thats literally what wom was lmao
ok now I want vetex to spend time before nimbus sea rewriting the bronze sea to visit ravenna early on and actually meet people
like my biggest issue was that elius and carina literally just… didn’t exist in the war seas until their very boss fight.
there’s NO mention of ANYTHING related to them beforehand, and the only acknowledgment afterwards is a guy that mentions they’re his children
like I honestly don’t understand the point of the order tab where you unveil identity when you are downright fucking told exactly who they are before you get the last clue nor have you ever met them before.
it’s kind of useless to show me “oh damn general argos is the baron” when we have literally only heard of him like once or twice, those being inside of the fort and we then go show up and beat his shit in right afterwards
Not super good with blockquotes but I like a lot of the points you made.
Shonen vs Mystery
This part I critiqued with the whole ‘web of intrigue’ thing the most was how there was no proper mystery to be had. What this tries to build is a sense of mystique and interest which falls flat when there is no ‘mystery’ to be had. You’re just learning about people as you fight them essentially- this is where it differs from Elden Ring. Elden Ring can get away with this because it’s not trying to build a mystery plot in any sense, nor even attempt a vauge illusion of mystery
Ludonarrative Dissonance
It’s always going to remain fact that in games with custom protagonists there will be no ‘character’ for the protagonist. Rpgs don’t really do a heavy character focus now- and one thing I think WOM had over AO is the idea of the two opposing storylines, if you wanted to be top dog evil guy then you had a storyline for that, same for good storyline, but they were practically identical and hadn’t had time to flesh out before Vetex cancelled the continuation of development.
Here, the AO protagonist is supposed to be someone righteous, but players can slaughter dozens of innocents, kicking waterlogged shipwreck survivors back into the ocean after robbing them of their last vestiges of wealth- not actions I would say, are heroic. Nor are they actions I think characters like Warren, Morden, and Iris- who while not virtuous are at least trying to do the right thing, would approve of.
Time
The most important thing you can do for a story is give it room to breathe- and AO’s story has very little time to breathe. Morden is the most fleshed out character, even more so if you read his journal. In fact, I do wish they would play more into the characterizations Morden showed in his journal because it revealed a deep internal conflict- he wants the protagonist to be happy, to enjoy their life free of the horrific memories of experimentation, yet at the same time he is frustrated. Frustrated that he is the one that has to remember, to carry the burden of Tuckers death alone whilst you don’t even know who the dude is. It’s a good bit and honestly something I wished Morden perhaps confronts you on in the future.
Another good piece of writing is Akurius Keep. The journal there does great world building work whilst also amplifying the mystique and horror of the place, it doesn’t explain the curse, it only makes it that much more unsettling.
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can you send me picture of Morden’s diary journal pls?
I agree with all of your points, and you just write all of the stuff I feel ain’t right in the story but in cohesive paragraphed words.
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My two biggest problems with the story are:
- We never get closure or information regarding Julian. I thought General Argos was the “strongest in the Bronze Legion,” but Julian is obviously far more powerful, so is he just not in the Bronze Legion then? What’s his actual job? And we never find out what happened to him after his fight with Morden. Is he dead? Is he alive? If he lived, how?
- Lady Carina just feels like walking wasted potential. She came completely out of nowhere and served no narrative purpose. She barely reacts to what you did to Elius, she really has no reason to be his sister because that relationship never went anywhere. I was so excited learning Carina and Elius were siblings, but then the story does literally nothing with it. Like, if you’re going to kill her off, at least make her dialogue interesting first. I really wish she lived and I wish her sibling dynamic mattered more.
I can’t call this a “big” problem since it falls under the very-enjoyable “so bad it’s good” category, but Prince Revon’s dialogue is extremely over-the-top and melodramatic. I honestly thought it was supposed to be funny on purpose until I learned the story part was titled “Unsettling Promise.”
If Vetex and Tech wanted him to be scary, why make us fight him first and make him pathetically weak? Why write his dialogue to focus so much on how oblivious he is to Calvus’ true nature? There’s no way to find that “unsettling,” it makes him look stupid. It would help to make it more personal, have him say “my brother” instead of “our fair king” and focus less on how much of a “good person” Calvus was and instead how much he meant to Revon.
Or, you could scrap his “promise” entirely and just have him stare, wordlessly, in grief and anger. That would have more of an impact, and it’s scarier because you don’t know what he’s thinking. See his facial expression contort through various conflicting feelings, and focus on that long enough to make it memorable so when he comes back later in the story it doesn’t feel random. I love Revon’s dialogue as much as the next guy, but if he’s really supposed to come back later and do vicious things to the protagonist and their friends, it’s important that his Bronze Sea dialogue doesn’t come off as melodramatic or ridiculous. A bad setup can easily destroy any possible impact of a story.
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Ngl I barely remember where they got him
Lack of closure is a bit of a problem with the story in general. For example, we never learn what happened to Beringer and his Cloud Curse. Sure, we know he’s dead, but since Fort Talos was destroyed, did his curse ever get recovered? Who took it? I really hope that comes back later. I think it would make sense for the first curse user we fight to use the Cloud Curse, since not only is it weak but it was only recently made available, so its user would be inexperienced with it. That would be a nice introduction to curse users as enemies and how they work without being too difficult.
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my main problem with the story is we are way too powerful
think about it if we are able to dismantle 9% of the order
(level 100 that counts as "apprentice " plus we were under-fed and in jail for MONTHS and we are able to beat a high lord)
if we are able to kill one high-order lord why can’t we just kill all of the others?
because the way I see it the high lords are the best of the best the ones holding up the order and if he was beaten that easy what stakes do we have?
I would have liked it more if the king was the one that forced to us reawaken just to make it out to the 2nd sea alive
(for one he knows we are a threat seeing how we killed a lesser lord of the order why didn’t he prepare anything? it doesn’t fit for the order to be so reactionary if the order was more of a planner the reason he didn’t outright kill us but just jailed us can be so he can use us as bait)
all I see right now is the story is a bit of a letdown but it is just the start and keeps getting better I would love it see how it ends
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There’s also quite a bit of a lack in buildup.
For example Neviro being the Prince of Winterveil. It’s nice that we are able to communicate and ask him about the Order of Aesir, so astute people are able to ascertain that there’s something more to him than meets the eye.
However him being revealed to be the prince was way too quick, I mean we were just told about the Extermination of the Winterfell Royalty and the Ravenna’s pursuit for them. And there was only one singular appearance of him in the story and does nothing to make us think, oh perhaps that one random dude who told us about the Order of Aesir is the lost Prince.
What was supposed to clue us in? His white hair?
And there’s not much reason for him to know or try to find out about the Order of Aesir because they had NO involvement in the massacring of his family.
Still Vetex handled like pretty much all aspects of the game singlehandly, so I really shouldn’t expect or judge him for not delivering a grade A blockbuster novel material.
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I love these discussions
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There’s like, only one evidence outside of the storyline that Winterfell existed at all. (I get that it’s kind of the point, but still.)
On Munera Island, the secret spot has a blue banner with a snowflake on it, presumably the banner of Winterfell.
Come to think of it, was Neviro the one taking care of Munera? The guy on the island mentions how weird it is that part of it is pristine.
…also, my misremembered High School Spanish figured out he had something to do with Winterfell five minutes before then, I suspect his name comes from “nevar” (snow) or some equivalent.
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I think it’d be interesting if in one of the parts, you end up working with one unknowingly and end up finding out after you’ve already set things up for them, which at that point you’d have to both end their plan and to clean up the mess.
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i almost feel like it’s vaguely implied that julian survived, it really is just downright silly for a curse user to die offscreen, we didn’t even get to see the glass curse burst out from within the castle, off to end up somewhere else in the war seas
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yeah I wasn’t very interested in the whole order tab because it didn’t even feel like a mystery lmao
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The charismatic last prince of winterfell is the character needed to clean up the logistical and political mess after the overpowered entities finish throwing galaxies at each other. I hope he’s utilized more in the future 
.
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i know that this is probably gonna be adjusted later on in AO’s story while not even being part of AO AND was probably going to be expanded on but:
this is stupid. the main villain of AA was a puppet of the god who we haven’t even heard talked about in the entirety of arcane universe until this point, and it’s the god who was the LEAST fucked up of all of the greek gods. this only takes away from durza and makes NO sense. he needs an actual motive for this aside from “ooh, he’s evil” you know who was evil? DURZA. you know why he became evil? BECAUSE THE ABSORPTION CURSE IS POWERFUL AND POWER CORRUPTS
if he’s really gonna make hades evil, at least give him an actual reason to be or make him a PURE evil badass who’s so cool that it doesn’t matter. the only reason i can see for hades being behind all of this is that all the other gods (who poseidon literally referred to as FAMILY) are dead (which, not even all of them are, it feels like it’s implied that more than just hades is alive), and he doesn’t see the point in not doing it (which would also mean that he doesn’t give a damn about humanity). maybe he wants to revive them from the dead to see them again but ends up getting corrupted by the power, like durza did? there’s still tons of holes in this without just saying “yeah, he’s always been evil” which is still stupid
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i am thewhitejawa and this was my rant on a meaningless topic
Hades is literally called the last remaining god in the lore doc
Idk why you’re so pressed about Hades being evil when he’s evil in 99% of media today even if he was pretty neutral in mythology.
Also why would Hades have any sympathy for humans after they literally killed all of his family as you pointed out.
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