Guild Wars 2

When it comes to the choices, many are dividing across racial lines, and some are more reasonably looking at the longer term picture with what we’ll receive in the form of Fractals. However, I think there may be a little more to it than that suggested by the subtlety of both candidates’ messages.

TL;DR: I suspect that this entire event may be suggestive of an internal division of interest at ArenaNet, one side more financially driven while the other is more creatively driven, and that the former is represented by Evon, while the latter is represented more by Ellen.

Voting for Evon unwittingly supports the side more interested in making money to create more items for the Gem Store, while voting for Ellen may support the side more interested in improving the game and providing more interesting content for everyone.

Ellen Kiel, #TeamKiel.

On Ellen Kiel’s side:
She presents evidence of of Evon’s association with the Consortium, an organization known for its unethical and lifethreatening behavior by fooling people into signing away their rights to free movement and to moving into an unsafe location when that’s the last thing they need.

Ellen’s campaigning is I would say, more broadly focused.
Looking at the facts:

Her campaigning is focused neither on one individual, or one individual race. Her Fractal research promises, a little unusually, research into another race’s affairs than her own, the asura. However, while the gods have definitely influenced all of Tyria, their influence has arguably been waning for some time now, whereas the Inquest’s has been growing and it would seem Thaumanova may have affected all of Tyria more than we know.

Besides that, her discount on waypoints would actually help everyone that plays PvE and travels about often.

Evon Gnashblade, #TeamGnashblade.

On Evon Gnashblade’s side:
Evon ignores her actions to protect the settlers of Southsun Coves and eliminate the source of their problems at the same time. He completely lies about her actions and attempts to gain support through the old hometown pride strategy.

As mentioned, many are dividing this along racial lines, but here’s what’s curious: Evon is technically more human-centered in almost every respect regarding his strategy.
Let’s look at the facts:

His campaigning is riddled with references to Lion’s Arch, being there between the good and the bad, as have been many current and old time fans. His Fractal research promises, as some newer fans have caught on to being odd, research into an ancient human god’s downfall.

Also, for the lazy who glance over the page, he’s first. His placement is capitalizing on real-life human behavior. Not to mention the discount on keys to chests, which is arguably gambling, is also doing so.

Speculation Section:

Now, what does all of this come down to beyond what’s obviously stated? I’d suggest that it may actually present a reflection of internal divisions of interest at ArenaNet. I suspect some may be more financially driven, while some are more creatively driven, and I think that in large respects, this is shown in the benefits each side is offering.

The discount on keys ensures that more players will be more inclined to spend real money on gems for them.

The discount on waypoints arguably ensures more players will zip around the world more enjoying the creator’s creation.

The Fall of Abaddon Fractal arguably requires less imagination, since they’ve already worked out a fair amount of the backstory to it, even if it isn’t to the greatest depth.

The Thaumanova Reactor Explosion Fractal, however, arguably requires more imagination, since the extent to which they’ve messed with how it did anything was reduced only to its aftermath. Seeing the actual explosion’s effects at fever pitch/instant of happening however may offer more interesting results.

TL;DR: I suspect that this entire event may be suggestive of an internal division of interest at ArenaNet, one side more financially driven while the other is more creatively driven, and that the former is represented by Evon, while the latter is represented more by Ellen.

Voting for Evon unwittingly supports the side more interested in making money to create more items for the Gem Store, while voting for Ellen may support the side more interested in improving the game and providing more interesting content for everyone.

Also, for anyone interested, here’s some loreside speculation I had to cut from the OP. It basically cuts down to: Evon may be addressing his own company more than the actual Lion’s Arch citizenry, and will get trade with the Zephyrites either way. Ellen’s addressing the LA citizenry, and is interested in obtaining trade opportunities for everyone from each side (everyone from Zephyr Sanctum and everyone/every business owner in LA, not just the Black Lion Trading Company and maybe the Consortium).

But lets be honest here, Kiel is not a pirate. And it’s a pirate council. She doesn’t fit in. All of the people on the pirate council are in it for their own best interest. So what you really need is another pirate, with a lot of influence, who can weigh in and bring something to the table. This is business after all, and for that you need someone who doesn’t play nice. Evon really is the logical choice, regardless if you like him or not, or whether you trust his motives.

Well, what both of them are bringing to the table is a deal with the Zephyr Sanctum, lorewise. Looking at the bigger picture, it strikes me almost as if one’s bringing more silly microtransactions while the other is bringing more content, if both are to influence longer term events, anyway.

Not that we won’t get content either way in the future, but it will be interesting to see which there’s more of after this.

you know, I don´t buy that…
1 – a fair amount of people is looking at Fractal, not at the discounts. As you are looking at it from discount point of view, from fractal point of view it could be decision between completely new stories with asura everywhere on one side, or expanding on established lore and making connections between GW1 and GW2
2 – from discount point of view, you can also look at it as “oh, they want lowered WP cost because they are just hopping between Dragons and they aparently love grind. so let´s give them more of that!”

Also, the Living story concept is for sure tied to the Gem store. With each chapter, there are new thing in there, often (or mostly?) limited as the story content itself (even though we have more permanent stuff on the way). So you log in because of the story, see cool stuff on gem store that is here for 2-4 weeks, so if you want it, you have to buy it now, or it will not be here in the future.
I´m not saying that your gem store vs game content theory could´n be true, but it´s far too streched and you could just see what you are afraid of seeing. There are always two sides of the coin, and I don´t believe that this catastrophic scenario of yours is going to happen. Most people think that with voting Evon we could get more interesting stories since he is more interesting than Kiel.
Don´t get me wrong, I like Kiel (even though her character could use some work), but Evon is indeed more fit for the Council. There are already traders and people with monopol on something (namely the asura that owns the Asura gates in LA. If you talk with him/her (not sure), he states that he/she made quite some money thanks to that. And LA is not coming down because he/she is on the Council).
Also, both of the campaign videos are full of lies as politics are, let´s be frank Consortium, after all, is founded as concurrency to the Black Lion TP for example. It is true that Evons campaign seems to be more agressive, but Kiel (or Magnus? ) isn´t angel too…And I bet Kiel would never even think of joining the Council if Magnus wouldn´t basically order her to candidate. But I digress…

You stated several times that there is division in ANet and while some want to make content and some want to make money. What if I told you that as they are building new content, they are making money too? They are after all a company and they want money as everybody on the world, they have to live on something. And they are making money by delivering product with the most quality they can get. I agree that the first months of LS weren´t that great, but they are getting better with every release. Let´s just hope that this election thing is just a silence before the storm (as it doesn´t seem that this release will bring much content)

Illi.3647:

~snip~

I’m not really for one side or the other personally, just presenting another perspective on it beyond the scope of charr/human/Fractal/discount support. As a company, obviously they’re going to be for both content and money (they’ve gotta produce something to sell). It does have to be pondered how they intend to allocate resources for each though.

Obviously I’m thinking one side may represent monetized content whereas the other focuses more on maybe existing and new content with less monetization, but that’s neither here nor there. We’re going to get a mixture of both, regardless, it’s just to be seen if it’s a balance or weighted one way over the other.

As I said, it could be as you say, but I assume not. I, for one, am looking at it content and story wise (wans´t going for saying vote for Evon/Kiel). It is true that they are discounting the keys, but lorewise, you are electing head of the gem store, so it makes sense. With Kiel, WP are the most logical thing to discount, even though it´s not that much lore-friendly (the WP are asuran, so we may assume those silvers are going to the asura pockets).
Anyway, if the´d disguised this kind of election when one side is going for more monetization and at the same time, the´d give that side the more interesting fractal (at least at first glance), that wouldn´t be that fair, wouldn´t it? I just don´t think it has this sort of IRL background and as I wrote at the begining of my post (sory of that wall of text it came to be, I´m unable to make small posts, I can´t stop to type), it could go another way and saying that vote for Kiel is a vote for grind (as the popular “vote for Evon is vote for RNG” goes). We shouldn´t be stretching this kind of things and speculating that much into it…sure it´s fun speculating, but too much of good things hurts too

~shrug~ They sometimes say the content being worked on internally is a reflection of the studio environment, so this wasn’t that big of a stretch for me. Nor was it really that much to put into, I just happen to believe that it’s better to be thoroughly long and clear than short and unclear.

Either way, we’ll see how things turn out.

Gmr Leon.1846:

Illi.3647:

~snip~

I’m not really for one side or the other personally, just presenting another perspective on it beyond the scope of charr/human/Fractal/discount support. ~snip~

I think half of your points and a good portion of other text decidedly does not concur with the above sentence. Much of your wording and phrasing suggests this to be intended to give weight to the Kiel idea that “A vote for Evon is a vote for RNG,” which is just starting to get a bit silly if you know what I mean.

Oh, and, dicing more hair, I also notice that you completely ignore how Evon says “With your support,” while honing in on Kiel’s phrase “I’ll need your help,” which only seems to indicate another spot in which she will have Kormir Syndrome.

Got the cutting board out? Great, because, now that we come to discuss rewards, there’s more hair to dice.
Evon Gnashblade: “If I am elected to the Captain’s Council, I’ll show my gratitude for your support in the following ways:” Thank-you gift anyone?
“Ellen” Kiel: “If I’m fortunate enough to earn a position on the Captain’s Council, here’s what you can expect from Ellen Kiel:” Bribe anyone?

“Zephyr Sanctum” suggests the floating ship-thing that the Zephyrites live on. It is an object that flies around, and that they live on. “Zephyrites” suggests the people of Zephyr (or the body of the people of Zephyr)

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Got the cutting board out? Great, because, now that we come to discuss rewards, there’s more hair to dice.
Evon Gnashblade: “If I am elected to the Captain’s Council, I’ll show my gratitude for your support in the following ways:” Thank-you gift anyone?
“Ellen” Kiel: “If I’m fortunate enough to earn a position on the Captain’s Council, here’s what you can expect from Ellen Kiel:” Bribe anyone?

Let’s face the truth. They are both bribes, just as all campaign promises are.

SynfulChaot.3169:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Got the cutting board out? Great, because, now that we come to discuss rewards, there’s more hair to dice.
Evon Gnashblade: “If I am elected to the Captain’s Council, I’ll show my gratitude for your support in the following ways:” Thank-you gift anyone?
“Ellen” Kiel: “If I’m fortunate enough to earn a position on the Captain’s Council, here’s what you can expect from Ellen Kiel:” Bribe anyone?

Let’s face the truth. They are both bribes, just as all campaign promises are.

He hair-picks the phrasing, I can do it too :P

While this was basically a very long rant to try and support Kiel, you can flip it and say Evon is more story focused due to it actually using any real ties to GW lore instead of more Asuran stories like more than half of GW2 uses. I see it as voting over an interest in connections to the original game compared to making up new lore. While I’m supporting Evon for the lore, either way is going to give more monetary things added to the gem store and more Living Stories going forward. This vote is basically just for the Fractal you prefer.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

He hair-picks the phrasing, I can do it too :P

All I’ve really seen in this sub-forum about which candidate is the ‘better’ choice is all hair-picked hyperbole. And any time anyone presents something neutral, factual, or even something clearly stated as opinion, they get attacked by people quite rabid in defense of their opinion.

It’s just like real politics and it’s quite sad, really. I play games as an escape from that kittenry. And now it’s right here in my face. Just ugh…

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Gmr Leon.1846:

Illi.3647:

~snip~

I’m not really for one side or the other personally, just presenting another perspective on it beyond the scope of charr/human/Fractal/discount support. ~snip~

I think half of your points and a good portion of other text decidedly does not concur with the above sentence. Much of your wording and phrasing suggests this to be intended to give weight to the Kiel idea that “A vote for Evon is a vote for RNG,” which is just starting to get a bit silly if you know what I mean.

Oh, and, dicing more hair, I also notice that you completely ignore how Evon says “With your support,” while honing in on Kiel’s phrase “I’ll need your help,” which only seems to indicate another spot in which she will have Kormir Syndrome.

Got the cutting board out? Great, because, now that we come to discuss rewards, there’s more hair to dice.
Evon Gnashblade: “If I am elected to the Captain’s Council, I’ll show my gratitude for your support in the following ways:” Thank-you gift anyone?
“Ellen” Kiel: “If I’m fortunate enough to earn a position on the Captain’s Council, here’s what you can expect from Ellen Kiel:” Bribe anyone?

“Zephyr Sanctum” suggests the floating ship-thing that the Zephyrites live on. It is an object that flies around, and that they live on. “Zephyrites” suggests the people of Zephyr (or the body of the people of Zephyr)

It wasn’t fully intended, though I admit I saw where it could be seen as I was writing it out. I’ve barely been involved with the game until the past few days (my guildmates can attest to that, trust me), so the RNG thing doesn’t apply as much as you might think. Not that it makes tons of difference, but if I really hated it, would I play an engineer and have 19 chests tucked away in case I get a key or decide to shoot for one? That’s practically the epitome of RNG right there.

Anywho, addressing your hair-splits of my hair-splits. I didn’t ignore Evon’s with your support, I suggested that it wasn’t as focused on us as we might think, instead addressing more his company members. Regarding the expect/gratitude show, as someone else said, that’s basically your usual campaign promising bribes for support kinda stuff, so neither are in the clear for that.

As to the Sanctum and Zephyrites…Yeah, you’re saying what I said, roughly. Sanctum, being where the people live, is the closest equivalent for them of a nation despite being manmade. Zephyrites on the other hand seems to me to possibly focus in on individual Zephyrites, i.e. probably the most profitable ones, whereas Sanctum suggests any of the Zephyrites, including the not so profitable ones alongside the profitable ones.

It makes sense and it’s not an attempt on my part to show bias. It’s not bad on Evon’s part, it’s smart business sense and probably would help Lion’s Arch. However, the same could be said for Ellen’s plan, except it may not be as business savvy, but that’s to be expected, she’s not a businessperson. Albeit there’s certainly an argument for the Lionguard wanting to make the deal for everyone so they can receive even more protection deals for the newly coming trade.

Gmr Leon.1846:

~snip~

Anywho, addressing your hair-splits of my hair-splits. I didn’t ignore Evon’s with your support, I suggested that it wasn’t as focused on us as we might think, instead addressing more his company members. Regarding the expect/gratitude show, as someone else said, that’s basically your usual campaign promising bribes for support kinda stuff, so neither are in the clear for that.

As to the Sanctum and Zephyrites…Yeah, you’re saying what I said, roughly. Sanctum, being where the people live, is the closest equivalent for them of a nation despite being manmade. Zephyrites on the other hand seems to me to possibly focus in on individual Zephyrites, i.e. probably the most profitable ones, whereas Sanctum suggests any of the Zephyrites, including the not so profitable ones alongside the profitable ones. ~snip~

Except that, after the original stating of what he said, there is nowhere you even mention the “With your support,” part. You offer no comment on it, and DO ignore it, while still honing in on similarly-meant words used by Kiel.

Actually we were saying entirely different things, you simply twist my wording. If I go live on an airplane for the rest of my life, the airplane becomes the closest thing to my nation…..yeah, we can see where that logic leads. The “Zephyrites” does not in any way suggest only a few people of the Zephyrites. Just an out-of-game comparison, the “Israelites” (like from the Bible) indicates the people of Israel, not jut a few of them. Nuff said, I hope.

SynfulChaot.3169:

All I’ve really seen in this sub-forum about which candidate is the ‘better’ choice is all hair-picked hyperbole. And any time anyone presents something neutral, factual, or even something clearly stated as opinion, they get attacked by people quite rabid in defense of their opinion.

It’s just like real politics and it’s quite sad, really. I play games as an escape from that kittenry. And now it’s right here in my face. Just ugh…

It means people are incredibly invested in their choices and by extension this game. Ultimately, it’s a good thing to have players so involved. Besides, many posters are role-playing and clearly having a blast with it. Why does the fact that certain people enjoy things you dislike make you sad? People play games to have fun, and many posters are having a good time with their mud slinging campaigns.

Gmr Leon.1846:

~shrug~ They sometimes say the content being worked on internally is a reflection of the studio environment

Who’s they?

Ursan.7846:

SynfulChaot.3169:

All I’ve really seen in this sub-forum about which candidate is the ‘better’ choice is all hair-picked hyperbole. And any time anyone presents something neutral, factual, or even something clearly stated as opinion, they get attacked by people quite rabid in defense of their opinion.

It’s just like real politics and it’s quite sad, really. I play games as an escape from that kittenry. And now it’s right here in my face. Just ugh…

It means people are incredibly invested in their choices and by extension this game. Ultimately, it’s a good thing to have players so involved. Besides, many posters are role-playing and clearly having a blast with it. Why does the fact that certain people enjoy things you dislike make you sad? People play games to have fun, and many posters are having a good time with their mud slinging campaigns.

People may, but for those sick of the American political system and the related campaigns and mud-slinging this is just a terrible reminder of a broken system.

The only bad thing is when people trying to have a direct conversation get interrupted by the mud-slingers. Each conversation has it’s own place. It’s one of those “don’t cross the streams” thing.

How is it the PCs get to vote when we are not even citizens of Lion’s arch?

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Gmr Leon.1846:

~snip~

Anywho, addressing your hair-splits of my hair-splits. I didn’t ignore Evon’s with your support, I suggested that it wasn’t as focused on us as we might think, instead addressing more his company members. Regarding the expect/gratitude show, as someone else said, that’s basically your usual campaign promising bribes for support kinda stuff, so neither are in the clear for that.

As to the Sanctum and Zephyrites…Yeah, you’re saying what I said, roughly. Sanctum, being where the people live, is the closest equivalent for them of a nation despite being manmade. Zephyrites on the other hand seems to me to possibly focus in on individual Zephyrites, i.e. probably the most profitable ones, whereas Sanctum suggests any of the Zephyrites, including the not so profitable ones alongside the profitable ones. ~snip~

Except that, after the original stating of what he said, there is nowhere you even mention the “With your support,” part. You offer no comment on it, and DO ignore it, while still honing in on similarly-meant words used by Kiel.

Actually we were saying entirely different things, you simply twist my wording. If I go live on an airplane for the rest of my life, the airplane becomes the closest thing to my nation…..yeah, we can see where that logic leads. The “Zephyrites” does not in any way suggest only a few people of the Zephyrites. Just an out-of-game comparison, the “Israelites” (like from the Bible) indicates the people of Israel, not jut a few of them. Nuff said, I hope.

Oh well. In all honesty, I probably honed in on it because I went in with the working framework that Ellen was a flat warrior type without much complexity, whereas Evon was potentially more complex, having more subtlety in his dialogue. My bad, I guess.

Apparently I also carried over my mental framework about the Sanctum/Zephyrites in interpreting how you were discussing them. Again, my bad, as to be frank, twisting some stranger’s words is in the least of my interests and I doubt I could easily do it intentionally if I wanted to without it becoming blatantly obvious. I’m not a politician, after all. =P

To clarify though: when I was highlighting the difference, I didn’t mean only a few of them, I was trying to point out how it could make it easier to single out individual Zephyrites for the deal. In my mind at least, it makes sense to think that if you reference a deal with a city or a nation, it would deal with and influence every citizen, whereas if you mention the more specific name for people of the city or the nation, you may leave yourself more room for meaning specific individuals amongst them.

That’s obviously not airtight, by any means, but it strikes me as a decent possibility.

It also would go to explaining why so many get frustrated with their politicians after they said they were working for [insert word for countrymen here] only to find them seeming to aid only a specific set of the countrymen. They didn’t lie, but they weren’t entirely honest either. See where I’m coming from? I’m probably wrong, of course, but hey, everything’s up for discussion and speculation.

Leablo.2651:

Gmr Leon.1846:

~shrug~ They sometimes say the content being worked on internally is a reflection of the studio environment

Who’s they?

Thanks for calling me out on this, I try to avoid it where possible. They is referring to some games journalists and the like. You can find similar analysis of the bigger tech companies, where some try to learn how Apple or Microsoft are internally structured to produce their products. It’s largely why there was a small chatter when Microsoft announced internal reorganization, and speculation as to how this may influence their new products and revisions to existing products.

In games development, you might find similar journalists/analysts very interested in Valve’s internal organization, as an example, given their success in producing quality game series like the Half-Life series, the Portal series, and Left 4 Dead series.

The paranoia theory about the Consortium and the original Southsun update being hidden messages about ArenaNet and Nexon was much better than this one. I can only hope you are joking about this, because this is insane.

Does anyone actually think this election has anything to do with RNG boxes and their place in the game or the store? The only data ArenaNet needs to determine their approach to RNG boxes is the real world sale figures of the RNG boxes. If ArenaNet was making a boat load of cash off of the boxes and Kiel won by a landslide, do you really think they would say “hey, Kiel won because players don’t like RNG boxes, lets kill off our money printing design because of an in-game lore event”? The election hyperbole and tongue in cheek (by some people) is making people stupid.

Shiren.9532:

The paranoia theory about the Consortium and the original Southsun update being hidden messages about ArenaNet and Nexon was much better than this one. I can only hope you are joking about this, because this is insane.

Care to elaborate? This isn’t a theory, by any stretch. It’s flimsy speculation that maybe the split decision reflects internal divisions of opinion on the dev team of which direction they want to take content development. More content for the Gem Store, versus same amount alongside the usual (but maybe more? more elaborate? as if I could guess) content we’re seeing.

It would be insane if I was stalwartly defending the speculation and if it didn’t have any basis in reality (the internal affairs and organization of a company can greatly influence what they produce, believe it or not), but I’m admitting where there are holes in it and where I may have leaned too heavily into one path of speculation over another. It’s not big enough of a deal to call insane, if you ask me. That’s simply being rude and seemingly assuming I have some overzealous devotion to an idea I jotted down about a company I’m hardly invested in, on the Internet of all places.

The primary reason I’m continuing to respond is to offer clarifications, apologies, and admissions of mistakes now.

Edit: You edited as I was writing this, so I want to clarify that this speculation isn’t intended to suggest the shuttering of the whole RNG box affair that seems to have had players a bit miffed since release/past few months. I completely agree with you that they will undoubtedly keep running the Gem Store as-is, regardless of what the players choose in this event. All this speculation is referencing is the maybe-possibly of more content being funneled through it as opposed to the current amount.

However, that’s admittedly silly in its own right, as they’ll make that decision one way or another regardless of player sentiments. Although this would be a clever method of gauging the potential response, if nothing else.

All that is great. And that’s why I want to vote for him. He’s more complicated character, he’s insincerity can provide great stand to create new stories. Where Ellen is simply boring, Evon is shady.
It’s not real election – I don’t need to vote for one who will promiss best things to my character. I can vote for guy who can provide more fun to me – player.
And I find all stuff (exept BLKvsTP) from Evon toping the Ellen. I don’t like her, I find her poorly written. Not character that can keep my attention.
If victory means that winner will be placed in office and removed from living story – that would be only reason to vote for Kiel. We would not loose a thing with Evon, he’s not usefull anyway.

And agree about RNG with Shiren . If Anet want’s to know what players thinks about RNG, they have good sources – forum aaaaand key/gem sales. This election wouldn’t give ’em a thing, due the fact, that people are voting for other reasons.

FateOmega.9601:

How is it the PCs get to vote when we are not even citizens of Lion’s arch?

Well, we saved their lazy kitten more than once (two times from Zhaitan attacks, one time from Karkas back in November, one time from mad king Thorn in October and one last time from the Aetherblades more recently).
Adding this to the fact I’ve also slayed Zhaitan, I think I’ve deserved the right to have my word about the new appointed council member .

Oh, I’d be more than willing to pay extra money for Arena Net so they can finally start making Cantha, I don’t care about Asura.