Guild Wars 2

I’m actually a bit curious if Scarlet’s sudden arrival and advancement through the Asuran colleges is just a formality because she already had the ability and knowledge beforehand.

I’m not saying she isn’t over the top and almost to the point of maudlin – she is. But that’s not really a bad thing considering the low-key villains we’ve had recently. *cough*Canach*/cough*

She doesn’t seem very phased that her original plot for Jennah failed, (although I haven’t completed the 5 invasions to advance the plot yet so…) it makes me wonder if this batkitten crazy and extravagant act is just a show for something more devious.

I feel the need to voice my experience of this portion of the living story.

I am personally disappointed.

This update is quite mechanically sound, but there has not been much of any change with the story.

The only thing that has driven the narrative is that this mystery villain has been revealed to be a new character with unknown motivations. She comes off as just another in the string of villains who are just “evil.” This does not seem to move the events of the conflict of the Elder dragons, nor does it bring the living story much further.

The only interesting bit that was said was when Tonn said that she claims to be able to see the Eternal Alchemy, which is just another inch towards a compelling story and satisfying payoff.

Our encounters from her make her capabilities range from god like power in the invasions to bratty little girl with some toys in the dungeon. I find myself unable to see her as an effective or intimidating villain.

My biggest problem with the story thus far is that it has no weight to it. Only unnamed npcs were killed, and nothing in the world has really changed. like the molten alliance portions of the living story, it just seems like swarms of bees that show up, buzz around and wait to be either exterminated or left alone to do nothing.

I was quite excited for this update and hoped that something interesting would happen to renew my enthusiasm for the game.

I know there are a great deal of mysteries and intrigue in the Guild Wars 2 universe, I know there is some very very good story to be had here; but if this is the best we can hope for as a payoff, then I cannot see myself caring about the living story at all.

I hope this wasn’t all there was for this updated and that something interesting happens soon.

P.S.: Here are a few things that would catch my interest in the living story. This is just to demonstrate what I mean when I say I want some weight behind the events of the story and not to simply declare “ArenaNet, do these exact things.”

An established character’s death

An established character turning out to be evil

Introduction of a powerful villain with reasons to be a villain other than just being evil

Any of the many numerous mysteries of Guild Wars 2 coming to light, like the Colossus, Thumanova Reactor, the Steam Creatures or whatever happened to the human gods

One of the home cities being at least partially destroyed

What I don’t want to see:

A new villain with no known background, who is just evil for the sake of being evil.

A new character introduced to be killed off before I have a reason to care (see

in the personal story)

For nothing meaningful to the lore or world to happen (aka filler)

Comic relief to be omnipresent in the face of invasions or all out war

That will conclude my rant, thank you for making it all the way through.

Ill conceived, half baked. paper thin personality, cartoon, uninspired, and soulless.

I honestly believe that it would be in Anet’s best interests to, once this event is over, completely discard Scarlet, pretend she never existed in the first place and move on. It’s extremely difficult to salvage a terrible character like her, and I don’t trust Anet’s writing team to be able to do that after this event.

She’s cute.

However, I believe she is really insane.

I found it really strange that every NPC seems to know about Scarlett’s shady past, even Rox, but we had no idea who she was until she attacked.

I also do not see how she has control of Molten Allience, Aetherblades and Steam creatures.

The Molten Allience prisoners said they should have never trusted the “snake-tounged trickster” which I think is Scarlet, yet they are fighting for her still.

Erukk.1408:

As for the main Sue topic, I kinda think the better question is: is there such a thing as an original character now? All heroes and villains can be boiled down and fit into easy stereotypes. Once that happens, all roads lead back to tvtropes nowadays, and people shouting exclamations of “Sue!” at the first sight of archetype.

There’s not really a such thing as a character that avoids at least one trope or another, but there certainly are such things as characters that aren’t written abysmally. You can write a goofy, unrealistic villain in a way that isn’t utterly cringe inducing. Since people keep pulling up the Joker, ignore how he’s written in most comics now and go back and read The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, or watch Batman: The Animated Series. The latter might be an even better example since it’s still family friendly. Large ham, not usually serious, but still written in a way that the vast majority of people enjoy. If that’s what Anet was going for, it wasn’t handled well. And if the writing isn’t even at the level of a Saturday morning cartoon.. there might be a problem.
(granted, it was a very exceptional Saturday morning cartoon, but regardless, it’s not the highest standard of writing to reach for)

Sarrs.4831:

I don’t know about anyone else, but if Scarlet were on Trahearne’s level, I’d think much more highly of this content. I’d probably be around ‘meh, at least i can enjoy the mechanical improvements’ rather than ‘guess i’m spending this fortnight chewing on my steam backlist’.

Trahearne actually suffers a lot of the same problems. Let me first say that I don’t hate him because he stole the limelight or anything like that, but instead because his writing is simply bad. He comes out of nowhere (don’t bring up him showing early in the Sylvari storyline, I play four sylvari, that wasn’t adequate warning for what was to come, much less no other race having any idea). He has a ridiculously large amount of accomplishments and number of people who owe him favors/are in his debt. He very, very quickly ventures into idealized wish fulfillment territory.
And yet, I’d rather deal with Trahearne than Scarlet many times over, because his writing is better than hers. Even with her far, far superior voice acting. They did at least nail it with the casting on that one.
I’ll eat my hat if Trahearne and Scarlet weren’t handled by the same writers, because I know there are different writing teams.

Also I’d love it if we can be done with these consistently poorly written Sylvari, it’s getting plain embarrassing to some of us who play the race. I hate that Trahearne, Caithe, Carys, and Scarlet are leading examples of my characters’ species.

I do hope she either improves or makes at least a modicum of sense as the story is revealed, but it doesn’t change the unpleasant characterization, and that it’s one hell of a bad first impression for quite a lot of people.

Having finally been able to log in and take a look at the invasion, I would have to agree. I have no big problem with Scarlet being a Joker-style supervillain type, but she does seem ludicrously powerful for a mortal. To swoop in and seemingly singlehandedly control multiple groups of humanoids and creatures with no apparent deputies or power structure as well as being able to override constructs with the wave of her hand is…a bit ridiculous. Not to mention that she can teleport, make herself invisible, and somehow possesses the ability to be beaten down by 100 people and then just magically survive. On top of all that, she’s done all these impossible feats without most of the world having ever heard of her or noticed, apparently.

An ongoing villain arc in principle is great – but the threat should be something inherently larger-than-life, IMO, like the dragons. One single character of an ordinary playable race should not be presenting this kind of widespread threat on her own.

It seems a lot of you hate Sylvari for this reason, and I get it – but as a Sylvari PC I certainly can’t do any of this stuff! (But hey, I am a ranger…)

Someone should tell Scarlet that if you just turn off NPC Name Plates it’s easy to spot Mesmer clones.

Eldrake.1543:

I honestly believe that it would be in Anet’s best interests to, once this event is over, completely discard Scarlet, pretend she never existed in the first place and move on. It’s extremely difficult to salvage a terrible character like her, and I don’t trust Anet’s writing team to be able to do that after this event.

Getting to know more of this “new direction” (to ruin), it’s basically guaranteed this cancer called Scarlet is the personal nemesis of our glorious characters. So it’ll be a very long time before she’s gone for good, and by that time this nightmare will’ve been seared into our minds forevermore. Living with the immortal words of Marshal Trahearne: It won’t end well.

Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree. But just when they’ll admit they failed? Never.

You know what would have made a better villain?

Imagine the queen’s cat ( Shadow ) disappearing during the Jubilee and then turns out Scarlet – who’s a human mesmer – was maquerading as the cat listening in on the queen’s meetings all this time…

Hecuter.6274:

You know what would have made a better villain?

Imagine the queen’s cat ( Shadow ) disappearing during the Jubilee and then turns out Scarlet – who’s a human mesmer – was maquerading as the cat listening in on the queen’s meetings all this time…

You’re angling for a Chauncey von Snuffles III conspiracy here, aren’t you? ;-)

Thalador.4218:

This game seriously needs more “villainy” of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s kind.

I’m now imagining a sort of “old soldier” charr who feels the unification of the races is not happening fast enough and is now trying to basically strong arm everyone under his leadership to take the fight right to the Dragons.

I also see a bit of Baron Wulfenbach from Girl Genius in this concept.

“Four dragon are still out there causing mayhem, Tyria is in chaos, even the orders still squabble amongst themselves as The Pact, and it’s like Destiney’s Edge never existed, and all the while Trahearne and the Slayer of Zhaitan sit on their laurels and fiddle while the world burns! So fine, now we do things MY way. No more negotiating. No more promises. No more second chances. And I will do it alone. Because I have to since no one else will.”

Since people keep pulling up the Joker, ignore how he’s written in most comics now and go back and read The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, or watch Batman: The Animated Series.

I think one of the things that villains in comics/cartoons benefit from is that we get to see things from their perspective sometimes. We see a scene from the Jokers’ perspective now and then, see what he’s up to, see what his motivations for this and that might be, see how his character is impacting the story, so on and so forth.

If every time you saw the Joker, it was just at the end of the storyline, and he just pops out of nowhere and says, “HAAHAH BATMAN, IT WAS ME ALL ALONG” and then Batman punches him and the story ends, it wouldn’t be much of a character, now would it? But that’s often what we see with GW2 villains.

On the whole, I think Scarlet Briar is fine. I’ve never really gotten the impression that this was ever intended to be, nor would it make a great platform for, something with the nuance, subtlety, and plot twists of an HBO drama series. I’m interested in how the way Asura Colleges work and it’s curious that she attended not one, but all three and not even being Asura. But maybe we’ve setup some diversity scholarships or something like that :-).

And as others have noted, top notch voice talent there, but you knew that already with Ms. Strong. I did that mini dungeon three times (working out the kinks in the “not dying” achievement) and caught more of the quips she made each time and enjoyed it thoroughly.

i think she’s funny. even though attacking her is useless until the end of the events, i do it anyway because it’s fun

BobbyStein.2315:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Mm, no, the problem might be that the LS writers are trying to have it be “fun and entertaining” as opposed to “stirring and exquisite writing”. Which is good, because people shooting for “stirring and exquisite writing” sometimes risk missing the mark and moving right on into “boring and pretentious” or too far into “just plain boring”. Like shooting for Inception and instead getting Minority Report.

This is true.

I could easily write a massive post of constructive story criticism, but instead I’ll sum it down to this.

Bobby, please realize that the people who actually follow the lore are typically intelligent enough to handle a story with depth, and would actually enjoy it. Please don’t try to cater the story side of things to a facet of players who don’t even pay attention to it. You can still have “fun and entertaining” content for the masses while providing a stirring plot for the lore buffs.

As is, I feel like the story thus far has been shallow and unsurprising. Ineffective villian build up, lack of antagonistic motivation, lack of plot twists, etc.

Bovinity.8610:

I think one of the things that villains in comics/cartoons benefit from is that we get to see things from their perspective sometimes. We see a scene from the Jokers’ perspective now and then, see what he’s up to, see what his motivations for this and that might be, see how his character is impacting the story, so on and so forth.

If every time you saw the Joker, it was just at the end of the storyline, and he just pops out of nowhere and says, “HAAHAH BATMAN, IT WAS ME ALL ALONG” and then Batman punches him and the story ends, it wouldn’t be much of a character, now would it? But that’s often what we see with GW2 villains.

I do desperately wish that we did get that sort of perspective in Guild Wars 2. The writing doesn’t have to be any sort of attempt at writing a beautiful, complex, mature stories beyond the scope of a game like this. Simple motivations, back story, and buildup would go a very long way to helping characters like this, and in turn, helping the quality of the story itself considerably. And don’t tell us she’s a mastermind that can do all these things, show us.

Canach is very similar, but that character I was actually hopeful and eager about because his motivations precluded his finale and were actually understandable, to a degree. He was close to being decent, he just fell utterly flat in the end. But he was a much more admirable attempt, simply because you knew at least something concrete about him before the big reveal.

And don’t get me wrong, it is entirely possible to write an out-of-nowhere villain, it just has to be handled very carefully, and this is not the way to do it.

Remillard.8691:

I’ve never really gotten the impression that this was ever intended to be, nor would it make a great platform for, something with the nuance, subtlety, and plot twists of an HBO drama series.

Asking for decent writing that isn’t contrived is not the same as asking for writing of the caliber typically seen in mature adult dramas aired on that particular network, such as, say, Oz. That’s very, very different and I don’t believe a single person in this thread is asking for that.

She’ super cliche and not very believable.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QYymOVQD9qw&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQYymOVQD9qw

Just because of that, I like her.

Shriketalon.1937:

3) Show, don’t tell. Build, don’t force. If you want us to fear and respect the villain, have them do villainous deeds that instill fear and respect. If you want that villain to be grand and magnificent, build them up over time and use a series of events to instill a sense of grandiosity. Introducing a new character and telling us that they are important and amazing doesn’t work because it doesn’t feel real. If you show us the character being amazing and demonstrate how they interact and impact the world, it creates the persona of a grand nemesis organically.

This. With a whole world to play in and control over the whole thing, I would take it a different route. Here’s how I would imagine Scarlet being introduced…

During your tour to get map complete on Rata Sum, you see a Sylvari student in one of the colleges. Some background chatter about how great she is doing, however unfortunate that she wasted her time in Xxx college first.

A few months later, a quiet update that moves her to the portal test lab (in Brisband Wildlands is it? ) A modified event is created, where she is damaged somehow and rescued by the player.

Later she shows up again at Rata Sum, this time in yet another college, but the nearby NPCs comment how she is driven, and has an odd look about her.

Then she disappears for a few months, and is mentioned in the Aetherblades etc.

That would make her much more interesting, since we would have been invested in her to some extent, and tragic in that she was rescued by us but obviously hurt by her experience.

DaShi.1368:

This is why I like Scarlet. She’s a fun, over the top villain.

No, you must have brooding villains that have been established from the very beginning of time.
How dare you have FUN in a game pfhah! I say pfhah! lol

Atlas.9704:

DaShi.1368:

This is why I like Scarlet. She’s a fun, over the top villain.

No, you must have brooding villains that have been established from the very beginning of time.
How dare you have FUN in a game pfhah! I say pfhah! lol

And we have to know exactly everything about them in the first chapter too.

Uruz Six.6594:

Atlas.9704:

DaShi.1368:

This is why I like Scarlet. She’s a fun, over the top villain.

No, you must have brooding villains that have been established from the very beginning of time.
How dare you have FUN in a game pfhah! I say pfhah! lol

And we have to know exactly everything about them in the first chapter too.

Bonus points if they were from GW1, it doesn’t matter that it was nearly 250 years ago!

Based on what I’ve seen thus far, I’d have to say that, as far as villains go, the Great and Powerful Trixie has more depth and is at least 220% (not a typo) cooler than Scarlet Briar.

However!

It may be that Scarlet Briar is a mere puppet (literally, an actual puppet, as in ventriloquist dummy) and the ‘weapon’ (actually an asura computing device that, as the result of a spilled soft drink, attained sentience) she wields is the true villain of the piece! I base this theory on the following evidence: the control for the Scarlet Briar puppet’s mouth malfunctioned, so even though the weapon is a master ventriloquist, the illusion of the puppet speaking failed; and, also, when she disappeared, the weapon lingered on, due, perhaps, to another malfunction. Shoddy Inquest design, perhaps? I speculate that, at that very moment when Scarlet Briar vanished while the weapon lingered on, (revealed!), the weapon was thinking, “Who does a weapon have to kill to get quality components around here?”

I just miss awesome characters like:
Master of Whispers
Vekk
General Morgan
Koss

The 2 best characters; Tibalt & Forgal are dead. it’s like they hate cool characters.

Uruz Six.6594:

Uruz Six.6594:

And we have to know exactly everything about them in the first chapter too.

I think you’re on to something…

I understand there may be more going on, but does a character ever have to be annoying & silly at ANY given point in time? it’s POSSIBLE. doesn’t mean it’s good. Again, it might make sense if it’s a Mursaat possessing/manipulating her, but it doesn’t make her less annoying & silly to fight/listen to.

DarksunG.9537:

I just miss awesome characters like:
Master of Whispers
Vekk
General Morgan
Koss

The 2 best characters; Tibalt & Forgal are dead. it’s like they hate cool characters.

Of course Anet don’t like them. They’re not omg so awesome mary sues.

Aw, man, Tybalt.

Last night I was in…Bloodtide Coast I think?… and this Risen guy says, “We’re sending you to shake hands with Tybalt!” and it made me sad. =(

BobbyStein.2315:

Uruz Six.6594:

And we have to know exactly everything about them in the first chapter too.

I think you’re on to something…

Dang, this is a long first chapter. How many chapters is this Scarlet saga going to be if it took 6 months just for one!

Xhyros.1340:

BobbyStein.2315:

Uruz Six.6594:

And we have to know exactly everything about them in the first chapter too.

I think you’re on to something…

Dang, this is a long first chapter. How many chapters is this Scarlet saga going to be if it took 6 months just for one!

I hope not. There’s nothing redeeming about her as a character. I hope at the least we get to kill her mercilessly if that’s the case.

Atlas.9704:

Uruz Six.6594:

Atlas.9704:

DaShi.1368:

This is why I like Scarlet. She’s a fun, over the top villain.

No, you must have brooding villains that have been established from the very beginning of time.
How dare you have FUN in a game pfhah! I say pfhah! lol

And we have to know exactly everything about them in the first chapter too.

Bonus points if they were from GW1, it doesn’t matter that it was nearly 250 years ago!

Bring back GWEN!!11!1

Kratic.8763:

Atlas.9704:

Uruz Six.6594:

Atlas.9704:

DaShi.1368:

This is why I like Scarlet. She’s a fun, over the top villain.

No, you must have brooding villains that have been established from the very beginning of time.
How dare you have FUN in a game pfhah! I say pfhah! lol

And we have to know exactly everything about them in the first chapter too.

Bonus points if they were from GW1, it doesn’t matter that it was nearly 250 years ago!

Bring back GWEN!!11!1

Silly . . .

. . . Gwen isn’t dead til they show me the body. She was “dead” before.

I don’t mind Scarlet’s craziness or over-the-top villainy. It wouldn’t be my preference, but its not enough to make me hate the character or the story. In fact I actually like Scarlet to some degree, her gleeful zaniness is fun (and fits a Sylvari perfectly) and yet she actually does come off as a real threat.

I definitely do not like the fact that they made her brilliant beyond compare, though. I mean, studying under all of the major races in Tyria is silly enough, but graduating all 3 Asura colleges on top of that, and in “record time” to boot? Even the Asura themselves don’t typically belong to more than 1 College, and they’re supposed to be the greatest minds in Tyria. I mean, Asura are arrogant and certainly hype themselves up a lot, so I could buy members of other races equaling an Asura, but Scarlet beats the entire Asura race threefold at the very least.

Given the fact that Scarlet would have probably been alive for no more than 20 years since she’s never mentioned as a firstborn or anything, it makes it even more ridiculous than all of that would already be.

I kind of see what they were going for, trying to make her seem smart enough to have control over these multiple factions (Aetherblades / Molten Alliance) as well as the ability to take over the Watchknights, but they went way overboard.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kratic.8763:

Atlas.9704:

Uruz Six.6594:

Atlas.9704:

DaShi.1368:

This is why I like Scarlet. She’s a fun, over the top villain.

No, you must have brooding villains that have been established from the very beginning of time.
How dare you have FUN in a game pfhah! I say pfhah! lol

And we have to know exactly everything about them in the first chapter too.

Bonus points if they were from GW1, it doesn’t matter that it was nearly 250 years ago!

Bring back GWEN!!11!1

Silly . . .

. . . Gwen isn’t dead til they show me the body. She was “dead” before.

Hmmm Risen Gwen, I can finally rid myself of her. I like your style.

Electro.4173:

I definitely do not like the fact that they made her brilliant beyond compare, though. I mean, studying under all of the major races in Tyria is silly enough, but graduating all 3 Asura colleges on top of that, and in “record time” to boot? Even the Asura themselves don’t typically belong to more than 1 College, and they’re supposed to be the greatest minds in Tyria. I mean, Asura are arrogant and certainly hype themselves up a lot, so I could buy members of other races equaling an Asura, but Scarlet beats the entire Asura race threefold at the very least.

Personally I’d find it funny and entertaining if her “graduation” from the colleges turned out to be three different Asuran Inquest folks that said “Sure here, you graduated bookah” and gave her keychains or something.

There you have it. We need to just keep on waiting. I wonder how long we’re going to keep on being told to wait. This is the exact sort of thing most MMO do when they release a crappy story: “Naw man, wait, its coming.”

No. Scarlet was supposed to be the culmination of quite a few stories: Molten Alliance team up, the joining of a faction of xenophobes with a faction of air pirates, heck, she’s even connected to the steam monsters and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s connected with the Karka as well.

THIS was supposed to be a big plot relevant thing. A-net themselves thought so: they sent letters to fan sites, they said a huge game changing thing was coming with this update. And now we get a backpeddling “Oh no guys, just wait for it. Totally.” response.

I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of useless events that no one gives a crap about. It’s known what is wanted: Elder Dragons. The story moving forward. A-net has somehow got to a point where they update twice a month but don’t push a story. I suppose that’s impressive.

Is the Order of Whisper on vacation?

It’s troubling that the intelligence arm of the pact didn’t see any of this coming. You’d think they’d take great interest in a genius sylvari, find out she’s crazy, and then maybe keep an eye on her.

SirMoogie.9263:

Is the Order of Whisper on vacation?

It’s troubling that the intelligence arm of the pact didn’t see any of this coming. You’d think they’d take great interest in a genius sylvari, find out she’s crazy, and then maybe keep an eye on her.

I fear that the orders have all been forgotten after they merged into their one big generic mess.

Namica.2951:

SirMoogie.9263:

Is the Order of Whisper on vacation?

It’s troubling that the intelligence arm of the pact didn’t see any of this coming. You’d think they’d take great interest in a genius sylvari, find out she’s crazy, and then maybe keep an eye on her.

I fear that the orders have all been forgotten after they merged into their one big generic mess.

Also, unless Scarlet is serving a Dragon the Pact wouldn’t be involved.

The Order on the other hand, probably DID know something, but as we all know . . . The Order of Whispers knows much, but tells very little.

I too found it extremely off-putting to hear about Scarlet’s glorious and heretofore unmentioned accomplishments. Is she a “VillainSue”? Unfortunately, yes. In many ways the writing for Guild Wars 2 is excellent. Bobby Stein and the other writers should all be proud of their work. Scarlet is fun when you encounter her in combat. The voice acting by Tara is great. But the expositional writing about her as relayed by Vorpp made me cringe.

And before I could say “I bet Logan’s gonna double the patrols again,” Logan says he’s going to increase patrols! Logan is absolutely the most unbelievable cardboard cutout of a “good guy” I’ve ever seen. Please, guys, can you do better? I’d love to see better.

A lot of people like to drag out Trahearne as an example of characters the players dislike and the reasons are valid: he’s… wait for it: wooden. He’s a wet leaf. Is this because of the writing or the voice acting? Hard to say with him, but in his case I’ll blame the voice acting (or, more specifically, its directing).

From a writing/believability standpoint, let’s take a look at the three personal story mentor characters. Everyone loves Tybalt, it’s true, but his extreme personal sacrifice so soon after making full agent is just not believable. Same for the sylvari mentor of the Priory. The only mentor whose sacrifice is believable to me is Forgal. This is a combination of writing and voice acting. He was written as an older character who knew what he was doing, knew the stakes, and had a legacy to pass on to a protege. Also, he died like a norn should. And the voice actor for Forgal was perfect (again, all my opinion).

What I’m getting at is that Guild Wars 2 has a track record of unbelievable cardboard characters. I love this game and I would love even more to see this improved. Thank you to Bobby and all the writers for their tremendous work!

Namica.2951:

There you have it. We need to just keep on waiting. I wonder how long we’re going to keep on being told to wait. This is the exact sort of thing most MMO do when they release a crappy story: “Naw man, wait, its coming.”

No. Scarlet was supposed to be the culmination of quite a few stories: Molten Alliance team up, the joining of a faction of xenophobes with a faction of air pirates, heck, she’s even connected to the steam monsters and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s connected with the Karka as well.

THIS was supposed to be a big plot relevant thing. A-net themselves thought so: they sent letters to fan sites, they said a huge game changing thing was coming with this update. And now we get a backpeddling “Oh no guys, just wait for it. Totally.” response.

Entirely this. They said it would be something great that ties several stories together. Then, when we reached for it, they slapped the contents of a “post-function” baby diaper into our hands. Saying “It will get better!” doesn’t change what it is now, nor does it make me think I have any reason to believe it.

Trust has to be earned, and ANet’s made a few small steps in that direction. However, they’ve made several steps away from it, and this is one more in that wrong direction. But, at least a bunch of game reviewers got free watches out of it, right? The fact that THIS was such a triumphant example of their best writing that they sent out gifts to reviewers to promote it makes me really worry about them.

Silly, like serious, has the most impact when it is set in a sea of what feels like ‘reality’. It’s the contrast that makes it have impact. When everything is either silly or wanting to be super serious, none of it holds together well.

What I’ve found with GW2 is that I need to remove the desire to be immersed or suspend reality for a while. Everything is “on the nose”. It unashamedly presents gameplay mechanics to you, often cash shop mechanics. It has no problem throwing in 8-bit dungeons into a high fantasy world.

This doesn’t make it bad, this just makes it something I hadn’t expected. It’s the difference between a truly terrifying horror movie or novel vs. a Disneyland halloween exhibit. Both serve their purpose, but you need to know what you’re getting on the way in.

I don’t mind her being overly cliché, but I want to know how the hell she’s that powerful. She could probably beat the Elder Dragons with her powers and the amount of minions she has gathered.

Egon Vidar.9125:

Remillard.8691:

I’ve never really gotten the impression that this was ever intended to be, nor would it make a great platform for, something with the nuance, subtlety, and plot twists of an HBO drama series.

Asking for decent writing that isn’t contrived is not the same as asking for writing of the caliber typically seen in mature adult dramas aired on that particular network, such as, say, Oz. That’s very, very different and I don’t believe a single person in this thread is asking for that.

It’s fiction, it’s all “contrived”. Frankly, that’s one of those phrases that gets thrown around and it’s entirely subjective based on their notion of how “real people” work. I don’t give it a lot of credence as a meaningful critique. “Decent dialog” as defined by what precisely? How many brilliant psychopaths have you sampled for realistic conversational gambits? I also happen to hate the term “wooden” for actors playing characters. Sometimes it’s appropriate, other times it’s the character itself who has reason to be affectless.

Anyhow, that’s the impression I get from most of the criticism here. You do not have a linear narrative with ample opportunity for backstory or internal monologue like a book. Using theater is a closer analog but that is still a linear narrative with a captive audience. Traditional RPG is another analog but completely misses the scale — a GM’s players are often far more under his or her thumb than any of the folks in GW2. Storytelling is a completely different beast in this genre that is still, relatively speaking, extremely young.

So, let’s break this down a bit. We have a deranged, extremely capable and morally bankrupt character in Scarlet Briar. She’s there for fun, mayhem, and presumably some sort of actual deeper motivation for going ballistic on the world. However, why in the world would she tell us that? As far as she’s concerned, initially, our player characters are nobodies (capable and well geared nobodies, but off her radar). An argument could be made about why our player characters who have gone off and done awesome stuff versus undead dudes is a nobody, but we’ll set that aside for a moment as it’s not specific to this particular story and more of an endemic issue with MMORPGs, the personal storyline, etc. Essentially it has to be taken as read that we’re nobodies to her at first.

She plans her game. Attacks. Makes an attempt on the Queen (foiled rather nicely by Anise in what I thought was some very good characterizations and interactions between her, Logan, and Jennah.) Fails that, but goes on to have a merry time with the successes she has. Some rather well geared and skilled guys show up and screw up her lair.

Where in there is any motivation for her to open her gob and spout some expository bullkitten about why she’s doing what she’s doing? There isn’t and kudos to ANet for not doing THAT. Yes, she does a rocket pack getaway but we are definitely on her radar now per that final conversation and I imagine we’ll be getting back to her in due time. What she does do is play verbal games (and I can’t give enough credit to Ms. Strong). Why not? It amuses her to do that. Why is that contrived? What is decent dialog for a chatty nutcase who really don’t think there’s anything to worry about?

I think the basic criticism boils down to “Scarlet just isn’t MY kind of psychopath.” Fine, I guess. The Joker/Harlequin parallel is very deep and there could be an argument about it being overdone. Still, the reason that archetype comes back again and again is that the mind is fascinated with madness, that complete fracture of intelligence and morality. What is the cause? What are the perceptible characteristics of someone so afflicted? Presumably so that at least unconsciously we could recognize it in others and take action, or more darkly, possibly recognize it in ourselves. It’s definitely an attractive sort of villain and provides a great deal of flexibility in storytelling, particularly when you DO have highly capable and extremely well geared heroes running around.

I think they’ve done pretty well this time around. I look forward to the development of the character. If the character does NOT develop, then I think there will be time for far more criticism. As an example, I think Canach was done really terribly. Even with the various stories and accounts throughout Southsun, I never came away with a real understanding of what the point was. And the ultimate event there was terrible and explained nothing at all (and didn’t even have the voice acting.)

In Scarlet we have an antagonist that’s entertaining, colorful, and capable. That’s a pretty decent start.

Milennin.4825:

I don’t mind her being overly cliché, but I want to know how the hell she’s that powerful. She could probably beat the Elder Dragons with her powers and the amount of minions she has gathered.

Yeah, I never saw 1/10th as many Pact soldiers as the Aetherblades and Molten troops she’s deployed… she could probably conquer Orr by herself.

I’m disappointed in the fact that she was clearly an afterthought. It would’ve been awesome if there would’ve been foreshadowing about a mysterious Sylvari who would beat the technical geniuses in Rata Sum, maybe have the NPC’s talk about it or mention her in a quest. But she just is dropped from nowhere, and like someone mentioned, it’s stupid that the NPC’s clearly know who she is.

Although I’m not sure if Rox and Braham still remember me. Or anyone else, for that matter. No one ever mentions me when battle plans are made, only when they need someone to mop up or kill 500 mobs they give me a shout. I feel like a sidekick in my own story.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kratic.8763:

Bring back GWEN!!11!1

Silly . . .

. . . Gwen isn’t dead til they show me the body. She was “dead” before.

I hope she is alive… so I can rip her rotten heart out and show it to hear while painfully suffers through her last seconds on Tyria.

Remillard.8691:

Where in there is any motivation for her to open her gob and spout some expository bullkitten about why she’s doing what she’s doing? There isn’t and kudos to ANet for not doing THAT.

I agree with most of your post, I have to single this part out though. There isn’t ever a reason for the “villain motive rant”. Or as it was put in “The Incredibles”, monologuing. It’s done because the audience has to know and can’t see into a character’s head to see what they’re thinking short of in a book.

One of the better video game villains I’ve seen would continuously shut down attempts to learn “why” with: “No, you warrant no villain speech from me.” Jon Irenicus who was powerful, driven, and a challenge for a character who, by all rights within the game rules of the system it was in, should be able to string gods up by their ankles and take their lunch money.

However . . .

What should be done is some way of finding things out without getting it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Other people, clues, journals . . . sure, they might not be entirely accurate (“She graduated from all three colleges! No way was that a clerical error or a database hack.”) . . .

She loudly announces the fact that she has bombs in Divinity’s Reach during her attack. A smart terrorist wouldn’t say that.

Yeah she announces all but one, then blows that one up and kills folks in the process.
Almost like the others were a feint for the big one. Actually that’s decent planning when you think about it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

However . . .

What should be done is some way of finding things out without getting it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Other people, clues, journals . . . sure, they might not be entirely accurate (“She graduated from all three colleges! No way was that a clerical error or a database hack.”) . . .

Agreed, and from the coy comments from Dev Stein above, I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll see something along those lines. We’ll just see how well they execute :-).

TheKillerAngel.3596:

She loudly announces the fact that she has bombs in Divinity’s Reach during her attack. A smart terrorist wouldn’t say that.

You’ve never heard of a call-in bomb threat? Announcing you have the capability for destruction is a time-honored terror tactic. Regardless of to what degree the actual bombs (if any) succeed is usually secondary to the main goal that you made someone do what you want them to do. Namely, react to you.

Quite obviously if she wanted to destroy Divinity’s Reach, she’s quite capable. The entire watchknight militia could have been activated without a peep, coupled with hidden bombs, and underground destruction from Molten Alliance. The entire city could have been reduced to a charnel house in a day. It wasn’t, thus that isn’t her immediate goal. What that goal is remains to be seen, and as noted, we’ll see how ANet executes on the rest of the story.