Warrior of Darkness: alter ego or something completely different?

[Morningstar1337]

Regarding the Warrior of Darkness I think there are some possibilities as to their origins, all of which assume that Louisoux use the forbidden magick Flow to bring the Warriors of Light out of Carteneau and 5 years into the future, resulting in some of them being stuck in the Lifesteam

• Scenario A: The Ascians (Elidibus specifically) bring them out of the Lifesteam and showed them the truth about the Echo. Which means that the WoD and his party are "of one mind" with the Ascians
• Scenario B: They're Primals, made by fishing the souls of Derplander, Brogadyn, the Lalafell WHM, the Mi'quote Bard, etc. out of the Liftstream using crystals and the faith of both these individuals and the current generation of warriors (AKA Us) by summoning the souls of the former. Human hosts may be involved like in Iceheart's or Thordian's case, or they my not be.

Either way, the WoD are likely to be our enemies for now.

[Cilia]

Well, my theory is that the Warrior(s) of Darkness are just random people pulled off the street, same as the Warrior(s) of Light. On the other hand, I get the feeling the Ascians are going to deliberately make them fight powerful enemies and engineer crises for them to avert so as to grow their power and endear them to the populace. Thus they are on our level, but their power is more "artificial" than ours.

We gain power to protect. It looks like they're going to protect to gain power.

Why? Well, that's the driving question, innit? Either way, they're still gonna smack us around so we can have a drive to go unlock more of our true potential.

[Kurogaea]

Hoping its the Yoshi character I thought it was so I can beat the crap out of it for closure.......

[Belhi]

The thing I wonder is if the WoD is basically a servant of the Ascians, why bother screwing around trying to manipulate us all this time when they had a pocket version of their own to roll out? Rather than screw around with us, why not have the WoD step into the role we have played in effectively creating an arms race. Its curious they only pull the WoD out now that we seem to be getting too powerful for them to control anymore. If the WoD is a match for us, then you would think he could do what we have done with the added bonus of not undermining their own plans.

[Kaiser-Ace]

The thing I wonder is if the WoD is basically a servant of the Ascians, why bother screwing around trying to manipulate us all this time when they had a pocket version of their own to roll out? Rather than screw around with us, why not have the WoD step into the role we have played in effectively creating an arms race. Its curious they only pull the WoD out now that we seem to be getting too powerful for them to control anymore. If the WoD is a match for us, then you would think he could do what we have done with the added bonus of not undermining their own plans.

Because if you're able, why not have both?

[Enkidoh]

Or more than likely, they're just getting desperate now. Before, the Ascians smugly felt that there was no force in Hydaelyn capable of defeating them, that they were immortal and could not be killed, only their current host could be and they would just body surf to a new host when that happens.

Not only did we prove them dead wrong, we've now destroyed

not one but three Ascians permanently - not just 'casting them out of their current host', but, completely, totally destroying them. Even when we had the Blessing stripped from us we managed to restore it - even when they try using deadly force against we still come out on top.

They're running out of options. Elidibus himself says that we've gotten too 'powerful' - read, "we keep kicking their backsides and no matter what they attempt we keep coming out on top".

As a result, because were such a stubborn thorn in their side, in desperation they're now trying to fight fire with fire now, another possible clue that the Warriors of Darkness are in fact mere copies of us. After all, Bahamut created a poor aetheric copy of Nael van Darnus and didn't even get his gender right, so making imperfect clones of us just seems to ring true, especially given Eldibus's above statement.

[Razem5791]

For what I know and believe, the derplander and his party are supposingly representing us, the ingame players. Their experience and their life are more or less ours too. The exile from Uldah we suffered before Heavensward is the same as us as u can see in the cinematic trailer of Heavensward. Well, more the derplander in the cinematic. So far, ingame, I dont remember a single moment where we meet any of them. So I would come to one thing : Those we saw in the 3.1. cinematic trailer are definately dopplegangers. Somewhat representing us in the dark way. So what we can actually ask now would be : Who and where are the orginals ones and would we come to meet them ?

[Iris_BP]

Those we saw in the 3.1. cinematic trailer are definately dopplegangers

Shouldn't they look the same as you tho? I realize it can't be shown in a trailer, but they definitely could do it on the moon. And besides we dont have a team of Broegadyn and cat bard. So this team A looks like they're not connected to yourself.

[Nalien]

Shouldn't they look the same as you tho? I realize it can't be shown in a trailer, but they definitely could do it on the moon. And besides we dont have a team of Broegadyn and cat bard. So this team A looks like they're not connected to yourself.

Well, if they're doppelgangers, then having a doppelganger of the player character right away doesn't really make sense... Derplander is the poster boy for this game, him and his party are (for the most part) instantly recognizable. If we're going to have doppelgangers, it makes sense for their doppelgangers to come out first. That introduces the concept easily and (hopefully) builds up to a shocking final reveal of our doppelganger, which is presumably final boss worthy, or close at least close.

It would be incredibly cliché, and perhaps recycling from the Dark Knight questline, but at the same time... Well you're just not going to build the same excitement... This could effectively be the same plot from Wings of the Goddess, and I really don't think having the 5th Spitewarden revealed and beaten first would have given us a particularly dramatic story line... It's a cliché, but it's a cliché that works... If anything, I'd be a bit disappointed that the Warriors of Darkness are so obviously Derplanders group... Spitewardens worked because it wasn't spelled out who they were, they were their own character, but they were characters we knew, just from an alternate reality were things went wrong. Piecing together "Oh! That's X from the bad reality!" was half the fun, but with the Warriors of Darkness... Well, Derplander was never actually a character in game to begin with, where as characters like Robel-Akbel were fairly well known... Depends how they're doppelgangers, and indeed if they even are...

I kind of hope they're not, if only for that reasons... I'd rather be going "Why'd they turn bad?" than just have an evil mustache twirling version of Derplander...

If Darklander is my doupleganger then he beat me at getting Warrior to Level 50 >_>

If he is a doppelganger, then he is Derplanders doppelganger, not ours. Our doppelganger would either come later, at the close of the Warriors of Darkness plot, or not at all.

[Kallera]

This may sound a bit more pessimisstic than my former theories. But a more "classic mmorpg response" could be to eventually make Derplander and his merry band ineffectual villains instead of a longstanding ones. and, through the course of 3.x, we do away with the ascian faction.

I guess it depends on what sort of traits stand out with the Derplander when he is introduced, is his decisions those that the audience can relate with, even if our protagonist can't? Does he have true companions, or lackeys that he eventually loses? Does our character make the desire to defeat him a personal task(perhaps causing development of our own as we seek our "White Whale")?