Have heard mixed opinions from the people I know who have finished MSQ - mostly positive though, with people liking or disliking different bits. From my point of view:
1) I loved the first half of the msq and Wuk Lamat. It was a pleasure to see her grow and I was genuinely cheering for her during the later fights! I thought she was likeable and relatable - she had a good heart, wanted to do the right thing, but lacked confidence and experience. I enjoyed being by her side and playing a nurturing role - which was much more preferable (and a lot less patronising) than wading in and being a superhero. The voice acting was very good too. Wuk <3
2) The second half I just found rather.. confusing.. and jarring, compared to the lovingly crafted areas that came before it. I'm afraid the story just didn't make sense at first. I found Zoraal's motivations unclear - first I thought he was an expansionist who wanted to lead Tural into war, then there was something about showing the people what war was like to make them dislike war? Or like war? Or something? When he came back I assume he wanted to conquer Tural, but then he just stopped and said "come get me when you feel like it". Huh?
3) The second half also introduced a whole load of sci-fi exposition that only barely made sense. They're from a world destroyed by lightning, so they live in a dome but that's also full of lightning? Where was Living Memory actually located? They turned off the memory banks so Sphene would give up, but Sphene didn't give up (or it was too late), so they deleted everyone for nothing? I would have enjoyed the rest of the story a lot more if I'd understood it.
4) The rite of succession should have been the whole of the 7.0 msq (perhaps with more time spent on Zoraal, Bakool and Koana). We would have been able to celebrate with Wuk at the end, then she'd have to deal with the threat from the dome and Zoraal in the patch quests - leading up to the revelation of the relic and maybe a trip to another reflection. As it is, I think we got two stories jammed into one with not enough time to appreciate (or understand) either. Also I think the writers need to do better than have Alphinaud say "I have experience of collecting firewood, so I'll help with that". It takes hundreds of hours to get to the latter part of msq now, and I want to be able to tell people they have something to look forward to!
5) Anyway - some more praise. The new areas looked beautiful, and the new dungeons and trials were generally great. They felt a bit harder than before (to me anyway, as a casual player), particularly the two optional lv100 dungeons. I'm going to enjoy learning them. And thank you for allowing us to do two of the trials with NPCs! Overall I've had fun with msq and feel optimistic that future raids and dungeons are going to be good fun. Perhaps it'll just be remembered as one of those expansions with a mixed response to the story but lots of cool things to do.
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1) I loved the first half of the msq and Wuk Lamat. It was a pleasure to see her grow and I was genuinely cheering for her during the later fights! I thought she was likeable and relatable - she had a good heart, wanted to do the right thing, but lacked confidence and experience. I enjoyed being by her side and playing a nurturing role - which was much more preferable (and a lot less patronising) than wading in and being a superhero. The voice acting was very good too. Wuk <3
2) The second half I just found rather.. confusing.. and jarring, compared to the lovingly crafted areas that came before it. I'm afraid the story just didn't make sense at first. I found Zoraal's motivations unclear - first I thought he was an expansionist who wanted to lead Tural into war, then there was something about showing the people what war was like to make them dislike war? Or like war? Or something? When he came back I assume he wanted to conquer Tural, but then he just stopped and said "come get me when you feel like it". Huh?
3) The second half also introduced a whole load of sci-fi exposition that only barely made sense. They're from a world destroyed by lightning, so they live in a dome but that's also full of lightning? Where was Living Memory actually located? They turned off the memory banks so Sphene would give up, but Sphene didn't give up (or it was too late), so they deleted everyone for nothing? I would have enjoyed the rest of the story a lot more if I'd understood it.
4) The rite of succession should have been the whole of the 7.0 msq (perhaps with more time spent on Zoraal, Bakool and Koana). We would have been able to celebrate with Wuk at the end, then she'd have to deal with the threat from the dome and Zoraal in the patch quests - leading up to the revelation of the relic and maybe a trip to another reflection. As it is, I think we got two stories jammed into one with not enough time to appreciate (or understand) either. Also I think the writers need to do better than have Alphinaud say "I have experience of collecting firewood, so I'll help with that". It takes hundreds of hours to get to the latter part of msq now, and I want to be able to tell people they have something to look forward to!
5) Anyway - some more praise. The new areas looked beautiful, and the new dungeons and trials were generally great. They felt a bit harder than before (to me anyway, as a casual player), particularly the two optional lv100 dungeons. I'm going to enjoy learning them. And thank you for allowing us to do two of the trials with NPCs! Overall I've had fun with msq and feel optimistic that future raids and dungeons are going to be good fun. Perhaps it'll just be remembered as one of those expansions with a mixed response to the story but lots of cool things to do.
Continue reading...