Bast.7253

Alright, so after replaying the episode I didn't see any portal that Joko's spirit went into as suggested by another poster in a different thread. But I'm not good at catching those things anyway.

What I did notice is that the blue swirling around her kind of looked like spirits at times.

Also, I'm really thinking that the start of the next episode is going to be a vision from Aurene. Possibly showing us what Joko knows, perhaps one briefly showing his origin and moving forward.

Not to say it won't happen at the start of the next episode, but it seems odd that the commander doesn't also feel the way Aurene feels at this moment and there's no mention of it.

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> I won't go into length because I'm tired but I'll say this:

>

> I loved the dialogue. It felt like I was confronting Joko as we knew him in GW1. A trickster and a manipulator who treats everything as a game simply because he can outlive everything. I loved the cinematics, they were all very well done.

>

> 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.

>

> It's also annoying, that the Vabbian Sunspears, Tahlkora, and the griffons were just neatly and conveniently forgotten. As if they never existed. Despite the fact that they'd have such a pivotal role in the plot against Joko, far more than our Primeval Queens did.

>

> And then there's something the OP complains a little _too much_ about: deaths. While the personal story had very clearly overdone the death department of both meaningful and meaningless deaths, while HoT only touched meaningful deaths, with Path of Fire touching no deaths (aside from the nameless which don't even count as meaningless tbh), Season 4 is pretty bad in that we had a setting of a stage for something far, far worse than anything seen before in terms of warfare, and yet we had no meaningful deaths. Whether it was Taimi, Faren, Braham, Rox, or even Zaiem or Gorrik, someone should have died. Not many deaths - don't want to overdo it - but _someone_ should have died.

>

> Makes me regret being able to save Taimi in Episode 1.

>

> But worse, however, was that this was just pure out completely anti-climatic. Firstly, Joko dying in a draconis ex machina way is just poor writing. Yeah, sure, you get your 15 seconds of shock from Aurene doing what she did, but that style of death is more appropriate for your [starscream](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheStarscream "Starscream") styled villain. Of which, Joko was not.

>

> Secondly, you just took **_THE_** villain of the entire franchise, and turned him **into a freaking half-time miniboss for the plot.** Seriously? You put Joko on par to _Caudecus_? Not even that, but he hardly got any screen time. Very few villains get a proper amount of screentime in this game - the only villain that has, imo, was Scarlet... who I detest for the quality of her design. I'm not upset he died - I kind of expected him to, just not so soon.

>

> Lazarus and Dhuum got it bad enough, and these three were the only real villains that were carried over to the game. Joko was better than those two, but really it feels like Anet just doesn't give a kitten about maintaining character standards.

>

> Thirdly, you kill him off right a one hell of a massive reveal about his character, while also heavily hinting (to the point of practically promising) out of the game to go into his background, yet never do. Now that he is dead, why would we bother plot wise? It's just like Balthazar and his apparent "[real motivations](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/494488/#Comment_494488 "real motivations")" that never got delved into. You just hinted that not only did he know from the beginning the importance of the Elder Dragons, but suggest in his dialogue that he has lived long enough to see the gods and dragons "come and go". Which just makes players **BEG** to know just _who is he?_ And then you kill him off. And we will go into his backstory...why? Who cares (in-game), he's dead now.

>

> I loved that ending speech of his. But honestly? It should have ended with him going something along the lines of: "You may be able to beat me in raw strength. But you can't kill me. But I? I can kill you, Commander. And in all honesty, I probably should, with all the damage you've done. But I won't. I won't because I enjoy this. Taking your glory, watching you flounder about as you ruin the world you try oh so desperately to save." And then leave through a portal. For him to put his nation at risk for the sake of petty revenge, to watch his own commanders fall and laugh about not re-Awakening them, to fight the Commander and talk about being nemesis to each other, to prove that they really are immortal, and to have the Commander at his fingertips... and then to spare him. To leave. Consider the massive psychological blow that would have been.

>

> (Seems I did get lengthy... And yet I could have gone about four times longer).

>

> I think the most annoying thing is that all my greatest S3 and S4 disappointments come from the same LW team. S3E3, S3E6, and now S4E3. The third team.

To comment on your bit about his backstory. Why would we learn more? Perhaps Aurene's reaction after eating Joko and feeling week could imply that we need to find out more about Joko's backstory in order to help heal her in the next episode? Perhaps he's more than just a lich and more than just a human, and he was here during the previous dragon rises. Perhaps something about him made Aurene ill and we need to find out more about him in order to help her.

Possibly the famous Arachnia or whatever spider god that didn't actually make it into the game? It seems very Lovecraftian to me, which I liked.

A few other things to note about the instance that I found interesting was that he said his full name which I'm not sure was known before. Palawa Ignaceous Joko. Does this mean anything to anyone? I googled the name and nothing of significance popped up. Ignaceous I mean. Just some place in Draconis Mons.

Also, I definitely think the thing with Aurene "roars weekly" as the bonus dialogue after she eats him hints at something. I also noticed her eyes were kind of a green-cat like color but that might have been what they looked like before. Haven't checked.

About to replay it for some more beetle mastery so I'll have to check out that illusion bit where someone said it looked like he teleported out or something.

Looking forward to the speculation about this episode. Was kind of hoping for a background thing on Joko, but perhaps that's still to come.

The moment he says his full name seems significant. Like that name should mean something or will mean something at some point. And Aurene roaring weekly seems to imply that next episode will revolve around healing her, which may involve feeding her a lot more magic or finding something that allows her to eat more magic in preparation of Kralk.

Will Aurene take control over the awakened somehow? Sort of controlling them like her own elder dragon minions? Will it just be nothing but indegestion from eating a rotten corpse? It doesn't seem like this went according to Joko's plan, but if what the person said about the ring and him teleporting out during the process is true then we shall see.

Also, the staff did seem kind of important but I didn't notice him throwing it on the ground. The staff is a unique model from what I can tell.

Also, I wonder what all the focus on illusions was this episode? I mean, I played it through as a Mesmer and figured it was a class-specific thing, but Joko has never really seemed like the type to be too keen on Mesmer-like magic. I'm not shouting that this is a sign of Lyssa being involved, but the talk of us killing Elder dragons who are the life force of the planet, and the emphasis he uses when he says we killed a god does have me a bit suspicious. Also part of his dialogue talks about how his immortality is extremely understated or something. Which isn't unlike Joko, but also seemed like a weird truth and hint.

Definitely a lot to digest, for me and for Aurene apparently. Overall I enjoyed it. The traps were annoying and Joko did vanish at some point forcing me to restart that checkpoint, but I'm not upset with how it ended. And to be honest, I don't think it really did.

Great news! On a positive note, once these instances are stable I think they will be one of my favorite ones yet. The third instance that I haven't managed to complete yet has certainly been up there, despite the extremely frustrating corridor navigation if you catch my drift! The cut scenes are pretty fun so far too. Darker and almost feels like a different genre. Looking forward to finishing them and rerunning them with a hopefully seamless stable playthrough!

I was able to complete my mount last night but was looking forward to completing the final story instance tonight after work but it’s not showing any updates in the release notes so it might just be a dc fest again.

I’m attempting the last story instance of this episode again when I get off work and given the content within the instance, I’m really hoping I don’t get disconnected again because it will be excruciating. They need to at the very least start adding more checkpoints in these instances. I don’t know why they haven’t but in this particular instance there absolutely has to be one with the disconnects that are running rampant in these things.

I tried getting further and further into the last story instance and managed to get into the series of traps leading you through the instance. Even if the disconnects get fixed, I'm going to go ahead and warn you that it's a nightmare and there will probably be non-stop complaining on the forums about it.

Can't wait to actually play this instance once it gets fixed. If it gets fixed. It looks like it might have a pretty interesting finish.

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > In the first story instance behind the ship while fighting the boss, in the water near the mastery point and near the point of interest for old amnoon there is a reflection of almost a bright rainbow of colors. But there's nothing above it to reflect those colors. Is this a weird graphic glitch, an affect? It doesn't really bother me, just wondering if anyone else noticed it.

>

> It may be from the statue in the hold of the ship that was glowing during the fight(s).

>

> I'm curious what happens if one does _not_ destroy the statue, now, as that was the option I chose. I suppose I will have to take another character through, and choose not to.

I must have missed this. When I got to the ship or approached it it said that I was leaving the instance? Hmmm...

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> > @"Shadow Grebacier.2486" said:

> > I'm seeing disconnects in the Verdant Brink area as well as Mid PvP matches. Will those go away when the new stuff is fixed?

>

> First, I want to say that I am not a dev, nor do I have programming expertise, so this is just my personal opinion: Judging from the error message I got when I was moving from one core Tyria map to another, I believe that the fix the team is working on would address general disconnection problems and not solely those involving Episode 3. But again, that's my *guess*. Quite honestly I don't want to take dev time asking about it, since team members working on this are very focused on getting things fixed.

I wonder if this is related to the issues so many people were having with The Departed story instance? Would be interesting to see if their fix resolves some of the issues with that that I'm still having to this day. Here's to hoping for the best in anycase. Thanks for the updates.

In the first story instance behind the ship while fighting the boss, in the water near the mastery point and near the point of interest for old amnoon there is a reflection of almost a bright rainbow of colors. But there's nothing above it to reflect those colors. Is this a weird graphic glitch, an affect? It doesn't really bother me, just wondering if anyone else noticed it.

It's laughable to the point of seeming intentional. I kind of wish I would have dc'd immediately after Joko's speech at the end of the first story instance. It would have been even funnier. "And scene." CRASH. hahaha.

I'm sure it's a little of both, but it should have been somewhat anticipated on their end. I mean, all this talk of "quality" and a month delay, I would have expected it to be running smoother than the other two patches. But it's worse. FAR worse. And for the new players that just transferred over this isn't exactly a great experience either.

I'm also kind of upset that relogging after getting to the Tomb of Primevil kings skipped some of the dialogue with the queens. Hopefully nothing interesting was said. Not like I won't replay it anyway for achievements, but still. Now the client crashed and I'm not even sure if I'll be able to log back into my character.

> @"derd.6413" said:

> I hope we discover that the joko arc ties back to the dragons in some way instead of being a sidestory with no long term relevance

I would love to find out the origin of Joko. I don't know about tying back to the dragons, but something other than him being some imposter king from the pretender wars or whatever would be nice.

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> I expect a battle tonic which I'm probably not going to use thanks to the "no mounts stuff". Maybe some new weapons which I'm probably not going to care about unless the ranged ones have fitting projectile animations / sound effects.

>

> I'm hoping for some fun gizmos like the weapons you could get in the core tyria maps or a summon like a battle suit / the one from episode 1 but a permanent version without any BS restrictions instead of this one time use crap but sadly that's not going to happen (despite the fact that from an objective point of view there's nothing that speeks against it).

A combat tonic is always welcome. Can never have too many. Sometimes you just want to forget fashion wars for a bit and become someone else!

I’m one of the few I think that would like to resolve the Joko plot and get back to the whole Kralk situation. But I’ve always found the elder dragons more interesting.

I’d also love some guild related stuff, I.e. decorations, missions, maybe some windswept modification. But not holding my breath on any of that. Hoping the fractal is interesting, the collection achievements are really timegated, and that the mount skins will get a little wackier in the future in terms of deviating from their original more like the fox, the lion, and the goat Springer.

Don’t really have any idea expectations though. Better to not have any.

Story wise I’m more and more believing that Joko will wind up branded. But I honestly don’t think his plot will end this episode. Really hoping it doesn’t span the whole season and focus solely on him even though he is a fun character with a great voice actor.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"derd.6413" said:

> > then why wasn't glint enough to kill kralk when destiny's edge fought him. it's pretty obvious that glint wasn't enough so why would aurene be?

> DE failed, and Glint died, because Logan wasn't there to help them out. Not to mention, they didn't have the Pact, and/or our alliance of Sunspears, Shadows, Corsairs, and whoever else we bring along.

>

> >doesn't have to be, they could just have him travel over the already existing brand before going into new territory

> Which would be the most hilariously stupid thing for them to try to do. No really, imagine Anet seriously trying to have an NPC say that Kralkatorik flew EXACTLY along the brand he already made before flying off into Dzalana, since that's the only place he can go at this point.

>

> I don't know why you are so hellbent on keeping Kralkatorik alive, but really, this has just gotten silly.

>

We'll have to see how this episode plays out, but it really feels like they're trying to stretch Joko for an entire season so far. I was kind of hoping we would get back to Kralk at some point, but it's looking more like that may be something they try to dive into next expansion. And corsairs are few and far between, and Shadows have been living near Kralk for years upon years without seemingly any interest in him. Not to mention the hints that they may have a hidden agenda. Glint was far older than Aurene and presumably more powerful at the time of her death. The only reason Aurene would work over Glint at this point is that Aurene is powered up with Balth/Bloodstone/elder dragon magic. Pretty sure the only reason she technically damaged Kralk was because of the machine that Balthazar built that used branded magic as a battery. Aurene seemed to just be the key to making Kralk vulnerable to the machine. It didn't seem like it was solely Aurene that was damaging him but that whole scenario was a bit hard to follow with everything going on.

But that being said, we have three asura now instead of just Taimi and a machine. So who knows what we're capable of. Not to mention the weapon that Vlast was mentioning in the memory crystals still doesn't match up to the dragonblood spear, and still makes me think of the staff of the mists. So there is always the possibility that that will come into play at some point in the Kralk plot resolution.

We should know a lot more about the direction of the story on Tuesday. If we don't resolve or seem like we're getting close to resolving the Joko plot and we wind up "starting a war" that's technically already been started in this episode with no real mention or focus on Kralk, then it's pretty safe to say that if we only have 3 or 4 more episodes we won't be dealing with Kralk except to tie into the next expansion. Jormag and Primordus were resolved quickly last season, but they also just had somewhat brief mentions during those episodes. Jormag we never even saw. So I'm not sure they would follow that same quick resolution with Kralk given the large part he played in the base expansion or his recurring presence throughout Elona.

It will feel really strange if we don't hear anything about him or see that much branded this episode though, given that we had nothing on him last episode. I think the lack of his presence last episode and the lack of his presence in this trailer is the only thing that makes me lean towards us finishing Joko sooner rather than later, but people speculating that Joko could wind up branded could be the perfect tie in of the different plots and possibly a perfect and poetic resolution for the almighty King of Elona whose reign has been fueled by enslaving and controlling an entire nation of people. Here's to hoping we get some real back story on him before that happens.

Also, kind of hoping the new fractal has some story significance like Twilight Oasis did. I hardly believe it's just some dwarven ruins with a spider boss, unless they just wanted to kick something out with different assets and mechanics for the sake of having a new fractal.

I think the most damage comes from abominations when the break bar is up. You pretty much have to break it. Is it retaliation? I feel like when I don’t attack them they don’t do as much but the key is the breakbar.

And the awakened casters with the beam that fish out 20 conditions per second hit me harder I think but it depends on what I’m playing.

I remember when karka would have been number 1. How far we’ve come.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"hugo.4705" said:

> > That's pure speculation, but at the north-west it can be a waterfall like in the trailer, at the south a crescent Islet could be Joko's base? But what is strange, the map is essentially a delta and some rivers whereas we haven't seen many water on the trailer.

> Including the water area of Sandsweapt isle is pointless since there is no content there, and if not water, the map would have giant walls as borders, that take up a lot of space, but aren't actually playable area.

>

> Also, if you re-watch the trailer, you can clearly make out a river with some moas in it.

>

And you think all the water in your map location would be different? We saw one little area with a Moa, not half the map with water. It’s possible it could be the same size but with better use of the space.

And at some point the episodes will have to lead into the expansion unless they’re doing another living world season. Going back to the place where Kralk first was in the north could tie into the story easily and still not be in Elona.

Joko is obviously really Caudecus. And Lazarus. Lazarus was like, if someone’s gonna steal my identity I’ma do one better. Then Caudecaus was like, hold on bruh, I’m coming too.

> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > That's a lot smaller than the current living world maps.

> It was a box made from the land area of sandsweapt isles, and also just a rough outline of what to expect.

> > kind of imagined it would be about Vabbi sized

> No LW map has been anywhere close to Vabbi sized, I don't see why this one would be either.

>

Sand swept is pretty close. Have you compared the two? Domain of Istan seems smaller but has a lot more verticality.

That's a lot smaller than the current living world maps. I kind of imagined it would be about Vabbi sized and directly below it reaching into the brand just a little bit. Would also be a good cut off point having a branded wall similar to the branded area in far east Crystal Oasis. I originally imagined that the entry point to the map would be near the Griffon roost in Vabbi but I guess it could be pushed further towards the west so as to avoid having the giant branded scar area which it didn't look like we had any of in the trailer.

Definitely didn't see that much water in the trailer either, and I didn't see anything that looked liked it would have been Gandara. The area with all the Asura-tech honestly looked like Twilight Oasis fractal to me. No idea where that map is actually supposed to be set but I knew it was somewhere in Kourna. There just didn't look like enough water in the trailer to be that close to the coast, but there wasn't really any brand that I could tell either.

So it's hard to say. It feels like they showed quite a bit of the new map in the trailer, but I'm wondering if they were just really careful with the angles they chose. Given the new mount, I think wherever it is we will be seeing a lot more land than water though, and given how fast it looks I feel like it's going to be a fairly large map so people aren't just zooming from one end to the other.

> @"hugo.4705" said:

> By the way, I've noticed that in the case of HoT we had 2 guild halls, here in PoF only one for now, so can we imagine a second one soon? Better than the first?

Would love that but wouldn’t count on it.

> @"videoboy.4162" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > > @"videoboy.4162" said:

> > > I feel like they're trying to ship more than just the next episode. Seems like an extra stretch of time was added for it to just be a single episode slowing them down. I have fun when they add new things, so I'm fine with waiting either way.

> >

> > Thinking like this is why people will wind up disappointed. Then again someone mentioned Rubi seemed really excited about this episode for some reason but Rubi seems pretty excited usually anyway. Lol Hoping for the best. Honestly, I would just be excited with some guild content or new decorations but I’m not holding my breath. Getting a Joko statue at least seems like it would be necessary for this episode.

> >

> >

>

> And yet, I was right. Not only are we getting the episode and map, but we're getting a new Fractal, Legendary, and Mount.

Knew we were getting a legendary, was pretty certain we were getting a fractal. The mount is a surprise though.

> @"Alga.6498" said:

> My comment will most likely be removed due to spoilers but atleast this give us hope and excitement seeing this, :)

>

> Just saw a leaked spoiler ft. a unplayed trailer (_more like a screenshot of the trailer's tumbnail_) and it's episode name. According to this, the trailer video on the GW2launcher got leaked out.

>

> Could be fake but.... waiting this long for the epi is really desperate... :(

>

>

>

> Which means, the episode is near!!! :D :D :D

Yeah. Though taking a second look at it the more I think it looks fake. The guy on the right? What is his deal? And are the titles always completely caps?

Has anyone seen if there is another similar image of Braham that could have been copy pasted into this picture?