WoC Plot-lessness- Bring Back the Lampshades

A lot, clearly. You just have to, you know, read it.

LotR can be summed up as a Fed-Ex quest too, you know. That doesn't make it a bad story.

I'm enjoying the WoC plot. Its tying up alot of loose ends, and introducing a new story line, so there is going to be alot of redundancy. Now that the afflicted are no longer keeping the imperial guard busy, and the gangs of KC have been dealt a serious blow, the empire of the dragon is even more powerful and I can easily see the plot getting much more interesting from here on out.

I just hope the plight of tengu doesnt require us fighting on shing jea island with 4 man parties.

Yeah, but did you see the crappy skins they got for such a long quest? That definitely made LotR a bad story. I mean sure, technically the movie isn't necessarily what Tolkien envisioned so one could argue that it was Jackson's fault for screwing it up, but since the book never said anything about weapons made of pure energy/immersed in blood/flaming they probably would have sucked regardless.

I agree that this is a turning point of sorts. Usually quests give us a reason to kill the bad guys. We were killing the Am Fah because of the whole chalice of corruption thing. But suddenly the Ministry is targeting the Jade Brotherhood even with no specific threat from them.

But there's a problem. The PC agrees to do what the Ministry wants anyway, without speaking up against it. If you chose the decline option, then you can't do the quest, and nothing progresses. So to see the story, you have to accept, which means that your character doesn't have a problem doing this. So for that character, who blindly agreed to kill bad guys just because they were offered money to do so... I don't think that character would have a change of heart so easily. That's why I'd prefer to have something more shocking happen.

And I think that's what is bugging some people about this plot line. You're forced into choosing somewhat immoral choices, at the same time your character is starting to whine about how they shouldn't be killing so many people. In a game where we kill all red dots on the map for titles, or for various points or items... suddenly bemoaning all the killing just feels out of character.

I think it would be much better to have the character witness something very troubling, then let it change their whole outlook on life. In other words, acknowledge that the PC has made some questionable choices, and let them grow into this new attitude.

It's the whole being forced to act one way and having a completely different attitude that is so jarring. If I play through the quests with the thought that my character is some bloodthirsty mercenary type with heroic leanings (which seems to fit with the overall plot of GW), then the attitude change doesn't make sense. But if I play through the quests with the thought that my character is a hero who only believes in killing when it's absolutely necessary, then their actions make no sense... why would they say they want to avoid killing people if possible, then mow through so many jade brotherhood to get to the boss? If the character truly believed that, they'd stop before reaching the boss. I mean, they get mad that the manifest contained the names of all Jade Brotherhood, but didn't they just kill most of them on the way there?

Yeah, it's just a game, but it's just weird when your own character starts to criticize your play style (killing all red dots on the map) for no real reason.

But instead of the afflicted, Shing Jae island now has to deal with scavengers that are far more dangerous than anything Shiro put on the battlefield. If the scavengers ever decide to ship to Kaineng, they'd easily take the city, and the whole continent to follow. They're more brutal than demons. Who'd have thought that scavenging was the road to real ultimate ninja power?

Hey, each scavenger had got himself an Oppressor's weapon, man, they must be hardcore

By this logic LotR = cast away and samwise = wilson...

To stay on topic Im not going to complain about the plot because I didnt read the quest intros but I did when I brought my 2nd character through WoC and it seems fine. Only reason I could see why people are complaining about the plot is the quests are too short to give the plot sustenance. I literally did all NM and HM quest in one and a half day of casual play.

My only real complaint is they made the purity weapons purple, there was no real reason to do that and nothing in the story to give reason why they are purple. The names of the weapons are enough to not piss off that niche player base.

You either weren't paying attention to the quests or you're ignoring what happened. The first time you're told to fight the JB, you're told this:
"[Ganshu] possesses an important text, one that our source says contains the name of the Jade Brotherhood's current leader.
If we can remove the leadership, then the gang itself should disperse. We can solve this without much bloodshed on either side."
To which you respond:
"That sounds like a valid plan."

Your character is never portrayed as "bloodthirsty" in this exchange, it's supposed to be about getting the necessary information to conduct a quick assassination of the leader that is pushing the JB to continue the fight. That's what we did to the WM, multiple times. You're supposed to be fighting to quickly end the conflict. But then you get to the JB's leader, and he tells you that you're being used, and the Ministry won't stop giving us targets until the JB is completely wiped out. That wasn't part of the plan! It's precisely the opposite of what the Ministry promised you the plan was, in fact.

Also one of the bosses along the way to the leader of the JB tells a JB member to go warn his family. This is probably foreshadowing the ministry going after their wives and children, not just the leaders and members of the gang.

No, the "bloodthirsty" thing is never made explicit, I just interpret my character's motives as such, given the evidence (especially with the vanquishing, farming, etc.).

If this is supposed to be just a quick assassination to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, then why does the character kill so many Jade Brotherhood on their way? Most assassination attempts involve things like trying to infiltrate a group to get close to a leader (and we've infiltrated them before, so it can be done), or waiting for a good opportunity to strike, or trying to trick the target into a trap. What does the PC do? They go to their secret base and slaughter their way to the target.

It's not like the PC has to do this the hard way... there's no imminent danger. There's time to come up with a plan.

Also, the PC has never had a problem slaughtering underlings on the way to kill bosses, even in those WiK quests. So I really don't think the PC is much better than the Ministry of Purity in terms of their black and white view of morality. After all, everything is either a red dot, or it isn't. And to vanquish is to kill all the red dots, whether they are people or not.

When faced with such a dilemma, I go all US Army on their asses and label them "collateral damage". Besides, each and every human target in a vanquish has a weapon in their hands. That makes them "enemy combatants". And even if they were somehow able to drop their weapons and surrender, I still wouldn't call them "prisoners of war" since that would mean I can't kill them but instead designate them "disarmed enemy forces" and free the living hell out of them. Yeehaw!

I would rather take the Predator approach. Doesnt matter if they have a worn out linoleum knife I still skin them

About the finale mission, hasn't anyone noticed that we do the exactly wrong thing BY OUR OWN CRITERIA?

Let's see, you agree to go and kill the leadership of the Jade brotherhood. IE, the boss. Along the way, we have the opportunity to kill off several other bosses, IE also leaders of the Jade brotherhood (the boss' inner circle).

Aaaaand if you do the mission right? You kill a ton of Jade brotherhood regulars, NO additional bosses, AND YOU LET THE LEADER HIMSELF GO. After agreeing that killing off the leadership would be a good idea, y'know, and objecting to slaughtering the non-leadershiop cadre.

Kinda doesn't compute...

Actually it does.

We are probably thinking that any deaths along the way are collateral damage and once the boss and his inner circle are dead then there is no reason to kill the rest of the gang, so then lives are spared. The JB members who stand in your way are also there by choice, they can drop their weapons at any time and live but decide their way of life is worth dying for when it's causing cantha to remain divided. To me there really is no hope for those that tried to protect the leadership of the JB. They had to be dealt with to kill Reisen and save as many lives as possible, most people call it the lesser of two evils. The Ministry has plans to keep wiping them out after Reisens death. The ministry has chosen the greater of two evils and we can't let that happen.

"So there you are. Go ahead, kill me now, you monster!"
"Yeah, sorry, I got error code 404 on www.sympathyforthecrimeboss.com."
"The ministry are just using you!"
"Well, yeah, that's the point, I'm in the service industry, after all. You know, service for reward tokens and gold kind of thing. It's what I've been doing for years now..."
"But they won't stop! They'll kill all of the Jade brotherhood, not just us the leaders!"
"You mean the Jade brotherhood, 100% of which has so far attacked me on sight? Well, OK, you got a point there. If I see any Jades trying to surrender, I'll tell the Purity guys to accept surrenders, OK? I'm sure they could find some honest work in this place, after all, the work force has been decimated by the plague."
"..."
"Would you kindly stand still? Wouldn't want to get your blood all over my new costume..."

Nah, I like mine better.

Problem is, they didn't SHOW the ministry's actions. I hope Stumme notices this and adds some additional encounters that SHOW ministry's hard line. Like, hint, paint some Am Fah and Jade brotherhood green, put them on the losing side, and SHOW how merciless the Ministry are. Take a few canthan child models and name them Jade brotherhood orphan, have them ask for some food whenever we see them. Stuff like that.

The idea is good, but the execution kinda lacked.

Reading both Guru and the Wiki, i was mentally prepared for some serious wiping and restarting those new quests. As for the moment, i'm done with Morostav Trail without wiping even once, with only one hero's death on the way, and only because i focused on the wrong side during the Silent Surf one. I'm using 7 heroes, no mercenaries, no cons, just occasional mysterious summoning stone to finally use them up; the team build is based on the discordway from more than a year ago, but with my own tweaks here and there - and it's pretty much a walk in a park.

Plot-wise, it is kinda tedious and boring so far, but i hope to see some nice twists in the next parts of WoC (hopefully being less than six months away...). I understand the need to get rid of the remaining afflicted, and someone has to do the dirty job, so i don't mind.

Gameplay-wise - well, it doesn't matter if you're saving a princess, plotting against a villain, leading an assault on a stronghold of funny guys in mantles, or just wiping the rest of vermin out there - it always gets down to the same: killing more mobs. So, yeah, even if i were to rescue the new emperor or find a magical item, it'd mean more killing.
I'm actually content with the monsters' bars. It's quite funny to see mobs using builds from PvX, even if they can't use them properly and pose no big threat.

srkn, are you playing HM or NM quests? NM quests are about as hard as WiK, all you need is to avoid over-aggro.

HM is the bit that really really hurts.

Started HM, done a few first quests, doesn't hurt as much as everyone around claims. Or maybe i'm just lucky.

One thing i didn't really like, at all, in the plot so far - the Ministry is, indeed, right. We have killed countless Am Fah and Jade Brotherhood lackeys. Their families will never see them. Same with other human groups. Same with other humanoid groups. We've killed assloads of living things on our way.
And that's fine, as we're in a barbaric world of heroism, where the bad guys get punished and ass-kicked; we're not a monotheistic preacher who wants to convert the mob to the holy path of goodness.

Am Fah and Jade Brotherhood have tried to kill players for years... why should we care about them now?

It's the difference between killing enemies who are in the middle of hurting innocents or the leaders who are causing all of the violence, and seeking out and systematically killing everyone who wears the Jade Brotherhood cape. It's a subtle difference, but also one that the Ministry outright lied to you about, which means they knew you would have a problem with it. Remember, we haven't balked yet, we're still working with them and we're going to see their leader next. The first part is just setting the stage, I'm sure the true "oh god that's too far!" reveal will come in part 2.

This times 100 billion. War in Kryta was just offensive with all the White Mantle black and white morality, little to no complexity to the story telling or grey areas. Guild Wars has been seriously lacking in grey areas for a long time, it's usually one or the other, rarely do the main plot points explore different view points.

I agree the turn around seems very sharp when we didn't seem to care that much up until now, but the story got cut off, they intended to tell it in three parts but I doubt the cut offs were ever going to be that smooth. Cantha is a city of conflict and here we have the corrupt government, the criminal gangs and the zelous MoP made up of ordinary civillians (the same as the gangs). All three groups are members of the Canthan empire, so it makes sense that it would be weird for the player character to question a transition from killing afflicted (which are admitedly originated from humans) to wiping out entire gangs of other Canthans. The player character had clear motivations to wipe out the afflicted, it's a big transition from that to wiping out the gangs. I like that the story has moved towards more complexity. Don't lower the bar to be on par with mistakes in the past, learn from them and raise the bar higher.

Personally I like it more when the game takes itself a bit more seriously. It makes the world and my actions in it feel like they have consequences. When you make jokes or pop culture references a part of everything, it cheapens the whole experience.

"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."

To be fair, we are only 1/3 through WoC and there have been large and obvious nods to these questions in the dialogues and such through part 1. These things are likely going to be brought up later.

"The only question here is whether they all deserve to be killed, or arrested."

You can't arrest a gang. You can arrest Jeijou, but that man is extremely dangerous and in the Canthan/Kaineng environment, I assume it would not be difficult for him to get his knowledge of the Chalice out of the prison to someone else (and we know he's actively been trying to do just that). Also remember the Ministry wasn't trying to kill them all. Before we knew of Jeijou we were going after the corrupted spots and cleansing them. Later we were targeting Jeijou and the people who were protecting him.

"There was little justification to go in there guns blazing and wipe out the entire group"

JESUS CHRIST people, if you're going to join this discussion please get the facts straight.

When we went into Dragon's Throat, we were LOOKING FOR THE BROTHERHOOD KINGPIN. The objective was FIND THE GUY, not CRAWL THE SEWERS AND KILL THE REMAINING BROTHERHOOD GROUPS. Do you really think just driving them off the streets is going to show them that Cantha is done with their crap? The Am Fah MADE THEIR GUILD HALL in the sewers. With their leader still alive, it would be inevitable that the Brotherhood would regroup and probably become even more of a problem. They wandered the streets and even killed citizens right at the gate of Kaineng City, if that's not heinous then I don't know what is. What do you think they're going to do, now that we've failed to kill their mastermind?

"But then you get to the JB's leader, and he tells you that you're being used, and the Ministry won't stop giving us targets until the JB is completely wiped out. That wasn't part of the plan! It's precisely the opposite of what the Ministry promised you the plan was, in fact."

Wow, really? The man who is telling you this is the same man who is orchestrating all of the terror wrought by the Brotherhood. You've got him in a corner, and going to fully trust him? Basically he distracted you and you completely fell for it, mission failed.

"What does the PC do? They go to their secret base and slaughter their way to the target."

You can't infiltrate them. Everyone and their mother in Cantha knows who you are and that you've come back to take care of business. The best time to strike is now, before they get a second wind and decide to fortify Dragon's Throat or retaliate. It's not a slaughter. In fact they obviously closed off many areas in Dragon's throat and were deliberately trying to fortify themselves. You had to take the long way around because almost every gate was closed. Anyone who you had to run into was there to kill you, and every one of those bosses with dialogue was completely out of the way. I know that this has no real bearing on the story, but in my run of the quest I was deliberately avoiding those optional bosses, because I knew the objective was just to get to the leader. I doubt you're going to be able to trick him into a "trap". He knows you're after him.

"It's the difference between killing enemies who are in the middle of hurting innocents or the leaders who are causing all of the violence, and seeking out and systematically killing everyone who wears the Jade Brotherhood cape. It's a subtle difference, but also one that the Ministry outright lied to you about, which means they knew you would have a problem with it. Remember, we haven't balked yet, we're still working with them and we're going to see their leader next. The first part is just setting the stage, I'm sure the true "oh god that's too far!" reveal will come in part 2. "

Listen, the PC or the Ministry has not once systematically tried to wipe anyone out yet except the Afflicted. The ministry did not lie about anything, it's the PC making assumptions based on the contents of the Manifest, and getting mind-f***ed by Reisen.

"Personally I like it more when the game takes itself a bit more seriously. It makes the world and my actions in it feel like they have consequences. When you make jokes or pop culture references a part of everything, it cheapens the whole experience."

Yes, I agree completely. Lindsay's hack-job with some of the parts in WiK was nearly unbearable. And her response to anyone's complaint was "Well, I thought it was cool."

Don't even get me started.

Except your Ministry contact (can't remember these NPC names for the life of me) a) didn't tell you what was actually on that document, so Reisen was telling the truth about that part at least, and b) never once denied what Reisen (via you) were accusing them of: plotting to wipe out the JB. He basically said "yeah, it sounds bad when you put it that way, but come talk to our leader, she'll tell you it's ok!" The Ministry's intentions are quite clearly a little zealous, else they wouldn't be trying to deliberately hide their plans from the well-known heroes they've hired to carry them out.

But I like being a genocidal sociopath...