Guild Wars 2

Syryn.7591:

Again with this Mary Sue term, it’s becoming more and more apparent that people obviously don’t understand what it means. Scarlet is NOT a Mary Sue by any means of the word. Look it up, it doesn’t mean what you think it means. A Mary Sue is a character which is infallible and a ‘do-gooder’ NOT a psychologically cracked, partial homicidal maniac.

I use Mary Sue & villain Sue together because the variation in the 2 is meaningless with regard to the failings of that character type. I don’t care that a Mary is a do-gooder & a villain is a do-badder. That’s not what makes up the horribly broken nature of the Sue. You can harp on semantics all you want, but when people are talking about Sues, it’s not because they are trying to pick nits on how they can attack someone’s labeling, it’s because they are trying to explain the spirit of such a broken character. As one of the definitions points out:
“Since there’s no consensus on a precise definition, the best way to describe the phenomenon is by example of the kind of character pretty much everyone could agree to be a Mary Sue.”

Syryn.7591:

Yes, Scarlet “excells” in many fields but she had to LEARN them as expressed many times throughout the living story, a Mary Sue is naturally gifted with talents well beyond what her age would allow, and without any formal training. Also a Mary Sue is a character that is associated with horrifically written romantic undertones to normally a character well beyond her age.

So where is it said that these skills can’t be learned? never seen that. The point is that she’s over powered as wish fulfillment, not that was a particular method of gaining those skills. Saying “they can’t be learned” makes almost no character ever created a sue. I bet the Star Trek character the term is named after learned their skills. Albeit stupidly fast.
"She’s exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her “flaws” are obviously meant to be endearing. "

And It’s so blatantly obvious that Scarlet’s “madness” is meant to be quirky, fun & sassy. Its probably her most ridiculous character feature.

Syryn.7591:

And as for the lore being retconned or dismissed, I don’t really see anything that exemplifies that except for maybe the Krait. And even there it’s mentioned that she held something over them or tricked them to get them to agree to an alliance to begin with.

Are you kidding? Every alliance was built on the idea that she convinced them to join her & yet she has never once been shown to be even remotely well spoken, convincing or even realistic. There is so much lore bending to fit her she’s like a block hole. they could have explained everything she’s done as a manipulation of other groups skill & it would have been way more believable, but nope, it had to be her being awesome.

Syryn.7591:

Also you’re making some rather large assumptions about Scarlet’s madness by comparing her to every other character that is manipulated in some way by a GOD from the realms of torment, considering you have no idea if that’s the case with her or not.

Ummm.. That’s the whole point. Unless they are going to retcon the gods even more & say they are nothing more than wizards (the only comparison they made with the gods & dragons was in the movement of the world & said that their power may rival that of the gods. which is kittened anyways) , then there’s pretty much no satisfying way to explain her acting so dumb. Insane & cartoon, sassy, wacky, sodomizer are not the same. & even if they come up with a mathematical 1+1=2 reason, she still stands out at wacky, dumb & totally unidentifiable as a person who is actually insane. Even worse, if they make it so that she did really see the eternal alchemy, ho man.. that would be the most epic Sue ever. Holy RP fanficness..
That’s why people are not looking forward to the end. Because the end will only explain WHY she is out-of-place, goofy & lore bending. After that happens, she will still be out-of-place, goofy & lore bending.

Becka Williams.4978:

Jomo.3914:

I’ve been reading through the posts here and I think that many people are missing something key here. The EotM update is designed as a way to tie WvW and PvE even closer together then they have been in the past. Anet has made it pretty clear that their desire is to see symmetry between all three game modes. Some ways they are making that happen are by making PvP rewards gold based instead of glory, carrying over skins from PvE into PvP, and adding more PvE elements to WvW (LS in EotM). This next update achieves that goal and fixes the issue of the WvW gueue problem as a bonus.

On the issue of Scarlet, she is undoubtedly annoying and most people find her worthless as a character. I think the biggest cause of this is the fact that players have no real vested interest in what she is doing other then how it effects their achievements or loot. With so much to do in GW2 its impossible to make new content overly expansive because you will run the risk of leaving players in the dust and therefore it has taken many many months just to find out the little we know about Scarlet. I think the reason the developers are convinced Scarlet will be a “good villain” in the end for us is because it will take the entire Season 1 of content for us to understand what has been happening.

If I may add my theory for what happens next. I think Scarlet’s motivations for everything will prove to have in the end been for the best of Tyria. Perhaps the next dragon to be revealed will need a new breed of hero to defeat and Scarlet will have laid the foundation for that with her combination experiments.

I think if they make Scarlet the hero, people will quit in disgust. You cannot make someone that a lot of people hate into the hero. It just doesn’t work.

Arena.net hasn’t ever done this before… not ever… Trahearne and Kormir were loved by all…

Syryn.7591:

gidorah.4960:

Syryn.7591:

gidorah.4960:

BobbyStein.2315:

DarksunG.9537:

But telling us we can’t have any opinion on what we’ve played over the past year is totally unfair. I’m not sure it even makes logical sense.

When did I ever say you can’t have an opinion? I’m just asking that people reserve judgment on the next release until they’ve played it and absorbed the story components.

i think you are a bit testy because people are coming down on your villian hard. please take the time to be introspective about this. no one believes you can fix this story at the very end for 2 reasons. 1.) It is incredibly hard to do and violates several rules of good writing and 2.) your previous attempts at telling this story have fallen flat and no one has faith in your ability moving forward. The best i am hoping for is you wrap the scarlet story up and kill her off and we can all forget about her like they did to jar jar.

I need to know these rules that it violates and I don’t think you get to speak for everyone.

i don’t speak for everyone but don’t fool yourself into thinking only a vocal minority on the forums doesn’t like scarlet or the story so far just ask in map chat its about 20-1 for dislikes to likes feel free to ask yourself don’t take my word for it. well the first rule i can think of he violated is not to put backstory and character development at the end of the story because this leads to one of the mortal sins of storytelling your audience stops caring. This is why pacing is so important and why even bobby has acknowledged the failure. He just still thinks he can fix it but most reasonable people would disagree and see its too late and hope we can move forward with the lessons learned after the content they made months ago is put out and without scarlet around to remind everyone of the poor job they did at the beginning.

That’ s not a rule, that’s your opinion on how you think writing should be done. Facts are these – there are no divinely given literary rules for writing. That’s why so many genres exist and why so many books break even the standards of those genres. And actually in stark contradiction to what you are now claiming is a mortal sin to storytelling would be the art of withholding information from the readers for purpose of mystery/foreboding/paranoia etc – often used in Mystery, Drama, Thriller, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy – well just about any kind of writing genre there is. Now, that being said – yes, there is tons of bad writing in reference to Scarlet and I agree 100% that there should’ve been better pacing and more insight into her character prior to the last few updates of the LS that is centered around her.

But if there’s one thing i’ve learned from reading a book, bad ones can be salvaged a tad with a good ending. (Again we’ll see, i’m completely nonchalant on whether it’ll go one way or the other.)

it’s something everyone follows and is part of proper pacing. if you take a screenwriting or writing class you will be taught it. you can break the rule if it make’s for a more compelling story but it is definitely a rule. the only rule that you can never break is keep them interested but that doesnt mean rules dont exist and anyway anet broke that one too with the story. there really arent any bad stories that get saved by a great ending and bobby knows this and shouldnt be saying things he can’t deliver on.

So I can see that new patch is a force us PvE players into WvW…
Well I’ve skipped other LS points before. I guess it s a good time to take another break from the game.
I’m sure I can get any interesting lore from it as a quick recap somewhere after the LS is over.
Besides LS seem so far to have skipped past the majority of in lore that interest me.
No big deal. cya in a few weeks then.

Gearbox.2748:

So I can see that new patch is a force us PvE players into WvW…

We don’t know the full story yet, but it seems like most of it won’t even be in the Edge.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

I stated this during the Ready Up livestream earlier today, but I’ll repeat it again here.

While we are releasing new story related content with the Edge of the Mists update, very little of that content actually occurs inside of the EotM map. Hopefully that alleviates some of your concerns!

Atlas.9704:

Gearbox.2748:

So I can see that new patch is a force us PvE players into WvW…

We don’t know the full story yet, but it seems like most of it won’t even be in the Edge.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

I stated this during the Ready Up livestream earlier today, but I’ll repeat it again here.

While we are releasing new story related content with the Edge of the Mists update, very little of that content actually occurs inside of the EotM map. Hopefully that alleviates some of your concerns!

“Very little” is “very open” to interpretation. Especially given that we don’t know how important that “little” part of the story will be.

We had to do one of the boss events to unlock the story and character development in OoM. There’s every reason to worry that we’ll have to face PvP to get to the main part of the story in EotM.

Palador.2170:

Atlas.9704:

Gearbox.2748:

So I can see that new patch is a force us PvE players into WvW…

We don’t know the full story yet, but it seems like most of it won’t even be in the Edge.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

I stated this during the Ready Up livestream earlier today, but I’ll repeat it again here.

While we are releasing new story related content with the Edge of the Mists update, very little of that content actually occurs inside of the EotM map. Hopefully that alleviates some of your concerns!

“Very little” is “very open” to interpretation. Especially given that we don’t know how important that “little” part of the story will be.

We had to do one of the boss events to unlock the story and character development in OoM. There’s every reason to worry that we’ll have to face PvP to get to the main part of the story in EotM.

good point, it’s certainly a wait and see thing. >_>

Honestly, I see a lot of complaining incoming. PvE was strictly separated from PvP in this game.
While the Wv3 people tend to call the PvE players “loot bags”, the PvE players must obviously be the majority and have more voice (we will see how many players are on the Wv3 maps tomorrow)…

PvE players do not care about the stupid zerking around on a map for hours, they want to see the story.
Wv3 players do not give a dime about story, they want to bash other players heads.

Two worlds will collide, oh so much friction…

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Honestly, I see a lot of complaining incoming. PvE was strictly separated from PvP in this game.
While the Wv3 people tend to call the PvE players “loot bags”, the PvE players must obviously be the majority and have more voice (we will see how many players are on the Wv3 maps tomorrow)…

PvE players do not care about the stupid zerking around on a map for hours, they want to see the story.
Wv3 players do not give a dime about story, they want to bash other players heads.

Two worlds will collide, oh so much friction…

I wouldn’t say PVE and PVE were strictly separated… World completion requires mapping WvW zones, but you could safely say it was over 95% separate.

regardless tomorrow could well be a train wreck…. I’ll hit up dulfy.net before I decide if it’s worth it to ride that train (Do living story) or hop the airship and avoid it all (play FF14)

DarksunG.9537:

Syryn.7591:

Again with this Mary Sue term, it’s becoming more and more apparent that people obviously don’t understand what it means. Scarlet is NOT a Mary Sue by any means of the word. Look it up, it doesn’t mean what you think it means. A Mary Sue is a character which is infallible and a ‘do-gooder’ NOT a psychologically cracked, partial homicidal maniac.

I use Mary Sue & villain Sue together because the variation in the 2 is meaningless with regard to the failings of that character type. I don’t care that a Mary is a do-gooder & a villain is a do-badder. That’s not what makes up the horribly broken nature of the Sue. You can harp on semantics all you want, but when people are talking about Sues, it’s not because they are trying to pick nits on how they can attack someone’s labeling, it’s because they are trying to explain the spirit of such a broken character. As one of the definitions points out:
“Since there’s no consensus on a precise definition, the best way to describe the phenomenon is by example of the kind of character pretty much everyone could agree to be a Mary Sue.”

Syryn.7591:

Yes, Scarlet “excells” in many fields but she had to LEARN them as expressed many times throughout the living story, a Mary Sue is naturally gifted with talents well beyond what her age would allow, and without any formal training. Also a Mary Sue is a character that is associated with horrifically written romantic undertones to normally a character well beyond her age.

So where is it said that these skills can’t be learned? never seen that. The point is that she’s over powered as wish fulfillment, not that was a particular method of gaining those skills. Saying “they can’t be learned” makes almost no character ever created a sue. I bet the Star Trek character the term is named after learned their skills. Albeit stupidly fast.
"She’s exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her “flaws” are obviously meant to be endearing. "

And It’s so blatantly obvious that Scarlet’s “madness” is meant to be quirky, fun & sassy. Its probably her most ridiculous character feature.

Syryn.7591:

And as for the lore being retconned or dismissed, I don’t really see anything that exemplifies that except for maybe the Krait. And even there it’s mentioned that she held something over them or tricked them to get them to agree to an alliance to begin with.

Are you kidding? Every alliance was built on the idea that she convinced them to join her & yet she has never once been shown to be even remotely well spoken, convincing or even realistic. There is so much lore bending to fit her she’s like a block hole. they could have explained everything she’s done as a manipulation of other groups skill & it would have been way more believable, but nope, it had to be her being awesome.

Syryn.7591:

Also you’re making some rather large assumptions about Scarlet’s madness by comparing her to every other character that is manipulated in some way by a GOD from the realms of torment, considering you have no idea if that’s the case with her or not.

Ummm.. That’s the whole point. Unless they are going to retcon the gods even more & say they are nothing more than wizards (the only comparison they made with the gods & dragons was in the movement of the world & said that their power may rival that of the gods. which is kittened anyways) , then there’s pretty much no satisfying way to explain her acting so dumb. Insane & cartoon, sassy, wacky, sodomizer are not the same. & even if they come up with a mathematical 1+1=2 reason, she still stands out at wacky, dumb & totally unidentifiable as a person who is actually insane. Even worse, if they make it so that she did really see the eternal alchemy, ho man.. that would be the most epic Sue ever. Holy RP fanficness..
That’s why people are not looking forward to the end. Because the end will only explain WHY she is out-of-place, goofy & lore bending. After that happens, she will still be out-of-place, goofy & lore bending.

I wouldn’t call Scarlet a Mary sue, it’s just the sheer amount of Arc Welding required to establish the character as a legitimate threat, and the story feels like it retcons itself just to fit the character. Not to say that it has created some bad retcons, it’s just the idea that everything thus far had to be tied to Scarlet.

More about that here for anyone actually interested:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArcWelding

Well to be honest, Wv3 is sort of an ugly child of PvP and PvE, and there must have been a lot of alcohol be part of the process bringing them together. So it is somehow ok for PvEes to go there.

The new map on the other hand is just a random team deathmatch. Random teams, random players from random servers. It is not even Wv3, it is just an arena.
I am still surprised that the Wv3 people are so happy about it.
But this new map will be a nightmare for PvE people. Questing on a de facto FFA PvP map with anonymous players.
That doesn’t sound like Wv3, it sounds like a slaughter.

Good thing i moved to reddit/gw2 where people have fun and respect the others. This Forum is just filled with toxic and flame.

Palador.2170:

Atlas.9704:

Gearbox.2748:

So I can see that new patch is a force us PvE players into WvW…

We don’t know the full story yet, but it seems like most of it won’t even be in the Edge.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

I stated this during the Ready Up livestream earlier today, but I’ll repeat it again here.

While we are releasing new story related content with the Edge of the Mists update, very little of that content actually occurs inside of the EotM map. Hopefully that alleviates some of your concerns!

“Very little” is “very open” to interpretation. Especially given that we don’t know how important that “little” part of the story will be.

We had to do one of the boss events to unlock the story and character development in OoM. There’s every reason to worry that we’ll have to face PvP to get to the main part of the story in EotM.

I’m assuming we’ll have to take part in one aetherblade attack in the edge of the mists, and maybe explore it, and the rest we can ignore.

BobbyStein.2315:

DarksunG.9537:

snip

I’m just asking that people reserve judgment on the next release until they’ve played it and absorbed the story components.

If you honestly think someone apart of anet, let alone someone like Bobby, would tell a player on the internet that he can’t have an opinion, you should re look over why you think that. That would be PR suicide and no one in the right mind would do that.

Anyways, I felt the need to say this. Bobby, I’ve been with you guys since release. I was there for the spectacular lost shores event. It had problems with lag, but it was pretty kitten fun. I was there to save Norn and Charr from the molten alliance. I was there to save the refugees on Southsun and stop Canach. I was there. Story wise, you’ve guys dont a pretty good job. You have had a few bumpy roads here and there. Starting off slow, not giving enough information, perm affect on the world. That being said, since October you guys have DONE AMAZING job improve. The amount of progress you made on this content is amazing. Halloween was an awesome story line. Wintersday was fun. The main thing that truly amazed me and still does to this day is Kessex Hills. PLEASE do what you did there again. The event was awesome, but how you ended it. Sweet baby Jesus that was the best ending delivery I’ve ever seen. First you have the ruins and the obvious destruction it caused. Then I can rewatch the cinematic with new players! Thats not it though. You put in NPCs actually reacting to the Toxic Tower. The NPCs on the eastern side of the lake talking about the giant toxic shark. The quaggan refugees. The detail is amazing. It is a HUGE improvement since Flame and Frost. Then you have marionette. The boss has it problems and I’m sure you guys learned a lot about world bosses this time. However, Scarlets secret lair and how you tied lore into the reward system. This was an amazing design. I learned so much and I’m so hyped up to see how this will end. I can not wait. It’s true I’m a bit worried for the heart of the mist, but I’m also at the same time very excited. If you were to have announced this after tequatl, I wouldn’t be too hyped up for it (I always felt like tequatl was too loosely tied into the living story and felt forced). However, since Halloween I felt like you guys have really started improving and listening to player feedback. After marionette, the instance and voice acting, the lair; I have high confidence in you guys in finishing this. I really think the ending will surprise people and I can’t wait for it.

To the players, try explaining the living story to someone. Something I do for my endgame since I really dont need gold or items anymore is I roam the world helping players, talking to them, etc. I especially love the low level zones. I encounter new players (even 80 players who dont know the LS exist) and I love talking to them about the LS and they always love it. I get the best reaction out of them when I show them the zephyrite sanctum model, toxic tower cinematic, telling them how the players actually voted for someone, and then showing them marionette. After you explain the story to someone, the story seems a lot better and you realize it is. I think the main causes of this is because we had to wait for the chapters, but when you read it you knows what happens next by reading it and not waiting another month or two weeks to find out. The story is a lot better than we give it credit for.

I know that anet might not see this and it may get buried. I know that people will probably scuff and reply in a laugh, think im brown nosing and stuff. I’m not trying to I assure you. I just see all the hate Anet gets and the developers get and Anet is the only company that I’ve seen actually take pretty large risk and done experimentation for the MMO industry. I think they’re doing a terrific job and I can’t wait to see whats next.

Good Job Anet. I know you may see a lot of hate, but there are a lot of players out there that think you’re doing a good job. Don’t get discouraged!

booom served…wow

Palador.2170:

I have a pretty low opinion of the LS, but I’ll take a shot at this:

In the current LS, people are asking “How can Scarlet build that?” Not only are they questioning where she gets her resources, but where she could build things as large as the Twisted Marionette and the flying machine above it.

Well, here’s your answer. She’s been accessing lands within the mists.

We’ll have to forgive the fact that this means she’s (once again) able to do something nobody else can do by freely creating access to new lands within the mists. In this case, it’s one more bit of Mary Sue-ness that actually works to fill a gaping plot hole. Now we know where she’s been getting her resources (thus the Watchwork mining pick that went on sale a week before this update) and where she’s been building all her toys. In the mists.

I’m going to guess that we go to the Edge of the Mists to cut off her access to the parts of the mists that she’s using. Her story is wrapping up, now’s the point where we cut off her supply routes, what she has on Tyria is enough to make it through two more updates. Meanwhile, we’ll never actually see the lands in the mists that she’s been more heavily exploiting, so they can be reintroduced as a plot point for a later LS.

I think the lore for the mists should be read, it makes life easier to explain things.

Before there were humans or dwarves, before there were even worlds or the stars that light the night sky, there was but one thing in the universe—the Mists. The Mists touch all things. They are what binds the universe together, past, present, and future. They are the source of all good and evil, of all matter and knowledge. It is said that all forms of life, no matter how simple or complex, can trace their origins back to this one place. – The Guild Wars Manuscripts

In the middle of The Mists is a spot where time moves neither forward nor back. It is a tear in the fabric of the cosmos, the point of perfect balance between all forces of the universe. This place is known as the Rift, and there is nothing to which it does not connect, nothing that cannot be reached from inside it. Those who have the know-how to travel across the universe through the Mists must pass through the Rift on their way to all other places. It is the center of all things. – The Guild Wars Manuscripts

Using a spell of his own devising and the sacrifice of many souls, Lord Odran, a powerful arcanist who specialized in the study of temporal distortions, opened a portal that offered him access to the Mists and eventually into the Rift itself. The spirits who had given their lives to earn access to the hallowed afterlife were outraged. They turned their fury upon the intruder, attacking Lord Odran with all of their legendary, collective might. But it had been hundreds of years since most of the spirits had interacted with the physical world, and none of them had ever done so in their shadow form. As powerful as they had been in life, they could not harm the physical manifestation of the wizard lord—not yet. He was untouchable here in the land of the dead, and he traveled freely through the Hall of Heroes.
Over the years, Lord Odran learned to use the Rift to travel across the multiverse. He opened portals on nearly all of the different worlds, turning the Rift into his own personal gateway. But though he was clever, the wizard lord was himself only mortal, and eventually the spirits of the Hall discovered a way to interact with the corporeal world. Odran’s last physical journey through the Rift cost him his mortal life. The wizard lord was torn to shreds by hundreds of angry souls seeking retribution for his trespasses.
When Odran’s mortal body died, the wards and enchantments that kept his portals hidden failed, and the gates to the Hall of Heroes were laid open to all who were able to find them. The wizard lord had been canny though; Odran knew that one day he too might be ensconced in the Hall of Heroes, so he hid the portals in the most treacherous locations he could find. The fear of death, he surmised, would keep the meek at bay.
But a long time has passed, and it is clear now that the wizard lord, like the gods before him, underestimated the greed of men. Over time, the whereabouts of the portals have been revealed. Though they remain difficult to get to, there are those with enough skill and enough bravery to reach them, and every day the numbers of intruders to the Hall of Heroes rises. – The Guild Wars Manuscripts

BobbyStein.2315:

DarksunG.9537:

But telling us we can’t have any opinion on what we’ve played over the past year is totally unfair. I’m not sure it even makes logical sense.

When did I ever say you can’t have an opinion? I’m just asking that people reserve judgment on the next release until they’ve played it and absorbed the story components.

There is a saying in the entertainment industry, and this includes videogames: the most important part is the first 5 minutes.

What does that mean? You have to grab and hold the attention of the audience pretty quickly, otherwise you’ll lose that audience to something else. This is one of the biggest failures of the current LS content, and this is a notion that the Devs haven’t quite grasped. I’ll spell it out quite simply:

I don’t care what happens with Scarlet, and there’s nothing that can fix that now.

I’ve lost interest. The beginning of the story was too slow, too generic, too flat, and I don’t like any of the characters. I am not invested in the characters. Because I’m not invested, any creative twist or expansion of these characters has no meaning to me. I was not given a reason to care in the first place.

All you have to do to care is know the entire plot arc of season one from the start. Which, I guess, is why a lot of people don’t care.

Although I, myself, am not a huge fan of Scarlet, or some of the ways the living story has gone, I have come to realize I love the living story at this point. Let me clarify, I do not necessarily love it on it’s own merits, but more so what it brings out in the community.

At this stage of the game, a year and a half after release, we have 3 camps divided on whether they hate Scarlet, like her, or meh. This is just the perfect idea of a “living” world. There will always be Heroes who get invested because Innocents are suffering (Virtual or not), and heroes who can’t or won’t bring themselves to be involved. Just as in our “real world” some may step up to the task when they see an elderly lady is being mugged, there is always those who turn their heads thinking, “Its not my problem.”

Thank you to everyone on both sides of the spectrum, because you are what helps this feel alive to me.

Becka Williams.4978:

All you have to do to care is know the entire plot arc of season one from the start. Which, I guess, is why a lot of people don’t care.

Yeah. Knowing the whole plot did make me care even less for all of this. Because the plot was that bad.

BobbyStein.2315:

gidorah.4960:

BobbyStein.2315:

You’ll have to wait and see how we integrated story into the release. I think it works pretty well but I’m biased. I am looking forward to the feedback we receive next week.

you also thought scarlet was a good villain.

I also know the entire plot a year in advance.

That’s kinda cheating

now that we have seen it is it ok to not be impressed bobby or do we have to wait for the next few patches to criticize?

It’s completely full of holes isn’kitten There’s a chance for some spectacular looking content over the next few updates though so perhaps we just have to write off the story and see whether we can enjoy the game.

The thing that continues to annoy me is something that still hasn’t been answered and I don’t see how it possibly could be in these last two updates.

Where in the kitten is Scarlet getting the resources for this level of assault? You look at what she is building, her designs… we are talking about massive, large scale constructions that NO organization be they private or country up until this point has managed. The sheer scale of money, time, and raw materials… you can’t HIDE THAT.

Mining operations of that scale aren’t just tucked away in some small little cave. That much manpower doesn’t just hide in little huts all around Tyria. Bases of operations like the ones the Aetherblades had in Lions Arch don’t just happen without a LOT of someones noticing.

That freakin’ flying city that Scarlet hung that Marionette from… you mean to tell me NO ONE saw the movement of resources that would be required to construct that monstrosity and thought, “Gee, it’s awfully odd to see an army of dolyaks moving metal and ore towards a place that no one has any reason to inhabit…”

The only way it makes sense is if one (if not more) of the major cities of Tyria were either complacent or outright assisting Scarlet’s efforts. Would Arena.net be willing to set races against each other like that? I doubt it.

And that’s not even getting INTO the time investment for all these things. Hell, ONE of the constructs Scarlet has whipped together I don’t see as being possible to construct in the time frame she had… much less ALL of them.

The last patch was the nail in the coffin for me, I uninstalled the game and moved onto another MMO. I stopped back just to check to see about the next LS update and it once again reinforced my decision. There is absolutely no hope for this game, incorporating the PvE living story into WvW just shows you the direction they want for this game, its not going to be a PvE oriented game at all the focus is clearly on PvP play, that explains the reasons behind the balancing, the armor, the skins, and the limited choice in items. It’s all starting to make sense now why PvE in this game has been so severely neglected from the start. I will say this though, I am disappointing because for the first few months I played the game, I did truely enjoy it.

BobbyStein.2315:

Becka Williams.4978:

The problem with the Scarlet Story is that Anet thinks they’ve made this grand mystery that’s gotten the players talking. Then they come in and say “I love this theory crafting! You’re all wrong, but I love it!” And they fail to realize that we’re wrong because they’ve held the ENTIRE story for the end. What we’ve got is a 2 chapter book. Frost and fire through whatever the next update after edge of the mists is called is chapter one. Then everything’s explained to us in chapter 2. And then the story’s over. This is boring. They waited 6 weeks to release the living story to make sure they got it right, and nothing is revealed. We just have to wait till the end. If ALL the story’s at the end, we should’ve just gone to the end from the start. You don’t need to have played the living story for the past year, because nothing important has been told to us. I can only hope they’ve learned for season 2. They said they have, but only time will tell.

Why don’t you hold your criticisms until you’ve played the content? At this point you’re all speculating on how it fits together and what you’ll be doing in the next release. We haven’t discussed the details, so most of the assumptions in this thread aren’t correct.

Don’t assume that all of us bother to play it, at this point.

chemiclord.3978:

Where in the kitten is Scarlet getting the resources for this level of assault?

This has been bugging me a lot, too. She’s probably operating outside the maps we have access to, but I won’t hold that as an interesting excuse. There was so much potential to cover this part of the story, and it only would have taken a few extra lines of dialogue.

Have Mai Trin use her (pre-Dragon Bash) position to route money and supplies. Make the Aetherblades raid everywhere not for giggles, but for resources. Keep the Molten Weapon Facility and Aetherblade Retreat functioning in the background, (even if they’re not assailable), because Scarlet still needs places to route production and operations. Let a few random random NPC’s spout snippets about wanting to sign up with one of her alliances.

It would have been easy to make the scale of her organization believable, but it’s even easier to sit here and nitpick their mistakes in hindsight.

Aetherblades stole a lot of money from Lion’s Arch citizens. It is said during Cutthroat Politics, when an Aetherblade airship crashed just outside the Bazaar.

chemiclord.3978:

The thing that continues to annoy me is something that still hasn’t been answered and I don’t see how it possibly could be in these last two updates.

Where in the kitten is Scarlet getting the resources for this level of assault? You look at what she is building, her designs… we are talking about massive, large scale constructions that NO organization be they private or country up until this point has managed. The sheer scale of money, time, and raw materials… you can’t HIDE THAT.

Mining operations of that scale aren’t just tucked away in some small little cave. That much manpower doesn’t just hide in little huts all around Tyria. Bases of operations like the ones the Aetherblades had in Lions Arch don’t just happen without a LOT of someones noticing.

That freakin’ flying city that Scarlet hung that Marionette from… you mean to tell me NO ONE saw the movement of resources that would be required to construct that monstrosity and thought, “Gee, it’s awfully odd to see an army of dolyaks moving metal and ore towards a place that no one has any reason to inhabit…”

The only way it makes sense is if one (if not more) of the major cities of Tyria were either complacent or outright assisting Scarlet’s efforts. Would Arena.net be willing to set races against each other like that? I doubt it.

And that’s not even getting INTO the time investment for all these things. Hell, ONE of the constructs Scarlet has whipped together I don’t see as being possible to construct in the time frame she had… much less ALL of them.

Obviously she hacked the Trading Post.

Personally, I blame Evon.

I just hope anet have a really good explanation for her supervillain feats.

I just gotta say I loved the update, and would like MANY more like it. I went into Edge of the Mists thinking it was going to be a blood bath to get the LS over and done with, and ended up sticking around for a few hours running with a small group of 6 others enjoying the map. The story and small twists and hints about whats to come are great! Let the haters continue on as they have, I have found this very enjoyable.

I enjoyed the update storyline. The Dead End instance with all the forensics was a fun mechanic and an entertaining way to provide a re-cap of the story without just using a wall of text.

Regarding Scarlet, I still think her one of biggest issues is that we just don’t know her motivations. The whole story is centered around keeping her motivations a secret.

It’s the same problem I had with the Elder Dragons. The LS did not give anything regarding their motivations. The story just kept repeating they are ‘forces of nature’ and they want to kill everything just to be Evil (tm ). That ended up making the dragons as interesting as two-dimensional, mustache-twirling, black-hatted bad guys.

The worst thing one can do for a villain is to keep their motivations a secret. Motivations are what let players/readers understand the villain. It lets people relate to the villain and that is where real characterization starts. Even with completely insane villains like the Joker or Hannibel Lector, we know what motivates them through their background which is clearly explained (even when it’s ret-conned).

With Scarlet, we had to piece together her history (if one didn’t religiously follow out-of-game info) and more importantly we have NO idea why is doing anything that she does. When the Joker commits a crime, we know exactly why: to get a laugh. Hannibal Lector has purpose behind his diabolical murders. That motivation is critical to making the villain’s purpose clear, which is critical to letting the player/reader understand the villain, which is what is needed for the player/reader to appreciate the character.

Being mysterious might work for actions, to a point. Being mysterious about a character for more than a year just becomes irritating. Scarlet should have been introduced in Flame and Frost and the storyline should not have centered around keeping the players completely ignorant of why she is doing anything.

When faced with a choice between communicating with players and not communicating, always choose to communicate. That’s true for lore, game mechanics and pretty much everything else in any game.

Gulesave.5073:

It would have been easy to make the scale of her organization believable, but it’s even easier to sit here and nitpick their mistakes in hindsight.

It wouldn’t have been easy, even with a big buildup. The scale of her actions is just way too big to be believable. Frankly, all the groups she has gathered, even when put together, do not have access to that much resources, even if they’d be willing to give all their stuff to Scarlet (which is not very likely). And that’s even when we ignore the fact that those groups should never been allied in the first place.