Mike has finally finished Living World Season 4, meaning he has now done the last Living World - one that often is called the best they've ever made. Personally, Mike has a lot to say about both the amazing and the terrible parts of this season so strap in. Let us know, are you happy or sad to see the end of Living World seasons?

For Joko his evilness was all over the environmental storytelling in PoF.

The Aurene thing really is a weird one, because if you played it live, there's a few months in between where we just think she's dead. But playing it now it's just an instant thing that feels super rushed. I think they should have thought ahead and had a full episode between just to mitigate that problem.

I really don't think the two story "blunder" examples are all that blundery. In Gorrik's trial in Amnoon it's clear that he only get's released because you, the hero of Amnoon, vouch for him, even if you argue the lack of evidence route. Councilor Mayameen: Given the lack of concrete evidence, and given your willingness to vouch for his character... The court hereby orders Gorrik released. I hope you know what you're doing, Commander." And finding the Braham and Eir exchange weird is.... weird to me. Yes, they are indeed mother and son, but we're talking about Eir, who abandoned her son soon after birth to persue her own legend and even 16 years later after meeting him again uses every opportunity to keep her distance and to tell him that she wouldn't have been a good mother anyway. Sure, they start to grow a tiny bit closer shortly before Eir dies, but their exchange here when she comes back as a ghost for a little bit is really norn and really in character for her. Braham Eirsson: I'm not asking to change the past. I just, seeing you now... Is it really too late for us? Eir: Yes, Braham. It's too late. I'm dead. And anyway, I could never have been the family you needed. But don't you see? Eir: You have that family. These people love you. They will grow your legend...if you'll just stop trying to drive them away. Braham Eirsson: But... Eir: And yet, they're still here. Look at that... Let me go, Son. Live your life. This is Eir's attempt to give Braham closure, it's really not a "haha let's laugh at Braham"-moment at all. Eir's whole character arc in the base game is about learning not to dwell in the past and to appreciate your found family, so now she tries to impart that to Braham in her pragmatic, not really emotionally adept way.

They *really* needed to put a chapter in before Aurene's ascension. It kinda works with the six month release timing. It definitely doesn't work for players who play those chapters back to back.

I played the living season as it had come out, and I will never forget getting out of that cutscene with Aurene's death and seeing map chat absolutely packed with distraught players who were outright saying they were bawling their eyes out and were dying to know what happens next. I stayed in the map chat for like 2 hours just watching people pop out and chatting; it was beautiful but we were all just utterly beaten down by it. And then the Dragonfall map came and, same kind of deal? map chat was alive. Very alive. With... comments.. about... how... that story beat with Aurene's return was as bad as Game of Thrones S8 lol. I see a few other comments about the wait we had to do and I do think it's an important part of playing a 'living story' like FFXIV making you wait for those story beats and such and the impact REALLY suffers when you're doing it back-to-back catching up but my god I cannot put into words enough how much people were livid about the next part after her death. I don't think I saw a single person praising that story decision, and everyone was confused as to why she was suddenly talking too? there was definitely talk of Joko being munched being part of a potential return but for her to literally just poof herself and be like "i'm fine now let's go :D" was terrible.

I know it doesn't excuse the story beat as it is now but when Aurene died we waited six months for the next chapter to drop. There were six months of map chat and city chat/discord/social media conversations of 'oh my god what happens now' the sense of relief on the next chapter was a palpable thing. The game hadn't been in the best place around that time and when you hit the end of Living world season 4 you'll notice the final cut scene is like a movie ending. There were a lot of rumours it had been written that way because the plug/funding was getting pulled by NCSoft and everyone was about to pick up and go home. (I'm not saying it was true but we were still in the 'best game no one is playing' articles in magazines at that point. Which if you were part of the engaged player base left you with 'what am I chopped liver?' )

The 3 months we had to wait between wondering if Aurene was actually dead or not actually did work back then, it sucks that alot of people nit pick at it now because its just one episode right into the other

I recently played through S4 with my 9 year old daughter. Since the very first time Aurene is introduced, or maybe even since we placed the egg in the care of the Exalted in Tarir, she's been EXTREMELY invested in that little dragon. She's wanted all the Aurene stuff she could get her hands on, minis, tonics, skins, any and all of it. She's used the S3 item go to back into that instance and play with baby Aurene, countless times, and any episodes we got to acutally interact with Aurene, she wanted to replay over and over again. Now I knew what was coming at the end of Ep 5, as it's not my first time around, and I know my daughter. I was prepared for her reaction, and she was completely devastated, bawling her little eyes out. And I can tell you, that if we hadn't almost immediately followed up with the beginning of Ep 6, it would have broken her. So, while I as an adult player can see it from your point of view, I'm still glad it played out the way it did. Because that means that I can still keep playing through the GW2 storyline with my daughter 🙂

The resurrection of Aurene might seem a bit far-fetched for someone who could just play all the episodes one after the other without interruption.... But for those who had to wait for MONTHS to know what was coming next, it was agonizing. I remember crying so hard and being so pissed off by her death that i just alt+f4 the game and i could barely play it until they teased the next episode. Yeah, that's how deep i felt involved in the story XD

Aurene's death wasn't as much of a bait and switch as it seems if you consider two key points: the first is Joko's immortality, which is explained further through lore and event banter, and which is constantly emphasized throughout this story arc. The second is Aurene's unique ability to absorb the magic (and thus, the abilities to some degree) of others. Given that part of Joko's unique magic is his ability to fully resurrect himself, it makes perfect sense that said ability would be passed on to Aurene. It does cheapen the emotional impact of Aurene's death, yes, but as you mention earlier in the video, the genre is rife with cases of prominent/"NPC main" characters being effectively incapable of dying because they will inevitably be resurrected or allowed to interact with us by some arcane, ad hoc means. It absolutely destroys the immersion of those players who are aware of the trope, but I assume that the goal is, like with Savathun in Destiny or Illidan in WoW post-BC, to leave players the ability to speculate on whether the death was "real". If what was meant, however, was just that her revival shouldn't have happened the exact second after the fight in game time, then the above is largely irrelevant; they would undoubtedly have been better served by leaving Aurene's revival as a surprise at the end of the following chapter, not a combat res while Kralkatorrik is still playing his death animation.

Maybe it’s just me, but the Aurene death and revival was INCREDIBLE live. The excitement, the theorizing, the sadness? It was all worth it for her revival, making it feel like a stellar payoff three months later. Can’t even begin to imagine how weird it feels right away.

imo, Taimis voice acting in this season is absolutely bonkers. I think the only time I have had better ones, was with Jinx in Arcane. The moment she starts crying when she is kidnapped, or when she realized Aurene is dead, both were heart wrenching sound that still haunt me to this day.

Really enjoyed the video but just wanted to say that as a gw2 veteran who is currently playing through the ffxiv story for the first time I would really appreciate if you didn't spoil major plotpoints of that game or at least give a spoiler warning just like you did for the gw2 story (I was luckily able to mute the video as soon as I realized you were talking about ffxiv but like I said, a warning would have been nice)

To be fair the resurrection was very well set up with Aurene eating Joko. The events make perfect sense. For me the whole season worked really well. I do not think there was ever an event happening not set up properly. Also the Ghost thing makes sense. This is how ghosts works in lore and also Eir's behavior is how the Norn society works. I think you are missing some basic lore details that leads you do miss-interpret the events of this part as a joke. It is not. It is written earnestly and taken earnestly by most.

Joko was a great character. He was both comic relief and evil incarnate. The whole idea that generations of people have lived and died under his rule, believing him to be their God King with the hope that they may be awakened to serve him in death was a really cool concept. Praise Joko!

About Aurene's resurrection, there was 3 months of real time between the two chapters coming out. So it had much greater impact back in the day.

18:41 It was MONTHS when it went live... Months of ppl not knowing what would happen next... Thinking that Aurene was dead for good... But ofc, if you play one epísode right after the previous one... you won't ever truly *feel* those "cliffhangers"...

Yes! here we go! edit: im sorry i disagree with you on Aurene. They set it up how she could come back, and waiting months was agony for the next chapter. How do you fight the bigger than deathwing dragon without someone like Aurene? Having people come back is not a bad thing, but i do admit having it done too often, without explanation, and in rapid sucession (if you get to play it back to back) can be problemsome. Wanting every interaction to have lasting consequences goes against the power of fantasy.

I dont spend alot of money on gw2, but the best thing I bought inshop, was the Boss Spawn teleporter thingy, It teleports you to where the next worldboss will spawn

For me: 1. Joko took all the scene he's in. 2. My heart broke when Taimi was kidnapped and she's start crying for help... 3. Taimi going nuts with the cannons in Dragonfall is my absolute favorite moment of her!

was very excited for you to see this part of the game, all or nothing still gives me chills between the zephryte singing and finally getting close and personal with a dragon. You'll come to find theres a lot of great opportunities for major characters to have meaningful deaths that they just kinda make it out alive for seemingly no reason. IBS starts out quite amazing, make sure to do the visions of the past even though they seem a little out of place story wise

Resurection of Aurene was a bit "Deus Ex Machina", but it is sweetened but the fact that literally next gameplay is to ride Aurene to chase huge Kralkatorik through the mists. That gameplay was epic.

I said this about Palawa Joko in the previous video, but he's an important returning character from Guild Wars 1. Therefore, it's not really a bait and switch as if you already knew about the character, you already knew what to expect.

Aurene's resurrection really wasn't that big of a surprise to most people. The mechanism by which she would do so (Joko) was determined fairly early. The only real question was how that magic worked as HOW Joko is immortal has never been explained, closest theory I have seen is in relation to the tar you see everywhere in his domain. Also Anet spent all that time upgrading Caithe's model, so that was another giveaway =P

I love seeing Mike's reactions to all the story beats I've played over the last decade with the game. I haven't played much since the current expansion launched, but I think I may have to play just to keep ahead of the story!

You have the benefit of seeing the story as one whole piece and the downside. We waited months for this chapter with aurene and people were truly worried they were closing up shop and ending the game soon. Many people publicly stated they were quitting if we lost her. So when she lived it renewed hope that the story was going on, That we would get to see basically our dragon daughter keep growing up. I understand you may not be a fan of how sudden it feels for you. But for those of us who lived it it was a real big moment and it holds a special place in the game for pushing us further onwards towards the future.

It's too bad you only mention the story :( Also we waited for so long to know what was next after Aurene's death because even tho we thought she could come back we had no idea how

this series is so good, thanks a lot for the content ^^

Buckle up for Icebrood Saga... I honestly can't wait to see your video haha.

Missed opportunity to edit "Lich" over those chips in the bit at the start. :D

Wasn’t the final story moment at the end tied to ANet possibly ending GW2 at the end of this Living World Season??

When Aurene died we had to wait for months to find out what happened and there were a lot of players that were not going to keep playing if she was permanently dead....I was one of them.

I can see Mike's point of view on Aurene twist. But as someone who played these releases when they came out - I remember that moment very fondly, as we players had months of time to first grieve and then theorycraft where could the story go from here. Then to have the trailer release with a glimmer of hope. For us, the instance happened months later and it made it a lot more effective. Sure, doesn't work as well when played back to back. ^^ Would work better if you couldn't just exit the instance and re-enter trough the same door minute later ^^

me just being surprised pikachu when he makes 3 million warnings for gw2 story but just casually spoils ff14 story in the meantime...

I dunno. Mike makes this giant point of how fakeout deaths ruins things for him but on the other hand says FF14 is one of the best JRPG stories ever told. I can’t care about anything going on with anyone in FF14 because there are zero stakes and zero consequences at all times with the fakeout deaths. He specifically brings up the Thancred fakeout death fighting Ranjit but Thancred already had a fakeout death before that and he has another AFTER that. Or Yshtola dying how many times now? Five? It’s ridiculous. I can’t see how anyone gets invested in FF14s story when literally nothing matters, ever.

that feeling i had when aurene died... described so perfectly but also, the 3 month wait wasnt that bad because most already assumed she would be a lich since she consumed Joko's magic but man was it a good wait either way, so god damn many theories about 'how are we gonna stop the dragons NOW' additionally not beating Kralk... for the second time... with all the losses... it was a painfull 3 month wait

knew you'd love the kralk fight. it's good stuff!

The whole Aurene comes back issue is actually the complete opposite. The big issue was not that she was revived but that she was killed! The resaon is basically in the lore up to this point killing any Elder dragon releases its magic and another beeing has to step in to gather this magic to prevend the world from a chaotic collapse. This was basically why without Aurene Guild Wars 2s lore would end as no one other than a dragon is capable of beeing a vessel for this magic. The whole idea of why Balthasars intentions were wrong and why he was captured was because he didn't care about those consequences his only goal was defeating the dragons even it would end Tyria in the aftermath. So for people playing when the chapters were released we didn't struggle of the idea that she was revived we even came to the same story conclusion in the end that because of the fact she snaked our beloved Palawa Joko she could be reborn because anything else wouldn't have made any sense including how the story could be going on from that moment. I think a big issue for you is that because you have all the chapters in line you miss a lot from the world lore told in the open world. While those questionable things happen explainations to there conclussion are often found throughout events, collectibles like books and a lot of NPC interactions. You will later on have a specific issue with a background story that was told over a few weeks by daylie interactions with a specific NPC and at the end of this the new chapter of the story was released. Without the time in between you will most likely miss this interactions completely and jump to the next chapter wondering why specific things are now like they are. This is something I found out allready in previous videos of this series of yours because you do not have the time hurdle in between chapters you only see a small portion of the whole concept letting you to believe the story concept itself is the issue rather than coming to the conclusion that you miss some informations of the greater plan behind it. Of course GW2s story is not flawless by any means and even with every informations some things feel completely off but they are mostly things you will not understand without the context of having spend years with the lore in its fullest. We basically talk about sudden personality changes or even bad written excuses for why we can not see our old warband as Charr anymore (this one was both a joy for even mentioning them again and a big plothole for how bad the explaination given was at that moment) ( in fact Charr have an elite skill where they can call their "warband" so 2 npcs were summoned for a short time however most charr players never use this skill for how bad everything about it is not just powerwise but the stupid choice to just summon random generic legion npcs rather than member of the warband you create through the story (even this is only a skin question it would actually have made people use this skill for lore or roleplay reasons). When it comes to the lore you should also understand that most of the stuff including the zones themself are not just random they are based about story and quests from Guild Wars 1 as well so while you do not understand who Palawa Joko is only because of the story you know from Guild Wars 2 itself (excluding informations given through some books) In fact a Guild Wars 1 player has plenty of interactions with him before up to the point we have to feel guilty because of what is happening in GW2 which is of course nothing a only Guild Wars 2 player will grasp at all. Basically 90% of the whole Path of fire expansion is based on such greater insight in the story of Guild Wars as a whole including maps, NPCs, quests, locations, items, skills and on and on and on.... For a Gamer that has not as much experience of such a concept in mmorpgs at all because he is used to games that only support 10% of their content and would at best bring some re mentioning of something old as kind of fanservice this is an even bigger issue but GW2 is the same as a game like Elderscrolls online herefore which are both related to an universe people are allready familiar with through previous encounters with it and both games are true to their world they have greated before including not the lore of only one game but multiple ones and other contents as well like the novels for GW2. This is why the open world of GW2 can be as good as it is because what it lacks meaning for the main story plot is filled by the lore of this placeas part of the whole lore experience. People that have read the novel Destinys Edge for example had a completely different view on characters like Lhogan and Rytlock from the beginning or the people who played Guild Wars Nightfall not only met Palawa Joko and Kormir before but experienced the whole concept of their importance. They do not only understand what the sun spears were but they were sun spears themself. A NPC like Koss you met throughout the living story chapter is not just an old hero NPC from the past he was our comrade and we know his background doing quests for him. The same goes for someone like Dunkoro you can't even understand exactly why he is not just any named NPC throughout the story there but actually has a lore weight behind his whole beeing. When I think about GW2 not the combat system. the graphics or the main story but this bigger understanding of what this world is and should be and how to connect everything together is the important fact. It is not just fan service but actually part of the lore of this world with all the consequences that happened before. You mentioned how the maps are mostly one style most of the time with not much variaton but here you are on the wrong side as it is not like they can't make maps more different but they need a logical explanaition for why they do it. Jahai cliffs for example is so divers because of the lore of the place itself and the connection to the mists. You can be different in the whole map design but when the map itself doesn't make sense for the lore of this place anymore all you get is meaningless shit. Even fractals of the mist follow those concept with the normal versions of each of the different fractals beeing lore specific maps that on their own make sense but they also have the chaos mechanic that basically gives you the same places intervened with other fractals because of exactly what it is chaos! And even this chaos is not just there but also explained through the lore. How much other games you know that understand this kind of world building? GW2 in a nutshell is a world that takes itself serious most of the time and the times it does not is where it really is the worst as you can't acknowledge it and people will get really upset about it. As for the Braham and Eir talk by the way it is not just meant to be funny which again shows how little insight you have by what Braham and Eirs connection to each other are. in fact Eir doesn't want to talk about it because it doesn't matter anymore not because of anything else she came to the understanding that Braham is what he is now he might feel sorry about how he was back then but all of this is in the past and he needs to look for the present and future now. Eir is not good with this kind of relation and we know of it because of all the past lore so changing her into a "mommy is there for you attitude in that moment wouldn't it be way worse? By the way talking with all of them throughout their encounter gives additional informations changing a strange encounter to an fully plausible reaction in the aftwermath. Thats all for now and I hope you understand that there is often more to the lore than just what you gain from simply playing one chapter after another. I also understand that from a newbie point of view not everything makes sense or is good written in general and we often have lots and lots of complains our self about how some story bits play out that doesn't make sense because of missing context.

Yeah, was suprised myself when Aurene was alive again, i felt like there is a chapter missing between her crystalization and her reawaking, while old players had to wait 6 DAMN MONTHS for that to happen after all If you look at the surroundings in the aftermath of her "death", you see that time went by, in the game world also 6 month passed and they cleared up the surrounding, build altars, placed flowers All while Krakatorik is rampaging in the Mist, consuming magic and lifes to no end.

For me the reason Aurene's resurrection DOESN'T devalue her death is its clearly not a "backtrack". It was well set up with her eating Joko giving player's the possibility of seeing it coming (I didn't but if I recall Preach himself said something about her becoming a Lich as she ate him). The reason why character's who can't stay dead is always a problem is, its rarely planned. It's always a marketing gimmick or a attempt to go back to when profits are higher ... and the reasons are often asinie or just arbitrary. Comic books are obviously notorious for this. Aurene's death is much more akin to Avengers Infinity War (she even gets the Dr Strange visions) in that even though we as the audience know that all these characters who are now being dusted are probably all going to come back, the in moment deaths are still VERY powerful for a lot of people. To me, the MUCH bigger issues are A) They REALLY need to not technobabble a way to save Taimi, I do believe them delivering on her death is needed at this point and B) A certain someone NOT dying at the end of IBS was a much much bigger mistake ... and that ruined deaths more for me much more than Aurene ever did.

I absolutely get his viewpoint on the Aurene thing and that it feels off to him, but I didn't mind it. I felt the impact of her death and it really struck me hard. But I also felt they must bring her back sooner or later and trusted they'd have a good reason. The set up of Dragons taking on properties of magic and her eating Joko I think was well established and a good way to do it. Her death was very gruesome and sudden and difficult and I don't feel it was lessened or cheapened, personally. Especially with that wait...

I will say, hearing taimi give that heartbreaking cry about aurene ruined me. There was I think a 5 month gap between chapters, and the wait was both awful and amazing. The community as a whole speculated if aurene was alive, and a lot correctly guessed her eating joko would save her.

Aurene's resurrection was foreshadowed throughout the expansion, you might have missed the minor details, the scattered clues, on how they're going to go about this. When she ate Joko, a lot of players have already speculated that Joko is the answer to the vision she saw about her dying. A quick historical background: in GW1 2nd expansion, we let Joko live and we now personally witnessed the devastation he'd caused over the century. So one objective is to get rid of Joko since we can't have him backstabbing us while we deal with Balthazar. So it's actually a brilliant way to solve two problems; eliminate the Scorge of Vabbi and ressurect Aurene. Characters coming back is not something ArenaNet do, else where is Trahearne or Blish?

I didnt get to watch the streams, did Preach do War Eternal? That ep of LS4 is super epic

Unfortunately Aurene's death and rebirth were both not much of a surprise to a lot of original GW players as it went with some pre-established lore. The story beat as a whole was poorly written because it didn't keep the future players in mind very well, but it was a needed part of the story. The franchise has some incredibly deep lore that draws half spoken parallels to the human gods and the dragons (for good reason but that's a much longer comment than I want to leave) and Aurene's story was similar enough to Kormir's from GW Nightfall that the surprise for the original GW players wasn't that she came but, but rather than she came back so quickly. GW Factions also has a quick story beat in which the player character died and was resurrected within seconds, and that served as a catalyst for a power up. GW lore often uses death to make characters ready for a future powerup. I'm not saying this is a good thing, just that it's an established thing.

XD If he´s disapointed in that twist... cant wait to see his conclusions on Icebrood. Anticipating that video right now :D

They let Gorrik go because the plague can only be carried by humans and the Commander can vouch for him. Are they going to say no to the hero they owe their lives to?

Very surprised you haven't mentioned the Dwarven Ruins puzzle!

What happened to the ff savages? Or other mmos? Seems like destiny 2 was a blip and its been all gw2

been a blast to follow your travels thru tyria

It wasn't 30 seconds for most of us.

So I played that patch when it was current and there was a part of me that felt the might of written themselves into a corner. I pretty much lived out what you said in the video about Aurene's death. It just kinda fell flat and I knew in the back of my mind even when that patch was current she was going to come back, having ingested Joko and some of Balthazar. And while I won't spoil anything from ice brood or end of dragons her character, to me, just has that tinge of Mary Sue going on (if that's even the right word).

Ok i'm writing this at 20:18 mark in the video and i've not watched all of it yet but I have to type something. I TOTALLY agree with preach here. I played during the patches and the episode of Aurene dying was spectacular. I agree with preach that the story, fighting Kralk, all that was amazing. And Aurenes death really did make me cry (i'm a softie). While it was a sad moment it was magical and great story telling to make me feel so many emotions. I waited 3 months for the next episode in anticipation wondering how the fuck are we going to beat Kralk. They told the story so well up until that moment. When the next episode arrives and when the hints of Aurene was still alive when the spikes are being pulled out I was LIVID. I actually walked away from my computer for a good 20min before continuing to play. The reason? I was furious that all that build up and emotions the last episode, waiting 3months+ for the next and all that suddenly felt fake. I would much rather them have cooked something better up and have Aurene return later on through some better story writing. Yeah i get it, she ate Joko and had his magic. But it just felt like they had a diamond, polished it then threw it in the trash right after. To note, I LOVE Aurene, and I enjoyed her Character before and from Season 4 and I loved her interaction with Kralk in that same episode. I just really really hate how she came back right after dying, and that's possibly the biggest story blunder in the whole GW2 for me.

I don't agree on Aurene's resurrection. Her death was prophesied, her mother Glint had the sight and we know the mechanics of Aurene's powers. Everything was very well setup and I believe it works even better if you play these chapters back to back. It's supposed to be that moment where doctors are about to call the time of death and the monitor beeps again. With the exception of our own death in PoF I can't recall Arenanet going back on an earned death. Snaff's dead, Eir's dead, consequences are final. In Aurene's case, true death was never in her cards once she absorbed Joko's magic her death was never a true possibility after that moment so we didn't have to earn any resurrection, we just had to wait for it. And back then, we did, we waited 6 months to confirm she wasn't dead. Its impact comes from the characters forgetting what was shown to us before, and by extension, some players will go through the motions too, thatjust psychology. However, back then there were a lot of people like "wait, no, she can't really be dead, because they made a big deal about her powers. She'll be ok". So yeah, I don't think it cheapens death in GW2 at all. Snaff didn't absorb a lich's power: he's still dead. Eir didn't absorb a lich's power: she's still dead. Tybalt didn't absorb a lich's power: he's still dead (and it still hurts 😢 ). A note on Eir's ghost, Norn's culture is embedded in their relationship with the mist, spirits of their ancestors and the such. Only fitting that she would be seen as a ghost considering she's norn. Same for how she treats Braham, she's not really what we consider the best of mothers, she's quite flawed, but that's the life of a norn. Having your name sung in praise is better than a healthy relationship with your kid, go figure.

To me Aurene's resurrection did not come as a surprise at all. I saw it coming from a mile away, especially having seen Avengers Infinity War and Endgame. It's all there: The 14,000,703 possible futures, the inevitable death of some heroes along the way, and the grand return in the final Episode. It's a follow through of everything we've learned about dragons up to this point: They consume magic and thereby inherit the powers of whatever they consume. We see the magics of the elder dragons themselves mixing more and more as we destroy them, so it stands to reason that Aurene would inherit Joko's immortality the same way. What annoys me more is that this actually cheapens Joko's death for me rather than Aurene's, because he basically turns into a Chekhov's gun, with his purpose being reduced to just make Aurene immortal. Because in his monologue and in the following episode it is established that Joko's powers are *distinctly non-draconic.* He is so off-the-grid in terms of magic that he can actually interact with the minions of the Dragons, which the dragons ordinarily cannot do. Sylvari (Mordremoth's minions) cannot be made into Risen by Zhaithan, but they *can* be Awakened by Joko. Conversely Kralkatorrik can't brand Destroyers, but he *can* brand the Awakened. This is one of my favorite lore mysteries, but now after End of Dragons it's unlikely to ever be resolved as to what's so different about Joko's magic compared to all other kinds we've seen until now.

i started playing this back in march and so far JUST FINISHED living world season 4 so I am a bit behind u. I will say Aurene coming back kinda predicted since they said dragons absorb the magic they consume and since joko was the "undying" and she ate him and the build up to the death she was feeling ill. but they did highly OVER do the death though. if they are going to red con characters can I have my sentient golem that loves taimi back? come back blish! also i do agree one of the best wrap sequences for a game i have played in years the end of living world season 4 i told my GF triple A game i need to just do side storys and collections for a bit in just appreciation before continuing the story

About Joko , he was powerfull villian that was sealed (kinda like Illidan) and we made him free only to be able to reach to bigger evil (Joko Wurms allowed us to go through sulfurous desert that is killing living things) in Guild Wars 1. As you can see years later he managed to overthrow humans and sunspear in Elona.

I disagree on Aurene and I think there's a lot of setup Mike has missed that maybe would be clearer in hindsight. Or perhaps it should have just been made clearer in the lead up, as you shouldn't have to be a lore head or following the game live and following all the theories to connect the dots. Or maybe it's the impact of playing on stream where there's lots of distractions, I think it's easy for the story nuances to be missed in that case? Just a shame to see season 4 and "worst experience" in the same title 😂

Some people have said it a little bit, and it is very not obvious, the council “trial” with gorrick has many different dialogue options and pathways some of which are specific to the race of your character, the only guidance to know there are multiple ways to resolve the conversation are hidden in achievements, or, for players used to dialogue in GW2, the sheer number of responses at each step. This was strange looking back on it too, but the devs have since launch liked making two serious options, a lighthearted option and a pure joke immersion breaking option when they can.

Glad to hear you aren't giving up on the game, despite it's shortcomings in the story! Icebrood Saga HYPE!

So happy to have you stay with gw2

@21:40 completely agree. I have not been invested in the story what so ever after this moment.

Amazing honest review!

Yeah.... That's the thing, we waited month's until we found out that aurene was back. Not just "30 seconds". But after that we had that spectacular chase after kralky. And the joy of having our "baby" back after all that time was an awesome feeling. But I guess you had to go thru the whole mourning period to really appreciate her coming back.

BRUH! That shadowbringers spoiler came out of fucking nowhere?! What the actual fuck.

Season 4 but no blish? Slander for second best character ever!

Yesss finally! Lets go!

I've started doing LW and what I gather is that a TON of little details are spread and hidden. Through optional character dialog and little piece of paper to find. I just finished Season 1 and I feel Scarlet would've been straight ass to me if I hadn't been picking all the pieces and talking to everyone. I can imagine Joko's character and history is better explained in that same way through PoF and maybe even strong hints at what was going on with Aurene? Hopefully when I get there it feels like so, with my snail pace picking up all the pieces. It's a ton to ask for players to find all this by themselves, but it's also too much to put in the main story delivery merely because this game serves all kinds of people.

One thing I want to point out about the concept of a living breathing game is that to us who played the Living Story on release, Aurene was actually dead for a period of time longer than 30 seconds. Playing through it later where you just go right into the next chapter doesn’t do the writing as much justice as it does when you think that we were forced to wait to find out if Aurene would stay dead. Now, again, I don’t disagree or agree about it being bad or good from a writing perspective, because that’s a different opinion, but I do want that one small aspect to be recognized that it was pretty agonizing to have to wait to see what would happen in the next chapter release.

Aurene come back was already setup when she eat Joko, I and many people that played back then when they were still releasing the content already knew it was coming up 5 months before, still I didn't like that and I wished that the story followed with her dead. But the last episode of LWS4 is still absurd and it changed my opinion about that, from the moment you jump with Aurene into the mists chasing Kralk until the very end where he gives his heart, it was amazing. I'm not sure why Mike let that important part out of the video, but I hope he didn't just overlook it and he is planning to talk about it in another video.

Rytlok finding his sword and making a deal to "reignite it" when THAT SWORD was in lore and it's twin have had multiple attempts to destroy them. Rytlok making such a deal is confusing, and really feels "shoe horned in" and the ONLY thing i can think of in Rytloks favor is just that this is "The Mists" where the landscape is supposed to be anything and ever changing as it's a place meant for only the gods to navigate to keep the mortals in their "play area" unless the gods welcome you with "the bell" i don't know maybe i made that last part up. What's her name with the disease or wound or infection whatever as one of the smartest people in this universe you'd think she'd go back home to Rata Sum to find out if anyone else can help her be cured OR SOMETHING. Aurene being "killed" and "Brought back" soon after does seem really sus, however, for as much as i don't like it, "Magic" is the reason she was imprisoned, "Magic" is the reason she's fine. The fact that she ate Joko is not insignificant. Maybe she can recover from a fatal wound a limited number of times, perhaps only for a limited amount of time, maybe only that next one time she would receive a fatal wound. Unfortunately, regardless how you feel about Aurene she is GW2's version of Wolverine unless the people of GW2's story say otherwise. And we all will just have to accept it because Joko.

I really hope arenanet gets better with the writing about real life cliffhangers, time skips ingame and knowledge that you get from outside the game. It was the same with the mordremoth reveal in season 2, where your character drops the name out of nowhere. As far as i know players theorycrafted the names of the other elder dragons out of clues from dungeons and talked a lot on the forums back then. So when you where playing you kinda knew about Mordremoth and what was going on but as a new player you dont have that context

You have to remember when this content released the season didnt come out all at once, there was a few months betwen each episode. Unfortunately, the months of suspense between all or nothing, and war eternal is completely lost on anyone replaying living world season 4 today. When it launched and you beat all or nothing to doscover aurenes desth, and then had to play the game feeling like there was no hope for the next story step for weeks on end was pretty suspenseful.

Your part comparing the Aurene death to the Thancred fight is funny cause both of them they just bring back in the next scene. Do you also believe Thancred should have died? Sorry I havnt watched your FFXIV playthough to know the answer.

19:45 the epicness of the aurene resurection just can be experimented if you play at that time because: took you 2 min from dead aurene to his res, but for the player who at the time was playing took us several weeks to know what gonna happens next, because aurene dead left us in a spot where we doenst have hope to defeat krak. so the aurene dead was so epic, painfull drama, who took months of wait to see his resurrection also!! in a ''tedtalk'' kinda fashion, dev from anet explained how they plain the dead of the aurene since his born

To me, the reason for why nobody seems to die, is because if they do die, people are even more upset. There is a fine line when you can still kill an established character after they have been involved in the story enough, but before they become "fan-favorite", so that it feels like a character arc, not a sudden random death. You should read what people had to say about Eir's death for example. Even though the Destiny's Edge roster was mostly inactive story-wise, they were well established in the core story and were around for many years by the time HoT came around. I feel like after that Anet pivoted hard from killing established characters. Personally, Aurene's arc was fine, as it was properly foreshadowed and essential for the story. The pace for new players does indeed lessen the impact somewhat, but that can be fixed by taking the actual timescale of the story into account. As for the other examples, Blish was killed too fast, Braham should've died at the end of IBS, and they indeed drag Taimi's thing for way too long.

As a new player with 100 hours, i look forward to more Guild Wars 2. It's dope as fuck. Im a Renegade working on the Condi build

Joko has always been huge even in gw1, it was more of a surprise to players when you first meet him in gw2 and he was locked up like that. But when he got back into full swing it was like ahhh theres my guy

I kinda wish they made us earn Aurene's resurrection in a similar way to how we earned our own resurrection in POF. Like we have a bunch of mages there. We could have done an astral projection into Aurene or something to find a way to bring her back. Or even they could have baited us with projecting into her to try to get her essence to fight Kralk on our own (a way to contain the extra magic without her) and without hope of bringing her back. Then inside that internal dragon world we find the lich energies she ate and find out we can bring her back that way. That approach would have retained the impact of her death a lot more and felt less cheap. It could have been its own short chapter right before the next living world chapter and had some character driven grief parts before we decide to try to get her dragon essence or whatever.

Welp, that was a massive spoiler for FF14 Shadowbringers at 17:55 xD didn't expect that on a GW2 video.

people seem to be forgetting the reason gorrick infected himself was to prove the pestilence only affected humans, that's just his smart arse asura way because there was no other option, and us being the slayer of dragons and gods, they respect our judgement enough to let it play out, i dont see that as a blunder at all, and like many others have said, when playing back to back episodes with aurene's death and ressurection, you can't get the same feeling of being left in the dark, but i think the fact she ate joko is foreshadowing enough to make it understandable, and the eir interaction was all it needed to be, she instilled in braham the only wisdom she could give - to love the family you have, and the fact kralk was going nuts at the time, the fact she's coming from the mists and that she shouldnt even be in this world so time was indeed limited, its all that needed to happen to keep the story moving and give braham some closure

I wonder how Preach reacted when during the Grothmar Valley stint of the Icebrood Saga.

I have to be honest Preach helps me understand a little bit more how to handle GW2 as a very casual and beginner level player. Because my alternative route usually woulda been to just play the game, get lost, get annoyed by getting lost and having no one to play together with to the point where it just...Pushes me away from the game. And everytime I look at GW2 my brain is on high dopamine rush of how much I want to complete this game. I love it.

19:29 ... but it was all planned ahead of the time ... when she ate Joke, she took over the necromancy rebrith magic mambo jumbo ;) you should have seen it comming with how the magics got mixed together when one dragon died, its magic went to the next to be awakend, so too with Aurene - this is why Krakatorix goes insane, due to all this magic

I had a similar but opposite experience right from the core game where you meet a character and then they get killed off and I want to say this happens 2 or 3 times

But what a bout my boi Blish, he died ,or should I say, he's still dead. I remember when Aurene got killed, I thought than maybe the expansion will be a "rescue" mission of their souls in The Mist, we been already dead, so maybe it was possible.

Once you finish IBS and EoD you will see the whole 10 year story come to a conclusion. What you can see is at some point over that time period they were done with the long story arc and just needed to move the story along and get it over with so they wouldnt be tied to the story arc anymore and could start doing separate stand alone stories which is what the next expansion will be the start of. Lots of good parts but more rushed terrible parts to simply get themselves out of the story hole they dug. My hope is the next expansion story will actually be really well done as they know how to write good stories but won’t be rushing from the middle of the story to just get it done

OMG THAT INTRO XD Never going to see Aurene the same way again

The part where you walk while injured reminds me a lot of when Ghaul kicks you off the tower in the red war campaign from destiny 2. So sad they removed it, as it was such a good story. I just looked it up and the part i'm reffering to is called the journey.

You should try ESO. It is horizontal as well

You should consider addih runeacape 3 to project MMO, imo its one of the best narritive experience in MMOs, not quite the scale of ff14 narritive but feels like an adventure and really realy interesting lore that the game doesnt try to hide from u like other mmos

I totally get what Preach is saying here, but somewhat newer player (I started playing over a year ago just about a month before EoD's release), I personally did not feel the same way about the story dropping the ball. Perhaps if I wasn't spoiled on Aurene's return, maybe I'd have felt similarly, but due to the horizontal progression of this game, I was doing EoD stuff before I went back did the living story properly, so I obviously already knew Aurene was going to come back to life at some point. However, being spoiled about her being alive again didn't affect my enjoyment of the story when I did go back and do it, but you know this sort of thing really is very subjective and will vary from person to person. I think Preach makes valid points about the risk writers do take when they kill off characters and then bring them back. It can make the stakes feel lower, but I think it can work if they can justify it with good foreshadowing and where they take the character next. It worked for me in this case, but I can see why it didn't for others.

I dont really get the issue with the aurene thing... its not like out came out of left field. There was setup, she ate the lich, we know that elder dragons can absorb and use the magic of others and above all, she is literally the only solution to killing kralk... if you werent expecting it then that's on you. As for this making the deaths of other characters less important cuz they might come back... last i checked there arent thousands of liches around to use as magic revival potions

I was a long time GW1 player and tried to transition into this game. It seriously toyed with my emotions. I wanted so bad for this game to be awesome but it was filled with highs and lows as you describe here. I played 1500 hours from open beta to HoT release and logged in one day and just looked at the screen. Haven't been back. It just never captured me with magic like GW1 did from the beginning. It's kind of got a Disneyland kind of vibe going on. Seems like it's aimed at a younger audience I guess. It just never got me excited after the first few months.

17:55 In the name of GW2 players who recently started with FFXIV, please be a bit more careful with spoilers lmao

The aurene death thing pissed off a lot of people because it just was undone immediately. They needed to keep aurene alive for the future stuff but atleast keeping her dead for longer than about 2 seconds would be so much more impactful.

It is sad he does miss a lot of story beats that I think he’d enjoy. But mostly cause I don’t see anyone said it here, the mists are a known place you can visit, it’s where pvp is, fractals are using it, in GW2 death isn’t much with entire factions of undead.

19:23 So~ did you visit Anet yet? LMAO I'm excited about this actually xD 20:54 yeah~ I know someone did ;p

So glad the next expansion will tackle more serious subjects. Gives Anet a chance to write a more complete story without dragon this dragon that ..