And that's Living World Season 3 done.
Having the Commander talk again is nice, it makes for a much better character which was kind of required with how much more involved the story is. It's in six parts this time around, each with their own new zones. Apparently the story starts a year after Heart of Thorns, with a memorial to the fallen Eir. Which is weird because, you know, she died a year ago. The Commander's trying to put a new guild together but the main characters from the various prior stories are all but indisposed, incapacitated or tell you to get fucked, so it's more or less just you and Taimi.
Honestly, the story feels like it sets things up and immediately brushes them aside for the next thing. It kind of goes like this:
- The Bloodstone explodes due to White Mantle tampering, and most of the power gets absorbed by Lazarus. A fair chunk of the White Mantle goes nutso due to Bloodstone poisoning.
- Lazarus reveals himself, splitting the White Mantle into two warring factions: Lazarus' and Caudecus'.
- Primordus starts waking up and is set up as the next Elder Dragon to be fought, and his Destroyers have been tained by the energies of Zhaitan and Mordremoth, giving them death and plant powers on top of the lava powers that they already have (have fun combining fire and plants I guess).
- The dragon egg starts hatching, and Lazarus shows up to defend you from a Destroyer attack. He is willing to work with you and Marjory embeds herself in his organization.
- Baby Aurene is adorable. And also not very relevant so far.
- Jormag starts waking up as well. Braham and Rox set out to find a magical scroll that'll give them the edge they need against Jormag, whose Icebrood now also have death and plant powers.
- Caudecus' branch of the White Mantle perform a terrorist attack on Divinity's Reach and attempt to assassinate the Queen. This happened right after she disbanded the Ministry, a political counterweight to the power of the Queen, because of the emergency of the White Mantle crisis. She rightfully gets called out on this when the attack begins, which resulted in a major dam being burst and a fair chunk of land being cast into economic hardship because a bunch of fishing villages lost their lake.
- The assault on Caudecus' compound results in his death as well as that of his daughter, dealing with his faction and making Lazarus the master of the White Mantle. Countess Anise's weird relation with her manslave Canach comes to an end, but she gets a new servant girl/sex slave in the form of Valette Wi. Anise wants to kill her first, but because of the Commander's intervention she decides that Valette's neck looks better with a collar than with an axe. Anise acts like this is some sort of massive, earth-shaking personal betrayal but from what I can gather Valette's crimes came down to membership of a terrorist organization.
- Taimi has built a machine that lets her blast Primordus and Jormag with each other's energies to put them to sleep again. The tests are interrupted by the appearnce of Lazarus and his army of... mercenaries. No, not the White Mantle faction that defected to him: his mercenaries. He wants to get his hands on the machine to kill the dragons instead (which will destroy the world) but is revealed to actually be Balthazar in disguise, which sends Kasmeer into a massive crisis of faith and leaves Marjory severely injured.
- Balthazar gets tracked to a volcano with one of the most annoying and uninspired jumping puzzles I've done so far. The place is filled with the corrupted Destroyer minions, some belligerent wildlife and Balthazar's mercenaries. He's using the machine to drain magic from the off-screen Jormag to blast the utterly massive Primordus with and vice versa (which also kills Primordus' and probably Jormag's minions as well, and the Commander stops him by going all ATF on his dogs. The machine blows up, both of the dragons go back to sleep and Balthazhar departs.
- In the final part the Commander tries to track Balthazar down, but hit a dead end. To gain more intel the Commander is forced to join an almost cult-like organization to gain the information needed to track him down, because if they share their secrets they drop dead on the spot. This is kind of a weird characteristic for an organization that ostensibly is loyal to the Krytan royal family, because where's the line between sharing information you gathered as part of a report and you sharing your organization's secrets? Especially with the revelations near the end. The Commander is tested by the Shining Blade by being burned alive, having a metric ton of water dumped on them, getting stoned and then buried alive, being put through a recreation of a distant betrayal and having to face their own self-doubt, which are way too many hoops for someone who doesn't want the world to be exploded by the god of war.
- We finally learn of the location of the Illuminati eye which should track down... not Balthazar but rather the aspects of the true Lazarus so that he can be destroyed. You'd think that the rogue God of War would be a more pressing matter, but no we have to do this first. Here we meet a massively unpleasant woman called Kerida, who is really big on going after Lazarus but not very big on sharing secrets. She gets more an more suspicious until she's revealed to be Livia, a character from Guild Wars 1 who has been massively prolonging her life to continue the fight against the Mursaat. And she brought Lazarus back to life with the sole intent of killing him using the Shining Blade, the generation 2 legendary sword. Yes, it's the Ancient Gods DLC from Doom Eternal all over again. Lazarus gets put down and we get to look into the Illuminati eye where we see Balthazar burning down a fair chunk of the Crystal Desert, setting the stage for Path of Fire.
That's my issue. One White Mantle? Nope it's two of them. Lazarus might be a good guy? Nope, he's Balthazar and tries to kill the dragons which will destroy the world. Little baby Aurene? Shoved to the side after a training montage. The magical scroll that lets Braham fulfill a prophecy to fight Jormag? Nope, get out of here. Caudecus' attack on Divinity's Reach setting up internal convlict in Kryta? Nope, he dies and the political disturbance is pushed aside. Taimi's machine that could put the dragons down? Nope, it gets destroyed and the dragons go back to sleep. Balthazar being the new leader of the White Mantle? Nope, they get replaced with generic mercenaries. Going after him? Nope, you're here to settle an old woman's grudge against a Mursaat.
The gameplay was not bad and some of the areas were pretty fun, but the story was just a bunch of plotlines being tossed aside. for new ones.
I'm not quite done so far: I still have to do the events and jumping puzzles on Ember Bay and Siren's Landing, giving me the second tier of achievements for Season of the Dragon, putting me one step closer to the Prismatic Champion's Regalia. And no, I'm not going to do all the quest stuff so that I can get my hands on Aurora because fuck that shit. For now I'm going to take a short break, complete Path of Fire first before making my way to Season 4. From what I've read Path of Fire and Season 4 are peak GW2, so I'm eager to see what's next.
Having the Commander talk again is nice, it makes for a much better character which was kind of required with how much more involved the story is. It's in six parts this time around, each with their own new zones. Apparently the story starts a year after Heart of Thorns, with a memorial to the fallen Eir. Which is weird because, you know, she died a year ago. The Commander's trying to put a new guild together but the main characters from the various prior stories are all but indisposed, incapacitated or tell you to get fucked, so it's more or less just you and Taimi.
Honestly, the story feels like it sets things up and immediately brushes them aside for the next thing. It kind of goes like this:
- The Bloodstone explodes due to White Mantle tampering, and most of the power gets absorbed by Lazarus. A fair chunk of the White Mantle goes nutso due to Bloodstone poisoning.
- Lazarus reveals himself, splitting the White Mantle into two warring factions: Lazarus' and Caudecus'.
- Primordus starts waking up and is set up as the next Elder Dragon to be fought, and his Destroyers have been tained by the energies of Zhaitan and Mordremoth, giving them death and plant powers on top of the lava powers that they already have (have fun combining fire and plants I guess).
- The dragon egg starts hatching, and Lazarus shows up to defend you from a Destroyer attack. He is willing to work with you and Marjory embeds herself in his organization.
- Baby Aurene is adorable. And also not very relevant so far.
- Jormag starts waking up as well. Braham and Rox set out to find a magical scroll that'll give them the edge they need against Jormag, whose Icebrood now also have death and plant powers.
- Caudecus' branch of the White Mantle perform a terrorist attack on Divinity's Reach and attempt to assassinate the Queen. This happened right after she disbanded the Ministry, a political counterweight to the power of the Queen, because of the emergency of the White Mantle crisis. She rightfully gets called out on this when the attack begins, which resulted in a major dam being burst and a fair chunk of land being cast into economic hardship because a bunch of fishing villages lost their lake.
- The assault on Caudecus' compound results in his death as well as that of his daughter, dealing with his faction and making Lazarus the master of the White Mantle. Countess Anise's weird relation with her manslave Canach comes to an end, but she gets a new servant girl/sex slave in the form of Valette Wi. Anise wants to kill her first, but because of the Commander's intervention she decides that Valette's neck looks better with a collar than with an axe. Anise acts like this is some sort of massive, earth-shaking personal betrayal but from what I can gather Valette's crimes came down to membership of a terrorist organization.
- Taimi has built a machine that lets her blast Primordus and Jormag with each other's energies to put them to sleep again. The tests are interrupted by the appearnce of Lazarus and his army of... mercenaries. No, not the White Mantle faction that defected to him: his mercenaries. He wants to get his hands on the machine to kill the dragons instead (which will destroy the world) but is revealed to actually be Balthazar in disguise, which sends Kasmeer into a massive crisis of faith and leaves Marjory severely injured.
- Balthazar gets tracked to a volcano with one of the most annoying and uninspired jumping puzzles I've done so far. The place is filled with the corrupted Destroyer minions, some belligerent wildlife and Balthazar's mercenaries. He's using the machine to drain magic from the off-screen Jormag to blast the utterly massive Primordus with and vice versa (which also kills Primordus' and probably Jormag's minions as well, and the Commander stops him by going all ATF on his dogs. The machine blows up, both of the dragons go back to sleep and Balthazhar departs.
- In the final part the Commander tries to track Balthazar down, but hit a dead end. To gain more intel the Commander is forced to join an almost cult-like organization to gain the information needed to track him down, because if they share their secrets they drop dead on the spot. This is kind of a weird characteristic for an organization that ostensibly is loyal to the Krytan royal family, because where's the line between sharing information you gathered as part of a report and you sharing your organization's secrets? Especially with the revelations near the end. The Commander is tested by the Shining Blade by being burned alive, having a metric ton of water dumped on them, getting stoned and then buried alive, being put through a recreation of a distant betrayal and having to face their own self-doubt, which are way too many hoops for someone who doesn't want the world to be exploded by the god of war.
- We finally learn of the location of the Illuminati eye which should track down... not Balthazar but rather the aspects of the true Lazarus so that he can be destroyed. You'd think that the rogue God of War would be a more pressing matter, but no we have to do this first. Here we meet a massively unpleasant woman called Kerida, who is really big on going after Lazarus but not very big on sharing secrets. She gets more an more suspicious until she's revealed to be Livia, a character from Guild Wars 1 who has been massively prolonging her life to continue the fight against the Mursaat. And she brought Lazarus back to life with the sole intent of killing him using the Shining Blade, the generation 2 legendary sword. Yes, it's the Ancient Gods DLC from Doom Eternal all over again. Lazarus gets put down and we get to look into the Illuminati eye where we see Balthazar burning down a fair chunk of the Crystal Desert, setting the stage for Path of Fire.
That's my issue. One White Mantle? Nope it's two of them. Lazarus might be a good guy? Nope, he's Balthazar and tries to kill the dragons which will destroy the world. Little baby Aurene? Shoved to the side after a training montage. The magical scroll that lets Braham fulfill a prophecy to fight Jormag? Nope, get out of here. Caudecus' attack on Divinity's Reach setting up internal convlict in Kryta? Nope, he dies and the political disturbance is pushed aside. Taimi's machine that could put the dragons down? Nope, it gets destroyed and the dragons go back to sleep. Balthazar being the new leader of the White Mantle? Nope, they get replaced with generic mercenaries. Going after him? Nope, you're here to settle an old woman's grudge against a Mursaat.
The gameplay was not bad and some of the areas were pretty fun, but the story was just a bunch of plotlines being tossed aside. for new ones.
I'm not quite done so far: I still have to do the events and jumping puzzles on Ember Bay and Siren's Landing, giving me the second tier of achievements for Season of the Dragon, putting me one step closer to the Prismatic Champion's Regalia. And no, I'm not going to do all the quest stuff so that I can get my hands on Aurora because fuck that shit. For now I'm going to take a short break, complete Path of Fire first before making my way to Season 4. From what I've read Path of Fire and Season 4 are peak GW2, so I'm eager to see what's next.
