Please disband Dragon's Watch

[Adamixos.6785]

On 5/9/2021 at 2:59 PM, Ashantara.8731 said:

P.S. (Edit): I just noticed that this thread was moved from Discussions to the Lore section. 🙊🙉🙈 This was supposed to be a suggestion directed at the devs and has nothing to do with GW2 lore.

I'd take that as a hint that your suggestion has been "politely" dismissed. 🙂

[Adamixos.6785]

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I think the 'Lab Time' she and Gorrik are spending do 'Lab Things' involves merging her consciousness into Scruffy, so I don't think she'll be gone any time soon. 

I am not sure how do you read tone and subtext - especially in actually voiced dialogue - but I am pretty sure the hint there was that the two of them are hitting off a romance.

 

Quote

But because of the Xenophobia of Cantha I think the best cast to send would have to have at least 2 or 3 non humans in it, not including the Commander of obvious reasons.

You are assuming that Anet will care about cultural sensitivity when their always politically correct Charr can stride into Kaineng on their moral high raptors and give the emperor a lecture on respect and egalitarianism.

Edited May 13, 2021 by Adamixos.6785

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

52 minutes ago, Adamixos.6785 said:

I am not sure how do you read tone and subtext - especially in actually voiced dialogue - but I am pretty sure the hint there was that the two of them are hitting off a romance.

You are assuming that Anet will care about cultural sensitivity when their always politically correct Charr can stride into Kaineng on their moral high raptors and give the emperor a lecture on respect and egalitarianism.

Ah I got the hint on romance, but Gorrik has the know how to help Taimi to become one with Scruffy.

 

I expect Anet to very insensitive if a chart walks into Kaineng. There's a lot of racial bickering in the core game as well in case you forgot.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

 

 

13 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I think the 'Lab Time' she and Gorrik are spending do 'Lab Things' involves merging her consciousness into Scruffy, so I don't think she'll be gone any time soon. 

 

God I hope not, really don't like the concept.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 5/13/2021 at 2:38 PM, Adamixos.6785 said:

I'd take that as a hint that your suggestion has been "politely" dismissed. 🙂

 

I don't know what you mean! 😂

[Yasai.3549]

Dragon's Watch?

More like Children and Elderly Watch. 

Braham = Angsty Teenage boy. Even thought he would have grown up since Season 4. Lolnope.

Rythlock = Getting more and more emotional, but he's ol' grandpa.

Taimi and Gorrik = two kids who would probably spend all day browsing 4chan if allowed to, and no sense of danger to either of them. 

Marjory and Kashmeer = Daphne and Fred

MC = Tired, overstressed single parent

 

That's all Dragon's Watch is right now. 

They should have just dissolved Dragon's Watch after Season 4, because it was the perfect time to do it when Rox left. 

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2021 by Yasai.3549

[Bast.7253]

*Duplicate - please remove.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Bast.7253

[Bast.7253]

On 5/13/2021 at 7:19 AM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I think Marjory is getting more connected with the Vigil though at this point.

I think the 'Lab Time' she and Gorrik are spending do 'Lab Things' involves merging her consciousness into Scruffy, so I don't think she'll be gone any time soon. 

That may be in Braham' case... Although I hope to takes a more comedic back seat in EoD.

 

I expect we'll see Marjory and Rytlock at least go to Cantha with us, though Rytlock has an 'out' now to take a background role in the story.

 

But because of the Xenophobia of Cantha I think the best cast to send would have to have at least 2 or 3 non humans in it, not including the Commander of obvious reasons.

 

So for me Marjory, Canach, Rytlock, Braham and maybe Taimi or Kasmeer are the ones I'd expect to see go to Cantha with us.

I feel like Marjory is aiming more to get into Jhavi's pants than the Vigil.

As far as Taimi goes - I feel like that plot's been pretty much abandoned. Honestly it feels like her whole illness has been forgotten. And to be honest, they have Aurene so I'm not sure why Aurene wouldn't be able to "brand" her and potentially preserve her. Maybe it doesn't work like that and I know people will hate on it for Aurene being the "solution" to something yet again, but to me it makes the most sense.

As far as Braham goes, I think he'll remain front and center. I'm not sure if the writer's just really like him or are living through him or what, but with the concept art teaser we had awhile back of the Aetherblade/Norn architecture I'm betting we'll see Braham heavily involved in meeting some Norn down there and potentially more spirits of the wild. 

Marjory makes sense but I think she'll have more of a background role. Maybe introducing us to people. Kas - no clue, but she at least usually manages to be one of the more useful members of the group.

I do expect Kaldris to be making a return though as a more substantial member of the group. She's a completely new character, a race we haven't developed any close ties with, and she has an established voice. I think she'll fall back into the story. And despite people insisting it's not possible if there are ANY features in this expansion I'm betting on, it's Tengu being playable. I was a naysayer before but I'm pretty confident now.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 5/10/2021 at 1:32 AM, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

No, you will not abandon your band of progressive cross-species liberals.

 

Please don't make this a pseudo-US-political thing ("so-called liberals vs dumb conservatives"). The characters' "progressive, liberal" mindsets are not the problem here.

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[TheBravery.9615]

Congratulation anet for designing some of the most despised cast of main characters in a video game.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

On 5/15/2021 at 5:51 AM, Ashantara.8731 said:

 

Please don't make this a pseudo-US-political thing ("so-called liberals vs dumb conservatives"). The characters' "progressive, liberal" mindsets are not the problem here.

 

Being either doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the overall quality of one's arguments or mindset. I simply laid it out as it is. As such, no one should be able to get offended over it.

Should.

[DarcShriek.5829]

I think it's time to disband Dragon's Watch.  It seems most of the characters have reached a point in their lives where the guild is holding them back.  I'd most like to see the commander go to Cantha alone.  However, Jory and Canach could be good companions on the trip.  The rest of them, need to pursue their new lives.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

Disbanding Dragon's Watch now would be silly. Their goal is to fight Elder Dragons, and there is still an Elder Dragon left to fight.

 

Let them have their one last big adventure in Cantha end the last Elder Dragons, and maybe stick around for the fallout in LWS6. Then you an reasonably argue Dragon;s Watch should be disbanded, since there are no dragons left to fight.

[Fenella.2634]

4 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Disbanding Dragon's Watch now would be silly. Their goal is to fight Elder Dragons

Is it? That's the goal of the Pact and was the goal of DE, but it was never stated that way for DW. 

I understood DW to be a more flexible group than those. They can adjust their goal to whatever is needed at a time, be it dealing with the White Mantle, or protecting Elder Dragons. 

 

Ironically, they worked best when they were not an official guild. I really buy their friendship in LS2 and HoT, but after the guild was official, it went downhill. 

[The Greyhawk.9107]

I've always thought that they shouldn't have gotten rid of Destiny's Edge, just made the newer lot members to replace the lost members.  Dragon's Watch is a STUPID name.

[voltaicbore.8012]

On 5/9/2021 at 8:16 AM, Teratus.2859 said:

Not all guilds work together all the time, people do different things and have different life obligations.
I think Anet hasn't done a bad job mimicing that with Dragon's Watch by having our members and allies going off on their own things occasionally.

 

This is true for player-run guilds, but I think the point is that DW is a complete, unabashed failure as a narrative guild. I happen to agree that the narrative is better off without Dragon's Watch. I've hated it since its very (useless) formation, and it never redeemed itself as a narrative device.

[Rukia.4802]

I can already imagine cantha story being ruined by the clown brigade, also worried the lame dragon will take over the story. Joko was the best thing that happened in story, even though his end was complete bs.  We need that doubled up without any of the disney stalkers that follow me around everywhere especially taimi..a child.. why does she even exist in the story at all. Can you imagine if gwen followed you everywhere with annoying dialogue in GW1? Yeah it would have been dumb, but she was cool as she was.

 

 Issue in GW2 is the writing is so childish, you go straight from stupid silly dialogue to something serious and its supposed to be impactful but its totally jarring and kills every big moment. With a tiny fraction of the budget GW1 produced superior lore and dialogue.

 

Sometimes in this game its actually better to have the voice acting off and the story immediately gets less cringe. I wish I was joking..

 

Anyway I'm glad to see people talking about this stuff, at the very least I hope cantha has all this crap toned down a lot. GW2 deserves a good story.

[voltaicbore.8012]

On 5/25/2021 at 5:45 AM, Rukia.4802 said:

With a tiny fraction of the budget GW1 produced superior lore and dialogue.

 

I'm still in the very early stages of GW1, but I can agree with this.

 

I think with GW2 ANet really painted itself into a corner early on by (1) leaning waaaayyy too hard into The Power of Friendship as the solution to absolutely everything, and (2) setting up the Elder Dragons as a group of antagonists with world-ending consequences. Dragon's Watch is basically the narrative embodiment of these two ideas, and I think it's a great disservice to the story as a result.

 

Put together, I think points (1) and (2) make it difficult to keep the story advancement more flexible. While the early game managed to draw a lot of its charm from showing us a ton of different places in the game world that all had their own local issues to deal with, that uniqueness eventually had to give way to the massive dragon threat. Point (1) funnels all the races and even the Orders into the same generic 'good guys' team, thus losing a lot of opportunity to have different communities shine in their own ways. At least some characters maintained enough identity independence to allow for a bit of meaningful variety leading up to the Zhaitan fight - I just would have preferred a bit more of that variety and independence.

 

Point (2) though is the ultimate dealbreaker in my eyes. The scale of threat the dragons represent is just way too universal and way to large for other story elements to breathe. Anything outside the direct dragon story can only serve as a distraction, unless you reduce the overwhelming scale of the Elder Dragon threat.

 

So as much as I hated how the Icebrood Saga turned out, I sincerely applaud what appears to be ANet's attempt to depart from points (1) and (2).  We saw the charismatic Bangar attempt to use an Elder Dragon as a tool in his civil war, which shows that the Legions have deeper problems than just their old war with the Flame Legion. Simultaneously we have the attempt to pull off round 2 of rallying the Norn to face off against Jormag, complete with rediscovering lost Spirits of the Wild - a very Norn-centric tale that gave us interesting insight into Asgeir and the nature of the Spirits. Jormag itself also proved to be a very interesting antagonist at first, strongly suggesting that perhaps Jormag could be (at least temporarily) be worked with, and that there is another threat out there more pressing than simply charging into and slaying the next Elder Dragon. Rata Sum openly takes a position the Commander doesn't like by deciding to work with the Frost Legion to fight against their longtime nemesis Primordus. All these elements are things I really like seeing - the entire world didn't just up and forget that they have their own unique baggage and problems because the Orders got together to fight Zhaitan back in the day, and Jormag offered an interesting spin on the "maybe it's not smart to just straight kill all these dragons" idea that previous LW seasons introduced.

 

For me, ideally IBS would have ended the Dragon narrative as we knew it by reducing the motivation to keep killing dragons and increasing the motivation to solve other problems that Tyria has. That would have naturally put more cracks in the Power of Friendship simplifications as well, giving us opportunities to explore other divisions within Tyria. This would also have served as a great excuse to finally rid ourselves of Dragon's Watch. But as we've seen so far, due to the pandemic/pivoting to an expansion/whatever, the Saga stumbled toward a hasty end. Ultimately almost everyone comes back to the same team, and we (indirectly) killed two Elder Dragons... so we ended up right back at (1) and (2).

 

Looks like we're stuck with Dragon's Watch for at least a little while longer.

Edited May 26, 2021 by voltaicbore.8012

[TheBravery.9615]

I was very disappointed braham did not die in the fight against ryland

[Rukia.4802]

I agree with everything you said, and I feel like the small part of joko and the charr recently have been the strongest dialogue and personality in its characters. Especially after going back to S2 for the achievements.. god, those are really awful soap operas to sit through again. The dialogue has matured somewhat, mainly because charr just don't seem to give a F and at least they keep true to their personality traits. 

 

I'm genuinely surprised after seeing the thread with so much disappointment after the final fight between jormag and primordus.  I loved it because it just meant that 2 more of those stupid dragons are out of the story. If somehow someway their death throes magically flew over to cantha and destroyed bubbles as well I would be ecstatic. I also really wish braham would have died.

 

I will be happy to see basically any of the current non-charr characters disappear,  worthless dribble any time another race is speaking. Goody two shoe disney characters I swear..

[Mrs Lana.2506]

On 5/25/2021 at 8:45 PM, Rukia.4802 said:

Issue in GW2 is the writing is so childish, you go straight from stupid silly dialogue to something serious and its supposed to be impactful but its totally jarring and kills every big moment.

100% agree. I've played since release and wasn't affected by any character's death other than Tybalt (and even now replaying that it's very tryhardy). I laughed when I saw Belinda die the first time because the scene was just so ridiculous. Same with Eir, Demmi, Trahearne and a few others I can't think of atm. Every time a new character is introduced (or one is re-introduced eg. Demmi Beetlestone) I'm fully expecting their death. The writing is so predictable it's beyond boring at this point.

Not to mention there is literally no definition of perma death in this game. Why these NPCs can't use a waypoint (which we do see others use - most notably in LA) or get someone to rub them is absolutely beyond me. It's never explained. It's never mentioned. They're just....."dead". How convenient.

As for the "guild" they've always been on my nerves. I was never able to see Taimi as Taimi just because the VA is so recognisable as Neutron it immediately broke any hint of immersion, and I also find Taimi's personality extremely grating. Rox is a doormat who I often forget even exists. Kas and Jory have as much personality as each other (which isn't much) and honestly talk too much about their relationship in front of other people while bigger issues are going on.

[Rukia.4802]

9 minutes ago, Miss Lana.5276 said:

100% agree. I've played since release and wasn't affected by any character's death other than Tybalt (and even now replaying that it's very tryhardy). I laughed when I saw Belinda die the first time because the scene was just so ridiculous. Same with Eir, Demmi, Trahearne and a few others I can't think of atm. Every time a new character is introduced (or one is re-introduced eg. Demmi Beetlestone) I'm fully expecting their death. The writing is so predictable it's beyond boring at this point.

Not to mention there is literally no definition of perma death in this game. Why these NPCs can't use a waypoint (which we do see others use - most notably in LA) or get someone to rub them is absolutely beyond me. It's never explained. It's never mentioned. They're just....."dead". How convenient.

As for the "guild" they've always been on my nerves. I was never able to see Taimi as Taimi just because the VA is so recognisable as Neutron it immediately broke any hint of immersion, and I also find Taimi's personality extremely grating. Rox is a doormat who I often forget even exists. Kas and Jory have as much personality as each other (which isn't much) and honestly talk too much about their relationship in front of other people while bigger issues are going on.

I laughed at those scenes too, you know.. maybe if we had proper cinematics those would have been cool.  I wish we had cool scenes like WoW has, the game is trash but those are on point. GW2 doesn't even get cool trailers. Eirs face is so lol during her death, who in the world could take that seriously?. They really need a cinematics department.