Reactions to the Finale, Judgment [Poll]

[Imba.9451]

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Just to reset what has become a massive quote wall.

 

1. On Joko. I never mentioned anything about his bumbling nature. I mentioned his consistent, and systemic, failures, both political, and military, dating back to before GW1.

-His failure to take over Elona because he didn't know how supply lines worked, leading to his army having a weakness Turai Ossa was able to exploit.

Yet, he took Elona and did hold it over centuries.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

-His failure of him, and his minions, to free him after hundreds of years of imprisonment.

Yet, he was free at last and coquered Elona.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

-His total inability to reclaim his empire on his own, and needing the GW1 hero to do everything for him from getting his staff back, to bringing his Awakened back into the fold, and killing traitorous generals.

By this logic, almost every NPC tasking you with doing stuff is incompetent.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

-His inability to finish off the Sunspears, Order of Shadows, or the dissident movement, despite trying for decades/centuries.

As I said, there will always be some resistance left. You cannot kill ideas.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

-His inability to take over Amnoon despite trying for decades, and even establishing a blockade against them.

Honestly, I agree with you here. I never understood how Amnoon was able to resist.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

-The general corrupt nature of his empire, which is full of holes, civil unrest, and other issues.

Yet he still kept control.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Joko has just been consistently shown to be an awful leader, who doesn't know what he is doing, and is totally unable to manage his empire efficiently. His bumbling nature is a result of the same stupidity that leads to all these issues, but I never argued his bumbling nature was what made him stupid.

A bad leader, but incredibly powerful and capable of keeping stuff under control, even if this control is hold together by duct tape and bubblegum.

 

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Also, Joko does not maintain thousands of undead. The Awakened are not sustained by Joko's power, hence why they didn't just all die when he did.

Fair enough. Still, he can as easily take the life he has given, as shown in the final cutscene.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

2. Primordus was properly reintroduced into the story. They had a literal months long conversation chain with Bangar,

The conversation was "literally" only about 10-15 minutes long. You misrepresent the facts.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

and Jormag, following "Jormag Rising" which at first hinted, but later directly confirmed, the larger threat on the horizon in the form of Primrodus. This being followed by game wide earthquakes across Tyria as a prelude to his awakening, which is what led to the the EoTN to talk to Aurene at the start of Champions where he finally arrived.

Again, this is not proper establishment. This is throwing in a threat and saying "Yo, this dude dangerous."

This method CAN work, if it is done with spectacle, something the player can grasp and that has lasting impact on the world. Wich Primordus did not. He had some hastily cobbled together DRM's that served as the bare minimum to remind the player That Primordus is still alive.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

3. The rest of your post is making claims that Primordus' story, or Champions in general ,was rushed, that DRMs are throwaway, or that they didn't do the same thing they did for other dragons like Zhaitan, and that's just simply untrue.

It's not. We all know at this point, that DRM's and the finale were cobbled together by a skeleton crew.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

-The average IBS story release is about an hour long, mostly involving listening to NPCs dialog while we walk around with them and there were originally four more IBS chapters planned. Leading to a total of 4 hours of plot, which included the final dragon fight.

Again: Quantity =/= Quality. The DRM's covered WAY too much of what should have been a natural development of story beats, that increase tension. Instead, it was just there to give the writers an excuse to kill 2 dragons at once.

The quality in development between this an Mordremoth is lightyears apart. Even Zhaitan has better setup, even though Zhaitans story has terrible pacing issues.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

-Between the initial attack on Rata Sum at the beginning of Champions, the Wildfire story instance with Braham, the conversations with Aurene/other characters between DRMs, the Dragonstorm fight instance, and the time it takes to do the DRMs themselves... Champions had 4 hours of story content.

It had 4 hours of playtime. Wich isn't the same as story content. You misrepresent the facts again.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The only thing Champions lost compared to the original plan for IBS was the two new maps they original planned. We still have the exact same amount of story content we were going to originally.

Maybe. But poorly executed. Wich is the point everyone and his dog tries to make for months now.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

You can even look at the Champions releases, and easily see how they the four original episodes planned. The only difference is that instead of Primordus' rise being limited to the Centaur Homelands, and the larger meta fight against the two dragons being contained to Anvil Rock, its a much larger scope fight across Tyira. Which arguably helped the sotry in the long run becuase GW2 has always had an issue where

"Only". This is a pretty big difference. And the reason many players are so incredibly disapponted with it. maybe you feel like this is enough. And thats okay. You do you. many people here have stated, that they have higher standards though.

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

And no, Primordus and Jormag didn't do their stuff a few DRMs. They did it across Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, Bitterfrost Frontier, Bjora MArches, Drizzlewood Coast, the DRMs, and Dragonstorm. About three maps + a dragon fight just like Zhaitan, Mordremoth, and Kralatorrik got.

And again, that has already been adressed by me. In both of my last posts.

Quantity isn't quality.

Tension needs to be managed carefully.

Storybeats need to be put in reestablished in existing context properly, when laying dormant for a while.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

48 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

Yet, he took Elona and did hold it over centuries.

Yet, he was free at last and coquered Elona.

By this logic, almost every NPC tasking you with doing stuff is incompetent.

As I said, there will always be some resistance left. You cannot kill ideas.

Honestly, I agree with you here. I never understood how Amnoon was able to resist.

Yet he still kept control.

A bad leader, but incredibly powerful and capable of keeping stuff under control, even if this control is hold together by duct tape and bubblegum.

Fair enough. Still, he can as easily take the life he has given, as shown in the final cutscene.

He took Elona only because no one tired to stop him. That isn't a win in his book, thats an idiot ball in everyone else's.

He was only freed because we freed him, not because of his own skill/power, or that of his servants.

Nope. Most NPCs are shown to be competent, and run functional operations/business/governments. They just need our help with extra special, or suddenly occurring issues. Neither of which apply to Joko's case here.

You can easily kill ideas. Just look at the laundry list of ancient religious, or governments, that no longer exist because something else came in, and so systematically changed people's mind that no one wanted the old thing anymore.

Amnoon was able to resist because Joko is a paper dragon. Hes always been all talk, and little to not bite. His empire is based on fear, not power. Which is why all you need to do is say no, and his hold over you collapses.

I mean, he didn't keep control. Someone in control isn't suffering from mass insurgency, civil unrest, outright rebellions, etc. etc. And again, Joko himself isn't powerful. He never uses any sort of high level magic on even the scale Jennah uses.

Which he apparently doesn't do often with how poorly his empire is run.

48 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

The conversation was "literally" only about 10-15 minutes long. You misrepresent the facts.

The "conversation" was several conversations spread across an over month+ long period. Trying to boil it down to speed running time after the fact is misrepresenting the facts.

48 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

Again, this is not proper establishment. This is throwing in a threat and saying "Yo, this dude dangerous."

This method CAN work, if it is done with spectacle, something the player can grasp and that has lasting impact on the world. Wich Primordus did not. He had some hastily cobbled together DRM's that served as the bare minimum to remind the player That Primordus is still alive.

How was a massive attack on numerous high profile targets across Tyria not spectacle? Its the same thing Zhaitan did at Claw Island, and his attacks on the various Order bases, back in core. And its a larger scope then Mordremoth taking down the Pact fleet at the beginning of HoT.

48 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

It's not. We all know at this point, that DRM's and the finale were cobbled together by a skeleton crew

It is. We know IBS got cut down, but even Anet themselves have said the story is pretty much the same story they were going to tell originally(minus the Centaur relations). This idea that there was all this extra plot that got cut is just demonstrably false. The only significant thing to get cut was the map with events everyone was just going to abandoned the moment Dragonstorm came out just like they did all the other maps except some of the HoT maps, and Dragonfall.

48 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

Again: Quantity =/= Quality. The DRM's covered WAY too much of what should have been a natural development of story beats, that increase tension. Instead, it was just there to give the writers an excuse to kill 2 dragons at once.

The quality in development between this an Mordremoth is lightyears apart. Even Zhaitan has better setup, even though Zhaitans story has terrible pacing issues.

What do you mean they covered way too much? The only things the DRMS covered are

• Primordus woke up, is attacking all over the place, and everyone is scrambling to deal with the invasion.
• Braham is starting to sense Destroyers as a continuation of him becoming Norn of Prophecy, and getting some advice from another Norn, and the Owl spirit, on what he should do.

 

The DRM's covered very little because, at that point, there was very little left to cover. We had already done the Asura/Dwarf stories in everything from HoT, to LWS3, PoF, LWS4, and even parts of IBS. We had already wrapped up the overall Charr and Norn plots from IBS. Braham's path to becoming the Norn of Prophecy, and fulfilling the Asgier analogy they set up for him was at its last stages. We already learned what the Dragon's weaknesses were, and how to exploit it. By the time "Jormag Rising" ended there was nothing left to cover beyond having Primordus wake up, and wreck some shop, so we could get the two dragons could duke it out face to face. Which is what they did.

48 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

It had 4 hours of playtime. Wich isn't the same as story content. You misrepresent the facts again.

Na. IBS story has been small instances of you talking to/fighting NPCs, and then going out to do some open world events between them. The DRMs are instances where we spend most of the time talking to NPCs, while doing open world like stuff like smash destroyers/fight some Champions. Its the same kind of content format, just not on a new map. Its the same overall story content ratio we got in previous chapters.

48 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

Maybe. But poorly executed. Wich is the point everyone and his dog tries to make for months now.

 

"Only". This is a pretty big difference. And the reason many players are so incredibly disapponted with it. maybe you feel like this is enough. And thats okay. You do you. many people here have stated, that they have higher standards though.

But again, its really not that different. If anything, Champions helped Primordus' story because GW2 has always this issue where we are told the dragons are such a huge threat, and are attacking everywhere, but dragon minions are largely contained in maps out in the middle of nowhere, and not actually doing anything against the races. Outside of the Claw Island/Order base attacks in core, and Scarlet's attack on LA in LWS1, there really hasn't been a big attacks.

 

The thing you are asking for would have continued that trend. We know how Centaurs are, they are a heavily tribalistic people, with little in the way of development, living in lightly populated scattered tribal villages. Instead of having Primordus launch a huge attack on many of the world's major places... your asking for an attack confined to BFE, just so you can get a new map to play on, regardless of the impact on the world that map would have on the rest of the world. that's a much small scope.spectacile then what we got, by miles. And that isn't higher standards, thats very low standards. Just expecting to be fed the exact same non impact thing you have gotten for years, with no changes... because that is what you are used to.

48 minutes ago, Imba.9451 said:

And again, that has already been adressed by me. In both of my last posts.

Quantity isn't quality.

Tension needs to be managed carefully.

Storybeats need to be put in reestablished in existing context properly, when laying dormant for a while.

No one is saying quantity = quality besides you. And it isn't the developers job to constantly remind you of story beats you should already know from playing the game. What you are asking for is something that is very often pointed out to be bad writing, which is having characters bring back up things they already know from earlier, and talk about them again, simply for the sake of people who may not have been paying attention. They have no reason to reestablish something they already all know, you should have been paying attention in the first place.

 

 

And so I have to ask. You keep saying everything is bad, and should have been done better, but haven't offered any substantive outline on how it should have been done so it was good. Its difficult to really understand why you think its bad, or lack impact, when there is no frame of reference on to what you think things like spectacle are.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Imba.9451]

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

He took Elona only because no one tired to stop him. That isn't a win in his book, thats an idiot ball in everyone else's.

He was only freed because we freed him, not because of his own skill/power, or that of his servants.

Nope. Most NPCs are shown to be competent, and run functional operations/business/governments. They just need our help with extra special, or suddenly occurring issues. Neither of which apply to Joko's case here.

But nonetheless, the game makes it clear that Joko is very powerful and manages to keep it together somehow for several hundreds of years.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

You can easily kill ideas. Just look at the laundry list of ancient religious, or governments, that no longer exist because something else came in, and so systematically changed people's mind that no one wanted the old thing anymore.

First, this happened over the span of thousands of years. And second, those old things are still around up to this day.

A resistance against a tyrannical ruler being a thing is nothing that suprises me. There will always be some who oppose him.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Amnoon was able to resist because Joko is a paper dragon. Hes always been all talk, and little to not bite. His empire is based on fear, not power. Which is why all you need to do is say no, and his hold over you collapses.

Didn't work for Istan and Amala I guess. Or the rest of Elona.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

I mean, he didn't keep control. Someone in control isn't suffering from mass insurgency, civil unrest, outright rebellions, etc. etc.

Praise Joko is probably the most heared thing in PoF. Based on fear or not - it somehow holds together.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

And again, Joko himself isn't powerful. He never uses any sort of high level magic on even the scale Jennah uses.

Which he apparently doesn't do often with how poorly his empire is run.

He can awaken people. He can take that life from people. He knows how to exploit the fear of death, the desire to be with your loved ones and family, as shown in Vaabi. He delivers a fight at the end. AND, as already mentioned before he traps the commander in stasis, ready to kill him.

He is powerful, and the game makes this perfectly clear.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The "conversation" was several conversations spread across an over month+ long period. Trying to boil it down to speed running time after the fact is misrepresenting the facts.

I can give the space between both our homes in "x times the length of the german Reichstag", wich may be technically correct, but is still misleading. Context matters.

And the context is: The conversation itself wasn't very long.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

How was a massive attack on numerous high profile targets across Tyria not spectacle? Its the same thing Zhaitan did at Claw Island, and his attacks on the various Order bases, back in core. And its a larger scope then Mordremoth taking down the Pact fleet at the beginning of HoT.

Several things come together here:

First, it was clearly noticeable, that the mission all used the same formula: Do some tasks, follow NPC's, kill some more stuff, kill boss.

Second, they were placed on the open world.

Both of this points already make the player feel like this is "cheap" design, drastically mudding down the experience.

Thirdly, the stuff happening has no real, tangible effect. It happens and the straight up jumps to the finale. That like ending a book after the opening chapter. And just because the threat has been there in the book before doesn't mean that you can just publish another book with 3 chapters, that ends this story for good.

In terms of spectacle: First, the effect should have been visible and tangible outside the DRM's. Those were special little content islands. They could have served as setup, but not for the finale itself, but for the road to the finale instead of being the finale.

How did the other races react to this? Simply giving us an some NPC's around a round table with one line isn't enouth to make this feel like an event with world-affecting scale.

This storybeat neede time to breath, wich it did not reveive.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

It is. We know IBS got cut down, but even Anet themselves have said the story is pretty much the same story they were going to tell originally(minus the Centaur relations). This idea that there was all this extra plot that got cut is just demonstrably false. The only significant thing to get cut was the map with events everyone was just going to abandoned the moment Dragonstorm came out just like they did all the other maps except some of the HoT maps, and Dragonfall.

And like I said several times now: It's not WHAT that matters, but HOW.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

What do you mean they covered way too much? The only things the DRMS covered are

• Primordus woke up, is attacking all over the place, and everyone is scrambling to deal with the invasion.
• Braham is starting to sense Destroyers as a continuation of him becoming Norn of Prophecy, and getting some advice from another Norn, and the Owl spirit, on what he should do.

True, this is my mistake. What I said was not what I meant.

I meant that the DRM's covered too much of the story arc in percentage, because there was nothing inbetween them and the finale.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

The DRM's covered very little because, at that point, there was very little left to cover. We had already done the Asura/Dwarf stories in everything from HoT, to LWS3, PoF, LWS4, and even parts of IBS. We had already wrapped up the overall Charr and Norn plots from IBS. Braham's path to becoming the Norn of Prophecy, and fulfilling the Asgier analogy they set up for him was at its last stages. We already learned what the Dragon's weaknesses were, and how to exploit it. By the time "Jormag Rising" ended there was nothing left to cover beyond having Primordus wake up, and wreck some shop, so we could get the two dragons could duke it out face to face. Which is what they did.

True. Yet they did little to make the new threat feel like a real threat, considering how quickly any tensuion growing was suffocated with the finale, and how badly executed the repeating mission structure was. People notice things like this.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Na. IBS story has been small instances of you talking to/fighting NPCs, and then going out to do some open world events between them. The DRMs are instances where we spend most of the time talking to NPCs, while doing open world like stuff like smash destroyers/fight some Champions. Its the same kind of content format, just not on a new map. Its the same overall story content ratio we got in previous chapters.

Content ratio and execution, again, are two different things. Quantity is not quality. Additionally, the repeating pattern of the missions reeked of low budget, and the playtime was alot higher than the actual time it gave us story and character development.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

But again, its really not that different. If anything, Champions helped Primordus' story because GW2 has always this issue where we are told the dragons are such a huge threat, and are attacking everywhere, but dragon minions are largely contained in maps out in the middle of nowhere, and not actually doing anything against the races. Outside of the Claw Island/Order base attacks in core, and Scarlet's attack on LA in LWS1, there really hasn't been a big attacks.

But it has it's own maps, with a clear structured narrative towards the threat we are going to face. It's not about the number of attacks, it's about how the story is directed towards the threat, how many struggles have to be faced. I already said, I have my gripes with Zhaitan, but the line of direction is clearly to be seen both in personal story and the maps. And Mprdremoth got even more development through different catalysts, like Scarlet, the pact destruction and the character-struggles we observe in the events on the HoT maps.

Thats development. The stakes are clear, the consequences are shown, we can participate in many, many struggles. We didn't just get a story instance with some NPC's talking "Hurr Durr, Mordy bad, Mordy dangerous, we kill Mordy minions now and then we kill Mordy itself real quick together with another big threat."

Pre-HoT basically got the same "teaser"-content like DRM's have been. But it had so much more, like personal story, a full expansion, named character struggles, minor character struggles, sub-events and more that helped to establish the threat and getting the player invested. DRM's condensed ALL OF THIS into a few generic mission that always followed the same routine. And thats incredibly bad excecution.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

The thing you are asking for would have continued that trend. We know how Centaurs are, they are a heavily tribalistic people, with little in the way of development, living in lightly populated scattered tribal villages. Instead of having Primordus launch a huge attack on many of the world's major places... your asking for an attack confined to BFE, just so you can get a new map to play on, regardless of the impact on the world that map would have on the rest of the world. that's a much small scope.spectacile then what we got, by miles.

But we would have gotten actual development (hopefully) instead of a quick chart of notable infos player need to have to follow the basic script of the story. Because thats what we got, the script, not the full thing.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

And that isn't higher standards, thats very low standards. Just expecting to be fed the exact same non impact thing you have gotten for years, with no changes... because that is what you are used to.

I am used to better writing, because I have seen better writing and esecution in different media, be it books, games, movies or shows. Heck, even some animes (and I really do not like anime) have better writing.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

No one is saying quantity = quality besides you.

Yes, that the term i use. Because you constantly come up with rations that do not mean much, like how many maps each dragon got, how many attacks each dragon caused. So I call it out, and everyone is free to reread your old posts to see that this is the thing you did. I am not wrong in the slightest to point out that the quantity you use as an argument very often is neither the center point of anyones criticism nor the focus point of what actually made IBS feel lackluster, poorly executed and hollow.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And it isn't the developers job to constantly remind you of story beats you should already know from playing the game.

Yes, thats exactly what is their job. It's their game, their story to structure and to make appealing. I I would print a few bullet points and demanded everyone to reciognize the important story beats and overarching narrative, because hey, it's all basically there, people would laugh at me. And rightfully so.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

What you are asking for is something that is very often pointed out to be bad writing, which is having characters bring back up things they already know from earlier, and talk about them again, simply for the sake of people who may not have been paying attention. They have no reason to reestablish something they already all know, you should have been paying attention in the first place.

Again: It's the HOW that matters, not the WHAT.

9 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

 

And so I have to ask. You keep saying everything is bad, and should have been done better, but haven't offered any substantive outline on how it should have been done so it was good. Its difficult to really understand why you think its bad, or lack impact, when there is no frame of reference on to what you think things like spectacle are.

Attacks from primordus should have affected more people to begin with. Named NPC's that convey the information of how the world these attacks happen in reacts to the new threat. This increases scope and doesn't make the story development, that should affect the whole world, feel like an inbreed narrative that not many characters actually partake in. Player investment needs to be reinstated.

Then, the attacks should be a continous threat with different story steps. Instead of Primordus attacks here, do some tasks and kill destroyes and then do some tasks and then kill some destryers somewehre else, the attacks really shoult have been the first step only. Second, we needed a response from different cultures, different persons, different races, how they prepare against the new threat, what struggles await them while doing so, what this means for current society.

THEN we can talk about how to actually tackle the threat. And we also have to execute tackling his, because simply having a dialogue with Deus Ex "I can redirect light wich is like redirecting magic wich will bring the two dragons to the battlefield were you cann kill them RIGHT NOW" Aurene. Again, struggle creates tension, tension creates investment. Second half of IBS had no tension at all.

Then Jormag shouldn't have had a complete 180° from "I will not face primordus" to "lul, I know that I will lose, but I lost all my smarts, let's just go all in and hope for the best". This change in mentality was not fleshed out nearly well enough.

The final battle itself should have included much more fanfare from the different races and people that we have interacted it, because having two dragons duking it out is the biggest spectacle that has happened in GW2 so far, and we get nothing to show that the world is aware of this potentially life, or even planet-ending threat.

And last but not least, stripping down Primordus down to "brute beast" is inconsistent and cheap. The dragons have been awake way back in time, why did they never duke it out then? Why did we never get shown that those two actually hate each other guts before?

Again, this is caused by stripped down development.

The whole story ac feels forced, rushed, incomplete, lacks tension, character development and a deserved payoff, wich is incredibly hard considering there hasn't even been a well structured setup in the first place.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

5 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Attacks from primordus should have affected more people to begin with. Named NPC's that convey the information of how the world these attacks happen in reacts to the new threat. This increases scope and doesn't make the story development, that should affect the whole world, feel like an inbreed narrative that not many characters actually partake in. Player investment needs to be reinstated.

So the purpose Taimi, Braham Eirson, Caithe, Ryland Steelcatcher, Jhavi Jorasdottir, Marjory Delaqua, Kasmeer Mede, Crecia Stoneglow, Locke Stonehealer, Myrun Skialkin, Logan Thackery, Rytlock Brimstone, the Kodan Claw, Canach, Hayato, Kalidirs Sparrowhawk, Rox, Malice Sword Shadow, and Efram Greetsglory, serve in the DRMs? The DRMs include a wide range of named NPCs, with dialog regarding the situation, including Humans, Norn, Asura, Charr, Sylvari, Tengu, Kodan, and Dwarves, who all react to the attacks, and make it feel like a global scale attack. Not to mention all the various faction leaders in the Eye of the North, who weren't already mentioned above, adding onto this cast.  Its one of the most racially diverse casts the game has had in a long time.

 

We have factions from as far north as the Kodan, all the way to as south as Elonians like the Crystal Bloom(made up of a lot of Awakened/former Sunspears), and Olmakhan, as far east as the Charr, and as far west as the Exalted. We literally cover the four extremes of the known world with regards to NPCs involved in Champions.

5 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Then, the attacks should be a continous threat with different story steps. Instead of Primordus attacks here, do some tasks and kill destroyes and then do some tasks and then kill some destryers somewehre else, the attacks really shoult have been the first step only.

The attacks are a continuous threat. Hence why the DRMs are always on, and the Champions release took place over the course of months of in-game time... the attacks were portrayed as a continuous issue, and more races joined as the attacks grew in scope, and started to effect more people.

5 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Second, we needed a response from different cultures, different persons, different races, how they prepare against the new threat, what struggles await them while doing so, what this means for current society.

We did get a response from the various different races/groups. We see Humans, Charr, Norn, Asura, Tengu, Kodan, Skritt, Exalted, Dwarves, the Crystal Bloom, Sylvari, Olmakahn, Pact, and Ebon Vanguard, all join up at the Eye of the North, and partake in the DRMs.

 

And what do you mean how they prepare against the new threat, and what struggles await them, or what it means for current society? All of this already happened... years ago. Back in core, as part of the story against Zhaitan, we had the three major factions(whose membership consisted of the five major races), as well as allies to various tribes of lesser races like the Skritt, Quaggan, Ogres, Grawl, and Hylek, all come together to form the Pact, and establish a unified threat to ALL the dragons. Living World Season 2 took it further with the Dragon's Reach releases, where we got the leaders of the five major races together to officially support the Pact with their own racial forces, which continued into HoT and later. All the other races like Kodan/Tengu/etc. would need to do is be like "yo can I join!" and they would become part of that... which is exactly what happened. There would be no change in larger society that wasn't already triggered by all the major races, and many of the smaller races, coming together to fight Zhaitain years ago. The change already happened.. years ago. We wouldn't have gotten three Elder Dragons in without having all of this already settled.

5 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

THEN we can talk about how to actually tackle the threat. And we also have to execute tackling his, because simply having a dialogue with Deus Ex "I can redirect light wich is like redirecting magic wich will bring the two dragons to the battlefield were you cann kill them RIGHT NOW" Aurene. Again, struggle creates tension, tension creates investment. Second half of IBS had no tension at all.

We did this back in Living World Season 3. Jormag and Primordus are each others weaknesses, barring Taimi's machine, we kill them by getting them to attack each other. As for how THAT happens, that was what Braham did. He realized that his role as the Norn of Prophecy was to become Primordus' champion, and bring Primordus to Jormag, so they could duke it out, and kill each other.

 

You also misrepresent what happened in Champions. Aurene using his powers didn't bring them to the battlefield. Braham becoming Primordus' champion, and directing Primordus to Jormag, is what brought them to the battlefield. Aurene's use of her powers simply severed their ability to LEAVE the battlefield once there.

5 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Then Jormag shouldn't have had a complete 180° from "I will not face primordus" to "lul, I know that I will lose, but I lost all my smarts, let's just go all in and hope for the best". This change in mentality was not fleshed out nearly well enough.

The final battle itself should have included much more fanfare from the different races and people that we have interacted it, because having two dragons duking it out is the biggest spectacle that has happened in GW2 so far, and we get nothing to show that the world is aware of this potentially life, or even planet-ending threat.

This ALSO is a misrepresentation of what happened in Champions. Jormag didn't know it would lose. It attacked Primordus because it believed it could win. Again, they cover this in the DRMs, and Dragonstorm itself. Jormag took on a mortal champion(Ryland), and began freezing people over in the DRMs like Lake Doric, Snowden Drifts, and Bloodtide Coast, in order to get a power boost to gain an upper hand on Primordus. Aurene herself even states during Dragonstorm

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragonstorm

Quote

Aurene: As long as Jormag is connected to the power of a champion and the Frozen, they will keep Primordus cowed.

Jormag had the upper hand against Primordus. It was only due to Aurene severing the dragon's connection to outside magic, Braham's connection to Primrodus bringing Primordus there, and the player/armies severing the dragon's connection to their Champions, that put Jormag at a disadvantage. Jormag had every upper hand going into the battle. It wasn't a 180, unless you just ignore everything that happened.

 

And the races did know this was a possible world ending threat... hence why all of them set people to the Eye of the North, and forces to help out in the DRMs.

5 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

And last but not least, stripping down Primordus down to "brute beast" is inconsistent and cheap. The dragons have been awake way back in time, why did they never duke it out then? Why did we never get shown that those two actually hate each other guts before?

Except Primordus being a "brute beast" is neither inconsistent or cheap. That's exactly in-line with the portrayal of his minions even back in Guild Wars 1. Primordus has never shown any care for corrupting living things, or using complex tactics like Zhaitan did. The Destroyers have always just been brute force swarming.

 

Also they HAVE duked it out in the past. As previously mentioned there is even an achievement in Drizzlewood about collecting Jormag's blood that specifically mentions that the two dragons fought each other in that area in the past, which is what led to the blood being scattered as is.

 

And why would either dragon tell us this? Primordus doesn't give a kitten what mortals think about, and Jormag's been off in the far north this whole time. Destroyers and Icebrood don't speak, and Jormag isn't going to tell the Svanir its fear. The only way we could have ever learned this is from Jormag itself... which it had no reason to tell us until the conversations with Bangar after Jormag Rising... which is when it did.

5 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Again, this is caused by stripped down development.

The whole story ac feels forced, rushed, incomplete, lacks tension, character development and a deserved payoff, wich is incredibly hard considering there hasn't even been a well structured setup in the first place.

Honestly, from this entire post, it really just seems like everything I suspected. You think the story is bad because you seemingly didn't pay attention to not only what happened in IBS, but anything that happened in the game since core.

 

You ask questions about things they directly answered, you wonder about character motivations that were point blank explained, you ask for details that were already provided, you get simple plot elements wrong, and you say they should have done thins they did years ago, etc. Everything you said here just makes me think you really don't know what actually happened in the whole game.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Imba.9451]

24 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

So the purpose Taimi, Braham Eirson, Caithe, Ryland Steelcatcher, Jhavi Jorasdottir, Marjory Delaqua, Kasmeer Mede, Crecia Stoneglow, Locke Stonehealer, Myrun Skialkin, Logan Thackery, Rytlock Brimstone, the Kodan Claw, Canach, Hayato, Kalidirs Sparrowhawk, Rox, Malice Sword Shadow,  and Efram Greetsglory, serve in the DRMs? The DRMs include a wide range of named NPCs, with dialog regarding the situation, including Humans, Norn, Asura, Charr, Sylvari, Tengu, Kodan, and Dwarves, who all react to the attacks, and make it feel like a global scale attack. Not to mention all the various faction leaders in the Eye of the North, who weren't already mentioned above, adding onto this cast.  Its one of the most racially diverse casts the game has had in a long time.

And it still is secluded in the DRM's and the round table.

 

Quote

The attacks are a continuous threat. Hence why the DRMs are always on, and the Champions release took place over the course of months of in-game time... the attacks were portrayed as a continuous issue, and more races joined as the attacks grew in scope, and started to effect more people.

What do you mean how they prepare against the new threat, and what struggles await them, or what it means for current society? All of this already happened... years ago.

But not regarding to THIS new threat. Again, storythreats, I will repeat this as often as I have to. This threat was dealt with, even if temporarily, back then.

Also, My point of criticism was that this should have been the road to preparation against the Dragons. Not the entire arc compressed in DRM's.

Quote

 

Back in core, as part of the story against Zhaitan, we had the three major factions, whose membership consisted of the five major races, as well as allies to various tribes of lesser races like the Skritt, Quaggan, Ogres, Grawl, and Hylek, all come together to form the Pact, and establish a unified threat to ALL the dragons. Living World Season 2 took it further with the Dragon's Reach releases where we got the leaders of the five major races together to officially support the Pact with their own racial forces, which continued into HoT and later. All the other races like Kodan/Tengu/etc. would need to do is be like "yo can I join!" and they would become part of that... which is exactly what happened.

And all of this happened in one continous storythread. The Twin-Dragon Story was interrupted and failed to get rolling again ion IBS.

Quote

 

There would be no change in larger society that wasn't already triggered by all the major races, and many of the smaller races, coming together to fight Zhaitain years ago. The change already happened.. years ago. We wouldn't have gotten three Elder Dragons in without having all of this already settled.

Every big threat would be adressed. You said it yourself in one of your posts: Tension needs to be managed with uips and lows. We were at a low-phase regarding primordus. The story didn't go up.

Quote

We did this back in Living World Season 3. Jormag and Primordus are each others weaknesses, barring Taimi's machine, we kill them by getting them to attack each other. As for how THAT happens, that was what Braham did. He realized that his role as the Norn of Prophecy was to become Primrodus's champion, and bring Primordus to Jormag, so they could duke it out and kill each other.

As I said numerous time, and as I will say as often as I have to, this narrative section of the story was put on hold by a temporary conclusion.

Quote

 

You also misrepresent what happened in Champions. Aurene using his powers didn't bring them to the battlefield. Braham becoming Primordus' champion, and directing Primordus to Jormag, is what brought them to the battlefield. Aurene's use of her powers simply severed their ability to LEAVE the battlefield once there.

That wasn't my point at all, you completely seem to have misread that.

My point was, that DRM's happened, and then, BOOM, finale, because Aurene Ex Machina.

The DRM's could have served as a setup, a first step for a bigger story, not the WHOLE story until the finale. Because up until that point, no matter how often you bring up Ember bay, Primordus NEVER was the focus of the story.

Quote

This ALSO is a misrepresentation of what happened in Champions. Jormag didn't know it would lose. It attacked Primordus because it believed it could win.

Wich was incredibly stupid, considering Jormag was framed to be the smart one of the dragon bunch. But the development fell short, because, once again, DRM's condensed those informations WAY to much, didn't give the characters enough time to breath and forced the "plot" to go forward. Wich is my main point of criticism in all my posts.

Quote

 

Again, they cover this in the DRMs, and Dragonstorm itself. Jormag took on a mortal champion(Ryland), and began freezing people over in the DRMs like Lake Doric, Snowden Drifts, and Bloodtide Coast, in order to get a power boost to gain an upper hand on Primordus. Aurene herself even states during Dragonstorm

Again, the DRM's are condensed information dumps, akin to giving the players bullet points of the story steaps, instead of actually presenting the story with the time and scope and level of detail it would have needed in order to work.

Quote

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragonstorm

Jormag had the upper hand against Primordus, it was only due to Aurene severing the dragon's connection to outside magic, Braham's connection to Primrodus, and the player/armies severing the dragon's connection to their Champions, that put Jormag at a disadvantage. Jormag had every upper hand going into the battle.

And it was too stupid to realize that we might meddle with the fight. Smurt drugun is smurt.

Quote

Except Primordus being a "brute beast" is neither inconsistent or cheap. That's exactly in-line with the portrayal of his minions even back in Guild Wars 1. Primordus has never shown any care for corrupting living things, or using complex tactics like Zhaitan did. The Destroyers have always just been brute force swarming.

Maybe not inconsistent, but a disappointing payoff. The simple fact that Primordus managed to engage in basic militaric tactics in order to draw forces away from the ascalonian settlement also suggests that it was not mindless at all.

Quote

 

Also they HAVE duked it out in the past, as previously mentioned there is even an achievement in Drizzlewood about collecting Jormag's blood that specifically mentions that the two dragons fought each other in that area in the past, which is what led to the blood being scattered as is.

You fail to read my argumoent properly. I meant, when they were AWAKE in the PAST, during the times of Jotun, Mursaat, whatever.

Quote

 

And why would either dragon tell us this? Primordus doesn't give a kitten what mortals think about, and Jormag's been off in the far north this whole time. Destroyers and Icebrood don't speak, and Jormag isn't going to tell the Svanir its fear. The only way we oculd have ever learned this is from Jormag itself... which it had no reason to tell us until the conversations with Bangar after Jormag Rising... which is when it did.

When stuff happens on a global scale, someone will notice it, thats how information gets taken down the history road. Like the information, that dragon were awake before, for example.

Quote

Honestly, from this entire post, it really just seems like everything I suspected. You think the story is bad because you seemingly didn't pay attention to not only what happened in IBS, but anything that happened in the game since core.

Only if you fail to read my arguments properly or willfully misrepresent what I said. Or if you start to ignore more and more about my arguments, the longer this conversation keeps going, wich is evident in this thread.

Quote

 

You ask questions about things they directly answered, you wonder about character motivations that were point blank explained, you ask for details that were already provided, and you get simple plot elements wrong, etc. Everything you said here just makes me think you really don't know what actually happened.

Oh, believe me, I know. Sometimes I may be wrong about certain small things, but everytime this happened, it never clashed with my main argument about execution of story, character development, management of tension and player investment, aside from giving you the opportunity to create a strawman like this.

I said this before, and I say it again: Stop refraining from strawmanning if you want to discuss things. I am more than willing to discuss this topic in a respectul manner, so I expect you to have the intellectual integrity to do the same.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Imba.9451

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

And it still is secluded in the DRM's and the round table.

Just like every other dragon story has been secluded in the maps/releases it was originally part of, with maps from core/expansions suffering no significant changes outside of them adding some vines to a few places for Mordremoth. Its almost like GW2 is an MMO, and you can't just dynamically change all the NPCs in the game to reflect every development. Same reason why Charr back in core don't mention the Charr civil war in Drizzlewood. Had Champions not happened it was have been secluded in the Centaur Homelands, and Anvil Rock instead. Just like it was for Mordremoth in the Maguuma, and Kralkatorrik in Elona.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

But not regarding to THIS new threat. Again, storythreats, I will repeat this as often as I have to. This threat was dealt with, even if temporarily, back then.

Also, My point of criticism was that this should have been the road to preparation against the Dragons. Not the entire arc compressed in DRM's.

And again, the Pact was formed to fight ALL the Elder Dragons from the get go. This isn't a NEW threat, its the SAME threat they already organized the face back in core. The argument that they needed another perpetration arc against Jormag and Primordus makes no sense because they already did the prep work back in core to build an organized response to ALL the Elder Dragons. The only work that needs to be done is finding out each dragon's weakness, and how to exploit it. Which we did for both these dragons back in LWS3. Just like we did the Mordy back in HoT, and Kralkatorrik in PoF/LWS4. We don't need to reform the Pact for every single Dragon, the Pact as is already exists. Which is why we didn't for Mordremoth or Kralk either.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

And all of this happened in one continous storythread. The Twin-Dragon Story was interrupted and failed to get rolling again ion IBS.

What was there left to get rolling? We had covered the Primordus stuff back in LWS3, and by the time Jormag Rising ended we had finished off the Jormag stuff. There was nothing to get rolling beyond having Braham realize the last thing he needs to do, and getting the two dragons to duke it out.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Every big threat would be adressed. You said it yourself in one of your posts: Tension needs to be managed with uips and lows. We were at a low-phase regarding primordus. The story didn't go up.

The threat was addressed with the formation of the Pact back in core, the addition of of the major race's individual forces in LWS2, and the minor races pitching in during Champions.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

As I said numerous time, and as I will say as often as I have to, this narrative section of the story was put on hold by a temporary conclusion.

Except it wasn't because Braham's path to becoming the Norn of Prophecy, so he could take the role of Primordus' champion was a big story beat in both Bjora, Drizzlewood, and the DRMs, in IBS.

• Braham getting his talk from Wolf, having to gain the favor of the corrupted spirits, finally awakening his totem power, and defeating a Champion of Jormag with the spirit's power, in Borja.
• Braham having to gain the favor of the lesser spirits to get into the temple in Drizzlewood.
• Braham developing his Destroyer sense power, getting advice on his role in the prophecy from Myrun in Thunderhead, and getting the last bit from a cryptic statement by Owl in Snowden.

Braham's path to becoming the Norn of Prophecy so he take the role of Primordus's champion, and lead Primordus to Jormag for their final duel, was a massive part of the story throughout the entirety of IBS. saying it was put on hold after LWS3, and not brought up again until the very end, is just demonstrably wrong.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

That wasn't my point at all, you completely seem to have misread that.

My point was, that DRM's happened, and then, BOOM, finale, because Aurene Ex Machina.

The DRM's could have served as a setup, a first step for a bigger story, not the WHOLE story until the finale. Because up until that point, no matter how often you bring up Ember bay, Primordus NEVER was the focus of the story.

And again, it didn't happen because of Aurene, it happened because of a years long story involving Braham going back to LWS3, that also played a rolling part in IBS from Bound by Blood when he got his bow stolen. Trying to pin it on Aurene is nothign short of pure misrepresentation, seemingly out of personal bias against Aurene.

 

And, no matter how often you try to say otherwise, Primordus was the focus of the story in Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, and the first two DRM releases, as much as Mordrmeoth was in Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths, Kralk was in Vabbi, Jahai, and Thudnerhead, and as much as Jormag was in Bitterfrost, Bjora, and Drizzlewood.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Wich was incredibly stupid, considering Jormag was framed to be the smart one of the dragon bunch. But the development fell short, because, once again, DRM's condensed those informations WAY to much, didn't give the characters enough time to breath and forced the "plot" to go forward. Wich is my main point of criticism in all my posts.

 

And it was too stupid to realize that we might meddle with the fight. Smurt drugun is smurt.

Yes, its stupid that Jormag partook in a fight it had every reason to believe it could win, and had no way of knowing of Aurene's ability to cut it off from its outside magic? your argument here is that Jormag is stupid for not knowing things it had no reason to know... which isn't how stupid works. And who said it didn't think we would interfere? It knowing we would interfere doesn't mean Jormag had any reason to believe Aurene could do what she did, especially when Aurene herself wasn't 100% sure, and it was just a last minute desperate gamble.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Again, the DRM's are condensed information dumps, akin to giving the players bullet points of the story steaps, instead of actually presenting the story with the time and scope and level of detail it would have needed in order to work.

Except they aren't. Again, most IBS chapters are only about an hour long, with a good half of that being doing open world events like listening to NPCs talk. The Champions DRMs provide the same thing, just in instanced reuses of old maps, instead of on a new map. You can even look at the Champions releases, and see exactly how the original chapters would have gone

 

--After Jormag Rising we would get the "Confer with Bangar" talks, and the earthquakes, as a prelude to Primordus' awakening.

 

--Chapter 5 would begin with us going to the Eye to talk to Aurene, getting called to Rata Sum, Ryland showing up and offering a truce, Rata Sum being attacked, and Braham sensing Destroyers for the first time. Instead of the DRMs we go to the first half of the Centaur homelands. The information would we have gotten from the DRMs..

----From Metrica: Taimi doing research on the Destroyers, finding out they are all linked, and get more powerful as they burn. As well as wondering about their rather nonsensical tactics. Braham continuing to sense Destroyers for reasons he doesn't understand. Taimi and Braham having their argument over the Asua allying with Jormag, to show the difference in perspective on the issue from Norn and Asura viewpoints.

----From Brisban: Caithe showing up with the Crystal Blood to help out the Centaurs defend against the Destroyers. Ryland and his Frost Legion showing up to make good on the truce. Ryland and Caithe arguing over their respective dragon's actions, or inaction, to juxtapose the difference between Aurane and Jormag. the Commander being disappointed that Aurene isn't helping out more.

----From Gendarra: Jhavi and Marj showing up with the Pact/Vigil to help against the Destroyers. The Destroyer threat being presented as being so large that its impossible to cover everything, and realists like Jhavi being ok with it, while hopefuls like Marjory aren't and try to defend everyone. Building on Taimi;'s previous comments, we discover Primordus isn't attacking for soleyl tactical reasons, instead its trying to burn anything it can to get more powerful.

 

--Chapter 6 would be the second part of the Centaur Homelands/Primordus attack.

----From Thunderhead Keep we would get Braham continuing to sense Destroyers, wondering about his role in the Prophecy, and getting advice from someone like Myrun.

----From Ebonhawke we would get more political stuff between the Centaurs and other races. Much like Ebonhawke was about human reluctance to help the Charr due to past bad blood, this story would have covered the Centaurs being in the same position.

----From the mid release instance in Rata Sum, as well as Lake Doric, and Snowden, Taimi would present the evidence she gathered about the Destroyers last chapter, with Ryland to try the same for Jormag, leading to the Frozen. We chase Ryland down while hes hunting Owl, Owl dies, and givens Braham the final clue he needs. Chapter ends with a fight against Ryland who runs away.

 

---Either at the end of Chapter 6, or the beginning of Chapter 7, Braham goes off into the volcano to awaken Primordus, and become its champion, as we see in the Wildfire story instance.

 

--Chapter 7 would start off the Anvil Rock "Dragonstorm" map. Much like Arah story mode, Dragon's Stand, and Dragonfall, this would be a very story lite map, since we have already done everything we need to fight the dragons at this point. It would mostly be meta focused with an "our powers combined" feel with the Pact, Crystal Bloom, United Legions, Centaurs, and possibly Kodan and Drizzlewood Tengu, showing up to help in the fight. Much like the factions did in the DRMs as is. If I had to guess, whatever little story this would have had would probably involve stopping the Dragons from sucking down the ley lines in the Anvil Rock area, which would also be the focus of the meta, and would end with Braham showing up struggling against Primordus' will, ending with a boss fight much like how Champions part 3 ended. This would serve as a parallel to the Ryland boss fight in the last chapter, and give players a chance to fight both one on one before the final fight where we fight both.

 

--Chapter 8 would have been the "Dragonstorm" encounter we have now. After seeing how far Braham is willing to go, and the toll its put on him, Aurene finally gets off her kitten, and uses her prism powers to cut the dragons off from outside magics, trapping them there. Probably leading to the exact same fight we got now. Honestly, you could tell me that the Dragonstorm encounter we have now was the orignal boss fight they had planned, and I would believe it. Its on the same scale/scope as the Mouth of Mordrmeoth fight was in HoT.

 

There is no greater scope that was lost. It would have been 4 more releases, with the same amount of storyline content, as we got now... just on a new map instead of the DRMs. And isntead of as many smaller factions as we got, there would have likely been a greater focus on the centaurs instead.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Maybe not inconsistent, but a disappointing payoff. The simple fact that Primordus managed to engage in basic militaric tactics in order to draw forces away from the ascalonian settlement also suggests that it was not mindless at all.

Animals like wolves are able to use basic lure strategies. Doesn't make them intelligent in the way people normally use the word.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

You fail to read my argumoent properly. I meant, when they were AWAKE in the PAST, during the times of Jotun, Mursaat, whatever.

 

When stuff happens on a global scale, someone will notice it, thats how information gets taken down the history road. Like the information, that dragon were awake before, for example.

The last time the dragons awoke was over 10,000 years ago. The races who stood against them failed, almost entirely got wiped out, and even the Dwarves, the race most intact by the time of GW1, knew so little about the dragons that they were mostly just legends. Also, while we don't see it in-game, we know from lore, and statements from Anet, that all the dragons will attack each other if given the chance, and that Elder Dragon minions fight each other if they come into contact. Even if the Elder Races did see it,  dragons fighting dragons is something that simply would have happened. It wouldn't have been out of the ordinary near the end.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Only if you fail to read my arguments properly or willfully misrepresent what I said. Or if you start to ignore more and more about my arguments, the longer this conversation keeps going, wich is evident in this thread.

Failure to read your arguments propoerly is just as much on your for not being clear enough on them that I got the wrong idea. Nor have I ignored more about them, they just honestly don't make any sense to me.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Oh, believe me, I know. Sometimes I may be wrong about certain small things, but everytime this happened, it never clashed with my main argument about execution of story, character development, management of tension and player investment, aside from giving you the opportunity to create a strawman like this.

I said this before, and I say it again: Stop refraining from strawmanning if you want to discuss things. I am more than willing to discuss this topic in a respectul manner, so I expect you to have the intellectual integrity to do the same.

It wasn't meant to be a strawman, it just honestly seemed like you haven't paid attention because most of what you ask for, or question was something either already done, often before Champions, and thus before any claims of being cut down, or something that was just answered very plainly as is.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Imba.9451]

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Just like every other dragon story has been secluded in the maps/releases it was originally part of, with maps from core/expansions suffering no significant changes outside of them adding some vines to a few places for Mordremoth. Its almost like GW2 is an MMO, and you can't just dynamically change all the NPCs in the game to reflect every development. Same reason why Charr back in core don't mention the Charr civil war in Drizzlewood. Had Champions not happened it was have been secluded in the Centaur Homelands, and Anvil Rock instead. Just like it was for Mordremoth in the Maguuma, and Kralkatorrik in Elona.

I explained how Mordremoth was one big storythread several posts ago. You can continue to disregard this, but it's evidently there to read up, and so far you have not adressed this properly. And Kralkatorrik was present as a secondary threat in PoF, thus the player was aware of it and didn't "just awaken".

It's far from the same, and many people notice this, because is plain and obvious.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And again, the Pact was formed to fight ALL the Elder Dragons from the get go. This isn't a NEW threat, its the SAME threat they already organized the face back in core. The argument that they needed another perpetration arc against Jormag and Primordus makes no sense because they already did the prep work back in core to build an organized response to ALL the Elder Dragons. The only work that needs to be done is finding out each dragon's weakness, and how to exploit it. Which we did for both these dragons back in LWS3. Just like we did the Mordy back in HoT, and Kralkatorrik in PoF/LWS4. We don't need to reform the Pact for every single Dragon, the Pact as is already exists. Which is why we didn't for Mordremoth or Kralk either.

Because, like I just said, their storythread wasn't interrupted. Primordus and Jormag was, by them being put to sleep. You may ignore this very simple fact, but again, many people feel exactly like me for the reasons I brought up. Wich in itself is an indicator that the execution of the story didn't work. Simply attacking them with "You seem to not have payed attention" or "You simply didn't get it" or "Thats not how storytelling works" will not change this, because storytelling works, when it works, and when people like it. This isn't the fact here, hence the storytelling did not work. One of the rare instances in wich argumentum at populum actually holds merit.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

What was there left to get rolling? We had covered the Primordus stuff back in LWS3, and by the time Jormag Rising ended we had finished off the Jormag stuff. There was nothing to get rolling beyond having Braham realize the last thing he needs to do, and getting the two dragons to duke it out.

 

Again: Interrupted storythread. It seems like this is the single thing you refuse to take into consideration as a reason why the story didn't get players invested. And no matter what you say about these players, it did not click for most people.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The threat was addressed with the formation of the Pact back in core, the addition of of the major race's individual forces in LWS2, and the minor races pitching in during Champions.

 

Yep. The direct threat of Zhaitan. And then the pact got repurposed after they learned that Mordy is a threat. One step at a time, with one focus at a time.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Except it wasn't because Braham's path to becoming the Norn of Prophecy, so he could take the role of Primordus' champion was a big story beat in both Bjora, Drizzlewood, and the DRMs, in IBS.

Except this is just ONE storybeat, that didn't accelerate Jormags or Primordus character arc.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Braham getting his talk from Wolf, having to gain the favor of the corrupted spirits, finally awakening his totem power, and defeating a Champion of Jormag with the spirit's power, in Borja.
• Braham having to gain the favor of the lesser spirits to get into the temple in Drizzlewood.
• Braham developing his Destroyer sense power, getting advice on his role in the prophecy from Myrun in Thunderhead, and getting the last bit from a cryptic statement by Owl in Snowden.

Braham's path to becoming the Norn of Prophecy so he take the role of Primordus's champion, and lead Primordus to Jormag for their final duel, was a massive part of the story throughout the entirety of IBS. saying it was put on hold after LWS3, and not brought up again until the very end, is just demonstrably wrong.

And again, it didn't happen because of Aurene, it happened because of a years long story involving Braham going back to LWS3, that also played a rolling part in IBS from Bound by Blood when he got his bow stolen. Trying to pin it on Aurene is nothign short of pure misrepresentation, seemingly out of personal bias against Aurene.

My "bias" against Aurene is another misrepresentation of my original argument. I said that IBS basically served as a prologue and setup for the new threat of Primordus and Jormag, and that all we got after that was the instant finale, because of Aurene.

This is another strawman.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

And, no matter how often you try to say otherwise, Primordus was the focus of the story in Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, and the first two DRM releases,

And that was before that storythreat was put on hold. If you stop a car and decide to get it rolling again, it won't start with the same speed it had before slowing down. It's basically the same with tension in storytelling, wich is why the story simply did not work for most people.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

as much as Mordrmeoth was in Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths, Kralk was in Vabbi, Jahai, and Thudnerhead, and as much as Jormag was in Bitterfrost, Bjora, and Drizzlewood.

Reducing Dragons on the number of maps is, once again, quantity. Wich doesn't say anything about the quality.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Yes, its stupid that Jormag partook in a fight it had every reason to believe it could win, and had no way of knowing of Aurene's ability to cut it off from its outside magic? your argument here is that Jormag is stupid for not knowing things it had no reason to know... which isn't how stupid works. And who said it didn't think we would interfere? It knowing we would interfere doesn't mean Jormag had any reason to believe Aurene could do what she did, especially when Aurene herself wasn't 100% sure, and it was just a last minute desperate gamble.

Wich further supports my Aurene Ex Machina argument. But that isn't even the main point.

The road up to Jormag being confident that it could take down primordus was short, bumpy and barely functional, hence the finale felt rushed and unsatisfying for most people.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Except they aren't. Again, most IBS chapters are only about an hour long, with a good half of that being doing open world events like listening to NPCs talk. The Champions DRMs provide the same thing, just in instanced reuses of old maps, instead of on a new map. You can even look at the Champions releases, and see exactly how the original chapters would have gone

Except it isn't the same. A whole map provides ambience, NPC dialogues that give the player a good taste of worldbuilding and something tangible that actually happens there. DRM's simply gave us stuff to hit and a few dialogues wich were simply information dumps and plot-accelerators. Thats not how to progress story in an engaging way.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

--After Jormag Rising we would get the "Confer with Bangar" talks, and the earthquakes, as a prelude to Primordus' awakening.

I adressed this already. Unless you have something new to say, stop bringing it up if you have nothing new to add.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

--Chapter 5 would begin with us going to the Eye to talk to Aurene, getting called to Rata Sum, Ryland showing up and offering a truce, Rata Sum being attacked, and Braham sensing Destroyers for the first time. Instead of the DRMs we go to the first half of the Centaur homelands. The information would we have gotten from the DRMs..

Yep. Again, execution matters. And DRM's have been terrible, condensed information dumps.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

----From Metrica: Taimi doing research on the Destroyers, finding out they are all linked, and get more powerful as they burn. As well as wondering about their rather nonsensical tactics. Braham continuing to sense Destroyers for reasons he doesn't understand. Taimi and Braham having their argument over the Asua allying with Jormag, to show the difference in perspective on the issue from Norn and Asura viewpoints.

----From Brisban: Caithe showing up with the Crystal Blood to help out the Centaurs defend against the Destroyers. Ryland and his Frost Legion showing up to make good on the truce. Ryland and Caithe arguing over their respective dragon's actions, or inaction, to juxtapose the difference between Aurane and Jormag. the Commander being disappointed that Aurene isn't helping out more.

----From Gendarra: Jhavi and Marj showing up with the Pact/Vigil to help against the Destroyers. The Destroyer threat being presented as being so large that its impossible to cover everything, and realists like Jhavi being ok with it, while hopefuls like Marjory aren't and try to defend everyone. Building on Taimi;'s previous comments, we discover Primordus isn't attacking for soleyl tactical reasons, instead its trying to burn anything it can to get more powerful.

 

--Chapter 6 would be the second part of the Centaur Homelands/Primordus attack.

----From Thunderhead Keep we would get Braham continuing to sense Destroyers, wondering about his role in the Prophecy, and getting advice from someone like Myrun.

----From Ebonhawke we would get more political stuff between the Centaurs and other races. Much like Ebonhawke was about human reluctance to help the Charr due to past bad blood, this story would have covered the Centaurs being in the same position.

----From the mid release instance in Rata Sum, as well as Lake Doric, and Snowden, Taimi would present the evidence she gathered about the Destroyers last chapter, with Ryland to try the same for Jormag, leading to the Frozen. We chase Ryland down while hes hunting Owl, Owl dies, and givens Braham the final clue he needs. Chapter ends with a fight against Ryland who runs away.

 

---Either at the end of Chapter 6, or the beginning of Chapter 7, Braham goes off into the volcano to awaken Primordus, and become its champion, as we see in the Wildfire story instance.

 

--Chapter 7 would start off the Anvil Rock "Dragonstorm" map. Much like Arah story mode, Dragon's Stand, and Dragonfall, this would be a very story lite map, since we have already done everything we need to fight the dragons at this point. It would mostly be meta focused with an "our powers combined" feel with the Pact, Crystal Bloom, United Legions, Centaurs, and possibly Kodan and Drizzlewood Tengu, showing up to help in the fight. Much like the factions did in the DRMs as is. If I had to guess, whatever little story this would have had would probably involve stopping the Dragons from sucking down the ley lines in the Anvil Rock area, which would also be the focus of the meta, and would end with Braham showing up struggling against Primordus' will, ending with a boss fight much like how Champions part 3 ended. This would serve as a parallel to the Ryland boss fight in the last chapter, and give players a chance to fight both one on one before the final fight where we fight both.

 

--Chapter 8 would have been the "Dragonstorm" encounter we have now. After seeing how far Braham is willing to go, and the toll its put on him, Aurene finally gets off her kitten, and uses her prism powers to cut the dragons off from outside magics, trapping them there. Probably leading to the exact same fight we got now. Honestly, you could tell me that the Dragonstorm encounter we have now was the orignal boss fight they had planned, and I would believe it. Its on the same scale/scope as the Mouth of Mordrmeoth fight was in HoT.

Bulletpoints that make sense when written do not make an engaging final product. And the final product condensed all this information in a very lackluster way, as many people have pointed out. And as I did. Several times.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

There is no greater scope that was lost. It would have been 4 more releases, with the same amount of storyline content, as we got now... just on a new map instead of the DRMs. And isntead of as many smaller factions as we got, there would have likely been a greater focus on the centaurs instead.

The greater scope that got lost was showing us worldwide implications in greater detail, instead of dumping it on us withing the timespan of a few minutes of dialogue for the main characters. As I explained already.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Animals like wolves are able to use basic lure strategies. Doesn't make them intelligent in the way people normally use the word.

We had this discussion way back already. I highly disagree with the notion, that Primordus was just that, an animal, because it was never the focus of the main story, thus never fleshed out, wich now feels like a cheap cop-out to call the lack of characterisation "character development".

Before we had information about Mordy, we also could have assumed that he is a simple beast with plant powers. But then character development kicks in and we know more. This step was missing with primordus, and this missing step is now sold to us as a feature. Obviously players are upset by this.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The last time the dragons awoke was over 10,000 years ago. The races who stood against them failed, almost entirely got wiped out, and even the Dwarves, the race most intact by the time of GW1, knew so little about the dragons that they were mostly just legends.

And yet, there are still legends and lore considering this time. Information accesible to the characters and the player. But nowhere is it mentioned that Primordus and Jormag hate each others guts, or that they have duked it out before.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Also, while we don't see it in-game, we know from lore, and statements from Anet, that all the dragons will attack each other if given the chance, and that Elder Dragon minions fight each other if they come into contact. Even if the Elder Races did see it,  dragons fighting dragons is something that simply would have happened. It wouldn't have been out of the ordinary near the end.

Jormag being persuasive surely isn't a character trait it developed recently. It probably did it back then as well. And there are no records. And even if stuff happens sometimes, something cataclysmic like two dragons duking it out isn't something to shrug of.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Failure to read your arguments propoerly is just as much on your for not being clear enough on them that I got the wrong idea. Nor have I ignored more about them, they just honestly don't make any sense to me.

I made three things clear multible times by now:

1. When I was plain wrong about something. Thats something to admit like an adult. Wich I did. It never touched my main points of criticism though.

2. When I misphrased something. English is not my first language, and despite considering myself pretty capable of communicating in english on more than a basic level, it is something I take responsibility for and try to make clear afterwards. As I did multible times as well.

3. That some of my arguments have simply been misinterpreted by you, because I could not find a factual or expressive flaw in them. So either my english is so incredibly off, that I simply do not see it (wich I doubt), or you misread misinterpreted it. Wich happens. Thats something to take responsibility for as well, in order to move on.

51 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

It wasn't meant to be a strawman, it just honestly seemed like you haven't paid attention because most of what you ask for, or question was something either already done, often before Champions, and thus before any claims of being cut down, or something that was just answered very plainly as is.

Even if that were true, and I knew nothing about IBS, the main argument, that DRM's are terribly condensed information dumps, would be entirely unaffected by this. But it is not true, I know the story, I dissected it into basic storytelling mechanics and narrative stages and how those stages are ideally being connected to cause a satisfying experience for the customer. Wich I still have not heard any tangible counter arguments against besides "Thats not how storytellinge works!" or "But ember bay and draconis mons!".

Maybe you like the story, that is presented in bullet points ingame. It doesnt take away that people expect more though, and that many people have higher standards.

[Poormany.4507]

22 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Are we playing the same Draconis Mons? Destroyers were all over DM. Hell, the meta for the map is even about Destroyer fissures opening up all over the map, Destroyers spewing out from them across the map, us having to fight them back, eventually leading to a dual boss fight with two Destroyer champions on islands in the boiling sea.

 

I don't recall any npcs in Draconis Mons mentioning the destroyers or Primordus, or even helping to fight them in the events. These just felt like easily missed and forgettable events that I'm guessing a large portion of players never did.

 

22 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The last two Champions releases took the place of the larger Dragonstorm meta akin to Dragon's stand/Dragonfall. Here we see a lore more vet/elite/normal "champion" tier enemies on both sides, akin to the first stage of the Dragon's Stand/Dragonfall map. The Dragonstorm instance itself is the same sort of scale.fight we saw at the finale of those maps, with the Mouth of Mordremoth fight for Mrody, and fighting the Hydra/Riftstalker/Wrathbringer, and crawling on Kralk's back.

 

20 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And so I have to ask. You keep saying everything is bad, and should have been done better, but haven't offered any substantive outline on how it should have been done so it was good. Its difficult to really understand why you think its bad, or lack impact, when there is no frame of reference on to what you think things like spectacle are.

I would have ideally preferred if they pushed back the whole timeline a few months to a year and developed the initial two planned world maps, if not adding another episode primarily focused on fighting only Primordus in a depths type map. At that rate we would likely just now be finishing the Saga and getting into the Return to LW/ Marionette/other events in between EoD. Obviously this was all made impossible because Anet was "gifted" (read forced) to come up with EoD as quickly as possible. I do think they did the best they could with Champions under the circumstances + Covid, but it just didn't feel like the usual GW2 quality as a result.

 

I feel like further developing the last few episodes would have given much more world building and setup for the final confrontation, which currently seems to come out of nowhere. (Some Asura councilor most people have never heard of comes up with the idea to use Ley lines to pit Jormag and Primordus against each other - Why couldn't we have done that after episode 1 or 2 of the Saga? Aurene had the ability to manipulate Ley lines back then.) It just felt like a last second addition just to get to the confrontation quickly at the end.

 

The actual final confrontation itself is inexplicably missing all of the allied leaders we spent months gathering, a lot of allies are missing, and it was missing the Stone Summit who Primordus clearly had under his control just 2 episodes earlier. It just felt like it had so many more opportunities, even small ones, to improve on that were foregone because of lack of resources/staff.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Again: Interrupted storythread. It seems like this is the single thing you refuse to take into consideration as a reason why the story didn't get players invested. And no matter what you say about these players, it did not click for most people.

Your first three points are basically this repeated, so I'm going to address them all with this.

1. The story being interrupted doesn't matter, not here, or in any other plot. So long as the narrative clearly established the threat of the enemy, which GW2 did for all the Elder Dragons back in core, and Primordus especially in LWS3, and establishes that the treat is not totally gone, only delayed, a sudden reappearance of said threat in a big way, such as a large scale invasion, is a perfectly valid narrative move to make. One does not have to go through the whole process building the threat up again simply because some people may have forgotten it. Good narratives don't do things for the sake of the consumers memory, they do things because they are logical actions within the setting. There wouldn't be a build up of Primordus again because Primordus was already built up, in universe, earlier. His forces were just on standby. All he needed was the signal to wake up again, which he got from Jormag's awakening, and then he could just resume right where he left off. Which was sending his minions to the surface, and is what he did in Champions. If Guild Wars 2 was a 600 episode TV series, and the put Primordus to sleep at 200 episodes in, and didn't wake him up for another 200 episodes, that you forgot it was a threat isn't their fault. Its your fault for not keeping it in the back of your mind, after they clearly set up that you should.

2. Argumentum at populum never hods merit. Nor does any logical fallacy, hence why they are fallacies. All one has to do is look at all the now famous books, movies, TV shows, games, music, that was hated in its time, and only recognized great later, to see why just because a lot of people hate something, never means its actually bad. This is just trying to squash any sort of dissent by saying anyone not in majority is wrong.

3. You have no idea what the actual community thought of it. You know what the forums through of it, but the forums don't represent the community as a whole. All one has to do is look at how often the forums prop up things like dungeons, fractals, strikes, and raids, are content people want... when the reason all these content types stopped getting development was because the vast majority of the playerbase didn't like them, and thus, didn't play them. Even if Argumentum at populum had merit(it doesn't) you couldn't accurately claim to have to the data to say what the playerbase actually thought of it. Again, this is just trying to squash any sort of dissent by playing the "majority" card... except you can't actually claim the majority in this case.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Yep. The direct threat of Zhaitan. And then the pact got repurposed after they learned that Mordy is a threat. One step at a time, with one focus at a time.

This is incorrect. Even back in core it was stated that the Pact was made to fight all the Elder Dragons, not just Zhaitan, which is why we see Pact forces establishing bases in places like Mount Maelstrom, and Frostgorge, to fight Primordus, and Jormag's minions. Zhaitan was never the only Elder Dragon they intended to fight, nor did they ever fight just Zhaitan and its forces either.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Except this is just ONE storybeat, that didn't accelerate Jormags or Primordus character arc.

That is what Bjora, Drizzlewood, and the DRMs were for. To accelerate Jormag and Primordus' arcs.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

My "bias" against Aurene is another misrepresentation of my original argument. I said that IBS basically served as a prologue and setup for the new threat of Primordus and Jormag, and that all we got after that was the instant finale, because of Aurene.

Except IBS wasn't a prologue, or set up, for a new threat of Primordus and Jormag, because the threat never went away. The prologue was the core game, and the forces we encounter in places like Frostgorge, or Mount Maelstrom. The setup for the threat of Primordus and Jormag was Living World Season 3. IBS was just a resolution of that. And Bjora, Drizzlewood, and the DRMs/Dragonstorm which replaced the likely Centaur Homelands/Anvil Rock maps was that.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

And that was before that storythreat was put on hold. If you stop a car and decide to get it rolling again, it won't start with the same speed it had before slowing down. It's basically the same with tension in storytelling, wich is why the story simply did not work for most people.

And that was the point of the DRMs, to get it rolling again. Hence the large scale, continent wide, invasion by Primordus and Jormag before the ending of Dragonstorm. The problem with this argument is that you keep acting like Champions was all one big release, where everything just ended, but it wasn't. It was 6 months of worldwide war/invasion by the dragons... with only part 4 actually being the real end. Just like we would have gotten 6 months of invasion of the Centaur Homelands, and part of Anvil Rock, before the end in the original plot.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Reducing Dragons on the number of maps is, once again, quantity. Wich doesn't say anything about the quality.

And again, they got the same amount of focus on all these maps, as point out previously. Stop trying to strawman me with quantity argument, when you know that isn't the argument being made.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Wich further supports my Aurene Ex Machina argument. But that isn't even the main point.

Except that isn't support of an Aurene Ex Machina, because it was established back in Living World Season 3, by Taimi, that magic is like light, and pure magic is like white light, with each dragon magic being a different color. Living World Season 4 further establishes that the magics don't conflict within Aurene, and she is able to manipulate them, hence her lack of torment like Kralktorrik. Thus meaning it isn't a Deus Ex Machina by definition.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

The road up to Jormag being confident that it could take down primordus was short, bumpy and barely functional, hence the finale felt rushed and unsatisfying for most people.

The road up to Jormag being confident it could take down Primordus was literally everything from Bound by Blood, to Jormag Rising. It was over a year of storytelling, which is the exact opposite of short, bumpy, or barely functional. His manipulation of Bangar, the Whispers across Bjora, the creation of the Frost Legion, his attempts to corrupt the Spirits of the Wild, and taking Ryland as a champion in Drizzlewood, all of it was to create its confidence in being able to take down Primordus.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Except it isn't the same. A whole map provides ambience, NPC dialogues that give the player a good taste of worldbuilding and something tangible that actually happens there. DRM's simply gave us stuff to hit and a few dialogues wich were simply information dumps and plot-accelerators. Thats not how to progress story in an engaging way.

The ambient NPC dialog never contributes to world building outside of things already established in the story like "the Charr are split on the war". Anet does this because they know most people don't hear/pay attention to the ambient dialog, so nothing really important is ever put there. And the "tangible" action in maps in events... which are based around going around and hitting dragon minions while they attack things... which is what the DRMs provided.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

I adressed this already. Unless you have something new to say, stop bringing it up if you have nothing new to add.

And you did so poorly, in a way that doesn't negate it.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Yep. Again, execution matters. And DRM's have been terrible, condensed information dumps.

 

Bulletpoints that make sense when written do not make an engaging final product. And the final product condensed all this information in a very lackluster way, as many people have pointed out. And as I did. Several times.

By what measure? The things we do in DRMs is no different then the things we do in maps like Dragonfall, or Dragon's Stand. And the dialog is presented in the same way we get it in story missions.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

The greater scope that got lost was showing us worldwide implications in greater detail, instead of dumping it on us withing the timespan of a few minutes of dialogue for the main characters. As I explained already.

THERE WAS NEVER ANY GREATER WORLDWIDE IMPLICATIONS going to be in IBS That stuff was already covered back in core, and LWS2.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

We had this discussion way back already. I highly disagree with the notion, that Primordus was just that, an animal, because it was never the focus of the main story, thus never fleshed out, wich now feels like a cheap cop-out to call the lack of characterisation "character development".

Before we had information about Mordy, we also could have assumed that he is a simple beast with plant powers. But then character development kicks in and we know more. This step was missing with primordus, and this missing step is now sold to us as a feature. Obviously players are upset by this.

It was the focus of Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, and the DRMs. It got fleshed out there. And uhh. no? So no, it wasn't skipped, nor was the non existent skip sold as a feature. All the dragons are different.

--Zhaitan was the most tactical thinking/acting one. Its scouts in LA, the attack on Claw Island, the attacks on the Order bases, the general set up of his minions in general, including the use of Eyes as quasi general/horde controller, all show a higher level of tactical thinking/acting then we saw from the other Dragons.

--Mordremoth was the mental dominator. It used its mind powers to crush the Sylvari under its heel, forcing them to follow it.

--Kralkatorrik was the tormented. Aged, and wracked with pain, his lashing out was the result of pain.

--Jormag was the persuader. Another mental dragon, but unlike Mordremoth who crushed thing behind it, Jormag told you everything you wanted to hear until you chose to follow it.

--Primordus was the beast. Working on pure rage, and bestial instinct, Primordus attacked on pure hunger, fury, and hatred. It cared nothing for the world, or the people on it, beyond their ability to feed it.

All of the Elder Dragons were different, that's what makes them good. One of them makes sense to be "the beast" archetype, and Primordus has been set up to be that since core with how little its shown to use tactics, or care for corrupting the living.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

And yet, there are still legends and lore considering this time. Information accesible to the characters and the player. But nowhere is it mentioned that Primordus and Jormag hate each others guts, or that they have duked it out before.

 

Jormag being persuasive surely isn't a character trait it developed recently. It probably did it back then as well. And there are no records. And even if stuff happens sometimes, something cataclysmic like two dragons duking it out isn't something to shrug of.

Again, it was 10,000 years ago, before most modern races were alive, and those that are don't remember jack because its been 10,000 years. No real world civilization has lasted 10,000 years, much less provided extensive records. And, again, any Elder dragon would duke it out if they came into contact, that isn't special to Jormag and Primordus. Everyone knows the Elder Dragons hate each other, that isn't note worthy.

 

And yes, Jormag was likely persuasive in the past. But you forget, the past was nothing like today. At no point in the Elder Dragon's eons of existance has any race, or any alliance of races, taken down an Elder Dragon that we know of. As well, no child of an Elder Dragon has ever been freed like Glint was, or enacted a 10,000 year old mega plan to take down the Elder Dragons like Glint did, nor has a Dragon scion like Aurene, bonded to a mortal, ever existed, much less rose to the ranks of the Elder Dragons. Jormag only does everything it does in IBS, and tell us what it does, but EVERYTHING is different this time, and it wants to try to take advantage of that. It had no reason to tell anyone thing in any previous cycle.

1 hour ago, Imba.9451 said:

Maybe you like the story, that is presented in bullet points ingame. It doesnt take away that people expect more though, and that many people have higher standards.

Not only is this a pointless ad hominem, but its also a bad argument in general.

 

What you define as "higher standards" amounts to the same kind of thing I see out of bad, long running, anime like Bleach, One Piece, or Dragon Ball Z.

• We need a training arc every single time a new villain appears! How else will we know how the MC gets stronger?!
• We need an ally gathering arc every single every single time a new villain appears! How else will they MC get allies to fight the badguy?!
• We need the villain to do something massive like blow up an entire city every time a new villain appears, or the current villain goes away for awhile! How else are we supposed to feel like they are still a threat?!
• We need various rando people telling us how bad the villain is making life for them! How else are we gonna know people are miserable!?

 

That kind of writing is very low standards IMO. It works on the presumption that most people are unable to comprehend/remember things already shown to them, unless they see it over and over like someone training a rat. In universe, it creates numerous continuity issues such as the characters constantly doing the same things over and over, for no in-universe reason, beyond to help the users remember/see the same point again. Which in turn just makes the universe itself seem choppy, and artificial.

 

Hell, even some of those anime manage to avoid it. In Dragon Ball Z they kill the major villain Freeza in episode like 100... which released in like the early 1990s. And then the show continued for another 180+ episodes, and like nearly a dozen spin off movies. Then in 2015, 20+ years later, they bring Freeza back to life in a movie as the main villain... and spend zero time trying to build him back up again. He gets resurrected, goes off on a short training montage, and then shows up on Earth wanting to fight the MCs again. You know why? Because everyone who gives a kitten about DBZ already knows who Freeza is, and how powerful he is. what you are suggesting is writing worse then Dragon Ball.

 

Anyone who cares about GW2's plot already knew how powerful Primordus was from everything else in the game. They didn't need it restated.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

57 minutes ago, Poormany.4507 said:

I would have ideally preferred if they pushed back the whole timeline a few months to a year and developed the initial two planned world maps, if not adding another episode primarily focused on fighting only Primordus in a depths type map. At that rate we would likely just now be finishing the Saga and getting into the Return to LW/ Marionette/other events in between EoD. Obviously this was all made impossible because Anet was "gifted" (read forced) to come up with EoD as quickly as possible. I do think they did the best they could with Champions under the circumstances + Covid, but it just didn't feel like the usual GW2 quality as a result.

I don't think we would have ever gotten a map entirely in the depths. All you have to do is look at Tangled Depths, or Draconis Mons, to see how much people HATE maps with large underground portions in them, or that are pretty much all underground as is. People find it too confusing to navigate. Underground areas also tend to not be very interesting, since, without light, most plant and animal life cant survive. Tangled Depths worked because it was only just under the surface, and not SUPER deep underground. Likewise, Daconis Mons was a magically maintained druid sanctuary, and not normal growth. You can't just keep making up excuses for it without it becoming obviously just them reaching.

 

Another problem is that there is also nothing down there except the Dwarves, since Primordus pushed everyone else out onto the surface ages ago. And the Dwarves themselves gave up any semblance of culture, or civilization, when they became stone. The Dwarves have no cities, no farmers, no artisans. They have little to no need for food, drink, or sleep, due to their magical nature. They don't even need armor smiths since their bodies are now their armor. You aren't going to get a lot out of them since the Dwarves gave up everything they could have given back at the end of EoTN. They don't have any real history in these past 250 years besides "we spent a lot of time smashing Destroyers" either. You really aren't going to get a lot out of a depths map in the first place.

 

There is also the way the in-game map works to consider. You can't put maps over other maps. So any map set in the depths would forever close that area off to any future development on the surface. You look at the current in-game map for GW2... and where exactly would they put an entirely underground map for this? It wouldn't be in Elona, the Crystal Desert, the Scavenger's Causeway, etc. since he isn't down there. The rest of Orr is taken up by Arah. There isn't a space big enough for an IBS sized map in Kryta, Ascalon, or the Maguuma Jungle. And the Charr Homelands, Far North, and Woodland Cascades areas are better served for above ground maps for the Charr, Norn, and Centaurs. the only place to really put it is the Maguuma Wastes, but even then, if they ever wanted to go back to Malyck's story, they would probably retcon his tree to be up there, so... where would it go exactly?

 

This is why I think, based on the trailer, some dialog in the EoTN, and comments by Anet, that they planned to do the big "Primordus/Destroyer invasion" story in the Centaur Homelands. Its on the surface, is an area we have seen little of environmentally, and would involve a culture that is active and thriving.

57 minutes ago, Poormany.4507 said:

I feel like further developing the last few episodes would have given much more world building and setup for the final confrontation, which currently seems to come out of nowhere. (Some Asura councilor most people have never heard of comes up with the idea to use Ley lines to pit Jormag and Primordus against each other - Why couldn't we have done that after episode 1 or 2 of the Saga? Aurene had the ability to manipulate Ley lines back then.) It just felt like a last second addition just to get to the confrontation quickly at the end.

We couldn't have done it in episode 1/2 of the saga for many reasons.

1. Jormag's weakness is Primordus. The only way to kill one is with the other, and they were on opposite sides of Tyria at the time.(established in LWS3)

2. Both Jormag and Primordus were asleep in episode 1/2 of the saga. Jormag was encased in ice in Drizzlewood, and Primordus was sleeping under a sea of literal lava in Draconis Mons. We had no way of getting to either of them. Hell, the reason why Balthazar went after Kralkatrorrik was because not even he, with his power, could touch Jormag or Primordus after they went to sleep. What hope did we have?(LWS3/PoF)

3. Even if they were awake, we had no way of controlling Primordus, since Braham hadn't gotten that far on his path of becoming the Norn of Prophecy. Likewise, Jormag hadn't gotten far enough long in its plan to be reasonably confident that it could take Primordus, and win, so it simply wouldn't have shown up.(LWS3 and IBS)

Like... there's plenty of explained reasons why it wouldn't have been possible until after Jormag Rising.

57 minutes ago, Poormany.4507 said:

The actual final confrontation itself is inexplicably missing all of the allied leaders we spent months gathering, a lot of allies are missing, and it was missing the Stone Summit who Primordus clearly had under his control just 2 episodes earlier. It just felt like it had so many more opportunities, even small ones, to improve on that were foregone because of lack of resources/staff.

Well yes. you typically don't send important leaders into fights. That's how you get your chain of command killed, creating power vacuums that crumble your army.

• How many of the leaders of the Pact's factions were on the airship fighting Zhaitan? Zero. Not even Trahearne.
• How many of the faction leaders were the fighting the Mouth of Mordremoth? Zero. There was some people from the factions there, but not the leaders.
• How many leaders were crawling over Kralkatorrik's back with the players? None.

Guild Wars 2 has never had the leaders at the final battle. They were always back at camp, managing the forces... like the faction leaders were at the EoTN. If the battle fails, you don't want all your leaders dead. That Crecia was there was a big risk, especially given the current state of the Blood Legion, but somewhat understandable given that Ryland was involved.

 

Also, Primordus never controlled the Stone Summit. One small group of Summit went to a very remote citadel, and attempted to tap into Primordus' power to free themselves of the Great Dwarf magic. While they were partially corrupted physically, they were still somewhat individuals. Hence why they had always stayed inside the citadel, rather then showing up with Primordus' minions anywhere else. And the journals we collect make it clear its that ONE citadel only that did it... and we totally wipe them out in our journey through there. They shouldn't have shown up. They were never under Primrodus' control, and were all killed. Even barring any cuts for Champions, they shouldn't have shown up because the game makes it clear we killed them all.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Imba.9451]

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Your first three points are basically this repeated, so I'm going to address them all with this.

1. The story being interrupted doesn't matter, not here, or in any other plot.

Except is does. Again, tension building. I will repeat it as often as I have to.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

So long as the narrative clearly established the threat of the enemy, which GW2 did for all the Elder Dragons back in core, and Primordus especially in LWS3, and establishes that the treat is not totally gone, only delayed, a sudden reappearance of said threat in a big way, such as a large scale invasion, is a perfectly valid narrative move to make. One does not have to go through the whole process building the threat up again simply because some people may have forgotten it.

Not forgotten, but brought back into focus in a dynamic way that feels coherent with the world it takes place in. Wich DRM's clearly are not.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

Good narratives don't do things for the sake of the consumers memory, they do things because they are logical actions within the setting. There wouldn't be a build up of Primordus again because Primordus was already built up, in universe, earlier. His forces were just on standby. All he needed was the signal to wake up again, which he got from Jormag's awakening, and then he could just resume right where he left off. Which was sending his minions to the surface, and is what he did in Champions. If Guild Wars 2 was a 600 episode TV series, and the put Primordus to sleep at 200 episodes in, and didn't wake him up for another 200 episodes, that you forgot it was a threat isn't their fault. Its your fault for not keeping it in the back of your mind, after they clearly set up that you should.

It never said I forgot that they existed, like you seem to imply. I said the storybeats were continued poorly. I even said so several times.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

2. Argumentum at populum never hods merit. Nor does any logical fallacy, hence why they are fallacies. All one has to do is look at all the now famous books, movies, TV shows, games, music, that was hated in its time, and only recognized great later, to see why just because a lot of people hate something, never means its actually bad. This is just trying to squash any sort of dissent by saying anyone not in majority is wrong.

 

And at the same time, many stuff that was once considered good is now considered bad. Your point?

Fact remains, the quality of storytelling does get measured by how much people enjoy it. And most people did not enjoy it. Hence, the quality of the product was lackluster, and argumentum et populum does hold true here, because it is not about logic, but subjective enjoyment.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

3. You have no idea what the actual community thought of it. You know what the forums through of it, but the forums don't represent the community as a whole. All one has to do is look at how often the forums prop up things like dungeons, fractals, strikes, and raids, are content people want... when the reason all these content types stopped getting development was because the vast majority of the playerbase didn't like them, and thus, didn't play them. Even if Argumentum at populum had merit(it doesn't) you couldn't accurately claim to have to the data to say what the playerbase actually thought of it. Again, this is just trying to squash any sort of dissent by playing the "majority" card... except you can't actually claim the majority in this case.

You simply make up a potential silent crowd of people who enjoyed this. But that is no "argument" I even consider adressing.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

This is incorrect. Even back in core it was stated that the Pact was made to fight all the Elder Dragons, not just Zhaitan, which is why we see Pact forces establishing bases in places like Mount Maelstrom, and Frostgorge, to fight Primordus, and Jormag's minions. Zhaitan was never the only Elder Dragon they intended to fight, nor did they ever fight just Zhaitan and its forces either.

Yep, but one at a time. With focus on one at a time. With only one being the main threat at a time. This is something I repeated several times now. Information about ingame lore and execution of the story are NOT the same thing.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

That is what Bjora, Drizzlewood, and the DRMs were for. To accelerate Jormag and Primordus' arcs.

Yep. And they did so poorly, as elaborated several times already.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

And that was the point of the DRMs, to get it rolling again. Hence the large scale, continent wide, invasion by Primordus and Jormag before the ending of Dragonstorm.

As explained, they did so poorly, because they felt repetitive, served no purpose but to shoehorn in exposition and information in order to conclude the story. People notice this.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The problem with this argument is that you keep acting like Champions was all one big release, where everything just ended, but it wasn't. It was 6 months of worldwide war/invasion by the dragons... with only part 4 actually being the real end. Just like we would have gotten 6 months of invasion of the Centaur Homelands, and part of Anvil Rock, before the end in the original plot.

You misrepresent time again.

6 months as a timespan in wich DRM's released does not mean that the DRM's were good. In fact, the timescale in wich they released only worsen the problem, because we got so little over such a huge amount of time. This argument fires back terribly.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And again, they got the same amount of focus on all these maps, as point out previously. Stop trying to strawman me with quantity argument, when you know that isn't the argument being made.

Yes, it is the argument you make several times. If you wanted to make another argument, then phrase it better.

Also, those maps were (again, I said this before) before the story cut.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Except that isn't support of an Aurene Ex Machina, because it was established back in Living World Season 3, by Taimi, that magic is like light, and pure magic is like white light, with each dragon magic being a different color. Living World Season 4 further establishes that the magics don't conflict within Aurene, and she is able to manipulate them, hence her lack of torment like Kralktorrik. Thus meaning it isn't a Deus Ex Machina by definition.

 

This wasn't even main main argument about this topic. But it was still poorly reintroduced as a mechanic that works in the games world.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The road up to Jormag being confident it could take down Primordus was literally everything from Bound by Blood, to Jormag Rising. It was over a year of storytelling, which is the exact opposite of short, bumpy, or barely functional.

Again, misrepresenting timescale. What matters is the duration and level of detail within the releases, not the timespan over wich the chapters released.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

His manipulation of Bangar, the Whispers across Bjora, the creation of the Frost Legion, his attempts to corrupt the Spirits of the Wild, and taking Ryland as a champion in Drizzlewood, all of it was to create its confidence in being able to take down Primordus.

And I never complained about this element. I even said several times, that I quite liked this as a setup.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The ambient NPC dialog never contributes to world building outside of things already established in the story like "the Charr are split on the war".

Thats simply untrue. NPC dialogues delivers worldbuilding through... well, dialogue. This isn't rocket science. It's a way to convey information to the player without using blunt exposition (if written correctly, of course).

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Anet does this because they know most people don't hear/pay attention to the ambient dialog, so nothing really important is ever put there.

It's not important to YOU. This may sound hard, but your opinion is only one in the face of many. You do net get to decide whats important and what not. Especially not for others.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And the "tangible" action in maps in events... which are based around going around and hitting dragon minions while they attack things... which is what the DRMs provided.

Yep. Poorly. Repetitive. Cheaply. With simple, forced information dumps. As said several times.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And you did so poorly, in a way that doesn't negate it.

I dare to disagree on this. Especiually since you keep misrepresenting time in this conversation.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

By what measure? The things we do in DRMs is no different then the things we do in maps like Dragonfall, or Dragon's Stand. And the dialog is presented in the same way we get it in story missions.

Heck, no. Not at all. Not in a thousand years. Just no, no again, and no forever. This is objectively false, and I even did state HOW this is false before you made this argument. The repetitive nature and structure of DRM's alone is simply different from Dragons Stand or Dragonfall. Also, those two maps are FINALES, DRM's serve as setup in best case only. As said several times now.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

THERE WAS NEVER ANY GREATER WORLDWIDE IMPLICATIONS going to be in IBS That stuff was already covered back in core, and LWS2.

Before the narrative cut. A point you simply continue to ignore or disagree with, despite it being a simple fact that tension does not hold for this long. Not for all the years that players had to wait for this storythread to continue. Not after it got temporarily dealt with.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

It was the focus of Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, and the DRMs. It got fleshed out there.

Again, before the narrative cut. And also, it wasn't the focus. Balthazar was, he stole the spotlight. Primordus was just a plot device and never the main villain.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

And uhh. no? So no, it wasn't skipped, nor was the non existent skip sold as a feature. All the dragons are different.

--Zhaitan was the most tactical thinking/acting one. Its scouts in LA, the attack on Claw Island, the attacks on the Order bases, the general set up of his minions in general, including the use of Eyes as quasi general/horde controller, all show a higher level of tactical thinking/acting then we saw from the other Dragons.

--Mordremoth was the mental dominator. It used its mind powers to crush the Sylvari under its heel, forcing them to follow it.

--Kralkatorrik was the tormented. Aged, and wracked with pain, his lashing out was the result of pain.

--Jormag was the persuader. Another mental dragon, but unlike Mordremoth who crushed thing behind it, Jormag told you everything you wanted to hear until you chose to follow it.

--Primordus was the beast. Working on pure rage, and bestial instinct, Primordus attacked on pure hunger, fury, and hatred. It cared nothing for the world, or the people on it, beyond their ability to feed it.

All of the Elder Dragons were different, that's what makes them good. One of them makes sense to be "the beast" archetype, and Primordus has been set up to be that since core with how little its shown to use tactics, or care for corrupting the living.

That only works if you argue that those are the only stereotypes and that primordus HAD to be the beast. Wich is an assumption on your end, therefore it holds no real value. Primordus could just have been the enlightened one, seeing a deeper truth that all the others in their squabble were unable to see, a truth that keeps him from caring about all the little things going on on in the world.

Or it could have been so many different things. Wich we will never know. Because his characterisation was cut in favor of "he is beast naow"

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Again, it was 10,000 years ago, before most modern races were alive, and those that are don't remember jack because its been 10,000 years. No real world civilization has lasted 10,000 years, much less provided extensive records. And, again, any Elder dragon would duke it out if they came into contact, that isn't special to Jormag and Primordus. Everyone knows the Elder Dragons hate each other, that isn't note worthy.

Alot less important information has been past through history. Hence, your argument is invalid.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

And yes, Jormag was likely persuasive in the past. But you forget, the past was nothing like today.

You forget that for Jormag, the past is not that far away, considering it slept. Considering it is probably incredibly old. 

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

At no point in the Elder Dragon's eons of existance has any race, or any alliance of races, taken down an Elder Dragon that we know of. As well, no child of an Elder Dragon has ever been freed like Glint was, or enacted a 10,000 year old mega plan to take down the Elder Dragons like Glint did, nor has a Dragon scion like Aurene, bonded to a mortal, ever existed, much less rose to the ranks of the Elder Dragons. Jormag only does everything it does in IBS, and tell us what it does, but EVERYTHING is different this time, and it wants to try to take advantage of that. It had no reason to tell anyone thing in any previous cycle.

And yet, we did not get to explore this facet of the story, or do have it backed up by preexisting information.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Not only is this a pointless ad hominem, but its also a bad argument in general.

No. This is an attempt to show, that what you describe as being enough to qualify for good storytelling, can objectively done better, and people want it to be better, thus having higher standards than you. Thats not ad hominem. Having low standard is not even an insult, heck, i have low standards when it comes to furniture. As long as it holds together and does what it is supposed to do, then I am fine. Simple priorities.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

What you define as "higher standards" amounts to the same kind of thing I see out of bad, long running, anime like Bleach, One Piece, or Dragon Ball Z.

I do not watch anime, hence I can not take this into context. Nor do I know what kind of arguments you had over wich part of an anime with whoever engaged in the discussion with you. However, I despise shonen anime even more than normal anime, because it is exactly the kind of bad writing and tension managing that I utterly despise.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• We need a training arc every single time a new villain appears! How else will we know how the MC gets stronger?!

Indeed, this is stupid. Because simply having a character do pointless stuf to convey the information that he got stronger is a waste of time. But actual character development is not, wich was my argument in this threat the whole time, hence this example falls flat in that regard.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• We need an ally gathering arc every single every single time a new villain appears! How else will they MC get allies to fight the badguy?!

Well, if times have changed and former allies may now need to be persuaded because of how the world and their priorities changed, then this isn't a bad point. This further develops the characters, the world and gives their interaction a new "flavour". And this is what Primordus needed after all those years and the paused narrative.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• We need the villain to do something massive like blow up an entire city every time a new villain appears, or the current villain goes away for awhile! How else are we supposed to feel like they are still a threat?!

Well... duh. A villain HAS to do something to establish that he is a threat, else he wouldn be a threat. This does not have to be blowing up things, but manipulating people, killing of a character, causing political and social unrest. Everything that threatens a status quo that the main characters and the people in this fictional world seek to preserve.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• We need various rando people telling us how bad the villain is making life for them! How else are we gonna know people are miserable!?

Thats bad exposition. I made clear that I am against stupid exposition dumps. Several times.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

That kind of writing is very low standards IMO.

I even agree on most of this. But sadly, this doesn't connect to IBS and the DRM's. Your examples fall flat.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

It works on the presumption that most people are unable to comprehend/remember things already shown to them, unless they see it over and over like someone training a rat.

No. It works on the biological fact, that tension can not be kept active for longer periods of time.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

In universe, it creates numerous continuity issues such as the characters constantly doing the same things over and over, for no in-universe reason, beyond to help the users remember/see the same point again. Which in turn just makes the universe itself seem choppy, and artificial.

DRM's do exactly the same. The repetitive nature of their design makes the player realize how copy and paste this is, wich in return, decreases investment. The information dump is neither subtle, nor written very well in most cases. (Except the conversation between Braham and Taimi. There was some real emotion going on, wich helped their character development.)

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

Hell, even some of those anime manage to avoid it. In Dragon Ball Z they kill the major villain Freeza in episode like 100... which released in like the early 1990s. And then the show continued for another 180+ episodes, and like nearly a dozen spin off movies. Then in 2015, 20+ years later, they bring Freeza back to life in a movie as the main villain... and spend zero time trying to build him back up again.

I do not know much about anime, and I would have to watch the movie to either agree or disagree with this.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

He gets resurrected, goes off on a short training montage, and then shows up on Earth wanting to fight the MCs again. You know why? Because everyone who gives a kitten about DBZ already knows who Freeza is, and how powerful he is. what you are suggesting is writing worse then Dragon Ball.

People have lower standards for Dragon Ball tho. Noone expects well written and executed storybeats in DBZ. What I suggest however is completely reasonable, probably resonates with more people than what you write and is something entirely different from what you seem to make me suggesting.

40 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

 

Anyone who cares about GW2's plot already knew how powerful Primordus was from everything else in the game. They didn't need it restated.

It neede to be put in the focus of the story though. That was the argument I made several times now, not how powerful Primordus is. You are shifting the goalpost here.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

2 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

It neede to be put in the focus of the story though. That was the argument I made several times now, not how powerful Primordus is. You are shifting the goalpost here.

And it was

• Back in core we can see both the Asura and the Skritt, who were pushed out of their underground homes by Primordus, and mention it extensively.
• We can see Primordus' minions popping up around the game world, causing havoc. With races like the Tengu mentioning how its affected them.
• There are story arcs in core, like the Skritt affinity arc, where we have to help lesser races deal with Primordus pushing them out of their homes.
• We can see in Mount Maelstrom Primordus' minions flooding the volcano, and attempting to accelerate its eruption.
• In LWS3 we see Primordus' minions swarming Ember Bay, and Draconis Mons, affecting races/groups like the Skritt, Dwarves, and Druids. Primordus also makes an attempt on Aurene's life.
• Between Jormag Rising and Champions Jormag hypes up Primordus as a threat we can't stop alone, and expresses clear fear of it.
• During Champions Primordus' unleashes a massive invasion of the surface, attacking important places like Lion's Arch, the Dragonsblood weapon forge, the Flame Citadel, and others. Causing many races to join the alliance out of desperation.

That isn't moving goalposts. that is pointing out the game did do what you said it didn't

2 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Your comments about tension

Your comments about tension made me realize something. You seem to be confusing bodily tension with narrative tension. Bodily tension can't last forever yes. The body either releases its tension, or begins breaking down. Narrative tension can last however long the consumer wants. There are people who are just as excited for the continuation of some TV/movie/book/game series years, sometimes even a decade+, after they consumed the last thing in the series. That can be because they have chosen to invest that much into it. Narrative tension can go on for ages. Its all dependent on how much the consumer likes the product. You can see this even in GW2 in relation to things like Joko, or the Mursatt. Things people have been waiting on since GW1 ended, just as hyped when those stories first started as they were a decades ago.

2 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Your comments about repetition

DRMs are functionally no more repetitious as any other release, or meta.

• The Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths metas are just "do outposts/pylons, do some small pre events, fight the meta bosses"
• Dragon's Stand and Dragonfall are basic stuff like "fight champions", "escort NPCs and protect them from Dragon minions", "help NPC set up thing to study the dragon". Things we have been doing since core.
• New Living World releases are a new small playable area, with a handful of events, that you play 100 times to the achievements, and the dialog never changes no matter how many times you do them.

DRMs are no different then any of this. Its basic stuff like "train with soldiers", "deliver medical aid the wounded", " kill some dragon minions", "fight a champion", "use water buckets to put out fires", "escort NPCs and protect them from Dragon minions" etc. etc. The game has been nothing but repeating the same stuff, with the same dialog, over and over again, since release. Its the same stuff, with the same kind of dialog, repeated just as much, as the other metas/maps are.

2 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Your comments about "before the narrative cut"

That it happened before the narrative cut doesn't matter. You keep claiming the game didn't do X,Y, or Z, when it did. It doesn't matter when it happened, it was still done. So the argument that it didn't happen falls flat.

2 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Various other comments

• How was Primordus' not brought back in a dynamic way that felt coherent to the story? Back in core we had NPCs talking about how Destroyers are being seen on the surface with ever increasing numbers. Leading most to believe the Dwarves had been wiped out, and it was only a matter of time before Destroyers being rushing out of the ground.. We see in Ember Bay and Draconis Mons a much larger number of Destroyers then before, and Primordus gaining power by feeding on Mordremoth's released energy. The next logical step is what he did in Champions, a large scale invasion of the surface... which is why they did it.
• Storytelling quality is not measured by how much people enjoy it. People enjoy those summer action blockbuster movies, but will readily admit they are narratively awful. Them being awful makes them enjoyable in their own way.  Likewise, people will equally admit something had a good story, but they didn't like it simply for the setting, or some other non narrative factor. The only thing enjoyment measures is enjoyment. The quality of the narrative has nothing to do with how much people enjoy it.
• I didn't make up a silent majority crowd. The silent majority is a known and recognized thing by not only the video game industry, but by most industries. Most people who go to forums are either the hardcore super fans, or people who want to complain. The average person who is content has no reason to comment, and thus doesn't.
• Your wrong about the Pact. They were simultaneously attacking the Risen, Icebrood, and Destroyers, back in core, and you can see them do so in the open world. The Pact never had a singular focus. They were spread out all over the place all at once, because all the Elder Dragons were their focus.
• How was Aurene's ability to manipulate energy poorly reintroduced? It was a known fact. All that they needed was Taimi, or someone else going "how about doing this thing we know she can do!"... which is what they did. The characters have no reason to lengthily reintroduce something they all already know to each other.
• NPCs dialog delivers world building if it directly contributes to adding something to the world we didn't already know. Which most ambient dialog doesn't, as its simply repeating thing we already learned in the story. Also, I have no problem with ambient dialog. I actually quite enjoy it when games do it. That I realize that many people ignore it, so developers make sure to include anything important in the main story, is a different matter entirely.
• Primrodus getting a personalty other then the one you wanted him to does not mean his personality was cut. It means Anet used a different personality then the one you wanted. Him getting his personality cut would imply he got no explanation at all. Rather then the one he got.
• History is not an all or nothing game. You can look back at real world history and see that there are many trivial pieces of information we know, yet many important ones we don't. It isn't a hard bar where everything above a certain level of important always gets saved. That they knew of the dragon minions doesn't mean anyone would have known about Jormag and Primrdrus dukeing it out. Especially if they did it after everyone was dead or in hiding.
• You make a baseless assumption about how Jormag's mind works. We have no understanding of how Elder Dragons perceive time awake or asleep. I cna easily tell you how long i've slept when I wake up, because people have some perception of time while asleep. Jormag could just as easily be awake of how long it was asleep, and consider it a very long time.
• We actually do get to explore the fact of the sotry involving this cycle being different. Its literally everything we have done since we killed Zhaitan. Everything that has happened since is us experiencing a world going down a totally new path no cycle has ever been down before.
• There is no such thing as objectively good storytelling. Everyone's opinions on what makes good storytelling is different, and no one has any right to say if one person's idea is better then the other.
• As for a response to my anime stuff. The thing you seem to not get is that nothing had changed for the world of Tyira in this regard. The Pact was formed, and the major/lesser races allied with it, because all of the Elder Dragons are a world ending threat. It doesn't matter if there is one left, or 20 left, they are still in the same position they were in when they formed it.You aren't going to see some big politcal thing every arc becuase the poltical situation really hasn't changed. The only time this would be applicable is post EoD, after all the Elder Dragons are dead, and the Pact has no obvious reason to keep existing, but we aren't there yet. so that wouldn't have happened in Champions, even before the cuts.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Imba.9451]

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And it was

• Back in core we can see both the Asura and the Skritt, who were pushed out of their underground homes by Primordus, and mention it extensively.
• We can see Primordus' minions popping up around the game world, causing havoc. With races like the Tengu mentioning how its affected them.
• There are story arcs in core, like the Skritt affinity arc, where we have to help lesser races deal with Primordus pushing them out of their homes.
• We can see in Mount Maelstrom Primordus' minions flooding the volcano, and attempting to accelerate its eruption.
• In LWS3 we see Primordus' minions swarming Ember Bay, and Draconis Mons, affecting races/groups like the Skritt, Dwarves, and Druids. Primordus also makes an attempt on Aurene's life.
• Between Jormag Rising and Champions Jormag hypes up Primoedus as a threat we can't stop alone, and expresses clear fear of it.

Your examples are either before the narrative cut, or directly tied towards DRM's. I adressed this already.

Additionally, in most of your examples, like with the skritt, this was not the focus of the story, but worldbuilding. Wich I also mentioned several times.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• During Champions Primordus' unleashes a massive invasion of the surface, attacking important places like Lion's Arch, the Dragonsblood weapon forge, the Flame Citadel, and others. Causing many races to join the alliance out of desperation.

And I expressed how the can only serve as a setup for something more, not being the whole story arch. Repeatedly. Additionally, I meantioned (again, several times), that the DRM's have been cheap information dumps.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

That isn't moving goalposts. that is pointing out the game did do what you said it didn't

And it still didn't, because you adressed something I never said in the first place.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Your comments about tension made me realize something. You seem to be confusing bodily tension with narrative tension. Bodily tension can't last forever yes. The body either releases its tension, or begins breaking down. Narrative tension can last however long the consumer wants. There are people who are just as excited for the continuation of some TV/movie/book/game series years, sometimes even a decade+, after they consumed the last thing in the series. That can be because they have chosen to invest that much into it. Narrative tension can go on for ages. Its all dependent on how much the consumer likes the product. You can see this even in GW2 in relation to things like Joko, or the Mursatt. Things people have been waiting on since GW1 ended, just as hyped when those stories first started as they were a decades ago.

I do not cunfuse anything. And even your examples fall flat, because you are not in a constant state of tension over anticipating something you like. It has breaks. And it refuels because of external factors, like being reminded of it by something and remebering that you anticipate it. Yet, you anticiptae something good, not just a short reminder that it still exists, with a swift finale after that.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

DRMs are functionally no more repetitious as any other release, or meta.

The fact that every DRM is built by the same structure is repetitive. Thats a fact.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• The Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths metas are just "do outposts/pylons, do some small pre events, fight the meta bosses"

Thats a very dishonest way of breaking it down. Auric basic alone has different pre events depending on wich side of tarir you are. They all have a little narrative, a small mini-story with a mini-arc. DRM's are just: Minions attack. Kill them.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Dragon's Stand and Dragonfall are basic stuff like "fight champions", "escort NPCs and protect them from Dragon minions", "help NPC set up thing to study the dragon". Things we have been doing since core.

 

The same thing I said before applies here as well.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• New Living World releases are a new small playable area, with a handful of events, that you play 100 times to the achievements, and the dialog never changes no matter how many times you do them.

That was never my point. Again, strawmanning.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

DRMs are no different then any of this. Its basic stuff like "train with soldiers", "deliver medical aid the wounded", " kill some dragon minions", "fight a champion", "use water buckets to put out fires", "escort NPCs and protect them from Dragon minions" etc. etc. The game has been nothing but repeating the same stuff, with the same dialog, over and over again, since release.

And it's all condensed into those tiny missions, wich repeat over and over without even trying to conceal the fact, that you hit the same buttons like always in order to keep immersion intact.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

That it happened before the narrative cut doesn't matter.

Yes, it does. Simply because you say it does not matter doesn't make it true. It mattered to alot of people quite obviously, despite your best attempts to say that it doesn't.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

You keep claiming the game didn't do X,Y, or Z, when it did. It doesn't matter when it happened, it was still done. So the argument that it didn't happen falls flat.

Well, it didn't, and I laid out my arguments on why several times. As I also said several times: It the HIW that matters, not the WHAT.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• How was Primordus' not brought back in a dynamic way that felt coherent to the story? Back in core

This is self-explanatory, no further input from me needed.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• we had NPCs talking about how Destroyers are being seen on the surface with ever increasing numbers. Leading most to believe the Dwarves had been wiped out, and it was only a matter of time before Destroyers being rushing out of the ground.. We see in Ember Bay and Draconis Mons a much larger number of Destroyers then before, and Primordus gaining power by feeding on Mordremoth's released energy. The next logical step is what he did in Champions, a large scale invasion of the surface... which is why they did it.

I adressed all of this already. If you do not want to keep the discussion going, the please refrain from repeating yourself over and over again, because at this point, we are reaching spam-levels.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Storytelling quality is not measured by how much people enjoy it.

Yes, it is. Just because some people might prefer a very odd way of storytelling still makes it an oddity.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• People enjoy those summer action blockbuster movies, but will readily admit they are narratively awful.

Thats not enjoying storytelling then, but simple spectacle. I like simple spectacle sometimes as well. Eye-Candy can be nice.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Them being awful makes them enjoyable in their own way. 

No. Sometimes awful is enjoyable, especially when watching it with friends.

However, sometimes you do not watch a movie for a whole package, but only for certain aspects, like action scenes. At that point, your priorities are changing, your standards regarding storytelling decrease. People do this all the time, be it with music, movies, pictures, books.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Likewise, people will equally admit something had a good story, but they didn't like it simply for the setting, or some other non narrative factor.

Yep, because many different aspects can affect overall enjoyment, depending on what is important to you. There are tons of psychological studies regarding this, just use google scholar.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• The only thing enjoyment measures is enjoyment.

Enjoyment isn't a tool to measure enjoyment. You can measure enjoyment by using tools like questionaires, taking blood samples or measung skin condictivity and relate this to enjoyment. However, if you intent to be an actually good scientist, you weill dig deeper and research what ASPECTS of a certain thing increased the enjoyment, in order to take certain data into consideration or fill other data out, in order to avoid heuristic and amateurish conclusions.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• The quality of the narrative has nothing to do with how much people enjoy it.

Uhm... yes, it does? I don't even know what to say here, because thsi is just plain wrong.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• I didn't make up a silent majority crowd. The silent majority is a known and recognized thing by not only the video game industry, but by most industries.

And yet, you use this non-existant data as a looming damocles sword hanging over what I said. Not very scientific.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Most people who go to forums are either the hardcore super fans, or people who want to complain. The average person who is content has no reason to comment, and thus doesn't.

Thats an argument that cannot be falsified because it is not measurable, thus unscientific. Also it is highly polemic.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Your wrong about the Pact. They were simultaneously attacking the Risen, Icebrood, and Destroyers, back in core, and you can see them do so in the open world. The Pact never had a singular focus. They were spread out all over the place all at once, because all the Elder Dragons were their focus.

And yet, the main story dealt with Zhaitan only. Again, focus. The rest is backround information and worldbuilding, wich alone does not make for good storytelling.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• How was Aurene's ability to manipulate energy poorly reintroduced? It was a known fact. All that they needed was Taimi, or someone else going "how about doing this thing we know she can do!"... which is what they did. The characters have no reason to lengthily reintroduce something they all already know to each other.

It came in right at the moment it was needed. It was not set up in this continuation of the story post-narrative-cut.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• NPCs dialog delivers world building if it directly contributes to adding something to the world we didn't already know.

This is already wrong. Reinforcement of information, and how it plays out is the core of worldbuilding and adds to the feeling of consistency.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

•  
• Which most ambient dialog doesn't, as its simply repeating thing we already learned in the story.

However, this information is put into context and reinforces the learned thing by applying it somewhere else in order to create coherence.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

•  
• Also, I have no problem with ambient dialog. I actually quite enjoy it when games do it. That I realize that many people ignore it, so developers make sure to include anything important in the main story, is a different matter entirely.

Hey, something we can reach an d'accord over. There is a first time for everything I guess.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Primrodus getting a personalty other then the one you wanted him to does not mean his personality was cut. It means Anet used a different personality then the one you wanted. Him getting his personality cut would imply he got no explanation at all. Rather then the one he got.

Wich is a logical conclusion, given the treatment other dragons got.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• History is not an all or nothing game. You can look back at real world history and see that there are many trivial pieces of information we know, yet many important ones we don't. It isn't a hard bar where everything above a certain level of important always gets saved. That they knew of the dragon minions doesn't mean anyone would have known about Jormag and Primrdrus dukeing it out. Especially if they did it after everyone was dead or in hiding.

It's about context. Noone will forget WW2 for quite some time, because it was a massive event in human history. Heck, we can go so much further back in history and still have events that have been passed on up to this very point. Hence, assuming that a cataclysmic event like 2 Dragons hating each others guts get's noticed isn't a far stretch.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• You make a baseless assumption about how Jormag's mind works. We have no understanding of how Elder Dragons perceive time awake or asleep.

You just do the same. I prefer Occams razor regarding this.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• I cna easily tell you how long i've slept when I wake up, because people have some perception of time while asleep. Jormag could just as easily be awake of how long it was asleep, and consider it a very long time.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Considering we have NO information about this, i go with what is most probable.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• We actually do get to explore the fact of the sotry involving this cycle being different. Its literally everything we have done since we killed Zhaitan. Everything that has happened since is us experiencing a world going down a totally new path no cycle has ever been down before.

Maybe. But thats not what we discuss here.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• There is no such thing as objectively good storytelling. Everyone's opinions on what makes good storytelling is different, and no one has any right to say if one person's idea is better then the other.

There is, however, the ability to measure how many people enjoy it, as well as taking other beloved narratives, dissecting it into the basic beats and stages and what they have in common, apply what we learned to IBS and then we will see massive differences.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

As for a response to my anime stuff. The thing you seem to not get is that nothing had changed for the world of Tyira in this regard.

Except 3 dead dragons, a dead god, a dead lich that ruled over elona for centuries... I have a hard time calling this nothing. The resulting change has been topic of quite some Dialogues, even in the DRM's. But it was never really fleshed out, except for the meeting of the leaders in LS2. Thats an example of having the world react to change.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The Pact was formed, and the major/lesser races allied with it, because all of the Elder Dragons are a world ending threat.

But mainly Zhaitan, because he was imminent. And mainly because of Claw Island.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

It doesn't matter if there is one left, or 20 left, they are still in the same position they were in when they formed it.You aren't going to see some big politcal thing every arc becuase the poltical situation really hasn't changed.

It has. Especially after a Civil War. Not adressing this is simply poor worldbuilding.

1 minute ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The only time this would be applicable is post EoD, after all the Elder Dragons are dead, and the Pact has no obvious reason to keep existing, but we aren't there yet. so that wouldn't have happened in Champions, even before the cuts.

You think in way too simple dimensions. You take all the dragons and place them in the same bag, when in reality, they all caused different struggle for different regions. Reducing it into "We need fight all dragons, we all united now until this single threat that is ALL DRAGONS are beaten!" would be the pinnacle of bad worldbuilding AND storytelling.

[HotDelirium.7984]

On 6/22/2021 at 6:48 PM, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

No, you're missing the larger point. We did do those things, in some cases years ago.

 

For the Asura. The big Asura story everyone wanted was us going underground, finding a lost Asuran city, learning more about the Asura who stayed underground to try to keep fighting Primordus, finding some lost technology/research they made to defeat Primrodus, using that to defeat the dragon, and dealing with the Inquest trying to steal it. Guess what, this story was covered all the way back in HoT and LWS3. Back then we

• Went underground(in Tangled Depths)
• Found a lost Asuran city(Rata Novus)
• Learned more about the Asura who stayed underground to keep fighting Primordus(the Rata Novans)
• Found research/technology they made in regards to defeating Primordus(The dragon lab in Rata Novus)
• We used that research/technology to defeat Primordus(Taimi used it to discover that Primordus and Jormag are each other's weaknesses, which we exploited to kill them in IBS)
• Dealt with the Inquest trying to steal said technology/research(Inquest were in Draconis Mons trying to steal the secrets of the Rata Novans who had fled there)

And a good chunk of this happened in the Ember bay and Draconis Mons releases... both of which were Primordus centric. This idea that the Primordus story didn't heavily deal with the Asura is just demonstrably wrong.

 

The same is true of the Dwarves

• Back in vanilla we extensively covered almost all of the old Dwarven lands, from Iron Horse Mines in the North, to Droknar's Forge and Port Sledge in the south. Ogden showed up as a character we got to interact with. And there was extensive events, hearts, and a dungeon, focused on the Dredge, the race formally enslaved by the Dwarves, who viewed themselves as the Dwarves' successors.
• In the Ember Bay release for LWS3(Primordus focused) we got introduced to a new stone Dwarf, Rhoban. He helped us stop Primordus for accelerating the volcano's build up by telling us how to use the ancient Dwarven machines that keep the volcanoes in check.
• Rhoban and the Dwarves' story continued in PoF. There, in the Desert Highlands, Rhoban is part of a Priory expedition into an ancient Dwarven citadel, now infested with Destroyers(Primordus's minions). There we help him uncover the secrets of the fortress, and find pieces to reforge a set of ancient Dwarven weapons.
• Rhoban and the Dwarves' story was again continued in LWS4. There we get to go to Thunderhead Peaks, the last major Dwarven area not covered in core, where Rhoban is once again part of a Priory group examining the ruins. Not only todo we get to go aorund the ruins, we finally get to go inside the ancient Dwarven Citadel where we find the legacy of the Dwarves, the Dragonsblood weapon forge they left behind for us to use against Kralk. We also find the ghost of the dwarf who made the orignal spear, who helps us make more, and there is an entire Dragonsblood weapon collection where we collect the stories of the ancient dwarven heroes.
• This release also expanded upon the Dredge storyline. Allowing us to make peace with a colony of Dredge(The Dwarves successors) who not only lend us their technology, but join us in the fight against the Dragon. Bringing the Dredge story to a close.
• The Dwarven story was AGAIN continued in Icebrood Saga. The Steel and Fire Vision of the Past Update took us to a far flung Dwarven citadel where we learn about what happened to most of the Stone Summit. Most of the Summit rejoined the Deldrimor, but those that didn't tried to fight the power of the Great Dwarf's magic by using Primordus's magic, causing them to get corrupted, and he have to fight them and some Destroyers they tamed.

Much like the Asura story, claims that the game didn't cover the Dwarves' story, especially in regards to Primrodus, are just wrong. Before IBS even began we had covered all the old Dwarven lands, dealt with several instances of Destroyers in Dwarven ruins/locations, found the legacy of the Dwarves and used it, and made peace with the Dwarves' successors. All that was left for IBS to do was what it did, have the remaining Stone Dwarves surface to help fight the Destroyers.

Except we did delve into the Kodan story. That was what the 2nd part of Bjora was for.

• We found an isolated Kodan village
• Learned more about their history, culture, and naming conventions(funeral pyres, ice fishing, their thoughts on the whole Norn/Kodan story, several books about history/naming patterns)
• We helped them get their village back on track(taking care of things in the area for the mastery which changes the settlement a bit)
• Then they return the favor by joining the battle against the Dragon's minions(the DRMs)

 

The Centaur stuff was going to be the episode 5/6 map dealing with Primrodus' rising like the first 5 DRMs did, so yeah, that one part got cut. But everything else you listed was rather extensively covered in IBS, or before.

But why though? IBS as is covered all of the major Norn/Charr plot threads

 

For the Norn

• We got to go back to the old Norn lands(Bjora Marches/Drizzlewood), and got to visit several of the prominent old Norn settlements(Longeye's Ledge, Jora's Homestead, Sifhala)
• We got to visit the place Asgier fought Frostfang and Jormag, and learned the truth about that encounter(Asgier's Legacy/The Burden journal)
• The Spirits of the Wild played a major part in the storyline(Raven in Ep1. Wolf in EP2. Ox, Wolverine, and Eagle in Eps2/4. Owl in the Snowden DRM. All four of the major Spirits in the Wildfire volcano trip)
• Jhavi was able to get revenge on Drakkar for what it did to her family years ago(Drakkar meta fight)
• We fought and killed the leader of the Svanir(Fraenir)
• We learned more about the early history of Norn/human interaction following EoTN(Drizzlewood Coast History Book)
• Braham took his Asgeir parallel story to its logcial end(got a Jotun fire enchanted weapon in Bitterfrost. Used it to kill a Champion of Jormag in Bjora. Got the Spirits of the Wild to recognize him and lead him their power in Drizzlewood. Had the Spirits use their powers to protect him so he could become Primordus's champion, and help kill Jormag in Dragonstorm)

Again, IBS covered every major Norn lore point to its logical end. The only thing they missed out on was having Knut's wife show up in Bjora hunting Svanir or something, but thats pretty small in the end.

 

For the Charr

• We got to go to the Blood Legion Homelands.
• Most of the Flame Legion was finally brought back into the fold of greater Charr society.
• Got development/reveals on the Renegades, and who was funding them.
• We had Bangar go crazy, and try to start a civil war over the future of the Charr, and the title of Khan-Ur.
• Smodur finally showed his true colors, and he got killed/replaced.
• The Charr were finally forced to accept the fact their culture was fundamentally broken and self destructive, and purged much of the corrupt elements out of it.
• Because of this change perspective the Charr were finally able ot take the first steps to truly making amends for all the people they had wronged/issues they had caused(fighting alongside humans to defend Ebonhawke, starting diplomatic talks with the Olmekhan, making peace with the remaining Flame Legion)

Both the Charr and Norn arguably got far more development on their plots then HoT ever gave the Sylvari.

 

The fundiemntal problem with most of your argument is that you try to boil down Jormag's, Primrodus', the Asura's, the Norn's, and many other stories down as if IBS was the only time they got, or could have gotten, devlopment, ignoring the literal years worth of game before IBS that covered it. Jormag and Primordus's story isn't just IBS, its also LWS3, where thier plot takes up half that season, and coveres a lot of things like the Asura, Dwarves, part of Braham's journey, Kodan stuff, etc. etc. Ignoring it is just dishonest.

While I do agree in your assessment....its only after I READ it that I can wrap my head fully around all the guesswork towards the plot. The GAME should be the one to easily tell us those things instead of leaving all the plot threads dangling no matter how logical their end might be. GW2 wants to be epic but IBS did not fully deliver on that (for a bunch of reasons obviously) and while I give massive amounts of understanding we still have to judge the product on what showed up.

[Harfang.1507]

On 7/19/2021 at 4:53 PM, Corylus.8213 said:

I rarely post anything but this is just too much. Returned to the game after a half a year hiatus. Completed Champions chapter in one go and the main disappointment was this poll. It seems like the gamer has become too entitled these days. Same situation with the vocal negative crowd in other games I play too (EVE, PoE). Like there is no COVID, no lockdowns, no fear, no death around you. Games are one of few safe harbors we have now. Relax, chill, and hope for the better.

Voted Positive. Wish all the best to devs, looking forward to future expansion.

Most of IBS was produced and released during the pandemic and most of it was on par with previous LS. It is the Champions finale that is problematic. I strongly believe COVID-19 is not the main problem, but management issues, that sacrificed the continuation of IBS and poster child Primordus to an upcoming expansion featuring a yet-to-be-named elder dragon.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

3 hours ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

While I do agree in your assessment....its only after I READ it that I can wrap my head fully around all the guesswork towards the plot. The GAME should be the one to easily tell us those things instead of leaving all the plot threads dangling no matter how logical their end might be. GW2 wants to be epic but IBS did not fully deliver on that (for a bunch of reasons obviously) and while I give massive amounts of understanding we still have to judge the product on what showed up.

Everything I mentioned is stuff you can point blank see/experience in the game as is, which is the exact opposite of guess work. Literally none of what you quoted was either guess work, or dangling plot threads.... so what exactly are you talking about?

 

What didn't the game tell you that I mentioned exactly?

Edited July 22, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Your examples are either before the narrative cut, or directly tied towards DRM's. I adressed this already.

Additionally, in most of your examples, like with the skritt, this was not the focus of the story, but worldbuilding. Wich I also mentioned several times.

 

And I expressed how the can only serve as a setup for something more, not being the whole story arch. Repeatedly. Additionally, I meantioned (again, several times), that the DRM's have been cheap information dumps.

 

And it still didn't, because you adressed something I never said in the first place.

And again, it literally doesn't matter, nor will it ever, If it happened before or after the cut. Its still in-game, as part of the narrative, thus, Anet did cover it in the narrative. So your claims that they didn't cover it fall flat. Anet doesn't, nor should they have, repeated the entire game's narrative after Jormag Rising.

 

And that's just wrong. A setup for a larger story, especially in a war scenario, would be probing attacks(like those by Primordus in core), leading to a build up of forces(like in LWS3). The larger war is the main story(Champions), with the defeat of the enemy at its end, and thus the ending of the war, the conclusion(Dragonstorm). That's how war narratives work, and thats how GW2's war narrative worked for Primordus.

 

Except it is something you said. Your entire argument is that Anet didn't do X, and I keep showing that they did, but your only response is "but its before the cut!" which doesn't negate the fact they did it, and thus didn't need to do it after the cut.

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

I do not cunfuse anything. And even your examples fall flat, because you are not in a constant state of tension over anticipating something you like. It has breaks. And it refuels because of external factors, like being reminded of it by something and remebering that you anticipate it. Yet, you anticiptae something good, not just a short reminder that it still exists, with a swift finale after that.

This is only true if you think people are so inattentive as to forget about the think you like. You can just not forget about the think you like, and thus, never stop being hyped in the back of your mind. You keep saying you didn't forget, but base all your arguments around the idea people forgot, and NEED to be reminded.

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

The fact that every DRM is built by the same structure is repetitive. Thats a fact.

 

Thats a very dishonest way of breaking it down. Auric basic alone has different pre events depending on wich side of tarir you are. They all have a little narrative, a small mini-story with a mini-arc. DRM's are just: Minions attack. Kill them.

 

The same thing I said before applies here as well.

 

That was never my point. Again, strawmanning.

 

And it's all condensed into those tiny missions, wich repeat over and over without even trying to conceal the fact, that you hit the same buttons like always in order to keep immersion intact.

And DRM's repetitive nature is, again, no different from how all maps work, or map metas work. And much like Auric basin has different pylon events, each DRM has different pre-events that relate to the specific context of the situation presented in the DRM. And just like map events/etas, they repeat endlessly without trying to hide the fact its repeating. That isn't a strawman, thats just pointing out fact.

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Yes, it does. Simply because you say it does not matter doesn't make it true. It mattered to alot of people quite obviously, despite your best attempts to say that it doesn't.

 

Well, it didn't, and I laid out my arguments on why several times. As I also said several times: It the HIW that matters, not the WHAT.

 

This is self-explanatory, no further input from me needed.

 

I adressed all of this already. If you do not want to keep the discussion going, the please refrain from repeating yourself over and over again, because at this point, we are reaching spam-levels.

And simply because you say they need to repeat everything all the time doesn't make is true. No narrative works that way. If you are reading a book, chapter 30 doesn't redo all of the events of chapter 5, just so that when a character pulls out a magical knife they got back back in chapter 5, you have an immediate retelling of the story to explain where he got. They just pull it out and use it because the book expects you to have read chapter 5 before chapter 30.

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Yes, it is. Just because some people might prefer a very odd way of storytelling still makes it an oddity.

 

Thats not enjoying storytelling then, but simple spectacle. I like simple spectacle sometimes as well. Eye-Candy can be nice.

 

No. Sometimes awful is enjoyable, especially when watching it with friends.

However, sometimes you do not watch a movie for a whole package, but only for certain aspects, like action scenes. At that point, your priorities are changing, your standards regarding storytelling decrease. People do this all the time, be it with music, movies, pictures, books.

 

Yep, because many different aspects can affect overall enjoyment, depending on what is important to you. There are tons of psychological studies regarding this, just use google scholar.

 

Enjoyment isn't a tool to measure enjoyment. You can measure enjoyment by using tools like questionaires, taking blood samples or measung skin condictivity and relate this to enjoyment. However, if you intent to be an actually good scientist, you weill dig deeper and research what ASPECTS of a certain thing increased the enjoyment, in order to take certain data into consideration or fill other data out, in order to avoid heuristic and amateurish conclusions.

 

Uhm... yes, it does? I don't even know what to say here, because thsi is just plain wrong.

 

And yet, you use this non-existant data as a looming damocles sword hanging over what I said. Not very scientific.

 

Thats an argument that cannot be falsified because it is not measurable, thus unscientific. Also it is highly polemic.

And this still doesn't negate the original point, that people's enjoyment of something is not inherently tied to the narrative's quality as you originally suggested. I also never said enjoyment was a tool to measure enjoyment, I said the only thing its a measure for is enjoyment.

 

The data isn't nonexistent, as you just said. Google it. There is plenty of data showing the silent majority in media. Hell, there is data showing 80% of people who play games don't finish them too. Also

>Google scholar

>taking blood samples.

This isn't a college thesis.

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

And yet, the main story dealt with Zhaitan only. Again, focus. The rest is backround information and worldbuilding, wich alone does not make for good storytelling.

 

It came in right at the moment it was needed. It was not set up in this continuation of the story post-narrative-cut.

 

Wich is a logical conclusion, given the treatment other dragons got.

 

It's about context. Noone will forget WW2 for quite some time, because it was a massive event in human history. Heck, we can go so much further back in history and still have events that have been passed on up to this very point. Hence, assuming that a cataclysmic event like 2 Dragons hating each others guts get's noticed isn't a far stretch.

 

You just do the same. I prefer Occams razor regarding this.

 

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Considering we have NO information about this, i go with what is most probable.

 

Maybe. But thats not what we discuss here.

 

There is, however, the ability to measure how many people enjoy it, as well as taking other beloved narratives, dissecting it into the basic beats and stages and what they have in common, apply what we learned to IBS and then we will see massive differences.

 

But mainly Zhaitan, because he was imminent. And mainly because of Claw Island.

• If it dealt with Zhaitain only we wouldn't have the Orge, Skritt, Quaggan, and Grawl, story arcs, which dealt with the other dragons. Those weren't background information. Those were playable, main quest, story arcs.
• It didn't need to. Chekov's gun exists as a narrative concept.
• And Primordus got the same treatment, as has already been shown.
• And 10,000 years from now, after several apocalyptic wars have nearly wiped out all life on Earth, WW2 will be a distant, and likely forgotten, memory. The problem here is that you ignore the concept of time and how all things get lost in time. As well as trying to compare a mere 100 years to 10,000+ years, when they are nowhere near the same.
• Occam's Razor would suggest that, given that dragons sleep, and nothing has been shown to be different about their perception of time, that they have the same, or highly similar, perceptions of time. You misused Occam;s Razor to draw a conclusion based on more assumptions.
• And again, most probable is that, with a lack of information, and nothing to suggest otherwise, they have the same or similar view of time.
• And you originally said they didn't do it, so I pointed out you were wrong.
• And, as pointed out, people have complained about every narrative the game has done, and IBS narrative isn't any functionally different then the older ones. It just wasn't what people expected, thus they dislike it.
• Which still doesn't change the fact they weren't focusd on just Zhaitan, and were attacking the forces of the other Elder Dragons.

10 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

Except 3 dead dragons, a dead god, a dead lich that ruled over elona for centuries... I have a hard time calling this nothing. The resulting change has been topic of quite some Dialogues, even in the DRM's. But it was never really fleshed out, except for the meeting of the leaders in LS2. Thats an example of having the world react to change.

 

It has. Especially after a Civil War. Not adressing this is simply poor worldbuilding.

 

You think in way too simple dimensions. You take all the dragons and place them in the same bag, when in reality, they all caused different struggle for different regions. Reducing it into "We need fight all dragons, we all united now until this single threat that is ALL DRAGONS are beaten!" would be the pinnacle of bad worldbuilding AND storytelling.

All of these things suffer from the same fundamental flaw that permeates much of your other arguments. You ignore the concept of time, and how it works. Things do not always just instantly change after some big event. You can look at numerous examples in the real world to see how it can take years, if not a decade or more, for the full effects of a big event to fully manifest themselves in a society. The entirety of GW2's plot takes place over less then 9 years, and almost all of it has been a never ending series of events that could be apocalyptic if they turn out badly. No one has had the time to have anything really effect them.

 

Joko may have died three years ago, but it wasn't until 3 months later that we got the major factions together to even consider the idea of working together. And it wasn't until just under a year after Joko's death that Kralkatorrik was killed, giving Elona the chance to breathe to even begin really working on restoring the government. Even then, there are still hordes of branded across Elona that need to be dealt before Elona can truly be considered stable enough to actually do that, and the process of making a government itself can take several years before they reach something tangible. In reality, we shouldn't expect to see or hear anything on Elona until like after EoD at least, probably a year or two after that even.

 

The same thing with the Charr and their Civil War. The killed Charr leaders have been replaced via the Charr's established system, but near immediately after the war ended they had to deal with Jormag and Primordus, forcing their species to put any issues to the side just to survive. While the dragon's invasion has allowed them to make olive branches out to the remaining Flame Legion, and the Olmahkan, the processes of erasing the old hatreds, like those seen toward the Flame Legion in Grothmar(especially the Flame Legion still at the Flame Citadel) are going to take years before we see any larger tangible effects. In all honesty, the game is more likely to just end, since the larger narrative ended, before such a thing would realistically happen.

 

And no, the Elder Dragons have effected everyone, everywhere. As far north as the Kodan in the icy arctic sea, to as far south as Cantha, which is itself near then antarctic line.  It is a singular threat. All of them have the ability to end all life on the planet. While some dragons are more tied to some races, like Mordy for the Sylvari, Primordus for the Asura, Jormag for the Norn, etc. all of them are, and have always been portrayed, as a threat to everyone, and tread as such... because they are. That isn't bad story telling, or world building, thats just acknowledging the reality of the situation.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Imba.9451]

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

And again, it literally doesn't matter, nor will it ever, If it happened before or after the cut. Its still in-game, as part of the narrative, thus, Anet did cover it in the narrative. So your claims that they didn't cover it fall flat. Anet doesn't, nor should they have, repeated the entire game's narrative after Jormag Rising.

Yes it does matter, as the negative reception of IBS and DRM's shows. Thats basic storytelling and what separates it from a loose collection of notes.

Quote

 

And that's just wrong. A setup for a larger story, especially in a war scenario, would be probing attacks(like those by Primordus in core), leading to a build up of forces(like in LWS3). The larger war is the main story(Champions), with the defeat of the enemy at its end, and thus the ending of the war, the conclusion(Dragonstorm). That's how war narratives work, and thats how GW2's war narrative worked for Primordus.

Execution matetrs. Hot the WHAT, but the HOW.

Quote

 

Except it is something you said. Your entire argument is that Anet didn't do X, and I keep showing that they did, but your only response is "but its before the cut!" which doesn't negate the fact they did it, and thus didn't need to do it after the cut.

No. And again you display either your inability to read my comments properly, or your willful misrepresentation of what I said.

I said the they didn't do things in terms of execution, wich is something completely difgferent from what you argue against. Thats, once again, a strawman.

Quote

This is only true if you think people are so inattentive as to forget about the think you like. You can just not forget about the think you like, and thus, never stop being hyped in the back of your mind. You keep saying you didn't forget, but base all your arguments around the idea people forgot, and NEED to be reminded.

No. As I explained, like so many other thing, mutible times by now, it's about creation tension. Simply remembering things does not create tension, especially since the topic we are discussing has been temporarily been dealth with and laid dormant since LS3.

And the statement that you can not simply forget the things you anticipate is flat out wrong. Also, your staement contradicts itself: "never stop being hyped in the back of your mind. "

You can not be hyped about something if it is in the back of your mind only. Thats the exact opposite of tension.

Quote

And DRM's repetitive nature is, again, no different from how all maps work, or map metas work.

Yes, it is. I explained how already, no need ti simply repeat your argument that I already adressed. This is not helping the conversation to go anywhere, but crosses border to spam-territory. Again, if you have nothing new to add and simply keep repeating your arguments without adressing mine, then please refrain from answering.

Quote

And much like Auric basin has different pylon events, each DRM has different pre-events that relate to the specific context of the situation presented in the DRM. And just like map events/etas, they repeat endlessly without trying to hide the fact its repeating. That isn't a strawman, thats just pointing out fact.

No. The fact is as follow: The DRM's have a repetitive design, continued over all DRM's, while all the different pylon events, the different crash site events, have a it's own, small narrative. As explained before.

Quote

And simply because you say they need to repeat everything all the time doesn't make is true. No narrative works that way. If you are reading a book, chapter 30 doesn't redo all of the events of chapter 5, just so that when a character pulls out a magical knife they got back back in chapter 5, you have an immediate retelling of the story to explain where he got. They just pull it out and use it because the book expects you to have read chapter 5 before chapter 30.

Again, a strawman by creating a very shallow example that you think represents what I said. Wich isn't true.

Books do this by forshadowing. By keeping tension high. Want an example? The Lord of the Rings constantly reminds us that Sauron still exists and is a looming threat during the Saruman arc in two towers. The reader gets reminded, that this threat exists.

Thats how stories work. Sometime more subtle, sometime a bit on your nose. But they make sure the impact of the narrative can be felt and lurks in the back of your head. Sauron wasn't put to sleep, he was there and the reader knew the was a threat.

 

Quote

And this still doesn't negate the original point, that people's enjoyment of something is not inherently tied to the narrative's quality as you originally suggested. I also never said enjoyment was a tool to measure enjoyment, I said the only thing its a measure for is enjoyment.

It does. Because you took the all or nothing approach when in fact, several factors are responsible for the ultimate outcome of enjoyment levels, and these factors are weighted differently based on personal priorities at the time of watching. Something you neither adressed nor aknowledged.

Quote

 

The data isn't nonexistent, as you just said. Google it. There is plenty of data showing the silent majority in media. Hell, there is data showing 80% of people who play games don't finish them too. Also

>Google scholar

>taking blood samples.

This isn't a college thesis.

You want this discussion. I am more than happy to actually put the knowledge of methods, that are my daily bread and butter, into use if you insist to take the conversation down this route. I am happy to have a conversation that takes place on the rails of scientific accura, if you take it there.

Quote

• If it dealt with Zhaitain only we wouldn't have the Orge, Skritt, Quaggan, and Grawl, story arcs, which dealt with the other dragons. Those weren't background information. Those were playable, main quest, story arcs.

Arguing that those were the main focus of GW2 core is intellectually dishonest. They have been there for worldbuilding obviously.

Quote

• It didn't need to. Chekov's gun exists as a narrative concept.

Chekovs gun didn't get put to sleep though.

Quote

• And Primordus got the same treatment, as has already been shown.

It did not, as has already been shown.

Quote

• And 10,000 years from now, after several apocalyptic wars have nearly wiped out all life on Earth, WW2 will be a distant, and likely forgotten, memory. The problem here is that you ignore the concept of time and how all things get lost in time.

No. You ignore the simple fact that less important things have been carried down through history. As explained multible times by now.

Quote

• As well as trying to compare a mere 100 years to 10,000+ years, when they are nowhere near the same.

Wich is not what I said at any time. Strawman again.

Quote

• Occam's Razor would suggest that, given that dragons sleep, and nothing has been shown to be different about their perception of time, that they have the same, or highly similar, perceptions of time. You misused Occam;s Razor to draw a conclusion based on more assumptions.

Yes. That is my argument. We do not perceive time while sleeping as we do so while awake.

Quote

• And again, most probable is that, with a lack of information, and nothing to suggest otherwise, they have the same or similar view of time.

As we? Yes. Wich is different from being awake.

Quote

• And you originally said they didn't do it, so I pointed out you were wrong.

Point out to me where I said that and I will take a look wether this is misinterpretation by you or misphrasing by me please.

Quote

• And, as pointed out, people have complained about every narrative the game has done, and IBS narrative isn't any functionally different then the older ones. It just wasn't what people expected, thus they dislike it.

And, as pointed out, that is factually wrong, both in execution as in functiones stages of a story arch.

Quote

• Which still doesn't change the fact they weren't focusd on just Zhaitan, and were attacking the forces of the other Elder Dragons.

In core? Yes, the focus was on Zhaitan. Something getting mentioned in a story does not make it a focus, something seem to be confusing on a regular basis.

Quote

All of these things suffer from the same fundamental flaw that permeates much of your other arguments. You ignore the concept of time, and how it works.

I never did this. Heck I don`t even know how one could "ignore how time works". Thats one of the most baffling "arguments" I have ever read on the internt.

Quote

Things do not always just instantly change after some big event. You can look at numerous examples in the real world to see how it can take years, if not a decade or more, for the full effects of a big event to fully manifest themselves in a society.

Manifest in what way? Socially? Heck we still have repercussion of mental health being all traced back to WW2 here in germany, so yes. But on a geopilitical scale? WW2 lasted for only 6 years and had giant political repercussion, for obvious reasons. So your argument falls flat here.

Quote

The entirety of GW2's plot takes place over less then 9 years, and almost all of it has been a never ending series of events that could be apocalyptic if they turn out badly. No one has had the time to have anything really effect them.

Thats not how news work. How mental health works. How political reactions work. How economics work. How society works.

People do react to stuff. All the time. Even on a smaller scale. You imply deeply rooted indifference in all human beings, political institutions and economics in order to make your argument work, wich is far from reality.

Quote

 

Joko may have died three years ago, but it wasn't until 3 months later that we got the major factions together to even consider the idea of working together. And it wasn't until just under a year after Joko's death that Kralkatorrik was killed, giving Elona the chance to breathe to even begin really working on restoring the government. Even then, there are still hordes of branded across Elona that need to be dealt before Elona can truly be considered stable enough to actually do that, and the process of making a government itself can take several years before they reach something tangible. In reality, we shouldn't expect to see or hear anything on Elona until like after EoD at least, probably a year or two after that even.

That in itself would have enough room for individual stories, but thats another topic.

The difference in your argument is however, that you describe the state of things AFTER a big threat has been dealt with. What we are discussing here is how people react DURING big things happening.

Quote

 

The same thing with the Charr and their Civil War. The killed Charr leaders have been replaced via the Charr's established system, but near immediately after the war ended they had to deal with Jormag and Primordus, forcing their species to put any issues to the side just to survive. While the dragon's invasion has allowed them to make olive branches out to the remaining Flame Legion, and the Olmahkan, the processes of erasing the old hatreds, like those seen toward the Flame Legion in Grothmar(especially the Flame Legion still at the Flame Citadel) are going to take years before we see any larger tangible effects. In all honesty, the game is more likely to just end, since the larger narrative ended, before such a thing would realistically happen.

Buit we saw setup for this thorughout the whole IBS. Wich I, as mentioned before liked before DRM's. You again confuse simply information with storytelling techniques, like setup and payoff and worldbuilding. It's not the WHAT that matters, but the HOW.

Quote

 

And no, the Elder Dragons have effected everyone, everywhere. As far north as the Kodan in the icy arctic sea, to as far south as Cantha, which is itself near then antarctic line.  It is a singular threat. All of them have the ability to end all life on the planet. While some dragons are more tied to some races, like Mordy for the Sylvari, Primordus for the Asura, Jormag for the Norn, etc. all of them are, and have always been portrayed, as a threat to everyone, and tread as such... because they are. That isn't bad story telling, or world building, thats just acknowledging the reality of the situation.

The reality of the situation is that Kodan did not care much about Mordremoth, nor did the Sylvari about Kralk.

You are thinking way too simplistic here.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Imba.9451

[HotDelirium.7984]

10 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Everything I mentioned is stuff you can point blank see/experience in the game as is, which is the exact opposite of guess work. Literally none of what you quoted was either guess work, or dangling plot threads.... so what exactly are you talking about?

 

What didn't the game tell you that I mentioned exactly?

I'll pick just a few- 

• "We had Bangar go crazy, and try to start a civil war over the future of the Charr, and the title of Khan-Ur."
• Bangar didn't go crazy allegedly. He felt threatened by Aurene and wanted a dragon of their own to feel as superior as the Commander. If he was speciesist, I certainly don't recall that being a big deal. I do remember other misc Charr hating on other races and feeling superior. Do not recall him wanting to be Khan-Ur.
•  
• "Smodur finally showed his true colors, and he got killed/replaced."
• Feedback provided shows Smodur was very out of character during this release so if it was him revealing his true colors or he needed to change to meet plot points I guess we'll never know.

Edited July 23, 2021 by HotDelirium.7984

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

4 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

• Yes it does matter, as the negative reception of IBS and DRM's shows. Thats basic storytelling and what separates it from a loose collection of notes.
• Execution matetrs. Hot the WHAT, but the HOW.
• No. And again you display either your inability to read my comments properly, or your willful misrepresentation of what I said. I said the they didn't do things in terms of execution, wich is something completely difgferent from what you argue against. Thats, once again, a strawman.

• Again, people, especially the GW2 community, react negatively to nearly everything Anet does... even if its the things most of the community wants based on the data Anet has. This is because the forum community does not represent the actual community as a whole, since most players don't visit the forums. You can make no justifiable claim about how much the community actually liked or disliked it, since neither of us have the data. And no, constant repetition does not differentiate something as storytelling or notes.
• And again, it was done the same way as the other dragons were. In fact, it was done on a much larger scale then the other dragons were because the other dragons big battles were confirmed to individual maps, often out in the middle of nowhere. Jormag and Primordus' invasions were attacks all across the game world from LA, to the Flame Citadel. A much larger scope then before.
• They did do those things... before Champions. Every time I point this out however you just go on about that not mattering since it was before the cuts, like that somehow negates that they did them.

4 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

No. As I explained, like so many other thing, mutible times by now, it's about creation tension. Simply remembering things does not create tension, especially since the topic we are discussing has been temporarily been dealth with and laid dormant since LS3.

And the statement that you can not simply forget the things you anticipate is flat out wrong. Also, your staement contradicts itself: "never stop being hyped in the back of your mind. "

You can not be hyped about something if it is in the back of your mind only. Thats the exact opposite of tension.

You absolutely can be hyped about something you are keeping in the back of your mind. I'm not sure what you definition of hyped it, but being hyped about something doesn't mean it has to be the sole, or primary thing on your mind. People can juggle many different things at once. Also, I said "you can simply not forget", not that you "can simply forget"

4 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

• Yes, it is. I explained how already, no need ti simply repeat your argument that I already adressed. This is not helping the conversation to go anywhere, but crosses border to spam-territory. Again, if you have nothing new to add and simply keep repeating your arguments without adressing mine, then please refrain from answering.
• No. The fact is as follow: The DRM's have a repetitive design, continued over all DRM's, while all the different pylon events, the different crash site events, have a it's own, small narrative. As explained before.

• And the problem is your explanation is simply wrong, as shown. You keep trying to silence any sort of disagreement with you by trying to deflect by not addressing them, and simply dismissing everything as spam.
• And all the DRMs have their own cast of characters, with their own stories, and own pre-events. so yes, they are exactly like the Plyons in that regards. The Metrica DRM does not have the same pre-events, characters, or dialog, as the Bloodtide DRM does for instance.

4 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

• Again, a strawman by creating a very shallow example that you think represents what I said. Wich isn't true.
• Books do this by forshadowing. By keeping tension high. Want an example? The Lord of the Rings constantly reminds us that Sauron still exists and is a looming threat during the Saruman arc in two towers. The reader gets reminded, that this threat exists. Thats how stories work. Sometime more subtle, sometime a bit on your nose. But they make sure the impact of the narrative can be felt and lurks in the back of your head. Sauron wasn't put to sleep, he was there and the reader knew the was a threat.
• It does. Because you took the all or nothing approach when in fact, several factors are responsible for the ultimate outcome of enjoyment levels, and these factors are weighted differently based on personal priorities at the time of watching. Something you neither adressed nor aknowledged.
• You want this discussion. I am more than happy to actually put the knowledge of methods, that are my daily bread and butter, into use if you insist to take the conversation down this route. I am happy to have a conversation that takes place on the rails of scientific accura, if you take it there.

• And it didn't need to do this because it was already established that Sauron was the big bad, and a VERY big bad. They could have simply not done so and it wouldn't have changed because it was already set up to be in the back of your mind from the beginning.
• Except I did acknowledge that multiple factors could lead to people enjoy or not enjoy something... that was the basis of my original argument. It was you who took the all or nothign approach by claiming narrative quality was the defining factor, when many other factors are actually responsible.
• You're the only one who has wanted, or tried, to bring hard science into an opinionated debate about storytelling quality.

4 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

• Arguing that those were the main focus of GW2 core is intellectually dishonest. They have been there for worldbuilding obviously.
• Chekovs gun didn't get put to sleep though.
• It did not, as has already been shown.
• No. You ignore the simple fact that less important things have been carried down through history. As explained multible times by now.
• Yes. That is my argument. We do not perceive time while sleeping as we do so while awake. As we? Yes. Wich is different from being awake.
• And, as pointed out, that is factually wrong, both in execution as in functiones stages of a story arch.
• In core? Yes, the focus was on Zhaitan. Something getting mentioned in a story does not make it a focus, something seem to be confusing on a regular basis.
• I never did this. Heck I don`t even know how one could "ignore how time works". Thats one of the most baffling "arguments" I have ever read on the internt.

• Arguing that main story chapters, that you can't avoid, and exist to show the scope of the Pact's mission, aren't a main focus is dishonest. If it was simple world building it would have been via ambient dialog, not main story quests, and dynamic events in the game world.
• And again, it doesn't matter. If a badguy is established to be able to destroy an entire city with a thought, even if they put him to sleep, and he only wakes up 10 chapters later, they don't need to have a drawn out redo of that fact before they have him do it since it was already established.
• It did, as has already been shown.
• And you ignore that while many less important things have been passed down in history, many MORE important things have been lost. Preservation of knowledge is not a consistent force.
• I never said we do perceive time the same as we do when awake. What I said was that we can tell when we have been asleep for a long time, when we wake up.
• And, as pointed out, the idea that it is factually wrong is, itself factually wrong.
• This wasn't just mentioned in the story, as you keep ignoring. It was part of the main quest, and many open world events.
• Ignoring how time works is a fairly common tactic people use where they will take something an NPC says now about something, a journal of their three years ago that says something else, and a comment they make later, and treat them all as if they were occurring at the exact same time, and try to use that to say there is an inconsistency, when, in reality, things simply changed between those points. Its an argument that ignores the very ideas of past, present, and future, to treat everything as only the present.

4 hours ago, Imba.9451 said:

• Manifest in what way? Socially? Heck we still have repercussion of mental health being all traced back to WW2 here in germany, so yes. But on a geopilitical scale? WW2 lasted for only 6 years and had giant political repercussion, for obvious reasons. So your argument falls flat here.

• Thats not how news work. How mental health works. How political reactions work. How economics work. How society works.People do react to stuff. All the time. Even on a smaller scale. You imply deeply rooted indifference in all human beings, political institutions and economics in order to make your argument work, wich is far from reality.

• That in itself would have enough room for individual stories, but thats another topic.

  The difference in your argument is however, that you describe the state of things AFTER a big threat has been dealt with. What we are discussing here is how people react DURING big things happening.

• Buit we saw setup for this thorughout the whole IBS. Wich I, as mentioned before liked before DRM's. You again confuse simply information with storytelling techniques, like setup and payoff and worldbuilding. It's not the WHAT that matters, but the HOW.

• The reality of the situation is that Kodan did not care much about Mordremoth, nor did the Sylvari about Kralk.

  You are thinking way too simplistic here.

• This wasn't even the argument I was making. What I said was that repercussions take time to manifest. You act like all those big geopolitical changes from WW2 were instant. They were not. Nor would they be in GW2.
• I never said people didn't react to stuff all the time. I said there hasn't been enough time for the larger scale changes, that have tangible impact on the game world, to happen.
• And we already know how people react during these big things happening. They all got together, pooled their resources and manpower, and formed a multi-order, multi-racial, alliance called The Pact to combat the threats larger then they were alone. The game covered this back in core, it doesn't need to keep doing it over and over.
• We saw the setup for the Charr Civil War throughout IBS because it was a new story arc, and thus needed it. Many races coming together to fight the dragons isn't a new story arc. Again, it was something covered in core, and resulted in the Pact. Many of the Allied factions in Champions were races/groups we helped out back in core, all the way to LWS4. So we don't even need reasons why they joined... we got them already. The Pact/Ebon Vanguard(core), Humans/Sylvari/Norn/Charr/Asura(LWS2), Exalted(HoT), Crystal Bloom/Olmakhan(LWS4). As for the rest, we see the Kodan, Skritt, and Tengu, get their homes attacked in the Snowden, Brisban, and Caledon DRMs, which we come to their aid in. So the game even shows that.
• The Sylvari care about all the Elder Dragons. More so then any other race really due to their deep connection to Tyria as a whole, and their Wyld Hunts directing them against all the dragons. Sylvari were in the three Orders/The Pact hunting down Kralkatorrik's branded before they even knew Mordrmeoth existed.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Imba.9451]

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Again, people, especially the GW2 community, react negatively to nearly everything Anet does... even if its the things most of the community wants based on the data Anet has. This is because the forum community does not represent the actual community as a whole, since most players don't visit the forums. You can make no justifiable claim about how much the community actually liked or disliked it, since neither of us have the data. And no, constant repetition does not differentiate something as storytelling or notes.

We have data here. You have nothing to back up your claim. That alone should show you that your whole argument is based on your sole assumptions alone.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• And again, it was done the same way as the other dragons were. In fact, it was done on a much larger scale then the other dragons were because the other dragons big battles were confirmed to individual maps, often out in the middle of nowhere. Jormag and Primordus' invasions were attacks all across the game world from LA, to the Flame Citadel. A much larger scope then before.

It was not the same, as discussed before. It was executed with less quaility and the scope was not shown at all, despite some NPC's realizing that "Destroyers/Icebrood bad."

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• They did do those things... before Champions. Every time I point this out however you just go on about that not mattering since it was before the cuts, like that somehow negates that they did them.

I explained why it does matter, yet you failed to adress this several times now and instead go "It does not matter". Hence I repeat my argument.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

You absolutely can be hyped about something you are keeping in the back of your mind. I'm not sure what you definition of hyped it, but being hyped about something doesn't mean it has to be the sole, or primary thing on your mind. People can juggle many different things at once.

Thats not how tension works. You may want to look up what tension is, hot it is formed, how it is maintained. And I used hype and tension intechaneably here. If thats an incorrect use, then let's go with the word tension again, because that was the starting point of this discussion.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• And the problem is your explanation is simply wrong, as shown. You keep trying to silence any sort of disagreement with you by trying to deflect by not addressing them, and simply dismissing everything as spam.

Factually false in both regards. First, me calling something spam happened the first time now. Second, I adress literally every sentence you write.

I am not silencing anything, quite the contrary. This attack flat out hold no merit because it is based on a lie. If anything, you are the one to drop conversation threats regulary if you lack a proper response, instead of aknowledging a good argument, like I did several times.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• And all the DRMs have their own cast of characters, with their own stories, and own pre-events. so yes, they are exactly like the Plyons in that regards. The Metrica DRM does not have the same pre-events, characters, or dialog, as the Bloodtide DRM does for instance.

Pylons: A tiny piece of the story and worldbuilding.

DRM's: The major chunk of the narrative.

 

See the difference?

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• And it didn't need to do this because it was already established that Sauron was the big bad, and a VERY big bad. They could have simply not done so and it wouldn't have changed because it was already set up to be in the back of your mind from the beginning.

So, a beloved book could simply be rewritten by what you consider important, based on assumptions only you have and that are backed up by nothing but opposed by many examples, and the story would still work?

Sorry, but calling that a bold claim is terribly underplaying it. It works, because it is written as is, just like IBS is written as is. And IBS did not work, as evident by peoples opinions about it. You can claim to know better all you want, but everything speaks against you.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Except I did acknowledge that multiple factors could lead to people enjoy or not enjoy something... that was the basis of my original argument. It was you who took the all or nothign approach by claiming narrative quality was the defining factor, when many other factors are actually responsible.

You may want to re-read this aspect of the conversation again. You completely missed and misrepresent my argument. Again.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• You're the only one who has wanted, or tried, to bring hard science into an opinionated debate about storytelling quality.

Wrong. You have been the one to argue about silent crowds, with nothing to back it up. So I tok the scientific approach to refute that claim. Thats the only level of quality in discussing a matter that holds intelectual merit, if two people are very invested in the debate. A point, I might argue, that both uf us have crossed long ago.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Arguing that main story chapters, that you can't avoid, and exist to show the scope of the Pact's mission, aren't a main focus is dishonest. If it was simple world building it would have been via ambient dialog, not main story quests, and dynamic events in the game world.

Wasn't it you who expressed, that ambient dialogue is not world building? Just a side note.

The fact remains though, that Zhaitan was the focus of the story. This is evident.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• And again, it doesn't matter. If a badguy is established to be able to destroy an entire city with a thought, even if they put him to sleep, and he only wakes up 10 chapters later, they don't need to have a drawn out redo of that fact before they have him do it since it was already established.

It still feels cheap to put him on the playing field just because though. Without proper setup, it feels like the antagonist was simply thrown at use for no other reason than to have an antagonist.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• It did, as has already been shown.

Again, this is simple spam. You have nothing to show for in order to make this claim.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• And you ignore that while many less important things have been passed down in history, many MORE important things have been lost. Preservation of knowledge is not a consistent force.

No, I never ignored this. But this wasn't my argument. And it isn't a counter towards my argument either. It's a pointless throw-in that serves nothing in the frame of this discussion.

The bigger the event, the more likely that it will be remembered. Many smaller thing have been passed down in tyria. Thus, big events are more likely to get passed down as well.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• I never said we do perceive time the same as we do when awake. What I said was that we can tell when we have been asleep for a long time, when we wake up.

So? You don`t wake up with a changed personality though.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• And, as pointed out, the idea that it is factually wrong is, itself factually wrong.

Nope. You simply repeated old arguments that I adressed several times already with no new input.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• This wasn't just mentioned in the story, as you keep ignoring. It was part of the main quest, and many open world events.

Open world events can be part of the main story, but they don't have to. Again, very simplistic thinking, that doesn't do the scope of storytelling in video games justice.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Ignoring how time works is a fairly common tactic people use where they will take something an NPC says now about something, a journal of their three years ago that says something else, and a comment they make later, and treat them all as if they were occurring at the exact same time, and try to use that to say there is an inconsistency, when, in reality, things simply changed between those points. Its an argument that ignores the very ideas of past, present, and future, to treat everything as only the present.

Good thing I didn't do that then.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• This wasn't even the argument I was making. What I said was that repercussions take time to manifest. You act like all those big geopolitical changes from WW2 were instant. They were not. Nor would they be in GW2.

Oh, some of them were. Else it would not have been a WORLD war.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• I never said people didn't react to stuff all the time. I said there hasn't been enough time for the larger scale changes, that have tangible impact on the game world, to happen.

Yes, and thats the main problem in terms of pacing for this story, wich was one of my starting points to begin with. And wich I explained several times by now.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• And we already know how people react during these big things happening. They all got together, pooled their resources and manpower, and formed a multi-order, multi-racial, alliance called The Pact to combat the threats larger then they were alone. The game covered this back in core, it doesn't need to keep doing it over and over.

If it does not, it assumes the player is in a constant state of tension. Wich does not work in terms of storytelling. As explained before.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• We saw the setup for the Charr Civil War throughout IBS because it was a new story arc, and thus needed it. Many races coming together to fight the dragons isn't a new story arc.

It's not ONLY about gathering, but giving it the feeling dread and danger, not just "Oh, another dragon. Eh."

And thats all DRM's managed to convey. There was nothing that wasn't there before, thus making the Dragons feel shallow as antagonistic forces and more like a crime-of-the-week scenario.

Something I explained several times now.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

•  
•  
• Again, it was something covered in core, and resulted in the Pact.

Wich worked, because the threat was new back then. Hooking people was easier back then.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• Many of the Allied factions in Champions were races/groups we helped out back in core, all the way to LWS4. So we don't even need reasons why they joined... we got them already. The Pact/Ebon Vanguard(core), Humans/Sylvari/Norn/Charr/Asura(LWS2), Exalted(HoT), Crystal Bloom/Olmakhan(LWS4). As for the rest, we see the Kodan, Skritt, and Tengu, get their homes attacked in the Snowden, Brisban, and Caledon DRMs, which we come to their aid in. So the game even shows that.

Yep. As just another monster of the week. No tension, and the only setup it could draw from was not only before a narrative cut, but also one that was used for another dragon. Diminishing returns, paired with low quality execution is a surefire way to create desaster.

28 minutes ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

• The Sylvari care about all the Elder Dragons. More so then any other race really due to their deep connection to Tyria as a whole, and their Wyld Hunts directing them against all the dragons. Sylvari were in the three Orders/The Pact hunting down Kralkatorrik's branded before they even knew Mordrmeoth existed.

Every race is in every order, thats hardly an argument. That never was my point to begin with. My point was, that, depending on wich perspective you choose, there is not THE dragon threat. For Kodan, it's Jormag. For Charr, it was Kralk. For Sylvari, it was Mordy.

As much as there is not THE dragon threat, there is not THE population of tyria as one homogenized mass.