Positive Dawntrail Narrative Feedback Thread

[Catwho]

The self contained adventure of Shaaloani was fun and I want more adventures like that. Just put it in a better place in the plot rather than right after a big dramatic moment.

FYI, they intended for you to take a break after that big dramatic moment. The NPCs said as much. The pacing issues of the story are greatly mollified if you accept the NPCs saying, "You worked hard and just went through a lot, let's go take a break!" and go do something else like level an alt class or some crafting.

[Akonyl]

I loved everything from Vanguard onwards. For lasting all of half a zone, I loved Robo-Otis and got attached to him enough that I cried a bit at his death, which is more investment than I had in anything prior in Dawntrail, I think.

[OMGJesuis66]

Dawntrail worked the Side Characters marvelously. People complain a lot about 'how everything is bad writing' (Trust me, you haven't seen bad writing and if you simp for the Ancients and Emet-Selch, you lie on a hypocritical value here).

I genuinely appreciated how the side characters had their time in the spotlight. Made them feel relevant, unlike in other expansions it was always 'Scions and WoL' talking, everyone else in the world became incompetent and just stared before they gave their one-text dialogue to thank the supreme overlords.

Worldbuilding has been very interesting too, it was the first time I felt compelled to actually read sidequests and information about the world, even doing the Brown Quests. I want to know more, and it is paying off quite well.

Zones are marvelously well done, the graphic update made them fantastic to be, and it is refreshing to see maps that genuinely have something visual to stare. I know it was a limitation, but until DT, the zones were incredibly bland and any other MMO had more interesting zones to stare at since they communicate so well visually for the narrative.

The last zone of this expansion beats my heart much more than Ultima Thule, the same as the last dungeon of the expansion (Not counting experts). And the second half really was interesting to see as scales grew, while the first half was a simple summer vacation. After Mamook, vacation is over, and I like that.

While some points could've been better written to avoid people making questions about character decisions, suspension of disbelief works better for some situations. It isn't perfect, but it is still a good story. Wuk Lamat wasn't an annoying character, but her appearance at the end didn't feel right and the VA did not deliver the necessary weight on that moment, but that's a forgettable moment.

All that being said, the thingamajig they got can lead to some very interesting build up for future expansions in the patches, and I am vastly curious to see where they plan to go from it.

[OneBigFish]

There were sore points for me in DT but that's for another thread. I do want to say that despite that, I overall had a good time and here are the highlights (spoilers for whole story):
- Mamool Ja backstory, wish more time was spent learning about their history, pain and suffering to produce the two headed beings and implications going forward. Such a cool story but was resolved in few quests.
- Reveal of golden city at the end of the dungeon. And reveal of Krile being from different reflection and just lore regarding all of this. Just wish we did not have the full stop moment to redirect our efforts after we found the door, slowed down the story a lot in a bad way for me.
- I liked the invasion of city moment (minus the wol doing absolutely nothing part)
- Loved Vrtra!! and that entire cutscene.
- Loved Solution 9/ Alexandria and the idea of soul/memory extraction. Brought out questions like what makes one oneself? Soul? memory? If you lost your memories, would you be the same person? If your memories lived inside a machine, would that machine become you? I actually would love these questions explored.
- I loved the idea of being resurrected after sudden death by using purified souls and concept of merging with feral should. But would like more in depth discussion and ramifications of this. What is person has been resurrected MANY times using many souls? Is that still the same person as they were when they were born? Do the extra souls cause nasty side effects long term?
- Loved Living Memory, I lost someone very important to me recently and Namika/Wuk moment hit me hard.
- I LOVED OTIS both forms!!!
- Krile meeting her parents was awesome but rushed, wanted more time with them. They have a wealth of knowledge that I feel like we could have learned more. Like more about the organization that was doing soul extraction, their facilities, methods, tests, etc. So many questions that we could have asked and learned about.
- Loved all trials and dungeons, very good difficulty.
- Music, fantastic all the way.
- Raids are looking really good and love the arena wwe style.

I think overall there were actually decent amount of strong points in the MSQ. If they had focused on some of these strong points and elaborated on them, story would have been that much more enjoyable. I just wanted more depth. Especially when dealing with really interesting and important topics/information. Generally what they had to work with was really good, but how it was delt with was meh. I hope that this gets improved going into the future.

[Gullis]

I liked the first half of the story. Bakool jaja was a fun bully antagonist, Zone 1-4 were great, and I enjoyed the HanuHanu and Pelupelu a lot.

[TaleraRistain]

I enjoyed Bakool Ja Ja. I thought he had a very good arc. Love the gameplay. Love the Wauchumeqimeqi side quests. The juice lady is positively adorable. The adventuring side quests are great. Love the role quests. Love the story and gameplay of the raids. And my IX loving heart is singing at all the references and the way they had echoes of IX and its themes without rehashing the story. I also enjoyed the world-building and introduction of different cultures. I don't get all the references and I look forward to the spoiler embargo lifting on social media so I can enjoy all the people explaining them. There are also interesting lore tidbits for the future that we've been given. I'm not entirely happy with the MSQ but I can see where things can improve.

[Hypnotic13371337]

My favorite part is when they foreshadowed Cahciua's fate RIGHT as you get to the outskirts town.

Erenvale asks the ppl there about his mom and they say they don't know her at all. Nothing odd at all for us at that point.... But then you learn about the regulators and see what happened to Namikka and when you have THAT context..... you can put together that she is dead already and the regulators wiped their memory of her.

Its SO GOOD, dude