The Big End of Dragons Story/Lore Review! 

Tbh I didn’t trust Joon at any part of the story. I always thought she’d stab us in the back so I was surprised in the end.

The one thing that bothered me is when Marjory and Gorik talk about off screen events with the speakers and brotherhood. I would have loved 2 little missions meeting the clans with respective allies before moving onto Dragons End. I also wish we got to know the Empress more, but my guess is we will get more time with her in the next Living world Story.

I think their tagline about the "cycle renewing" was more about how Soo-Won was the first only dragon and now Aurene is that. There's no more extra dragons, well until Aurene decides to make some in Living World Season 22: The Search for more money.

Interesting to hear your views on Joon and Li. For most of the story and I did not trust Joon at all. When we visit her lab and have that tour, all I could think of was "Bond Villain" and I was convinced for some time that she would turn out to be a cardboard box baddie with little to interest me. So when she turned out NOT to be a villain, I was actually relieved and happy. I loved the bit at the end of the mission in her mansion when, we having defeated all her high tech security, she is left standing there holding a spanner, looking very vulnerable and almost pathetic. Suddenly I really liked her and knew we could, after all, trust her.

I feel like all the way back in the beginning anet fumbled finishing Zhaitan, and ever since then have never been able to do elder dragons right because the precedent wasn’t there. I don’t think any elder dragon has been concluded properly except maybe Mordremoth. They have repeatedly been so eager to tie up things that aren’t finished. They’re more impatient than the community when it comes to story.

The part seconds before Li betrayed us I had just gotten done thinking "he's a hardass but the world needs some hardasses like him to keep things straight" and then he just turned out to be evil all along. Pretty disappointed in that.

Honestly the Aetherblades were really cool The explanation behind how they managed to reassemble their assets by exploiting the Fractal Loops for parts The effects of killing "themselves" over and over having an impact on Ankka A lot of the stuff with Mai, including her idea of trying to change (and no one really buying it till she started showing that in action) despite what she's done Hell, Mai becoming a Rev from her time in the mists and showing what happens when the Echo they channel goes rogue... All really good stuff Though, one of my gripes among the new characters was Minister Li basically being a really lame Caudecus by the end of his "story arc". I could have seen him doing everything he did without even needing to be tacked on as a part of the Purists, simply because of a fact that Braham/Joko brought up in LS4: The commander absolutely brings chaos wherever he/she goes, and that can absolutely put some people in a bad way. Our arrival basically added a whole lot of extra variables on top of their day-to-day problems, and with both he and the Commander being protectors of the realm and what that means with Cantha in these times, butting heads with him should have been an inevitability as we got more and more involved with their affairs I could see him trying to take us down as things came to a head, especially with us being involved in the reactor fiasco just out of his frustration or feeling that to be the right thing to do, despite our promises to make it right. I dunno, I just hoped that he'd have more nuance than just being another (lamer) White Mantle set-piece. Even if we didn't see eye-to-eye or messed things up, even if he's got his gripes and concerns about us and Cantha opening up, you can have that there without making him an all out bad guy or terrorist enabler. (....or hell if you really wanna do that ,at least leave him and the Purist stuff for the Living Story instead of resolving it in the main storyline) And yeah, I agree that the Glint Legacy got shafted really hard when it comes to the whole replacement idea. Unless Aurene is gonna make new eggs to fulfill that part and allow others to grow new empathetic Dragons in case something should happen to her, then I dunno. Hell we haven't even seen Glint (or Vlast) despite her supposed continued existence in the Mists for her insight on these matters. I dunno.

I'm actually glad we're done with big godly plot points,I rather have more antagonist like Joko, though maybe I'd like so see Lissa be a new antagonist. Overall the expansion was what I wanted a end to the dragons. Tyria dosent feel smaller to me it feels like we're free to go anywhere now, if anything it feels bigger now.

Dragons being over and them being the makers of the world I’m honestly excited about, interested in actually getting plot points that won’t result in the world or Tyria being fully destroyed.

I thought the sort of unclear nature of Void works very well with the story and I interpreted it as this: Void is just the prescience of all magic, unfiltered and combined. Soo-Wan traveling through the mists or whatever, found a high concentration of Void magic, and by creating the Elder Dragons, was able to properly sort it into what became Tyria. Void fits well with the season 3 lore of dragons combining magic, and as we killed more, the Void was closer to being reformed through the Elder Dragons. Kralkattorik was essentially a damn close representation of Void because he had the most magic of any Elder Dragon in season 4. Aurene asking “why do they all go mad?” Also fits well, and (as much as I hate to say it) gives a more plausible reason for Primordus and Jormag’s battle at the end of IBS. The prismatic nature of Aurene means she can separate the types of magic without the Void re-emerging. All and all I think it’s a pretty good cop-out, but the constant use of different terms like dragon void, void, corrupted magic and other stuff like that makes it unnecessarily complicated to understand.

From the story I didn't get Soo-Won as this creation deity, more like a being that was already there when the world was in it's infancy and she influenced it by making her children who then became an integral part of the world. Ankka wasn't really much of an anarchist, as she was a full blown nihilist. It's not just that she despised gods and those who wanted to obtain power, it's that she knew it always ended up badly, so why even bother and why not just let the world end on it's own. What I most dislike about the story is the retcon to make the Deep Sea Dragon, the most mysterious of dragons that we only heard very ominous snippets about, be completely benevolent and her supposed minions, the tentacled horrrors made out of water, aren't actually her minions but something she kept at bay when she was in the Unending Ocean. Remember that concept art of the giant tidal wave with gigantic hydra creatures coming onto Lion's Arch?? That's what I wanted. I hope we still get it and that the separation of the deep sea horrors and the dragon wasn't just a convenient excuse to allow for the current story, but it feels bitter to me. The mystery of DSD just didn't pay off to me.

The void is where I started getting lost as well. I love it when stories don't necessarily tell me everything and I'm left filling in the blanks about some of the mysteries. It's the pleasure in speculating I s'pose. Not worth much, but I'd have done it so that Soo-Won had been petrified by the Jade Wind and then excavated by Joon and used to power up Cantha. This would explain how we know so little about her, let alone her name. Like imagine learning that the giant pillar inside of New Kaineng is actually the water dragon petrified and hidden in plain sight. Leeched off as a battery to power up the jade tech. The void could be the result of something festering inside as a result of her magic being contained for so long and the her nefarious jade prison holding her captive and dormant. And as the jade tech grows increasingly more unstable and the void activity increasing, to have the jade pillar split open as part of the story or meta. \o/

Was soo-won the creator of the entire world? Going through the story, and seeing all the different diagloue options with her, it seemed like she just created the dragons, not the entire world itself, to help stabilize the magic that was otherwise maintaining the void, so while I guess because she stopped the void from just consuming whatever was created, I don't think she had direct control over all of Tyria, it formed into what it did because the void was no longer constantly consuming itself. I didn't really think any of the mystery of what the rest of the planet might be like was lost from that story, it still can hold many secrets even the dragons didn't know about

While I agree that them showing that Soo-Won is the be all end all “big thing” kind of sucks, and ruins a lot of mystery. I don’t necessarily think it means they have to top the elder dragons by going to the mists or inventing something bigger. I think something that maybe points in the other direction of that is that one NPC that talks about something in the deep that the water dragon was keeping away. Maybe the dragons were keeping much more interesting and evil things at bay, and that’s where they could go next. Which in turn will bring back this mystery feeling.

What you said about how good the Ankka story arc was and how the story changed after her death, only confirms again my opinion that Guild Wars 2 is at its best when it deals with "human" antagonists. Or better to say antagonists we can understand, we can reason with. And which are not godlike entities. I liked the White Mantle and Caudecus, I loved Joko and Ankka. And from all the Elder Dragons, I liked Jormag the most because she talked to us. She tried to manipulate. We were able to reason about her motives. She was not just a "natural desaster".

Considering this is a living story, one that has branched ten years, multiple writers (perhaps even writing teams), modes of delivering story, and quality/standard of story delivery, it's pretty impressive that there is satisfaction in the ending at all. Void magic being the handy catch-all for magic and dragon corruption allows them to have a bit of clarity for a conclusion, and also allows them to really tie together some of the dangling plot threads from the previous stories. One thing I think all of this is born from is that it's a good story. End of Dragons feels short narratively in the final act because they normally do, and this is something that Anet have to work on in future, but it's also because if we could have our way as GW2 fans, I wouldn't want that quality of storytelling to end either. It's just so good having content that is consistently exciting and engaging, even if all the story beats don't resonate as satisfyingly as you'd hope. As for the clean break itself, I think they can achieve this whilst still having lingering characters from the Dragon Cycle story. The characters can exist separately of that narrative in the same way presumably that the Commander will - moving onto new things, seeing what the world of Tyria has to offer now that the threat of the Elder Dragons is gone. Aurene still being around is a weird surprise, but I don't think her presence is implicit in her survival. From what I understand, a large part of the dragon cycle is their slumber, right? Now that the magic of Tyria has stabilized, she might enter her own hibernation, which would nix her from the story entirely. EoD is a satisfying story (in my experience, anyways) - and it leaves me very excited for what comes next. I think as well, as with most large content releases, it just reminds you how good this game can be. It was an expansion that made me sit back at the end of it all and say "Thank god we have GW2, this game kicks ass."

While I loved the story until the Jade Sea, I think this expansion has to be followed by news of what is coming next, and soon. The player base is divisive right now, and the turtle being ungated will only heal that so much. We need a bread crumb of direction, if for no other reason, than as a distraction.

I don't really understand why people take such offense to void magic. We've seen, with every single dragon (besides Zhaitan), some form of corruption. Kralkatorrik's rage was a huge part of this but we constantly see meshing of minions like 'Death Branded Shatterers' that showed the meshing of magic. When you absorb a dragon's magic, and that dragon is the commanding force of a realm you aren't (ie. death magic absorbed by plant dragon), how does it not make sense to come to the idea that this magic entropy would tear the dragons apart? I think it's nitpicky. Addendum: Looking back on the video and your argument, I'll say that I think how the dragonvoid was shown was very weird. How they personified the void, made it some sort of malicious entity as though raw magic in it of itself would want to destroy Tyria was strange. I think if Anet went with the more 'natural universe' definition of entropy, that everything tends towards disorder, it would've been a cleaner explanation. As it stands, instead of sticking with the corruption that occurs with trying to control so many different types of magic (normal entropy), they went with a malicious monster. So I'll go with the conclusion that void as a concept makes sense, how they implemented it as a malicious, new character (The Dragonvoid) was weird.

How come no one has mentioned the flower merchant in the epilogue? It was such a random character and even to have an achievement tied to it. And this woman claimed to know us through some vague way. And she just so happened to be at the dead end bar. Was this the mysterious S character? Or am I just wishful thinking they still care about that character.

ok, about the void they VERY explicitly state that it's a combination of all the dragon magics. They even highlight that the term void is misleading because of that. Which kinda fits in with aurene perfectly. You needed 6 elder dragons because each one was able to filter out one type of magic from the combined dragonvoid, where as aurene being the prismatic dragon can just split it easily.

I half-hope that Living World Season 6 starts with Ankka flying out of the mists shouting "COMMANDER, I TOLD YOU WE NEED TO RESET."

I missed the part where it was stated that Soo-Won was the mother of all creation. As I understood it she was just mother of all the current dragons. Now Aurene is the only one until there's too much magic for her to handle. Why would they call it a cycle if these were all the dragons that ever were? I'm confused. On Ankka; she really felt like just an edgy asura whose motivations were unclear and was there just to be a one note emo kid doing edgy evil things because she hates authorities and just wants to see the world burn. And then she just dies. The voice actress did a good job but I'm not sure if there's enough character there to really talk about. At least Scarlet's character-arc was somewhat redeemed in the end.

The Soo-Won "God of Creation" thing just bothers the heck out of me. Also that she is the mother of all other Elder Dragons is just.. why ArenaNet, why? So much mystery about where those creatures, who look all vastly different from one another and have close to zero ressemmblance to their mother Soo-Won, is basically gone. She is the highest being we know of in Tyria (except Aurene). The world just got so much smaller and I also do think that this really didn't help the "powerlevel dilemma". This could very well be the beginning of Dragon Ball in Guild Wars 2 - especially when we think about that we have Aurene, a creature with godlike powers, at our command. Where should this feeling of threat come from now? The Void? Maybe Demons? The other gods that left Tyria? We would need something incredibly strong OR cunning to get us to a critical level of concern right now. And I know - it doesn't always have to be a bigger and better enemy to be able to have a good story. But what about the selling point of a future expansion? The biggest, most ICONIC story - no, THE story of Guild Wars 2 has now ended. The Dragons are no more, Tyria is free at last. ArenaNet has to get out the big guns to create interest in another expansion - for current players and new ones alike. I highly doubt that people would pay money for an Aetherblade or Zephyrite Expansion - there has to be something BIG that makes you wanna play the game and experience the story behind it. That always works best with a big bad villain, a truly evil one at best, that we have to unite against and defeat. No space pirate, no anti-dreamer, no "I-dont-want-change-in-politics" kinda guy. I did hope for a little bit more of nostalgia to hit me to be honest. I am sad that we don't hear those iconic soundtracks from Gw1 Factions in certain areas of the game. I know, ArenaNet parted ways with Jeremy Soule and maybe that is the reason why there aren't any old songs that are played. It still disappoints me and is quite ridiculous if you think about it: if you wan't to listen to the "Kurzick Theme" you can visit Lake Doric, an area introduced in Living World where we fight against the White Mantle. It isn't playing in Echowald Forrest though.. All in all this expansion didn't really hit it for me. I am curious what comes next.

Ankah got crazy because, when the aetherblades were lost in the mists, with no way out, the solution they went for was jumping through the mists and killing themselves in other dimensions repeatedly, till they got their fleet working again. While Mai Trin wasn't able to do it, Ankkah went ahead, loosing a lot of her innocence along the way. Most importantly, she realised how feeble the world is and by jumping through different dimensions, nothing really mattered. That, if nothing matters, it'll be better when it happens quick. It'll be freeing everyone from pain and suffering. Feelings she accoumulated while stuck in the mists, forced to do the things she did. I liked that. What i didn't like, was the fact that they went Scarlet 2.0 on her and gave her too much powers. While the Aurene sucking beam was kinda okay, because Asura, she then went ahead with harnessing and kinda controlling Zaithan Dragon magic, implying the ability to use other dragons as well and kinda using Void Dragon Magic towards the end... Consolidating a bit too much power, for my taste. Even with the Harbinger description, she did it grand scale.

Feeling a lot of the same thoughts WP, especially your bits about length of story. It has always felt weird to me in all of the GW2 expansions that if I really pay attention to progressing the story, the entire thing can be completely finished in about 2 - 3 days at a non-rushed pace. That feels incredibly short for the main story, especially when you compare it to other current MMO expansions or GW1 campaigns. It's all just so smushed together into these 5 acts, which sounds like a decent number, but then you look at the fact that the latter half of them only have 3ish story steps each. To me, that's what REALLY makes the expansion feel rushed rather than anything balance or bug related, but you kinda gotta give the company some slack considering the past few years of development struggles. My other big letdown is Soo-Won as a concept in general. The deep sea dragon was set up to be SOOOO COOL from past lore. I always imagined that since each dragon had 2 spheres of influence, the DSD would be the dragon of water and fear/terror with all the talk of "horrors in the depths" pushing out the krait, quaggan, and karka. Then we get.... Mother Soo-Won, who while beautifully modeled, was NOT what they made her out to be all those years ago in the priory library. We never even actually got to see any of her personal minions (unless you count the jade maw, but who knows anymore), just a whole bunch of void corrupted minions of the other 5. As a whole, she really felt shoehorned into the plot because they wanted to wrap up both the elder dragon and "mother" storylines that they forced onto themselves and we don't get the terrifying badass gigantic deep-sea kraken that we always wanted. The expansion is awesome overall, don't get me wrong, but it (along with the Icebrood Saga) have really taught me to temper my expectations with Anet when it comes to story. They are somehow both amazing and terrible at telling their stories at the same time. EDIT: One final thought, I think a major reason that GW2 story suffers a lot of the time is that Anet is so scared to kill off important characters unless it's convenient for them like Eir and Zojja (not dead but may as well be?), whereas they are happy to kill off new interesting characters like Ankka waaaaay too soon. I firmly believe that, AT MINIMUM, Aurene and Taimi should have died in this expac for their own reasons. For this being the massive worldwide apocalyptic event that it was, we got such a simple light hearted happy ending and even a damn proposal immediately afterwords without any need for grieving or mourning. Felt super shallow to me.

I thought the void stuff was a fairly logical place to take the story. While I would have preferred to get more with it, I really liked the eldritch-horror vibe of what we did get with it. However, I am ready to move on from world-ending threats and focus on more domestic, political, character-based stories which is where I think Anet does their best stuff, which this definitely feels like we are moving towards, so overall really positive impressions. Also, that Ankka/Mai cutscene was probably one of the biggest highlights for me, probably the single most point where I was most invested in the story as it was happening.

Separate thought: I can't BELIEVE they didn't tease whats next in the golden path. There's hints all over the world as you say, but they really needed a "post credits stinger" sort of moment like PoF had with Kralk after you kill Balth. They've had to correct people SO MANY TIMES that this was the end of Gw2 as a game, tell people "THERES MORE COMING" in the dang story.

It felt short to me and POF felt longer. For some reason I had the idea in my head that there were 5 chapters like Diablo. It felt like I was on chapter 2 in my head…but then the credits were rolling. I was a bit sad.

Great review. I felt like there was a big arc missing from the story towards the end, where the void would have been looked into and we would have put together the army to take on the last map. Things happen so fast towards the end that it totally took me out of the story.

10:38 Best part about integrating strike missions into the story, is easing the player into the mechanics of the strike mission. The strike mission is harder than the story instance, but the player has already learned most mechanics before entering their first strike mission, which means a lot.

I think void magic isn’t just a convenient fit. To my understanding void is a highly volatile combination of all types of magic that is so unstable it breaks reality. Throughout 10 years of this game this has been foreshadowed in both the story and the enemies combining sources of magic (e.g. death branded shatterer). The Dragonvoid on the other hand does feel like a convenient fit and exists just to give us something to fight in the last story mission. I would’ve much preferred them keeping void as a primal substance that corrupts and breaks reality, rather than turning it into the being that is dragonvoid.

This expansion has been very different for me. For the past expansions, I’ve been able to play through it for hours a day; work is now a factor, so I’ve only managed to finish the story recently while exploring along the way. And I was completely blown away. My only qualm has nothing to do with the game itself. My first main was a ranger, and Untamed has been… disappointing. I like playing through expansions using the expac specs, and I think I really struggled with some combat achievements just because of how poor it feels to play. Looking forward to playing through it again on another class!

It's so hard to have to keep doing this. When IBS ended I thought "Hey, maybe it'll at least mean EoD will benefit" Now that EoD has ended my thoughts are "Hey, maybe it'll at least mean S6 will benefit" But to be honest I don't believe it

Fantastic review WP, can't help but feel we are on the same wavelength about the major beats. EoD is the best expac to date, wish that wasn't such a low bar for them to rise above. Glad the dragon stuff is done so Anet can find inspiration for better stories. They really have moved in the right direction on nearly all fronts, but there is still a ways to go before GW2 is truly delivering on the potential it has had since launch. Distance from this game has helped give perspective. I uninstalled GW2 after IBS and only reinstalled to play EoD. That time away really helped me center my feelings and criticisms for this game. There is a lot to love about it, and plenty to dislike. Every expac I feel that ratio gets better and better. Will baby steps be enough long term? Who knows.

I've been waiting for this video since I finished the story on the weekend. Highly anticipated!

After finishing the story it took me a while to decide if i liked it. I loved the visuals, how it was presented, enjoyed the maps, and also the fact it took a direction i wasnt expecting. But couldnt place what was wrong until you described the void. Think you nailed the identity of my personal hangups. Was somewhat... unsatisfying (for lack of a better term)

I really hope the next big story doesn’t have to do with the mists. I want them to take the temperature down and do a more grounded conflict for a bit in a new part of the world now that they’ve covered all the areas from GW1.

4:42 I actually hate that mention of Zojja. I was furious, almost INSULTED when Taimi literlly says "I don't even know where Zojja is" - Because since the fall of Primordus Zojja has ZERO stakes in the story of this franchise. And ANet knows it, they just don't have the balls to let her die. ANet didn't have her there when Balthazar tried to wake Primordus, the Nemesis of the Asuran race, in Season 3. ANet didn't have her there against Kralkatorrik, the original Nemesis of Destiny's Edge, in Path of Fire and Season 4. ANet didn't have her there in the clash of Jormag and Primordus in the IBS. There is NO REASON left for her to be in this story anymore... And NOW... *NOW* they mention her? Acknowledging her existence for the first time in almost *5 YEARS* and not even bring her in to WITNESS the fall of the last Elder Dragon. And on top of all of that HER CLOSEST STUDENT doesn't even KNOW where she is??? I wouldn't even be mad if she said "Zojja is still in medical care" or even "Zojja passed away two months ago". But THIS was one of the WORST parts of this entire expansion. And before anyone comes at me with the old argument about her voice talent: NO! I understood it in HoT, but if they wanted her back after *OVER 6 YEARS* they'd have recast her and be done with it. They've done it before (with the Commander no less) they can do it with Zojja.

Imagine an alternative End of Dragons where Primordus and Jormag did not die but instead fled to Cantha, leaving a frozen and boiling trail across the sea that we were to follow. Denied entry into Kaineng and threatened as attackers, we learn that there has been an attack on New Kaineng -- Mother. Jormag and Primordus ravage the city, racing to take her magic and wound her in some way that she flees. Since she is mother and apparently able to create new dragons, her would uncontrollably "bleeds" out new manifestations of the other elder dragons (but Soo-Won sized) that terrorize the rest of the Canthan landscapes: With the help of Aurene, we swoop in and take on each of the dragons in Strikes 2.0: - "Zhaitan" taking advantage of the ruins of Old Kaineng. - "Mordremoth" winding through cathedral windows and stone roots of Echovald. - "Kralkatorrik" storming the Shing Jea Monastery. - Primordus/Jormag/Mother all around the Harvest Temple in Dragon's End. As we kill them off, Sio-Won continues to bleed out and eventually die, transferring her magic to Aurene the same(?). That doesn't make room for a lot of the other great stuff we got in EoD, but it was fun to think about how each of the other elder dragons would have appeared on the Canthan maps (or as new, Canthan versions themselves)

Arrgghhh can't wait to comeback to this, I've only just made it to dragon's end! It's been torturous seeing all the livestreams but slowly catching up can't wait to hear your thoughts, so far so many dots are being joined together

Bit late of a comment on a year+ old review, but I'm surprised you hadn't mentioned the emptiness feel of all the end of dragons zones. I hear people constantly talk about this, how lifeless the maps feel, even though there is a ton of content to be consumed in them! Out of ALL the maps in Guild Wars 2, these are the ones I spent the longest time in and I had an absolute blast. The fact that you didn't mention it either makes me think part of the community just rushed through it and didn't stop to appreciate all the details the devs put into these maps. There really is a lot of content in each of the maps, but you have to be willing to give each map a fair chance.

I liked the story overall. I agree it was too short. My biggest gripe was the chapter where we are trying to talk to Joon and we have to fight through her manor, where her traps and armies of jade mechs are trying to literally kill us, and then the ending is literally: "Okay, I changed my mind, lets be friends". I was like, Oh hell no... So yeah, Joon was my least favorite character, but Rama was cool, and the world was fun to explore. I agree, Aanka was a great character. Her staring at the edge of the mists and feeling that heavy nihilism triggers me but it makes for a good villain.

I absolutely love EOD! Even so, I think you really nail the issue that character stories quite often got in the way of the expansion's storytelling. I love Rytlock and Canach, Gorrik and Taimi, mostly because of how engaging they are, but I've never felt a special attachment to any of the others in our group of "friends." There are just too many of them and it's impossible to give each of them the time to make their characters shine. It doesn't help that I took a hiatus from early on in Season 1 up until the end of it, so I missed out on even meeting them in context, and when I picked back up with Season 2 I was left wondering why I was supposed to care about them. For instance, I sometimes get annoyed when Kasmeer jokingly scolds me because I don't have the emotional connection to her for that to feel good, even after journeying with her in PoF. Worse yet, I always forget Jory and Kasmeer are even a couple because from Season 2 onward their relationship is only ever mentioned in passing, and not very often at that. So I honestly grew impatient with how mushy and deep the two of them got throughout EOD, distracting from the more interesting narrative of Cantha and the DSD, and I really didn't feel the big emotional payoff I was clearly supposed to in the epilogue. It's unfortunate, since I know there are a lot in the community who love them, but because Season 1 isn't accessible and I can't actually establish the emotional connections, I'm continually left feeling like I'm missing out on something I should feel deeply about. While I was looking forward to the epilogue after the final battle, a story beat that was used really well in PoF for character focus, I felt very underwhelmed, and a little guilty that I did.

The conclusion is exactly the new starting point that, as you realized in the last year, was what they were aiming for. The fact that Aurene is still there and the Void "could" come maybe back doesn't change that. You maybe wanted Aurene out, I wouldn't, I would actually have been mad at the "she has gone mad so we had to kill her" route, which is a pretty stupid plot device that other games like WoW used over and over again, and at the end is just annoying to all those who actually liked that character and does nothing fundamentally interesting to the others. Yes, they keep Aurene alive and the Void "potentially" still there, but they basically repeat it OVER AND OVER in the epilogue that now every character and the world can take a new road, that's it. It's also roughly the same thing FFXIV did with their latest expansion, for similar reasons. The parallels between the two, btw, keep growing: in many ways, while playing EoD, I honestly thought Anet was trying to learn something from FFXIV here and there...

I really like the annotations of this video. Very helpful to be able to find the different parts of it. (jk love the content WP)

My question whose answer maybe I missed, is where did that extractor thing come from? Seems super powerful, like where was that for the other dragons?

@WoodenPotatoes I’m mostly of the same mind as you with End of Dragons. I was also so excited to see Primordus get his own story. I played GW1 from launch and as a GW1 fan, I was mostly invested in Jormag, Kralkatorrik, and most importantly, Primordus, because they’re who we were hinted about. Primordus was a story 12 years in the making and they flushed him down the drain! I figured it might be redeemable for me if EoD was fantastic enough, so I saved hope for that, because throughout GW2, the two dragons I’ve been most excited for were Primordus, and… The Deep Sea Dragon! I loved the idea of that Cthulhu, in the depths, style dragon. I patiently waited years for that story, however that’s not the direction they went with. This mother/serpent dragon/Kuunavang-was-also-a-dragon-champion route is also really cool, but it’s not what I was hoping for, so it doesn’t quite redeem Primordus treatment for me. I was also excited to go back to the beautiful Jade Sea and get hit with tons of nostalgia, but… The Jade Sea is hideous now imo and the only map we got in it is focused on the mega and not the lore. Now I’m here thinking about other story beats that rubbed me the wrong way. Like Balthazar all of the sudden not caring about humanity? Which made no sense. Then is killing him to prevent him from killing Kralk, when we turned around and did that even though the status quo hadn’t really changed much the next season… As a GW1 fan, I’m very bitter about the treatment of some of the GW1 lore. I still wish they had implemented some version of FoW, and they still could, but that seems unlikely to me. I’m rambling at this point, sorry. Back to my original point. I am also bothered by their decisions, and I hated the end of IBS, but I do think they felt like they HAD to go the way they did. I think Jormag and Primordus were always supposed to kill each other. We saw that they were each other’s weaknesses back in season 3. This was always the plan. I also think Soo-wan was always planned to be “Mother.” That’s why we never saw her minions, because she was good. And I think what happened was, NCSoft, or some higher ups at Anet looked at the game and decided that the elder dragon story was holding them back from not just new stories and characters, but also from reaching out to new players. The game has steadily decreased in players over time, and I think with the layoffs and then having spent a decade on this story, they decide they HAD to end of now for the good of the game, and their company, and since they wanted to do it in a hurry, they didn’t change their original plan, so Jormag and Primordus killed each other without Primordus getting the time he deserved, and EoD had to kill Soo-wan so they could move on. Was this the right move…? Personally I say no. This ostrisized the long time fans such as myself, and they don’t really appeal the game to new players very well, so I think it mostly hurt them in the long run. I know I sound like I hate EoD and GW2 but I promise I don’t. There were so many beautiful parts to EoD, and I love Tyria so very much, in both games. But that makes all this that much more frustrating. Because it’s a year later and I’ve played EoD now, and I still feel the same way you said you felt right after Champions released. With this studio shifting their direction so much between both games and never fully delivering, what’s to make me decide to get invested in another game, should they ever do that? Sadly, I don’t trust them as a studio anymore. They don’t stick to anything long enough to fully see it through, in either game, and their dwindling player base reflects that. Sorry for the downer comment and the novel. I loved the video and I agreed with you that EoD did many things right. It was a really enjoyable time and I’m still enjoying playing the game now.

Would love to see a map comparison between factions and EoD and any poi that are similar, how they have changed etc.

Another beat that didn't satisfy me was the pay off on the trailer voiced by Kasmeer with the "this is not the country we thought it was, they don't trust us" etc. It feels like we aren't really ever on shaky ground with the Empress. We meet her once and she doesn't even feel very intimidating. She just asks what you're doing, you tell her, and she's like, oh ok.

Really interesting and eye opening experience listening to this. The issue you have with the story's focus is the same issue I have with a series called Euphoria. However, I really liked the focus in EoD. So at the end of the discussion I think it truly is an issue of relatability to the art.

One inconsistency I picked up on was how kralk's magic allegedly all went into Aurene, and even got purified... and yet it was as if the whole of his magic had returned to the dragonvoid

I loved the presentation of it all, and agree with you on almost all of your points. In super intrigued to see what they do next. Is it time for a gw2 mysteries / lore / unfinished stories deep dive to speculate what's next? On a side note: for some reason I thought Navan was Lyssa in disguise. I'm sure there was a moment in one of the dialogues she has where I thought she was talking about Balthazar. But guess I was wrong.

Nothing has changed man.. game was ahead of its time in 2012 but now its been stuck in 2015 for 7 years

Loved the review!!!

Coming late to this, but I wanted to vent somewhere :) So for the past 10 years we've been killing Elder Dragons. Soo-Won, must have known, but was just chilling in Cantha, like just send us a mail or something and tell us to stop, use telepathy or whatever. Also we have an incredibly difficult time killing most of the Elder Dragons, raising armies of all sentient races across continents and fulfiling ancient prophesies, but Anka, just comes and wrecks the CREATOR OF ALL ELDER DRAGONS AND OUR UNIVERSE, with amazing ease cause she has a special little cannon. Last part of my internet rant, for a big part of the story, while reality is on the brink of fading away and the whole world getting destroyed, us, the commander who has participated in the killing of many Elder Dragons, have turned to a goddamn errand boy for bureaucrats! There are many many things that I liked, but this is a rant, so I only mention the stuff that annoyed me the most

You mention the strikes and mechanics, but wanna say, you can still alt-tab in most boss fights and your npc will eventually kill everything, in order to skip as much story as possible I just start conversations or fights, alt-tab for awhile, tab back in and boom done, is great that NPC's help. When I arrived at Kaineng city on my Skimmer as I Dumped the NPC into the water, I got to the first fight, alt tabbed, forgot about the game playing btd6, alt tabbed back and had my jade bot, quite convenient.

They didn't say that Soo-wan created Tyria, they said she was the origin of magic there

I was surprised with Minister Li and Joon i was thinking that Joon will be that perfect looking character and at the end it will be revealed that she is a villain and we will convince Minister Li that we are on their side and he will reveal that he is good he just wasn't trusting us because he was fooled by Joon then after they showed that mai trin was revenant and had scarlet with her controlling her i thought that maybe we will see scarlet as a big bad again but NO it was just so simple i couldn't believe that they wrote it like this so somehow it was plot twist for me that these characters were not hiding anything.

Re: the void, I think it's really important that we don't dwell on the name and, thus, what it means in other settings. This isn't emptiness, but rather primal, chaotic magic. Maybe the concept will be broadened later, but I think it's important for our perspectives on what's happened and our speculation on what's to come that we keep in mind that this is "GW void" and only that. Damn, it lights my imagination on fire, though, that a fundamental part of nature is fundamentally flawed and at odds with the rest of reality. Perhaps this is true in all realms, and worlds without Elder Dragon inevitably break. Maybe that's why the Six fled their previous home, seeking a world with magic that works. Perhaps they lingered on Tyria because they thought it safe, unaware of the Elder Dragons and their effect on the world. Oh, the possibilities!

Finally finished the story yesterday. Great timing :)

What I don't get and what I'm kinda mad about, because this "we don't care about our world anymore, only about characters" destroyed GW2 for me is, that why TF they don't just move on to a Singleplayer Project, where they can live out their artistic endeavour for creating their dream characters and place them in some generic fantasy setting, which doesn't really matter. I would see the writing team would do a good job programming a dating sim. This is not said with ill intent, dating sims have their own nice community and they have the potential to become popular among these people. They would be happy creating what they want and their fanbase would be happy with the dating sims they could produce. From an MMO POV: like you said, the characters are blunt. For some they may be interesting and quirky and this is why they like them, but also for me they're a boring and kinda annoing nuisance. I would have love to known more about the world and its Lore. The characters should just be nice details in an MMO, not their main focus point.

Hi WP, I listened to your EoD story review while at work. I would agree with a lot of it. What I would like to delve into unpacking and speculating on is Anet's new void magic concept and how they may have sowed the seeds of it much earlier on in previous content patches and story bits. I believe they have seeded the concept of void all the way back in the Deepstone(Deldrimor Ruins) fractal and Sunqua Peak Fractal(specifically the CM fight part 2, though I don't yet have any ideas formed how that fits in with my theories yet), and possibly elsewhere that I can't think of right now or I'm likely unaware of. In this fractal i think all the black magic is actually void magic, and that it is connected to the ancient spider gods such as Arachnia. Another idea I am considering is that this fractal is actually a manifestation of echoes of events that have not yet come to pass. I base this on the Jade Maw that was added in Dragon's End. An open world event that was preceded by a fractal. Obviously its slightly different in its setting from the fractal but mechanically it is extremely similar. I suggesting that, as fractals have been used in the past to look backwards into past events, Anet is sneakily using them to allow us to possibly peak forward into possible future threads of events. In Deepstone the characters speak about a guild, in GW2 there's only 2 notable guilds at all relevant in the story; Destiny's Edge(which is done) and Dragon's Watch which is stated in the EoD epilogue in Deadend Tavern that it will continue on with us, possibly under another name since dragons will no longer be a viable focus of the guild. I'm thinking these characters are from a distant future version of Dragon's Watch. Would like to know your thoughts.

Best part of the story for me is a event that happens in the kaineng city map, the giant rocks in the south were some guy is doing something, I forgot the details but it made me laugh a ton. His "NOPE" is gold.

The one thing that super bothered me at the end of the story was lack of consequence shown to the players. I was really hoping we would see some major allies die. When the void spreads across the world it suggests mass destruction and death is happening, but it's not shown to us. If lets say Logan, Ivan, Ayumi or others died it would have stuck the landing better.

the cycle reaborn maybe means, at the star there was only one Dargon Soo won and now tis only Aurene left too

To me, the ending honestly had a note of Finality to it that I never had with any other Guild Wars. Which worries me a bit, because it feels not only like the end of the Dragon Saga, but the end of the Guild Wars 2 stories as a whole. Everything is done, and even our companions have moved on and done their own things. Jory and Kasmeer are married, Gorrik joined Jory and Ivan in making a detective agency, Rytlock has moved on to politics, Canach is doing rich person things, Rox has a boyfriend, Braham is coping with what he did, Taimi is helping in Cantha, and even Logan has retired to a seaside vacation home. Everyone is done with adventures and moved on, and the Commander likely has hung up his cap as well. Everything's... over. Truthfully, I would not be upset if this was actually the end of major stories for Guild Wars. Their main story is done, they've wrapped it up, and to me it feels like if they start pushing more stuff out... then they may be starting to jump the shark a bit, pushing beyond what they needed to tell. Stories have their end, and sad as it is I think Guild Wars 2's story is over.

One of the theories for possible future of "dragons" storyline I have is that ... dragons aren't dead. Not really. We see in the EoD's final battles that some aspects of EDs exist in void relatively independently. There is another big clue in HoT from Trahearne where he says that Mordremoth can be reborn in him if we let him live. That is the finale, and I honestly baffled that people forget that so easily. One of the areas of Mordremoth is mind. Guess who else was affected by Mordremoth's mindthing? Logan. But I think we can with relative confidence say that Logan is ok. Who else? Zojja. Where is she? Who the f knows. Mord lives??? Moving on. Zhaitan. I mean... is shooting the "undead" dragon with cannons enough to reaally kill it? Always seemed iffy to me. We also have Z's minions acting in Kaineng spreading what seems to be Zhaitan's corruption (might be handvawed into void thing though). For Primordus we have Braham. He can finally be turned into villain. And killed (doubt it :) ) For Jormag we have Bangar Ruinbringer. I think it would be really interesting to have his personality completely replaced by Jormag's. Kinda hammer in how hopelessly stupid his aspirations were. For deep sea dragon we have deep sea monster to explore (I like to think that Soo-Won was ashamed of her "failed" child so she was jailing them and did not want to remember about them during EoD story). The only one that I think can't be brought back is Kralk. But we have his shinier replacement in Aurene so there's that. p.s.: would be good to gather evidence and post longpost about dragons on reddit or forums but I'm too lazy now)

I feel like the void as described is actually a pretty interesting idea after thinking idea. It as described represents the union of everything. how in a sense the world wants to return to a unified state. And how the more different types of magic you filter the closer you get to this idea yourself.

Main criticism of the Voice Acting, too many of the same / similar voice in proximity of each other. I know they want to have big names, but anyone who plays games with members of the Critical Role cast for example can clearly tell when it’s one of those VA's. Kind of like back in Icebrood when you would hear Brahams voice actor then as you stroll away you immediately have a dominant dialogue from unnamed Charr that clearly has the same voice actor doing a negligibly different Voice. My main issue with Annka was just that she was Scarlet but empty instead of Joker styled insane. She basically reminded me of Owlman from the DC comics where he is like “Oh nothing really matters so let’s just destroy all the Multiverse in one go”. Design wise I did like her though. My major minor gripe would be the last segment when you are being encouraged by your allies and going back through previous stories. This was a perfect opportunity to let us interact with the uncorrupted minds of the Elder Dragons, an opportunity for us to hear Zhaitans voice (Poor Zhaitan will forever be trapped stuck to that Tower in Orr and I hate it), an opportunity to fill in some gaps. Did the cleansing ritual perform on Glint for example tie in? How do the Human Gods tie into what Soo-Won told us? There is still plenty to room to speculate, as for your upset with Void, you could kind of say that before with “The Mists”. The one biggest thing I’ve got out of this expansion, we have now visited all the GW1 main civilisations now. OK we won’t move on straight away, but we can have a season now where we do clean up, we can have some slice of life. For the first time in a good while we don’t have to rush straight into a high stakes story, we can actually enjoy the calm. GW2 for the longest time has been this constant increasing pressure and while I know some people won’t want slice of life, I genuinely think the characters themselves deserve it. So, in the next season I’d like to see this happening as signs of what we are going into next get set up, or as we investigate some remaining GW mysteries that have been left as far back as GW1. I am also curious to see how they begin to distance us from Aurene given they may wish to add more races and set up for a new Campaign where the main character doesn’t HAVE to be the Commander. I will say this WP, Aurene going crazy would be very boring to me. To me she was just having fun and chuckling at the idea of how ignorant some individuals are. As for why she can filter the magic, I'm hoping it tied to the idea that the ritual performed on Glint somehow affected her offspring. Though in all honesty I don’t see this ever getting explored.

Gonna make comments as the video goes :) In terms of length this felt the shortest, I used only my skimmer for travelling but I think it was because there was no necessity for masteries, I would just kinda keep going cuz I can't play a lot with work. With Soo-won being the creator I thought it implied soo won spawned from the void, but I also feel like if we actually saw soo won's strength instead of her just instantly getting merked by annka. I completely agree with your disconnect with the void, I feel like it's had the same issue with jormag where were presented with this smart and conscious evil antimagic but we just quickly hit it with the power of aurene so nothing really validates their strength. Aurene being completely fine with all the dragon magic and not having any issues with the craziness also makes the elder dragons seem weaker, I would've loved if we had to slap her around maybe Completely agree about the characters, you're almost always at a point where you can always tell what their thinking. Rytlock automatically telling us he was gonna sit this one out made me so annoyed, I feel like he would've been jealous of the aetherblade fight. (which unfortunately was the highlight for me) In terms of the story being too reliant on dragons and past history, I have to say what's the point in investing in a story that people know has brushed off it's core story. Maybe it's because I'm a lore nerd but I don't understand why someone would want to join an MMO that failed to deliver half of its core concept story

I think Joon was a great character as well, at least I was suspecting of her being evil until the mansion instance where we find out her motivations. She does fall in a bit in the trope the genius with all the answers, similar to how Taimi was in LS3 but overall she was great I feel. Aside from her genius, I find her a very believable character. She has a family! She has history with a lot of the characters from Cantha, she seems rooted in the world in a way few characters are in Gw2.

I haven't seen Li as a villain at all until he was revealed to be the Purist leader. From what we've seen of him until our fight he only came across to me as a guy who wants to do his job. It seems to me that Cantha was neither looking for establishing a new connection with Tyria nor had any need for it whatsoever, it's clearly in the top 2 of the most advanced known civilizations. For us to engage the openning of their borders is not some objective good and a definite sign of progress, and by the same token if a canthan citizen is not posivive about foreigners being introduced to his country it doesn't make him de facto evil.

I think you have been spot in with your analysis. And thats not even getting into metas or builds, nerfs etc.. i personally feel its just two seperate teams that have done this story when the game first started all tbe way up to this point. I mean the delivery in terms of cool cinematics or that blend us into the dream state aurene was in point was really cool.. but i felt they were simply rushing it for rushing it's sake.

Just finished the video and as someone who loves and still plays Guild Wars 1 and has preordered but not played the expansion yet. I have to ask. What about Cantha? How is the empire doing? The Luxons and Kurzicks? Are the human characters shocked that humanity doesn't just existed in Divinity's reach and 5 farms? Why is the technology in Can the so different (from the trailers at least)

It makes me so happy that this game is getting some much deserved love again. I can't wait to check all of this out for myself, once i can get back to work irl and can afford the xpac.

So E is funding the detective agency still. Whoever it is, they had better live in the Wizard's Tower and have a fish tank full of Largos.

Great video! I just finished EoD. I resonate with you where I felt the stories and plots are so rushed. I wished they would slow down and spend more time to explain Soo-Won, Dragon Cycle, New cycle, Void, etc I thought Void manifested itself since Seasion 3, at least that's how I view/rationalise this. Void is the raw, chaotic magic, where Soo-Won had to split them up into multiple spectrums, like light to rainbow colours, to control it. Hence, she created the elder dragons to contain and store each aspect of Void. As each elder dragon dies, the merging to each magic since Season 3 creates the progression for Void to manifest itself. We first saw this on Season 3 Rising Flame, where Zaitan, Mordremoth and Primodius magic mixed together. We saw the new creations and a glimp of Void on the island. Then we reach Season 4, where the mix of magics drove Kralkatorrik mad. I wish they drew a link from here to Void, or many they just assume we can draw our own conclusion? While writing up through this theory, I just realised that, Could Anet be playing with the word 'prism', where spliting/filtering the light into different colours (rainbow)? Could a prismatic dragon (Aurene) able to split/filter the Void into different aspect naturally? Hence Aurene is not affected by Void? Shes anti Void, hence she's the only Elder Dragon we need? No more cycle? I think Soo-Wan was just a creator of Elder Dragons to contain the Void Magic. I didn't read or get any vibe that she's the 'Mother of all creation'. Is there a section of lore i missed?

I must say I find it funny because I thought Minister Li was going to be the reluctant ally where him and the commander put aside their differences and Joon was gonna turn out to be a power hungry villain. That scene taking the elevator up to the top of min sec I was fully expecting to see Joon there turn on us because of what happened with the water dragon. It turned into a bit of a plot twist for me. It really is interesting how different people can see things so differently probably due to past experiences etc.

Awesome review, I totally agree that some story beats are being rushed. In my view, the entire 'cycle is reborn' line refers to the Elder dragons being put to sleep and awaken causing chaos on the world has now ended. I do see this as an end to the OG elder dragons and Aurene being a new 'type' of dragon will most likely result to other conflict, as you mentioned something to do with the Mists and now the Void magic. I always had a sense that we'll be heading towards the mists at this pace.

That's what I love about you, top notch till the end! But I am coming a little late to this party and I wonder how you feel about all of this now that we know about Season 1, Season 6 and exp 4 coming out.

I really enjoyed the epilogue in the tavern. I wore my Common Clothing outfit and soaked it in a bit. I even talked to Frostbite over in the corner. Regarding what comes next now that the dragons are out of the way... Perhaps in the next expansion they will finally introduce a new race(s), where new players can start off with a character that knows nothing about the story thus far and levels up quickly in their starting area. Something like the pandas in WoW.

Yeah I felt the whole Aurene and Dragonvoid story felt too inconsequential and hand wavey. Also, the introduction of that Extractor thing felt a bit too convenient. Something about the Void: I think that actually might have been planned to appear in the Icebrood Saga before they switched to an expac. Remember how in the lead-up to the IBS they were talking about some Lovecraftian horror stuff appearing? That's the Void. Sure, Bjora had some horror stuff, but that didn't really feel Lovecraftian. The Void, however, is cosmic; it's incomprehensible how terrifying it is. All big Lovecraftian facets. If the saga had gone on as originally planned, maybe that would have given more room to explore the Void, who knows

I always hoped they would portray the Elder Dragons as essentially what happened when Tyrian evolution gave birth to a magical apex predator. So essentially dragons popped up naturally but eventually became so tapped into magic that some of them consumed so much that they became as powerful as Elder Dragons, becoming addicted and then insane (like we saw when ordinary mortals were exposed to too much magic in Bloodstone Fen). You can still slot Soo-Won and even the Void right after that (concentrating so much magic and corrupting it would have caused the Void to surface on Tyria. Soo-Won, realising the danger would then have taken similar action to what we saw in EoD). It also allows for other Elder Dragons we know nothing about to have already been killed in the ancient past (for example there is an orb in Orr that looks like the hearts of Elder Dragons we have seen in other areas of the game). And that just adds even more mystery to the world, giving it an iceberg like feel. As if so much has happened that we could never even know it all. But that means we can never stop discovering more.

Watching this late, since I just finished the story. But I agree with the void stuff. I just didn't understand what or where it came from. It felt kinda out of no where. So after defeating it, I'm not sure how it was to be, or if it will come back or anything. I feel uneasy towards it.

After the Jormag and Primordius incident, I legit quit the game. Was playing since GW prophecies, but yeah it was too much. I didn't even get EoD, after waiting for cantha for SO many years. Now, I don't even want to get there. And hearing that they basically threw some big lore stuff out the window got me like "Yep, I'm done with this lore" :( Especially after having experienced what I consider to be my best gaming experience in my entire life on another game. Still, I love watching your content WP, and I'm still looking forward to your adventures in Tyria. Maybe one day, maybe, I'll come back. Hope you are doing great man, big cheers and keep up with the good content

While I liked the story overall, I really don't like that they focus so much on their characters, when I don't really feel anything about them. Marjory and Kasmeer are always just flirting or playing the couple, with not much interesting other character traits taking the stage (at least in my perception). Now we have a potential other couple with Gorrik and Taimi, so their characters become less interesting as more is focused on that front. I normally like romance in stories, but I dunno, it kinda does not fit there. On the other hand, other characters that are a breath of fresh air either get killed off way too quickly, or shoved to the side. Mai Trin on a redemption story could have been super interesting for the whole expansion, and maybe even the story after. Her being possessed by Scarlett would make for some interesting situations as well. But no, she immediately gets killed, just like Ankka. At this point everyone will be a happy family, and there will not be much more to explore. Really a shame.

It's a cycle because it started with 1 dragon (Soo-Won) and ended with 1 dragon (Aurene) and it's a cycle reborn because they're not the same fucking dragon.

Would love to hear your take of where you think the story is going to go next!

For your notes on content amount, WP- I am a casual player who played through End of Dragons as often as I could since launch (which has been roughly once a week) and I just finished the story this week. So personally the level of content was dang near perfect, if not almost too much, because I was able to finish it before the next release date, but I didn't have any time to run side achievements.

However good or bad void is I wouldn't worry about it much going forward. Your thesis was that they are rushing through ending dragons because they are done with dragons. By association I think they are done with dragon magic too. Aurene even tells us in the epilogue that Void isn't going to be a problem for a long time. That's probably why they also info dumped us instead of dragging out the mystery because it's not one they are going to want to revisit much. I do see a lot of players wanting to retcon "everything" into void magic but let's not blame Anet as long as they don't go there. So far it's only been deployed in limited ways. For instance, the kind of "corruption" that Void is has nothing to do with Orrian corruption, i.e. Zhaitan's influence, or what Glint was cleansed of that made her Kralkatorrik's slave. The dragons have been keeping magic pure and distinct until we started killing them; this is what introduced specifically void corruption, the vine/deathtouched destroyers and such, and the madness of LS4 Kralk, and Primordus and Jormag going to war instead of playing nice. The dragons have never been nice to mortals but that does not make them "mad" in the sense that we saw in LS3 and beyond after the dead ED's magic was intermixing. Void is also a bit "easier" to understand through the lens of some East Asian philosophy like Daoism and Buddhism, which probably was some influence with them revealing it in Cantha. Void (or rather in these philosophies, Nothingness) is not just entropy and chaos, it is also pure potentiality (which makes your contrasts with the mists a bit weird.) Potentiality becomes actuality by taking a limited and determinite form; you have to become SOMEthing rather than EVERYthing; what is formless takes on form to become a distinct thing. It's a matter of carving a piece out of that primal everything that forms emerge. (As Daoism is happy to state, how the hollow rooms of a house is what makes a house useful, instead of a solid pile of bricks.) In this case the six elder dragons separate and deliniate void magic into distinct and pure domains, and all of Tyria slowly comes into being from that differentiation. So it is only entropy from the standpoint of creation returning to its original state, which is undifferentiated, it's everything at once, and it can once again take on limitations and order to become specific things. (Annka also stated as much; she expected creation to restart itself at some point after Tyria was engulfed in Void; don't let the Thermodynamics idea of entropy confuse this!) I don't know that they expressed it clearly enough in EoD but as far back as LS4 Aurene has been hailed as the "prismatic" dragon, and Kralk said that is what made Aurene different. A prism takes white light, which is a mixture of all visible light, and divides it up into a spectrum. The implication is that Aurene can take mixed (including void) dragon magic and separate it into its distinct, pure components. The magic could still travel together if it does so in paralell, just as we see with a rainbow being a band of different colors. Soo-Won as the mother of dragons also has some ability to purify and therefore separate void magic (she had to in order to create the other EDs), but isn't as strong at it due to being "attuned to water" and had to create the other EDs to help her. The epilogue also suggests that Aurene needed to absorb Soo-Won's magical essence at her death in order to be able to fully see the ley-lines, and I would surmise that is also what enables her to get a better handle on void. Each dragon she's been consuming has attuning her to more of the types of magic and Soo-Won completes the pallette. It's presented super hastily but I think the logic is all there at least.

Your hunger for Lore WP is like that of Kralkatorrik . It never ends and will eventually destroy your enjoyment. Clearly I'm joking XD

I am curious if the apocalypse that hit Earth and the gods had to evacuate humans and take them through the Mists to Tyria was the Void as well.

Thanks for playing End of Dragons so I don't have to. I quit GW2 in Path of Fire.

Great review! We're mostly on the same wavelength. I think the loss of mystery is one of the biggest issue with the way they have wrote the game. Some things should stay as a mystery so we have things to discuss and theorize. The Void felt really ham-fisted and it wasn't truly explained as to why entropy wants to actively destroy the world. Pacing was just really weird after Act 2, but the expansion had an incredibly strong starting acts. Conceptually, Void does work, but it wasn't explained and instead just handwaved in as the ultimate villain who is GW2's version of the final boss from FF14's Endwalker. Characters were really well written in this expansion. Soo-won really could have used a few more scenes before she becomes fully corrupted to explain her side of things. I loved Gorrik throughout the story. The character moments are what really drove this expansion home for me personally. Gorrik wanted to end Ankka was surprising coming from who was really just a scientist and his friendship with Detective Rama was really well done, especially if you run into them training in the final map and the character banter was on point. Ankka was a terrific villain, but after she was eliminated, it felt like the story came to near a screeching halt as they suddenly didn't have a villain driving the plot for a few missions. But when it comes to characters, I think the one that was not well written was Aurene's involvement. She teeters between wanting to take part and then saying that she shouldn't in IBS and here she suddenly is gunho on fighting Aetherblades and rescuing Gorrik. Aurene has become a deus ex machina, especially at the end where you and her essentially do a fusion dance or magical transformation into one super powerful being to defeat the Dragonvoid, although to be fair, that fight was awesome. When we literally have the powers of a dragon god and magic on our side, all the tension goes out the window. Aurene was created to be 1/6th of the solution to the whole dragon eating magic problem, but she gets a pass in as the ultimate dragon who can resolve all the issues with magic when the previous six dragons (one of whom was her grandfather and the other was her great grandmother) could not. This is beyond any degree of planning that Glint could have foreseen. I'm still not certain how we went from her being the offspring of a Crystal Dragon to her being a Prismatic Dragon. I love Aurene as someone who has watched her grow up over the years of Living World, but there are just so many contrivances taken with her abilities and her powers.

I was surprised it made me feel...not a lot. I played since the beginning, had lots of breaks lately...but i wanted to finish the story. What really is not working for me (besides you just feel the change in writers and direction and i dont think there has been a "plan" in the long run for this) is that i dont feel connected to the other NPCs. they had their moments, but i feel like all the development has been hinted but not really explored. They dont took time for it. They are there to give me quests and tell me where to go, what to do, screw up again and again so i can fight more mobs to stretch the time i have to spend on a quest. The rest is kinda flat and just wont work for me anymore. 'Also way too less time with Soo-Won to feel anything about her passing. It felt quite interesting and good until like Mai-Trin´s End. After that it felt rushed for me and left me with a "meh" Feeling.

Damn man, I need to download and get my account back up and running. I want to check out the story and play again. I miss all builds but loved condition builds with all those little stacks of numbers flowing up from all the mobs within my big aoe circles. I wonder if condition builds are still viable

There can be some powerefull indivinduals like gods in other places in tyria

I am not satisfied with how End of Dragons concluded the dragon storyline, but I can sympathize with the writers being exhausted with this story arc that is over a decade old. But I AM satisfied that the dragon story arc is finally over and we can move on to different stories FINALLY.

i think if they do more with this itll be a re-imurgence of the old gods - possibly starting with krytan gods as they fled because of the dragons and now that they are gone the gods can return to a tyria that doesnt need or potentially even respect them like they used to

11 days this has been out and i had no idea, never recommended or shown in sub box. i hate youtube