Bast.7253

And I figured the player weapon contest stuff would have bene added by now. But I'm thinking maybe that whole thing was just dropped. lol

> @"Umut.5471" said:

> > @"Aenaos.8160" said:

> > Still waiting for the remaining 2nd gen weapons.

> > At the current rate of release we need another 9 months at best,almost double that at worst.

> > The 3rd gen legendaries,if they follow the same program,will be fully released sometime in the next decade.

> > Most thumbs up.

>

> IKR, I'm still waiting for the 2nd gen scepter and ta daa we have warhorn. We get LS episodes every 2 months, it would be cool if they released 2 legendaries with one episode. After the 2nd gen, they should go for another legendary armor set which is obtainable through open world pve.

Every 3 to 4 months. Probably 5 next time. So it will be awhile. I'm not sure what they will release next, but I imagine greatsword will be last. So you might get scepter next episode. Or it could be longbow to change it up since the last three were off-hand, one-handed, off-hand. Or it could follow that pattern and be scepter one-handed.

> @"PeterFries.1057" said:

> We originally planned some content where you were researching Joko's past in order to find his weakness, a way to defeat his immortality. That honestly wasn't anywhere near as compelling as the storyline we released. We've seen it demonstrated again and again that Joko rewrote Elonian history and embellished his omnipotence over the generations in order to subjugate his citizens. Why shouldn't the Commander (who has killed two Elder Dragons and a god) just assume the tales of this tyrant's immortality weren't as phony as any of his other lies?

Just noticed this when I was scrolling up. Would have really loved to find out about his past to find his weakness. And as mentioned above, am still holding out hope that we will at least learn his backstory even if it isn't a major part of the story of the current episode and has little relevance now that he's _out of the way_.

> @"Neil Pollner II.7602" said:

> Hi all.

>

> As the main writer for the A story of episode 3, and as a member of the team that broke this season’s arc/story, I can tell you that bringing the conflict with Joko to a deadly conclusion was not about sewing up lose threads. Or finding an antagonist we can just kill. We know that killing anyone iconic will be met with applause as well as boos. That’s testimony to having a rich world with rich characters and a wide fan base that is passionate and really connected to the experience. We expected that some will love how we orchestrated Joko’s demise and some will have issues with it. Both are valid. But please know, we don’t plan and do anything like this casually or for fleeting reasons. We pour over story and dig in deep and care immensely about the world and characters.

>

> So please trust me — episode 3’s developments and joko’s fate were not cavalier or whimsical dart throws.

>

> Thank you all for being so involved and for caring so much. That more than anything makes this job a pleasure!

Are you allowed to confirm that we will get more on Joko's backstory later in the season? Like his origins and what-not? Probably not, but I figured it was worth a shot to ask. That was one of the things I was really looking forward to and kind of hoped we would get this episode as I knew he was reaching his conclusion. It would be really sad if we didn't at least get a vision or somekind of lore collectables somewhere that would tell us his full story. :(

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > @"Zephic.3075" said:

> > The timeline doesn't match up as the last known rising of the Elder Dragons was over 10,000 years ago and there are some clues that the last dragon cycle was not the first one.

>

> Just want to point out that the age of "3,000 years ago" is also tied to the last rising of the Elder Dragon. Particularly, everything around Glint, which is focused on the end of the previous dragonrise.

>

> > There is no evidence of Joko's existence prior to 757 AE.

> While true, this doesn't exactly mean Joko didn't exist prior to then. Keep in mind that 757 AE is when he built the Bone Palace - he couldn't have built it as an infant, and was undoubtedly already a lich at the time. He's bound to have been in this thirties, I'd imagine, at the very least, when he died and became a lich. And there's no way he would have built the Bone Palace on his own, so he likely raised an army to do it. So there's no real way to know how long all that took, or what he might have done before hand. We're likely looking at an ultimate latest of ~700 AE for how old he is.

>

> > @"Zephic.3075" said:

> > tldr; Joko is known for his lies, don't get suckered into believing everything he claims.

>

> On this part particularly:

>

> _"He does respect the fact that you were able to screw him over--it's the sort of thing HE would do--so when he's finally got you face-to-face, he drops a lot of the performative aspect and speaks to you in a way that's much more honest. His final cinematic is probably as close to genuine as he ever gets."_

>

> The question is ultimately about how genuine he is at that moment.

And also what he means by witnessing the dragons and the gods come and go like tides or whatever. I mean, technically we've witnessed that as the commander, so it may not mean anything more than what we already know.

Though I do firmly believe that he was at the very least one of the first humans to be brought to Tyria or in one of the generations pretty soon after. If he didn't build the bone palace until 757 ae, I highly doubt he would have been able to do that in the span of 57 years, assuming 30 or so of those he wasn't even a lich. That would take a lot of work from awakening an army, to the centaur genocide, which would probably take a rather large army at that.

I will admittedly be extremely disappointed if they don't explore his backstory similarly to how they explored Scarlett's post-mortem. The only reason I could see them not doing it is if they felt like bringing him back at some point, but given how dead he seems I doubt that's likely. Plus, why would they when we've already came back to Elona? We will most likely have more interaction with the Order of Shadows in a future episode, so I think that might be the time they dive further into Joko's backstory.

Is it possible that they never killed Joko, not because they couldn't, but because they knew there were worse consequences if they did? Something about who he is or his magic that the Order of Shadows knew more about and realized it was better to leave him in tact and doing whatever he does than get involved? I know we're already dealing with that kind of a plot with the Elder Dragons and that his magic has to be unbound which they may have not known how to do or it wouldn't have been as easy for them as it is for us with a future elder dragon at our side. But still, the lack of involvement the Order of Shadows seems to have with the fight against Joko seems rather suspicious. But that could also be in part because the Desolation and current plot had them solely focused on Balthazar and the forged.

> @"Edelweiss.4261" said:

> If they do go after DSD soon, I'm kind of hoping for an Innsmouth-esque area. We can even have a proper invasion of a new area that puts us on the defensive. Work up the paranoia angle by having some long-trusted allies turning out to be sleeper agents of the DSD. Eventually, the DSD will come ashore believing total domination and only be defeated by an unexpected turn of good fortune or, perhaps, DSD is killed by an opportunistic Jormag looking for an edge.

I know people are tired of the human-centric plot as of late, but I would love it if the expansion was Deep Sea Dragon/Cantha, but took us to the place where humans FIRST arrived on Tyria given the speculation that they were somewhere before Cantha. Would be amazing to see what the area looks like where the gods decided to plop them in from the mists. Wonder what the architecture would look like of their first civilization, assuming they settled there and didn't just immediately keep going towards Cantha. Humans over the years have had such a huge variety. Elonian/Ascalonian/Krytan are all so different. And I believe the gods had more to do with the building of Orr, but it's far different from even any of those. I'm assuming Canthan is different from even any of those.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"Tyson.5160" said:

> > We could in episode 4 but more likely 5 head up to the charr homelands, due that tainted magic she ate from Joko. Perhaps she needs be around some kralkatorrik magic to assist in healing her and possibly put her in a stasis while she absorbs more ley line energy, so she can take on Kralkatorrik magic at the end of the season.

> >

> > During that time, we might get some more knowledge on Kralkatorrik. We did have those weird map edits way up in the Charr Homelands.

> I've considered that in the past due to the obvious narrative benefits we might gain from visiting the area where Kralkatorik slept for 10,000 years.

>

> Its the only real non-Elonian area I cold see them taking us too in this LW season, if we leave Elona at all.

>

> Though I would prefer they stay in Elona and use the remaining episodes to cover the Order of Shadows, Corsairs, and possibly some hidden Elonian centaur tribe, instead of spending an episode in Charr lands.

I think there's plenty of things still to discover in Elona for sure. I've never really been interested in the Corsairs and felt like their introduction was kind of random, but perhaps there's some Guild Wars 1 precedent I'm just unaware of that makes their introduction necessary.

I was kind of hoping we would traverse some previously unexplored area in or near Elona and discover a completely new kind of creature or one thought extinct, like an actual living Giganticus Lupicous, or a seer, or a forgotten that has survived somewhere and remained secluded.

Also given the speculation that Harpy's have a relation to Dwayna, I'd love to visit their place of origin and maybe find out more about that potential relation.

Aside from finding the Forgotten, none of these things would have to involve a huge detour from the current story, so I feel like they would be a bit easier to implement. And if we managed to find a Seer somewhere, perhaps we could revisit the Shadowstone current event that never seemed to go anywhere.

Would also love to find a surviving Margonite, even if it's just an event boss in some ruins somewhere. Or did all the Margonites immediately go away when Abaddon was killed? The Jackal's are still alive and well and if I remember correctly they were a remnant of Margonites or their magic aren't they?

Was also kind of expecting to see some Largos in one of these coastal maps we've gotten throughout living season.

We'll probably see more Heket at some point, but I've honestly never been a huge fan of the frogs.

They were there for moral support. Croaking inspiring songs from a safe distance.

Just dawned on me that if we're right, the team that created this episode did Bitterfrost and Siren's Landing. Bitterfrost had a mastery with the Kodan Torch that involved purchasing upgrades for the torch as kind of a map-specific combat mechanic, and then Siren's Landing had the songs that nobody really used all that much or knew how to use. Now in this map we have the turret system, which almost seems like it could have been a similar mastery at some point.

So I guess this team really likes implementing the more quirky kind of new toys to their maps. I think the kodan's torch is pretty much only used for opening chests. But aside from that each of these things added with these releases is pretty much never used, or isn't really necessary in the maps they're in. The turrets might be interesting in a really difficult map, like a heart of thorns level difficulty map with mobs everywhere. The kodan torch is just... maybe it was always just meant for the beacons and chests but they added random combat mechanics to it to make it feel less stale? Or maybe it was meant to play a part in the region that we need the elixir for? And Siren's Landing doesn't really have challenging group content or a heavy meta to require something like the songs that are more for a group benefit I feel like than solo play.

I wonder what the next system will be episode 6. If we do wind up dealing with Kralk and that winds up being the episode in which we fight him, I hope the system they implement has something to do with riding Aurene and fighting on her. Something that has a bit more immersion and flow with the episode or use within the map, and that the map is challenging enough to warrant its use.

Also, where'd the combat tonic go this episode? I've been looking forward to those! And bought the choya tonic hoping it would be but knowing it probably wouldn't. lol

I always ask for guild hall decorations and hope beyond hope for some to be added with each episode but I thought surely a combat tonic wouldn't be a pipe dream!

> @"galen ubal.2807" said:

> > @"castlemanic.3198" said:

> > > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> *snip*

> > I think the devs clarified this at one point. In essence, the plan was to eventually kill off the elder dragons and immediately replace them with Vlast, Aurene and even potentially Glint (had she survived her encounter with Kralkatorrik). So essentially, kill an elder dragon and 5 minutes later have one of the friendly dragons replace it. That was a plan for way in the future, which by then would have meant that Aurene and Vlast would have possibly become elder dragon sized, or large enough to absorb a dragon's entire domain. But with Zhaitan and Mordremoth dying way before Vlast or Aurene were ready to replace one or both of them, the world was thrown for a loop because we're down two crucial elements to balance the magic of the world.

> >

> > Right now, the world is at a very precarious tipping point. We can't afford to kill any more elder dragons without destroying the planet. It's stable enough that the world isn't immediately screwed, but if one elder dragon were to acquire way more magic than the others, the balance would still be upset and potentially lead to a world ending scenario. Kralkatorrik is I think on the verge of becoming a world ending problem, especially with how Jormag and Primordus had some of their magic stolen which was eventually fed directly into Kralkatorrik, shifting the scales massively towards being unbalanced to catastrophic degrees.

> >

> > This is personal speculation, but the most ideal scenario is for Aurene to grow up ASAP and take her place as the fifth elder dragon, and then for her to spawn some children the way Glint did, and have those children then replace the current elder dragons and the final empty spot. She got some magical steroids from Balthazar which accelerated her growth by a lot, but we'll have to wait and see if/when she becomes elder dragon sized or elder dragon powered to find out what happens.

>

> It occurs to me that there may be yet another being that can replace an Elder Dragon. There's one very powerful, but still compassionate dragon minion floating around, since the beginning of the game.

>

> The Pale Tree.

>

>

> Maybe I'm way out on a limb, here, but just because she's not a dragon in shape, doesn't mean she can't take on the portfolio of, say, Mordremoth. She already has - courtesy of her origins, no doubt - a great deal of power in the same ways that Mordremoth did - life, and the mind. Does the way that Mordremoth whispered into the minds of his children, the Sylvari, remind anyone else of the Dream of Dreams? She's already survived a full-force mental attack from Mordy, albeit barely. I think she could take up the mantle.

>

> Aurene, of course, being a descendant of Kralkatorrik's minion, is a natural to take over his portfolio. She's also consumed Joko's magic, which is heavily tied to death and undeath. Perhaps she could take on the portfolio of both Kralkatorrik and Zhaitan.

>

> So, we may well have two beings floating around right now, who could take the places of two or three of the Elder Dragons - not nearly as destructive, and hopefully benign.

>

>

Yeah, I definitely don't see why not. With her taking the place of Mordremoth, and Aurene the place of Kralk, I'm not sure who would take the place of Zhaitan though. One person had suggested one of the ghostly king dudes in Siren's Landing, but I don't know about that. lol

> @"Brother.1504" said:

> 29.3k ap. And so much content to catch up on. The latest patch launched buggy but MMOs are sometimes like that. I’m happy with the ls4 zones and metas. For the most part I think anet is doing a good job with content cadence.

How do you have content to catch up on at 29.3k ap? Like what kind of content, exactly? I play this game like non-stop when I'm off work and still only have like 17k ap if that. lol

I need to borrow some of that so I can finish my Hellfire set. Just mail it to me!

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> > @"FlyingK.9720" said:

> > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > > @"FlyingK.9720" said:

> > > > Starting with PoF, Anet has generally been pretty low effort, with resources pushed over to the cash shop. Mounts were awesome, but the maps and things to do in the maps are pretty lackluster compared to prior releases However, with mounts I feel as though their meetings are just about what new skin to push out to the shop while content isn't even getting a half-baked effort.

> > >

> > > Excuse you? PoF was loaded with content. A ton of achievements and map to explore, many events to complete and things to discover. Can't say there is a single thing in base PoF that felt rushed or unfinished, with just as much if not more detail and content in the maps themselves than anything previously.

> >

> > Excuse yourself out, HoT was superior content wise.

> >

>

> And yet others consider HoT to be not only inferior, but bad.

I don't know how people could ever gather that. I think a lot of hate for Heart of Thorns was the legendary fiasco and some of the issues with metas being far more than people were expecting. It followed a content drought, had a bit of a content drought after it was released if I remember correctly, and didn't release everything up front that the box content suggested. But in terms of replay value they have the most in the game and will probably continue to amaze new people as long as they exist. The dragon stand meta is pretty amazing to most of the new people I've listened to.

But yeah, some people are also just salty over the complexity of the maps, even without the metas. So much Tangled Depths hate when it's probably one of the most amazing game maps I've ever seen with its intricacy. I can't even begin to imagine what it was like designing that map or the work that was put into making it a functional playable space like it is. All of the heart of thorns maps were truly amazing. Outside of perhaps Dragon Stand which didn't have AS much going for it outside of the meta.

The Path of Fire maps are beautiful too though, just don't have as much going on outside of initial play through and bounty trains.

> @"Lord Krilik.3692" said:

>

> >

> > Given Blish's reaction after being stuck in the crate and powered down in this episode, I'm thinking that's making Taimi reconsider that idea. It certainly would me if it meant I was Black Mirror style stuck with full mental awareness inside of pitch black nothing not knowing if I'll ever return or move on. Yeesh.

>

> Oh I don't think she plans to be a golem. I think she is using something else. I don't fully recall what it was. Perhaps the modrem chamber fluid? And given she's now teamed up with her friend who is looking at how the scarabs evolve, I'm guessing there will be something that ties all of this together.

Oh, that's right. Forgot about that. I just thought you were referring to the golem thing because of her interaction with Blish during the Sandswept instance.

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > > > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > > > > How can something be call unfinished when we don’t know what the episode was intended to be? For all that we know, this was exactly it.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > This episode feels no different than those of LS3 or even the PoF maps.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > If you've broken out of the map of Kourna you can see how unfinished Gandara is. When you compare that to other maps with larger areas that are unused and break out of the map, it's like they're fully finished and could easily be playable space. As someone who does this regularly, you can kind of tell just how rushed at least Gandara was. Untextured blotches of space and buildings that don't have collision or even finished architecture and no plan layout. They do this often with things like Divinity's Reach where you know players aren't going to go and you want the silhouette of a city from a certain angle, but this is even less so than many of the other places I've seen.

> > > > >

> > > > > Maybe it’s not finished because they never intended for you to go there in the first place? Why should they build out spaces that they don’t plan to use?

> > > > >

> > > > > > It is finished from what they planned, but from what I gather with the many issues they ran into as they stated in the ama along with the fact that the content didn't seem up to standards to release earlier thus causing the delay, it seems more like they didn't really have an intended vision for this map. At least not a consistent one. I think it went through many iterations and due to that process a lot of it feels unfinished, such as Gandara and its meta.

> > > > >

> > > > > I must have missed that part about it not being up to standards so I’ll have to check it out. My gathering on the delay was that it had to do with reasons that impacted all further episodes too. It wasn’t just centered on this episode. But only Anet knows.

> > > > >

> > > > > > I don't think it's good to be hostile towards them for this episode, but I do think it's good for as many people as possible who don't like certain aspects of it to address their opinion to persuade them to possibly take a different route the next time.

> > > > >

> > > > > I just dislike the use of “rushed” or “unfinished” as that implies there was a different version that was intended and that we all knew about it. Don’t get me wrong, the meta was underwhelming and the rewards similar but then it’s no different than those of PoF maps and I don’t think players were calling them rushed or unfinished.

> > > > >

> > > > > > Sandswept wasn't my favorite map either, but it was certainly a better release in my opinion than this one. The art team is pretty much always going to do a fantastic job and I feel like they have some of the best in the business, but a pretty hollow shell is still a hollow shell.

> > > > >

> > > > > The area it was in definitely left for much better artwork. I remember that this area in GW1 really wasn’t all that much to look at.

> > > > >

> > > > > > With that being said, the next episode is released by the team that did Daybreak, and although I wasn't a fan of Lake Doric (I think that's the same team), they always seem to do a very cohesive well-thought out job. Daybreak was spectacular to me. I think the biggest issue for the complaints this time around is just that they had so many issues during development and it's really bled through into what they released. Hopefully a minor setback and I didn't understand what they said in the ama about the changes they made to the development process and the fact that now teams will be communicating with leads better? (Kind of assumed they were doing this along but if they weren't it's amazing we've gotten what we've got!)

> > > > >

> > > > > Did they confirm that this was the same team? Last season they had three teams but you’re saying that they now have two. I very well could have missed that change.

> > > > >

> > > > > > I can't speak for everyone, only myself, but I try to always be understanding. Perhaps opinionated and ask for a lot, or overly vocal about things that I personally want or don't like, but reasonable and hopefully thoughtful. But we do have plenty of people that are just extremely toxic towards developers. It is their job and I do have certain expectations because of it, but I don't think anyone needs to bash them for it. The reddit obviously is a lot more lenient with these kinds of comments, but the reddit also seems to be where the devs frequent more often.

> > > > >

> > > > > I tend to be overly opinionated on some topics as well although I have pulled back somewhat on expressing them compared to previous years.

> > > > >

> > > > >

> > > >

> > > > Day break was ep1 of se4 and lake doric ep4 of se3. They still have 3 teams for all we know.

> > >

> > > A team typically has six months to develop an episode. Having them develop the first one and then go right into developing the third means that there was always going to be a three month gap between episodes and that the third team which hasn’t released an episode would have had an extraordinary amount of time to develop theirs compared to the other teams.

> >

> > Well, I think that's part of the reason people are scrutinizing this episode so much in particular. It's the third team and the one that has presumably had the longest period of time, along with an extra month from the delay.

>

> Practically they had the same as the rest if we assume they are the ones who made ep6 of se3.

But if we're assuming they are solely dedicated to THEIR episodes, that would mean they had One Path Ends, then nothing till this episode, which includes the 6 months of Episode 1 and 2, plus the time before the expansion hit and the time while the expansion was live before Episode 1. Way longer. Not even entirely sure how long ago that was. lol

But I doubt they have the episodes planned out THAT far in advance to the point that they can start working on it that soon. And by the sounds of the way things had been made previously, they sort of work on episodes but then have to sometimes redo things to fit whatever direction they need to because of sudden changes of the other teams.

Edit* I think I sort of understand what you're saying now though. Because each team would have had that extra time added on with the expansion launch before episode 1, which actually hit fairly quick into the expansion. So basically just the extra month then. Really just sounds like it boiled down to bugs and design 180's halfway through. lol

> @"Lord Krilik.3692" said:

> > @"Anna.7845" said:

> > Mai Trin

> >

> > Zojja

> >

> > The thing between Rox and Monti Scythescrape (or

> >

> > however that’s written)

> >

> > Locket from LS2

> >

> > Taimi’s disease

> >

> > The heck happened to Scarlet’s Alliance??

> >

> > E

> >

> > Auris Weirdbringer

> >

> > Shadowstone or Krait Oil plot ( There was some foreshadowing about the Commander going insane from consuming too much magic )

> >

> > Ley line anomalies

> >

> > Nightmare Court

> >

> > Arkk

> >

> >

> >

> > That’s all I can think of right now

> >

> >

>

> I think scarlet's alliance ad nightmare court can be answered.

>

> The alliance is now simply the inquest. It's all that's left.

>

> The court became mordrem, and were wiped out.

>

> Taimi's disease might be highlighted more in the current season. She just met the golem who used to be an Asura and I believe she's experimenting on herself.

Given Blish's reaction after being stuck in the crate and powered down in this episode, I'm thinking that's making Taimi reconsider that idea. It certainly would me if it meant I was Black Mirror style stuck with full mental awareness inside of pitch black nothing not knowing if I'll ever return or move on. Yeesh.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > > > How can something be call unfinished when we don’t know what the episode was intended to be? For all that we know, this was exactly it.

> > > > >

> > > > > This episode feels no different than those of LS3 or even the PoF maps.

> > > >

> > > > If you've broken out of the map of Kourna you can see how unfinished Gandara is. When you compare that to other maps with larger areas that are unused and break out of the map, it's like they're fully finished and could easily be playable space. As someone who does this regularly, you can kind of tell just how rushed at least Gandara was. Untextured blotches of space and buildings that don't have collision or even finished architecture and no plan layout. They do this often with things like Divinity's Reach where you know players aren't going to go and you want the silhouette of a city from a certain angle, but this is even less so than many of the other places I've seen.

> > >

> > > Maybe it’s not finished because they never intended for you to go there in the first place? Why should they build out spaces that they don’t plan to use?

> > >

> > > > It is finished from what they planned, but from what I gather with the many issues they ran into as they stated in the ama along with the fact that the content didn't seem up to standards to release earlier thus causing the delay, it seems more like they didn't really have an intended vision for this map. At least not a consistent one. I think it went through many iterations and due to that process a lot of it feels unfinished, such as Gandara and its meta.

> > >

> > > I must have missed that part about it not being up to standards so I’ll have to check it out. My gathering on the delay was that it had to do with reasons that impacted all further episodes too. It wasn’t just centered on this episode. But only Anet knows.

> > >

> > > > I don't think it's good to be hostile towards them for this episode, but I do think it's good for as many people as possible who don't like certain aspects of it to address their opinion to persuade them to possibly take a different route the next time.

> > >

> > > I just dislike the use of “rushed” or “unfinished” as that implies there was a different version that was intended and that we all knew about it. Don’t get me wrong, the meta was underwhelming and the rewards similar but then it’s no different than those of PoF maps and I don’t think players were calling them rushed or unfinished.

> > >

> > > > Sandswept wasn't my favorite map either, but it was certainly a better release in my opinion than this one. The art team is pretty much always going to do a fantastic job and I feel like they have some of the best in the business, but a pretty hollow shell is still a hollow shell.

> > >

> > > The area it was in definitely left for much better artwork. I remember that this area in GW1 really wasn’t all that much to look at.

> > >

> > > > With that being said, the next episode is released by the team that did Daybreak, and although I wasn't a fan of Lake Doric (I think that's the same team), they always seem to do a very cohesive well-thought out job. Daybreak was spectacular to me. I think the biggest issue for the complaints this time around is just that they had so many issues during development and it's really bled through into what they released. Hopefully a minor setback and I didn't understand what they said in the ama about the changes they made to the development process and the fact that now teams will be communicating with leads better? (Kind of assumed they were doing this along but if they weren't it's amazing we've gotten what we've got!)

> > >

> > > Did they confirm that this was the same team? Last season they had three teams but you’re saying that they now have two. I very well could have missed that change.

> > >

> > > > I can't speak for everyone, only myself, but I try to always be understanding. Perhaps opinionated and ask for a lot, or overly vocal about things that I personally want or don't like, but reasonable and hopefully thoughtful. But we do have plenty of people that are just extremely toxic towards developers. It is their job and I do have certain expectations because of it, but I don't think anyone needs to bash them for it. The reddit obviously is a lot more lenient with these kinds of comments, but the reddit also seems to be where the devs frequent more often.

> > >

> > > I tend to be overly opinionated on some topics as well although I have pulled back somewhat on expressing them compared to previous years.

> > >

> > >

> >

> > Day break was ep1 of se4 and lake doric ep4 of se3. They still have 3 teams for all we know.

>

> A team typically has six months to develop an episode. Having them develop the first one and then go right into developing the third means that there was always going to be a three month gap between episodes and that the third team which hasn’t released an episode would have had an extraordinary amount of time to develop theirs compared to the other teams.

Well, I think that's part of the reason people are scrutinizing this episode so much in particular. It's the third team and the one that has presumably had the longest period of time, along with an extra month from the delay.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > > How can something be call unfinished when we don’t know what the episode was intended to be? For all that we know, this was exactly it.

> > >

> > > This episode feels no different than those of LS3 or even the PoF maps.

> >

> > If you've broken out of the map of Kourna you can see how unfinished Gandara is. When you compare that to other maps with larger areas that are unused and break out of the map, it's like they're fully finished and could easily be playable space. As someone who does this regularly, you can kind of tell just how rushed at least Gandara was. Untextured blotches of space and buildings that don't have collision or even finished architecture and no plan layout. They do this often with things like Divinity's Reach where you know players aren't going to go and you want the silhouette of a city from a certain angle, but this is even less so than many of the other places I've seen.

>

> Maybe it’s not finished because they never intended for you to go there in the first place? Why should they build out spaces that they don’t plan to use?

>

> > It is finished from what they planned, but from what I gather with the many issues they ran into as they stated in the ama along with the fact that the content didn't seem up to standards to release earlier thus causing the delay, it seems more like they didn't really have an intended vision for this map. At least not a consistent one. I think it went through many iterations and due to that process a lot of it feels unfinished, such as Gandara and its meta.

>

> I must have missed that part about it not being up to standards so I’ll have to check it out. My gathering on the delay was that it had to do with reasons that impacted all further episodes too. It wasn’t just centered on this episode. But only Anet knows.

>

> > I don't think it's good to be hostile towards them for this episode, but I do think it's good for as many people as possible who don't like certain aspects of it to address their opinion to persuade them to possibly take a different route the next time.

>

> I just dislike the use of “rushed” or “unfinished” as that implies there was a different version that was intended and that we all knew about it. Don’t get me wrong, the meta was underwhelming and the rewards similar but then it’s no different than those of PoF maps and I don’t think players were calling them rushed or unfinished.

>

> > Sandswept wasn't my favorite map either, but it was certainly a better release in my opinion than this one. The art team is pretty much always going to do a fantastic job and I feel like they have some of the best in the business, but a pretty hollow shell is still a hollow shell.

>

> The area it was in definitely left for much better artwork. I remember that this area in GW1 really wasn’t all that much to look at.

>

> > With that being said, the next episode is released by the team that did Daybreak, and although I wasn't a fan of Lake Doric (I think that's the same team), they always seem to do a very cohesive well-thought out job. Daybreak was spectacular to me. I think the biggest issue for the complaints this time around is just that they had so many issues during development and it's really bled through into what they released. Hopefully a minor setback and I didn't understand what they said in the ama about the changes they made to the development process and the fact that now teams will be communicating with leads better? (Kind of assumed they were doing this along but if they weren't it's amazing we've gotten what we've got!)

>

> Did they confirm that this was the same team? Last season they had three teams but you’re saying that they now have two. I very well could have missed that change.

>

> > I can't speak for everyone, only myself, but I try to always be understanding. Perhaps opinionated and ask for a lot, or overly vocal about things that I personally want or don't like, but reasonable and hopefully thoughtful. But we do have plenty of people that are just extremely toxic towards developers. It is their job and I do have certain expectations because of it, but I don't think anyone needs to bash them for it. The reddit obviously is a lot more lenient with these kinds of comments, but the reddit also seems to be where the devs frequent more often.

>

> I tend to be overly opinionated on some topics as well although I have pulled back somewhat on expressing them compared to previous years.

>

>

As to your first point, I think you missed mine. In other maps in areas that aren't intended to see, they're almost as polished as the content you are meant to see. The level of how unfinished this particular part is of this map leads me to my assumption. But if you haven't personally broken out of the map like that as frequently you probably wouldn't understand why I'm reaching that conclusion. I think others have made a good point about the 3 cannons, three bridges, and 3 different allies that could have meant that it was originally meant to be a 3 lane meta. Or at least 2. I think there's a bit of a disconnect in that we have the corsaairs whose only job is to fire supplies into a cannon? We have the Heket who we intentionally coerce into joining us with the fight, but did they actually join us after that? I don't recall seeing them do anything or even participate in any of the other events on the map? Then we have the army we brought into the map through the rift. If you look at it completely neutrally, then you start to see aspects of it that make it feel as though it was meant to be more grand. Along with the comments from the devs about the Golem originally being its own boss on Bokoss Island before it was moved to be the final boss of the meta. It's possible that the Golem boss on Bokoss Island was meant to be just the first starter boss of one of the multiple lanes. This is all assumption, but it's a little bit of observation.

"Design Adjustment: A lot of what we were doing was to change how we were developing content and when we were syncing with the teams at large. The stories that we are telling are complicated enough that when you span across multiple teams that are all in flight at the same time in different parts of the production process, it meant that sometimes things were getting missed, or we had to course correct on things fairly late in development and it was painful for teams to adjust. This episode specifically lost time due to these types of corrections that forced us to look at the scope of the episode. When teams review their content with leads and directors has also changed to allow the team better visibility in to how their work is progressing and how their content lines up with the teams before and after them."

This was taken from the ama summary on reddit and is why I've made the conclusions I have. It's not the quote about it not being something they felt comfortable releasing, because the ama summary thread has a separate one from Mike addressing the technical side of things and not the one that I'm referring to.

As far as the same team and two teams bit, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. There are still 3 teams as far as I know, but I believe the team that is doing the next episode is the one that did Daybreak which is why I'm particularly excited for it. Despite what people have said, though it didn't have a great meta and parts of the map are a bit stale, I spent quite a bit of time in Bitterfrost. But that may be solely due to how much I loved the geyser and forest area. (Bitterfrost as far as I know is the same team that did this episode. And Siren's landing again didn't have a whole lot going on in terms of events, but was a pretty exciting and cohesive map.)

The ama comments today made him sound like he's pretty dead. They wanted to resolve his plot to move onto Kralk or whatever else it is they have planned.

I really do hope we get to learn more about where Joko came from and his backstory, but I'm not holding out hope for that to happen after what was said today.

> @"artemis.6781" said:

> > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > > @"artemis.6781" said:

> > > Then maybe the community should stop making threads of "OMG it's been 8 weeks since the last story. Are you guys sleeping?" And then continue to complain because there is a "content drought". Just let Anet do their job.

> >

> > I think ppl complained that it took them 4 months and that it wasnt playable.

>

> I'm taking about as soon as that 2-3 month time from the last episode, ppl start making threads wanting to know where the LS is. And then make weekly threads wanting to know. Let them do their job even if it takes 6 months.

Why as soon as 6 months? Why not 12 years? In 2056 maybe we will find out what's going on with Aurene. :expressionless:

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> How can something be call unfinished when we don’t know what the episode was intended to be? For all that we know, this was exactly it.

>

> This episode feels no different than those of LS3 or even the PoF maps.

If you've broken out of the map of Kourna you can see how unfinished Gandara is. When you compare that to other maps with larger areas that are unused and break out of the map, it's like they're fully finished and could easily be playable space. As someone who does this regularly, you can kind of tell just how rushed at least Gandara was. Untextured blotches of space and buildings that don't have collision or even finished architecture and no plan layout. They do this often with things like Divinity's Reach where you know players aren't going to go and you want the silhouette of a city from a certain angle, but this is even less so than many of the other places I've seen.

It is finished from what they planned, but from what I gather with the many issues they ran into as they stated in the ama along with the fact that the content didn't seem up to standards to release earlier thus causing the delay, it seems more like they didn't really have an intended vision for this map. At least not a consistent one. I think it went through many iterations and due to that process a lot of it feels unfinished, such as Gandara and its meta.

I don't think it's good to be hostile towards them for this episode, but I do think it's good for as many people as possible who don't like certain aspects of it to address their opinion to persuade them to possibly take a different route the next time.

Sandswept wasn't my favorite map either, but it was certainly a better release in my opinion than this one. The art team is pretty much always going to do a fantastic job and I feel like they have some of the best in the business, but a pretty hollow shell is still a hollow shell.

With that being said, the next episode is released by the team that did Daybreak, and although I wasn't a fan of Lake Doric (I think that's the same team), they always seem to do a very cohesive well-thought out job. Daybreak was spectacular to me. I think the biggest issue for the complaints this time around is just that they had so many issues during development and it's really bled through into what they released. Hopefully a minor setback and I didn't understand what they said in the ama about the changes they made to the development process and the fact that now teams will be communicating with leads better? (Kind of assumed they were doing this along but if they weren't it's amazing we've gotten what we've got!)

I think it's just a minor hiccup and an inevitability, but I do encourage people to express their opinions and I know the devs put a lot of work into what they create, even if at times it seems the gem store is the only thing that really receives attention.

To the other people saying they would pay for living story: As much as I spend on this game, I would be willing to spend a few extra if it meant larger teams doing releases meaning more consistent and hopefully a faster paced content release. BUT: with that kind of model you're going to have three times the hostility towards these releases because instead of living story being packaged into expansion purchase people will be actively purchasing episodes. So, I can see where you're coming from, but unless it came with a substantial increase in developers and resources allotted, I'm not sure this would be the best model.

I can't speak for everyone, only myself, but I try to always be understanding. Perhaps opinionated and ask for a lot, or overly vocal about things that I personally want or don't like, but reasonable and hopefully thoughtful. But we do have plenty of people that are just extremely toxic towards developers. It is their job and I do have certain expectations because of it, but I don't think anyone needs to bash them for it. The reddit obviously is a lot more lenient with these kinds of comments, but the reddit also seems to be where the devs frequent more often.

With bags filling up constantly with minor and major sigils, it would be nice if they were similar to the common quality crystals that have a small chance of becoming an amalgamated gemstone in the mystic forge.

If minor and major sigils had a small chance of becoming amalgamated gemstones, it would increase the value of sigils. It might decrease the value of gemstones a bit but they're in such heavy demand that it may not make a huge difference and would be balanced out with the increased value of sigils.

Just a thought. I know some people are going to get upset at this suggestion because they may be auction house whales that make a lot of money off of the current value of gemstones. But it would be nice to have the cost of legendaries reduced just a bit and to have gemstones more available.

We've been dealing with sigil bloat for quite a while now, and I know that was part of the reason unidentified gear was invented, so people could just salvage for basic materials and skip the sigils, but you're still better off identifying the gear than immediately salvaging it which leads to the sigil bloat.

Was thinking just maybe they did a slight update to Windswept with the new mount. The boulders blocking the rest of the mine look like they could be broken with the beetle, though it is a pretty tight space.

:(

> @"ZeftheWicked.3076" said:

> Agree to disagree about Joko.

>

> First off don't compare his fun, and witty taunts to "YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT ME" cringefest. To me Joko's taunts were icing on the cake of this episode's npc lines, along with Canah's ones. A dark "1984" themed humor (his statues) is right up my alley.

>

> Secondly he is **Interesing** as a villain. He took what's otherwise a generic and overdone zombie theme and reforged it into a structured, functional and not brain dead part of society. The awakened serve him and in certain ways Elonian society. They keep their intelligence and memories, and some want to be awakened willingly. Ofc this is part of his villainy (brainwashing the masses and creating false godhood around his persona), but still degree to which he pulled this off is uncommon and interesting.

>

> The real sad part about Joko is how a-net completely wasted the potential of him being **250 years old lich**. That guy has seen stuff forgotten to time and could have answers our characters never knew of. Notice how he mocks commander for killing 2 elder dragons that destabilized the world like it was the most obvious thing to him. For us it took Taimi, lost asuran City and a loot of research to get there. Who knows what knowledge might've been shared if they didn't off Joko is such a brainless, teen movie way.

>

> Characters like him and Lazarus were huge **opportunities** to shed light on most mysterious, fascinating and presumebly lost pieces of Tyrian lore (the Mursaat and the events of past 250 years). They didn't have to be main villains. It was exactly because they were inferior to dragons (and well aware) that they would make fascinating characters that might even reach out to player in hopes of overturning their fate, willing to share their lost knowledge and power, as long as player would be willing to look the other way on some of their villainy and help them beat down the big danger before they end up being a dragon snack (moment of silence for Joko)..

>

> But no. A-net did the worst possible solution. Have one killed in the name of some old shrew that just wanted vengenace and nothing more, and the other offed by "Loveable" Aurene that currently is acting like a rabid dog (which is what protagonists themselves take not of) and in no way or form is a deep, interesting and exciting character, to balance the loss of Joko.

>

> Even not bringing them up at all (least for now) would be better, as the mystery, speculation and hopes of revealing most enigmatic pieces of Tyrian lore would still abound. But now that aura of mystery was brutally sliced to ribbons leaving nothing but my distaste for the rock-dog deluxe most call "Aurene".

I don't get why people are acting like Aurene's actions were out of character. She would have tried to do the same thing with Balthazar if she weren't a baby. Calling her a rabbid dog because she pulls the exact same stunt and attempts to defend her champion is stretching it by a lot. The only thing that is even giving people this idea is the dialogue from Canach. If that wasn't there people would just be complaining that she's a "draconis ex machina" or whatever instead of implying that she's this loose cannon.

I think I would have almost preferred this episode bring Livia back into the fold and have us fighting Joko with her. Granted that didn't go over so well with Lazarus, but it would be interesting hearing the banter between them. More so than Joko just repeatedly call Braham an idiot in a seemingly fan-service kind of way to redeem Braham's character.

> @"Pax.3548" said:

> > @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

>

> > I do not get the whole "the scarabs can only infest humans" thing. This makes no sense at all, for lengthy reasons that I just can't bother to get into. There's no logical reason that one species and one species only could be vulnerable to their behavior of incubating eggs and larvae within living hosts; humans are not THAT different from all the other species, native to Tyria or not, and even if it were just a case of built up resilience over millennia of dealing with parasitic scarabs, norn, asura, and possibly charr would not have this exposure (sylvari too but they're plants so they're different topic entirely; they're also magical dragon minions). Add in that if it weren't for humans, they'd only incubate their eggs and larvae among wheat, this makes two completely opposing environs for the scarabs to house their young in, which is drastically uncommon. Add in the experiments of Episode 2 showing us with moas, choya, charr, and karka both living ones incubating scarabs and dead ones, this makes even less sense. The only actual possibly explanation. Ultimately, the only reason I can think of for why this is the case, would be magical manipulation to create a sub-breed of scarabs that can target humans specifically in addition to their standard biological functions.

>

> The way I understand it, is that the scarab plague wasn't the same as the one that ravaged elona centuries ago, the plague joko got his hands on was the "first generation" plague, the weakest one apparantly and the one that infest only humans. After some time experimenting with it, joko created the plague's second generation, here the scarabs were able to infest crops and farmlands, thus infesting viable food sources. Now the third generation... that one was the proper and famous scarab plague that destroyed ancient elona, it kills and infest EVERYTHING, not only humans, thats why gorrik was truly worried about it, as it could cause a world wide pandemic. Thats what we saw in the cinematic when we opened the gates of gandara, and why gorrik and taimi hurried to seal it soon after it. Truly, I think we managed to win the day because of the primeval ghost warriors, (an army that even joko didn't expect). The ghosts managed to get into the city and kill every infected being and scarab inside, ending the real scarab plague before it was unleashed on the world.

>

> I think joko plan was for us to open the gates of gandara with an army of regular soldiers instead of ghosts, that way the nasty surprise of the plague would have been unleashed on us and joko would have definitely win the war, infecting the army and then send it back to Tyria and the rest of elona.

You'd think for a lich with eyes everywhere that can apparently just project hologram images of himself and awaken people half a world away he would have been able to see us mounting our forces. Or even that some awakened in Desert Highlands would have been like, "Yo, Joko, you seein' this? Why's ya boi talkin' to the ghosts?"

The ship looked like it might have had a projector or something glowing in it, so perhaps that's how Joko did the projection there. And then the rest were in his little dungeon full of traps so there could have been more there. Still find it odd that he was able to awaken people from that far away though. Has he always been able to do that? Seems like he would have to be in close viscinity. Or was it really his lieutenant on the ship that did the awakening?

I think the thing that bothers me more is that Norn seem to be immune to this generation or whatever. I mean, they're basically just bigger humans in physiology?

Also noticed some of the Olmakhan were awakened near the fortress which was kind of interesting. I know we've known seen a ton of Asura be awakened but I don't think I had seen any charr before this? Maybe I just overlooked them.

I wonder if there's species Joko's magic couldn't awaken? Or if it's just anything dead outside of maybe elder dragons? If dragon minions can't be awakened that would be an interesting twist. And I don't think we've seen any sylvari awakened? (Don't you dare kill off Canach while Braham is walking around killing liches with us after being absent for nearly 3 episodes.)

Having one of these statues as an interactable that says the dialogue of the one in the Loyalist area or just one that randomly talks like the others throughout Kourna as a guild hall decoration would have been pretty nice too. But we didn't get an Abaddon statue with Siren's Landing either, so I guess I shouldn't have expected us to get this Joko statue.