Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[localareanetwork]

I honestly really liked the 4th zone. Just you and Erenville (no Wuk thank god..) there in a down to earth wild west themed area getting up to no good. It was a much needed break from the first half of the expansion, but I could be biased.

[arstoka]

I agree with most of your points but I sorely disagree with regards to Zoraal Ja.

It's such a weird inversion where the writers keep repeating the same slough over and over again because they're afraid we'll miss the theme (stay back everyone, I'll maintain the peace!) that they severely fail to characterize and build up their main antagonist.

This is compounded by the lack of characterization of his father, Gulool Ja Ja who, for the most part, seems saintly and heroic. The writers meant for us to empathize with this character because they wanted to set up a cheap death and emotional scene. We're seen it before, the man's death flag is larger than the sun.

What is the absolute WORST thing the game has done for him, in my opinion, is allow Krile and not the WOL (for whatever bloody reason) have a vision of Zoraal Ja's mind. There was no reason why we shouldn't have had access to it and, as cheap as it is, we'd be SHOWN rather than TOLD he is nefarious.

Another egregious example of poor story writing and lack of character development is the introduction of his son in the Heritage Found/Solution 9 area. It served little to no purpose other than trying to do...something like make us cry or feel bad because Zoraal Ja is a bad father.

We know next to nothing about Zoraal Ja other than easily miss-able or misinterpreted subtle nods to his inner turmoil. It's subtle in the worst way and this is, as others have pointed out, compounded by rigging issues to properly make expressions with the character.

I HONESTLY believed we'd be getting a Trifectra rulership with Zoraal Ja coming around and was honestly surprised when the guy attacked the final Executor (or w/e I can't be arsed to look it up).

[kidknee]

I felt like the writing quality has dropped since 6.0.
For example the level of humor we saw in Stb, Shb vs EW patches and beyond.
Im huge fan of the estinein scene where he mistakes alisae for alphinaud. vs the forceful humor when trying to be funny when zero says looking at estinein "shall we disrobe". That seemed forced and i didnt laugh. I felt for quite sometime that the writing quality and dialogue quality has fallen down. To the point where i couldnt get myself to do patch 6.5. wasnt motivated at all.

[Basteala]

We really needed to see more of Zooral Ja, tbh. I remember wanting to be paired with him in the co-op challenge just because I was hoping for more insight into what his ultimate wants and goals were. I honestly felt the opposite, and he was way too one dimensional--even accounting for the fact that he was essentially the "puppet villain".

In fact, my biggest complaint about DT for the first half was how black and white the moralities were. Bakool Ja Ja's faceturn was a little abrupt, but I appreciated them at least muddling the good and evil lines a bit. I thought the role he played in Mamook was good as well. It could have used a bit more, but at the end of the day, it wasn't his story.

I don't even fully hate the idea of us being a supporting character in another character's story *now and then*. Variety is the spice of life, and there's no way to make the WoL an underdog in a more grounded story without an arbitrary nerf of some kind. The problem is that Wuk Lamat is not exactly the best choice for a first time doing that. Even setting aside whether people like her or not--I would charitably say the reception is mixed--we didn't have enough going into DT to really be invested in her story, or reason to be curious. Krile would have fit that bill better.

[genuine_stranger]

Honestly, I think the whole premise of the WOL helping Wuk Lamat in the succession is kind of dumb.

Koana, Zooral Ja and Bakool Ja Ja should've been the only three to compete for the throne.

Wuk Lamat and the WOL should have travelled Tural, discover its many beautiful vistas and history and resolve issues and friction between the many different inhabitants of this 'new' realm which Gulool Ja Ja created. It would've fit her character better imo.

Koala should've won but realized that he is disconnected from the people and give his sister a seat beside him.

Bakool Ja Ja's turnaround could still be in place, if it was shown that whatever he does, he can never fulfill the expectations of his father.

Zooral Ja should've been misguided and manipulated by his assistant and die a meaningless death bye the hands of his siblings.

Solution 9 is kind of a mixed bag, I like the general idea of it, but would've preferred it if they would've made Sphene an AI, which was created with here soul. The sole purpose of her would've protecting her people which would clash with her character and the necessity she came up with leading up to the last zone.


I think the story is a sold 6.5/10. I don't dislike nor do I like it.
But that could be due to the fact that the writing in EW for me was worse than GoT season 8.

[HighlanderClone]

I'm not the one you were asking but if you don't mind a stranger's oppinion, I would say that all the subtle cues of Zoraal being mad at his father were lost on me. He even helped me defeat That snake bird for the Yok Huy. To me it seemed he was a non character. When Wuk Lamat had mentioned back in the pre expansion that she was trying to stop her brother it seemed to me that she was talking about Koana since he was the only one talking and doing things, but of course things didn't go in that direction.

When Zoraal Ja suddenly became a villain, and then had 30 years of character development that happened while Wuk Lamat celebrated her victory - I was personally was struggling to understand his motivations and it didn't come until it was laid out at the end. I think if I understood his motivations earlier it would have made him a better villain. Instead he was a missed opportunity.

To me, seeing how Gulool Ja treated his children and the things he taught them - it made me wonder how did this happen? There wasn't even any hints that Zoraal was having a bad time. If anything I thought his advisor was a bit suspicious and was manipulating Gulool Ja. It seemed his Advisor was using Gulool Ja's strength to obtain the Golden City. Then he was unceremoniously killed. I don't even know whats going on with this character.

I just don't really know what the right balance between "show don't tell" and "so vague and subtle that everyone missed it" would be.

I personally don't think Gulool Ja Ja was abusive towards his son. He does love his children after all.

I thought about this for a bit and I think there are a few small changes that could've been done to make Zoraal Ja a more compelling villain:

1) During his father's death scene Gulool Ja Ja could've said something like "I failed him... I failed Zoraal Ja". My takeaway of their relationship was that Gulool Ja Ja was a good king but not necessarily a good parent. He notices Zoraal Ja's flaws (he doesn't listen to advice) but does not seem to have taken any action to remedy that. It's like a parent noticing your school shooter child being aloof but not really doing anything about it.

It would be weird for Gulool Ja Ja to not love his son and only his love for Wuk Lamat was very clear. He barely talks about Koana too. More should've been written to convey his love for all three of his children.

2) IMHO the "family" theme of Dawntrail was the most compelling theme to me. As such we would also probably benefit from learning more about their family history (this would probably also flesh out Koana and Wuk Lamat more). We need to learn about how Zoraal Ja became closed off. Wuk Lamat mentioned how Zoraal Ja never talks at the dinner table while she and the Vow of Resolve talk a lot, with Koana and the Vow of Reason chiming in here and there. This was an interesting family dynamic to me but it never really gets fleshed out. Wuk Lamat looked up to Zoraal Ja once, and it would benefit the player to learn about how he slowly changed and why Wuk Lamat finally decided to become a claimant.

3) The first arc of the story was dreadfully boring and honestly if it we were also learning more deeply about their family dynamic and history it would alleviate a lot of the boredom.

At the moment, indeed a lot is left to interpretation and the cues are pretty subtle. I personally enjoy leaning far into subtlety and filling in the blanks, but I don't think that will be compromised if they fleshed out the backstory of Gulool Ja Ja's family further during the first five levels. There's so much potential there because I don't believe his family was fully functional. Even mildly dysfunctional families can create catastrophe. It's why The Crown was so compelling because it offers a look at how family dynamics can become distorted and magnify even the mildest of dysfunction because of the pressures of royalty. ASOIAF and HotD also shows us some of that, though to a more extreme level. This would've been a perfect theme to chew on in the first five levels because man... stuff like trading with Pelupelu is just really boring.

[Batthosai]

For Zarool Ja i felt there is a lot of unexplained stuff , Like when the Vilagarmanda broke loose, He actually assisted the fight sort of showing that he is not just a cold fighting machine, if they wanted him to be the main antagonist it could have been better written like he could have been the 1 to strike a bargain with Bakool Jaja to free the Vilagarmanda and when he claims to be Dawnservant he will give promises. *Noticed the respond he given to the random citizen which beg for better lands*

Bakool Jaja has potential with a better redemption arc at a later stage.

Wuk Lamat is too overwhelming dont need to explain much.

The whole 7 feat contest felt a bit out of placed and could have been better paced

When facing Vilagarmanda, honestly i felt nothing.

The dungeon which have the 4 teams racing to the top could maybe have a time limit with some mechanics to catch up from being slowed down by the other participants.

The scions are like celebrities you invite just to show their faces on a red carpet event.

[EusisLandale]

Honestly, my biggest question so far is why did all the lizard people down in the forest valley not explode into Blasphemies? Seriously, how were they even still around at this point? Did Metion's song just ignore that one half of the planet?
It'd certainly explain why, when given the option to boast about saving the entire planet once, people are just like "???" as if there was never any major global disaster going on in recent memory.

[Endver]

Yeah, so... Generally speaking, I also find some bad points in this story. Pacing issues, slow first part and all. But overall, I think this expansion delivered on most of its promises. It was supposed to be an adventure in the New World in the company of one of the heirs to the throne. However, I can clearly see how it wasn’t the most exciting adventure. Maybe not really exciting at all, in some parts. So let's keep it simple: it's too cheesy. Remember when ARR was about human tragedies and didn't show you how it would take a simple discussion or two to make an entire group feel better? It was, for me, the right way to write it. It is possible to change people, but it is difficult and it takes time. Since a few years, perhaps after SHB 5.3, it seems that things have changed. Most problems are easy to solve. It just takes a few black screens between cutscenes most of the time. It's just too quick and easy to fix any type of problem (I'm looking especially at you, Endwalker). I am sure that if ARR had been written today, the Mhigans situation in Ul'dah would have been resolved in a few talks. Love is good, friendship is good too. But come on. It takes a little more than that.

But I also found good, excellent moments. As it was an adventure, exotic, but simple, I found the second part of the expansion (96-100) interesting and original. Sure, again the story isn't the best, but they still did well and tried to be tall. It's still a bit cheesy. But it was, in a way, refreshing... Even if that's because of the first part being slow.

No... The worst thing for me is the inconsistencies. G'raha not remembering that we went to Il Mheg? COME ON. Linkshells still working? On the other side of the world? Whereas in the story FAQ they already told us in EW that linkshells were limited by distance? (Except for WoL) These inconsistencies were already there by EW, and it was much worse. Nothing jeopardizes the seriousness of the story more than seeing that the writers didn't read the history they were supposed to know to be able to write the next one. And I can't understand it, because there's supposed to be a lore team whose job it is to validate or not the content of the story by checking the lore itself.

But... Overall, while I still find this a bit far from the pinnacle of SHB (as they won't let a new story and vilain develop across multiple expansions)... Well I still laughed, cried and shook with excitement at times. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't too bad for me. However, the question remains as to why the writers will not take the story of previous expansions more seriously. This is dangerous and can actually break immersion.

I liked it tho, mostly. But well, for now, I still need to understand why there was a freaking apocalypse monster on the moon in the EW trailer. We only got rabbits. But hey, I'm still up for this if someone finds it somewhere on Mare Lamentorum.

And yes, in case you didn't know, that's my opinion, nothing more.

Have fun.

[Puremallace]

Dear god I agree on every single point. Wuk Lamat alone killed it for me. I was skipping cutscenes when she was in them because the mentality is so childish with no character development.