WoC Plot-lessness- Bring Back the Lampshades

While I do not RP, and so probably could care less about plot details (it's a game), I thought this first round of WoC could probably have been scripted a bit better.

I know the Devs love playing homage to pop culture/other awesome things, and enjoy lampshading the tropes of the video game/fantasy genre. It's what made EotN so much more fun- rather than taking itself too seriously, we could laugh at the expected genre conventions. The Norn and Asura and Charr became enjoyable foes/allies, and the dialogue made me chuckle more than once.

Now, after three campaigns and an expansion plus more interim content, we are feeling guilty about killing gangsters which we remorselessly slaughtered just 7 years ago (game time)? These guys are actually evil gangsters who terrorize civilians (rape, pilliage, extort, murder, etc). Kournan soldiers were conscripted and fed into our meat grinder. White Mantle were brainwashed. We helped kill Shining Blade before that, and took out huge numbers of Forgotten (good guys) as a "test". We've committed genocide against minotaurs in Maguuma and other non-human races that are just as intelligent as we are. The dude (Xan Hei)? was right. Why the heck do we care about killing gangsters?

The Ministry are going to end up the bad guys, we get it. But just make the Minister power hungry and wanting to usurp the divine right of the emperor or something. But getting a conscience transplant halfway through the last quest? The Ministry lackeys are dead right. Yeah, the Ministry thinks anything bad should be killed. But that's what we think too, and how videogames usually work. EotN struck a nice balance between the necessary amount of plot to give context to gameplay, and the ability to recognize the limitations and conventions of the genre and make fun of them while exploiting them in an enjoyable way. First round of WoC is a teaser, but it struck the wrong note (the repetitiveness of the quests aside)- I read the mission dialogue and was so annoyed at the railroading of my character into a gangster-pitying conscience-ridden amnesiac (I know noone plays Factions except for CM/FFF, but it wasn't that long ago) that the rest of WoC is basically just farming for rewards until it's truly unbearable and because I have to finish this part for the next parts.

And when the Ministry turns into the Nazis, let's not be pitying gangsters, please. There are plenty of other factions in Factions more deserving of our pity.

It is completely out of character for GW and an MMO, but I find it refreshing that we are getting something other than black-and-white morality for once. "Pity" for a fairly evil group is a big part of that; choosing yet another pure and innocent group would dilute the theme. It's telling that you want to paint the ministry as Nazis, when they've chosen to exterminate a group that has a little more than just genetic heritage "wrong" with them.

Ideally we'd have our choice how to handle the matter, but the handful of live team members don't have the resources to really follow through on a branching story. The alternative would not be to touch the grey areas at all, and I'd much rather deal with the railroading than that.

then why did you write the rest?

Because this was so incredibly bad it managed to detract from my enjoyment of the gameplay itself.

I think Cold Jade has a point. You contradict yourself by saying you could care less about the plot details, then go on a rant about the plot details.

I've always found it incredibly ironic that so many of GW's cut-scenes cry out for heroes and saviours when, quite frankly, we're horrible monsters. We never display remorse, regret or resignation over the fact we're killing thousands for whatever cause suits us at any given moment. Actually, we never express emotion at all. We just kill. Personally I like stories where there's a bit of moral ambiguity and... general substance. 'Mindless Monster Hero' bores me.


So, yeah, I was really annoyed at being rail-roaded into the role of a genocidal sociopath for most of the game. =P

They should give us a choice with path we should we take, good, bad or neutral... Well when i see my Warrior from GW as an assasin you kill your targets for the rewards. And now she is bitching about ow but we can't kill all of them! i say bullshit i vanquishd cantha for the rewards. I don't want that my warrior gets all emo over killing a few gangsters.

That is an intro saying "Usually I don't like to bring stuff like this up since Roleplaying isn't the most relevant factor to my gaming experience". It is not saying I don't care about plot at all, otherwise, I wouldn't notice/bother reading text/all MMOs would be generic whatevers, and graphics would be totally irrelevant as well. I prefer PvP, and then gameplay/balance is all that matters, but when I do PvE, I do notice and some small things like that do matter. Not much, and when done well they can make things fun (or more fun than they would be otherwise). When done poorly, they can detract quite a bit. Given the quests were already a bit monotonous, adding in the "let's turn our genocidal hero into a hypocrite" was just painful to watch. If done well, I can see it. But here, the thing that makes us turn into passionate, love-thine-enemy heroes are street gangs ravaging a population, committing genocide against the civilians, and this turns us against a group of people just like us who are actually fighting on behalf of the people? At least wait for them to actually go Nazi-like before starting to turn against them. They're still saving people from bad guys, right now, whom we agree are bad guys that need to die (or did last time we were in town).
We can decide otherwise as plot demands, but don't make the hypocrisy and plot wizardry so blatant as to cause a plot dissonance even PvP-oriented people can detect.

I love Fable, Baldur's Gate, DnD, and all the nuances that come with them. I enjoy books that explore those grey areas. But they do it well. What I object to here is not the presence of a conscience, but the manner and context of how it was done. Jarring, awkward, and making an already poor chain of quests into something barely bearable to farm for a weapon. This was not substance, this was just utterly preposterous bovine fecal matter.

"I will do anything in my power to stop the greatest evil... even if that means becoming the greatest evil itself." Go play the first Diablo game to understand that quote.

I'm getting the idea that the Ministry is slowly going to become what they're trying to stop and prevent. Ultimately, this is going to indicate outside forces are making what Cantha is today. Remember how they said Cantha would close their borders? The only true way to stop the growth of evil is to contain it, not kill it.

Something like that.

I completely agree with what you're saying ShaJiexi. The only reason why I could see that we're now putting up with the sudden morality is because the player character found out that the Jade Manifest contains the full roster of the entire gang, or something.

They are now under the ridiculous assumption that the Ministry wants to wipe everyone out, despite the fact that the ministry has deliberately been focusing on only the most important targets in their dealings with both gangs (Am Fah: Jeijou, because he knew how to make a Chalice and was very dangerous to let live. Jade: The one guy who had the Manifest, so they could identify and find the Brotherhood leader.)

Yes, good little PC, the Jade and Am Fah are people too, and *gasp* maybe the Afflicted are sentient! But the citizens of Cantha are people, aren't they? And they have been the largest victims of gang activity and of the Afflicted. The entire nation has been neglected by the empire and everyone of importance except YOU and a select few others have turned a blind eye to the plight of Cantha's people.

If you don't kill the Afflicted then they will continue to kill innocents and turn more people. If you don't kill Am Fah plague spreaders then they will continue to spread the PLAGUE. If you don't send a message to the Jade Brotherhood then they will continue their "way of life" of harassing citizens, KILLING MORE PEOPLE for worse reasons, etc.

Where was all of this non-sense when we were downing hundreds if not thousands of brain-washed zealots in Kryta?

By the way, while you're busy helping Cantha, the Am Fah are actively trying to find and KILL YOU.

They are NOT GOOD PEOPLE and if someone doesn't take proactive measures, they will continue walking all over Cantha, and the Empire will continue not giving a shit.

I am glad for the non black/white writing and for the larger focus on the PCs importance. The game play has been bland but story wise this is THOUSANDS OF LEAGUES better than sitting through an asuran trial or having to look at a golem copy-paste Invader Zimm quotes. But... you went from being subtle about the morality to throwing it full force into our face in the last 5 minutes of part 1.

Omg - firstly if i hated most of the storyline for woc etc i wouldnt be playing nor whining.
Secondly - stop being an idiot , you dont rp but somehow the woc plot has you disliking it.
Gw isnt set in modern times and therefore we cant impose our values on it - im sure as hell somewhere in most ppls family tree is someone who killed another in some way .Did we in the dark ages give a toss who we killed , did anyone in history actually stop killin ppl because its not right ?

Hang on tho - it could be said that killing the woc foes isnt fine but its OK to kill dwarves/plants/djinns/ ( infact just add every type of foe in gw here ) - im sure i read somewhere that basically all forms of life in gw is sentient in some way.
Its a game - if you dont like the plots you dont have to read them - there i said it.. its a game

Pretty sure they did, just because they lived in the past doesn't mean everyone was a bunch of mindless thugs, people were probabaly just as intelligent as we are now, they just didn't have access to as much knowledge, if you get what I'm trying to say... If they did just go round killing then there'd be no one left.

Read my last post. There's always been a blatant hypocrisy in Guild Wars. All the 'hero' and 'saviour' bull contradicts the gameplay and our own PC's emotionless response to everything.

There's no grey area in Fable. It's a system of duality: good and evil. Personally, I like it when there's no universal good and evil and players get to decide their characters' moral codes without being guided by the game into doing 'right' and 'wrong. I don't expect something as complex as Oz, The Wire, Deadwood or Boardwalk Empire. In fact, as this is Guild Wars, I don't expect Harry Potter, Iron Man or Dragonball Z. The writing throughout much of Guild Wars is as endearing to me as that of Twilight, but I do like that there are people in the department trying to change that.

Sure, it messes with continuity, but it's fresher and more interesting than the mindless monster route. I'd certainly like to see the Ministry as more than the 'Evil Empire' and as a group of somewhat sympathetic individuals.

If they insist on making us fight the gangs I demand more Big Trouble in Little China references.

I'm in complete agreement with the OP here.

When I came across this in the storyline, i was like "What?"

Do you know how many of these am fah and jade brotherhood dropped down from the sky when I was trying to vanquish these locations? They would have slit my throat in a dark alley along with my companions and heroes hundreds of times without a thought. So now my character feels bad for killing them? Come now...

I'm really hoping that the Ministry don't turn out to be the "bad guys." At the end of the story, they left it open-ended a bit. I'd much rather kill every Am Fah and Jade Brotherhood on the face of Cantha even if it does give me a "bad rep" with some of the citizens. Sometimes somebody has to do something that everyone else is too scared to do.

So yeah, I'm with the Ministry on this one. Strap me up and give me one of those Shredder suits!

AC

Is this a new look-a-like of the White Mantle VS. Shinning Blade ?
The Story is the same thing, and it's really pro-grind.
Didn't ANET specificly said GW1 & GW2 is a against-grinding game ?
Seriously, It's a : Go to point A,Kill Group B,Go to point C for reward,Go to point D to repeat quest.

Seriously, it's really annoying. Such a great concept (Winds of Changes)
to make it .. well ... that!

It is a bit of an assumption that the Ministry of Purity is going to be the enemy in the next 2 chapters. It is very likely, of course, but Anet could just be throwing us off from something more surprising.

It would be extremely unlikely, but I suppose possible.

Hey guys instead of dissecting stupid sh!t that has nothing to do with his argument and using it for fuel to drive your ad hominem attacks, why don't you actually read his post?

Anyway, time for the nitty-gritty of my post.

I agree completely, why the hell should the player character feel any sort of pity or remorse at this point when the gangs in general are against the well being of the country. Hell, wasn't there a quest where you had to thwart the Am Fah /Jade Brotherhood from assassinating the emperor? Why would you feel pity for them? Why should Cantha people feel pity for them (ie: can you blame the Ministry for hating them so much?)? Those gangs knew what they were getting into. It feels like such a stretch for someone to clean up and kill dangerous, violent, dissenting enemies of the emperor then feel pity for them because "OMG THEY HAZ FAMILIES LETS QUESTION OUR LOYALTIES".

There are a myriad of things I absolutely despised mechanics and implementation-wise regarding WoC (what can I say, it is a b!tch to please me, but then again WiK was cool in my opinion), but I found this snag to be one of the most thought provokingly stupid plot devices I have ever witnessed.

Again, why the hell should we feel pity for people who after all efforts continue to hamper (through deadly force) the attempts by the emperor to bring stability to his country? If your supposed to feel sorry for them, at least give them the moral high ground and make us do something truly questionable (akin to breaking the terms of engagement).

Your not supposed to feel sympathy for the bad guys when they eat babies and trample old ladies flower gardens for "Teh Lulz".

Sorry 17 bone crushingly boring quests of "Go to A, kill B, turn in, repeat" gets to me after a while.

Someone from the GW2G forum noted that not all gang members are intentionally evil and out to get everyone just because. Most gang members join up purely for protection and shelter that the government can't provide for them. Gangs are not that close-knit and have contain people that would rather live a simple suburban life than kill innocent people all the time.

The PC has slaughtered them in the past, but not at the vast quantity that the Ministry of Purity has asked them to. Most of the time, it was to kill a boss or lieutenant that was telling everyone to create such heinous crimes. When the PC heard Reisen's first words upon meeting him, they started to really question the Purity's intentions and how the Jade Brotherhood reacted to them.

Of course, it's not the best writing. Having my guy say that he doesn't want useless bloodshed then carefully killing all of them in his way was a real "F U" to writing in general. If the PC had said those words, they would've tried to find a way to get past all of them without killing them.

nightfall was the last good story IMO, everything has frankly been getting worse and worse.GWEN was really weak because once you kill a god what really is left.Guild wars beyond story lines have been horrible, they serve singular goals while damning continuity. Plus while playing these they are ton of nagging questions.
War in Kryta: Why are the Mursaat present? Why do Mursaat even need the White Mantle anymore with both the gate sealed and the Foundry destroyed? They are a intelligent race, I want to understand why they still are involved when they get nothing but trouble out of it.
Wind of Change: Why are their still afflicted around with Shiro gone? Why are they organized? Why do we cleanse all they afflicted but ignore the Shiro'ken? Why are they still Shiro'ken? These are suppose to be bound souls under the service of Shiro, with him gone why are they still around and able to organize attacks.

I for one love to RP.My necro hates the white mantle and during WiK he killed almost every white mantle soldier he saw.After battle for LA instead of taking prisoners he killed them.He commited a "White Mantle purge" sorta.
Now at the end of ch1 of WoC he says "Omg these gang members has families,what have i done QQ"
I was like wth dude ?

A handful of thoughts:

1. I love that a-net is trying to bring GW into more nuanced, grey-shaded storytelling. We haven't had something like this since Prophecies (Are the Mursaat evil or merely doing what is necessary? Is Adelbern a tyrant or merely a stubborn fool?) and the delivery back then was (I have to admit) kinda flubbed. Hopefully they can pull it off this time.

2. Something to mull over for GW2 is the fact that the underlying "red dots vs green dots, and make your choices in a pop-up menu" system of the game engine really limits the player's choice-making ability. Every kill it/don't kill it decision ends up either being scripted or mediated through a clumsy pop-up menu, with the result that the player does not feel like they really "own" their character's moral decisions. If you really want to delve into this sort of storytelling, you need to make some engine changes in that respect.

3. After doing the quest chain in NM, I was feeling a little sympathy for the gangs. After taking a billion tries to get past Tracking the Corruption HM, I've grown to utterly despise the Am Fah with every fiber of my being. DIE, AM FAH, DIE!

4. I'd always wondered if the Am Fah's chalice did anything at all. After we discovered that the "plague" was actually spiritual in nature and caused by Shiro and not some kind of really nasty pathogen, it always seemed like a plot hole to me that the Am Fah's chalice remained linked with the plague. If we assume that Shiro was the voice referenced in the Architect of Corruption dialogue, it clears everything up (and makes the Am Fah really evil, and the Ministry of Purity rather justified in taking out their leader).

5. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'm seeing some interesting references to contemporary American politics. The Ministry seems to be enacting the positions and policies of the American far right wing, but expressing them in language that echos (center-left) Barack Obama. An interesting demonstration of the inherent hollowness of words and how ideological doublespeak can make a phrase mean its opposite. (That is, if it really meant anything to begin with.) According to a (now-removed?) wiki trivia entry, the Ministry is based on 1984's Ministry of Love. If that's true, then a-net really captured the manipulation-of-language aspect very well.

I like what they're trying to do, but the way they're doing it fell a little flat for me.

The Am Fah, with their plague connection, are basically terrorists with biological weapons of mass destruction. No one (who is not a pacifist) would stand for that. The only question here is whether they all deserve to be killed, or arrested.

The Jade Brotherhood are more of an actual gang, though they do kill random peasants they come across. So it makes sense that the PC may notice that the Ministry is taking things too far against them.

But the mechanism by which our character develops a conscience seems clumsy. It's basically a combination of "I've killed too many people" and "they have families and friends!" This would have been so much better if they had actually shown us this. For example, killing some Jade Brotherhood, then coming across their grieving relatives, who don't attack, and explain how the gang member the PC killed was just trying to provide for their family. The "but this has been our way of life for hundreds of years, it's a tradition" excuse just doesn't make sense... if the tradition is evil, it shouldn't be tolerated. If the Jade Brotherhood are people, don't just tell me they are, let me see them doing something non-evil.

Or better yet, have some actually questionable behavior on the part of the Ministry (other than lying). For example, having the gang members refuse to fight, until your Ministry buddy runs in and starts attacking them.

The problem is, most of GW is "go over here and kill these creatures/people because I told you they're bad." Those things then immediately attack, thus proving that they are bad. And so far, the Ministry quests are the same. That's why it seems so odd that the PC is suddenly questioning everything, without something really questionable actually happening.

WoC has yet to impress me (I am only a few quests in and already bored). The metabuilds just make everything a headache for me for some reason. Something about WoC—and, really, WiK as well—is not leaving me satisfied. I suppose the difficulty and length of WiK and its ilk seems too much work for too little reward. I appreciate the efforts, though.

I think its pretty clear that the difference between WoC and the rest of guild wars is that here you are being tasked specifically with the destruction of a group of people for its own end. At no other time did you start a mission saying "OK, lets wipe out every last one of them", it was always "we have a goal, if we don't complete it then bad shit goes down, sorry if you get in our way". The former is an inch away from attempted genocide, the latter is pretty much standard videogame fare. There is a substantial difference between the motivations of these two.

Furthermore, mention should be given to the how quickly (i.e. instantly) the quest chain moves from cleaning out undesirable afflicted to cleaning out undesirable people. Obvious implications here.

Also, Jade Brotherhood simply dress too damn well to have fun killing them.

As to whether your character should be convinced by something like this to let them all go, if this was an RPG I would say it should be up to the player. But it isn't, its a MMO, so monologuing gang leaders get the benefit of the doubt just as the bastard daughter of a king who cowardly fled his country and who has no leadership experience at all is totally the right choice to start rebellions that plunge an entire country into chaos.

i didnt like how my char was happy to kill then suddenly is like but they are people..if they started this in the middle i could see it make sense. but not at the end xD

If they had done a scene-by-scene copy of Big Trouble in Little China just adapted to guild wars, it would have turned out so much better than this garbage.

EDIT: The "big item" of the questline is handed to you at the start, its in a trunk, you just have to take it to <place> because <reason>. At the start you get waylaid by gangs you don't care about and they take your trunk. Face it, you killed the lich, you killed shiro, you kill them both at the same time with abbadon as an encore, then something about dwarves and a dragon, I ain't got time for this petty gang shit. We aren't doing this quest to "help people out" we're doing this for that shiny thing that we get at the end. Well that's in our trunk, so "Just want my trunk."

So would I, and probably will by the next chapter. But wait for them to start killing innocent civilians and actually start killing anyone who disagrees, rather than just bad guys who we've been killing for a long time anyway (eradicating a gang != eradicating innocent civilians)

@Reverend Dr, We'd need a 'gang' faction that's on our side (Chang Sing) and it'd be all set...maybe have the Jade Brotherhood flip? Am Fah can stay as-is, add in the 3 storms and presto.

From the perspective of a brutal mercenary, I can understand feeling more sympathy towards gang members than 'innocent' civilians. People emphasise most strongly with those who are like them and considering we've lent ourselves out to totalitarian regimes (White Mantle), terrorists/freedom fighters (Shining Blade), monarchies (Dwarves, SB again), empires (Dragon Empire, Ministry of Purity) and pirates (Luxons), we're closer at heart to the Am Fah and Jade Brotherhood than Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer.

We have the Obsidian Flame, Nika's gang. I bet the devs have forgotten them by now though.

Anyway, on the topic of the thread, I'm a bit on the fence. With the Am Fah it'd seem a bit weird to suddenly get kinda "...wait a sec" about killing them; they're painted as truly evil and ruthless in Factions. The Jade Brotherhood, though, not so much. Yes, you kill their leader, but they're largely seen as not as big of a deal, not really evil, mostly just competition to keep the Am Fah from completely ruling the streets. I mean, you even side with them against the Am Fah while doing the MOX quests.

And, well, as is the case in any gang...there's going to be people who are there simply because they enjoy causing chaos and violence, and those who are there simply because it offers them safety. Wiping out all of them is beyond the pale, especially if you're essentially tricked into doing so.

To be honest, our characters are tricked into a lot of things in the story. We not may be the brightest batch of heroes...

To me there isn't anything wrong with the storyline - We as heroes have chosen our path by taking the quests given by the general population that are available, if you as a hero find something distasteful then that quest is not mandatory. A sudden clumsy change of heart perhaps?, but how long does it take to realise something is wrong to you as a hero. Yes the Jade Brotherhood and Am-Fah are gangs and they are bent on doing things which are beneficial to them and a detriment to the society they live within. But when that society decides that all transgressions should be punished at full force is that acceptable?? I myself am in two minds, as yes i believe that killing people for the sake of them being part of a group is wrong....., yet should the people not of thought about possible consequences before joining up with said groups??
In the end i say meh i'm a warrior at heart and i'll fight for whomever pays me the best. When you're knee deep in blood does it matter if they're innocent or not either way you're not innocent anymore.

Oh here's a couple of quotes to help murky the waters of slaying the innocents and evildoers alike.

"I suppose you all realize that as members of the court marshall for the trial of the conspirators in the assassination of our beloved president you have on your souls a grave responsibility. The object of this trial is not to determine the guilt or innocence of a handful of rebels but to save this country from further bloodshed. The solemn truth, gentlemen, is that the federal union is on the verge of hysteria. That is why the trial of these conspirators has been placed in your hands rather than in a civil court. Because men of the sword can be hard, and hardness is all that can save this country from riot, mob rule, even resumption of the war itself.... To help you to be hard, first, you must not allow your judgement in decision in this case to be troubled by any trifling technicalities of the law or any pedantic regard for the customary rules of evidence. Second, and most important, you must not allow yourself to be influenced by that obnoxious creation of legal nonsense—reasonable doubt." -Nunnally Johnson
"I have agreed to go into the service for the war ... [feeling] that this was a just and necessary war and that it demanded the whole power of the country; that I would prefer to go into it if I knew I was to die or be killed in the course of it, than to live through and after it without taking any part in it." -Rutherford Birchard Hayes
"If you feed a thousand people you are a nice man with suspicious motives. If you kill a thousand you are a hero. Continue to get them killed by the thousands and you are a great conqueror than which nothing on earth is greater. Oppress them and you are a great ruler. Rob them by law and they are proud and happy if you let them glimpse you occasionally surrounded by the riches that you have trampled out of their hides. You are truly divine if you meet their weakness with the sword to slay and the dogs to tear. The only time you run great risk is when you serve them. The most repulsive thing to all men is gratitude. Men give up property, freedom and even life before they will have the obligation laid on them." -Zora Neale Hurston
"Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword"(modern translation being, if you live by the sword, you die by the sword). -Gospel of Matthew, verse 26:52
"Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good." -Aristotle
"Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?” -Theodore Roosevelt

You don't side with them. You infiltrate them.
They bought POXto fight the Am Fah, but it was programmed to kill The Emperor.
You infiltrate them to reach the Golem and deactivate it before it does so.


The Am Fah are quasi-religious fanatics that want chaos and destruction and embrace it.

But the Jade Brotherhood are not better. They are criminals that infiltrate the government and corrupt officials for their interests, extort people for protection money and the like.
They are more subtle, and live along innocents like all crime syndicates, but that doesn't make them any better. A clean and shiny dagger stabs better than a rusty one.

The Shinning Blade, The Deldrimor Dwarves, The Obsidian Flame guild, the Emperor, the Shing Jea monastery, The Vanguard, the Sunspears and the Order of Whispers and the Henchmen such as Devona, Zho or Sogolon.
Those are the ones you can trust. Trust no one else.

The reason I think the player if finally like, "oh they have families, blah, blah, blah". Is because in this instance we are actually hunting them down and slaughtering them. As opposed to them just attacking us on sight like they do in the explorable instances.

So in the case of the last WoC quest we were the attackers, and in the case of the explorables we are just "defending" ourselves.

This thread is thought-provoking. The tipping point will be when the Ministry runs out of "easy" targets such as Afflicted and gangs, and starts looking for new crusades. One question to me is whether our characters will be alive when Cantha closes its borders and expels all nonhumans (and non-Canthans), or will the player characters be elderly before it gets to that point.

The emperor Usoku is far enough in the future that apparently our characters won't live long enough to see the Houses suppressed and the borders closed, etc. But how much of this will they begin to see in the last years of their lives, assuming they live that long?

Easiest target of them all: your own citizens. Because freedom isn't free and anyone that surrenders freedom for security deserves neither. The Ministry will start rounding up civilians into previously (and secretly) built camps and will use us ("Heroes") as an outside mercenary force to do the dirty work. The only thing that can save the Dragon Empire is raising its debt cap.

I left my moral calculator behind when I went out to massacre intelligent creatures for EotN faction points.

I got some of that from the last quest in the chain. We had succeeded in wiping the Jade Brotherhood from the streets of Kaineng, and we were delving into the sewers to root them out. Their little hideout was, to me, quite pathetic at that point. I imagined most of the gang members being scared stiff about the coming purge from the Ministry (through our characters, naturally). Some of the dialog from the named optional bosses reinforces this as well (and some of it reinforces the idea that, truly, some of these gang members are the bloodthirsty pack of criminals that the Ministry thinks they all are).

At that point, as far as I saw, the Jade Brotherhood looked beaten. Their territory was gone, all the merchants and peasants they had oppressed had risen up (many getting killed in the process, of course...), and they were driven back into the sewers to hide. There was little justification to go in there guns blazing and wipe out the entire group, when it's perfectly plausible that many of the survivors would have walked away from the gang if given the choice.

As for "this came out of nowhere": the switch to killing Jade Brotherhood came out of nowhere, and if you pay attention to your character's quest acceptance/decline options you see that it's a bit shocking to him/her. They go along with it to start because it sounds like a short and sweet operation to chop the head from a snake, like we've done so many times before. What we get stuck with is, effectively, a massive manhunt for every last JB member in Cantha.

What can I say? I completely missed the story line. All these walls of text they call story were just silly. I know they don't have the budget to add movies but in the end I always found that outside their mission approach, Anet have been poor story tellers.

I've just clicked text away throughout the whole line of quests because in the end, how much story can you really make out of "go kill afflicted here, then go kill afflicted there" oh and then kill Am Fah too because they have something to do with it. That's all I got from it, aside from the quests being tedious and/or repetitive kill x mobs quests.

I played through the 17 quests and only found out here from Skyy High's comments that I apparently must've killed Jade Brotherhood as well. Oh, I missed that.

Sorry, but now that I have 50 commendations and saw what crap skins we are going to get, I really feel like this was a waste of time. But hey, to each their own. The rest of the game is still a good game at least.