Kill Kormir. (If she was the "greatest Spearmarshal ever" then why can't she do the dirty work)
Save Varesh (She was only misunderstood)
Absorb Abbadon's powers (evil dictator god #2)
The Searing Altars that the Charr used were broken. (The Searing never happened)
Make spraypaint a weapon (that'll change so much, Charr with RAINBOW FUR!!)
Not to help Jora kill her bro.
Turai Ossa lost the battle of Jahai. ("THIS IS ELON-"[He gets knocked out with a rock and Palawa Joko kills him])
Glint was a guy.
You never left Ascalon because you think Krytans are scary.
The Guild Wars never happened.
Devona's daddy was still alive. (warrior trainer?)
Break up Cynn and Mhenlo and take Cynn for yourself.
The Great Destroyer was a BUNNY! (Nulfastu Earthbound was a bunny too)
Kill story NPCs. (Just like in Fable)
The Asura were dumbos.
The Norn were a highly sophisticated race of Englishmen/women.
The Charr were all hippies.
The Sylvari were brutal savages.
The Humans moved to Earth.
Livia killing Gadd and making a Minion would be a funny movie scene. (Alternatively, she could just make a Minion out of Gadd's corpse when he dies after G.O.L.E.M and royally piss Vekk off.)
Whether Kisu or Togo dies probably doesn't make a difference, Factions is so convoluted and weird that its hard to think of a turning point.
Being able to save Varesh and turn her into a hero, she looks better than Melonni. Yeah, someone else was right, no need to make a new god out of Kormir, just pisses off the players without adding anything new.
Perhaps if Palawa Joko would have stood shoulder to shoulder with us in an epic battle against Margonites might be more convincing of why we wouldn't just betray and kill him. Sunspear or not, we gotta know he's a threat to the future.
Adelburn dying instead of Rurik might be interesting, but I guess Leeroy Rurik got his comeuppance. I'd have preferred more hope for Ascalon. Escorting Adelburn to the EotN would be a nice story. Adelburn meeting Langmar to plan the big push against the Charr.
Desperate Mursaat ally with us to fight the bigger threat of the Titans would be nice too.
Hrrmn. Looking at the various campaigns, there are a few scripted events that do make you think "What sort of idiots do they think we are?"
First, not giving the scepter to the Vizier. Am I the only one who immediately thought that giving a powerful magical artifact to the guy who caused the Cataclysm was a bad idea?
Second, consider the demon-summoning at Gandara. The Hunger was a pushover. Blades of Corruption, even bosses, are pushovers. And we have an army of Sunspear archers behind us. If that wasn't a cutscene, I reckon a party of level 20s would be able to beat them off, especially if Varesh was still more of a regular Dervish (this wasn't long after her teacher Kahyet was killed, and she didn't have any funky monster-only skills) instead of having all the powers she did at the Ruins of Morah.
Third would be at least looking for some way in which Palawa could be bound to prevent him from trying to take over the rest of the continent. He can have the Desolation, fine, but while Joko was needed to fight the greater evil there, the heroes dropped the ball there.
Fourth would be the Ascalonian heroes telling the Canthans and Sunspears "Okay, we helped you, now it's our turn. We're going to push the Charr out of Ascalon, rescue all the captives they took in the Searing (and since...), and rebuild the Wall." (Aeron thinks that they've shown they obviously can't be trusted with arable land, so pushing them back into the Shiverpeaks north of the Far North Shiverpeaks looks good.)
Factions... doesn't really have such 'you idiot' moments as those. There's no reason for the heroes to suspect that Kisu's son would turn out to be such a bastard (and wouldn't it be an interesting plot twist if in GW2 we found out that he was, in fact, illegitimate, thus not actually of the royal line, and end up looking for a descendant of Togo's to replace the current Emperor?)
Last edited by draxynnic; Feb 25, 2008 at 03:03 AM // 03:03..
Prince Rurik makes and alliance with the Mursaat. He kills the Vizier, got the Scepter, and then he goes to Cantha for killing Togo an Mhenlo, and then for Elona for killing Kormir.
First, not giving the scepter to the Vizier. Am I the only one who immediately thought that giving a powerful magical artifact to the guy who caused the Cataclysm was a bad idea?
The Shining Blade don't know he caused it.
Although, magic or not, I'm pretty sure any story that takes place around the time period GW does (medieval/renaissance), if you survive a massive apocalypse that wiped out an entire kingdom, you're a WITCH!
So yeah, they still should've known better.
I agree with you, we ought to have made the Canthans and Elonians help rebuild Ascalon. Aren't we the main heroes? Us and Devona's party? We're the most experienced! GIVE US TRIBUTE!
Location: Bellevue, WA (I know ... but I moved out of NZ)
Guild: Xen of Onslaught
Profession: D/
Surprisingly, it occurs to me there isn't anything about the story I'd really want to change. There is one thing that could have helped a lot though.
The ending of Factions needed a touch of Battle of Jahai. The Kurzicks, Luxons and Imperial army are fighting off the Shiro'ken and Afflicted in the background, while we take on Shiro's personal vanguard... and a scene from right out of Oblivion here - Kuunavang kills Shiro.
This would make the preceding 5 or so missions actually seem to have a point.
Yeah. Most of the Kurzick/Luxon parts of Factions are pointless.
Firstly, the Spear of Archemorus and the Urn of Saint Viktor. They were destroyed in the (unsuccessful) encounter with Shiro in Sunjiang District. We just wasted our time on Arborstone and Boreas Seabed!
Then we rally the Luxons and Kurzicks for what - an additional two henchmen in the following missions? Their kind didn't help at all, just some lousy henchies. Not to mention that plenty of people use heroes/other players instead, not these "Luxons" or "Kurzicks".
Oh, and Shiro is about to do a new Jade Wind when Adepts of Suun come out of NOWHERE and seal him in Jade. It's all stupid.
I would make the story like WoW. Then transfer everyone to WoW. And Once you all have to start paying monthly for that game I will recieve all the money. Then I will be rich.
Point. While it's in the manual, that's no guarantee that it is/was actually common knowledge in the world. They may have known it, but they, and the PCs, may not.
I hated the whole childish Kurzick/Luxon thing. They're like little kids fighting over a pudding pop. Plus, how cool would it have been to have a big battle with the two sides *really* united - a Juggernaut frontline with Siege Turtle support pitted against wave after wave of Afflicted? Sounds like a pretty cool mission to me.
Also, I have to agree with the Kormir bit. Who came up with the Chronicles of Riddick style "You keep what you kill" bit? Lorewise though, it just doesn't make sense. If killing a god makes you a god, then it seems like Shiro and his Afflicted army or Palawa Joko with his undead army would just march all over the gods all the time. It's pretty clear the gods didn't help out too much in the fight against Abaddon, and Grenth and Balthazar require heroes' assistance to clear out their realms of usurpers, so how does that make sense?
The gods work in mysterious ways. It's possible that there is, in fact, some limit to how much power a god can wield personally - but they can get around that limit by empowering others. Shiro, the Lich, and Varesh were all empowered by Abaddon - people regularly ask why, say, Shiro doesn't just kick Abaddon's behind and take all his power when he's a 'harder' boss, but the truth is likely that his power is loaned from Abaddon, and if Abaddon withdrew that power he'd be just another A/Rt (or whatever you think he actually is under all those monster skills).
Likewise, we say the gods have done nothing to help us... but how is it we're able to keep being raised after we die, even if there are no survivors to raise us? Could that be the gods in action? Also keep in mind that every campaign includes a point where the characters are empowered by the gods in some fashion - starting with a grueling test in Prophecies while in Nightfall, the test is so easy (cleanse the waters of the sanctuary) that you might not even realise you've just been Ascended. Could that have been a sign of the gods growing more desparate and less picky as Abaddon neared breaking out? The speech Lyssa gives at the end of Gate of Madness may not have just been repeating platitudes - it could be that Blathazar really, literally has invested a portion of his strength into the characters.
That the gods are too weak to clear their domain without our help is one possible way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that the gods are simply deploying one of their empowered weapons to fight for them - it just happens that those empowered minions happen to be us. Or a third way of looking at it is that they actually have a strict control over how much evil they allow into their realms... so that the heroes can come and practice against it for when evil breaks out somewhere else.
Prophecies had a solid storyline... however, converting Ruric back to good would have been better than the nub that took over.
Factions needs the most tweaking, imho. The story kind of blew and wasn't really epic... just blah...
Nightfall rocked until they screwed us with Kormir. I didn't feel bad for her to begin with, she was a coward. Making her a god pissed me off... and made me want to befriend Abbadon (who had a sense of humor and danced before killing you) and smite Kormir and all the wimpy sunspears. I would have rather seen Master of Whispers become a god. At least then, I could of respected him.
Eye of North's story was great, and it wasn't even a campaign. I would have like the option to enslave the Asura, who were way too little to be that haughty and arrogant. /stomp should have been implemented in order to bring them down to size. Little bastards... everytime I talked to one I got pissed off. "Bookah... bookah... bookah". We should have been able to sacrifice the Asura to the Great Destroyer before we pwnd him". The dwarves played such a small role in the game... wtf? As did the Ebon Vanguard... FTL!!!
Prophecies had a solid storyline... however, converting Ruric back to good would have been better than the nub that took over.
Factions needs the most tweaking, imho. The story kind of blew and wasn't really epic... just blah...
Nightfall rocked until they screwed us with Kormir. I didn't feel bad for her to begin with, she was a coward. Making her a god pissed me off... and made me want to befriend Abbadon (who had a sense of humor and danced before killing you) and smite Kormir and all the wimpy sunspears. I would have rather seen Master of Whispers become a god. At least then, I could of respected him.
Eye of North's story was great, and it wasn't even a campaign. I would have like the option to enslave the Asura, who were way too little to be that haughty and arrogant. /stomp should have been implemented in order to bring them down to size. Little bastards... everytime I talked to one I got pissed off. "Bookah... bookah... bookah". We should have been able to sacrifice the Asura to the Great Destroyer before we pwnd him". The dwarves played such a small role in the game... wtf? As did the Ebon Vanguard... FTL!!!
Prophs: Dont give the Vizier the Scepter, make Rurik die and not let Saidra waste her life for no reason. I would have liked to be able to kill White Mantle before we knew their true nature... I'd make Ascension shorter and less of a story killer. Do more then just walk away from the Scepter...
Factions: Made Shiro's voice actor die! If it wasnt for the voice he had, he would of been a little more credible. Not make us waste so much of our time in a backwater monastery. Make the Kurzicks and Luxons really look like they were helping each other. Erase the ''Befriend the Kurzicks/Luxons'' part from the game, they are pointless as well as story killers. Make Kisu die and Togo become emperor in his place.
EotN: Show us more of the Charr, make things a little more complex then ''they are Destroyers, and they want to Destroy All''. Not help Jora with her family issues, and shut the lair of the snowmen tight.
All baddys: Make them more then just laughable idiots that move us around like pawns and underestimate us until the very moment we gut them.
Prophs: Dont give the Vizier the Scepter, make Rurik die and not let Saidra waste her life for no reason. I would have liked to be able to kill White Mantle before we knew their true nature... I'd make Ascension shorter and less of a story killer. Do more then just walk away from the Scepter...
Factions: Made Shiro's voice actor die! If it wasnt for the voice he had, he would of been a little more credible. Not make us waste so much of our time in a backwater monastery. Make the Kurzicks and Luxons really look like they were helping each other. Erase the ''Befriend the Kurzicks/Luxons'' part from the game, they are pointless as well as story killers. Make Kisu die and Togo become emperor in his place.
EotN: Show us more of the Charr, make things a little more complex then ''they are Destroyers, and they want to Destroy All''. Not help Jora with her family issues, and shut the lair of the snowmen tight.
All baddys: Make them more then just laughable idiots that move us around like pawns and underestimate us until the very moment we gut them.
I want to add, change the snowmen lair into a bowling alley. We can knock the snowmen down like bowling pins by bowling Gadd. We could win gamer points towards our title and not have to participate in a ton of failed games during festivals.