Guild Wars 2

Vena.8436:

Unleashed.6195:

If I can get my head out of the expectations I had for this game, expectations put in place by Guild Wars 1, I’m sure I’ll find plenty of fun here while I look for something compelling to move on to in the future.

GW1 had equally kittenty story telling, I’m not particularly sure I see where your expectations are coming from in this regard.

Prophecies was literally Backstabbed the Story x10, for example.

The expectations I was referencing there were not about the story telling quality, but about the attempt to have it feel like some kind of fantasy universe that might exist, somewhere. There were goofy things here and there, but they were held in check by the remainder of the game. EotN added more goofy elements than all previous expansions combined, but it was still not overwhelming.

GW1 made an attempt to immerse you. GW2 doesn’t bother. That doesn’t make it a bad game, just a very different one.

I like Scarlet. I don’t think she’s a “villain Sue” or a bad character at all; if I got a copper for every supervillain who did mindblowingly improbable things, I’d have a Legendary. She has an interesting personality and I want to know more about her.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

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.

The goal of terrorism is fear, not casualties.

She also did that to shepherd the evacuees to one area… which she then bombed with a bomb she did not mention.

Having come from Champions Online. Scarlet is more cartoony and silver-age supervillian then anything that game has combined.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

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.

The goal of terrorism is fear, not casualties.

The villain loudly proclaiming their plans in front of the hero is also something that probably 90% of Saturday morning cartoon villains have done.

I like the implication that this game is somehow above Saturday morning cartoon villainry and must instead be grimdark for srs plots.

You -did- play GW1, right?

Kirschwasser.3972:

I like the implication that this game is somehow above Saturday morning cartoon villainry and must instead be grimdark for srs plots.

You -did- play GW1, right?

Yes, I did, and I think GW1’s cast was generally more compelling than GW2’s. Scarlet’s “evilness” reaches a level of comic absurdity.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Rottaran Owain.6789:

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.

The goal of terrorism is fear, not casualties.

The villain loudly proclaiming their plans in front of the hero is also something that probably 90% of Saturday morning cartoon villains have done.

Don’t think she did proclaim her plans in front of the hero other than “Imma gonna wreck things, lawl”.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Kirschwasser.3972:

I like the implication that this game is somehow above Saturday morning cartoon villainry and must instead be grimdark for srs plots.

You -did- play GW1, right?

Yes, I did, and I think GW1’s cast was generally more compelling than GW2’s. Scarlet’s “evilness” reaches a level of comic absurdity.

As opposed to Vizier Khilbron’s Totally Evil Acccent™

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Rottaran Owain.6789:

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.

The goal of terrorism is fear, not casualties.

The villain loudly proclaiming their plans in front of the hero is also something that probably 90% of Saturday morning cartoon villains have done.

Don’t think she did proclaim her plans in front of the hero other than “Imma gonna wreck things, lawl”.

Yup, she was supposed to explain a really deep plan that was super melodramatic to avoid being cartoon evil…

Kirschwasser.3972:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Kirschwasser.3972:

I like the implication that this game is somehow above Saturday morning cartoon villainry and must instead be grimdark for srs plots.

You -did- play GW1, right?

Yes, I did, and I think GW1’s cast was generally more compelling than GW2’s. Scarlet’s “evilness” reaches a level of comic absurdity.

As opposed to Vizier Khilbron’s Totally Evil Acccent™

Khilbron was over the top, but I think many of the other characters in the core campaigns, Nightfall, and Eye of the North were quite well developed.

I guess I can agree on the premise of Nightfall and Eye of the North. You left out Factions so I couldn’t take the easy prey. Hehe.

I suppose there are two issues that I take with Scarlet:

#1: She’s wholly unbelievable. Preforms at savant levels in everything, evil with no conscious or remorse, and no given character flaws.

#2: No reason why she would be evil. We have no real explanation for why she is the way she is. Just “look, super evil person you gotta fight. Now ZERG!”.

I can understand invoking many villain tropes when making a character. That is all the reasons we love villains. But with Scarlet, we really have nothing to go beyond. Right now, the story is going to diverge into one of two ways, and I hate them both:

#1: She’s amassing a plan so elaborate and convoluted that at best it will look like a bad retcon and at worst just terrible writing overall.

#2: She’s the tenebrouos lord of darky darkness who does darky dark things because the heroes need someone to fight against, and I expect to see her in an 80’s era Saturday morning cartoon.

Unless Anet can pull something from nowhere that makes Scarlet meaningful as a character, then writing her as such has been a bad move.

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.

It’s not the first chapter. They’ve been telling the story since January/February.

Funny how the ‘dislike Scarlet’ thread is almost 3 times longer as the ‘like Scarlet’.

Think the main issue here’s that everything is so predicatable, that when it finally did happen (machines run rampant, Queen gets attacked) people weren’t entertained. Like spoiling the end results of a sports game you recorded to watch later.

Did you notice that the Hob-o-tron and Faren were the most liked bits of the new story? That’s because they were actually new…

Also, reading the Snaff comment, has anyone considered this may be one of those early Sylvari that Kudu experimented on?

Wouldn’t be as cool as a Mursaat in disguise, but it’d make her…acceptable.

Also, why aren’t we talking to that tree to find out more about her?

as of right now im just gonna assume anet has plans to reveal scarlet’s past(and possible benefactors) in a later patch.

if that patch doesnt arrive soon i’m going to have to say she’s a terribly bad story villain(though shes incredibly good during player interaction)

ThiBash.5634:

Also, reading the Snaff comment, has anyone considered this may be one of those early Sylvari that Kudu experimented on?

Wouldn’t be as cool as a Mursaat in disguise, but it’d make her…acceptable.

Also, why aren’t we talking to that tree to find out more about her?

Probably because people were complaining that the personal story became too sylvari-centric so they don’t want to keep going back to the Pale Tree for major plot points.

ESKan.6782:

I don’t like how she graduated from all three colleges. For an asura, it is an incredibly important decision in his/her life which college to join, since it decides your entire future. And here we have Scarlet, without previous mention whatsoever, being possibly the first and only person to attend and GRADUATE from all three colleges. In record time, even.

If that isn’t Villain Sue, I don’t even

Agree completely. Killed my suspension of disbelief completely.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Though . . . there are compelling arguments for Thrawn also being a villain sue, this is not the place to debate that detail.

Thrawn is a Magnificent kitten… and a very good one, at that.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Magnificentkitten

what was promised was some closure to some plot threads,when in actuallity it opened more than it closed..so Scarlet is a sylvari whos inteligent and had possibly seen the unseen ones or whatever…big deal..we need more story,in each LS update we get 10 minutes of story content max and then back tu the usual grind or whatever…

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.”

Hang in there guys, the story will get better…

…Any time now…. Just wait for it…

There will be a clever plot behind all of this, we just haven’t revealed it yet…
…Just wait a bit longer…

…Okay, we have this new story now….

ThiBash.5634:

Funny how the ‘dislike Scarlet’ thread is almost 3 times longer as the ‘like Scarlet’.

Think the main issue here’s that everything is so predicatable, that when it finally did happen (machines run rampant, Queen gets attacked) people weren’t entertained. Like spoiling the end results of a sports game you recorded to watch later.

As soon as the Watchknights were introduced, everyone said “they’ll go haywire”, and of course they did. I think the writers need to learn to counter expectations. When the Queen’s Speech was announced, everyone said “Scarlet will attack during the speech”, and yet again she did just that. For once I would like to see a plot twist. Just something that contradicts what I was expecting.

Here’s what they could have done:

• Scarlet attacks a totally different city, while everyone is at the ceremony.
• Scarlet attacks, but the attack is disrupted by an even greater danger that comes out of nowhere (Elder Dragon?). The Seraph and the Aetherblades need to team up against this greater threat.
• Mursaat or White Mantle arrive to protect the city against the Aetherblades.
• Scarlet attacks, but is killed by a mysterious stranger from a different future.
• Scarlet’s Aetherblade ship crashes into the Pavilion, uncovering the Great Collapse and a hidden horror that sleeps below.
• Queen Jennah almost dies, but another important character takes the hit for her and dies instead (Logan?).
• Queen Jennah disappears, and neither Scarlet nor the players, nor Anise, know what happened.
• A time paradox. Two Scarlets appear and one tries to stop the other from assassinating Jennah.

Ok, after playing a lot of invasions and completing the Funhouse I have my critique, here goes.

I think the new patch is a lot of fun to play and the new villain is a lot of fun to play against, I think it’s pretty obvious by this point that whoever wrote her is a huge fan of Harley Quinn, I mean she even comes at you with a giant hammer, yeah.

That beign said I don’t see how the story or scarlet makes any sense at all ( I guess we’ll have to wait 6 more months to have her motives and background revealed to us) I think this is a real shame, specially after watching some of WoodenPotatoes videos and realizing that the guys at Anet are sitting on a gold mine of lore and history and have a thousand things to draw from and can make very rich stories.

In some parts of the game it feels like it takes its own story semi seriously and some part like this where you have cartoony nonsense like this that makes no sense, I guess from now on I’ll only get hyped about content and features because getting involved and invested in the story and lore of Guild Wars doesn’t really pay off.

Shiren.9532:

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.

It’s not the first chapter. They’ve been telling the story since January/February.

They’ve been telling a story since January. This is her first chapter. And its definitely not her last chapter, either.

Chaz.5263:

That beign said I don’t see how the story or scarlet makes any sense at all ( I guess we’ll have to wait 6 more months to have her motives and background revealed to us) I think this is a real shame, specially after watching some of WoodenPotatoes videos and realizing that the guys at Anet are sitting on a gold mine of lore and history and have a thousand things to draw from and can make very rich stories.

WP’s a great lore guy, but his theories present plot holes big enough to throw both M. Night Shalyman and Damon Lindelof through.

I’ll try to make this quick before I dash out the door.

Scarlet is a psychopath five cans short of a six pack.
You see: Saturday morning villainy.
I see: A sylvari psycho who not once mentions the Nightmare. So, then, how did she get so bonkers?

Scarlet has an unbelievable background, like perhaps having graduated from all three asuran colleges and then some.
You see: Bad writing.
I see: Something so outrageous that there has to be more to it than that.

I also saw: Someone who literally has to die five times before Vorpp can get us into her playhouse. Seriously, you beat her to where she’s leaving enough ellipses to attract Pac-Man and yet she’s back up and shiny less than an hour later? And that’s not entirely game mechanics, because, again, Vorpp’s story requires you to do this five times.

I also saw: Someone who merged golemagical studies with necromancy. Notice the magic effects on the Twisted and how they all drop dusts.

It helps to, every so often, turn off your internal critic and take a moment to look around. You might actually catch on to some things.

Uruz Six.6594:

Shiren.9532:

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.

It’s not the first chapter. They’ve been telling the story since January/February.

They’ve been telling a story since January. This is her first chapter. And its definitely not her last chapter, either.

Actually no, considering she’s had her hand in so many places, this isn’t her first chapter at all. See, if a-net was writing a decent story, they would have built up motives and the character herself through ALL THESE VARIOUS THINGS WE’RE BEING TOLD SHE WAS PART OF. Instead she was just thrown at us, pointed at, and anet goes “She is to blame, kill her!”

I also find it funny that alot of the defense of Scarlet thus far is “Oh no, just wait. Surely it must get better.”

Uruz Six.6594:

I’ll try to make this quick before I dash out the door.

Scarlet is a psychopath five cans short of a six pack.
You see: Saturday morning villainy.
I see: A sylvari psycho who not once mentions the Nightmare. So, then, how did she get so bonkers?

Scarlet has an unbelievable background, like perhaps having graduated from all three asuran colleges and then some.
You see: Bad writing.
I see: Something so outrageous that there has to be more to it than that.

I also saw: Someone who literally has to die five times before Vorpp can get us into her playhouse. Seriously, you beat her to where she’s leaving enough ellipses to attract Pac-Man and yet she’s back up and shiny less than an hour later? And that’s not entirely game mechanics, because, again, Vorpp’s story requires you to do this five times.

I also saw: Someone who merged golemagical studies with necromancy. Notice the magic effects on the Twisted and how they all drop dusts.

It helps to, every so often, turn off your internal critic and take a moment to look around. You might actually catch on to some things.

In other words:
You see: <what is actually happening>
I see: <Baseless speculation>
I also saw: <plot armor>

Well that’s unnecessarily harsh.
The difference is that he sees deeper meanings behind seemingly unimportant one liners. That’s no baseless speculations or plot armour at all, but an open mind willing to look past the end of their own nose.

The proof that ANET has done their job in creating a compelling villian? The fact that this thread is almost 300 posts strong. Love her, Hate her, doesn’t matter just so long as you are compelled by her to feel one way or the other. Personally, I have no idea wth is going on with the LS. I haven’t been able to follow a coherent thread since the beginning. But Scarlet is my favorite part so far.

Evans.6347:

Well that’s unnecessarily harsh.
The difference is that he sees deeper meanings behind seemingly unimportant one liners. That’s no baseless speculations or plot armour at all, but an open mind willing to look past the end of their own nose.

The thing is, people have been seeing “deeper meanings behind seemingly unimportant one liners.” since flame and frost. Eventually it needs to be realized that there are no hidden meanings, you can’t just keep going “Well eventually X may happen!” when so far, eventually, nothing is happening.

In a years worth of content, they’ve pretty much pushed the story no where. This was supposed to be a huge thing. A-net sent fan sites and some fans letters with gifts. They said that the queen’s speech would change Tyria forever.

Instead we got abunch of shoddy writing that’s being defended with “Oh well, surely it gets better…”

BoogerSammich.7189:

The proof that ANET has done their job in creating a compelling villian? The fact that this thread is almost 300 posts strong. Love her, Hate her, doesn’t matter just so long as you are compelled by her to feel one way or the other. Personally, I have no idea wth is going on with the LS. I haven’t been able to follow a coherent thread since the beginning. But Scarlet is my favorite part so far.

People calling a villain a villain-sue isn’t proof of compelling. It’s proof that she’s so bad that people can’t stand her.

The fact that you can’t even follow the LS just shows how poorly its been handled.

Uruz Six.6594:

I’ll try to make this quick before I dash out the door.

Scarlet is a psychopath five cans short of a six pack.
You see: Saturday morning villainy.
I see: A sylvari psycho who not once mentions the Nightmare. So, then, how did she get so bonkers?

Scarlet has an unbelievable background, like perhaps having graduated from all three asuran colleges and then some.
You see: Bad writing.
I see: Something so outrageous that there has to be more to it than that.

I also saw: Someone who literally has to die five times before Vorpp can get us into her playhouse. Seriously, you beat her to where she’s leaving enough ellipses to attract Pac-Man and yet she’s back up and shiny less than an hour later? And that’s not entirely game mechanics, because, again, Vorpp’s story requires you to do this five times.

I also saw: Someone who merged golemagical studies with necromancy. Notice the magic effects on the Twisted and how they all drop dusts.

It helps to, every so often, turn off your internal critic and take a moment to look around. You might actually catch on to some things.

I like where your head is at! Too often the forest hides the trees…

BoogerSammich.7189:

The proof that ANET has done their job in creating a compelling villian? The fact that this thread is almost 300 posts strong. Love her, Hate her, doesn’t matter just so long as you are compelled by her to feel one way or the other. Personally, I have no idea wth is going on with the LS. I haven’t been able to follow a coherent thread since the beginning. But Scarlet is my favorite part so far.

According to this logic, Trahearne is also a compelling character.

Namica.2951:

Actually no, considering she’s had her hand in so many places, this isn’t her first chapter at all. See, if a-net was writing a decent story, they would have built up motives and the character herself through ALL THESE VARIOUS THINGS WE’RE BEING TOLD SHE WAS PART OF. Instead she was just thrown at us, pointed at, and anet goes “She is to blame, kill her!”

You’re missing one obvious point. Everything you know in-game is everything your character has seen, heard, and or read first-hand. The only cut scene I can think off-hand that we never were personally witness to was Marjory’s, and that was told through her journal. We never see Scarlet cackling evilly before this LS because we never see Scarlet. The only people we meet that have met Scarlet either don’t know much about her or are too loyal to say anything. And, oddly enough, she left us few – if any – clues, up until her dramatic entrance. And even then we’re still left guessing.

(And if she did leave us clues, nobody would be complaining about Villain Balls right?)

Namica.2951:

The thing is, people have been seeing “deeper meanings behind seemingly unimportant one liners.” since flame and frost. Eventually it needs to be realized that there are no hidden meanings, you can’t just keep going “Well eventually X may happen!” when so far, eventually, nothing is happening.

The dredge leader complained of a silver-tongued snake from the city. Mai Trin said Scarlet would be upset. Oh hey, now we have Scarlet and she has the Molten Alliance and Aetherblades riding shotgun. There are meanings, they’re not really deep meanings but they’re still meanings.

Never look for kudzu plots when an easier explanation can suffice.

In a years worth of content, they’ve pretty much pushed the story no where. This was supposed to be a huge thing. A-net sent fan sites and some fans letters with gifts. They said that the queen’s speech would change Tyria forever.

Instead we got abunch of shoddy writing that’s being defended with “Oh well, surely it gets better…”

Yes, because bombing DR and launching a Tyria-wide invasion is such a ho-hum thing. With everything else going wrong across the continent, the powers of Tyria can easily handle another global threat. No sweat.

Uruz Six.6594:

Namica.2951:

Actually no, considering she’s had her hand in so many places, this isn’t her first chapter at all. See, if a-net was writing a decent story, they would have built up motives and the character herself through ALL THESE VARIOUS THINGS WE’RE BEING TOLD SHE WAS PART OF. Instead she was just thrown at us, pointed at, and anet goes “She is to blame, kill her!”

You’re missing one obvious point. Everything you know in-game is everything your character has seen, heard, and or read first-hand. The only cut scene I can think off-hand that we never were personally witness to was Marjory’s, and that was told through her journal. We never see Scarlet cackling evilly before this LS because we never see Scarlet. The only people we meet that have met Scarlet either don’t know much about her or are too loyal to say anything. And, oddly enough, she left us few – if any – clues, up until her dramatic entrance. And even then we’re still left guessing.

(And if she did leave us clues, nobody would be complaining about Villain Balls right?)

Ok?

Well apparently everyone but our character knew about Scarlet since all the other characters talk about. The Asuran dude also keeps telling us of her various exploits. Others can be derived simply from what we’re fighting. Our characters know exactly what we the players know at this point.

Why don’t you pay more attention to the story before defending it.

Namica.2951:

Well apparently everyone but our character knew about Scarlet since all the other characters talk about. The Asuran dude also keeps telling us of her various exploits. Others can be derived simply from what we’re fighting. Our characters know exactly what we the players know at this point.

No, not everyone. Vorpp. He’s the only one we meet who knew her beforehand and only because of her degrees. If we want to get into the details of the asurans keeping an embarrassment to their intellectual superiority on the down low as good/bad storytelling, sure, but Scarlet isn’t a widely known figure.

EDIT: And we only find out about her just now. Again, bad storytelling or a sign that there’s more to this than what Vorpp’s telling us?

Why don’t you pay more attention to the story before defending it.

I did. Now why don’t you stop talking down to everyone?

Uruz Six.6594:

Namica.2951:

Well apparently everyone but our character knew about Scarlet since all the other characters talk about. The Asuran dude also keeps telling us of her various exploits. Others can be derived simply from what we’re fighting. Our characters know exactly what we the players know at this point.

No, not everyone. Vorpp. He’s the only one we meet who knew her beforehand and only because of her degrees. If we want to get into the details of the asurans keeping an embarrassment to their intellectual superiority on the down low as good/bad storytelling, sure, but Scarlet isn’t a widely known figure.

EDIT: And we only find out about her just now. Again, bad storytelling or a sign that there’s more to this than what Vorpp’s telling us?

Why don’t you pay more attention to the story before defending it.

I did. Now why don’t you stop talking down to everyone?

More than just Vorp knew about her. Heck, even ROX knew about this prodigy.

From what we’ve been told, she is like the Zephyrites: Someone the players never knew about, but everyone else apparently did.

Caradryan.1795:

If Scarlet’s supposed to be the Joker, does this mean Countess Anise is her Batman?

… Which means Logan = Robin? ._.

Depends on which Batman type. Anise can’t be the Bale one, her voice is too pleasant.

I can see the OP’s point but Scarlet has more personality than any GW2 villain we have seen so far.

The Elder Dragons have been nothing more than generic ‘Forces of Nature’ with no personalities at all. Any differences in them have never been clearly shown in the game and we’ve never been told anything about their motivations apart from the fact they just want to “Destroy Everything”.

Let’s look at a villain with a similar schtick, Marvel comic’s Galactus. Galactus was a boring kitten character until they introduced the Silver Surfer. Giving Galactus a cool lieutenant suddenly made him interesting. In contrast, the lieutenants of the Elder Dragons we’ve seen have been mostly mindless thralls or bosses like the Eye and Mouth who get introduced out of nowhere and whom we then promptly kill.

Even when the Elder Dragons try something different like the Shell Shock storyline, the dragon minion leaves the story flat Syska's (the zombie mesmer one) motivations for framing you are nothing more than her being ordered to do so. She is yet another mind-controlled thrall like all of the other minions and as lacking in personality as any zombie. How much better would the story have been if the charr Syska has been built up as a rival to the player and she then turned to Zhaiten to get you instead of simply getting replaced by a zombie mesmer we've never seen before? And that's just one of many alternatives.

There there is Canache who was an incompetent mastermind whose main trait was messing up so bad the players had to constantly fix his numerous mistakes. A hero is reflected by the villains they face and when the main villain is an an incompetent it dilutes the sense of heroism and turns the characters into janitors cleaning up messes. That’s fine to do occasionally but it should be a side-story, not a major villain.

I’m encouraged seeing ArenaNet making the effort to bring in a villain who is both competent and full of personality. Having Scarlet do things like defacing the webpage was a brilliant idea and the character has been a great deal of fun to see in the game. And fun is really the whole the point.

Uruz Six.6594:

Chaz.5263:

That beign said I don’t see how the story or scarlet makes any sense at all ( I guess we’ll have to wait 6 more months to have her motives and background revealed to us) I think this is a real shame, specially after watching some of WoodenPotatoes videos and realizing that the guys at Anet are sitting on a gold mine of lore and history and have a thousand things to draw from and can make very rich stories.

WP’s a great lore guy, but his theories present plot holes big enough to throw both M. Night Shalyman and Damon Lindelof through.

His theories might be 10 times more interesting than the current plot of the living story, yes, but what I’m talking about is that the writers have a mountains of lore to work with, established history, heroes, vaillains and tons of misteries unresolved and I don’t see them exploiting that lore gold mine at all.

They’ve been throwing Sky Pirates at us for months and do we know where they come from and what their endgame is? at least with the Flame Legion and the Dredge we learned a lot about them through personal story/events.

And why Sky Pirates anyway? Rule of cool I guess because storywise they make no sense so far.

Uruz Six.6594:

*I also saw:* Someone who merged golemagical studies with necromancy. Notice the magic effects on the Twisted and how they all drop dusts.

Actually Oolas teachings show that golemancy is just very very primitive necro/life force/soul magic amplified to workable levels with engineering. Thats kinda part that makes the whole part of the asura personal story where you steal the machine to fuse people into golems/unfuse them work.
Not to mention the sylvari facination with necromancy (as Saladmancer won MacGuffin sword insists to beat into our head if you bother to talk to him the rare times he uses some of the actual necro skills) and how easy they are to brainwash. I mean if corpses that can barely say come *well they say kitten but whatever* can make a trained scholar insane then a newborn raised in a place controlled by the NC, studied under the Inquest *and asura in general* and got some personal little gripe with some human maybe, pretty sure it would result in the 80s joker/riddler like character Scarlet is.

Chaz.5263:

Uruz Six.6594:

Chaz.5263:

That beign said I don’t see how the story or scarlet makes any sense at all ( I guess we’ll have to wait 6 more months to have her motives and background revealed to us) I think this is a real shame, specially after watching some of WoodenPotatoes videos and realizing that the guys at Anet are sitting on a gold mine of lore and history and have a thousand things to draw from and can make very rich stories.

WP’s a great lore guy, but his theories present plot holes big enough to throw both M. Night Shalyman and Damon Lindelof through.

His theories might be 10 times more interesting than the current plot of the living story, yes, but what I’m talking about is that the writers have a mountains of lore to work with, established history, heroes, vaillains and tons of misteries unresolved and I don’t see them exploiting that lore gold mine at all.

They’ve been throwing Sky Pirates at us for months and do we know where they come from and what their endgame is? at least with the Flame Legion and the Dredge we learned a lot about them through personal story/events.

And why Sky Pirates anyway? Rule of cool I guess because storywise they make no sense so far.

Is interesting we’ve gone all summer and know nothing about them.

I suppose we need to “Just keep waiting™”

Boring villain. I immediately though of the Joker, and that is not a good thing. I am kind of sick and tired already of seeing him all the time in the Batman games, did not need to see the same basic villain yet again.

With so many references to Joker, Harley Quinn, etc., if Scarlet was more “Bane-ish” (Tom Hardy Bane, that is) so to speak, would that have been more appealing? Just curious …

(AS-IS) Scarlet Briar: Aaaaand that’s my cue. Hello, DR! My name is Scarlet, and I’ve come to play with you.
(BANEIFIED) Scarlet Briar: I will destroy Divinity’s Reach and then, when it is done and your city is ashes, then you all … have my permission to die.

mojowalker.3798:

With so many references to Joker, Harley Quinn, etc., if Scarlet was more “Bane-ish” (Tom Hardy Bane, that is) so to speak, would that have been more appealing? Just curious …

(AS-IS) Scarlet Briar: Aaaaand that’s my cue. Hello, DR! My name is Scarlet, and I’ve come to play with you.
(BANEIFIED) Scarlet Briar: I will destroy Divinity’s Reach and then, when it is done and your city is ashes, then you all … have my permission to die.

One of the problems is that they copy too much. I know that every trope has been already used somewhere, but come on… Scarlet is a mix of cliches, she even has the freaking pig tails! Because, apparently every crazy, cute female just has to have pig tails…

Remillard.8691:

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?

No, it isn’t. Here is the definition of contrived.
“obviously planned or forced; artificial; strained: a contrived story.”

I have read plenty of stories that lack an artificial, strained feel to them as GW2’s writing typically has. It can be subjective, but if this many people feel this way, it should (hopefully) send up some red flags over the writing. Naturally it won’t bother some people – many people also enjoy B-movies. But they also recognize them for what they are.
Decent dialogue is dialogue which feels in character, does not stand out awkwardly, doesn’t feel stilted, etc. To drag out the dead horse, Trahearne’s dialogue feels stilted and doesn’t fit. It’s in character for him because all of his dialogue is written that way, but it still seems out of place when compared to the better dialogue writing of most (not all) asura characters, for example. And while their dialogue is over the top, it’s done in a way that fits in with the world. Her dialogue isn’t as much of a concern as her backstory and other elements. Tara Strong, being as talented as she is, makes it stand out much less.
I’m not going into realistic psychopaths as that isn’t what’s being asked for. The Joker, as he’s always brought up, is an example of an “insane” villain who can be written very well. I have no qualms with crazy bad guys. For an example of the same character done terribly, check out the DCNU.

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.
(snip)

I am absolutely well aware of every point that you have brought up here. I know that really exceptional and mature storytelling can’t be done in this medium. And, again, that’s not what is being asked for. No one wants an internal monologue.
Backstory is possible, however, and someone mentioned how to do it earlier in the thread. Show Scarlet early in the personal story or in Rata Sum studying in a college. Later, have your character aid her in some way. Have her show up and build her background gradually instead of just tossing her in at random. Hell, her story could have been gradually built on in the living story, so we at least have some idea about her. Find some of her diaries around the world. Do some new dynamic events that involve her. A jumping puzzle through her lab/study. There are so many opportunities to build Scarlet up to the status of a villain you’ll actually fear.

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?
(snip)
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?

Again, that’s not what’s being asked for. No one wants a villain monologue. There are many other ways to get a read on her and her motivations without them coming directly from her mouth, as I pointed out above.

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.

Joker/Harley are some of my favorite fictional characters when done well. That is not the issue at all. In the end, I think you missed my point, and many other people’s.I can see some pretty definite flaws in the writing that I can’t just push aside and ignore. It’s okay to like her, and it’s also okay to not. In the end, the LS and Scarlet are B-movie caliber, and it’s fine if you think that’s great. I just recognize it for what it is.

No one is asking for amazing writing the likes of which you would see in something like The Lord of the Rings, as another fantasy example. They don’t even want AAA writing. They just want good. None of the people I know personally who play GW2 thought that Scarlet was a passable example of storytelling.

Namica.2951:

The thing is, people have been seeing “deeper meanings behind seemingly unimportant one liners.” since flame and frost.

. . . before that. WAY before that. WAY WAY before that. You should have seen things in Prophecies before anything else was ever put together, let alone the conclusions drawn from the ruined cape which used to be found somewhere ashore in Kryta on launch. Then the Preserved Red Iris in Kourna . . .

Seriously, some of the theories were incredibly . . . well let’s just be nice and say “extremely unlikely”.

Instead we got abunch of shoddy writing that’s being defended with “Oh well, surely it gets better…”

. . . worked for Star Trek: TNG and DS9. Not so much Voyager and Enterprise though, so I’ll take a 50% success rate.

BobbyStein.2315:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . on a semi-related note? Who is voicing Scarlet Briar?

Tara Strong

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0152839/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

So in other words we got Twilight Sparkle trying to kidnap people and bombing cities :O At least it makes sense now how she could have graduated from the asura colleges in record time :P

Penguin.5197:

BobbyStein.2315:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . on a semi-related note? Who is voicing Scarlet Briar?

Tara Strong

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0152839/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

So in other words we got Twilight Sparkle trying to kidnap people and bombing cities :O At least it makes sense now how she could have graduated from the asura colleges in record time:P

About as much sense as it makes Rytlock is awesome – because he’s voiced by Steve Blum. I don’t think I really disliked any character voiced by him I’ve encountered.