Stories About The Dragons

This is going to be short. Like the episode. Oh, and spoilers. It's all spoilers from here on in. Even the pictures. If you don't want to know what happens... look away now!

Heh. Like anyone cares. As they say on the YouTube threads, who's still playing Guild Wars 2 in 2021?  And if you are, who's following the story? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Thought as much. No-one. Only me.

The GW2 forums have been in Read-Only mode most of this week. They're getting a makeover. That's handy. I'd say it saved them catching fire only these days story drops barely make them smoulder. I do like to go and read what other people think after I've finished an episode, though, so this time I went to Reddit.

The quality of discussion is noticeably higher than on the official forums. Plenty of reasoned arguments and well-expressed opinions. If I had to describe the mood it would be "resigned". I read through a lot of a thread called "Can we talk about how ridiculous this ending was?" Yes, we can. Endlessly.

Also, yes it was. Although maybe "ridiculous" isn't the right word. Weak?  Thin?  Unconvincing? All of those occured to me. Also confusing, muddled, inconclusive. Possibly lazy. 

That might be a bit harsh, that last one. Rushed would probably be closer. As in everyone was too busy working on the expansion to give the tail end of a fading project much attention. It's over, let it go.

So, what happens? Taimi and Aurene come up with a back of an envelope plan to get Braham and Ryland to fight each other. We kick the crap out of the pair of them until Primordus and Jormag (who Aurene has on the end of a string made out of ley lines) are forced to show themselves or let their champions snuff it. 

Then we use some prisms Aurene made to kill both elder dragons. Or something. I had literally lost the plot by that point. 

I can tell you what actually happened though. The whole thing bugged out. Twice.

You get the choice of either a one to five person instance, a public 50-80 person world boss battle or a private squad version. 

First I tried to do it solo. Ryland turned up with a bunch of icebrood. I killed them and drove him off. Then nothing happened. It kept on happening (or not happening) until I got bored and went off to see if something was going on somewhere else. It wasn't but I got told that since I was no longer participating in the event I wouldn't be getting any rewards.

It was getting late so I went back to the Eye of the North, logged out and went to bed.

Next day (that's today) I looked at the Event Timer to see if the public event was on there. It was. It is. It kicks off every couple of hours, at the top. I waited for the first convenient opening, logged in with a few minutes to spare, waited for the call, spoke to the NPC when it came, got ported into the instance with seventy or eighty of my new best friends and we all had at it.

It was going very nicely for a while. Well, once my computer had adjusted to the load. I was downed twice in the first thirty seconds because it was so laggy I could barely move but that sorted itself out and then I was fine.

First we bashed Ryland until he ran away made a tactical withdrawal. Then we bashed Braham until he did the same. Then there was some nonsense about ley line energy so we all spread out and blew up the pylons (or something). Then Ryland and Braham both came back for another go round and we all split into two gangs and bashed them again.

 

That was one of those set pieces ANet love, where you need to bring down both of the targets at the same time. Or, to be precise, within fifteen seconds of each other. 

I remember when events like this were largely beyond the capacity of pick-up zergs. If someone didn't take charge and bark instructions like a drill sergeant the whole thing would fall apart. These days everyone just knows what to do. So we did it.

Then we did it again because ANet love to string fights out by making you do every section at least twice. More pylons. More bashing. In between each round we all ran up to the prisms and got hurled at a dragon so we could use a special attack. Another thing ANet loves. 

All of it was going perfectly. It was loud, chaotic and noisy but I was able to figure out what to do first time which is a huge improvement over some fights I could think of. 

We were into what looked like the endgame. Ryland and Braham were locked in a clinch under a bubble. We had to break them out for the next stage to begin... only we somehow managed to kill one or other of the pair before we got the bubble to burst. That left us all standing about watching Ryland and Braham locked in a clinch that looked like it was never going to end. And it didn't.

It was all a bit of disaster. Eventually everyone gave up and left. I took a few nice screenshots of the two dragons, who were just standing there like dopes, then I left too.

Two hours later I came back and did the whole thing again and this time it worked. Someone called out a warning about not killing too fast at the crucial stage and people seemed to listen. After the bubble popped there was a bit more that I forget and then we all got transported to a ledge where we got to watch a short cut scene of Jormag and Primordus butting heads until they both exploded.

A lot of people had done it before because apparently there are drops and achievements and things that need to be farmed. They all left, quickly. Those like me, who hadn't, stood around for a while wondering what had just happened and asking each other "Is that it?". Then we all left, too.

Back in Eye of the North it turned out there was a coda. A smidgeon of solo story including a reunion with Braham, who turns out to be neither dead nor crazy, or at least no crazier than he ever was. Then there's a final battle with Ryland, the fighting part of which is tedious and pointless but mercifully quick, and whose aftermath is either moving or just weird depending on your stance on charr behaving like humans in a made-for-tv movie. 

The very last thing is a debrief with Aurene, Taimi and Gorrik about which the less said the better. I'd say it was perfunctory but it really doesn't deserve that kind of praise. You can talk to them all individually but I don't recommend it. I did and I kind of wish I hadn't.

The upshot of all of this is two more elder dragons are dead and Aurene and Taimi seem to have done a complete one-eighty on whether that's a good thing. If they even hand-waved that away I must have missed it. Meanwhile, all the dragon magic mysteriously shot right through Aurene and out the other end, on its way to who knows where? 

Presumably straight to whomever we're going to be fighting in the expansion. And since that's called "End of Dragons" and as far as we know there are only two dragons left - Aurene and the as-yet unnamed sea dragon commonly known as Bubbles - well, I'm betting Bubbles got most of it.

But really, who can say? And frankly, who cares? At this stage it's as clear as could be that no-one in the writing room does. Or, more charitably, is allowed to. The prevailing theory on Reddit is that most of the devs wanted Season Four of the Living Story to be the last before they moved on to the expansion but that was overruled by whatever faction was gung ho for there never being another expansion. 

So everyone geared up for an expansion-level version of the Living Story and renamed it a "Saga" to make it clear it was bigger and better. Remember when they said it would be comparable to an expansion? I'd forgotten that. It sure as hell wasn't. 

And then, just as the team had gotten themselves on board with the new plan and turned out the relatively high-quality first three instalments of the Icebrood Saga (well, the Prologue and the first two), there was a change of heart in senior management (or NCSoft, more likely) and it was all aboard the expansion train after all.

 

Makes a lot of sense to me. Which is more than I can say about the story. As an ending to the Icebrood Saga itself it's a washout. As an ending to the nine-year story of our epic, existential battle with Elder Dragons... yes, well. Let's not go there. The writers certainly didn't.

Of course, as I said, the expansion is called "End of Dragons" so maybe this wasn't the end after all. Maybe that's still to come. Perhaps the whole thing will come good then. We can but hope.

Oh, did I have fun? I don't think I said, did I? Yeah, I did, quite. So long as none of the NPCs were talking and nothing got bugged, it zipped along entertainingly enough. I'll do the big fight a few times more, I imagine. I thought it was on a par with the Shatterer if not as good as Tequatl. 

At least it was short. (Unlike this post. I lied about that.) I used to complain about how brief the Living Story episodes were. Now I count it as a blessing.

Judgment Day

 

Today, ArenaNet announced the date for the final instalment of the Icebrood Saga. It's April 27th, next Tuesday.

It's called Judgment and it's described as the "fourth and final chapter of Episode 5 of The Icebrood Saga". Hang on. Wait a moment. Is it the end of the saga or isn't it? How many chapters are there going to be? Is #5 the last or what?

This reporter seems to think so. Let's take her word for it. I want it to be true. Not because I haven't enjoyed the saga. I have, by and large. It's more that if we're finally done with this storyline it means we must be on the cusp of the announcement we're all really waiting for: the release date for the third expansion, End of Dragons. 

 

With the Living Story going on hiatus this spring, the timing would seem to be auspicious for an autumn launch. That's sooner than I was expecting. Complete radio silence since the initial expansion reveal meant I was about ready to hear we weren't going to see it until 2022. Digging back through my own commentary, though, it seems the very first PR salvo did give a firm 2021 launch window so maybe I was being too pessimistic.

A lot of people on the forum have been speculating on an August/September release. That sounds a little early to me but Path of Fire released at the end of September 2017 after just three months warning of the official date, so maybe not. If I was going to bet, I'd put my money on November, after Halloween ends. Then again, maybe I just want an expansion for my birthday.

Never mind what might be coming six months from now. What are we getting next week?

Scaly Capes!

Glowy Eyes!

And of course... 

Big Fight!

 That's about all that gets picked out in the video. No mention of any Dragon Response Missions for once, although I imagine that could still be the delivery mechanism for the narrative, just like it has been for a while, now. 

Nothing about more allies. or the Eye of the North, either. I do wonder what will happen to that place once the saga's finished. It's hard to see how we're still going to be staging out of the Far Shiverpeaks when the action moves to Cantha. I suspect I'm going to feel quite pleased I never took the trouble to upgrade my facilities there.

I might be less smug about having ignored the Dragon Slayer mastery track. If you finish that, which you'll be able to do with the Mastery points available in this coming episode, it opens up access to rare item drops. That sounds like something that might finally give the otherwise pointless excercise some traction. 

There's one more thing: a new world boss. I like world bosses so that caught my interest right away. Then I remembered the last so-called world boss we got: Drakkar. 

I did Drakkar once. It was a large scale meta-event but it was not a "world boss". The wiki agrees. The event is not included in the list of world bosses except in a footnote: "Drakkar has been referred to as a world boss by ArenaNet previously, but does not fit on to the main timer". Take that, Drakkar!

We'll see if the next one qualifies. The signs look good. For one thing, it comes in an open-world version that spawns every two hours on a strict timer, which is what all the other world bosses do. For another, there's an instanced version that can be be triggered by squads, which is kind of how Tequatl and Triple-Headed Wurm work. 

That just leaves the story itself. I left that for last because a) I have no idea what happens and b) it looks ridiculous. Or perhaps I should say the trailer makes it look ridiculous.

It appears the conclusion to this eighteen-month storyline comes down to a Hulk vs Thing slugfest between two NPCs. When Ryland sneers "Nice of you clear out the trash, Commander" it sounds altogether too convincing. Too often that's been the player-character's role in all this.

As for Braham taking on the vacant position of Primordus' Champion... yeah, convince me. Maybe it will make sense. Maybe the reason the episode's called Judgment is in reference to Braham and his not having any. Perhaps those Spirits of the Wild (all the minor ones Norns don't really worship any more, let's not forget) know something we don't. Can't see it but perhaps that's just me.

What I'd like to know is where Taimi is in all this. What happened to that big brother/little sister relationship the two of them had for several years? Did they even talk about any of this? And did Braham ever think that Taimi might need him to be... Braham? She has a terminal illness, let's not forget. Not that anyone on the writing team seems to remember.

Ah, well. It wouldn't be Guild Wars 2 if it made any sense, would it? And anyway, does it really matter? Tune in next week for the amazing conclusion of the Icebrood Saga. Then carry on playing for another six months as though none of it ever happened.

That's why we're here, isn't it?

Different Voices

This morning I played through the first two parts of Guild Wars 2's latest addition to the Icebrood Saga. Let's not get into the naming conventions of that again. 

I wanted to see the story segment with Braham. I was hoping it might be a separate option but the chapter begins with a (really quite interesting) conversation between Aurene and Jormag before segueing into the first of this update's suite of Dragon Response Missions.

I've been playing GW2 for a long, long time now. I've followed all of the main storylines. Sometimes I've been heavily invested, sometimes I could barely drag myself on. I was one of the minority who thoroughly enjoyed Scarlet's wars but I struggled through the mediocre fan service of the whole, interminable Palawa Joko farrago, including most of the core storyline of the Path of Fire expansion.

The thing is, after this much time with the cast, it all turns into the equivalent of a long-running soap opera or a sitcom that's heading into a tenth season. Hardly any of the characters make any sense if you think about the things they've done. None of the stories hold up to scrutiny. And none of that matters because you know them all so well. It's familiarity that carries you through the nonsense.

Which is why it's so famously difficult and risky to recast. 

It happens. Sometimes there's no choice. If an actor dies (or goes to jail or gets a better offer or leaves to raise a family...) it's either recast or write the character out and if it's a core character that might mean the end of the show.

It made for a sombre opening to a new season but it's one of the best episodes in the whole show.

 

Luke Perry, who played Fred Andrews, Archie's dad, in Riverdale, died suddenly between the end of the third season and the start of the fourth. The opening episode of the first season they shot without him is a long and very poignant eulogy. Fred was a significant character but also one the show could manage without. I don't imagine anyone thought even for a second of replacing him.

Online games with ongoing characters have some different choices to make. Obviously none of the images we see are going to change unless it's by intent. Their voices, though? Well that's a different matter altogether.

It's almost certainly easier to swap out an actor we only recognize by the sound of their voice than it is one we know by sight but "easier" isn't the same as "easy". I've lost track of how many of GW2's ever-expanding ensemble cast have changed voice actors over the last eight years. I do remember Rox's voice changing completely but other than that I'd have to look it up. 

I do know that my male Asura, with whom I do all the Living Story stuff and whose voice I hear more than anyone's, still sounds the same as he always did. It would be very weird if that changed but if the game lasts another eight years I imagine it might.

Not up to your usual standard, Canach.

I'm pretty certain I would have noticed that Canach's voice had changed even if I hadn't already heard about it. He's far and away one of the game's most distinctive presences, one of those characters that make a scene worth struggling through an annoying boss fight for. 

Of course, it might have been hard to be sure at first, given the increasingly irritating way that Living Story dialog plays out theese days, in the middle of a firefight. I get that it's meant to be the equivalent of action heroes swapping witty badinage between bullets but I find it all but impossible to listen to the quips and hit the targets at the same time. If it wasn't for the chatbox recording everything that's said so I can read it back afterwards I'd scarcely know who said what to whom most of the time.

Even so, I could tell Canach wasn't quite his usual, acerbic self. He seemed a little flat. Subdued. 

Turns out he's been replaced. His originator and long-standing voice actor, John DiMaggio, whose take on the character was accurately described by an ANet rep as "urbane and hilarious" has been replaced by Matthew Mercer. This change brings with it a number of problems.

I had no idea who Matt Mercer might be. Never heard of him. I found out by reading the forum thread on the topic that he's well-known from the Critical Role web series, something I've heard of many times but never watched. Not only that but he also voices the male norn player-character in Guild Wars 2.

Braham's the only male Norn I really pay any attention to.

 

I don't have any male norn characters so that's unlikely to be a problem for me but I can imagine it might be for someone who finds themselves listening to Matt Mercer having a conversation with Matt Mercer. I'm sure he varies the voice enough to make them distinct but from my years of listening to audio books I'd have to say you can always tell it's the same actor doing all the voices, no matter how well they're doing it.

Based on the forum reaction, the change hasn't gone down particularly well but that's only to be expected. Criticism of ArenaNet is muted because the reason given is "clash of scheduling", a polite way of saying they couldn't get John DiMaggio to do it any more. 

That puts them in the position of either having to recast or to let the character lie fallow. Or kill them off, of course, which is always a popular option in genre fiction. 

Canach isn't really a key figure in the plot so dropping him would be unproblematic from a practical point of view but he is very much a fan favorite so it would also be a poor commercial choice. The question is, would players rather have a bland Canach or no Canach at all? 

It's not a moot point. We already had the same thing happen to one fan favorite: Zojja. She was gravely injured at the end of the first expansion, Heart of Thorns, but so were half the cast. Everyone else got better. Even Eir made a brief comeback appearance and she was dead!

Zojja has never been seen again. I'm not a hundred per cent sure the reason has ever been confirmed but once again it's widely believed to be scheduling issues. Zojja was voiced by the very much in-demand Felicia Day, who almost certainly had more lucrative offers to take up. Plus she's just become a mother. That'll cut into your work schedule.

I can't remember what the original Rox sounded like but who could forget those eyes?

The continued absence of such a popular character with no in-game explanation is something of a running sore in GW2. Every time any rested character returns there's a flurry of "and what about Zojja?" threads on the forums. She's gone but very much not forgotten.

Recasting a significant character like Canach does indeed demand the question "and what about Zojja?". If an interpretation as definitive and accepted as DiMaggio's can be replaced, what's so unique about Day's short-tempered Asuran? The third comment on the thread titled "New Canach VA?" is the equally succinct "Zojja next?"

It would be nice to be able to say that's the only voice acting controversy in the new update but it very definitely is not. There's also the tricky question of how a Tengu should talk. 

I never liked the tengu. They're big, annoying birds with thick quasi-Russian accents and a bad attitude. I always found them both abrasive and borderline offensive. Imagine, then, how strange it was to be greeted in the first of the new Dragon Missions by a tengu voiced like an excitable American tween.

Or, as one commenter on the forum thread brusquely titled "Tengu Voice - Dislike"  put it "sounds like a skritt in disguise". That's all too accurate. When the character began speaking she was well out of my line of sight and I really did think it was a skritt I was hearing.

Other commenters compare her voice to various Asuran and Quaggan characters already in the game and the one thing all of those have in common is exceptional (some might say excessive) cuteness. This new tengu, Kilidris Sparrowhawk, is undeniably cute, something I don't believe any tengu has ever been.

Just die, already!

She also gets some very interesting dialog. When the insanely tedious sub-boss fight on the bridge is finally finished you get the option to ask her several questions and I would advise anyone interested in the politics and culture of Tyria to take that option. 

We already know that the tengu are going to feature in the third expansion and this would very much appear to be the beginning of some re-structuring and re-positioning to make that a more palatable option to those of us who can't stand the blasted birds.

How that's going to go down with their legion of fans is another matter. It does at least make me feel a little more optimistic about one aspect of the End of Dragons experience. Whenever the hell it arrives.Seriously, isn't it about time we got some indications of a timescale on that?

As for the rest of the storyline in the current update... it wasn't at all bad. Plenty to chew on. Maybe I'll get into it when I've finished the rest. 

That Braham, eh? He doesn't get any smarter, does he?

I'm Off Balance

The latest episode of Guild Wars 2's current Living World went live a couple of days ago.  It labors under an awkward portmanteau title that varies depending on where you see it. The full version runs to Icebrood Saga: Episode 5: Champions: Chapter 3: Balance. Chew on that for a while.

At this point you might normally expect a capsule review or some pithy comments about it. Sorry. I don't have anything. For the first time in probably the entire history of GW2's Living World project I haven't been able to summon up the enthusiasm to play it yet. 

And that's not really ArenaNet's fault. As I've said consistently since it started, I've found the Icebrood Saga to be a distinct improvement over what we were getting before. In normal circumstances I'd have logged in my heal-spec druid, the one who gets to do all this stuff, pretty much as soon as the update landed.

The reason I haven't is, of course, Valheim. I'm still at the stage where I begrudge any time spent in other games. I know a recurring theme for years here has been how short the Living Story episodes are but it's all relative. It may only be three hours but that's three hours I could have been mining iron, chopping trees or sailing my longship into uncharted waters.  

I also wasn't super-hyped by the very weak trailer. That's long been another theme here; the extraordinarily variable quality of the promotional material ANet release before each of these chapters drop. This one is particularly lackluster. Here, take a look for yourself.

The worst thing about that trailer is how old it makes the game look. If there's one thing most people seem to agree on, even if GW2 is not a game they personally care to play, it's that ArenaNet has one of the better art departments in the genre. Guild Wars 2 is known for its good looks.

You wouldn't know it from that trailer, would you? It's a lot of not very convincingly animated characters engaging in stilted, cumbersome combat against a series of largely featureless backdrops. The colors are muted and muddy, the action is unconvincing and the impression I'm left with is of something discomfortingly close to a decade-old free to play import, one that probably didn't do well in the west and which few now remember.

Is that really how the way to promote a game that's still widely reckoned to be one of the larger, more successful Western mmorpgs? 

But then, I don't imagine it's intended to promote the game to anyone who isn't already playing it. Almost the entire trailer is taken up with listing the benefits to existing players, all of which could be summed up with the simple phrase "More of the same".

The one shot in the Balance trailer that actually looked interesting.

 

Massively OP's Guild Wars 2 correspondent, Colin Henry, (who, I only now realize, is also Chaosconstant of the Occasional Hero blog) sounds world-weary as he gives us his first impressions piece: "Another month, another round of Dragon Response Missions", he says, scarcely inspiring me to jump into the game to see what's happening for myself.

He goes on to clarify:

"If you have played the last couple of chapters, nothing in this release will blow your mind; everything here is the same old DRM formula. There is a pre-event with two different “click the things” objectives and one “defeat the things” objective that give everyone in the party buffs upon completions. After that, we must fight our way through some dragon minions and defeat a boss".  

I generally try not to let other people's opinions influence my behavior but that rang altogether too true to be ignored. Here's what I said about the last round of Dragon Response Missions, back in January:

"The format is different to what we've been used to but I suspect not to what we're going to have to get used to in the future. After years and years of muddling around with various combinations of open world and instanced content, none of which ever seemed to suit enough people for ArenaNet to stick with any of them, we've arrived at something called "Dragon Response Missions". 

Theese are repeatable, instanced sequences of events that can be done either solo or in groups of up to five players, either premades or put together by the game, as you prefer. They seem to tick more boxes than most of the previous content delivery systems while avoiding some of the most egregious pitfalls. They also bundle up into a relatively saleable package for the Gem Store so they would seem to have a better chance of sticking around than most of the gimmicks ANet have tried over the last eight and a half years."

And yes, it appears DRMs are here to stay, at least for now. Oh well. If ArenaNet can recycle ideas to pad out what passes for content in the game I guess I can do the same for the blog.

At this point an astute reader might be tempted to interject something along the lines of "Hold on a minute! Wasn't it just a few days ago you were praising Daybreak for adding "another by-the-numbers instance that follows the well-trodden path of many similar holiday quests before it", which you went on to emphasize was "absolutely fine", since you "don't come to EQ2 for cutting-edge innovation or out-of-the-box thinking." ?"

Yes, well, unlike the convoluted syntax of that last paragraph, I can't fault the logic. Guilty as charged. In my defence I refer you to my oft-cited favorite quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the one about consistency and hobgoblins, something about which I've been remarkably consistent over the years. Ironically.

Wow! That really makes me want to see more!

 

And really there is no logical fallacy here. I'm quite pleased that ANet are sticking to their last, at last. Foolish inconsistency may be something to avoid but giving the customers what they want is a tried and tested maxim. It's about time they gave it a try.

I guess the question ought to be is it what the customers want? I pulled the trailer above from ArenaNet's official YouTube channel. It was posted two weeks ago and as of this moment it has 1240 views and four comments. One of those comments bluntly states "Stop producing single player content, nobody cares about the story... and even if, it has little to no replay value. Focus on wvw, spvp and challenging late game pve content. You know those game types where you have to work together... after all it is a mmo....". A second commenter agrees.

The other two comments all too predictably welcome the return of the irritating and incomprehensibly fan-favored avian race, the Tengu. Certain sections of the GW2 playerbase go into conniptions at the mere mention of these overgrown starlings and any suggestion the annoying worm-botherers might make some kind of a comeback, let alone become a playable race, has comment threads lighting up all over.

So, two votes against and just two for tengu, then? Maybe no-one really looks at YouTube any more. Just over a thousand views and four comments seems like not very much to me. I have videos on my YouTube channel with more views than that. Alright, I have one video. But the point stands.

Not if I see them first...

 It's probably safe to assume that anyone who actually cares saw the trailer on the official GW2 website and that pretty much no-one not already playing has seen it at all. It's very much a case of catering to the converted. It's not surprising the trailer has all the zest and sparkle of a contractual obligation.

Speaking of which, I think I've strung this out for about as long as I need to. I'll be back with more if and when I get around to playing through those Dragon Response Missions. Oh, and the story instance that barely even gets a mention in the trailer, the one where, bizarrely, we get to play as Braham but with the abilities of the class of whatever character we normally play. I wonder if that's contextualized in any way?

Guess I'll find out... eventually. Right now, though, I'm off to play a different surly-looking viking with bad posture and an unconvincing gait. 

In Valheim, that is. In case you couldn't guess.

I Run Missions

The latest instalment in Guild Wars 2's Icebrood Saga, which I previewed somewhat sarcastically just one week ago, dropped last night. It seems to be called either "Champions" or "Power" or "Primordus Rising" or very possibly "Icebrood Saga: Champions: Power: Primordus Rising". I admit I've lost track of the current naming convention.

Whatever it's called, it's alright. I'm not sure I'd go much further than that but I've played through the new story content and I didn't not enjoy it. It took the traditional two and a half hours, on the nose, only with more fighting and less standing around chatting than usual. 

The format is different to what we've been used to but I suspect not to what we're going to have to get used to in the future. After years and years of muddling around with various combinations of open world and instanced content, none of which ever seemed to suit enough people for ArenaNet to stick with any of them, we've arrived at something called "Dragon Response Missions". 

Theese are repeatable, instanced sequences of events that can be done either solo or in groups of up to five players, either premades or put together by the game, as you prefer. They seem to tick more boxes than most of the previous content delivery systems while avoiding some of the most egregious pitfalls. They also bundle up into a relatively saleable package for the Gem Store so they would seem to have a better chance of sticking around than most of the gimmicks ANet have tried over the last eight and a half years.

 

And I have to say, somewhat grudgingly, that they do work. I'd vastly prefer to have this content presented as it was in Season One, as time-limited events in open world maps, hanging around only as long as it takes for the next chapter to arrive but I accept that ship sailed long ago. A vociferous faction within the playerbase hates anything that's not forever and one-time content is uncommercial since it costs the same to produce as repeatable material but can't be repackaged and resold.

I was surprised at just how many DRMs (Dragon Response Missions. You'd already forgotten, hadn't you?) I had to do this time. Six of them. At least, I think it was six. Wait, no, I mean I know it was six as in that's how many I did. I'm just a little vague on whether maybe the first couple were ones I hadn't done from last chapter. I am finding it hard to keep all this stuff straight in my head these days.

Now I check the press release it does indeed look as though the first two missions I did, one down some cave and the other... no, it's no good, I already forgot where the other was and I only did it last night... aren't part of Power at all. The official four this time around seem to be the ones in Fields of Ruin, Thunderhead Peaks, Lake Doric, and Snowden Drifts.

That might explain why I noticed a significant jump in quality when I got to Ebonhawke. (That's the Fields of Ruin one for those who've never played GW2 and indeed for those that have but don't care to waste brain cells on Tyrian trivia like what city is in which map). The dialog and plot didn't change all that much but the mechanics of the fights became considerably more interesting, suggesting a different team might have had a hand in designing them.

 

This is the really surprising thing about the new chapter. The fights are genuinely enjoyable. It's been a while since I last thought that about a story instance. Sure, they have been getting much better but that's "better" on a scale that begins at "tedious" somewhere back in Season Two and floors out at "unbearable" in the middle of Season Four before slowly climbing back up to the dizzy heights of "tolerable" and even "okay"during the Icebrood Saga. 

Or something like that. Honestly, I've blanked a lot of it. Or tried to. Anyway, the instanced fights used to be something I dreaded and now they're not. In fact, on this latest evidence, they might even be something I could find myself looking forward to. I never thought I'd say that.

I'm not saying I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do and start repeating these missions over and over until the next set drops. Life is neither long enough nor dull enough for that to sound like a good option. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that I might do them again on another character, though. Maybe even more than one.  

It sounds like damning with the faintest of praise but it really isn't. These instances truck along. They don't waste a whole lot of time. Something's always happening but none of it takes too long. Well, okay, the bit with the dragon spears did drag on a little but I thik that had more to do with most of my pickup group spending more time lying down than standing up.

There was a quite a bit of that in the final instance in Snowden Drifts, too, although that group was a lot more capable. Just had too many glass cannons. I was very glad I was doing the missions on my heal-specced druid, the one I always use for story content. He's hard to down let alone kill, which came in handy for getting everyone else who can actually do more damage than a kitten on valium back up off the floor. It's not always all about the dps, even in GW2. Okay, admittedly it usually is...

I'm a little in two minds about how the new direction approaches narrative. Traditionally, the story part of the Living Story has been delivered in lengthy scenes where the player and any number of important NPCs stand around and tell each other the plot. At inordinate length. Sometimes the PC will be given something to do, like in that party we had back in Beetle Manor. Often they'll get to chip in now and again. Basically, though, it's sit back, relax, watch and listen.

With the missions it's more like trying to hold a conversation with three people while jogging through heavy traffic. Everyone's shouting over everyone else, there's a lot of background noise and you only have one ear on the conversation because you have to watch out for things that might kill you.

It's fortunate the entire dialog gets printed in the chat box because I would have missed whole chunks of plot without it. As it was, appreciating the subtle nuances of the voice actors (whom we're all very glad to see (or hear) back at work, I'm sure) took up most of my attention. Having everyone talking during the action sequences certainly works dramatically. I'm just not sure it works practically. Maybe I need to adjust my audio settings to prefer speech over the sounds of stuff being set on fire.

 

And there's a lot of stuff being set on fire. Either that or frozen solid. That's the theme - fire and ice. Believe it or not, I'd kind of missed the memo about Primordus being Tyria's official Elder FIRE Dragon. I'd always had him pegged as "Earth" or "Stone" for some reason. Possibly because he comes with attached dwarves and dwarves always suggest solidity and earthiness, not fiery armageddon.

I did know Jormag was the Ice dragon, of course. Can't really miss that. So it makes sense in a mythological way that they're twins. Twins who hate each other and want to kill each other. Or at least Jormag wants to kill Primordus. If Primordus has expressed an opinion I must have missed it. I don't think he's spoken yet.

As you can probably tell, this recent episode has re-onboarded me a little with the storyline. I do find the whole elder dragon thing quite intriguing. There were some pointed conversations on the nature of dragons between Ryland, Caithe, Braham and the Commander. Kas might have chipped in, too.

Oh yes, the gang's all here. Rytlock grunted a couple of times but he took a back seat for once since he was on Logan's home turf. Marjory and Taimi had cameos and even Gorrik showed his face although he didn't get any lines. Still, he's doing a lot better than Zoja. Seriously, recast her role already, don't just keep ghosting her. She's the greatest living Asuran! How would she not be there, telling everyone they were doing things all wrong?

Marjory's not much better off. Clearly no-one in the writers' room has clue one what to do with her, which is ironic seeing she's supposed to be a detective. Whatever happened to that, anyway? Taimi, once so over-exposed half the playerbase would cheerfully have drop-kicked her off Rata Sum, had one short scene, which she managed to steal by coming over as excitable as a dog in a sausage factory. For someone with just a few months to live (Remember that plotline? No, neither do the writers, apparently) she seemed remarkably chipper. 

Everyone seems remarkably chipper given the situation but then I guess we all know something about that these days. There's always some bleedover, isn't there?

All in all it was a creditable effort, I thought. I had fun.

I think there may have been a bunch of other non-story stuff in the update too but you'll have to wait for someone else to tell you all about that. Oh, wait, no-one else writes about this game any more, do they?

I guess that'll change when the expansion lands. For a couple of weeks, at least. And it'll take a full expansion to redirect attention this way because for sure the Living Story doesn't have much impact outside the installed base any more. 

Tough business.

We Appreciate Power /s

Believe it or not, when I sat down to write yesterday's post I had no thought or intention even to mention Louise Wener or Sleeper. The whole point of the opening paragraph was to set a scene wherein I came home, sat down in front of the computer screen, spotted a new video for the next chapter of Guild Wars 2's Icebrood Saga, watched it and wondered why I even bother.

Only what happened was that in just a few keystrokes I was away on a journey so much more interesting, which, after all, was kind of the point. The thing about that promotional video for Power... No, hang on, let's have it so we know what we're talking about...

 

So, yeah, the thing about is this: I don't have a clue what any of this stuff they're promoting is. 

I play GW2 every day. Really, every day. On two accounts. Yesterday I played on three. I probably rack up thirty to forty-five minutes even on days when all I do is dailies. Most days I play two or three hours. I've been playing since launch. Eight years. Nearly nine years if you count the beta weekends.

I've played all of the Living Story episodes at least far enough to know what's going on. I'm curious about that part. I'd like to see what's happening in Ebonhawke. I want to know what Jormag's up to and what Primordius is planning.  

Problem is, I know that's going to be less than one per cent of the update. A lot less. Vanishingly small, in fact. The narrative exists only as a framing device for activities I neither understand nor care about.

 

What are "Dragon Response Missions"? I'm guessing they're some kind of repeatable, instanced content. I think it's those things they've taken to embedding in the storyline, where you take some confusing option from a menu on a portal and run around not having much clue what's happening until stuff updates and you can leave. Yeah, it must be those.

Then there are the "Allied Factions". Say what, now? And that's Skritt, is it? Is this any different from back in the original personal story, when we all had to decide which NPC races got to join the Pact? Because I chose Skritt then. Aren't they already our allies? Did they defect or something?

Sorry, it's starting to sound as if I care and I really don't. I know this is just some new grind designed to give achievers things to do until the expansion arrives. There's no good reason to get sucked in to that.

Ok, how about "New Upgrades and Faction Rewards"? Upgrades to what, exactly? Gear? We don't have a gear ladder, do we? I thought that was the point. I made my Ascended armor years ago and it's as good now as it was then. Since I never change my build I don't need Legendary, because all it does is let you swap easily between the same power levels you have at Ascended. Is there some other grade I missed? (No, there isn't).

 

As for those faction rewards, I guess those are the things I looked at on a vendor last time and couldn't see any reason to buy. Only now there are more of them. Whoop-di-do.

Are there people out there doing all this stuff? Why? What are they doing it for? If they get these upgrades, what are they using them for? Is there content that requires them? Am I missing something? Like the game, maybe?

Here's what I do in GW2. World vs World and World Bosses. Holiday events. Three hours of Living World story every couple of months. Once in a great while some map completion or a fragment of personal story. Most of it content that was in the game when it started. Oh, and sometimes I do some Heart of Thorns stuff for fun. Because I like it. 

The great thing about GW2 is that, after eight and a half years, pretty much all of the original content is still populated, active, meaningful and even busy. Same with a lot of the stuff that's been added since. If you feel like doing Dragon's Stand, the two-hour long epic finale from the expansion before last, which hasn't been current endgame content for years, you can. There are squads doing it every day. You can find them in LFG. 

Only last night a guild was recruiting in open chat for people to come join them for Triple Trouble, content introduced in 2014. It takes organization, co-operation and a lot of people and it still gets done. Every day. 

Even in the minor leagues content persists. Two days ago I logged in to Metrica Province and got swept up in an organized attempt to beat back the invading hordes sent by Joko as part of his failed invasion.  Joko got eaten by Aurene the Magic Dragon long ago. He's not invading anywhere any more only no-one told his armies. The events go on and people still do them as though it mattered. 

I don't know any other mmorpg that's managed to keep so much content so relevant for so long. Almost everything that's ever been added is still being done and not just by the inevitable one or two oddballs. It's being done by groups and squads and teams and because of the way the game was originally conceived passers-by are being sucked in and they're doing it too.

And there you have the nub of it. All of that content is out in the open world, not locked away in instances. If the upcoming invasion of Ebonhawke happens in the real Ebonhawke I'll eat these words. But I'm betting it won't. It will be hived away in an instance as a "Dragon Response Mission", meaning it can be packaged and sold in the Gem store when this chapter of the Saga is replaced by the next.

Which is why I'll probably never see it again after I do it the one time required by the story. And why I really can't bring myself to care any more. Only, for all the same reasons I just gave, I'll still go on playing. I'll still keep logging in, every day.

So I don't imagine Anet care that I don't care. Why would they?

Truce

It's a bit of a tradition here at Inventory Full to write a review, of sorts, every time I finish a Living Story episode in Guild Wars 2. I've posted something after just about every Living Story/World/Saga update since the game began but I can't remember ever having less to say about one than I do about yesterday's "Champions: Truce".

No-one seems especially stoked this go round. Time was, when a new episode or chapter was looming, you'd hear people talk about it in game. There'd be multiple forum threads speculating on what might be about to happen and I'd read (and write) blog posts fueled by nothing more than the trailer and a heady sense of anticipation.

For a long while now it's been entirely possible to log in and play a full session without hearing even a passing mention of the latest update. It's true I don't hang out much in the metas but there was a time when people in the starting maps talked of little else on patch days and I'd hear commanders in World vs World complaining they couldn't defend a keep because everyone was off doing the Living Story. 

Those days are long gone. All you hear now, if you hear anything, is the odd derisive comment. As for the forums, gone are the multiple discussion threads that Gail Gray used to have to consolidate. Gone too are the official feedback threads that once ran for several pages and had to begin with an official request for posters to keep things brief.

Instead, when I went to the forum today to check if anyone else was having the same trouble with one of the events I was, I had to look twice before I found any threads at all. There's one called "What do you think of the new Living World: Champions? (Spoilers inside)". It has sixty-six comments and it's been viewed thirteen hundred times, which I guess isn't all that bad for an update that hasn't been live for twenty-four hours. Or it's not until you read it.

Not in my house!

 

If I had to summarize the opinion most commonly expressed in the thread in a single word, that word would be meh. Or maybe bleh. 

"About what I had expected. I figured that they had pulled their living world teams to work on the expansion so this was a low effort way to provide content until it releases."

"All in all, I'm actually surprised it's even more bare bones than expected... The only good thing is I can commit my time to other games now this isn't going to demand anything from me."

"I didn't expect much and at least it was not disappointing in that regard."

"It is as bad as we feared... Luckily Shadowlands is right around the corner".

"It's okay. It didn't blow me away and it didn't disappoint me."

"Good idea, bad execution, too tedious."

"...it's underwhelming, even with my expectations low."

Those are probably some of the more positive ones, too. There's a widespread assumption that anything we get between now and the launch of End of Dragons is going to be the work of a skeleton crew trying to cobble something together while ninety-nine per cent of the teams work on the third expansion. We can't expect much and not much is what we're going to get seems to be the general feeling.

There's also a fairly commonly expressed opinion on the forums that the Icebrood Saga has been generally poor in comparison to previous seasons. I'd take this with several buckets of salt because you could have heard a similar sentiment being expressed during every one of the five seasons to date. (It is five, isn't it? Hard to keep track since they keep changing the name).

What does puzzle me is what seems like a growing tendency to compare the Icebrood Saga to Living World Season One. I've read this a number of times, almost always couched as a criticism, but I'm not clear whether the supposed similarity is in the story or the gameplay. 

I can't say I can see much of a correlation in either. I wish I could. I liked Season One well enough at the time, as my contemporary commentary demonstrated, but if I'd known what we were going to get next I'd have positively raved. Scarlet's War seems like a golden age, now.

Is there something you'd like to tell us, Jormag?

 

Perhaps the two seasons do have something in common, even if I'd struggle to articulate exactly what it might be. If I was going to put the seasons in order of preference I'd have Season One at the top but the Icebrood Saga would come next, which does suggest they at least both pander to my personal tastes. 

Does that mean I like this episode, then? Champions? 

Eh, well... I guess... It was... okay. Y'know?

It was surprisingly good to have voice acting back. When we got the first silent episode, courtesy of the pandemic, I quite liked just reading the text but I found I was hearing the familiar actors' voices in my head anyway. The novelty wore off fast. 

I'm not sure I'll go back and replay the last two episodes just to hear the dialog out loud but I definitely will watch it on YouTube if someone edits it all together. A few years back you could have counted on someone doing that. Not so sure anyone's got the motivation any more.

The plot's quite interesting. Some people don't like the very idea that we might be about to team up with an elder dragon, specifically Jormag, but a lot more don't like the way it's being handled. The rationale behind it certainly is vague and confusing but I think that's deliberate. 

Jormag, as Braham points out, is the master of lies. I can't think of a non-binary term for that or I'd have used it. And Taimi, lest we forget, is living with a terminal diagnosis. If she's being less rational than usual... well, come to think of it, how rational is she, ever?

That's sarcasm, right? Just so we're clear.

 

I had more of an issue with the ease with which just about everyone accepted Ryland's assistance. Isn't he subject to some kind of war crime tribunal? Does being Jormag's Champion give him a pass on that? Yeah, well, I guess it does, at that.

The plain fact that I can sit here and discuss this (with myself) a few hours after playing through the episode suggests the story is working better than it has in the past. Sometimes I get to the end of a chapter and can't even remember how it started, let alone how it fits in with what came before. The Icebrood Saga, though, I feel I could write a coherent precis for, if I had to.

Other than the acting and the story, Champions doesn't have much going for it. There's some fairly desultory combat in the early sections and some exceptionally tedious and long-winded slog to get through at the end. Full disclosure, I haven't even done all of that yet.

The episode concludes with three missions using the not very popular "Private/Public" instance format. I tried to do the first solo, supposedly an option, and had to give up due to sheer boredom. There was no risk of me not being able to finish it - it was just going to take me about an hour to kill the boss and I couldn't bring myself to do it.

That, I should add for anyone who might have been reading the patch notes, was after they fixed the bug that made the mission bosses far slower to kill than they were meant to be. What they must have been like before, I don't care to imagine.

Second time around I took the "Public" option and completed the first of the three missions relatively painlessly in about fifteen or twenty minutes. It was still tedious but it was bearable. Put that on the poster!

You noticed?

 

There are two more missions to complete before the chapter can be considered finished and from what I've read they're functionally identical to the first. I'll get them done eventually but I can't say I'm keen. After that I imagine I'll never see them again, even they're supposed to be our repeatable content for the next couple of months.

I believe ArenaNet have done a better job than most of their competitors at keeping older content in play but I suspect we may be reaching a point where they're becoming the victims of their own success. GW2 has a staggering amount of repeatable content now, all of it with its own metas, currencies, dailies and achievements. It's almost self-defeating. If no old content ever goes out of date is that any different from if all of it did?

One thing you don't hear too much of is people complaining about being ripped off. The general feeling, as expressed in some of the forum comments, seems to be that this is about what you can expect for nothing, which is, after all, what we're paying:

"I'm... fine logging in every 2 months or so to check out the story progression"

"I am unsatisfied but on the other hand it was for free, so hey..."

"I've pretty much stuck with logging in on release days and then disappearing till the next. It's honestly more enjoyable that way".

I'm not sure that kind of lack of engagement is what any developer wants to hear but, honestly? It does kind of work for me, too. Sure, I'd love to be swept up and blown away by an mmorpg, the way I was by GW2 itself eight years ago. I just don't expect it any more. 

It's actually quite convenient to get occasional content drops that pique my interest for a day or two - maybe a week if it's really good - then for the game to go on the back burner again. It's not how this hobby used to be but then I'm not the person I was when I discovered it, either. I'm twenty years older for a start.

Maybe we don't get the games we want. Maybe we get the games we deserve. And I'm not sure how many of us have the capacity for engagement we had when the genre was new. Maybe meh is about all we can handle. I mean, when was the last time you heard anyone yell "Woot!" ?

On The Rise: GW2

The latest instalment of Guild Wars 2's Icebrood Saga went live yesterday, around about teatime, my time. I was at home (aren't I always, these days?) so I could have played it right away. A few years back I'd have been waiting in game, eagerly watching for the update message so I could log out, grab the patch and get back in as fast as possible to pick up where we'd left off last time.

Long, long time since I've felt like that. Instead I carried on playing EverQuest. I guess in some ways that could be considered quite encouraging for ArenaNet. I'm sure they'd be pretty chuffed to have a few thousand players left in 2033 who still prefer grinding out progress in their game as it reaches the age EQ is now rather than jump onto something new in a game that's a dozen years their junior.

And maybe they will, because against all the odds GW2 is improving. I really didn't think it would happen but I can't deny it now it has. For whatever reason, the death spiral the game seemed to be locked in has been broken. For the fifth consecutive episode (counting the Prelude) the Icebrood Saga gives solid entertainment.

I do like a ley line. And they work, too. I tried them.

So far I've only done the storyline part. It took me about as long as usual. I didn't time it - always a sign I'm having fun - but I think I started before two o' clock this afternoon and I finished just after five pm, so about three hours. Pretty much on par.

I'd love to go into details but there's not a huge amount I could say without throwing out spoilers right and left. It's a very "story" episode with a lot of talking and more than one "revelation" or "surprise" or "plot twist" or whatever you'd like to call it.

I'm of the opinion that even mentioning a story has a plot twist is a spoiler in itself so I'm not going any farther than that. I'll just say that whatever it is that I'm not talking about I definitely didn't see it coming, that I did go "Wow! That just happened?" at least once and that anything unexpected that may have taken place made one hell of a lot more sense than that time Aurene ate Joko.

Yes, and I bet it won the Snaff Prize, didn't it?

Yes, we have taken a step up. I'm not making any great claims. It may be only the step that leads from gibberish to generic but at least we're heading in the right direction. And as generic fantasy storylines go I've seen plenty that were less interesting, less imaginative and less amusing than this one.

I did find it amusing. I don't think I laughed out loud at any point, more a wry smile, but I'm fairly sure there were a couple of times when I would have lol'd, if we'd only had voice acting in play. Once again the pandemic has silenced our cast of grumbling, huffing, growling misfits and I'm now prepared to say that I definitely miss the vocals.

The narrative itself is far from humorous, it has to be admitted; the usual dire forebodings of existential doom, peppered about with violence, betrayal and malefice. Whoever's wielding the pen, though, has their tongue quite firmly tucked. I look forward to hearing the irony and the sarcasm as ladled out by practiced actors.

The Commander loses patience with being asked to present his credentials, yet again.

Given the name of the episode, Jormag Rising, it's not much of a spoiler to reveal the titular character makes an eventual appearance. Or, at least, some of them does. The old head-through-the-wall trick. Seen that one before.

What is new is Jormag's pronoun of choice. In the coda, a debriefing with Aurene at her lair in the Eye of the North, the ice dragon is referred to consistently and exclusively as "they". Whether this is new practice I'm not sure but I can't recall the Norn referring to their arch-nemesis in like fashion.

I was sufficiently curious about this to google it. Jormag has, it seems, tentatively been identified as non-binary for some time. There's a lengthy discussion on the subject on the GW2 wiki. If there was any doubt, I'd say this episode firmly puts it to rest.

Technically this is a spoiler. Good luck working out how.

Of course, as the discussion also suggests, "It's unclear whether Elder Dragons even have sex or gender identity at all." I'm not sure how far assigning pronouns to such enigmatic, fictional entities progresses the culture but I thought it was a nice touch, all the same.

As for the gameplay, I won't repeat myself (much) from what I said about all the previous episodes of the Saga, save to say that this one managed to find my sweet spot even more surely. The difference between the set piece fights in the Icebrood Saga and those in the previous two or three seasons of the Living Story reminds me of that between a pillow fight and being beaten to death with an iron bar. Personally, I'd go with the pillows. Pillow fights are fun.

There is, naturally, a new map or, I should say, the second half of last episode's new map, Drizzlewood Coast. I haven't explored it beyond the minimal amount required by the story but it looks as good as we've come to expect.

Rytlock says what we're all thinking. Again.

It includes another map-wide meta intended to emulate the World vs World experience without any of that distasteful PvP nonsense. I haven't tried it yet but the last one wasn't at all bad so I look forward to joining a squad and following a tag at some point. Although since I do, in fact, play and enjoy the actual WvW experience, which remains lively, I'm not sure I'll be doing it more than once or twice.

All in all, then, another successful and enjoyable episode. It's very pleasing to be able to say nice things about the game I've played for all these years. Not before time. Just makes me wish the third expansion was less than a couple of years away.