Quote Originally Posted by Rhaggnos View Post
Nobody is stronger than a blade in the back if they don't have time to put up barriers etc, I reckon. They're strong wizards, not Kryptonians.
I do find the simple mindedness of some people fascinating. Just imagine going to the past and just stabbing someone that has yet to commit any evil. I really doubt people would give you a pat in the back or consider it a heroic action. You are definitely going to get caught and treated like a common murderer.

Now add to that the fact that they're not just humans but an ancient race of reality-bending magic people, and that the world you're currently visiting is full of them. How many do you think you'll be able to stab before you're dematerialized out of existence? Ten? Twenty?

And now let's ignore the whole thing with Meteon's sisters and time paradox nonsense and pretend you did kill the right people and fix the future. Hooray! Congrats! But, as I said, you're dead. A noble sacrifice, somewhat unpredictable, though an atrocious and anticlimatic ending. Now, what's on the next expansion? Should players make a new character from scratch?

Or are you telling me you feel the story makes much more sense if you're able to go in, kill everyone in sight with ease, giving no reason or explanation as to why, and then leave pushing your sunglasses up while giving a side glance at the camera before traveling back to the current time? Because that's the storytelling of a 10 year old trying really hard to be cool, consequences be damned.

Truth is, part of the predictability of the story is because the writers are limited on what they can write. We know we can't die, but the reason why we don't die and still find the happy ending should feel plausible.
We can't just tackle every new issue guns blazing and Deus Ex Machina the crap out of every villain or catastrophe, even if we technically could because our character has several tons of plot armor for the sole reason of being the main character in a MMO.

Plus, also part of the predictability is because they don't cheat the world's rules.
Most of what happens in the game is set up well before it happens. We can't complain that we knew who the EW final boss was just because it was hinted at in ARR and by the 75% mark in EW it was very clearly telling us who it was. If they were to make a last second switcheroo it would have felt worse, not better.

All in all, making a power fantasy story is easy. Balancing a power fantasy with good storytelling is much more difficult, and I think the team is doing a competent work at it. We can like the story more or we can like it less, but I think the story makes sense and was enjoyable, so I can't say I have major complains about it (except for a couple of choices in the script, but that's an entirely different conversation).