believe that our PC decisions are rationalized. We went in Amnoon with intel on the region and Balthazar in mind, we went to the main Forged camp because there was a chance to meet Balthazar, then we thought following the Herald of Balthazar was the best chance to reach him, then came the Vlast opportunity to finally confront him.

We were outstandingly outmatched and Vlast paid for it. Then in our attempt to prevent Balthazar from killing Kralkatorrik, we went on a hunt for the spear that could have provoke the fatal blow. Balthazar's plan derailed for a moment, we decided to go shortly upnorth to the Tomb of the Primeval Kings in order to enter a portal to the Mists and meet with the gods (because if Balthazar is in Tyria and was stripped of his divine powers, there's a reasonable hope some of them are still around) to seek for something that could potentially turn the tides against Balthazar.

It makes sense, don't you think?

[Ski Feasa.6312]

@Thalador.4218 said:

@TriEdge.5149 said:When u buy the expac u are technically buying all the living world content also, so try to see what living world brings us and then comment. That is how I look at things :bleep_bloop:

True, and as I said, I'll still go through all the episodes of Season 4 as it's free. However, just adding one more thought to what Farzo already perfectly explained; in your view, we shouldn't criticize anything that's part of a series (an episode in a TV series, a book or movie in a trilogy, a game/expansion in a franchise), because we haven't seen the whole product. That is wrong. They released a solid expansion with a beginning, middle and end that is great and immersive in its aesthetics, mechanics, music, combat and side-content, but the story and lore-handling failed miserably once again. You have to provide feedback and call out these problems so that they may change direction and fix these issues for future installments. Similarly, their storytelling has been criticized since the vanilla release, which wasn't even that bad to begin with, and instead of getting better, it has slowly but steadily gotten worse and worse with a few rare moments of improvement. It has been brought to their attention many times, during previous releases, yet they continue to pursue this direction blindly.

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:Whew, that's a long post. However I disagree with the idea that Balthazar is the god of war. According to Kormir, there is still Six gods not counting Balthazar.

Seeing that Rytlock found Balthazar chained meaning he had lost his powers as the god of war, thus he seeks to draw the Dragon's powers, for which Kormir confirmed that this power is greater than the powers of the gods. Balthazar is no longer the same god the humans worshipped in GW1. The fact of the matter is, the humans worshipped the god of war and called him Balthazar because they only know of Balthazar. Just imagine how misinformed and confused the humans are who worshipped Ares not knowing that Kratos already killed him and become the current god of war. This Path of Fire plot closely resembles the God of War game than a rehash of Nightfall. It seems that ArenaNet has created their own "Kratos" who kicked out Balthazar and left him in chains.

I'm genuinely interested; where does she say that there are still Six Gods and not only five? Because there's absolutely 0 evidence for what you're claiming: first off, it seems they can now strip divinity from one of their own without consequences as if it was a simple demotion (a huge retcon in and of itself). Second off, Balthazar's forces in the Fissure of Woe (Devona, his Eternal generals, officers and soldiers who volunteer to be cast into Forged bodies) are still insanely loyal to him. One would think the gods would send out the memo to his forces staging in FoW that there is a new god of war in town taking over regular business after the PoF "Balthazar" disgraced himself with pride, wrath and insanity.

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The problem I see here is that the OP seems to have elevated the GW1 storyline to a higher standard not realizing that the GW2 writing is on par with GW1 as it always has been -- not that great. In other words, the GW1 story paths and timeline were also messed up and immersion breaking. I still don't buy a lot of the plot lines and stories in Gw1, for example, the Charr attacking Orr (lol what? logistically not possible), the survival of Gwen without sympathy from other Charr, and many other. What I'm saying is, I think the OP is forgetting how bad the GW1 storytelling was that the player community has to come up with the lore explanation in an attempt to make sense of it all. In GW2, nothing really has changed, in some cases, they even improved.

Because the stories told in Guild Wars campaigns and expansions were coherent, sensible, meaningful with journeys that were logically built-up and respected the lore established in previous installment and made sense in their connecting of dots from previous games. There were flaws, there was room for improvement, but they actually formed an enjoyable whole that made sense and didn't require to switch your suspension of disbelief into overdrive.

If the examples you brought up showcases the caliber in general of issues you had with the plot and the lore of Guild Wars, then I imagine you're playing GW2 with some very powerful, rose-tinted glasses that screen out all the nonsensical, immersion-breaking solutions, retcons, as well as character and lore butchery that goes on in there.

@Roxhemar.6039 said:I don't know about that wall of text rant. But personally, I freaking loved Path of Fire. That scene where Balthazar launches his god-sword of death at your face and your screen goes full doom style, I loved every second of it. Even if I knew that my character would probably be ok, it was a chance to visit something new and see someplace new - Grenth's domain.

Correction: that wasn't his sword, just a glob of flaming energies he hurled at you.

It's good that you enjoyed it, I'm glad. Sure it is indeed enjoyable when you shut everything out and focus on the plot without bringing in established lore from previous releases.

@Pax.3548 said:You guys sure love to rant, but I'm pretty sure if any of you worked on this game, the story wouldn't be as near as good as you think you would make it.

I'd gladly accept the challenge; believe me, if the possibility presented itself, I'd join the writing team in a heartbeat. And let the Scourge of the Prideful be my judge, but I'm confident I could have done a better job in making the plot of PoF coherent and more believable without having to resort to the use of retcons.

Still, it would be greatly appreciated if you were to put the effort into countering the criticism and the arguments raised by many who didn't enjoy the plot as you did, instead of just berating them as rants.

I have been reading your comments left in a few threads, and I have to admit that you have caused me to think a bit about some of the things that I was bothered by. I love the PoF as a game. It's fun. However, lore wise I do feel like I was given nothing and that things were changed. I've been a Guild Wars player for years, starting about a year after the first one came out. I love the lore of Tyria. Elona was one of my favourite places. I have been fascinated by the Six as well and was hoping to see a deeper role and part played by the gods. I think you have been pointing out some major lore related issues that if had been handled differently, could've turned a fun game into a deeply enjoyable story.

The big thing I enjoy out of PoF is the scenery. It is gorgeous. I love the ability to explore and as soon as the expansion launched, I ran to Vabbi and experienced nostalgia. However, once I was done soaking up my nostalgia and returned to the story, I did feel some disappointment. Especially with Act 3. Act 1 was good. I do wish there was more involvement with the Amnoon Council. In Vabbi I wish there was more of an effort to meet the people, get to understand the positions of the Vabbian princes and how their roles worked in a Joko ruled Vabbi. I also would've loved to have met more of the gods. I'm a fan of Dwayna and considering her role as the goddess of life and air, it would've been cool to see her play a hand in attempting to preserve the lives of faithful Tyrians. I loved how Kormir's involvement was done, but it did feel hasty and a bit like a sweep under the rug of the gods. Which would leave me feeling somewhat devastated.

I'm hoping the living seasons to come will create further interaction with the Divines, that there will be a chance to work more with the Vabbians in attempting to change and undo Joko's influence, and that we'll get to see more of Elona with places like Kourna and Istan - along with their own unique styles of buildings and clothing.

Anyways, thanks for providing input. Hopefully the writers are reading and taking notes. I appreciate all the work they have done, and I do enjoy and love PoF, I just would like to see some more depth added to the lore experience and not a sweeping under the rug of important lore objects such as the Six, Vabbian princes, etc.

[Pax.3548]

@Thalador.4218 said:

@TriEdge.5149 said:When u buy the expac u are technically buying all the living world content also, so try to see what living world brings us and then comment. That is how I look at things :bleep_bloop:

True, and as I said, I'll still go through all the episodes of Season 4 as it's free. However, just adding one more thought to what Farzo already perfectly explained; in your view, we shouldn't criticize anything that's part of a series (an episode in a TV series, a book or movie in a trilogy, a game/expansion in a franchise), because we haven't seen the whole product. That is wrong. They released a solid expansion with a beginning, middle and end that is great and immersive in its aesthetics, mechanics, music, combat and side-content, but the story and lore-handling failed miserably once again. You have to provide feedback and call out these problems so that they may change direction and fix these issues for future installments. Similarly, their storytelling has been criticized since the vanilla release, which wasn't even that bad to begin with, and instead of getting better, it has slowly but steadily gotten worse and worse with a few rare moments of improvement. It has been brought to their attention many times, during previous releases, yet they continue to pursue this direction blindly.

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:Whew, that's a long post. However I disagree with the idea that Balthazar is the god of war. According to Kormir, there is still Six gods not counting Balthazar.

Seeing that Rytlock found Balthazar chained meaning he had lost his powers as the god of war, thus he seeks to draw the Dragon's powers, for which Kormir confirmed that this power is greater than the powers of the gods. Balthazar is no longer the same god the humans worshipped in GW1. The fact of the matter is, the humans worshipped the god of war and called him Balthazar because they only know of Balthazar. Just imagine how misinformed and confused the humans are who worshipped Ares not knowing that Kratos already killed him and become the current god of war. This Path of Fire plot closely resembles the God of War game than a rehash of Nightfall. It seems that ArenaNet has created their own "Kratos" who kicked out Balthazar and left him in chains.

I'm genuinely interested; where does she say that there are still Six Gods and not only five? Because there's absolutely 0 evidence for what you're claiming: first off, it seems they can now strip divinity from one of their own without consequences as if it was a simple demotion (a huge retcon in and of itself). Second off, Balthazar's forces in the Fissure of Woe (Devona, his Eternal generals, officers and soldiers who volunteer to be cast into Forged bodies) are still insanely loyal to him. One would think the gods would send out the memo to his forces staging in FoW that there is a new god of war in town taking over regular business after the PoF "Balthazar" disgraced himself with pride, wrath and insanity.

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The problem I see here is that the OP seems to have elevated the GW1 storyline to a higher standard not realizing that the GW2 writing is on par with GW1 as it always has been -- not that great. In other words, the GW1 story paths and timeline were also messed up and immersion breaking. I still don't buy a lot of the plot lines and stories in Gw1, for example, the Charr attacking Orr (lol what? logistically not possible), the survival of Gwen without sympathy from other Charr, and many other. What I'm saying is, I think the OP is forgetting how bad the GW1 storytelling was that the player community has to come up with the lore explanation in an attempt to make sense of it all. In GW2, nothing really has changed, in some cases, they even improved.

Because the stories told in Guild Wars campaigns and expansions were coherent, sensible, meaningful with journeys that were logically built-up and respected the lore established in previous installment and made sense in their connecting of dots from previous games. There were flaws, there was room for improvement, but they actually formed an enjoyable whole that made sense and didn't require to switch your suspension of disbelief into overdrive.

If the examples you brought up showcases the caliber in general of issues you had with the plot and the lore of Guild Wars, then I imagine you're playing GW2 with some very powerful, rose-tinted glasses that screen out all the nonsensical, immersion-breaking solutions, retcons, as well as character and lore butchery that goes on in there.

@Roxhemar.6039 said:I don't know about that wall of text rant. But personally, I freaking loved Path of Fire. That scene where Balthazar launches his god-sword of death at your face and your screen goes full doom style, I loved every second of it. Even if I knew that my character would probably be ok, it was a chance to visit something new and see someplace new - Grenth's domain.

Correction: that wasn't his sword, just a glob of fiery energies he hurled at you.

It's good that you enjoyed it, I'm glad. Sure it is indeed enjoyable when you shut everything out and focus on the plot without bringing in established lore from previous releases.

@Pax.3548 said:You guys sure love to rant, but I'm pretty sure if any of you worked on this game, the story wouldn't be as near as good as you think you would make it.

I'd gladly accept the challenge; believe me, if the possibility presented itself, I'd join the writing team in a heartbeat. And let the Scourge of the Prideful be my judge, but I'm confident I could have done a better job in making the plot of PoF coherent and more believable without having to resort to the use of retcons.

Still, it would be greatly appreciated if you were to put the effort into countering the criticism and the arguments raised by many who didn't enjoy the plot as you did, instead of just berating them as rants.

Yeah, I'm sure the tech and resources would be good enough to fully make that plot you have on your head reality (sarcasm) you can write a story, but it isn't you go make that story into a game, is the team that creates the game itself, the textures, animations, etc. (and that is NOT easy to do). And I won't bother discuss this thread, you can like a story or not its up to you, but most of them are just rants honestly, to straightfoward say it is awful (like it is a fact rather than an opinion) well, I won't discuss with ppl that closed minded, it'll be a waste of time.

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

@Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324 said:

@Sir Vincent III.1286 said:The problem I see here is that the OP seems to have elevated the GW1 storyline to a higher standard not realizing that the GW2 writing is on par with GW1 as it always has been -- not that great. In other words, the GW1 story paths and timeline were also messed up and immersion breaking. I still don't buy a lot of the plot lines and stories in Gw1, for example, the Charr attacking Orr (lol what? logistically not possible), the survival of Gwen without sympathy from other Charr, and many other. What I'm saying is, I think the OP is forgetting how bad the GW1 storytelling was that the player community has to come up with the lore explanation in an attempt to make sense of it all. In GW2, nothing really has changed, in some cases, they even improved.

Exactly my thoughts.

I really enjoyed Prophecies both from world-building and story perspectives, even if the twist about the vizir was more than predictable. Good characters, great locations, some interesting moments. Overall one of the best entries.

Factions failed to get me interested, because there was really only one clear villain, and in my opinion a rather weak one.

Nighfall had great world-building, but it desperately tried to cling to Kormir while this character kept doing mistakes and failed to match her characterization prior to the beginning of the story. In that regard, the choices of the PC were highly questionable (again, the Gandara-rescue mission made no sense, and the NPC that briefs us about it doesn't say otherwise).

In PoF, so far (I'm writing the dialogues for the French wiki), I believe that our PC decisions are rationalized. We went in Amnoon with intel on the region and Balthazar in mind, we went to the main Forged camp because there was a chance to meet Balthazar, then we thought following the Herald of Balthazar was the best chance to reach him, then came the Vlast opportunity to finally confront him.

We were outstandingly outmatched and Vlast paid for it. Then in our attempt to prevent Balthazar from killing Kralkatorrik, we went on a hunt for the spear that could have provoke the fatal blow. Balthazar's plan derailed for a moment, we decided to go shortly upnorth to the Tomb of the Primeval Kings in order to enter a portal to the Mists and meet with the gods (because if Balthazar is in Tyria and was stripped of his divine powers, there's a reasonable hope some of them are still around) to seek for something that could potentially turn the tides against Balthazar.

It makes sense, don't you think?

The goal of the story does make sense but the details are sometimes absurd. For instance, nobody in the Awaken Army knows where Joko is...that is hard to believe but I've learned not to let logic get in a way of a subpar story.

[gereden.6983]

im interested in why you consider them being able to remove divinity now as compared to with nightfall as a retcon? its been however many years (300ish i think) who is to say the gods havent come up with a way of being able to strip and by proxy promote, a gods divinity? yes its not explained if it is something they could do and if it is, then its still pretty poor writing, but why do you consider it a retcon just because they couldnt do it before? @Thalador.4218