Better late than never but ArenaNet
finally released Dragon’s Reach part 1 late last Tuesday, the 29th
of July. This third addition to the second season of the Living Story is
heavily story-based and adds little else in regards to new zones. It does add
some new rewards like the new back skin but we’ll get there in a bit. It may be
because this update is so story-focused but Dragon’s Reach Part 1 wasn’t on the
same level as the previous two episodes. It was predictable, repetitive,
long-winded and ultimately boring. Granted, the cliffhanger was noteworthy but
didn’t compare to the cliffhanger we got in ‘Entanglement’. Let’s break the
episode down and see where the problem lies.
Dragon's Reach part 1
Rallying Call
Dragon’s Reach part 1 picks up where
Entanglement left of. The threat of Mordremoth has become all too clear, making
it necessary for an audience with the Pale Tree. Kasmeer sends you a mail where
she says she’s expecting you at the Omphalos Chamber. Upon arriving Kasmeer is
already there and so is Rox and Braham. We learn that Taimi has returned to
Rata Sum to study… nerd. Also Marjory is
missing and will remain absent throughout the episode because she is till
spending time with her family after Belinda’s funeral. Sheesh, how long can
this mourning thing take, somebody needs to tell her there’s a dragon rampaging
through Tyria…
Rox asks about our health after our
vision but that whole experience in Omadd’s machine gets ignored for the rest
of the episode, which irks me to be completely honest. We saw the Eternal Alchemy
and we saw what that did to Scarlet. I expected at least some consequences to
the mental health of your character after that. But the entire episode you keep
on trucking, almost forgetting that you went through it. A real shame if you
ask me. The mental struggle of our character because of that vision could
really have made us feel like we’re pulled into the story and not only as a
side stander. The Pale Tree even mentions that the vision can crack our mind
but we just keep on fighting like we only bumped our head.
We are being escorted by Warden
Lochin who recognizes us as the destroyer of Zhaitan. Upon meeting the Pale
Tree, she follows Lochin’s example and calls us the destroyer of Zhaitan and
Commander of the pact. This is ArenaNet’s little way of making it 100% clear
that this takes place after the personal story, something the community wanted
for a long time. The Pale Tree says we used to fight alongside Destiny’s Edge
but now hang with a new group that will do great things in the future. This is
also ArenaNet’s little way of telling us we don’t have to expect much more screen
time of Destiny’s Edge as a group. The reasons why will come up later.
Next, as some sort of summary
section, you inform the Pale Tree of recent events concerning Mordremoth. The
need for a summit becomes clear and the Pale Tree agrees. She will make
preparations for the summit while we, the hero make sure each race sends a
representative. Luckily for us each of our friends has a connection to powerful
people of the different races. Sounding like Barack Obama, we respond ‘Yes, we can!’ and start our long, repetitive
and tedious journey to find a representative of each race. Someone has to do
it, right?
Uprooting the Iron Marches
In a mail Taimi informs us about
Mordrem vines in the Iron Marches and asks us to investigate. This episode is
somewhat different from the others because it completely takes place in Open
World, making use of old and new events from the game at launch to progress
further into the episode without ever going into an instance. After helping the
charrs deal with the Mordrem vines and Mordrem minions in a number of events you
end up in… well nowhere really, since it ends this part, making ‘Uprooting the
Iron Marches’, dare I say it, pointless? All it really does is make us aware
that Mordremoth’s influence reaches as far as the Iron Marches. This is kind of
the first part of what makes this episode disappointing.
The Waypoint Conundrum
We quickly leave the Iron Marches
because we got another mail from Taimi. She contacted Zoija, who then contacted
the Arcane Council. It leads to the arrival of Councillor Phlunt at the ley
line hub. This brings us to one of the reasons why the original Destiny’s Edge
will probably never reassemble on screen. This was the perfect time to
reintroduce Zoija to the story. Sadly Zoija arranges an asuran representative
off-screen without us even seeing or better, hearing her. This is because Zoija
voice actor is Felecia Day and she is currently very busy with other projects making
it impossible to hire her for Guild Wars 2. This is also the case for Logan’s
voice actor I believe and is the reason why we never see the original Destiny’s
Edge reassemble onscreen and why we have this new group of Rox, Braham, Taimi,
Kasmeer and Marjory accompany us as the new unofficial Destiny’s Edge.
Anyways, we arrive at the ley line
hub at the scene of Taimi and Phlunt bickering. Thanks to Taimi’s connection to
Zoija, Taimi has been able to continue her research on Scarlet’s ley line lab
without interference. With the arrival of councilor Phlunt, this has come to an
end. It shouldn’t have surprise us but Phlunt isn’t too keen on the idea of
attending our summit. We broker up a deal where we help out Taimi to finish up
her work and Phlunt can see it. Only then will he attend our summit. If all
this is what it takes to get him to attend the summit, I can only imagine how
the hell we’re going to get him to join our fight against Mordremoth.
To finish Taimi’s waypoint device,
she still needs three parts. Taimi loans us her now automated Scruffy to get
the parts. After completing the chore, Taimi finishes her waypoint device and
gives Phlunt a demonstration. Sadly, Taimi forgot to mention that actual
results would take a few weeks (two weeks?). Of course, this doesn’t sit well
with Phlunt and he refuses to attend the summit until he sees actual results.
It’s at this point that Kasmeer joins the scene. Kasmeer contacted countess
Anise to ask jennah to attend the summit. It stood out to me that this marks
the somewhat indirect return of Anise to the story. Could this mean that
speculation like this could prove to be true? Kasmeer informs us that,
unlike Phlunt, Queen Jennah was immediately prepared to attend the summit.
Before we head out to Braham, we get
a letter from none other than Trahearne. God knows what he has been doing the
last year but he writes us that he is attending the summit on behalf of the
Pale Tree. We don’t see in part 1 but expect to see him for part 2. Now, Trahearne’s return was bound to happen
sooner or later and I’m curious what he will have to tell us next update. I
just hope we see a different Trahearn than during the personal story. After
more than a year he should have undergone some character changes, so I hope he
doesn’t retake his place as Marshal just like that. So to summarize, Queen
Jennah and Trahearne is in and councilor Phlunt is also sort of in if he gets
his desired results from Taimi’s machine.
Summit Invitations
On to Braham and his mommy issues.
To get to Knut Whitebear, the leader of the Norn, Braham must contact his
mother Eir Stagalkin. This marks the return of Eir to the story and because her
voice actor is more easily contracted, Eir is much more heavily involved in the
story. I’m glad Eir is invested in this story, since she is one of the more
interesting Destiny’s Edge members. Anyways, we meet up with Braham to support
him through his mommy issues (what a whimp). A neat trivia fact is that you can
start the conversation with Braham and Eir by using the /sit emoticon.
Eir doubt that Knut Whitebear will
hear us. He has Jormag and the Sons of Svanir to worry about and will have to
prove ourselves to have his ear, meaning Eir has a chore for us to do. This
brings me with another big beef I have with this update. It’s predictable,
repetitive and easy story telling. It also worrisome reminds me of Scarlet and
her different alliances. Just like with Scarlet and her alliance there’s a
structure that keeps coming back in this update, as we meet up with the different
representatives of the races. We meet up with someone connected to a world
leader. Next it turns out we have to do a chore and after we complete it we can
add a representative for our summit. That’s not fun to me but that’s unimaginative
and boring.
But it has to be done and we set out
to assault a Sons of Svanir stronghold. So if you expected to see Jormag join
the fray, I’ll have to disappoint you. The conclusion of this part isn’t much
interesting. Knut recognizes our feat and will consider our problem and Eir and
Braham will grow a bit towards each other during this endeavor. The bonding of
Eir and Braham is also easy storytelling. Braham’s rocky relationship with his
mother was quite interesting but with one mission it’s being resolved rather quickly.
Its shame for the possible story plots we’re missing because of it.
Plan of attack
Last stop in our journey that took
us throughout the whole of Tyria is the Charr lands. There we meet Rox for…well,
basically the same thing we had to do with Taimi and Kas but just a different
setting. Of the entire episode this part was the most interesting lore-wise. It
deals with the curse of the Ghost of Ascalon but sadly they also somewhat miss
the ball in this one as well. We support Rox in her encounter with Rytlock but
aside from some snarling on Rytlock’s part it doesn’t enthrall much.
Surprise surprise but Rytlock doesn’t
want to help us in our fight against Mordremoth because he has the ghosts,
Flame Legion and the branded to deal with. Luckily there’s a way to reverse the
Foefire with Sohotin. It turns out Rytlock is somewhat of a nerd because he has
been studying the Priory archives for a way to reverse the Foefire. Apparently
there’s a crown that was given to Adelbern together with the two legendary
swords Magdaer and Sohotin. Sadly the crown was broken into four pieces and
lost. Rytlock has found one crownpiece and off course tasks us to find the
other three. Now, although I love the fact that they’re bringing very old lore
back to the game, the way how this problem of the ghosts is solved is just too
cut and dry for me and I hoped they handled it in a different way. It’s once
again proof of easy story-telling in this update in the same way children shows
do story-telling. There’s this problem and there comes this object, like a
crown, out of nowhere and solves the whole ordeal. I just expect something more
convoluted then that from ArenaNet.
After clearing some events and some
looking, you find the other three crown pieces and you’re ready to return to
Rytlock for the climax of this episode. You meet up at the Barradin burial site
just outside of the Black Citadel and where you do your first mission as a
charr. By the way, for the lore fanatics, Barradin was the actual true heir to
the throne of Ascalon but because they saw Adelbern a greater hero, they chose
Adelbern instead. Anyways, you charge into Barradin’s tomb to perform the
ritual but the Ghosts aren’t going to back down and possess the Barradin Statue
like they did in the first Charr mission. After destroying the Barradin statue,
Rytlock plunges Sohotin in the group, creating a big hole. Apparently, Rytlock
got attached to Sohotin since he decides to jump after it as Sohotin fall into
the hole. Before we can jump after him the hole closes leaving Rytlock to fend
for his own. Imperator Smodur tells us that hole goes into the Mists and that
apparently he isn’t worried Rytlock will get out unharmed.
So the question is: what’s the
impact of Rytlock disappearing in the Mists? Well not a whole lot if you ask
me. For one, it didn’t break the curse. Smodur states the battle against the
Ghosts is not over. Will the disappearance of Rytlock have a huge impact on the
fight against Modremoth? I doubt it unless Rytlock comes back with information
to beat the Elder Dragons. Even though this cliffhanger redeems this update in
some way, it still can’t hold a candle against the cliffhanger of ‘Entanglement’.
I also fail to see the big impact of this event but maybe that will come in a
future update.
We do however get Smodurs word that
he’ll attend the summit, completing our run of invitations and setting the
scene for the actual summit. Sadly, that’s where the episode end, which means
we’ll have to wait another two weeks for the actual summit which should be
interesting. I do think however that
they could have redeemed this episode even more, if they added the actual
summit to this episode. But the episode was already pretty lengthy so let’s
just hope they kept the best for the second part.
Achievements & Rewards
All that’s left to do is have a look
at the achievements and rewards. Not a lot to say about achievements, except
for the fact that they added new ones of course. On to the rewards where they
added three new kites: Ventari Follower, Prosperity Mine and Crystal Shard. But
if you’re a fan of these you’ll find them in the buried treasure chests in Dry
Top, which means a lot a RNG to go through. The RNG and the actual kites aren’t
worth the hasstle if you ask me. But if you do go for them I wish you luck and
my thoughts are with you…
The other reward is new skin which
promises to change appearances next update. I decided not to for it because it
doesn’t appeal to me and doesn’t fit any of my chars. The other reason is… well
the grind. To get this back piece you need: 270 to 350 Geodes, 29 Pile of
Incandescent Dust, 25 Thermocatalytic Reagent, 5 Glob of Eectoplasm, 48 Foxfire
Cluster, 300 Bloodstone Dust,200 Thick Leather section,14 Potent Venom Sac, 14
Vial of Potent Blood, 14 Large Bones, 14 Slab of Red Meat, 14 Ghost Pepper, 14
Saffron Thread. So a lot of work and if you go for, good luck and God bless
you.
So in big parts this episode
disappointed me. I feel like this episode was ArenaNet’s way of telling us that
they haven’t forgotten about the other maps and that Mordremoth has
implications for the whole of Tyria. But there must be a way to do that, so it
doesn’t feel like a chore. Also the rewards are few and require a lot of luck
and grind, making them hardly worthwhile to go for.
But after
two very good updates we should maybe forgive ArenaNet for one minor update.
Maybe we should just wait and see what the midseason final has in store for us.
I myself have big expectations for the next update story-wise. I hope the
underlying tensions will be felt and we’ll hear some interesting stuff, like
where Trahearne’s has been. Off course, I also expect a major cliffhanger, like
we saw in Entanglement. Guess we’ll have to wait and see. Next week you can
expect a top 3 of this update, although I’m not sure if I’ll find three things
I like about this update... See you next time!
