Guild Wars 2

So, from the very beginning of this storyline, I’ve found myself squarely on the side of the refugees. As a charr player, the chances that I would side with some asura and humans over an unethical contract are NONE. And the kittenhat consortium have done nothing at all to change my mind. As far as I’m concerned, the charr (and their nornly friends) should just steal a boat, stab any humans in their way, and get back to the Legions.

From the description of this month’s event, I thought I’d have a chance to help the refugees (even if not to the blow-up-the-consortium levels of help I’d like to offer). But, no. When fighting randomly breaks out (without any kind of words beforehand, I might add), I’m attacked by settlers and consortium equally. If settlers attack some Consortium flunkie, they attack me as though I’m with him!

If the story development team was going to pit two sides against one another, I really wish they hadn’t made it a false choice for the player. It would be much more interesting if the players could choose sides.

tl;dr: Save the charr, stab the humans.

I just don’t get why the devs can say that “The Consortium are neither good nor evil”. What they are doing to that refugees is slavery! They force them to work, beat them into submission (with whips) and won’t let them leave the island. If you want to know, I’m with Canach. Let’s throw Karkas at The Consortium!

My main char is a Norn and I’m with you. I want to shove Noll in a blender.

What makes you think they are to be enemies?

I’m not really partial to the slavers or to the cowards who ran from the pitiful Molten Alliance. The only minor irk I have is that everytime I put down enemies from either side I don’t do so permanently, in a gruesome dismembering fashion. That would make the events run out quickly though I would imagine. :P

You can’t pick between the consortium and the settlers (except for a boon) story-wise because you are neither on the consortium’s or settler’s sides. Rather, you are trying to help out the lionguard/Kiel by quelling violence between these two groups, stopping wildlife attacks, and finding out why these wildlife attacks are occurring.

Gabby.3205:

I just don’t get why the devs can say that “The Consortium are neither good nor evil”. What they are doing to that refugees is slavery!

I disagree with this. They signed a contract so they should, at the least, known what they were getting into when they went to Southsun. The dev guy said they had no choice but to go to Southsun but I disagree with that. In the world of Tyria exists a little something called asura gates that the refugees could use to go to safe cities like The Grove or Rata Sum. Not to mention the fact that the races like the Norn and the Charr are known for being resilient. Even though it was stated otherwise, I wholeheartedly believe that the refugees could have gone elsewhere. Built their own towns, perhaps.

Kojiden.8405:

I disagree with this. They signed a contract so they should, at the least, known what they were getting into when they went to Southsun.

I’m really sorry, I took my own country’s law about this kind of stuff to talk about slavery, and I obviously shouldn’t have done that since Tyria is not my country. Here, a contract can be rendered invalid if the person that signed it was in a desperate state of need and it turns out that said contract was really bad for the weaker part, which is the settler’s case.

Kojiden.8405:

The dev guy said they had no choice but to go to Southsun but I disagree with that. In the world of Tyria exists a little something called asura gates that the refugees could use to go to safe cities like The Grove or Rata Sum. Not to mention the fact that the races like the Norn and the Charr are known for being resilient. Even though it was stated otherwise, I wholeheartedly believe that the refugees could have gone elsewhere. Built their own towns, perhaps.

One of the refugees says that he didn’t want The Consortium’s mercenaries after him, so of what use would trying to escape really be? If they were proper employees, they should be able to quit whenever they wanted and not be hunt down for that.
Maybe they could have gone elsewhere (and some of them really did), but they didn’t, so now they should be treated like garbage?
Norn and Charr are resilient, but they are also really proud. That kind of treatment must be almost as bad as dying, for them.

If you sign a contract, you abide by it until the terms are met. Everyone has a choice and they certainly were not forced to go to Southsun Cove. I don’t know which country was stated that you can nullify a contract if the individual signed under desperate need but it’s certainly not a law that exists in the U.S.

In any case, this is just a game. Just relax and have fun!

Ayrilana, that’s how it works on most countries that use the Civil Law legal system (I’m talking about the Romano-Germanic legal system, not about the English non-criminal law). Again, I shouldn’t have used that to talk about slavery since I realize it is different for countries like the USA, which uses the Common Law legal system. I was just justifying why I got so upset about what’s happening to the settlers, nothing else, and again I’m sorry for not thinking it through

I’m with you on this, Gabby, but I agree that our character’s hands are tied by ANet story-writing. What’s more interesting is that there’s apparently an achievement whereby our characters will need to safely transport Consortium contracts (gee, I wonder which ones?) to the ship for evacuation. I’m not sure if that’s something I want to do, but then again, ANet could always surprise us.

Noll: “The contracts are safely aboard! Those settlers won’t be getting out of them now! Let’s get on board and go!”
-ship blows up and sinks due to a Crazed Karka Queen jumping out of the sea and landing on it-
Noll: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

Gabby.3205:

Ayrilana, that’s how it works on most countries that use the Civil Law legal system (I’m talking about the Romano-Germanic legal system, not about the English non-criminal law). Again, I shouldn’t have used that to talk about slavery since I realize it is different for countries like the USA, which uses the Common Law legal system. I was just justifying why I got so upset about what’s happening to the settlers, nothing else, and again I’m sorry for not thinking it through

It’s all good. I didn’t mean to put you on the defensive.

Gabby.3205:

I just don’t get why the devs can say that “The Consortium are neither good nor evil”. What they are doing to that refugees is slavery!

It’s more indentured servatude more than chattel slavery. But I agree that in my mind, the contracts are unenforcable by any ethical government.

GoldenTruth.2853:

You can’t pick between the consortium and the settlers (except for a boon) story-wise because you are neither on the consortium’s or settler’s sides. Rather, you are trying to help out the lionguard/Kiel by quelling violence…

That’s the point… I don’t want to be doing that. And it doesn’t make sense for my character to be doing that, either. I don’t want to be attacking charr settlers, since I’m on their side, but I’m forced to just by wandering around Southsun because they will sure as kitten attack me.

Plus, I could just as easily choose to quell the violence by putting the Consortium on their kittens and throwing them into the ocean for a nice bath to clear their heads.