Of course I can!
I’m the Commander of the Pact, Slayer of Zhaitan!
*hypes self up for heroic, legendary, awesome solo battle*
Between all the bugs where a horde of players descend on a dynamic event that was never meant to cope with 40 players charging it at once and promptly breaking it for the next batch of players to come along…
…and the possibility of a landscape that’s forever going to look trashed like this so that players can continue their ‘permanent’ Living Story episodes…
… I think I’m leaning a lot more towards story staying in instances.
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I’m sure there are ways to have a satisfactory batch of open world dynamic events – the scarlet twisted clockwork invasion, marionette and lion’s arch stuff comes to mind (possibly because there was tons of loot involved with the increased scaling of the event) but I’m not really feeling it in this third episode.
All it feels like is a bunch of unwanted interrupted breaks in between a story I’m trying to experience – somewhat like how the Personal Story keeps breaking off so that you need to go visit a bunch of hearts or get more levels.
Why I Game 
I had kind of the opposite problem with the Frostgorge event chain: when I showed up, the meta event was already in the win state. The Vigil rep basically said, “Oh yeah, you missed the invasion. It was cool. But we all forgot to poke the totem, so you can go do that if you want.” So I poked the totem and continued the quest.
It feels like a parody of the inanity of the traditional MMO questing model that the event system was trying to get away from. I’m just not sure if it’s an intentional parody or not.
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This might work better once the living story crowds for these events dry up. Until this update, that Frostgorge sound event chain was only done as an accessory to collecting the local renown heart for map completion, I remember that event chain being somewhat difficult while leveling (in greens and blues) after the launch crowds had died off.
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In map chat and on the forums there were plenty of voices raised against the perceived cynicism and/or laziness of the update. Tying the storyline to existing event chains always risked being perceived as a cheesy move and I’m not sure ANet have successfully dodged that bullet. I’m generally in favor of open world events rather than instances but they do need to be better thought-out than this.
I thought the whole update was disappointing. After two tight, well-constructed, very well received episodes this felt rushed and flat. With the exception of the sequence with Taimi and Councillor Phlunt, which I thought had subtlety and depth, all the dialog was sub-par. Rytlock carried his scenes because Rytlock but I was as uncomfortable with Eir and Braham’s rapprochement as they were.
All in all, C- at best.
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