SPOILER Alt Route Thoughts (Fruma Spoilers)

SPOILERS and descriptions about Tasim alt route, in other words, the “Tell him about Aledar” route.


Hi all can’t believe alt route was implemented so quickly, it has only been like one and a half month since I did the quests. Anyway, alt route was announced, spent a few days grinding a new class and here I come alt route. All done and filled with thoughts.

In general I enjoyed the route so much. It was beautifully written, explained a lot of stuffs, Tasim was being REALLY NICE. I’m quite hopeful that his reputation could partly recover from this route as we all know there’s a very split opinion on this character.

However…I can be quite biased as I am very attached to the “don’t” route - in my opinion alt route has weakened the tension in the story (definitely not saying that it’s a bad thing). Allow me to explain more while discussing the changes in detail.


As always roughly in chronological order, I may not cover some minor changes -


Queen's Recruit:

I spoiled myself the dialogues from Queen’s Recruit before alt route was properly introduced by reading the wiki, so I don’t have much to say about it. Still it was painful to see his reaction.


Echoes of Change:

The first change for alt route – I wondered if Tasim would still come and help us considering he already knew the news. Surprising or unsurprisingly, he still showed up and warned player about it. He also still considers player as a friend. He said that player showing up has made things difficult, but he will try to get in touch after this.



It is very interesting to see how he still showed friendliness after knowing that player killed Aledar. In the whole alt route, he spoke in a much softer tone, and it felt like he was a lot more comfortable with the player or his own thoughts. My explanation would be him knowing the news forced him to think about himself and other stuffs, whereas in “don’t” route, he was a lot more FOCUSED on achieving the project as a sovereign. In alt route, he had the time and space to slowly digest the news, to think about it, to sit with it and allow it to sink in (while he was recovering from receiving the blessing). He might have thought about it and convinced himself it would be easier not to blame the player, or that he wanted to treasure this precious friend. Regardless of the reason he decided to make peace with it, which gradually lead him to be this nicer person in alt route. For “don’t” route, one of my guesses would be, as Tasim did not know the whereabouts of Aledar, it remained as something in his mind, and he might unconsciously want to complete his task as a sovereign so as to go back to Wynn, or to get in touch with Aledar. This may have made him hyper focused on his project in “don’t” route without giving attention or space to anything other than the project (himself, his friendship, people in fruma, queen’s intention…).

(Edit: I am also thinking about how he could be feeling empathetic and partly responsible for player's guilt. He might felt like he need to show kindness because player took the courage to tell him about Aledar, and felt sorry for player being apologetic - feeling bad for people who was suffering because of how they made you feel. Did he feel like he need to compensate player's honesty? That may be why he showed a lot of kindness trying to convey the message, hoping player to feel a bit better.)

(Edit again: also that player kind of actually explained to him what happened, how bad the situation was and how the player did not have a choice but to kill Aledar. Considering how the Queen probably intentionally did not explain the details to Tasim in "don't" route, he did not really have the condition to be as understanding.)


True Colours:

Extremely insightful conversation with Tasim. There is a huge change to the dialogues here, where Tasim spoke to you about 1. His blessing, 2. Why he chose to become a Sovereign, 3. His view on other Sovereigns, and 4. His and Aledar’s past in Fruma (Auburn). You got this enormous amount of information from this conversation with him.

1. His Blessing
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To be honest I still do not understand his blessing, but from what Majin mentioned during the tour – Tasim’s blessing is “intention”.



Referring to what Tasim said about his own blessing in the alt route, my best guess would be his blessing “helps” him to focus or react to things he should, which is very possibly anything that relates to the mission from Queen. It could be that his blessing pushes him to be very focused on what he intent to do – which sounds weirdly similar to what I have written previously. I will also bring this up later but – him killing Rex can also be a result from using this blessing, as he had to protect the Queen by all means.


(why is his name Tasim instead of Sovereign Tasim?)

2. Reason of becoming a Sovereign
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I am actually really proud of myself because I kind of guessed it right in my previous thread. Queen offered it to Tasim, and it was impossible for him to leave it to someone else (specifically because Aledar’s not there anymore in alt route). He has almost excessive sense of responsibility, and I believe it was hard for him to just go and live his life when knowing there is something he can do to help.

3. His views on other Sovereigns
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It was interesting knowing what he thought about the other Sovereigns, apparently Z was really nice and helpful, he doesn't like Majin and he was kind of scared of Gikyo. There is not much new as we already knew everything, but I’m sure it is informative for those doing it for the first time.

4. His and Aledar’s Past in Fruma
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Again a very interesting part to talk about. I’ve only realized it when doing alt route but I believe this was implemented before the alt route, which is you can find Kaio at Aledar’s grave after the third Fruma quest “A New Beginning”. Speaking to him you will realize Aledar is a member of the Leaves, and the scene we saw from “Recover the Past” was him trying to sneak into Sovereign’s place but got caught and crashed into Tasim’s house. The Leaves made him a grave after he was arrested, and apparently Kaio and Syndra had been working with Aledar in the Leaves. Coming back to alt route, (I think) if you have spoken to Kaio about Aledar, you will tell Tasim that you have found Aledar’s grave, and that he was a member of the Leaves. It can be heartbreaking to see how lonely Tasim was.



On a side note, most dialogue options in this conversation I believe, tell you similar things in a different sequence. I also really like his comments on the power he got being a Sovereign. I only picked two lines of it, but I really appreciate how his dialogues described his struggles in detail – he was not purely enjoying the power. He also spoke about what he wanted to change in Fruma, what he thought about the label of being a cursed himself, and you could see he has a lot of insights about things. I think the dialogue changes in True Colours greatly shaped Tasim’s character and was really nice to be able to know more about his thoughts.



(these was about being "cursed")



Overture to Despair:

Another big modification in alt route – Tasim’s letter was different.

"don't" route letter


alt route letter


The conversation at the Dam was very calm and peaceful. He told you that Queen told him about Aledar – which we can presume, was told to Tasim in a very similar way and with similar intention in “don’t” route. Tasim said it might be to turn him against the player. He told you he understood it was not your fault, and again he spoke in a really nice, friendly, understanding way.




He said that you both understand that you are on different sides, and things will be happening soon – this might be his way of saying farewell if he expected either himself or you getting killed when things happen.



During the cut scene of the conversation between Queen and Tasim, Queen shared that Fruma is something she really values and is fearful of losing. Originally Tasim responded by “I think I know the feeling”, but now he said “I understand”, which sounded as if he felt less emotionally connected with Queen. It does seem like one of the main reason he chose to become a sovereign is because he strongly resonated with Queen’s story (fear, loneliness, identity…), but from here and also in the next quest it is obvious that Tasim felt more distant from Queen than in “don’t” route.


Apotheosis:

Tasim’s dialogue before the fight changed very slightly but has the same meaning. What REALLY CHANGED was him saying this line after he killed Rex –



From context I believe it refers to Rex, as you could see in cut scene Tasim and Rex were fighting and they were both able to dodge each other’s attack. Here I wanted to bring up Tasim’s blessing “intention” – the way I explain it would be it sharpens his ability to reach a goal, which in this case, is to protect the queen and killing Rex and Player (as Queen commanded). He was very obviously using his blessing when fighting with Rex as his eyes were glowing and he had his wings, so my explanation of this would be he cannot stop himself from noticing the opportunity to attack and to actually attack, but he expected Rex to dodge (because he did not want to hurt anyone).

Main changes in the following dialogues:



But but but but BUT the biggest difference here was you CAN’T tell him to do it himself. The other options are still available and were followed by very similar dialogues as they were in “don’t”, but in alt route you can’t tell him to do it himself.



(changes for dialogues after “I can’t. Not again.”)


Another thing that I’m guessing might be a general change instead of specific to alt route was Z’s revive having a different animation which was really cool!!



Last but not least the final conversation with Tasim before meeting Two – he spoke about his final realization, about Queen’s intention, and how Fruma was Her priority than saving the world. To be honest I think this explained everything happening with Queen and in Fruma, although I do think Queen is starting to prioritize world saving seeing her asking Soosu to repair the thing and actually recruiting Tasim for the project.




To conclude – I think Tasim’s character brought up very different emotions in me when doing “don’t” route and alt route respectively. I personally really like the intense struggle and pain in the “don’t” route, but alt route was also super interesting to explore, explained a lot of things, and definitely enriched Tasim’s story (and Fruma in general).

I won’t say it is weird in alt route, but I do find Tasim’s persistency (or might be stubbornness) in helping the Queen more natural in “don’t" route. I can definitely tell it was really hard to write alt route putting that into consideration, and I do think it turned out really well. Tasim was very kind and gentle in alt route which…took me some time to get used to.


A big thanks to everyone who worked on the alt route I really appreciate the content!!

 

When was alt route added?

 

Friday

 

I've talked about this before and I criticized it because I felt I was being essentially punished with the "bad" dialogue for a choice that I literally couldn't make because said choice wasn't implemented at launch.
However, I've done some thinking on the matter and I've come to the realization that the real problem isn't that I was punished with the dialogue I had no choice for, the real problem is that I felt like I was being punished at all.

The real problem is that it's not really a "route". It's very obviously meant to be a black and white "good" and "bad" dialogue, and that shouldn't be the case.
More specifically, the dam scene in Overture to Despair.
The "Didn't tell" route shouldn't just be the game saying "fuck you, you got the bad version and you don't get any good or reasonable dialogue options", it should just be one of two routes.
Drama is good and if it were implemented with good dialogue options for the player in the "Didn't tell" version, then frankly I'd actually prefer that route because it makes the Apotheosis dialogue more impactful.

As it stands, your dialogue choices at the dam are, quite condescendingly, "Are you sure?", "But he's not here.", and "...".
"Are you sure?" is followed by you being forced to say, "Maybe you didn't know him at all."
These choices (aside from "...") are so outrageously out-of-character that it's almost comical. It's a complete character assassination of the player's personality that only happens for that specific scene and never anywhere else as a lazy method of creating tension when, in reality, it's outstandingly easy to make tension for that scene given how deep in the Queen's pocket Tasim is at that point.
Absolutely nothing like this happens if you told Tasim about Aledar, in which case your dialogue is vastly different and you couldn't tick him off even if you tried. It completely devalues the power of the scene because your choices are so incredibly out-of-character that I could honestly headcanon that it was a changeling posing as me to make Tasim pissed and it would actually make more sense for the story than what really happens.

They desperately need to rework the player options (and by extension Tasim's responses) for this route at the dam scene. And don't mistake my intention; it's fine (and outright good) for Tasim to still be pissed at you no matter what you say in that route. That's understandable and it adds drama, and it could even make for a great parallel to Sui because he can't let go, but at the very least let the player attempt to defend themselves properly instead of forcibly assassinating their character by uncharacteristically turning them into an asshole for the sake of poorly fabricated tension.

 

Definitely. In my opinion some player's options can be quite out of place and confusing at times. I think what I am picking up is the lack of choice in the "don't tell" route, as if you chose not to tell Tasim the player was right away assumed to be doing so because they want to cover it up or try to hide it - but there can be a lot of reasons why someone chose not to tell him at Queen's Recruit, especially when the dialogues were describing that player did not tell Tasim solely because they didn't think it's the best timing to do so, but then not allowing player to explain or defend themselves at the dam, and instead all of a sudden start provoking Tasim. I would say even just providing another dialogue option in Overture to Despair where player actually tries to explain (exactly what you have quoted) can make things more justifiable, and align with the provided reason of "finding the right time" while still maintaining the tension.

I have been thinking about other quests in Wynncraft before Fruma, and I would say the player doesn't usually have a choice to decide what kind of person they want to be. Most of the times we were given very similar options just to make things more interactive without (understandably) changing too much details in the quests. Tasim's route, however, is probably the first actual "route" thing that player has a choice on (I might be wrong). I do think it is a really nice attempt, although it might not be perfect in many ways. To me it feels like player did not have a choice or even a clear personality before Fruma, and suddenly we were given this huge decision if we want to be a honest person? Or if we want to be a "bad" person, because honesty is a nice and positive quality that we should promote?

I'm not saying that I appreciate it, but I think a lot RPGs have the same tendency - promoting a "good" route and punishing the "bad" route, for whatever reason, to reward player's honesty, loyalty, courage... (not sure if there is anything to do with being educational or considerations on moral values) It is so common that just by looking at the route options in Queen's Recruit I can feel that "don't tell him" will definitely backfire at some point, and the dam scene might have been the easy way out to create the tension. I may have got used to this not exactly ideal trend in RPG dialogues and didn't really think much about it, but I totally agree that some rework on the dam scene can make things a lot more reasonable while keeping the drama. Thanks for making me think about it.

 

All of Fruma's dialogue is riddled with options that the player would never in a million years say.

And sometimes for some reason we even say entire paragraphs at once. What in the world.

 

Exactly this, ALL of this. I'm currently writing an essay breaking down why Tasim's character arc fell flat on its face for me at the end, and this is a huge part why: railroading, railroading, and MORE RAILROADING. Especially railroading, in a storyline that has "the player's choices are hugely important" as a major narrative theme. Have a bad end, sure—hell, have a WORSE ending than what's currently released, if you really want to go for the angst factor—but whatever happens, have it be EARNED by the Player. If the friendship between Tasim and the Player is destroyed by what happens in Fruma, the Player should have to work to fuck it up and not just be able to sleepwalk their way into it.