Guild Wars 2

A lot of people have been maintaining that the primary thing being voted for is fractals (the discounts are temporary) but this tidbit got dropped by Colin at a recent interview:

“You’re voting to determine who this character will be that will be on the Lion’s Arch council and the outcome of that vote will permanently put that character on the council where they will be deciding things about the future of the game constantly in the future. The council will vote on whether or not they’ll be involved in wars, whether Lion’s Arch is going to sign peace treaties or sign trade treaties. Whoever you vote in? They’re going to be part of those decisions and these things can have ramifications for years to come and affect the entire game.”

So yes, there are bigger issues at stake than the fractal.

On this basis, I thought it might be worthwhile to open a discussion and see if we can predict what policies each would be likely to pursue. On this, I would ask responders to check their political grandstanding at the door and think about what each candidate is likely to do under various situations that might come up – baseless conspiracy theories like Ellen being secretly Scarlet or Evon being secretly Flame Legion have no purpose here.

First, one obvious starting point is the centaur war. Currently, Lion’s Arch has a peace accord with the centaurs, but this has proven controversial. The Lionguard in Kessex are convinced that the centaurs have been breaking the terms of the treaty by raiding caravans on the Lionguard-protected road (rightfully). Jennah’s speech in EoD also indicates that she was expecting Lionguard assistance against the centaurs that obviously hasn’t eventuated – the treaty is probably a sticking point in relations between Kryta and Lion’s Arch, especially since an examination of centaur positions suggests that the centaurs probably had to cross under the walls of Lionguard havens to penetrate as far as they did. So what policy would each candidate be likely to pursue?

Starting with Ellen – being Lionguard herself, I think she’s probably aware of the observations of the Kessex Hills Lionguard. She’s also demonstrated an innate sense of doing what’s right which could extend to the Krytans in general or maintaining that understanding with Queen Jennah. Thus, I suspect she’d be in favour of discarding the treaty with the centaurs and getting Lion’s Arch involved.

Evon, I think, would be more cautious on weighing up what Lion’s Arch stands to gain or lose by getting involved in the war. The treaty, thus far, seems to have prevented direct attacks on Lion’s Arch or its holdings (such as Applenook or the havens) and the odd lost caravan may be a fair trade for this. Evon probably still cares more about the centaurs than some other members of the Captain’s Council, as he is the head of a trading company that operates across land as well as sea routes, but I think he’d only be inclined to support a change in policy if he felt the benefits outweighed the risks.

Essentially, in this case, Evon would probably take the more practical, ‘realpolitic’ approach, while Ellen is probably more likely to be an idealist.

So, what are your thoughts on what the candidates might do in these circumstances?

(As a reminder, I ask that you leave your campaigning at the door. State which likely set of actions you favour if you must, but please keep it serious and save the Birther-esque conspiracy theories for the appropriate threads.)

I hate to say it, but I see the potential of either candidate taking power as something of a smoke screen. ANet could create any story they wanted and then link it back, somehow, to who won or lost this election. If some sort of actual in game platform or out of game roadmap was put out by ANet, I would say it would be worth discussing but since we don’t have such a thing beyond the initial rewards I’m not sure there’s much to really say.

There might be things that they affect years from now as they say. But right now all we have to go on is what they’ve told is. And that is the unique fractal.

And it’s not like we’ll ever know, years from now what would have been different unless they tell us if we had chosen Kiel over Gnash or vice versa. So again, all we have to go on is the guaranteed things they’ve told us.

Well, I’m pretty sure that we won’t see any direct effects for at least a couple of months…

In general… I think there’s an element of being wrong and being right. Most of the stuff in the living story will probably happen regardless of who’s in charge – in fact, I actually hope that it will have relatively small effects, since for it to have massive effects would mean that the LS is focusing far too much, IMO, on LA.

However, there can certainly be ways in which the same general events happen, but the candidate that’s in power causes some changes in the specifics.

For instance, using the example of the centaurs above, a LS chapter that involves a revitalised centaur attack could have Ellen pushing LA to come to Kryta’s aid, while Evon remains in favour of neutrality (in exchange for a personal pledge from the new centaur leader that this time they really mean it in terms of protecting caravans). The general thrust – massive centaur attack – would be the same either way. However, with Ellen in charge, Lionguard support would make it that much harder for the centaurs to take and hold ground, but the centaurs might deliberately go out of their way to attack caravans, Lionguard havens, and may even attack Applenook. With Evon maintaining a status of neutrality, though, the blow might fall more heavily on Kryta and centaurs would scrupulously avoid Lionguard interests.

This could have further ramifications later on. For instance, part of Evon’s reason for avoiding involvement with the centaurs might be because he’s looking to use the funds that might otherwise go to fighting towards re-establishing contact with Cantha and/or exploring to find new trading partners. Alternatively, LA entering the war could lead to disruptions in supply along one of the trade roads and thus lead to shortages for one of the other races, that could lead to situations developing (or worsening) there.

draxynnic.3719:

First, one obvious starting point is the centaur war.

This is called fanfic.

/eject

No, it’s called speculation and extrapolation from previous behaviour.

If you have a countertheory, and it’s not based on Ellen being secretly Scarlet or some other tinfoil conspiracy theory, please feel free.