|
Bluu -> RE: Friday, December 26th Design Notes: Starless Night: A Final Peace (12/30/2025 10:59:56)
|
I agree with TheErosionSeeker on that this questline is embarrassingly and offensively bad. I haven't been able to log in for weekly releases this month and I honestly wish I would've kept it that way. However, I will still begin with what I did actually enjoy:
- Some of the jokes were pretty funny. The part where Amadeus prevents Lynn from taking out the monsters because the so-called hero can do it themselves is rather entertaining.
- Karok's backstory in Dragonfable was done well. I like the idea that a monster from another universe showed up in ours, but he was actually dealt with off-screen several years ago by someone else entirely and has been dead for a long time. It's a little cheesy that a world-destroying alien became pure-hearted because one person showed him kindness, but this is a Christmas story so it's not really out of place. The doctor's journal was a good way to expose the events and I especially liked Karok's own entry into the journal. I like that they didn't shy away from how he was always kind of a bad person.
- I liked that Sepulchure and Lynn were part of the plot, and that the Eternal Dragon of Time caused Lynn to behave like Gravelynn, who was actuallyspoiler:
its assassin from the AQW timeline in which Malgor was created. It's a shame that Victoria was incapacitated for the entire release, it would've been quite entertaining to see Lynn's reaction to her half-sister from AQW given that she was behaving as Gravelynn.
Unfortunately, these things do too little to redeem the release, saar, so here are my criticisms:
- I do not like Eclissy as a writer. Not only do her plotlines feel like vindictive, destructive fanfiction of the source material, but she has been known to take criticism horribly to the point of conflating constructive criticism with personal attacks. I do not want a person like this to be writing the game after being used to the high standard that Lorekeeper has been setting so far. The only time her writing style actually worked was during the Shadows of War saga, which retconned the horrendous Queen of Monsters Saga as well as the first part of the Malgor Saga, because those bad sagas needed to be destroyed, retconned, and re-contextualized. But once she was done with that, she began to permanently change characters with no real rhyme or reason other than to satisfy her own ego, going as far as to... make (AQW) Sepulchure impotent to imply that Gravelynn was a child of (AQW) Lynaria and the Doomknight Armor? Did that... really add anything of note to the story? But that's all AQW stuff which isn't really relevant here... except for the fact that she butchered the DF Hero here as well. Suddenly, the hero becomes a nothingburger nobody the moment that their world-destroying dragon becomes incapacitated, as though the majority of Book 1 didn't feature the hero performing heroic feats whilst raising an infant dragon on the side, with the dragon only really making an impact once grown and titanized with the help of an external object i.e. your amulet? I can understand and forgive a scripted loss for the sake of a good plot, but I cannot forgive making the hero look pathetic, weak, and fragile when it has been proven time and time again that they are not.
- Also, this was NOT a good plot. I'm not sure how little media literacy one needs to have to not for one second think that beating the very accomplished protagonist of a story to a pulp just to have a god from another game magically show up at the most dire possible moment to save the day, something they could've done since the beginning of the plotline and just didn't, would be seen as a good story. I feel like I don't need to explain this, but since it was written, revised, and greenlit by two or more developers, it really does have to be said: quote:
Deus ex machina (Latin for "god from the machine") is a plot device where a seemingly impossible problem in a story is suddenly resolved by an unexpected, often illogical, new character, object, or event, originating from ancient Greek theater's crane-lowered gods but now meaning any contrived solution, often seen as "lazy writing" for abrupt happy endings.
Key Aspects
Origin: In ancient drama, a crane (machina) would lower an actor playing a god (deus) onto the stage to untangle complex plots.
Modern Usage: It describes sudden, improbable fixes, like a sudden inheritance saving a character from debt, reinforcements arriving just in time, or a miraculous cure.
Function: To quickly resolve conflict, surprise the audience, or create a tidy, happy ending.
Criticism: Often viewed negatively as a sign of weak storytelling, as the resolution doesn't stem logically from the plot's established rules.
Examples:
Ancient: Gods intervening in Greek tragedies.
Modern: Aliens in War of the Worlds defeated by common bacteria, or Mr. Miyagi's miraculous healing in The Karate Kid.
In simpler terms
It's when a story is stuck, and the author brings in something out of nowhere to save the day, much like a magical genie appearing to grant a wish when all hope is lost. And no one likes Deus ex Machina endings. Unless the story is intended to be taken as a joke or intentionally written to be bad, no one wants to see a Deus ex Machina ending. There is literally a quest in the game called Ex Machina and it is seen as the worst quest in Book 1. Seriously, the fact that the entire plot starting from the second quest was about finding Karok and retrieving the Sword of Hope (by defiling his corpse) only for the sword to have no real impact on the plot because, again, God randomly showed up and saved the day, is... I'll leave the colorful adjectives to you, because whatever I say will be deleted by Gingkage.
- Thirdly, this event feels like it was written to garner some kind of hype from AQW players who play DF as well by bringing in two characters who haven't been in AQW for a very long time. Kezeroth does so little during the entire plot of the story and has so little of a personality that it feels like Eclissy was really hoping for people to fear or respect him or look forward to the climax because of his reputation in AQW... of which he does not have much -- these characters are from seasonal events that are horrible to play through (Karok's events are the worst in the game, Kezeroth is decent but is brought down by QoM and Karok), and 80% of AQW players do not pay attention to the plot. 40% of AQW players are bots, as the whitehats will confirm for you, and another 20% log in only to do their weeklies or buy cosmetic collectibles, and another 20% already have everything they want and just AFK in \yulgar. Rarely do you find even actual guild moderators in the game who know anything about the plot. So all in all, it was hype for the 1% of AQW plot enthusiasts that also play DF. If Eclissy thinks she's a good writer, it's purely biased based on confirmation from the people that like the plot, because anyone who doesn't like her writing has long checked out of paying any attention to the weekly story updates. She looks like a good writer compared to the past writers of that game for sure, but if you have to be compared to sewer dreg, then you are not far off from the gutter.
- Lastly, enough of AQW. One entire board in the Inn at the Edge of Time is based on AQW monsters and is still unfinished after 5+ years of content. The hardest fight in the game is an AQW developer and his waifu OC. I think the developers overestimate how much the DF playerbase actually cares about AQW. There is literally an emote on the biggest DF Discord server called :NoAQW: lmao
quote:
I personally really enjoyed the release. The Kezeroth fight was tough, but not too tough, and the Sword of Hope is a good reward for anyone wanting a Light weapon before doing inn or farming a Destiny weapon. I really liked the story with Karok and the doctor in the second part of the questline too. You don't have to leave out your constructive criticism for the release and only mention the good parts. You have shown disdain for it on Discord, so why bother exclusively glazing the developers on the forums? They are adults, they don't need a janitor to sweep away their tears.
|
|
|
|
