Regarding Kryptis, I doubt they are devolved Mursaat, but my pet theory is that they are a by-product of ascension. Ascending mean losing some memories and perhaps emotions associated with them, and who knows, maybe these emotions are what the Kryptis are made of.
Nobody has mentioned about the eye of janthir since we last saw it in SotO ending, I really hope we find out what it is, why it was watching us/eparch. I hope the eye wasnnt just an easter egg since it has "Janthir" in the name
I find the soto convergence pretty fun to do if you don't focus on just doing one thing. It's a much better experience when you hop between killing enemies in the middle, destroying the trebuchets, killing bosses, running essences back and forth, etc. You also get a lot more essences that way since you're completing all the repeatable achievements at the same time.
One thing that I think gets overlooked in the patch map discussion is that we were told we're getting two maps *very* late into the day, like, literally the day of the expansion launch if memory serves. I think we might've even been given a roadmap suggesting one map in the run-up to launch too? If so, that suggests to me that whatever happened behind the scenes it's very likely that we're getting what was once one map split into two, because I just can't see Janet tripping over and finding the resources for an entirely separate map at the minute - that'd be quite literally double the work. I don't think they did it cynically and I expect it'll work out better for players regardless of their reasoning though. Whether they felt the story needed the split or they were able to allocate another chunk of work to fleshing out the two "halves" more, perhaps. I also seperately think that the world map names of "Janthir Gravis" and the "Highland Shore" are somewhat red herrings. I feel like they were more likely placed to flesh out the world map rather than to imply the location of the maps, like Dzalana was for example. If I had to guess the city-map of Bava Nisos was the original idea and so we'll get a split based around it. Maybe an "East Nisos" that has us making landfall around the greener parts to push into the city, etc.
Re: the time skip - I will say when I played this patch the first time my interpretation was that it had only been a few days since the end of the base expansion and Isgarren and Waiting Sorrow were still in the middle of their argument from the ending of Chapter 10. Dagda had a comment that they had “been arguing for literal days” which I think hits harder if you interpret it to be a continuation of the same argument. It was only until your video that I realized that people were interpreting Godspawn to be taking place 3 months after the end of the base expansion 🤷♂️
I initially posted a massive wall of text about how I would've handled the story in these two xpacs. But I deleted it because it grew too long and is ultimately pointless. But the main takeaways I think: Nayos was a damp squib for me, too. In my opinion, the overarching stories of these two mini xpacs should've been reversed. First, we meet the wizard's court, we explore the seers and the mursaat (as well as the other elder races a bit), and we go to Janthir to combat another mursaat/neo-white mantle uprising, maybe with some titan stuff thrown in for good measure. This may be too much mursaat, given season 3, but part of me also resents season 3 and its mishandling of the mursaat situation (my opinion, the mursaat and white mantle should've been left alone until they got their own xpac). The first mini xpac could've been called Secrets of the Unseen or something. Plus, it makes sense for the mursaat to return to Tyria after their greatest foe, the elder dragons, have all been slain. The second xpac would deal with the kryptis, only this time nearly the entire xpac takes place in Nayos. Imo, we needed to spend more time there, and the characters needed to be more fleshed out an interesting, maybe with some different biomes and unique places to explore instead of it being all blue-grey and blood red. Of course I think a lot of people agree with that, I'm not breaking new ground there, lol. Then they could've tied Nayos into the mursaat story, as a lot of stuff could've been set up in Secrets of the Unseen, and I think it would've paid off a lot better. But who knows, it might yet in our reality - we're only halfway through xpac 2, everything might tie back into itself really nicely (though I kinda have my doubts, for some reason :P). Of course, all of this is pointless hindsighting, but I get kicks out of speculating about how the game could've been, lol.
Commenting before I actually finish watching, so it may be answered already, but regarding doing a show review without face cam - Vinesauce does these once in a while on Vinny's fullsauce channel. I think his most recent one was on Beetlejuice. I'm totally for WP branching out - all here for podcast style commentary.
I wish Kryptis were more Daedra-like with their personalities. As far as JW is concerned - i am excited to go to Bava Nissos but what do you think the final map would be? Likely someplace in the mists? The foundry or some other realm?
2:06:20 two immortal beings arguing for three months sounds normal to me. That would be expected honestly especially given how long they have lived. They have all the time in reality to argue, agree it does seem a bit cartoonish. Agree it doesn’t flow well, maybe if it was shown that some of the Wizards have argued for centuries it could work better maybe?
I don't know why they keep pushing us to do these instances, only reason to do it for me was the Relic collection achieve and it was the wizard tower weekly and special so 3 reasons - wow was it just so uninteresting basically it's do this/press this and now do this and listen to this and so on (is that really something that people will chose to repeat do?)... Rather like the new story part which is mostly click on NPC wait wait wait till they finish saying whatever now click on next rinse repeat half a dozen times. And I'm not the only one whose finding the move from open world content to instanced "must do" content uninspiring. At least the nightly meta runs are still popular and enjoyable to repeatedly do, so much more nuance.
Regarding Kryptis, I doubt they are devolved Mursaat, but my pet theory is that they are a by-product of ascension. Ascending mean losing some memories and perhaps emotions associated with them, and who knows, maybe these emotions are what the Kryptis are made of.
*Timestamps:*
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:17 - Discussing the Raid
00:04:00 - Chatting
00:34:11 - Gnashblade's Birthday
00:39:05 - Chatting
00:43:51 - Convergence (Reading Breeze Weaver Dialogue)
00:48:30 - Convergence: Mount Balrior (Public)
01:15:03 - Discussion / Thoughts on Convergence
01:22:15 - Gnashblade's Birthday Cont.
01:26:13 - QnA
02:28:38 - Final Thoughts
02:31:01 - Upcoming Plans
02:34:02 - Wrapping It Up
Nobody has mentioned about the eye of janthir since we last saw it in SotO ending, I really hope we find out what it is, why it was watching us/eparch. I hope the eye wasnnt just an easter egg since it has "Janthir" in the name
I find the soto convergence pretty fun to do if you don't focus on just doing one thing. It's a much better experience when you hop between killing enemies in the middle, destroying the trebuchets, killing bosses, running essences back and forth, etc. You also get a lot more essences that way since you're completing all the repeatable achievements at the same time.
One thing that I think gets overlooked in the patch map discussion is that we were told we're getting two maps *very* late into the day, like, literally the day of the expansion launch if memory serves. I think we might've even been given a roadmap suggesting one map in the run-up to launch too?
If so, that suggests to me that whatever happened behind the scenes it's very likely that we're getting what was once one map split into two, because I just can't see Janet tripping over and finding the resources for an entirely separate map at the minute - that'd be quite literally double the work. I don't think they did it cynically and I expect it'll work out better for players regardless of their reasoning though. Whether they felt the story needed the split or they were able to allocate another chunk of work to fleshing out the two "halves" more, perhaps.
I also seperately think that the world map names of "Janthir Gravis" and the "Highland Shore" are somewhat red herrings. I feel like they were more likely placed to flesh out the world map rather than to imply the location of the maps, like Dzalana was for example. If I had to guess the city-map of Bava Nisos was the original idea and so we'll get a split based around it. Maybe an "East Nisos" that has us making landfall around the greener parts to push into the city, etc.
Your spicy pillow laptop story gave me stress, haha. Those things are dangerous!
Re: the time skip - I will say when I played this patch the first time my interpretation was that it had only been a few days since the end of the base expansion and Isgarren and Waiting Sorrow were still in the middle of their argument from the ending of Chapter 10. Dagda had a comment that they had “been arguing for literal days” which I think hits harder if you interpret it to be a continuation of the same argument. It was only until your video that I realized that people were interpreting Godspawn to be taking place 3 months after the end of the base expansion 🤷♂️
On PoE2 remember one of the devs saying that GW1 was an inspiration for it / PoE.
I initially posted a massive wall of text about how I would've handled the story in these two xpacs. But I deleted it because it grew too long and is ultimately pointless. But the main takeaways I think: Nayos was a damp squib for me, too. In my opinion, the overarching stories of these two mini xpacs should've been reversed. First, we meet the wizard's court, we explore the seers and the mursaat (as well as the other elder races a bit), and we go to Janthir to combat another mursaat/neo-white mantle uprising, maybe with some titan stuff thrown in for good measure. This may be too much mursaat, given season 3, but part of me also resents season 3 and its mishandling of the mursaat situation (my opinion, the mursaat and white mantle should've been left alone until they got their own xpac). The first mini xpac could've been called Secrets of the Unseen or something. Plus, it makes sense for the mursaat to return to Tyria after their greatest foe, the elder dragons, have all been slain.
The second xpac would deal with the kryptis, only this time nearly the entire xpac takes place in Nayos. Imo, we needed to spend more time there, and the characters needed to be more fleshed out an interesting, maybe with some different biomes and unique places to explore instead of it being all blue-grey and blood red. Of course I think a lot of people agree with that, I'm not breaking new ground there, lol. Then they could've tied Nayos into the mursaat story, as a lot of stuff could've been set up in Secrets of the Unseen, and I think it would've paid off a lot better. But who knows, it might yet in our reality - we're only halfway through xpac 2, everything might tie back into itself really nicely (though I kinda have my doubts, for some reason :P).
Of course, all of this is pointless hindsighting, but I get kicks out of speculating about how the game could've been, lol.
Commenting before I actually finish watching, so it may be answered already, but regarding doing a show review without face cam - Vinesauce does these once in a while on Vinny's fullsauce channel. I think his most recent one was on Beetlejuice. I'm totally for WP branching out - all here for podcast style commentary.
I wish Kryptis were more Daedra-like with their personalities.
As far as JW is concerned - i am excited to go to Bava Nissos but what do you think the final map would be? Likely someplace in the mists? The foundry or some other realm?
I thought that maybe first map will be outskirts of bava nisos and second map will be center city map.
2:06:20 two immortal beings arguing for three months sounds normal to me.
That would be expected honestly especially given how long they have lived.
They have all the time in reality to argue, agree it does seem a bit cartoonish.
Agree it doesn’t flow well, maybe if it was shown that some of the Wizards have argued for centuries it could work better maybe?
I don't know why they keep pushing us to do these instances, only reason to do it for me was the Relic collection achieve and it was the wizard tower weekly and special so 3 reasons - wow was it just so uninteresting basically it's do this/press this and now do this and listen to this and so on (is that really something that people will chose to repeat do?)... Rather like the new story part which is mostly click on NPC wait wait wait till they finish saying whatever now click on next rinse repeat half a dozen times. And I'm not the only one whose finding the move from open world content to instanced "must do" content uninspiring. At least the nightly meta runs are still popular and enjoyable to repeatedly do, so much more nuance.
u used to be agreat utuber man, iloved watching ur passion, this game is just not it anymore