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

Sir Vincent III.1286 · September 29, 2017

@gereden.6983 said: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

I'm not answering for @Thalador.4218 -- I'm just adding my two cents.

I don't think they can "remove divinity". As far as I can tell, Balthazar is just a very powerful Fire Elementalist who took the position of the god of war just like Kormir did. Thus their divinity is tied to their position and not something innate. In other words, the power or divinity is in the position, not to the individual.

Thalador.4218 · September 29, 2017

@gereden.6983 said: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

You're right. It's a possible that they've devised a way to part the eternal power (= divinity, godhood) since we last met, however, I'd say chances are slim that after at least three known cases of succession over circa two millennia (if not more), they just figured out a new technique to store divinity without proper, sentient vessel. What I mean is; it's hard to believe them pulling off a breakthrough like that in about 250 years whereas there was ABSOLUTELY no indication of such a thing being possible for several millennia beforehand.

Now, what we know about divinity: it can best be described as an indestructible, nigh infinite power source that contains enough juice - at the very least - to destroy a planet and an entire, vast realm inside the Mists (with the info on Ravenheart Gloom being an infinite wasteland of darkness connecting to the Realm of Torment, maybe RoT is endless as well). As Abaddon and his unknown predecessor clearly showcased: you can kill them, but not their power. With that in mind, I kind of disagree with Sir Vincent III; divinity is not a position as in you 'you sit on the throne of war/the Underworld/etc. then you are its god' but it is an aspect (life, death, war, nature, knowledge, illusion/reality) of the ancient, unknown power the gods (either members of the Six or their predecessors) had harnessed in time immemorial. Strangely, there might be a unique case with Lyssa where the divinity is shared between two separate bodies: the twin sisters Lyss and Ilya.

And now let's give a look at the examples on how divinity can be transferred between gods and their successors:

The successions that definitely happened:

Abaddon had likely killed and absorbed the divinity of his predecessor much like Kormir did later to him.
Grenth struck Dhuum down and siphoned off his divinity, but could not kill him for one reason or another - Grenth was either not powerful enough to fell him, or Dhuum was 'protected' by something (e.g. the Void) - or both together: Grenth was not powerful enough to slay a Void-protected Dhuum. In any case, Grenth wields now the aspect of death next to his demigod domain of ice, however, Dhuum has such an eerie, powerful and unexplained connection to death that his abilities allow him to manipulate and exercise command over death even as a fallen, diminished god.
Kormir jumping into the exploding Abaddon.

A potential succession that might have happened:

Balthazar killing his father (who could've easily been and evil god and Menzies's father as well) and claiming the 'mantle' (the divinity) of war for himself.

In my opinion, it would be very cheap that if five out of the six gods suddenly gang up on the sixth, they can just take away his or her divinity without destroying the 'vessel' (the body) with which the divinity has fused and most likely woven itself into every cell - it makes their entire history with Abaddon feel cheap and nonsensical. It's as if divinity was a lunch box and the gods who gang up on one of their own are the cruel jocks and mean girls in a high school clique.

With Balthazar, being a warrior of incredible prowess who has wielded fire as a weapon in his arsenal for over 2,100 years (essentially, using Guild Wars mechanics, he is a Warrior/Elementalist specializing in fire magic), he just doesn't part with those habits easily - or doesn't even want to. Maybe he would've started using crystalline attacks as well if he'd been allowed to fell Kralkatorrik and claim his powers.

gereden.6983 · September 29, 2017

fair enough, im not arguing that some things sound cheap, i was just interested in why you considered it a retcon, and with them not having a sentient vessel for the magic, there is nothing to say they didnt have one, kormir only absorbed the power of abaddon because she was blessed by the other 5 gods, there is nothing to say they didnt bless someone or something after stripping balthazar of his magic, as for why balthazar didnt tell us if so? could be bad writing, could be that he doesnt actually know who it was, maybe they found something to contain the magic in for a brief period. i keep reading about people screaming about retcons but im not sure what is actually retconned besides maybe some dates, which by retconning standing is light

Thalador.4218 · September 30, 2017

Thing is, the Fissure of Woe is the realm of the god of war, not Balthazar's specifically. And the people who can settle into that afterlife are soldiers and warriors who have lived a life of war and gained recognition of honor and courage through their merits and deeds. Many of these souls become Eternals. And even with Balthazar's falling out of grace, these Eternals have unquestioning loyalty towards Balthazar who they still view as the god of war; so much so they vacate the Fissure of Woe and willingly cast their souls into the Forged bodies we see in PoF: Balthazar's Herald, Devona, and many other generals and officers in the Eternal army did so. Had there been another god of war in town, they would've been told by this new individual and/or the other gods that they should swear allegiance to him/her because Balthazar had disgraced himself with pride, wrath and insanity and was generally no longer a deity worthy of following and worship. Plus, given how these divinity transfers work, Balthazar must be in direct proximity to the one who could replace him - he should've seen this person. Similarly, the idea that they found something to contain the magic for a brief period falls in the same category where divinity is just a rank and not a power that transfuses the body of the ascending individual.

As for the list of retcons:

Balthazar in his entirety (personality, character, principles)
The fact that the gods were not in the Mists yet Kormir was all of a sudden found in the Mists for the plot's sake
Forgotten having left Tyria before Kralkatorrik's rise and Glint's death getting retconned into: the Forgotten were all over the Crystal Desert still and even fought alongside Glint before they all got branded
Dates and a general mess of the timeline (see Kesho's story, Joko's takeover of Elona, the building of the wall on the riverlands, etc.)
The dragon-slaying spear was made out of Kralkatorrik's spine (Edge of Destiny), not his blood
The gods getting retconned from wise but distant caretakers who disappeared all of a sudden due to some greater conflict in the Mists (for example, the reason why they were forced to evacuate from the human homeworld catching up to them, Dhuum, Menzies, demons, etc.) into uncaring, incompetent fools
The gods now being weaker or on par with the Elder Dragons whose power is beyond them - it was the opposite all the way up until PoF
The concept of divinity and succession getting retconned (not certainty, but chances are high they both got reiterated)

And I may have forgotten a couple more, but that's the gist of it.

gereden.6983 · September 30, 2017

i mean unless my understanding of what a retcon is, half of those arent a retcon, but a progression/change to what we percieve them to be now? my understanding of a retcon for example would be balthazar was known to be honorable and fair, if not a bit harsh, and in gw2 they say no, he was never honorable or fair, he was always a prick. half of these in my understanding are just a change/progression ( thats not liked) thats happened over the time between the games, which isnt unreasonable, the bigger issue is the fact that the reasons why the changes/progression has happened isnt known, so it feels cheap and unwarranted.

Necrid.9601 · September 30, 2017

I think a lot of people were getting too hyped over what this story was going to be. I myself kept the frame of reference of Core and HoT's story, both of which are horrendous. I went into Path of Fire fully believing that it's story was going to be just as bad as our previous story experiences. I came out pleasantly surprised that it wasn't nearly as bad as those two. It's certainly not good, but being better than awful is almost a breath of fresh air to me.

draxynnic.3719 · September 30, 2017

@Pax.3548 said:
@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.

Ever come across the concept of jumping the shark?

As soon as we saw Balthazar, my immediate thought was "They'd better have a good motivation for this or it's just going to be Abaddon 2.0". What did we get? Balthaddon having a spat with the other gods that lead to them casting him down, just like the backstory to Nightfall. At least Abaddon actually had a reasonably justified motivation, from a certain point of view (while we joke about him throwing a massive temper tantrum, what actually happened was a series of events: Abaddon's followers started defacing holy sites of the other gods in protest at the weakening of Abaddon's gift, the Forgotten started wiping out the Margonites, and it was his followers being massacred that triggered Abaddon to rebel. Balthaddon, on the other hand, was Flanderised into a glory hound that just wanted a big fight despite knowing how much damage such a battle would do.

The first half of Path of Fire was one predictable disappointment after another. Vlast gets mentioned, then we learn that Balthaddon is after him, and I immediately predicted that our only direct interaction with Vlast would be helplessly watching Balthaddon kill him. I wasn't far wrong (the detail being that I was expecting it to be a 'we arrived too late' rather than a 'Vlast sacrifices himself to save us'. We go to talk to the gods, and I go in expecting exposition and a pep talk rather than them doing anything useful, because heaven forbid that human lore ever be used for anything other than spawning antagonists. Sure enough...

The first actual surprise was that Balthaddon used the Exalted as a template for the Forged... but that was essentially an answer to a question no one asked. The Forgotten were servants to the gods, so it would make sense that the gods likely knew how to make Enchanted at least, and in fact, in Factions we saw a rebelling ex-servant of Grenth create an army of constructs empowered by imprisoned souls. So Balthaddon doing that isn't really a surprise. Balthaddon kidnapping Aurene... also very predictable.

Things improved a little after that, but it does feel a bit like they've run out of good ideas and Flanderised Balthaddon just to make a controversial villain, and then failed to deliver on any meaningful twist after that, instead relying purely on the 'Balthazar is a bad guy now?' to deliver what was possibly the most predictable Guild Wars storyline yet. It's not great when you can predict what's going to happen by asking the question "What is the most disappointing direction they can take this?" Now, it's up to everyone to decide where the shark-jumping moment for them is, and I'm not yet committed to saying for sure that it is now, but, well... let's just say that it's a little unfortunate that this also happens to be an expansion where it's not an uncommon event to literally jump over a (sand) shark when going from one place to another.

As for what else could have been done... just off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of possibilities. One is having the twist being that Lazarus is actually Lazarus (there was precedent that he didn't actually need all of the aspects in order to resurrect). Another is using Menzies instead of Balthaddon. Both of these could have followed pretty close to the story we had, without the effect of relying on Flanderisation to turn a character that some PCs would have chosen as their patron god into a villain. Sure, it wouldn't have had the pathos of being betrayed by one of the gods, but they did so little with that in the end after the initial shock that I don't think it makes up for the "Oh, we needed a villain, so we just took a powerful entity that had some shades of grey and flanderised them into a puppy-kicker" effect.

Thalador.4218 · October 1, 2017

@gereden.6983 said:i mean unless my understanding of what a retcon is, half of those arent a retcon, but a progression/change to what we percieve them to be now? my understanding of a retcon for example would be balthazar was known to be honorable and fair, if not a bit harsh, and in gw2 they say no, he was never honorable or fair, he was always a prick. half of these in my understanding are just a change/progression ( thats not liked) thats happened over the time between the games, which isnt unreasonable, the bigger issue is the fact that the reasons why the changes/progression has happened isnt known, so it feels cheap and unwarranted.

Well, retcons are inconsistent changes to previously established narrative, so we could say that, I guess. Progression, however? Only if you mean it as an euphemism to blatantly rewriting lore and cutting loose ends that bother them so they can include flashy, "cool" fights and do away with interesting stories they don't want to deal with anymore.

TheUndefined.1720 · October 2, 2017

I totally agree with OP and most of the posts here. I've already made a bit of a super-rant in another thread, but it's nice to see there are others that recognize this blatant fanfiction of a story.

Honestly, other posters have put it far more eloquently than I could at the moment, but I think they should get out of their "yes - that sounds good!" echo cave and hire some people that have a substantial story development background on more than one game.

Erulogos.2591 · October 2, 2017

While I enjoyed the PoF story in general (having not played GW1 probably helped that,) it is galling how easily they could have fixed a lot of the lore issues. Example edits that would have been better:

Why did Balth go evil god? Simple, he didn't, it was Menzies all along, seeking power and seeking to ruin the rep of the gods, kill all their pets, and eventually gain enough power to kill them. Kormir could have told us all this in her info dump and changed things (up until then everything could have remained as it currently is.) Would also explain how he was so easily chained in the Mists for Rytlock to find.

Why don't the the gods do anything? Simple, they can't. After the Abaddon mess, they realized they need to build a wall to keep god-like beings from making a mess, so they erected some mystic mumbo-jumbo barrier and now gods and similarly powerful beings can't access Tyria directly. Menzies was relatively powerless, so he slipped through, and then set about powering up while trashing Balth's rep, and the gods were unable to do jack due to their own rules and enforcement mechanisms.

Why didn't popping a godlike being cause more destruction? Basically, we needed an exposition dump to explain that, as potent as notBalth became, he still wasn't god/ED level (as evidenced by him needing Aurene and all sorts of magical kit to slay/eat Kralk) so while the local effects were impressive, killing him wasn't a world shattering event (this explanation more or less works for Balth in game currently as well.)

I'm sure I'm still missing some items, but just these simple tweaks and the biggests characterization and plot issues at least have a nice coat of paint over them. Maybe I can get a writing job with Anet?

Cristalyan.5728 · October 3, 2017

"They dimmed my light ...... But now they will see me!" This, followed by "I will be the only God" made me believe that "they" attacked and defeated all the gods and only Balthazar escaped and planning now the revenge. I was excited - even after the fight with the god of war from LS3 ep5 - because in these circumstances Balthazar could prove to be a reasonable person, accepting to not kill the dragons if we (the Pact) can fight helping him to defeat the "they". An alliance with the God of War !!! I was more than interested in the story at that moment (when I saw the first trailer of PoF).What we have now? An (almost) irrational being, powerful enough to slay a dragon with one hand, obsessed by the idea of revenge against .... the other gods! And the gods ... a bunch of senile impotent. Cowards, running away from a threat rather than to ask the living to rally to fight. And stupid enough to not be able to figure a viable solution. This is hilarious! I bet the lore team is now preparing a solution to the Dragon Problem. Solution belonging to the Commander, of course. A mortal =)

In my opinion, the way the gods are portrayed now is the result of ANet refuse to clarify what "God" means for them (or for the lore team). This opens the door to several interpretations, according to what lore team is writing the story at a certain moment, going from : "The Gods, expression of wisdom and serenity, protectors of the life on Tyria" to "The gang of irrational imbeciles not knowing even the extent of their own powers, driven by their own ego, ready to turn against everything alive, beings we used to call gods." As long as ANet will not give a definition for the Gods, they will continue to produce this kind of .... stuff. Writers under the influence of Star Trek / Star Wars / Stargate Universe will twist the story turning the gods into anything possible but no real Gods. (or, not having a definition for Gods, everything they write can be called god)I barely await to see the omnipotent Rock God of the grawls in action.

Gray.8635 · October 3, 2017

Far as all the other content that was added, new maps, mounts, etc. This expansion was great, but the lore took such a big drop in guild wars story telling, that in my opinion is what has so many of us still here playing this game so much and above all other games together. Even to those who have never played Guild Wars 1. We have a god of war stripped of his powers but the remaining of the other six, will not fight him, so how is his powers stripped? Why is he even wanting to kill all the elder dragons anyway? What was his purpose to wanting to stay in Tyria that made him think that the elder dragons should be snuffed out? It was great seeing Kormir as a god but all the things that made Guild Wars 2 lore great from the first Guild Wars, and that had carried over into 2 was that the human gods left for some specific reason, and all the hints they were dropping that there is a bigger story and that the eternal alchemy, the elder dragons, and the 6 gods are all connected is now a huge lore dogma. How and why did Balthazar even get Lyssa's mirror? Then there is the also added part of not only have the gods abandoned humanity which in essence is their creation, from everything they have done, they now have left humanity completely with no reason orphaning the entire lore completely. What did Balthazar take out of the reliquary in Orr? What made Balthazar follow Abbadon's path or was Abbadon misunderstood? Why is more things Abbadon still being discussed if Abbadon or anything remotely similar to him isn't going to bring up the Morganites or some Abbadon revival attempt? What is the purpose of bringing humanity to Tyria in the first place? Why are the gods now leaving the mist or is the mist also tied to Tyria, seeing that from what the story is saying that Kormir also left her library in the mist? So much contradictory parts in this story, I do hope these things can be answered. Also it even feels like the main story of the entire game was much shorter than the previous? My understanding of Path of Fire was that the previous stories that were left unanswered in Guild Wars 1 would be coming to a close and we were getting the final big part of the story all the living story seasons have been hinting to about the human gods, similar to how the previous living stories hinted that we would be fighting another elder dragon for Heart of Thorns was, with Scarlett Briar. If you need Lore help Anet let me know, I am a huge fan of Guild Wars 2 lore. Especially when it stems from everything about the human gods and humanity. :)

Feanor.2358 · October 3, 2017

@Gray.8635 said:Far as all the other content that was added, new maps, mounts, etc. This expansion was great, but the lore took such a big drop in guild wars story telling

I beg to differ. Come on. Like the Zaithan or Mordy stories were that great... Or the LS stories maybe... They weren't. As far as storytelling goes, this is definitely a step up from the standards of this game.

Gray.8635 · October 4, 2017

Feanor The Zhaitan and Mordremoth had good stories. Preference and good story telling are two different things in my opinion. Zhaitan was the first time in guild wars lore we were actually going to face a dragon. Everything was new and the story was done very well. Mordremoth was too. Even the living story for Mordremoth with Scarlett was even tied in well and woven nicely. Story is just so important for an MMO in my opinion, especially one as unique as this one. Out of every MMO that is out there I have played this is by far the most story driven one I personally have ever came across. I think its also the same for many others, because when people found out that more story would be available in raids, so many were frustrated with Anet because of the difficulty when they first started. For me raiding is always about the story and the challenge. That bit of story after a boss kill from exploring, or when the final wing boss is killed is what makes this game so... good. =)

Sajuuk Khar.1509 · October 4, 2017

@Thalador.4218 said:Balthazar in his entirety (personality, character, principles)Getting **** on by a bunch of people you considered your closest friends changes people? Who knew! Also, we never met Balthazar in Guild Wars 1, so we have no idea what his personality was outside of second or third hand accounts by his devoted followers... who are OFC inherently biased in favor of their god.The fact that the gods were not in the Mists yet Kormir was all of a sudden found in the Mists for the plot's sakeThe gods were only "not in the Mists" as per the areas of the Mists humanity knew about, and have explored. Also, she IS the god of knowledge, and already knew everything Kas was going to say before she said it. She would have known we were coming, and thus, been there because she needed to be.Forgotten having left Tyria before Kralkatorrik's rise and Glint's death getting retconned into: the Forgotten were all over the Crystal Desert still and even fought alongside Glint before they all got brandedIn the words of Michael Kirkbride"Gypsy Moth dustmemore insert - it should be noted here that it is always foolish to think of whole races sharing like minds. "Ayleid" is as much a metaphysical designation as it is a cultural one. Just like the earliest Chimer who orphaned themselves from the Velothi Exodites, but remain Chimer today, large numbers of Ayleids showed more interest in the immediate earthly needs of agriculture rather than the magical needs of concept-farming. This distinction becomes important later, when "Ayleid" begins to designate other, and ofttimes foreign, agencies."Or, in short, believing that everyone in an race all did something, or all followed the same creed, is always wrong.The dragon-slaying spear was made out of Kralkatorrik's spine (Edge of Destiny), not his bloodI do believe it was made from blood from his spine. At the end of EoD Caithe goes around picking up crystallized fragments of Kralkatorik's blood(seemingly as a backup plan in case they needed to make another spear) Which I suspect will be brought up when we need to kill Kralkatorik.The gods getting retconned from wise but distant caretakers who disappeared all of a sudden due to some greater conflict in the Mists (for example, the reason why they were forced to evacuate from the human homeworld catching up to them, Dhuum, Menzies, demons, etc.) into uncaring, incompetent foolsWe never knew why the gods left, and the gods were shown as far back as GW1 to be generally uncaring entities, whose sole approach to humanity was "you can do it!" and "You already have the gifts!". They were never wise, the whole Abbadon situation proved that. If anything, the Gods got smarter since then by actually finding someone, or something, to dump Baltahzar's power into, instead of leaving his chained up at full power like they did Abbadon. Balthazar getting freed by a mist wandering Rytlok, using a god-made magic sword, isn't exactly a situation most would account for.The gods now being weaker or on par with the Elder Dragons whose power is beyond them - it was the opposite all the way up until PoFWas it really though? Almost all talk of gods vs Elder Dragons has been pure speculation. No one in any position to actually confirm such a thing has said the gods were stronger then Elder Dragons.

All this demonstrates is a long running problem in fandoms when it comes to lore. People take whatever they read as being truthful if its propagated enough times in the game, when, in reality, you should NEVER EVER trust a single thing any NPC, or in-game text, says, because in the frame of in-universe, it's all skewed by bias and the NPC's personal interpretations.

I'm genuinely interested; where does she say that there are still Six Gods and not only five?When talking to Kormir, Kas makes some comment about one of the six betraying humanity, and Kormir mentions that Balthazar had his power stripped, and is no longer one of the six. She makes no comment or suggest on about how, with Balthazar gone, it would be only five now. Kormir herself just mentions "The Six" as if there are still 6 of them, even with Balthazar depowered, and not counting because of it.

Ajun.3102 · October 4, 2017

@Feanor.2358 said:
@Gray.8635 said:Far as all the other content that was added, new maps, mounts, etc.
This expansion was great
, but the
lore took such a big drop
in guild wars story telling

I beg to differ. Come on. Like the Zaithan or Mordy stories were that great... Or the LS stories maybe... They weren't. As far as storytelling goes, this is definitely a step up from the standards of

this

game.

I agree. Although the story has it's weaker moments and I would enjoy more ties to the original lore, I can't really understand all the criticism it gets here. It's the first time I enjoy replaying a GW2 story on other characters (as opposed to core GW2 or HoT).

Thalador.4218 · October 4, 2017

@Cristalyan.5728 said:"They dimmed my light ...... But now they will see me!" This, followed by "I will be the only God" made me believe that "they" attacked and defeated all the gods and only Balthazar escaped and planning now the revenge. I was excited - even after the fight with the god of war from LS3 ep5 - because in these circumstances Balthazar could prove to be a reasonable person, accepting to not kill the dragons if we (the Pact) can fight helping him to defeat the "they". An alliance with the God of War !!! I was more than interested in the story at that moment (when I saw the first trailer of PoF).What we have now? An (almost) irrational being, powerful enough to slay a dragon with one hand, obsessed by the idea of revenge against .... the other gods! And the gods ... a bunch of senile impotent. Cowards, running away from a threat rather than to ask the living to rally to fight. And stupid enough to not be able to figure a viable solution. This is hilarious! I bet the lore team is now preparing a solution to the Dragon Problem. Solution belonging to the Commander, of course. A mortal =)
In my opinion, the way the gods are portrayed now is the result of ANet refuse to clarify what "God" means for them (or for the lore team). This opens the door to several interpretations, according to what lore team is writing the story at a certain moment, going from : "The Gods, expression of wisdom and serenity, protectors of the life on Tyria" to "The gang of irrational imbeciles not knowing even the extent of their own powers, driven by their own ego, ready to turn against everything alive, beings we used to call gods." As long as ANet will not give a definition for the Gods, they will continue to produce this kind of .... stuff. Writers under the influence of Star Trek / Star Wars / Stargate Universe will twist the story turning the gods into anything possible but no real Gods. (or, not having a definition for Gods, everything they write can be called god)I barely await to see the omnipotent Rock God of the grawls in action.

So much this. Wish I could've summarized my OP in such a concise and spot-on way! And indeed: the original writers of Guild Wars were actually using a unique definition for the Five/Six Gods wherein they were a mix of the Greek/Roman style gods with their flaws and mortal urges, as well as incredibly powerful and wise entities that wielded eternal power stemming from the Mists itself. By now, riding the anti-theistic wave sweeping all over fiction (mind you, I don't have a problem with it happening in RL, but in fantasy and sci-fi you shouldn't be restrained in letting your imagination create being that are truly 'omni' in an area), ANet's current writers retconned them into 'ascended, powerful mortals' that have lost all their humanity, care not about their sacred charge (humanity), and are otherwise disinterested in even trying to come up with viable solutions to major problems - be it the dragons threatening to destroy their beloved people, or ending a rogue god's threat sensibly and not by tying him up in a random place in the Mists.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:
@Thalador.4218 said:Balthazar in his entirety (personality, character, principles)Getting **** on by a bunch of people you considered your closest friends changes people? Who knew! Also, we never met Balthazar in Guild Wars 1, so we have no idea what his personality was outside of second or third hand accounts by his devoted followers... who are OFC inherently biased in favor of their god.

Observations and implications deducted purely from established lore and facts presented by the course of events, you mean. I'm not going to write down how much they warped Balthazar's entire essence to make him become Balthaddon, because I've already done so several times across these threads. If you'd like to, I can send you the links to those posts in private or here, in a later post.

Also, the problem is much deeper, you see. He got retconned immensely so as to make him a villainous, blood-crazed glory hound only interested his selfish ass; in hunting bigger game and amassing power for himself. He had to be made such so that the other gods would take action against him, forcing him to a path at the end of which the writers can include their flashy, particle effects heavy godfight. As I've mentioned in so many other threads, too, I wouldn't have had problem with the idea if Balthazar had called out the others as cowards for writing off Tyria and the human population there as lost causes and raged against their decision, craving to throw himself back in the fray and lead his beloved humanity to victory over the dragons. And then they decided to dim his light and chain him down to make him cool down a bit before reconsidering his options, only to be sprung by Rytlock, and then go on the warpath to save humanity and get his revenge. At such a point there could've been ways to reason with him, to make him understand that another dragon's death would blow up Tyria and humanity with it, and he should redeem himself in another way; while also coming to realize that his human supremacist views of old are wrong and the unity of races does really stand a chance against the Elder Dragons, even without godly intervention. All of this would've fit the currently narrative - without making a previously honorable, likable, but slightly flawed (interesting!) character into a rehash of an irredeemable, malevolent Abaddon.

The fact that the gods were not in the Mists yet Kormir was all of a sudden found in the Mists for the plot's sakeThe gods were only "not in the Mists" as per the areas of the Mists humanity knew about, and have explored. Also, she IS the god of knowledge, and already knew everything Kas was going to say before she said it. She would have known we were coming, and thus, been there because she needed to be.

Simply untrue. They were not in the Mists and definitely not in their realms; a view that was supported by most of the faithful of the gods. The prayers that were sent to them were a.) either unheard b.) heard but due to some reason outside their ability to solve unanswered c.) unheard because of a certain situation keeping them occupied/unable to hear, and even if the prayers could've reached them in this location outside the Mists (e.g. on a different planet as it was alluded to in Guild Wars), they couldn't have answered them properly. Thing is, I would accept your reasoning with Kormir knowing that we were coming and appeared one last time to help us, however, if you check her diary in the hidden library, you'll see that the others were very much around in their own realms, just like Kormir was present most of the time in her Sanctum, which IS part of the Mists. The librarians there do say that they will miss their mistress and have known about her getting ready for departure - not they were surprised to see her reappear after being gone for so long. The whole instance is about telling the player that we were here in the Mists the whole time, we grew distant from you, and now are going to disappear for good, k thx bai!

Forgotten having left Tyria before Kralkatorrik's rise and Glint's death getting retconned into: the Forgotten were all over the Crystal Desert still and even fought alongside Glint before they all got brandedOr, in short, believing that everyone in an race all did something, or all followed the same creed, is always wrong.

Please, at least do a bit of research on the wiki before jumping to conclusions! Wiki the Forgotten and 'Study in gold' (especially the latter) on GW2Wiki and you'll see why their sudden reappearance is a huge retcon. When the Last of the Forgotten says he's the last on this world - practically two centuries before the events of Guild Wars 2 and Kralkatorrik's rise in which most of them got branded apparently - we'd better believe that he knows what he is saying. He, the very last Forgotten who speaks about the sunset of his race (on Tyria, at least), says these words as the Exalted are about to enter hibernation in Tarir. Then fast-forward to PoF and there are scores of branded Forgotten slithering around. That makes the guy from 200 years ago a pretty huge liar. Furthermore, if you've read Edge of Destiny, you will remember that Glint was pretty much alone in her Sanctum; no Forgotten stewards in sight. Fast-forward to PoF: suddenly they were there and either died with Glint or got branded... the Forgotten who had anti-corruption magic that could be applied to their stuff and architecture, but not themselves (but this is another retcon unrelated to the ones we are discussing).

The dragon-slaying spear was made out of Kralkatorrik's spine (Edge of Destiny), not his bloodI do believe it was made from blood from his spine. At the end of EoD Caithe goes around picking up crystallized fragments of Kralkatorik's blood(seemingly as a backup plan in case they needed to make another spear) Which I suspect will be brought up when we need to kill Kralkatorik.

"This spear was carved from one of Kralkatorrik's own spines," Glint explained. "It can pierce his hide and find his heart." - Page 349, Edge of Destiny by J. Robert King

Even if he meant "one of his spikes" that is still a world apart from being made of his blood. The only thing made of GREEN dragonsblood was the laurel that Glint put on Kralkatorrik's head, sacrificing herself in the process, so that Snaff could establish a connection through the crystalline blood and hack his way into the dragon's mind.

Also, no surprise there about this being retconned as well, but originally Kralkatorrik had "holocaustal, golden eyes" and even his fiery breath was golden.

The gods getting retconned from wise but distant caretakers who disappeared all of a sudden due to some greater conflict in the Mists (for example, the reason why they were forced to evacuate from the human homeworld catching up to them, Dhuum, Menzies, demons, etc.) into uncaring, incompetent foolsWe never knew why the gods left, and the gods were shown as far back as GW1 to be generally uncaring entities, whose sole approach to humanity was "you can do it!" and "You already have the gifts!". They were never wise, the whole Abbadon situation proved that. If anything, the Gods got smarter since then by actually finding someone, or something, to dump Baltahzar's power into, instead of leaving his chained up at full power like they did Abbadon. Balthazar getting freed by a mist wandering Rytlok, using a god-made magic sword, isn't exactly a situation most would account for.

Although we never knew why they left, true, choosing the most predictable explanation for their departure just hurts. It has no mystery, no intrigue, no feeling of awe. It's just: "because dragons." As I wrote it in the OP: everyone and their mother thought this as the first theory for their absence upon reading the Movement of the World in 2007. Granted, back then everyone was still awed by the Elder Dragons and their descriptions felt godly in their own right - then we've seen them for what they are and we were all disappointed.

I can provide you even more analyses on why the gods were not uncaring and unwise based purely on their actions - or lack of such - if you want, but to answer some of your points real quickly:

Before the retcon, they couldn't strip away divinity from a god. Had they destroyed Abaddon's soul without a proper successor to absorb his power, they would've blown up Tyria and half the Mists. Also, they might have felt a bit of shame for things getting so out of control about a simple disagreement, and hoped against all odds that Abaddon would realize his mistakes and ask forgiveness.
The Realm of Torment was covered entirely in fog of war for them after the demonic takeover. It was completely uncharted territory filled with legions of demons who might have overpowered them with their sheer numbers had they ever attempted to enter. Consequently, they knew nothing of Abaddon's long game of revenge or just how he was going to achieve Nightfall when he would need to implement a great deal of rituals by willing mortal servants on Tyria, and they thought the Realm was locked down so tight he couldn't leak his powers, influence and agents through. They were wrong; but then again, they are not omniscient and have their fair share of flaws besides being wise and powerful.
Once again, there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the notion that Balthaddon's divinity was siphoned off and transferred into someone or something else. He's been stripped of it, they have dimmed his light. If it was taken, I bet he would've whined that it was stolen from him.

The gods now being weaker or on par with the Elder Dragons whose power is beyond them - it was the opposite all the way up until PoFWas it really though? Almost all talk of gods vs Elder Dragons has been pure speculation. No one in any position to actually confirm such a thing has said the gods were stronger then Elder Dragons.

All this demonstrates is a long running problem in fandoms when it comes to lore. People take whatever they read as being truthful if its propagated enough times in the game, when, in reality, you should NEVER EVER trust a single thing any NPC, or in-game text, says, because in the frame of in-universe, it's all skewed by bias and the NPC's personal interpretations.

When a god's death and the release of his eternal, divine power could blow up an entire planet and a huge slice of the Mists - and even act as a wake-up call for the hungering dragons on said planet - you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that a god's power packs more punch in terms of quantifiable teratons of destruction than the death of a dragon which causes a slight windstorm and a magical imbalance that can actually be fixed. Or that a few days of battle between these entities could generate enough heat to boil away billions of tons of seawater, turning that sea into a desert, and even the "simple defeat/fall" of one would turn hundreds if not thousands of square kilometers of land into a sulfurous, ravaged wasteland. The gods are practically walking stars, which brings us to another colossal difference between them and the power level of Elder Dragons: you don't go blind from looking at a dragon.

All this demonstrates is a long running problem in fandoms where it comes to lore. The fans actually listen to what is being presented in-game, they remember the dialogues, the details, the nuances and then make sound, logical deductions based on the facts that have been laid down by the story, whereas there are writers in certain franchises that don't care enough to do the same or just hop in to write whatever they want to write about without understanding the lore first. Also, it is simply bad when you have to treat everything you hear, see, or read as utterances of an unreliable narrator in a game. In Dragon Age there were times when the narrative got turned upside down because of a major revelation, but that revelation made sense, it fit the previously known story from a certain point of view (just like Obi-Wan's narrative of the Clone Wars made sense from a certain point of view and was not a lie plain and simple), but then they don't pull this off at every major, new thing that advances the lore and story, so it doesn't become annoying and contradictory. GW2, on the other hand, does this every time.

I'm genuinely interested; where does she say that there are still Six Gods and not only five?When talking to Kormir, Kas makes some comment about one of the six betraying humanity, and Kormir mentions that Balthazar had his power stripped, and is no longer one of the six. She makes no comment or suggest on about how, with Balthazar gone, it would be only five now. Kormir herself just mentions "The Six" as if there are still 6 of them, even with Balthazar depowered, and not counting because of it.

She says that as not being part of their clique - which was the Six - anymore, not as that he's been ousted but they found a cooler dude to join them in their mile-high club. Stripped means his power was taken away, not stolen; and there's 0 mention of a replacement or succession happening. Kormir's words heavily imply that he was demoted and his "badge and pistol" (divinity) were taken away without them passing on to someone else.

Djinn.9245 · October 4, 2017

I completely agree with the OP and many others in this thread. It is sad that the GW2 writers either don't know the lore or don't have as much respect for it as the players do. Nevermind that disrespecting the lore didn't even equate to a grand story! They threw it all away for nothing.

When Lazarus was revealed to actually be Balthazar I knew this was a huge mistake. I was there with the few who hoped it was actually Menzies disguised as Balthazar (as convoluted as that would have been) because it would make more sense than it actually being Balthazar. The whole story is a mess and I can only hold out a last hope that it was planned this way to give the players a sense of Scooby "Uhhh?" for a while until they reveal what is really happening, or that they WILL WRITE such a continuation of the story that will explain / clean up this mess in a way that is consistent with the original lore so the players aren't forced to continually not care about any lore presented in this game because it is never consistent.

As for there still being 6 gods, Kormir's words could be taken as "The Six" being the term she is using for the entire group of gods rather than a numerical indication of how many there currently are. Like if there was a gang called "The Gang of 9" and one of the members was killed someone might say "he is no longer a member of The Gang of 9".

Feanor.2358 · October 4, 2017

@Gray.8635 said:Feanor The Zhaitan and Mordremoth had good stories. Preference and good story telling are two different things in my opinion. Zhaitan was the first time in guild wars lore we were actually going to face a dragon. Everything was new and the story was done very well. Mordremoth was too. Even the living story for Mordremoth with Scarlett was even tied in well and woven nicely. Story is just so important for an MMO in my opinion, especially one as unique as this one. Out of every MMO that is out there I have played this is by far the most story driven one I personally have ever came across. I think its also the same for many others, because when people found out that more story would be available in raids, so many were frustrated with Anet because of the difficulty when they first started. For me raiding is always about the story and the challenge. That bit of story after a boss kill from exploring, or when the final wing boss is killed is what makes this game so... good. =)

I fail to see the great storytelling in the previous stories. It had pretty much one strong moment, Tybalt's sacrifice (a keg of apple cider in your honour, good sir. You shall be always remembered). As far as storytelling goes, though, PoF has beaten it. It featured the death of the player character. Yes, nobody expected to stay dead. Yes, it has been done before. Nevertheless.

P.S. On the topic of story-driven MMOs - SW:TOR. In general, when it comes to story and RPG, BioWare are the guys to look at.

Sajuuk Khar.1509 · October 4, 2017

For the sake of brevity, I cut them all down.

@Thalador.4218 said:Observations and implications deducted purely from established lore and facts presented by the course of events, you mean.So assumptions, which are entirely meaningless. The only lore we have on Balthazar is from human made scriptures and depictions of him, which makes them automatically wrong because of religious bias, and the human enforced cult that is "The Five" or "The Six" Also, your proposed hypothetical alternate plan ignores the events of Nightfall, and why the gods left back then as well.
Simply untrue. They were not in the Mists and definitely not in their realms; a view that was supported by most of the faithful of the gods.Second hand sources from people who literally have no idea about the true nature of the gods, and will even admit to it. Also, the books in her library don't mention the other gods being around in their realms, in fact, they outright mention Lyssa mocking Kormir for staying so long, which shows the others HAD left their realms a long time ago.
When the Last of the Forgotten says he's the last on this worldAs he knows, which doesn't make it true. Another example, Robert House in Fallout New Vegas believed cats were extinct, they were shown not to be in Fallout 4, that makes him wrong, but not a liar, as he isn't all knowing. Lying implies a willing intent to deceive, which there is no indication of in this case.Also, while the Forgotten had anti-corruption magic, you would have to be pretty daft to believe they all knew it. Stop assuming that all races one one giant ball of SAME ENTITY WHO KNOW EVERYTHING! They are not.
Even if he meant "one of his spikes" that is still a world apart from being made of his blood.The above quote also doesn't say that its because it's from his spine that his spine part is the reason why it can pierce Kralkatroik. His spine is part of his body, which has his blood in it, which we learned from PoF that is what harms him. That isn't a retcon, only a clarification.
It has no mystery, no intrigue, no feeling of awe.
Literally who cares. Stories that attempt twists for the sake of twists are just M Night Shyamalan tier. I could go into Occam's Razor and all that, but the answer with the least assumptions is usually the right one BECAUSE its the most likely one.
I also like how you choose to speak for everyone in being disappointing in the depictions of the Elder Dragons. I, and many others I know, find them quite well.
And, according to Kormir, they are still "the six" implying they found a new host for Balthazar's power. Which is as per Nightfall lore.
The idea that Abbadon's demons could have overpowered the gods had they tried anything is pretty silly.
Except, again, Kormir herself mentions they are still "The Six" even with Balthazar depowered, so yes, the game DOES imply they found someone new to hold his power.
you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that a god's power packs more punch in terms of quantifiable teratons of destruction than the death of a dragon which causes a slight windstorm and a magical imbalance that can actually be fixed.That really only shows that the gods have less control over their power then the Elder Dragons do, not that they have more of it. It's also indicative of the Six having their powers transferred to them, essentially being a small bottle(human) being forced to contain an ocean, rather then having said power naturally like the Elder Dragons do.Or that a few days of battle between these entities could generate enough heat to boil away billions of tons of seawater, turning that sea into a desert,You mean like how Zhaitan rose an entire nation from underwater in a day? or Kralkatorik branded a hundreds, possibly thousands, of miles long scar across the world simply by flying above it? Lets not get into the BS Mordremoth caused in the little time he was up.Also, it is simply bad when you have to treat everything you hear, see, or read as utterances of an unreliable narrator in a game.No, that simply makes it realistic, because the real world's history very rarely works on hard facts.To give an example of another game franchise. Bethesda Game Studios, the creators of The Elder Scrolls, a series often cited as having some of the most complex lore of any game series not based on a preexisting series, have freely, and outright, admitted that when writing lore for their games, they knowingly, and intentionally, write several different versions of major events of the past, and put them all in the game, without having any real idea or desire of making any of them true. Even when it comes to things like the Nine Divines, they knowingly places multiple, contradictory, interpretations of them into the game, with no intentions of any of them being true. The whole point is that everything you are told is shaded by political, religious, cultural, or racial, bias, that makes it inherently untrustworthy, just like anything you could be told IRL.Dragon Age there were times when the narrative got turned upside down because of a major revelation, but that revelation made sense, it fit the previously known story from a certain point of viewDragon Age is also a pretty poorly written game, that takes little chances, and barely has lore of its own. Its hard to "mess up" something that's so vapid in the first place. But Bioware did prove they could what with DA2 and DAI being to terrible.
She says that as not being part of their clique - which was the Six - anymore, not as that he's been ousted but they found a cooler dude to join them in their mile-high club. StrippedThat is your interpretation, one which is not supported by the in-game facts, and, as far as I can see, only really exists to give credence to the idea that Anet messed up somewhere.

Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324 · October 4, 2017

Balthazar's divine powers and title had to go somewhere anyway. We can make assumptions but nothing was said about the outcome of such event.

Thalador.4218 · October 4, 2017

Sajuuk, there is no point in arguing with you until you've cooled down a bit and considered what I'd written, otherwise it's pointless to debate this further. I've used the actual events as they happened in both games, as well as lore that backs up the course of those events, to show that many of these retcons indeed happened, but that doesn't mean you need to go into a frenzy and start shooting your opinions from the hip, or argue with sentences like this: "which makes them automatically wrong because of religious bias." Seriously, did you read what you had written before posting? Because "arguments" like that make you sound like a hardcore conspiracy theorist who outright discredits every piece of valid information as "propaganda" written and spouted by the establishment and clergy-backed background powers.

You accuse me of using sound deduction based on observable facts and their implications, yet you jumped straight at a conclusion which fit your views without using any of that. Hopefully this will put this timeline debate behind us:

Kormir: When he returned to this world, Balthazar disguised himself as Lazarus with Lyssa's Mirror-the only magic powerful enough to hide the truth from our eyes.

They were still around otherwise Balthaddon wouldn't have had to use Lyssa's mirror to hide himself from their eyes. This happening in 1328-1329 AE, from Rytlock's return to Tyria after freeing Balthaddon and reclaiming his sword, to Balthaddon masquerading as a changed Lazarus.

Kormir: By the time the ruse was revealed, the other gods had already departed. And soon I will join them.

Also happening near the end of 1329 AE.

The Journal speaks nothing of the other gods having departed a long time ago, only that Kormir lingered behind for a while longer. A while longer being a couple more months, it seems.

This isn't Fallout, and the Forgotten are not cats but a sentient, highly-magical species that served the Six Gods and Glint since time immemorial. A species that worked in concert with one another on ensuring Glint's vision for the world is realized - meaning they were pretty much involved in every project related to that. The Last of the Forgotten escorted the newly created Exalted from the Crystal Desert to Maguuma where they built Tarir from scratch, then bid his farewell to them forever because he was the last of his kind on Tyria and soon he would die/depart, too. This being the case until ANet decided that it would be cool to fight branded Forgotten in-game, and so they wrote them in. Just because you don't want to accept that it is a huge retcon, doesn't make it any less - especially not by using a completely unrelated example to prove your point. Furthermore, I'm not treating the Forgotten as one ball of the same entity, so don't put words I never said or implied into my mouth/posts! But given the close-knit society they have and the fact that all Tyrian Forgotten were involved in a huge project to save the world, why is it such an outlandish thought to expect that a millennia old spell or technique they'd been using since the last time the dragons were awake was not used on themselves to avoid corruption?

Carved of one of his own spines (or spikes, in case it was a typo) - I can't believe we are arguing about this. :D Maybe a bit of his blood was stuck to the bony surface, yet that sentence still means that the material from which the spear was fashioned is dragonbone and not dragonblood. It's not clarification, it's a retcon... a small, irrelevant one, but still a retcon; one that shows they don't pay attention to the small details.

Who said anything about twists at that point? I definitely didn't. You don't need to make "twists for the sake of twists" in order to create thrilling, inspiring, epic scenarios that give a more nuanced explanation to the disappearance of one of the cornerstones of Guild Wars lore.
Alright, personal taste, I get it. If you like it, and so do others, that's good for you. But I also see many others who are not awed by their designs (both aesthetic and gameplay).
Wrong. No mention of succession, not even an implication in wording. Just because the Six is one man down the institution itself is still called the Six.
No more silly than you trying to claim the Elder Dragons are more powerful than the gods. Either way, the gods are not indestructible or invincible; throw enough powerful enemies at them in rapid succession and you can bet they will falter and fall after some time.
Wrong again. The Six is the institution, not a number. Plus, there's no implication whatsoever in Kormir's wording at all that succession happened. Dimming/abatement/stripping. Where is stealing/transferring/succeeding/replacing/deposing/dethroning?

I lost you at your attempt to belittle the gods. Please rephrase that part into a more coherent structure.

Yes, Elder Dragons are good at terraforming, and so are the gods. Except one of them, Abaddon, would have twisted the entire planet - land and sea - into a corrupted, hellish horror-landscape with Nightfall from across the Mists, without having to be on site in the flesh. Actually, as it was told in Nightfall, he was dreaming the Nightfallen world into being, swallowing it in Torment at an exponential rate. Which Elder Dragon could accomplish that in its sleep?

There's a point when realism gets in the way of telling a good story. But answer me this: did Bethesda actually ever deal with those stories? Like did they delve into any of them with an intent to explore it and figure out the "truth?" Because if not, that's great; they really grasped the concept of how history is molded by certain interest groups. But this is not the case in Guild Wars, where they actively delve into all these myths and legends and ancient tales, and installment after installment they just retcon more and more without any consistency to fit their current writing habits. That's awful storytelling, plain and simple.

Also, I'm not going to argue whether the story of Dragon Age is good or bad, but I hope you didn't mean to say by dissing DA that Guild Wars 2 is a marvel of lore-building and storytelling. The implications of such a belief would put things into a new... perspective.

Djinn.9245 · October 4, 2017

@Feanor.2358 said:
@Gray.8635 said:Feanor The Zhaitan and Mordremoth had good stories. Preference and good story telling are two different things in my opinion. Zhaitan was the first time in guild wars lore we were actually going to face a dragon. Everything was new and the story was done very well. Mordremoth was too. Even the living story for Mordremoth with Scarlett was even tied in well and woven nicely. Story is just so important for an MMO in my opinion, especially one as unique as this one. Out of every MMO that is out there I have played this is by far the most story driven one I personally have ever came across. I think its also the same for many others, because when people found out that more story would be available in raids, so many were frustrated with Anet because of the difficulty when they first started. For me raiding is always about the story and the challenge. That bit of story after a boss kill from exploring, or when the final wing boss is killed is what makes this game so... good. =)

I fail to see the great storytelling in the previous stories. It had pretty much one strong moment, Tybalt's sacrifice (a keg of apple cider in your honour, good sir. You shall be always remembered). As far as storytelling goes, though, PoF has beaten it. It featured the death of the player character. Yes, nobody expected to stay dead. Yes, it has been done before. Nevertheless.

P.S. On the topic of story-driven MMOs - SW:TOR. In general, when it comes to story and RPG, BioWare are the guys to look at.

Sorry, the death of the PC was a gimmick to illicit exactly the reaction you apparently had.

Pax.3548 · October 4, 2017

@draxynnic.3719 said:
@Pax.3548 said:
@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.

Ever come across the concept of jumping the shark?

As soon as we saw Balthazar, my immediate thought was "They'd better have a good motivation for this or it's just going to be Abaddon 2.0". What did we get? Balthaddon having a spat with the other gods that lead to them casting him down, just like the backstory to Nightfall. At least Abaddon actually had a reasonably justified motivation, from a certain point of view (while we joke about him throwing a massive temper tantrum, what actually happened was a series of events: Abaddon's followers started defacing holy sites of the other gods in protest at the weakening of Abaddon's gift, the Forgotten started wiping out the Margonites, and it was his followers being massacred that triggered Abaddon to rebel. Balthaddon, on the other hand, was Flanderised into a glory hound that just wanted a big fight despite knowing how much damage such a battle would do.

The first half of Path of Fire was one predictable disappointment after another. Vlast gets mentioned, then we learn that Balthaddon is after him, and I immediately predicted that our only direct interaction with Vlast would be helplessly watching Balthaddon kill him. I wasn't far wrong (the detail being that I was expecting it to be a 'we arrived too late' rather than a 'Vlast sacrifices himself to save us'. We go to talk to the gods, and I go in expecting exposition and a pep talk rather than them doing anything useful, because heaven forbid that human lore ever be used for anything other than spawning antagonists. Sure enough...

The first actual surprise was that Balthaddon used the Exalted as a template for the Forged... but that was essentially an answer to a question no one asked. The Forgotten were servants to the gods, so it would make sense that the gods likely knew how to make Enchanted at least, and in fact, in Factions we saw a rebelling ex-servant of Grenth create an army of constructs empowered by imprisoned souls. So Balthaddon doing that isn't really a surprise. Balthaddon kidnapping Aurene... also very predictable.

Things improved a little after that, but it does feel a bit like they've run out of good ideas and Flanderised Balthaddon just to make a controversial villain, and then failed to deliver on any meaningful twist after that, instead relying purely on the 'Balthazar is a bad guy now?' to deliver what was possibly the most predictable Guild Wars storyline yet. It's not great when you can predict what's going to happen by asking the question "What is the most disappointing direction they can take this?" Now, it's up to everyone to decide where the shark-jumping moment for them is, and I'm not yet committed to saying for sure that it is now, but, well... let's just say that it's a little unfortunate that this also happens to be an expansion where it's not an uncommon event to literally jump over a (sand) shark when going from one place to another.

As for what else could have been done... just off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of possibilities. One is having the twist being that Lazarus is actually Lazarus (there was precedent that he didn't actually need all of the aspects in order to resurrect). Another is using Menzies instead of Balthaddon. Both of these could have followed pretty close to the story we had, without the effect of relying on Flanderisation to turn a character that some PCs would have chosen as their patron god into a villain. Sure, it wouldn't have had the pathos of being betrayed by one of the gods, but they did so little with that in the end after the initial shock that I don't think it makes up for the "Oh, we needed a villain, so we just took a powerful entity that had some shades of grey and flanderised them into a puppy-kicker" effect.

You speak of abbadon 2.0 when most players in gw2 are new to the franchise, that alone is enough to invalidate most of your arguments regarding "balthaddon", and the rest is just your perspective on the story, I for once didn't think we would get killed, didn't expect aurene to be kidnap that way, was good to know the origin of the forged, all these things you say was "predictable and unneeded" well, I say it was needed for me as well as many other ppl I'm sure.For the rest I repeat my post, when you have limited time to make an expansion, limited bugdet and resources, you can't make a large story that englobes all ideas, you'll have to make the best with what you have.Regarding of your idea, Lazarus couln't have absorved the bloodstone because of the enormous amount of magic that thing has, no mortal can absorb such a thing (that was the only big clue regarding the return of the gods, one person thought of it and theorized a god had returned as only such a being could absorb the magic of a bloodstone), short story: the bloodstone wouldn't have explored if lazarus was real (because that would have killed him and us). Regarding Menzies... we truly don't know much about him, besides being balth's half brother and leader of the shadow army, but would you truly use that character in PoF rather than in a later expansion? I think menzies could be used better at another part of the story, as anet has plenty of room to work on his backstory and personality. Besides we knew since gw1 balth was unstable and not at all good or kind, like most gods of war in mythology (balth resembles a lot to Ares from the greek myth, not in looks, but in personality) AND if you look objectively, he wasn't evil, he was the god of WAR he does war, he revels in the killing, the fighting and conquering, I don't truly think he was evil, only true to his nature, the only problem is that he went rogue and wanted to get revenge on the other gods, and that revenge implied Tyria's destruction. If this last thing wasn't an issue, we wouldn't even bother to fight him.

Sir Vincent III.1286 · October 4, 2017

@Thalador.4218 said: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.

When you talk to Kormir in her library, Kasmeer was asking for the help of the Six, then Rythlok say "or the Five" for which Kormir corrected him by saying "he is no longer one of the Six" implying that "the Six" still exist without Balthazar.

From the wikiLady Kasmeer Meade: I-please excuse me, Goddess. Perhaps I wasn't clear-we can't hope to defeat Balthazar without the aid of the Six.Rytlock Brimstone: Or the five. Balthazar is one of the Six.Kormir: No. He isn't. Balthazar has been stripped of his claim and title. He is no longer one of the Six.(source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Facing_the_Truth)
@Thalador.4218 said: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.

No, it wasn't. Connecting Shiro and the Lich to Abaddon was a big stretch. Cantha was supposed to be a standalone, not an expansion, as well as Nightfall without connection to Prophesies -- it wasn't even called "Prophesies" to begin with. The only true expansion was Eye of the North. Both Factions and Nightfall was an attempt to make the world of Tyria bigger. Factions' "story", if there is even one, was a big mess and disconnected. Nightfall's attempt to connect both Prophesies and Factions was a mess too and far from believable. So the story this time around is no different. The whole idea and belief surrounding the human deity was already being challenged by the belief system of the other races. Both the Eternal Alchemy and the Norn Spirit Guides questions the validity of the human gods.

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.

The difference between you and I is that I don't start playing a new game with a pre-existing bias. If anyone wearing any glasses, you are. You have these expectations based on the GW1 story that is not even that great to begin with, then you elevated that story to a higher standard and expecting GW2 to meet or exceed that standard. That's one overpowered glasses you're wearing.

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

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