I think a lot of the problem with Stormblood stems from having two separate writers, one for each half. This caused a lot of character development to get a quiet reset when coming back for the Ala Mhigo half. As a person who adores the 14 story and has played through twice (3rd time planned in a year or so) I did not like Dawntrail. I did not like it to the degree that I haven't been able to start it with my alt. The pacing was terrible, the characterization was terrible, the story was an absolute mess. Wuk Lamat is a victim of the above and wasn't a deciding factor to me. Though I am the exact opposite on Lyse Vs Wuk Lamat. Lyse had an excuse for not understanding the realities of fighting a resistance war and how occupation affects people since she grew up pretending to be someone else in entirely different settings (hers was a lot of the character development that dropped between part 1 and 2 of Stormblood). Wuk Lamat was written like a moron. We read three or 4 library books in 6.55 and I went in knowing more about Tural than she did. She didn't even know anything about the people in her city much less the people outside of it. She would have been much better used if she had been intelligent and had been the one guiding us around and teaching us about Tural and its people. Instead we had to teach her how to wipe her nose and tie her shoes. She was also locked in a cripplingly juvenile idealism for the entire story. The wuk Lamat at the end credits was the same one at the title screen. She might have learned some things but she didn't develop from them. This story was a victim of its writing.
I'm really confused at how these multimillion dollar games can't have people just play test it before releasing. Even have someone play the story first before it gets released. My take is probably this was done in Japan and not in North America and the play testers were afraid to criticize the makers. I thought they should have significantly shortened the right of succession to about 1/4 of the game and the 3/4 could be about Alexandria. I enjoyed Shaaloani (a few people thought the break in between was weird).
The main problem with DT is the quests. They're repetitive and boring. The "Talk to Wuk Lamat" meme is too freakin' accurate; that's easily 90% of the MSQ. Take a step, talk to Wuk Lamat, take another step, talk to Wuk Lamat, go down the road, now talk to Erenville (or Krile, if the Devs felt daring that day). And it's not for any major plot beats: it's all filler info that could've been handled much better. One of the other major things I hated was Erenville's narration every time we hit a new zone. Erenville always tells us how to feel about the area -- a major writing mistake and usually a sign of piss-poor writers. A good writer never tells people how to feel. She writes the scenes and describes what we see; what we feel about it sould be an intensely personal reaction. He also narrates all the history and lore of an area in a big boring info dump (just like Lyse insisted on doing in StB); it's stuff that should be discovered by interacting with the NPCs and quests in smaller chunks and personal stories. In comparison, take Shadowbringers, when we first enter Norvrandt. We wake up in that rich purple zone, walking thru the dreamlike purple grass and weird trees and looking around. No narration. No one telling us what we're looking at or how to feel. We get no info until we bump into the familiar-looking trader, and even then, it's a natural conversation, no info dumps, no long descriptions of what we're already looking at. It's an effective, dreamlike opening, which hits like a truck a bit later when you see the trader's ring... But in DT, we get info dump after info dump after boring narrated-description-of-what-we're-seeing after boring NDOWWS. We're not allowed to see and look and feel for ourselves. The writers are violating the major rule of effective writing: Show, Don't Tell. We're *told* constantly. We're not allowed to feel for ourselves. DT is, at its core, a good story, but it's greatly flawed by bad writing and worse quest design. (Just discovered your channel a couple weeks ago, and enjoying the vids! Keep it up!)
@@thisisnotargunI agree with your point about Raubahn over Lyse, btw. I like Wuk Lamat a lot -- I HATE Lyse, mostly because she was used to completely retcon Yda out of the game. Raubahn has a ton of experience in politics & leadership. Lyse....doesn't.
Raubahn is the leader of Ala Mhigo. Lyse was the Resistance leader and afterwards became councilor to Raubahn.
ZJ is the perfect example of someone trying to break out of his father's shadow the wrong way.
I think a lot of the problem with Stormblood stems from having two separate writers, one for each half. This caused a lot of character development to get a quiet reset when coming back for the Ala Mhigo half.
As a person who adores the 14 story and has played through twice (3rd time planned in a year or so) I did not like Dawntrail. I did not like it to the degree that I haven't been able to start it with my alt. The pacing was terrible, the characterization was terrible, the story was an absolute mess.
Wuk Lamat is a victim of the above and wasn't a deciding factor to me. Though I am the exact opposite on Lyse Vs Wuk Lamat. Lyse had an excuse for not understanding the realities of fighting a resistance war and how occupation affects people since she grew up pretending to be someone else in entirely different settings (hers was a lot of the character development that dropped between part 1 and 2 of Stormblood).
Wuk Lamat was written like a moron. We read three or 4 library books in 6.55 and I went in knowing more about Tural than she did. She didn't even know anything about the people in her city much less the people outside of it. She would have been much better used if she had been intelligent and had been the one guiding us around and teaching us about Tural and its people. Instead we had to teach her how to wipe her nose and tie her shoes. She was also locked in a cripplingly juvenile idealism for the entire story. The wuk Lamat at the end credits was the same one at the title screen. She might have learned some things but she didn't develop from them.
This story was a victim of its writing.
I'm really confused at how these multimillion dollar games can't have people just play test it before releasing. Even have someone play the story first before it gets released. My take is probably this was done in Japan and not in North America and the play testers were afraid to criticize the makers. I thought they should have significantly shortened the right of succession to about 1/4 of the game and the 3/4 could be about Alexandria. I enjoyed Shaaloani (a few people thought the break in between was weird).
The main problem with DT is the quests. They're repetitive and boring. The "Talk to Wuk Lamat" meme is too freakin' accurate; that's easily 90% of the MSQ. Take a step, talk to Wuk Lamat, take another step, talk to Wuk Lamat, go down the road, now talk to Erenville (or Krile, if the Devs felt daring that day). And it's not for any major plot beats: it's all filler info that could've been handled much better.
One of the other major things I hated was Erenville's narration every time we hit a new zone. Erenville always tells us how to feel about the area -- a major writing mistake and usually a sign of piss-poor writers. A good writer never tells people how to feel. She writes the scenes and describes what we see; what we feel about it sould be an intensely personal reaction. He also narrates all the history and lore of an area in a big boring info dump (just like Lyse insisted on doing in StB); it's stuff that should be discovered by interacting with the NPCs and quests in smaller chunks and personal stories.
In comparison, take Shadowbringers, when we first enter Norvrandt. We wake up in that rich purple zone, walking thru the dreamlike purple grass and weird trees and looking around. No narration. No one telling us what we're looking at or how to feel. We get no info until we bump into the familiar-looking trader, and even then, it's a natural conversation, no info dumps, no long descriptions of what we're already looking at. It's an effective, dreamlike opening, which hits like a truck a bit later when you see the trader's ring...
But in DT, we get info dump after info dump after boring narrated-description-of-what-we're-seeing after boring NDOWWS. We're not allowed to see and look and feel for ourselves. The writers are violating the major rule of effective writing: Show, Don't Tell. We're *told* constantly. We're not allowed to feel for ourselves.
DT is, at its core, a good story, but it's greatly flawed by bad writing and worse quest design.
(Just discovered your channel a couple weeks ago, and enjoying the vids! Keep it up!)
All fair points. Thanks for watching man!
@@thisisnotargunI agree with your point about Raubahn over Lyse, btw. I like Wuk Lamat a lot -- I HATE Lyse, mostly because she was used to completely retcon Yda out of the game. Raubahn has a ton of experience in politics & leadership. Lyse....doesn't.
Yeah, you know Lyse is bad when you kinda wish you still had Yda. Imo