After seeing my thoughts here, what were your thoughts on Icebrood Saga? Did you experience it on launch or after everything was already out like I did? I'm really curious

Icebrood saga started quite good, in my opinion. We got Grothmar Valley, we got the nice horror stuff but then they ran out of time with the new expansion to work on. it was weird without the voice lines. Had much fun replaying with the voice acting back in (chievos were nice too lol)

Yeah, IBS is really good imo until the end. I don’t HATE the end…but I am disappointed by it. It’s been awesome to watch you play through and enjoy GW2 (I’ve caught every video)! I think it would be really cool to have a video at the end of this journey where you express your overall thoughts on GW2 as a FF14 vet, and what you like about each and how they complement each other. I hope you stick around to continue playing GW2!

Yeah, it is the end that's mostly what throws people off so much. That and Braham being Braham. I really liked the prologue map, but aside from that I never spent any more time in IBS than has been necessary. Aside from EotN and strikes. I'm glad you managed to get through it feeling alright, but yeah, that end is truly anticlimactic and disappointing. Especially for some of the gw1 veterans, who've been awaiting for Primordus for like 15 years.

Who remembers that this part 9:02 "I trusted you" was the only voice line when they released it. (That time when pandemic happened and they could not record voices)🙋‍♀

Icebroodsaga is great until you reach the last chapter, then you just want to claw your eyes out and cry because those chapters within the chapters was just made to deley us so that Arena Net could make a expansion. It is well known that this was not suppose to be the ending of the Icebroodsaga it was suppose to go on further. The very last chapter where they kill of two dragons in one go and doing so to Primordus the dragon we all waited for to have some interactions since he was just a dragon with no feelings, no talking just very ready to destroy the world. He showed up with Jormag and 20 min later he was dead. I sat for a long time looking at the screen thinking how can this be the end. And yeah covid did not help us either since we had no voicelines through the Drizzlewood chapter at first. It was added later and i replayed it which made it a ton better. I loved the Rylands story arc though and how that ended was even better. I wish Bangar would not have been written off in the same way Zoja been for so long, until recently. Bangar was a favorite. On a good note End of Dragons story is fantastic, the areas are fantastic it over all felt really god to play through EoD.

Honestly, despite the lackluster end of DRM‘s I loved IBS. There were so many banger moments ( I am ashamed I BORE YOU! I should’ve bled you out and spared us all!!) and the horror of Bjora Marches was really cool. The whole writing team got drafted into writing EOD at the end, that’s why the ball got droped so hard on Champions unfortunately

note if you're a a Norn who is a follower of raven there are a couple of different voice lines

I’m going back through the Icebrood Saga now to complete the “Return to” achievements, which reward you with a Legendary amulet. I remember playing it the first time and liking the beginning chapters, but after the announcement of the End of Dragons expansion, it quickly became obvious that the developers were cutting corners on the second half of the Icebrood Saga story and the final fight between Primordus and Jormag was a huge disappointment. Killing off two Elder Dragons in such a rushed manner after 15 years of build up was almost criminal for the fans. It could have been handled so many different ways that would have been more acceptable to the community.

It was interesting to see your take on this since you came at it from the complete opposite direction I did. I played it as it came out. I did the grinding for the achievements. I'm a big lore person. I played GW: Eye of the North, which set up the story of Jormag and Primordus. I watched the announcement of what they told us IBS would be then had to slowly watch that crumble one release at a time. I had such high hopes for it, which were admittedly my own fault. I wanted a siege devourer mount! Instead I watched my guild abandon the game one by one until I ended up grinding the DRMs solo. I'm glad you had a better experience with IBS than I did. I will say doing the DRMs straight through with another person was way more fun than doing them solo as they slowly came out. You did leave out Creepy Bear though!

I personally waited for the voice acting to come out before I played 😄Imo it's one of the most important parts of the game. I pretty much agree with everything you said about this season, some fun maps and events but story fell off a bit near the end. Now the next expansion is another beast, can't wait again to see you progress. (I also need to catch up with the newest expansion myself so you don't pass me, been slacking 😆)

8:30 - My biggest complaint about the Icebrood Saga (other than the fact that the Charr had stolen the Norn themed spotlight) was THIS moment right here. This moment was a textbook example of character assassination directed towards Smodur and what he represented Pre-Icebrood Saga. You probably don't know much about him, but this is NOT something he would have done. The Smodur that I had known and experienced (from playing as a Charr, from content still missing from Season 1, and experiencing in-game dialog) was not someone who would backstab Cinder. Smodur was both just and cunning, and he had to be to claim his current seat as an Imperator. He was tactful enough to handle a split conflict between both the Flame Legion splinter groups and the continuous threat of the Ascalonian ghosts at the same time for a prolonged period. He was diplomatic enough to mediate, not only between the three active Legions (Iron, Ash, Blood - before Flame rejoined), but also held a meeting with the Humans in order to discuss the Ebonhawke Treaty, and didn't outright reject the Flame Legion rejoining the Charr during the events of the Icebrood Saga when Bengar invited them. During the Charr's personal story (Iron Legion specifically), he allowed the player to choose which faction he helped with his invention and gave you free reign and control on how it would be used and developed. During the original Season 1 Story (currently missing from recent events), he was constantly discussing the threats of the Molten Alliance and lead the Defense Quorum (defensive emergency military meeting) on how to handle them - one of which you were invited to despite not being a Charr if you weren't one (pretty sure this part us currently missing from the Live Season 1 story). Smodur was one of the first Charr (albeit reluctantly) willing to fight with other races on a unified front against Mordemoth once it was shown how threatening he actually was, something Bengar would have never done. He was strict enough to strip Rytlock of his rank when he repeatedly ignored and refused to follow orders, but he didn't outright murder nuke him and actually reinstated his rank after his task (which was simply "Report Back and tell us what happened" btw) was finished. Smodur even supplied troops during the fight with Kralkatorrik, with much of the inventions used during the fight had been developed by Iron legion. Smodur was also the first ranking Charr (not counting Rytlock) who didn't completely distrust Aurene during the first chapter of Icebrood Saga. During the events of No Quarter, they threw all of this away and made him a murder hobo with no tactical sense, strategy, or mercy. He did several things that he would have never done based on the character they built him as prior, and overall it felt like character assassination. Maybe, MAYBE, you could explain it away as Jormag's Whispers but there was no sign of this being a thing during the whole chapter. And the worst part? THEY KILLED HIM BEFORE HE COULD EXPLAIN HIMSELF. Like, bullet-to-the-head offed him during the VERY NEXT chapter. Why? Smodur was the most progressive Charr in the game and valued peace, discussion, and unity above everything else. Turning him into a murder hobo war criminal feels disingenuous at best and outright deceitful and manipulative at worst. TL:DR - Smodur killing Cinder made absolutely no sense and was something he would have never done. It was completely out of character for him to do and we were given no reason or explanation on why he did this other than move the plot forward and then being gaslighted by being told "he was always like that". Bullshit, #NotMySmodur Sorry for my word vomit, but re-experiencing this moment in your video reminded me why I absolutely hated Icebrood Saga as a story. (Edit) had to edit to clarify, Smodur did not strip Rytlock, he only stripped him of his military rank.

As a Braham fan I was so on board for IBS when it began, as I mistakenly thought it would be the story that finally gave him time to properly shine and maybe even finally learn about his father Borje! When the pandemic hit and the DRMs started rolling out I was distraught, as I'm not huge on content you have to grind ad nauseum. So much wasted potential thanks to NCsoft chopping the dev team during a goddamn lockdown...

I took a break from GW2 at the start of season 4 and came back just in time to get the final champions update when I catched up with the story. So my experience was pretty much like yours. I think the most disappointment stems from people having to go through the wait between the content releases, which weren't exactly that big, especially during the "Champions" episodes. By the way, the "Visions of the past" contained some reactivated season 1 content additionally, which was their first step towards reinstalling the whole season 1. Consequently it was moved away from that living world episode. But I had some more stuff to do at that time, even though it kind of felt like being out of place. The remaining let down for those coming late to this season is the pure amount of very similar dragon response missions. At that time, they were already working on End of Dragons and had to cut down on development resources for these episodes + it was during the pandemic. So they also didn't add new maps but used old ones as instances. And to be honest, in principle I like the idea of repeatable open story missions and don't mind using existing zones as maps for these missions. It just didn't work out well, had serious (and exploitable) bugs and was released in a manner that immediately turned this content into a chore.

Loving the narration!!! Yeah, IBS it's not a bad season, and have good content too...the big nonoes for players have been: - the Dragon Response Missions (same mission, different location, as you clearly stated 😆)...it would have been better to have less missions but way different, like strike missions - the story leading up to the final battle...not because of the end, but because there's basically NOTHING on Primordus development, even thought it was the first dragon teased in GW1, and the story seems to jump to the conclusion leaving out important developments on the allied side too... I love that now, in-between new expansions the old content is getting updates, but I doubt they will ever get back to add to the old story itself unfortunately...

Agree, IBS is okay, and then takes a strong nosedive in chapter 5.

Ep 5 was sub par and kinda tainted my view of IBS overall, but I'll still always come back to Drizzlewood. Partially because the rewards are insane compared to basically any other map in the game, but it's also a beautiful and fun zone.

The thing a lot of people misunderstand about Ryland is that they think that if his Warband was still around he would never have joined Jormag. This is incorrect as the dialogue between the two is focused on him always wanting power and opportunity. He would have thrown his Warband under the bus to get the power that Joirmag gave him.

Icerbrood is good at the beginning, but the Covid hit us all...

60% of IBS was great. I feel it was let down by the Dragon Response Missions(little variety and poor rewards) and being too quick in the story at the end. Really needed another zone focusing on Primordius and the Asura where we also make a plan to get the dragons to fight. Probably easier to get Primordius to go after Jormag than the other way round...

My first time doing Champions made me feel genuinely pissed off about the later-half of IBS, I basically went to Aurene, got interrupted by a member of the pact, go to a DRM, back to Aurene, rinse and repeat until fuckin Dragonstorm I wanted actual story, not being forced into content I don't want to do, DEAD CONTENT I don't want to do, I've already had to deal with Warframe's bullshit, so why did I HAVE to do Dragon Response Missions?

From what I read somewhere (sorry can't find the source), the Icbrood Saga should had two more maps that were supposed to replace the dragon response mission with better pacing, more characters, and metas. One more visions of the past map telling how Brahm became the champion of Primordas. Sadly the pandemic, many devs working on the Icebrood saga shifter to End of Dragons, and NC soft firing about 170 employees from Anet sealed the deal. Anet had to make some changes to complete it.

Jormag and Primordus, from what Taimi explains right before Path of Fire, are polar opposites that clash whenever they have the chance, so having the two together wasn't hard, if you lure Primordus you will innevitably lure Jormag. Overall Icebrood Saga was very meh near the end because of pandemic constraints and trying to make the most with limited resources, remember Dragon Response Missions were meant to be recurring content at the time.

Okay but what is the armour set you're using in the thumbnail?

People say that Ice Brood Saga is bad, however to be true, only Champions is really bad, beside it everything else is really good. All the maps are fun and the Dragonstorm is a nice event. If Champions were better no one was saying any of that.

Well, it´s not ALL of the Icebrood-Saga that was horrible, but specific parts of it, even if you accounted for the fact of its release with often entirely missing voicelines (something that in the history of GW2 has NEVER happened before. but as the reason was covid, you cannot totally blame ANet for it). And the releases in so short episodes don´t really fit well with the repetetiveness in the end. It starts actually pretty good. Grothmar Valley was a very nice prologue and a change of pace. The events are fun, and as you would expect from a prologue-episode, a lot of setup, and stuff being done a bit different. The concert and Metal Legion are peak entertainment, and Braham getting wasted is just hilarious. The story around Bjora Marches is also pretty decent. Corrupted spirits of the wild, Almorra's fate, Jormag's minions, everything fits into place. Although, the betrayal of Bangar was absolutely no suprise (especially if you´ve seen trailer before, it was actualyl a good plot imo. Drizzlewood-coast (at least south, but north too u guess) is a fun map. At least for a player like me that likes maps that can be repetetively farmed for profit without any cap, and being a WvW-main it made my heart bump seeing actual siege-battles in PvE (ofc not even close to WvW, yet still a fun experience imo) After Ryland became Champion of Jormag, THAT's the part where IBS gets really messy, and THIS is exactly the part the majority of playerbase disliked the most. "Champions" (that should be the part with the dragon response missions iirc, ~12:07 in the video) is basically the whole reason of why people were upset about IBS. Hey, a DRM? okay. and another one. and another one. and another one. And after all that repetetiveness, we get to Dragonstorm. The encounter/instance itself is GREAT, but the END and conclusion is.... mediocre at best. Punching the champions, hitting the dragons a few times (without even using our own abilities, but a Special action key), and they blast each other off. To this day, i have yet to understand: how did the manage to get the dragons meet up exactly there? how did they even manage to get them fighting each other? let alone, KILL each other? as i said, it´s a great encounter, but the END is just stupid. You basically sum it up perfectly in the end. Unfortunately, ANet will NEVER remake that part of the game. They have NEVER touched already released content after SEason 1 and its re-release.

I actually like this one, but it's not my favorite.

I liked the new zones that came with icebrood saga. I'm not a fan of the IBS story overall, but it was passable. The ending was a disappointment they just quickly kiss each other to death.

Covid19 happens

The final Jormag/Primordus battle was far too short - I expected something more epic. The repeated missions did get old.

ice brood saga personal wasn't bad but after drizzle wood the chapter just died off the story felt rushed and uninteresting crossed with there dragon missions and achievements that are just do the same thing over 100 times it was a 5/10 at most.

just to name why Icebrood saga was bad: Changing Smodurs personality to just another blood legion charr while he was originally a tactician and much more open minded including the peace negotians with the humans. If you play as a charr you find your chosen warband buddy in the camp and they will tell you that all the other ones you recruited are basically gone now because they lack leading them or they got convinced to serve Ryland. The killing of Cynder is nothing Smodur would have done without completely changing his character. We talk about a charr that investigated his enemys closely before trial them. Again Smodurs reaction was just a bad joke. I can't blame you for the lack of understanding the charr point of view on this in the end you play a stupid bookah of a human that is no where near familiar with the Charr but Icebrood saga overall was basically eliminating all big Charr personalitys and threw them under the bus. Grothmar Valley was basically the best about icebrood saga afterwards they completely messed up the whole race. Stuff like the repeating missions at the end of icebrood saga were just more salt in the wound of how bad it was. Also you basically missed how the voice of Jormag was just a damage sponge that people were often unable to beat in time for different reasons like hiding in the wall while the timer runs out because he was smarter than the developers. Did I mentioned they basically also fucked up Almorras personality to fit in this situation? Not to mention how boring Brahams self finding trips are and we got multiple ones by now. The mastery system is also the worst of all episodes and often doesn't make sense. So we got unfair fights, bad story telling including getting rid of all loveable and strong characters on the side of the Charr race, bad missions, bad story ending, bad masterys, bad map exploration, issues during the release progress because of the corona virus situation and lack of voiced cutscenes therefore, not to mention a meta boss so hard to beat that not even experienced meta players get him down easely during lack of time and the hiding in the wall issue and of course you also needed the mastery system to defeat him....... This is basically in a nutshell why so much players hate Icebrood saga despite having such a great opening map.

I thought the dragon response missions were the worst part of IBS. Dragon storm is fun. Everything else was enjoyable.

Yep. For me, it was a solid "meh". Luckily that was the worst story gw2 has to offer imo. Enjoy the next zone! Challenge-wise, it's somewhere between PoF solo roaming ease and HoT's 'HELP MEEEEE'.