SPOILER Fruma appreciation thread

I can always find flaws, and I might not have played the Fruma bosses in the way they were meant to be played (on account of stubbornly sticking to a decaying sustain build against bosses designed to be brutal to sustain builds), but having played through all of Fruma, I really like it. Its characters and plot are very strong throughout, and I'm very much looking forward to its last pieces being filled out. Epilogue, Wastelands, you know. It's almost frustratingly good, because Fruma's such a Wynncrafty story that I can't imagine how I'd copy and rework the plot into my own stories (which is my traditional way of reacting to stuff I really like). The rebels and Sovereigns are very strong characters - even if Gikyo (and, to a lesser extent, Majin) never really got time to shine - and the music's fantastic. The Roughworks sidequests were also all superb - actually fantastic, and The Missing Piece is the best quest in Wynncraft, period. I vividly love Two and especially the short sequence where we go through her visions of the post-War world. The Queen's such an interesting character by the end; you can really see her good side and how she thinks she's a good person, but you can also see how completely blind she is to her own flaws and how they caused her downfall. The worldbuilding... the way the rebellion's treated, sometimes, with the attention given to practicality (like getting three Sovereigns on board to manage the power vacuum from knocking out the old government). Finding the Ragni Stela was such a moment, god... there's just so much to say about it. The only way I could say Fruma didn't live up to the years of hype was in just not being long enough, but it really never has any pacing issues... although I could have done with like five more quests in the Roughworks. I want more Soosu...

(As an aside, Fruma seems to be lowkey communist. Maybe that's not the exact term, but there sure doesn't seem to be any significant private enterprise. The entire Industrial District seems to be directly state-run, given several notes like the Great Sap Siphon project and the Queen announcing higher quotas at the festival; there's a lot of independent stores, but never much indication of large financial organisations aside from the government. It's fun. I like it when Wynn starts to look at economic stuff like that. Had great fun writing an analysis of the economy of northwest Gavel a few months back.)

 

I really appreciate how much of the Leaves you got to see. It's no stretch to say that the characters in this expansion are more fleshed out and human than in any previous content. Watching members of the Leaves die genuinely made me a bit sad, as opposed to, well, Aledar is probably the best example. "'Kill you? Don't mind if I do!' *stab stab stab stab*" is really not the tone I think they were going for, but it's definitely what I felt. Or what's-his-face who dies at the end of D&D. It was definitely part the length of time they were here for, as well as the massively improved quality of the writing. I was trying to decide who my favorite Leaf is, which made me realize "oh hey, I actually have to consider who I like best" because there are multiple characters who actually are developed enough to pick as a favorite, something that hasn't really ever existed. Like, as much fun as it is to say "yeah, Yahya is my favorite character cuz shrooms" there hasn't really been a character with enough depth to really appreciate on the same level as the Leaves. This time, I actually had to think about which one I liked best because I actually enjoy the writing of all of them (It's Rex by the way; I just really appreciate how she takes charge in Ensemble of Hope and immediately asks if I wanna do some terrorism, which, as we all know, is pretty much canonically the player's favorite thing to do. I just liked that I was finally being asked to do a job that really played to my strengths.).

On the other side, The Queen is also an excellent example of a sympathetic villain, and I'd almost like the ability to side with her, to see where that leads. Most of the antagonists we've had in the past have been rather one-note "evil for the sake of evil" or literally just not characterized at all. None have ever made me feel like they had a real point to them. This was a really nice change, and I appreciate how a lot of the antagonists in Fruma are generally good people who are trying to do the right thing. I particularly appreciate the "people" aspect of that. Zhiraok and Soosu both being generally good people who want to do better and who actively rebel when they realize that they're causing harm to the people they're trying to help is some wonderful characterization (I even forgive Zhiraok for lagging out on me multiple times instead of just dying). Majin is self-absorbed, but he is at least given real characterization and a level of reason for that. He's a narcissist and egomaniacal because he really is the best, and he's used to being on top. Gikyo is... not my favorite, but other than him and Tasim (after Ensemble of Hope), I think that the Sovereigns are really interesting and compelling characters/antagonists.

The entire thing is also extremely Mistborn coded, which I appreciate.

 

That's probably the biggest strength of Fruma's storyline: the length. We got countless quests to flesh out our cast of characters, with some quests (The Cursed One, Revelations in Fall, the Price of Ingenuity) feel like they have a little plot but mostly characterization, while Wynncraft normally does pretty undefined characters as general quest NPCs and characters where we have a few things to ascribe to them (Ava, Maxie, Axelus, Korzim, Draani, Tasim, Aledar uhh is that it?) and the only character I feel like is on at least equal level (in terms of characterization) with most of the cast of Fruma is Lari, and well, you know. Lari.

Another thing: builds! Builds builds builds builds! There is literally so much detail put into all of it. You start out at the heights of Fort Torann, an imposing royal stronghold, before descending into Auburn, lowliest of regions and actually the lowest. Not only are Auburn and Espren beautiful, but the region also has Xima Valley (whose custom mountains are amazing), the Frog Bog (which is probably the best swamp area in the game (in terms of being a swamp)), and the Dam! The Dam! It's huge! It's menacing! It's imposing! It's super detailed too! Not to mention Aelumia's shadow cast over all of Auburn, a reminder of the Crown's watchful eye and a warning to anyone who would draw its ire. Of course, Auburn is also the furthest from Aelumia, both physically and societally. There's little government intervention as the crown is high but it cannot bend down, and we see this first hand: the sparks of rebellion, the leaves drifting in the wind are found here.

Then the Roughworks. Which is chock-full of buildings with interiors and a maze of streets and sludge. I spent an hour once trying to find Timasca in all of it. The sheer amount of detail here is insane! It's insane! Second farthest from the heights of Aelumia, but perhaps the most impacted by the Crown's whims (or maybe that's Mistwoods). Day in, day out, human, job, friend, foe. There's a reason regular everyday workers here attack you on sight.

The Mistwoods! Every single tree is custom made and also HUNDREDS OF BLOCKS TALL! What? Huh? And of course, the ground goes ever higher (a sure sign of the Queen being directly involved in this province's construction). But the Crown's eyes cannot see into the Mist, so they made more eyes. But here there are no rules, here there is no trust among people. If the first two regions are breaking down, the Mistwoods is in an active civil war!

The Highlands! Serenely beautiful but artificial, and that comes across so perfectly in the builds. Not only are the Highlands of the High: the nobles, they are also almost on level with Aelumia should you get close enough, as the Highlands is where most of the climbing is. Closest to the Crown, and most fearful of it. And yet the nobles are provided for. There is no famine, no back-breaking work hours, no shapeshifting impostors.

And Aelumia! Every region towers in its shadow, but everywhere in this region people cower from the Crown's eye: the Lighthouse. The build manages to perfectly merge with game mechanics, fighting your way through the streets, not in the hope of making a difference but just getting home safe. Big shoutout to everyone who worked on builds for Fruma, it's all insane and crazy and you guys are insane (in a good way).

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also yeah for once I'm not talking about item builds

 

The strength of characters in Fruma is definitely remarkable for how... uh, bad, they are everywhere else in Wynn. 4-5 quests (ex. Corkus, D&D, RoL) just isn't enough time! Maybe it'd cheapen Fruma, but I think emulating its style for other areas would be great - although that would be a major direction shift for everywhere else. For one, Fruma has a 15-level range, whereas places like SE and MH are 5-level, and most standard zones are 10-level, so if you wanted good strong characters you'd need to pack those levels or make a multi-region questline.

...I tried to reference wiki for how long the opening storyline was, but for some reason they didn't mark it as a storyline...

 

i was on the content team for a decent chunk of fruma's development, so i obviously didn't have quite the same experience upon its release that most people did, but i was fully expecting fruma to be my favorite update in wynncraft's history, and still managed to be blown away by how good it was. as a hobbyist writer myself i had always been kind of frustrated with wynncraft's approach to storytelling in the past, since i felt like everything was too unstructured, the good moments were episodic rather than in the service of longer and more impactful arcs, and very rarely did the story take itself seriously enough to build real emotion. and like, of course it was like that! wynncraft is a hodgepodge of the ideas of dozens upon dozens of amateur writers over the course of 10 years, and it was originally designed as a silly rpg in a silly block game because, hey, turns out you can make something kind of cool that way, and you don't have to be an expert to make something fun out of it. but with fruma you can tell that the writers were confident enough in their skills to change the storytelling style completely and take the game's potential seriously in all the ways that i'd always wanted to see.

i don't like absolutely everything in the fruma storyline (zeph is too one-note imo; the sovereign/amulet resurrection mechanics are still uncertain to me (may be a skill issue on the part of my reading comprehension); depending on the quest zhiraok's dialogue could range from 10/10 to ridiculously stretched to the point of unbelievability; the pacing in echoes of change was a miss for me), but these are mostly surface level things really, and the fact that the core of the story feels so professional and worthy of in-depth analysis and critique is just amazing to me. i fucking love this update.

it's not just the writing quality that makes me love fruma though. i was a builder on the ct, but because i didn't contribute very much to fruma, i'm allowed to say that the builds are so incredibly good and everybody who worked hard on building fruma is amazing and deserves even more credit than what they've been given. the music is also SO good. i say this as a huge massive fanboy of the entire wynncraft ost, and someone who has so much nostalgia for all of the old tracks: the fruma soundtrack is by far some of the best music in the game. halcyon is one of my favorite songs of all time actually. everyone who contributed to the fruma soundtrack is so talented and i hope that texilated finds a willy wonka golden ticket in a chocolate bar or something. the mobs and bosses are all so well made, even if i died way too much to them in my fuckass 2023 build, and the mixture of gameplay into the quests was exactly the kind of balance that i hoped to see.

somehow i managed to avoid crying when i played the missing piece, but i did completely lose it reading tasim's letter. either way both of them are incredible emotional moments that i'm so glad to now be seeing the likes of in wynn. after seeing what the writers were capable of in fruma i'm really excited to see what the next few updates bring to the storyline.

also awesome reference. i dont actually think i agree very much beyond some surface level similarities and the roles of certain powerful entities but mistborn is great so whatever your opinion is based as fuck