Arthur Pendragon Was Set Up To Fail

  • RiftenWatcher
    Captain
    Insider

    I’ve been thinking a lot about the community decision adventures lately, and the more I think about Return of the Damned, the more it feels like Pendragon never really had a shot. Before the event, Mike Chapman hyped it up by saying we’d have a “gut-wrenching” choice to make, or something like that.

    But honestly, choosing between bringing back Flameheart or letting Pendragon get banished to the Sea of the Damned wasn’t that tough. Pendragon had only popped up a few times and never felt like a major character. Then they put him up against Flameheart who is not just some villain, but THE villain in Sea of Thieves.

    They’d been teasing him from the very beginning, building up to his return. Pendragon didn’t stand a chance. Even people who don’t really care about the Reapers (like me) probably still picked Flameheart, just because that’s who the story had been setting up as the big bad.

    I also think this was the turning point where Rare started leaning into the Reapers as the “face” of the game. Sure, Pendragon technically could have won, but let’s be real, it was a long shot, and I think the devs knew that. Some people say the vote was rigged, but I don’t think so. I just think the way things were framed made the outcome pretty obvious.

    Since then, it’s been clear who’s getting the spotlight. The devs have shown again and again that the Reapers are running the show. We've had a few Reaper focused updates lately, and not much at all for Athena’s Fortune and after the Community Direct, it doesn't seem like there's any major Athena updates coming anytime soon.

    I feel like all of this goes back to Return of the Damned. It wasn’t just Pendragon vs. Flameheart. It was Athena vs. the Reapers.

    Or maybe I’m overthinking it. I’d love to hear what other people think.

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  • Capt Greldik
    Master

    @riftenwatcher said in Arthur Pendragon Was Set Up To Fail:

    I’ve been thinking a lot about the community decision adventures lately, and the more I think about Return of the Damned, the more it feels like Pendragon never really had a shot. Before the event, Mike Chapman hyped it up by saying we’d have a “gut-wrenching” choice to make, or something like that.

    But honestly, choosing between bringing back Flameheart or letting Pendragon get banished to the Sea of the Damned wasn’t that tough. Pendragon had only popped up a few times and never felt like a major character. Then they put him up against Flameheart who is not just some villain, but THE villain in Sea of Thieves.

    They’d been teasing him from the very beginning, building up to his return. Pendragon didn’t stand a chance. Even people who don’t really care about the Reapers (like me) probably still picked Flameheart, just because that’s who the story had been setting up as the big bad.

    I also think this was the turning point where Rare started leaning into the Reapers as the “face” of the game. Sure, Pendragon technically could have won, but let’s be real, it was a long shot, and I think the devs knew that. Some people say the vote was rigged, but I don’t think so. I just think the way things were framed made the outcome pretty obvious.

    Since then, it’s been clear who’s getting the spotlight. The devs have shown again and again that the Reapers are running the show. We've had a few Reaper focused updates lately, and not much at all for Athena’s Fortune and after the Community Direct, it doesn't seem like there's any major Athena updates coming anytime soon.

    I feel like all of this goes back to Return of the Damned. It wasn’t just Pendragon vs. Flameheart. It was Athena vs. the Reapers.

    Or maybe I’m overthinking it. I’d love to hear what other people think.

    Pendragon knows what he did.

  • HiradC
    Lord
    Insider

    There's lots of conspiracy theories around predetermined outcomes. Ultimately devs have directly said there were 2 viable options with differing possible ways of playing out and we have to choose whether to believe them or not.

    Personally they have made a concerted effort to be transparent, giving us a lot more insight into behind the scenes game planning than some devs. So I believe them when they state this, especially emphasising that admittedly it would have been a lot easier on time and resource to have one set path.

    In terms of decision, everyone loves a villain, it brings people together and generally chaos is more exciting than an everyone lived happily ever after scenario.

    People chose to save port merrick so I dont think it was a guaranteed outcome.

    Ps all hail flameheart 😅

  • GoldsMen
    Captain
    Insider

    I dont think anything was rigged, just that the entire stories direction would change depending on outcome and rare wanted to entice their og story villain by hyping him a bit, but still left it up to us.

    As for reaper only updates, i have countered that claim many times now, but the last major reaper update before now was season 13, which was more a first step in years to finally give the reapers some actual focus as a faction otherwise unchanged since season 8 which was now 3 years ago, and was focused on both reapers and athenas fortune. Past season 8, you have to go to the Pre-season updates to see a major reaper focused update of any sort.

    I dont count the old adventures and vote events since they were not major content that stuck with the game, and half of that was athena or db based.

    The fact is, in contrast to all other major factions, the reapers have needed this forever since they have been so unchanged compared to every other faction.

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    Pendragon was supposed to be the protagonist of SoT, but the playerbase didn't really care much for the Tall Tales as much as the rest of the PvE content, as well, Pendragon doesn't really show up anywhere outside of the tall tales. It was less that Rare set him up to fail and more that he failed on his own and sputtered out early on. Though maybe Rare is just a bigger fan of reapers, considering they haven't added anything for GoF to unlock in years, meanwhile skeleton curse got 6 new parts and a new bone colour this season.

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