Guild Wars 2

Unleashed.6195:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The problem is not that they’re horrible writers, it’s either that people want to hold them to a high standard (they are not Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, or Neil Gaiman, nor will they be; I’d like to think they’re more Richard Castle) . . . or the writing takes a backseat to the game.

I wouldn’t assume they’re horrible writers either, especially in the context of the game they’re producing. It feels intentional, not accidental. However, we should require higher standards from the writing in games. We demand the very high standards in artwork, animation, gameplay design and infrastructure management. Writing should not continue to get a free pass because it’s a game.

See, here’s where I both agree and disagree. Again. In the same thread. (I have issues.)

I do want better story in video games, but at the same time I want it to not cost the game to do so. I mentioned either on these forums or in chat sometime how there was a game I played where the story was so great it consumed the actual game and it was like just barely busy-work to get to the cutscenes. “Xenosaga”, which managed to keep me interested enough to finish, but at the same time . . . the gameplay was so dull I wound up just skipping the rest of the story and watching Let’s Plays. When I sit down in front of a game, I want the game to entertain me and draw me in differently than with a TV show – video games are an interactive medium, and writing for them is different than writing for something else.

Now, I also don’t require television to have excellent story and characters, I would much rather they have a consistent mood than great writing. To stress the example? I should not be getting slapstick watching “Lost” or pratfalls for comedy watching “Star Trek”. Much like I should not suddenly get a deadly-serious “save the world” plot to an episode of “Big Bang Theory”. To borrow from above? I sit down to a TV show, I want to know in the first episode what kind of series this is, and would prefer it not change tones too drastically over its run (one or two episodes now and then is perfectly fine but not a wholesale shift).

Lastly, there’s a time, and a place for great works of fiction. Similarly, there’s a time and a place for Looney Tunes silly “crap”. I’m not talking about externally, I’m talking about internally. Some days I want something stirring and thought-provoking, some days I just want to laugh and not think too hard about where that hammer goes when I switch weapons.

I don’t want to stand up before a team of writers and say “your writing is horrible because it’s too silly” one day and the next return and say “your writing is horrible because it’s too serious”. I would rather stand up in front of them and say “this would have worked better for a serious mood if X or Y instead of Z”.

They want to do slightly silly stories which don’t make sense if you stare at them so long? Fine. So does “Doctor Who” and it’s been going almost fifty years now.

I agree as far as tone is concerned, but disagree that some tones give license to drop any need for quality. In varying layers, in an RPG at least, the story must serve the game and the game must serve the story. Neither is in one-sided service to the other.

Take Arrested Development for example. They’ve kept the tone in that series, but lost the quality in the writing. Where the old episodes are often incredible, worthy of watching repeatedly after letting them settle for a while, the new episodes are disappointing and difficult to sit through (I stopped two episodes in).

I read the short story for Scarlet/Ceara. It’s difficult to say that couldn’t have been done better while still keeping the necessary gameplay elements and narrative movers intact. Even just the scene where she wakes up could be reworked to improve the quality without changing any of the overall narrative.

Unleashed.6195:

I agree as far as tone is concerned, but disagree that some tones give license to drop any need for quality. In varying layers, in an RPG at least, the story must serve the game and the game must serve the story. Neither is in one-sided service to the other.

I disagree. Again, “Xenosaga” with a bit of “Metal Gear Solid” thrown in. A game is a game, and bending the game to suit the story risks ruining the gameplay at that moment when it happens. And all you need is one moment like that to cause someone to get yanked out of your cleverly crafted game/story dance and start pulling other threads.

I know we probably won’t agree on this but a game is a game first and a story second. If all you’re doing is pushing buttons to reach the next bit of story, it’s not a game. It’s an interactive movie.

Disclaimer: There is nothing wrong with designing this, if that was the intent in the first place. However, if you sell me a “game” with “play this and tell me what you think”, it had better not be you showing off your writing staff’s skills every five minutes wondering where the game is any more than it should be you showing off your animators’ skills every five minutes, and me wondering where the story went.

I’m weird like this, but I do expect to play a game when I pick up a controller. Yes, go for the excellent story, and PLEASE get good voice actor direction. (For the love of Dwayna, make sure your voice directors can do it right . . . ). But don’t forget this is a game, not your screening room.

Take Arrested Development for example. They’ve kept the tone in that series, but lost the quality in the writing. Where the old episodes are often incredible, worthy of watching repeatedly after letting them settle for a while, the new episodes are disappointing and difficult to sit through (I stopped two episodes in).

I don’t watch Arrested Development, and didn’t ever have an interest in it. To be fair, my interest in television has waned considerably. But I do get your point because I’ve seen shows do that sort of thing too, where the tone remained but the writing was less . . . snappy, I guess is the way to put it.

I read the short story for Scarlet/Ceara. It’s difficult to say that couldn’t have been done better while still keeping the necessary gameplay elements and narrative movers intact. Even just the scene where she wakes up could be reworked to improve the quality without changing any of the overall narrative.

It very well could have been, and I can think of about a half-dozen ways it could have been slid into the game even inside the current Living Story framework. I’m sure between the forumgoers we could ALL collectively come up with four dozen or more.

But I’m not in the shoes of the people at ArenaNet (and I thank the gods for that every time I load the forum….) and probably neither are most of the rest of us. Whatever the considerations were, this is how they did it. I’d rather they didn’t but they did. I’d like them to do it differently, as would a couple other people here. But I’m not going to throw a fit over it.

The misaligned site on the field gun is presumably the site upon which the sight is situated?

That story was interesting.

But why didn’t they save the information and add it as some kind of set of instances in the next LS update? The Pale Tree can obviously read Scarlet’s mind and see what she’s up to, as shown in the story. Just have us talk to the Pale Tree and see the major events of Scarlet’s story play out in a vision type instance.

Why is this not in-game? Some of the short stories would face real challenges to being presented in-game, but this isn’t one of them. A-Net, I like you, but stop doing this!

LameFox.6349:

The misaligned site on the field gun is presumably the site upon which the sight is situated?

Yeah… still not sure how that would effect the sound of the gun… but w/e. >_>

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I disagree. Again, “Xenosaga” with a bit of “Metal Gear Solid” thrown in. A game is a game, and bending the game to suit the story risks ruining the gameplay at that moment when it happens. And all you need is one moment like that to cause someone to get yanked out of your cleverly crafted game/story dance and start pulling other threads.

To clarify, the point was that in an RPG, there is normally some lore or story behind what’s going on. Races are defined, factions, classes/professions. This requires writing. The setting in which the game is played is brought on by writers, artists and engineers.

You may decide that everyone needs to work together to slay a dragon or a giant. Story set the theme, now gameplay fills in gaps. Where there are gaps in gameplay, you fill them in with story again.

I am not looking for interactive movies or 3D novels (not from games at least). I am however looking for people to treat the craft of writing with the same level of care and scrutiny that they do for the artwork or engineering that goes into the game.

Guild Wars 2 requires experts at the very highest level of talent in their field in concept art, 3D modelling, texturing, animation, VFX, sound design and engineering. This push for expertise and quality doesn’t turn the game into a showcase for any individual skill listed there. We should not be happy that the writing, the glue that holds all of it together and helps make us care what is going on, is not held to the same standard.

Perhaps even there you disagree, and that’s fine, I won’t belabor the point any further. I just want them to take the writing as seriously as they do the concept art.

know what I think?

I want to fight with Scarlet.

Exactly, I said it. This story is guided in such a manner that simply gives me more reasons to help her than to stop her.

I mean, my main is a Human Necromancer who is a Street Rat origin. She just want to change the flawed system Tyria has become. There is no reason she would fight Scarlet (in fact, when Scarlet kidnapped Queen Jennah she thought “Outstanding!”)

Ferik.3127:

know what I think?

I want to fight with Scarlet.

Exactly, I said it. This story is guided in such a manner that simply gives me more reasons to help her than to stop her.

I mean, my main is a Human Necromancer who is a Street Rat origin. She just want to change the flawed system Tyria has become. There is no reason she would fight Scarlet (in fact, when Scarlet kidnapped Queen Jennah she thought “Outstanding!”)

My street rat would want to stop her because, frankly, she messed with Divinity’s Reach. You don’t do that and stay alive. Aetherblades bombing Lion’s Arch? That’s over there, and they don’t count. Dredge attacking norn and charr? Better them than us.

Screw with the human city? Knife in the ribs.

Anyone catch the grammar mistakes? Most of them were issues with tense, so it makes me wonder who wrote the story. Usually issues with tense is a result of English being a second language. Maybe it was written in Korean and then translated into English…who knows.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ferik.3127:

know what I think?

I want to fight with Scarlet.

Exactly, I said it. This story is guided in such a manner that simply gives me more reasons to help her than to stop her.

I mean, my main is a Human Necromancer who is a Street Rat origin. She just want to change the flawed system Tyria has become. There is no reason she would fight Scarlet (in fact, when Scarlet kidnapped Queen Jennah she thought “Outstanding!”)

My street rat would want to stop her because, frankly, she messed with Divinity’s Reach. You don’t do that and stay alive. Aetherblades bombing Lion’s Arch? That’s over there, and they don’t count. Dredge attacking norn and charr? Better them than us.

Screw with the human city? Knife in the ribs.

If playing a human Noble, it makes sense that I want to protect the beautiful city “my people” live in.

But, why would I care about this whole kitten city if throughout my life I’ve been living inside its worst sewers? Screw it all, some sylvari’s here to overthrow the royal hypocrites that had been talking down on us street people and it smells like the air of change. It’s time to do some real damage
my urge to kill rising

Exosferatu.2961:

Please, please, please Arena Net develop your characters wisely! In Queen’s Jubilee, Braham and Rox don’t even remember us, the players, who helped them fight against the Molten Alliance.

They remembered me at the Opening Ceremonies. Braham said something about “now that you’re here, it can be a party”.

. . . however once down in the Pavilion? Someone didn’t check their responses before it patched in

Unleashed.6195:

. . . or the writing takes a backseat to the game.

Sadly, I think it’s pretty obvious that this is the case. There is a lot of potential in the setting, and the atmosphere created by some events, NPCs we can talk to or scripted conversations is quite good. But the overall story and storytelling? It’s very obvious that it’s a distant second (if that) fiddle to everything else. As someone who loves immersion and lore but could not care less about pixel “loots”, I find that to be a big source of ongoing frustration.

Meriem.3504:

The writing around this game IS poor. Is this info in the game? No thereforth I do not care and it is non existent in the game world. I would read a book if I wanted to read stuff like this. I play an RPG game to RPG in the game, not tab out to read the website.

This, a million times.

Being forced to go outside a game for story information is just mind-bogglingly bad design. I expect the games I play to be self-contained, just as I expect a movie or book to be self-contained. If the writers can’t pull that off, or are prevented from doing so, then it’d be better to not have a story at all.

I enjoy reading and learning. But I want to to it in the game, as my character. Want me to go beyond the game? Make me care with well-written in-game content first, and I’ll come looking of my own volition.

I still have many questions left…

-Exactly WHAT did she she PAST the vision of the Pale Tree, when she said: “So be it…”
-Why US? Why attack humans first, why build her lair (such an ugly word) in DR?
-Still doesn’t explain how she acquired the help of the Molten Alliance and such.
-Does it really tie in with the whole beginning of the personal story that you play, or just one branch of it? (the time portal and such)

The one thing I don’t like about this lore thing: they are taking away the magic and are placing themselves on thin ice here.
Granted: eternal alchemy, steampunk enemies, invasions… All very nice and action packed, but…

This IS still Guild Wars right? About gods and dragons, about heroes and long forgotten magic?
This isn’t turning out to be Dishonored online or something, is it?

Tad.4109:

this is the kind of story that needs to be put in the game. i am not sure i like the story, but at least i know a bit more about Scarlet and some things make a bit more sense after reading this.

I know they’ve said these kinds of things are optional extras and without the website articles there would be no storys, but the game’s Living Story is really lacking in story. Story instances like the ones we had with Braham and Rox. It would have been much better to have a series of quests where you talk to the people involved in Scarlet’s past, each of her mentors, and maybe even discover her old laboratory – assuming it’s not part of some future dungeon. A lot of this story could have been delivered in the world – even if it was just from NPC text or parts of her journal pieced together in a journey that followed her foot steps. At least that way we could visually place our characters in the locations Scarlet went to. Maybe I’m trivialising the work involved, but they could throw in some watchwork horrors to different parts of it to add a little bit of gameplay.

Astasia.1459:

Nilkemia.8507:

While a somewhat interesting read, this once again begs the question of why it couldn’t be found in-game.

Because they just wrote it, after everyone complained about what was in-game.

It doesn’t make the college situation any better, they really could have done without that and would have had a half decent character.

The colleges are such a focal point of the Asuran way of life, to have an outsider come in and turn everything on it’s head like that would have had a significant and long lasting impact on their culture that would have resounded throughout the Asuran story. Everything would be compared to her and she would have been held up as a goal for all Asura to overcome.

To add a human culture comparison, it would be like if they suddenly added a character who was the king of DR, and had always been the king. While the new NPCs introduce him as if he’s always been there and everyone but you knows about it, while all the old NPCs still say absolutely nothing about him ever. That’s how big a deal this is, and how absurdly shoehorned into the story it is.

I don’t think they just wrote it, but parts of it did feel like they were checking boxes to justify her prodigy identity (specifically the hylek part felt most like they just wanted her to conveniently spend time with everyone so they could have her be a character that does everything). That and the unusual length of the article makes me think it’s possible they added to it. One of the most annoying things about this is they’ve written away or left out any identity or unique flavour to her dealings with all these races. Every time it’s just “a sylvari wanted to do it so they took her on”. She just gets to apprentice under all these different people with different cultures and customs and never is the fact that she’s a sylvari an issue aside from the asura. In the asura’s case they just go “magic impressive feat” to bypass it. It doesn’t feel like they respected the characters and lore of the world they way they went about her different apprenticeships, the same way I don’t think they respected the identity’s of the dredge and the Flame Legion the way they simply used them as tools for her to control. The Flame Legion might be disorganised without their leader, but that doesn’t take away their entire identity as an enemy faction. Scarlet’s usage of them doesn’t do them justice as a somewhat fleshed out enemy faction.

As far as her seeing the eternal alchemy, Scarlet doesn’t seem to have changed much. Aside from her becoming more ruthless or remorseless after the experiment, her views on the world (and specifically the sylvari) don’t seem to be any different. She seems to have had a thorny personality right from birth. The Pale Tree supposedly intervening suggests Scarlet was onto something (assuming the Pale Tree was actually involved and it wasn’t just Scarlet’s imagination) but nothing she saw or experienced seemed too foreign from the typical Nightmare Court member. She seems a lot like a Courtier except with the added distaste for organisation and authority. Basically take a court members, give them more autonomy and instead of spreading Nightmare to the Dream, spreading Nightmare to the whole world.

Whatever Scarlet saw (and the descriptions I read didn’t seem like she saw stuff she hadn’t seen before, it was more like an inner reflection from what I understood) it doesn’t appear to have changed her very much from what she was before.

I think this was a good story. I loved Scarlet.

lordkrall.7241:

So, people shout about how this should be in-game.
HOW would this be in-game?
The only one that could tell us all this would be Scarlet (if she even can due to the experiment) and I have rather major doubts she would tell us.

Other than the parts in Scarlets PoV, and her dialogue in space, we could have ran around and talked to the people named in the story. They could have given us their accounts of their history with her, and her behavior at the time. They would have set it up to show her getting more and more frustrated with her lack of progress, up until she got to Rata Sum.

Once there, we could talk to random npcs that might have studied with her. Minus the Asura’s negativity towards a genius non-asuran, we could have learns her apathy towards others, and her continued drive to further drive into forbidden knowledge. Add in a mission to capture and interrogate Inquest members for their knowledge on the matter, me finally stop at the Hylek teacher.

From his knowledge, he find out that Scarlet left with her old asuran headmaster, and when we get back to Rata Sum; we find out he’s dead. After learning that, we have to search out a powerful necromancer to summon his spirit out of the Mists. He tells his story of Scarlet’s ideas and his final moments, and we have the entire short story in-game.

Erukk.1408:

lordkrall.7241:

So, people shout about how this should be in-game.
HOW would this be in-game?
The only one that could tell us all this would be Scarlet (if she even can due to the experiment) and I have rather major doubts she would tell us.

Other than the parts in Scarlets PoV, and her dialogue in space, we could have ran around and talked to the people named in the story. We would have needed a powerful necromancer to summon the headmaster’s spirit out of the Mists though…

It would be nice to get a story udate where we talk to people and get to seek out lore…

Kinda like the Mad King scavenger hunt…that was actually well done, with lots of lore behind it.

DarksunG.9537:

Namica.2951:

So from this, we can add some things to Scarlet:

Master Smith
Master Sniper
Evil for the sake of being evil
Responsible for Asuran personal story

When will the sue-ing end? She was already a genius of stupidly large renown, and pretty much a female Traeherne. She is one of, if not thee biggest sue I’ve ever seen in an MMO.

Yeah.. I mean, this game has a serious girl-power slant to its writing, but this just pegged the meter.

It doesn’t help that on top of two of the evil factions (Flame Legion and Sons of Svanir) have “we hate women” tacked on to them to further shove that down our throats.

Am I the only person that thought this story didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know? It was already stated ingame that scarlet studied with asura, norn, charr, and hylek.

She came out of the process saying that her name was now Scarlet, but why? What reason is there to start going by a different name? What reason did she have to kill her asura teacher and friend?

Anet answered questions no one was asking, just something said in passing. If we actually had some insight to what sort of knowledge scarlet gained from each of encounters it might actually tell us something. How she took all this seemly unrelated knowledge and assembled it all into one effective practice. Especially Hylek; You hear that and you have no idea what they could possibly teach that would be worthwhile, and apparently anet doesn’t either.

The headmaster wasn’t her friend though. No one was. The story showed, that since her birth, the one thing she only cared about was trying to understand how things works. How everything works, and how it all worked together. She only saw people as tools to her basically.

There are a couple of things to take away from it, for me anyway. One is what the Pale Tree said. "Please: go no further. In seeking to comprehend the forces that shape us, you will unleash them. Society cannot withstand that.” Obvious foreshadowing is obvious. There are multiple forces shaping Tyria. Greater forces that we can understand it seems, and trying to understand them has the possibility to unleash them.

The second thing is what she said about the Sylvari…

“So much makes sense now. The Pale Tree, the Nightmare Court, Caithe and Faolain…it’s all part of a grand design.

“But I see the flaws in that design. My people don’t have to take what we’re given, or be what we were “born to be.” No people do. We can change the rules…well, I can. And I’m going to.”

Everything about the Sylvari and Nightmare Court, including Caithe and Faolain’s relationship, was a matter of grand design, and Scarlet seen it. She’s now going to try and ruin said “grand designs”, because she doesn’t want some outside force shaping her to it’s will.

Only because it hasn’t been posted yet.

http://www.sheknows.com/baby-names/name/ceara

It’s a Gaelic name (which I think is canon with the norm for sylvari naming conventions).

Her story seems ripped entirely from both of the descriptions.

SoulUrge Number: 7
People with this name have a deep inner need for quiet, and a desire to understand and analyze the world they live in, and to learn the deeper truths.

Expression Number: 1
People with this name tend to initiate events, to be leaders rather than followers, with powerful personalities. They tend to be focused on specific goals, experience a wealth of creative new ideas, and have the ability to implement these ideas with efficiency and determination. They tend to be courageous and sometimes aggressive. As unique, creative individuals, they tend to resent authority, and are sometimes stubborn, proud, and impatient.

It would have been cool if Ceara had existed in the game prior to Scarlet. With such a spot on meaning, there is a missed opporunity for players to discover her name meaning and speculate on her desire to “learn the deeper truths” aka see the Eternal Alchemy. The most interesting part of Scarlet’s story seems to have already happened.

Why she attack human? Why directly Queen? She saw it in “grand design”? Why she didn’t deal with sylvari’s first?

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

Why she attack human? Why directly Queen? She saw it in “grand design”? Why she didn’t deal with sylvari’s first?

Because the outside forces might be shaping all of Tyria. She might have targeted the Queens because she plays an important role in said “grand designs”. Without her, Kryta would fall into a good amount of chaos, and that would leave it up to attack on many different angles.

Technically she attacked the norn and the charr first, then Lion’s Arch and then the queen. Just because you didn’t see her prior to the Queen’s Jubilee doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved. The number of people who haven’t picked up on this shows how poorly communicated the story has been.

^ No, it shows that people simply don’t pay attention.
They could have had big flashing signs tagged with “Scarlet was here!” during F&F and people still wouldn’t see the connection.

Shiren.9532:

Technically she attacked the norn and the charr first, then Lion’s Arch and then the queen. Just because you didn’t see her prior to the Queen’s Jubilee doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved. The number of people who haven’t picked up on this shows how poorly communicated the story has been.

The difference, I believe, is that she never purposely singled out the norn or charr, she had the molten alliance cause chaos in their countryside to displace people, lions arch was only a small raid to murder a captains council member to get mai trin on the council. Kryta is the first full assault, and the only one she specifically says she wants to see “in flames”, also trying to kidnap jennah

Some people here should actually read this short story before they complain about it

Namica.2951:

So from this, we can add some things to Scarlet:

Master Smith

No she just spent one winter with a master smith and left him at the begin of spring. She wasn even close to be a master smith when she left him.

Master Sniper

There are no indication that she IS a master sniper. She just hung around with a good sniper for two years

Evil for the sake of being evil

More like gone mad from revelation

Kain Francois.4328:

earn the respect of all three Charr legions to be trained by them

Thanks for the joke. Go read the story an you’ll see that she isn’t trained by all three Charr legions. Scarlet spent two years with a gladium. a Gladium, not the three Legions.

Nothing against critizising a character but some of you are sue-ing Scarlet much more than Anet.

Walhalla.5473:

Some people here should actually read this short story before they complain about it

Namica.2951:

So from this, we can add some things to Scarlet:

Master Smith

No she just spent one winter with a master smith and left him at the begin of spring. She wasn even close to be a master smith when she left him.

Master Sniper

There are no indication that she IS a master sniper. She just hung around with a good sniper for two years

Evil for the sake of being evil

More like gone mad from revelation

Kain Francois.4328:

earn the respect of all three Charr legions to be trained by them

Thanks for the joke. Go read the story an you’ll see that she isn’t trained by all three Charr legions. Scarlet spent two years with a gladium. a Gladium, not the three Legions.

Nothing against critizising a character but some of you are sue-ing Scarlet much more than Anet.

yeah the story specifically mentions that she left before she could attain master status, despite the protests of her mentors

Pacifica.9576:

Walhalla.5473:

Some people here should actually read this short story before they complain about it

Namica.2951:

So from this, we can add some things to Scarlet:

Master Smith

No she just spent one winter with a master smith and left him at the begin of spring. She wasn even close to be a master smith when she left him.

Master Sniper

There are no indication that she IS a master sniper. She just hung around with a good sniper for two years

Evil for the sake of being evil

More like gone mad from revelation

Kain Francois.4328:

earn the respect of all three Charr legions to be trained by them

Thanks for the joke. Go read the story an you’ll see that she isn’t trained by all three Charr legions. Scarlet spent two years with a gladium. a Gladium, not the three Legions.

Nothing against critizising a character but some of you are sue-ing Scarlet much more than Anet.

yeah the story specifically mentions that she left before she could attain master status, despite the protests of her mentors

Please don’t get in a fight with them about it, some of them have already decided and there’s no swaying their opinion with such things as different interpretations. Just sit back and watch with the peanut gallery. Waldorf and Stadler have room in the box for a couple more.

lordkrall.7241:

^ No, it shows that people simply don’t pay attention.
They could have had big flashing signs tagged with “Scarlet was here!” during F&F and people still wouldn’t see the connection.

From what I’ve seen it still hasn’t been confirmed that Scarlet was involved in Flame and Frost, merely implied by her using them as her minions during the invasions. It’s entirely possible it was someone else and Scarlet is capitalising on an existing army. Honestly there isn’t much story to the Molten Alliance (at least a story that does justice to the Flame Legion or the dredge as their own entities and not just as tools for Scarlet to use) so I’m not too bothered they haven’t come out and said “Scarlet did it” but I’m not going to blame players for not making the connection because technically, the story hasn’t either.

RyanThomas.4182:

Why didn’t they give us this backstory before introducing the character Scarlet? After all, Mai Trin mentioned Scarlett, so putting this right before the Queen’s Jubilee or the day after Queen’s Jubilee went live would give a bit of context so that Scarlet didn’t seem like some sloppily created cliche villian Anet pulled out of nowhere.

Please, Anet, if you care about lore, try to connect things as you write them, and not tie them together sloppily as an afterthought.

Also, nothing in the story mentioned how Scarlet’s connected to the Molten Alliance.

She’s still a sloppily created cliche villain. This story gave no depth. It just confirmed lack thereof.

Pacifica.9576:

Walhalla.5473:

Some people here should actually read this short story before they complain about it

Namica.2951:

So from this, we can add some things to Scarlet:

Master Smith

No she just spent one winter with a master smith and left him at the begin of spring. She wasn even close to be a master smith when she left him.

Master Sniper

There are no indication that she IS a master sniper. She just hung around with a good sniper for two years

Evil for the sake of being evil

More like gone mad from revelation

Kain Francois.4328:

earn the respect of all three Charr legions to be trained by them

Thanks for the joke. Go read the story an you’ll see that she isn’t trained by all three Charr legions. Scarlet spent two years with a gladium. a Gladium, not the three Legions.

Nothing against critizising a character but some of you are sue-ing Scarlet much more than Anet.

yeah the story specifically mentions that she left before she could attain master status, despite the protests of her mentors

Master Smith: Yes, she spent one season with a guy which gave her enough knowledge to build a freaking golem.

Master Sniper: So she was pretty much one season away from being a master sniper. That doesn’t refute the point that she was learning all these things at a simply massive speed. Or that she was able to dodge and escape a veteran soldier.

Gone mad? We don’t even knows if she’s mad or just self confident. The short story was full of holes. People keep saying this confirms her madness when no, it doesn’t. People were just so sure of madness because of the childish way she speaks that they are making assumptions based on their own desires.

Shiren.9532:

lordkrall.7241:

^ No, it shows that people simply don’t pay attention.
They could have had big flashing signs tagged with “Scarlet was here!” during F&F and people still wouldn’t see the connection.

From what I’ve seen it still hasn’t been confirmed that Scarlet was involved in Flame and Frost, merely implied by her using them as her minions during the invasions. It’s entirely possible it was someone else and Scarlet is capitalising on an existing army. Honestly there isn’t much story to the Molten Alliance (at least a story that does justice to the Flame Legion or the dredge as their own entities and not just as tools for Scarlet to use) so I’m not too bothered they haven’t come out and said “Scarlet did it” but I’m not going to blame players for not making the connection because technically, the story hasn’t either.

A-net confirmed it. Dev said she was the mastermind during one of the streams.

Heaven forbid we get out lore in game.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Cyan.6904:

Unleashed.6195:

Cyan.6904:

These short stories are always great to read, and are a huge slap in the face for all the people who claim the writing around this game is poor.

Those that eat only water and oats are rarely suitable critics of other dishes.

Cliche and lacks an valid argument, do better next time.

Not sure whether your argument is whether the writing is good outside the game but needs more love IN the game . . . or that it’s still poor.

The writing inside and outside the game has potential, the depth is at the moment to be found outside the game. I agree it would be a lot better to experience it in-game.

inazuma.7021:

lordkrall.7241:

So, people shout about how this should be in-game.
HOW would this be in-game?
The only one that could tell us all this would be Scarlet (if she even can due to the experiment) and I have rather major doubts she would tell us.

This.

I see plenty of people saying this, but few ever give ideas on how to pull that off.

How would this particular lore story be included in game? This is all prelude info to the current story. The only ones besides Scarlet herself that would know anything about this (Omedd and Teyo) are dead.

Dead, eh? Bah! Death is no hindrance to the gathering of information. There’s a certain priestess of Grenth that can help with that.

Traveller.7496:

…But I have to wonder, why none of this is told to us in-game? Scarlet could actually be an interesting character if you’d constructed her backstory using all you have written in that short story via dialogue and in-game text…

Even a couple cutscenes… this woulda made it more interesting and compelling. NICE backstory, wish it hadn’t been hidden.

This is why Anet needs a Cinematic team….. a video of this should have come out with the update. Would make the lore fans a lot happier.

No Walking.6349:

This is why Anet needs a Cinematic team….. a video of this should have come out with the update. Would make the lore fans a lot happier.

lack of budget
not worth the effort
“real life issues going on”

when good things don’t happen ArenaNet always could come up with some excuses

Alleluia.1320:

That story was interesting.

But why didn’t they save the information and add it as some kind of set of instances in the next LS update? The Pale Tree can obviously read Scarlet’s mind and see what she’s up to, as shown in the story. Just have us talk to the Pale Tree and see the major events of Scarlet’s story play out in a vision type instance.

Why is this not in-game? Some of the short stories would face real challenges to being presented in-game, but this isn’t one of them. A-Net, I like you, but stop doing this!

LameFox.6349:

The misaligned site on the field gun is presumably the site upon which the sight is situated?

Yeah… still not sure how that would effect the sound of the gun… but w/e. >_>

I totally agree with you. Why the hell is this not in game ? I don’t want to read about the lore. I want to see it.

I was strongly disappointed by the story because it made Scarlet’s Sueness canon. Before, it could just have been misinformation fed to NPCs since our info on her came from what those NPC’s said.

But then in the middle of a night of insomnia I had a thought that gave me hope.

What if … what if she hasn’t been there all along after all? It’s interesting that she is so Asura-College-involved. And we know the Reactor accident “turned reality inside out.” What if she’s a sylvari’s fever dream projected into the world after being mixed up with the Reactor blowup? And reality has warped, so suddenly people like Anise are sure Scarlet is a known figure of the past many years. Whereas she’s simply been injected.

Donari.5237:

I was strongly disappointed by the story because it made Scarlet’s Sueness canon. Before, it could just have been misinformation fed to NPCs since our info on her came from what those NPC’s said.

But then in the middle of a night of insomnia I had a thought that gave me hope.

What if … what if she hasn’t been there all along after all? It’s interesting that she is so Asura-College-involved. And we know the Reactor accident “turned reality inside out.” What if she’s a sylvari’s fever dream projected into the world after being mixed up with the Reactor blowup? And reality has warped, so suddenly people like Anise are sure Scarlet is a known figure of the past many years. Whereas she’s simply been injected.

Could be, but for now it’s just baseless speculation.

Hmm maybe there are more things to be disclosed in the upcoming weeks, but for the time being Ceara /Scarlett seems too much of a simplistic character compared to the wide powers she is supposed to have.
Something does not fit here. I hope ANet can surprise us more.

I am still very apprehensive on the fact that she graduated from all three of the colleges…

Wonder why we haven’t heard a single thing about her before now.

lordkrall.7241:

So, people shout about how this should be in-game.
HOW would this be in-game?
The only one that could tell us all this would be Scarlet (if she even can due to the experiment) and I have rather major doubts she would tell us.

You know the cutscene with Lord Faren they could just make scenes like that that change as a story gets told to the player. We could of traveled all around the world to each one of her mentors learning a different part of her story. Would get us to travel around meet new characters and provide the actual story of the living story.

If she so smart why does she fail to follow up every time the zerg fails to stop her in a zone after 45 minutes?

Emmet.2943:

Wonder why we haven’t heard a single thing about her before now.

lordkrall.7241:

So, people shout about how this should be in-game.
HOW would this be in-game?
The only one that could tell us all this would be Scarlet (if she even can due to the experiment) and I have rather major doubts she would tell us.

You know the cutscene with Lord Faren they could just make scenes like that that change as a story gets told to the player. We could of traveled all around the world to each one of her mentors learning a different part of her story. Would get us to travel around meet new characters and provide the actual story of the living story.

I wish but with the schedule they are on it wouldn’t be possible. Too musch work for temp content.

Manuhell.2759:

Yep, she’s definitely crazy.

“Crazy” is a term used by people who don’t understand the intricacies of psychological disorders.

Donari.5237:

…What if she’s a sylvari’s fever dream projected into the world after being mixed up with the Reactor blowup?…

Or the Pale Tree’s fevered dream…

Barabbas.8715:

“Crazy” is a term used by people who don’t understand the intricacies of psychological disorders.

Or… it’s used as a way to generalize someone’s behavior in a single word when those intricacies are immaterial.

Ok, three pages in so nobody will read it, but: I liked the writing of the backstory but the problem is nothing of it ameliorates the situation we have of ‘splitting’ in-game lore vs. reading stuff on the website.

My problem with Scarlet is that, if someone is so smart, such a genius and the FIRST SYLVARI to graduate all three ASURAN colleges at the top of the grade – why have we -never- heard of her? Why haven’t we heard NPCs in Rata Sum talking about this sylvari that was smart but ‘something happened’ and she was kicked out? We haven’t heard of a horrible murder of an asuran professor who made a machine to freaking see the Eternal Alchemy! We haven’t heard any ambient chatter about her whatsoever, which makes her place in the world very unbelievable and shoehorned.

I know Anet are not prophets. I know they cannot predict the future and could not put ambient chatter in for an NPC that they did not think of until the Living Story. But please in the future, if you are going to put such very ‘unique’ and out-of-place NPC, please give us some chatter about this person who no doubt has generated a LOT of recognition for their position. Having a sylvari graduate in top grades in asuran colleges is like having our first (half)black president! We should have had NPCs going apesh** over it.

Instead, her existence in the world is ignored and suddenly we get a character that knows everything. I know Anet is still getting the hang of living story but please Anet in the future keep this in mind.

Kiriwar.7382:

My problem with Scarlet is that, if someone is so smart, such a genius and the FIRST SYLVARI to graduate all three ASURAN colleges at the top of the grade – why have we -never- heard of her? Why haven’t we heard NPCs in Rata Sum talking about this sylvari that was smart but ‘something happened’ and she was kicked out?

As the story mentioned, she was stripped with all titles, thus was never mentioned.

We haven’t heard of a horrible murder of an asuran professor who made a machine to freaking see the Eternal Alchemy!

That’s easy. Asura dies all the time in some freak accident so it doesn’t cause an alarm when an Asura dies while tinkering with their machine.

We haven’t heard any ambient chatter about her whatsoever, which makes her place in the world very unbelievable and shoehorned.

Perhaps it’s a taboo among the Asuras to speak of her since it will highlight their biggest mistake in allowing a non-Asura to graduate from their colleges.