Zepla's Dawntrail MSQ Analysis

[BigCheez]

I think she did a really great job at highlighting most of the major issues without being rude and while being fair objective. I hope the devs see this.

[Derio]

This was a great video. It pointed out some things that I missed or even had doubts about story wise. I knew the story was bad in DT but the video pointed out big plot point issues that I just overlooked because I was trying to get through it.

I do agree, there are several points in the story that were key moments where you ask yourself why is this not voiced? Why did they not have enough budget to voice these lines.

[ZephyrMenodora]

I liked the video and as someone who majored in creative writing, she seemed to take it more seriously and wasn't as irritating in this video as I usually find her.

[Gurgeh]

It was a really great piece of communication, and entertaining. I could easily recognise the drop in quality of DT MSQ however, until this video I never fully appreciated just 'how' disappointing this must have been to more discerning pallets than mine. Now I know why one of my unsubbed (suddenly unsubbed) friends sounded tight lipped when asked about the MSQ. I now suspect that the quality drop kind of appalled or disgusted them, 'very, very, disappointed', tight lipped because actually kind of angry and insulted that that's what they got for their expansion money, after being short of a relic area for EW. Kind of "do they thing I'm this stupid? Do they think I'm not going to notice the difference between EW and this?"

[Eyrilona]

It was a really great piece of communication, and entertaining. I could easily recognise the drop in quality of DT MSQ however, until this video I never fully appreciated just 'how' disappointing this must have been to more discerning pallets than mine. Now I know why one of my unsubbed (suddenly unsubbed) friends sounded tight lipped when asked about the MSQ. I now suspect that the quality drop kind of appalled or disgusted them, 'very, very, disappointed', tight lipped because actually kind of angry and insulted that that's what they got for their expansion money, after being short of a relic area for EW. Kind of "do they thing I'm this stupid? Do they think I'm not going to notice the difference between EW and this?"

Oh, it is worse than Zepla was willing to go into really, because the final zone is really ambivalent on whether we should or should not care about the plight of the Endless. Many of us who did the allied society quest in Ultima Thule came into the next expansion fully primed to consider recreated memories of life already extinguished, as a worthy new culture in its own right that we got to nurture and care about out there. But then in DT we go all Emet-Selch with "I don't consider you to be truly alive, so it's not murder if I kill you" on basically the same concept!

Now there are no doubt again going to be posters just waiting to jump on this with "ThEy'Re OnLy Ai", and that kind of shows that the same dilemma of deciding what is alive and not is as debatable iRL as it is in fiction, but that's beside the point. Due to the complete lack of our character being able to show any moral qualms about this, I have heard from quite a lot of people that they walked away in disgust that our character has now canonically committed a genocidal extermination of countless innocents, including women and children. Sure, it was a 'necessity' (although the game fails to even really back that point up, because it seems to have no effect whatsoever on what's happening at the Meso Terminal) to prevent our world being destroyed, but that is STILL on the same level as if Emet-Selch had destroyed all sundered life in his pursuit of saving *his* world. The writers really dropped the ball just glossing over how our own actions there look when seen in the context of all the lore of the previous expansions.

[TemporalFruitsAndVeggies]

Oh, it is worse than Zepla was willing to go into really, because the final zone is really ambivalent on whether we should or should not care about the plight of the Endless. Many of us who did the allied society quest in Ultima Thule came into the next expansion fully primed to consider recreated memories of life already extinguished, as a worthy new culture in its own right that we got to nurture and care about out there. But then in DT we go all Emet-Selch with "I don't consider you to be truly alive, so it's not murder if I kill you" on basically the same concept!

Now there are no doubt again going to be posters just waiting to jump on this with "ThEy'Re OnLy Ai", and that kind of shows that the same dilemma of deciding what is alive and not is as debatable iRL as it is in fiction, but that's beside the point. Due to the complete lack of our character being able to show any moral qualms about this, I have heard from quite a lot of people that they walked away in disgust that our character has now canonically committed a genocidal extermination of countless innocents, including women and children. Sure, it was a 'necessity' (although the game fails to even really back that point up, because it seems to have no effect whatsoever on what's happening at the Meso Terminal) to prevent our world being destroyed, but that is STILL on the same level as if Emet-Selch had destroyed all sundered life in his pursuit of saving *his* world. The writers really dropped the ball just glossing over how our own actions there look when seen in the context of all the lore of the previous expansions.

They botched every storytelling aspect surrounding Alexandrian society so hard by failing to explore in any meaningful depth the cultural implications of a society who has turned the soul into both a currency for the living and an energy source for the virtual recreations of the dead. There were many great philosophical topics to delve into there, but, instead, nearly all of the MSQ revolved around uninteresting stuff like "here's how they grow plants" and "hey, pick a food item in futuristic packaging and then go listen to a boring spiel about the government building." And then, like five minutes later, they're suddenly at, "Uh oh, we don't want to deal with this, pull the plug! Wait, give Krile some story table scraps first. Okay, now pull the plug."

I made this complaint shortly after launch and was largely met with, "they'll flesh it out in the patch stories," which, okay, even if they do, won't retroactively make these aspects of the MSQ better.

But then we got a patch story and the bulk of it was about the unnecessary quest for a minor side-character's birth mother and the migratory patterns of a random mammal wholly unrelated to Alexandrian society. So...

[Carin-Eri]

Even as someone who generally enjoyed most of Dawntrail I can't really disagree with the points she made.

I have to say, though, that I 100% agree with her that the grossly over-used persistent ear-bleed that is 'Machinations' really needs to **** off!

[Kaurhz]

I pretty much agree with this outlook honestly.

This is an expansion that IMO, would have been better if they didn't actually try to add stakes to it, as this is where they essentially tried bundling an entire expansion, with some fairly major retelling of pre-existing lore, in only what seemed like 30% of a typical expansion. Or at the very least if Alexandria weren't a thing yet.

Koana wasn't explored enough as I think there would have been some headspace to explore why he wouldn't make a good leader. They sort of explored this with Hanu Hanu, as ultimately it felt like the solutions he were giving were... Peace at the expense of culture.

That said, yeah, the cutscenes were aggressive.

[Larirawiel]

Dawntrail has 21 hours of ingame cutscenes:
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/final-...-tell-you-why/

It is waaaay too much, IMHO.



Cheers