Requiring a permit to cross the bridge was bad writing, change my mind.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

I’m not sure why this is such a big deal for you when it’s not the first time this has happened. We’ve had blocked zones and even blocked halves of other zones preventing us from exploring in every single expansion since HW and this isn’t even the first time we needed a permit from the locals to cross a bridge to content that was already released in the same expansion. Even the most ARR-like expansion: ShB, that had the whole hub and spoke world map, required quests to access all the regions and it follows the pattern of sticking close to the narrative and having a narrated cutscene relevant to the MSQ when you first access a zone.

Like was previously mentioned, “big important bridge requiring permit” has an out-of-universe reason for existing and even as a lore nerd you cannot just ignore that for reasons why stuff happens in the game, which is part of why I really dislike all that “doylist vs watsonian” nonsense. If it didn’t have a permit, then what were you going to do there anyway? It would have just been an empty zone with absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go since Heritage Found as a zone does not even exist yet and you would have had yet another blocker preventing access to Yyasulani.

Needing a permit to cross a bridge isn’t anywhere at all near the most head scratching moments of Tural world building so it’s a really strange thing to dwell on.

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The reason I'm bringing it up in the Lore forum is it's a stupid piece of lore. Like you said there's always been gates before, but none of the excuses were this bad. Even the random closed gate between the two halves of Dravania, and the random blocked tunnel between the Ruby Sea and the Azim Steppe, were less atrocious since it wasn't the writers pulling a totally incongruous piece of information out of their asses.

What I don't understand is the willful defense of bad writing decisions. It's like some people think you're not allowed to criticize something unless you hated it.

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Originally Posted by PorxiesRCute

The reason I'm bringing it up in the Lore forum is it's a stupid piece of lore. Like you said there's always been gates before, but none of the excuses were this bad. Even the random closed gate between the two halves of Dravania, and the random blocked tunnel between the Ruby Sea and the Azim Steppe, were less atrocious since it wasn't the writers pulling a totally incongruous piece of information out of their asses.

What I don't understand is the willful defense of bad writing decisions. It's like some people think you're not allowed to criticize something unless you hated it.

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You haven't really given a good reason why you think it's bad to need a permit to cross into a different country. You've said the WoL is the only one in the world who needs a permit but that's not substantiated in the fiction, it's just something you came up with.

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Originally Posted by PorxiesRCute

The reason I'm bringing it up in the Lore forum is it's a stupid piece of lore. Like you said there's always been gates before, but none of the excuses were this bad. Even the random closed gate between the two halves of Dravania, and the random blocked tunnel between the Ruby Sea and the Azim Steppe, were less atrocious since it wasn't the writers pulling a totally incongruous piece of information out of their asses.

What I don't understand is the willful defense of bad writing decisions. It's like some people think you're not allowed to criticize something unless you hated it.

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Our own world including the country that this game is made in have historically required permits to travel even inside the same country. This is a really strange thing to double-down on especially since everyone else here seems to just have accepted it.

There's a lot else in this expansion's writing that is a little odd but this is one of the things that is actually acceptable.

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Originally Posted by Moomba33

Really though, I think it would be better if the expansions were structured more like ARR and you could just walk to most places early. Save the hard blocks for locations that are really special and difficult to reach like Azys Lla and Living Memory. I suppose you may still need the occasional nonsense block for cases like Heritage Found to avoid needing to create a pre-Alexandria version of the zone.

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I think they do it like this for all of the expansions since we get a narrated cutscene when we arrive in each one that goes along with the story of why we're there and it'll feel a little awkward if our character abandons the narrative to wander around.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

it'll feel a little awkward if our character abandons the narrative to wander around.

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That and the RMT bots wouldn't bother with MSQ at all if things weren't gated even a little bit.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

I think they do it like this for all of the expansions since we get a narrated cutscene when we arrive in each one that goes along with the story of why we're there and it'll feel a little awkward if our character abandons the narrative to wander around.

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Also it means they can build the world to have the reveals that they want, when they want it.

Like, consider Labyrinthos: our exploration of the area is tightly controlled, so that we only find the true purpose and intention of the zone when we actually have the context for it; if we had full run over Labyrinthos when we first got there, we'd be able to see the spaceship and the infrastructure around it well before we have any reason to think a spaceship would be story-relevant, thereby completely ruining the surprise.

In Dawntrail, Shaaloani's a weaker but still present example: we hear bits and pieces of these abstract 'technological advancements' Koana's brought over the first half of the story, but outside of the dirigibles used to access Yak T'el (which incidentally would be TERRIBLE choices to cross the chasm, those things are more 'hot air balloon' than 'airship') we haven't seen any of it; what Koana's done has, deliberately, remained abstract. It's only when we travel Shaaloani that we really see what he did, and learn that what he imported was 'mining ceruleum for magitek'; frankly, it's for Koana's best that we didn't see that until after his big story stretches, because I genuinely think it'd reflect poorly on him to show that he's borrowing from Garlemald before he's had a chance to properly say his piece. Contextless probing also would've led to finding the hhetsaro before they got introduced, which would've given the wrong idea about some stuff that's going on.

And of course, opening the question of going to Shaaloani early then leads to raising Heritage Found; by all logic, you just block off traveling further north through similarly artificial reasons that people like Porxies would hate in the exact same way, because Heritage Found doesn't exist as the zone we'd visit yet, but the place it is beforehand doesn't exist as a zone at all. The only alternative to that would be making a pre-dome Yyasulani zone, solely for people who ignore the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Most likely they just didn’t think of any lore reason to contextualise the need for a pass.

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I think it's more likely that they thought about it but the usual excuses for closing a story-progressing bridge don't really work here.

The bridge can't easily be broken because its whole deal is how ancient and sturdy it is. And the other go-to would be turmoil or hostility in the neighbouring country/zone but that doesn't really fit the rest of the story either.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I think it's more likely that they thought about it but the usual excuses for closing a story-progressing bridge don't really work here.

The bridge can't easily be broken because its whole deal is how ancient and sturdy it is. And the other go-to would be turmoil or hostility in the neighbouring country/zone but that doesn't really fit the rest of the story either.

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And again, like I said before: there are actual reasons for needing a pass, they're mentioned in a yellow quest. They're extremely mundane reasons, it's literally just 'this is a singular transport route that we need to keep safe and orderly', but they are reasons.

Personally, I love when the in-universe reason for a thing lines up exactly with the most mundane, real-world reason that would happen. Sure, we're in a big fancy fantasy setting where dragons are real and you can believe your god into existence if you try hard enough, but trade routes still exist.

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Originally Posted by PorxiesRCute

There was just a giant-ass storm. They couldn't at least say that the bridge was being repaired? No, instead you need a permit to travel between two halves of the nation and it's apparently been this way for a while, judging by this line:



How does that mesh with the worldbuilding of Tural in any way?

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I assumed it was to reduce the flow of ketamine across the border.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I think it's more likely that they thought about it but the usual excuses for closing a story-progressing bridge don't really work here.

The bridge can't easily be broken because its whole deal is how ancient and sturdy it is. And the other go-to would be turmoil or hostility in the neighbouring country/zone but that doesn't really fit the rest of the story either.

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Edo era Japan was a time of peace but the shogunate still required travelers to have government-issued permits presented at checkpoints throughout the country. Japan at the time was a conglomeration of clans and territories that were recently at war with each other and the permit system was a part of controlling the country.

Tural is in a similar but more exaggerated situation where completely different species all previously at war with each other until a charismatic leader showed up to convinced everyone to be friends are all thrown together into one country that is currently undergoing their very first transfer of power away from the guy that made it all. So it makes complete sense that the most important travel link in the entire hemisphere of the planet would be locked down to all but essential travel.

On top of our being a foreigner, we are hired by a member of royalty to assist them with the change in power so it stands to reason that we wouldn’t be issued a permit for travel to a continent that has nothing to do with the contest, especially since according to the story we’re tied to the hip with Wuk Lamat the whole time until we’re freed to go be adventurers again and explore the north.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

And again, like I said before: there are actual reasons for needing a pass, they're mentioned in a yellow quest.

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That isn't the level of reality I'm discussing.

They can write whatever they like to ground and justify it in-universe, but that doesn't stop writing considerations from being a factor.