Why didn't Anet follow the setup of Jormag in vanilla?

[Plagiarised.2865]

6 hours ago, Zola.6197 said:

We get it, Sajuuk, you like lackluster storytelling.

They just don't agree with you. Liking or not liking a story is subjective, no matter how objective you feel your opinions are. 

[Hypnowulf.7403]

I need to stop being a masochist and reading these in the hopes that something will come of it.

 

It is vindicating though to realise that people are so far entwined in their own realities to bother to understand anything of what I was talking about.

 

Why would I want the kodan to be special? I'm not invested in them whatsoever. It's always fascinating to see what people think of me, though. I guess I'll just put it down to neurodiversity and life experiences. All I've been vocal about is how it's both disappointing and problematic that an intelligent and hardly neurotypical character has been perceived as a psychopath and a manipulator with no challenge from ArenaNet regarding that.

 

For victims of abuse, those with above average intelligence, and neurodiversity in general? The public perception of what a manipulator is has been damaging for us. Jormag never struck me as a manipulator. They were incredibly desperate, yes. They wanted to be freed from suffering. And they were even clever to boot.

 

Apparently now though I am the patron saint of kodan? That's... kind of intriguing. I'm not really sure why that is. I suppose this is what I suspect, though. It's why my curiosity drew me back.

 

It's something that psychologists have been studying for decades now—why is the perspective of neurodiverse and introverted people more accurate? Why do autistic people in particular have a very clear perspective of reality? It's the absence of delusion.

 

I just look at what's there, without bias.

 

You're all so wound up in your biases founded by your own delusions, it's the same kind of issue that leads people to magical thinking or to believing in hoaxes. I don't even think it's that people want to be "special," it could be that they want to be a part of something though. I couldn't say for sure.

 

I am amused though that I've been purple-monkey-dishwasher'd and I'm now the patron saint of kodan. I guess that's a thing. It even gives me an interesting new perspective on certain mythological and Abrahamic figures who seemed entirely too confused about how they ended up in the position they were in.

 

This web of delusions, cognitive dissonance, and biases isn't anything I'd have any truck with. All I wanted was for an intelligent, non-neurotypical character to be shown as compassionate, and to challenge the worship of stupidity that leads to enabling actual psychopaths. Were Jormag indeed the victim, as the evidence had suggested, that would've meant the story had something to say about victim-blaming.

 

There aren't enough stories out there that really cover that. It's something I hope for as the just-world bias is destroying our world but... The media will continue to fortify delusions rather than shatter them.

 

There was much within the evidence presented that indicated Jormag's willingness to be mutual, to coexist, and that all they wanted was for Primordust o stop abusing them by basically feeding them HD torture gore porn over their mind-link. They collared Bangar to stop the momentum of war, they took Lake Doric to ensure that Primordus couldn't force them to watch more atrocities, they had Asgeir lead the norn South so that the quixotic nature of legend-seeking norn culture wouldn't bring them into conflict.

 

There was something that could've been done there that would've at least challenged the perceptiont that anti-intellectualism is somehow inherently noble, and that any sesquipedalian speaking kind words is a manipulator using "honeyed" words to manipulate them. I tire of that perspective. I feel that anyone who believes that true manipulation has anything to do with "honeyed" words, slow seduction, intelligence, or anything they could so easily measure should be put through a gauntlet of phone scammers and actual con artists.

 

All you need to be a proper manipulator is charisma, confidence, animal cunning, and the ability to intimidate your quarry.

 

It's an almost instinctive thing and that's what leads true manipulators to be chameleons. It's almost like the status quo has even evolved to support and enable them too because the just-world bias will lead to onlookers making excuses for the abuses of  a real manipulator, that their victims must've done something to deserve it.

 

I was hoping for Jormag to be shown as a victim, that an intelligent, clever, soft-spoken sesquipedalian can be a victim. That they don't deserve abuse just for being smart, and that being smart isn't a deus ex machina that grants one freedom from abusive situations by figuring out how to not enrage their abuser or how to escape from their abuser.

 

I expected too much, that's all. I mean, I admit, part of it is that I'm fond of dragons so I was especially invested in this story having that to say about anti-intellectualism, victim-blaming, and the just-world bias.

 

I admitted I was wrong. I own that. I'm still sad, I still feel disappointed that this will once again help with the vile confirmation bias of intelligent, neurodiverse persons being manipulators but... I can't do anything about that.

 

Like I said, though... I am tickled pink that I'm now the patron saint of kodan. That's just fascinating to me. I think though that there really is nothing left to see. I guess that's why I came back for one, last look. I wanted to see self-awareness. Oh, there are glimmers but...

 

Shrug. I suppose being hte patron saint of kodan is better than a shot in the arm!

[voltaicbore.8012]

I've disagreed quite strongly with Saajuk  before, but here I think if we're being maximally charitable it comes down to a lack of precision in many of our complaints.

 

TLDR; I appreciate that the Saga picked up many cool storylines, but ended up giving all of them sub-par treatment. Just a few simple things could have improved a lot of them, without calling for the most enormous changes.

 

Many story threads were indeed picked up by the Saga. We did, in fact, have the opportunity to meet the dwarves, we actually got to talk to the Spirits of the Wild directly for the first time, and hell we even got more depth to the Ajax bit of the core Vigil storyline thanks to the Almorra vs. Bangar thing.

 

So yes, all those story threads did get brought up and go somewhere in the Saga. I think the issue OP (and many of us who also dislike where the Champions finale took us) is the manner in which many these story threads reached their respective 'somewhere' endpoints. I think the clearest example is how they handled Jormag in the finale.

 

What we got: We manage to lure Jormag and Primordus into a showdown, using the extremely flimsy ley-lines-compel-dragons mechanic. IMO this is on par with the "get to Mordremoth's mind through the Dream" mechanic. The HoT story does an absolutely awful job of building up a progression towards revealing a tangible way to kill the mind dragon, and the magic solution is just dumped on us at the end. The closest HoT story brings us to figuring things out before Trahearne dumps that method on us is a vage "all dragons have a weakness" - which is stupid, because we already killed Zhaitan. It's not like we didn't know dragons could be killed, and knowing that something has a weakness brings you exactly 0 steps closer to finding out what that weakness is. So narratively they did the same thing here and gave us a super hand-wavy resolution with no buildup whatsoever. It just stings worse because of the large shadow Primordus cast on the lore, and because we use a stupidly simple scheme to lure the master schemer Jormag into one of the dumbest fights ever.

 

What might have been: As Saajuk mentioned, by this point in the story we're all past Jormag's BSery; even the Arcane Council has come around. It would have been cool if there was a brief strategy meeting where it came to light that we all let Jormag's BSery go on for just a bit too long, and now Jormag is in a really unassailable position. The only force capable of breaking through Jormag's preparations is Primordus. Primordus being more... primal and all, he would have made an excellent candidate to use the ley-line-compulsion trick on. It makes more sense that Primordus would respond to such compulsion, and we could just dump him right on Jormag's doorstep to spring all of the ice dragon's traps and burn through most of its defenses. After such a confrontation (which could be done in a cutscene), both dragons are weakened but face each other in a final showdown that looks pretty much identical to what we got in the finale.

 

So that's my take on it - just a small presentation tweak (we use the ley-line-compulsion to drag just Primordus, not Jormag too) and maybe the addition of one cutscene, and things could have been less flimsy than it turned out. It's not so much where the story ended up (as you said Saajuk, we were always going to end up killing Jormag), but how it got there feels lazy and ill-considered.

 

 

[The Greyhawk.9107]

1 hour ago, Hypnowulf.7403 said:

I need to stop being a masochist and reading these in the hopes that something will come of it.

 

It is vindicating though to realise that people are so far entwined in their own realities to bother to understand anything of what I was talking about.

 

Why would I want the kodan to be special? I'm not invested in them whatsoever. It's always fascinating to see what people think of me, though. I guess I'll just put it down to neurodiversity and life experiences. All I've been vocal about is how it's both disappointing and problematic that an intelligent and hardly neurotypical character has been perceived as a psychopath and a manipulator with no challenge from ArenaNet regarding that.

 

For victims of abuse, those with above average intelligence, and neurodiversity in general? The public perception of what a manipulator is has been damaging for us. Jormag never struck me as a manipulator. They were incredibly desperate, yes. They wanted to be freed from suffering. And they were even clever to boot.

 

Apparently now though I am the patron saint of kodan? That's... kind of intriguing. I'm not really sure why that is. I suppose this is what I suspect, though. It's why my curiosity drew me back.

 

It's something that psychologists have been studying for decades now—why is the perspective of neurodiverse and introverted people more accurate? Why do autistic people in particular have a very clear perspective of reality? It's the absence of delusion.

 

I just look at what's there, without bias.

 

You're all so wound up in your biases founded by your own delusions, it's the same kind of issue that leads people to magical thinking or to believing in hoaxes. I don't even think it's that people want to be "special," it could be that they want to be a part of something though. I couldn't say for sure.

 

I am amused though that I've been purple-monkey-dishwasher'd and I'm now the patron saint of kodan. I guess that's a thing. It even gives me an interesting new perspective on certain mythological and Abrahamic figures who seemed entirely too confused about how they ended up in the position they were in.

 

This web of delusions, cognitive dissonance, and biases isn't anything I'd have any truck with. All I wanted was for an intelligent, non-neurotypical character to be shown as compassionate, and to challenge the worship of stupidity that leads to enabling actual psychopaths. Were Jormag indeed the victim, as the evidence had suggested, that would've meant the story had something to say about victim-blaming.

 

There aren't enough stories out there that really cover that. It's something I hope for as the just-world bias is destroying our world but... The media will continue to fortify delusions rather than shatter them.

 

There was much within the evidence presented that indicated Jormag's willingness to be mutual, to coexist, and that all they wanted was for Primordust o stop abusing them by basically feeding them HD torture gore porn over their mind-link. They collared Bangar to stop the momentum of war, they took Lake Doric to ensure that Primordus couldn't force them to watch more atrocities, they had Asgeir lead the norn South so that the quixotic nature of legend-seeking norn culture wouldn't bring them into conflict.

 

There was something that could've been done there that would've at least challenged the perceptiont that anti-intellectualism is somehow inherently noble, and that any sesquipedalian speaking kind words is a manipulator using "honeyed" words to manipulate them. I tire of that perspective. I feel that anyone who believes that true manipulation has anything to do with "honeyed" words, slow seduction, intelligence, or anything they could so easily measure should be put through a gauntlet of phone scammers and actual con artists.

 

All you need to be a proper manipulator is charisma, confidence, animal cunning, and the ability to intimidate your quarry.

 

It's an almost instinctive thing and that's what leads true manipulators to be chameleons. It's almost like the status quo has even evolved to support and enable them too because the just-world bias will lead to onlookers making excuses for the abuses of  a real manipulator, that their victims must've done something to deserve it.

 

I was hoping for Jormag to be shown as a victim, that an intelligent, clever, soft-spoken sesquipedalian can be a victim. That they don't deserve abuse just for being smart, and that being smart isn't a deus ex machina that grants one freedom from abusive situations by figuring out how to not enrage their abuser or how to escape from their abuser.

 

I expected too much, that's all. I mean, I admit, part of it is that I'm fond of dragons so I was especially invested in this story having that to say about anti-intellectualism, victim-blaming, and the just-world bias.

 

I admitted I was wrong. I own that. I'm still sad, I still feel disappointed that this will once again help with the vile confirmation bias of intelligent, neurodiverse persons being manipulators but... I can't do anything about that.

 

Like I said, though... I am tickled pink that I'm now the patron saint of kodan. That's just fascinating to me. I think though that there really is nothing left to see. I guess that's why I came back for one, last look. I wanted to see self-awareness. Oh, there are glimmers but...

 

Shrug. I suppose being hte patron saint of kodan is better than a shot in the arm!

Dunno what you're talking about with this "Patron saint of Kodan" stuff, but you continuing to insist that Jormag was something that it was never written to be while simultaneously insisting backhandedly on the inferiority of so called neurotypicals all the while lacking your own self-awareness will never cease to amaze me.  Aw, to hell with it, you're not going to respond anyway, regardless if you actually quit coming here or not.  But if you do read this keep in mind, I'm on the spectrum too, among other things that would put me under the so called neurodivergent label, and I never saw a hint on anything from Jormag's words or behavior that resembled autism or any similar trait, only a charismatic sociopath manipulator.  Not unlike the kind of person you rail against in may of your many novel length posts.

Edited May 4, 2021 by The Greyhawk.9107

[ugrakarma.9416]

to me is perfect balanced...

bjora = norm...

drizzlewood = charr, 

 

 

IBS is a cutted stuff, probably will have more on norm/spirits, thats gets simplistic to fit into "champions".

 

remember that before drizzlewood, lot of ppl speculated if theres will be 1 chapter dedicated to each spirit, as long bjora is heavy focused on raven spirit and a little bit on wolf.

Edited May 6, 2021 by ugrakarma.9416