Guild Wars 2

Hey, can anyone explain why do we have invasion now, why earlier Molten Alliance attacked (what they attacked, why, who, how) and why did Flame Legion and Dredge made an alliance? Why Flame Legion assaulted Norn along with Dredge while they should not have any quarrel with them. Black Citadel wasn’t threatened at all.

Now, is Tyria really in danger? Masses of pirates are teleported in wilderness. Why?
No city is sieged, nothing really is happening. Thousads of enemies are dying without sense, imo. When too many machines get destroyed, pirates are summoned, when they get their kitten whooped, Molten alliance is called. And they just come separately to die without a word.
What’s the point? Does it really have any? Is it to spread chaos? Well, what I see now is that it just gives bored heroes something to do.
There’s no indication that there is bigger purpose – as to why Scarlet showed at all. She is a Sylvari, why not threaten The Groove then?

Scarlet is laughing all the time while her allies are dying by the thousands and she is screaming “Die die die die die die” while not a single soul was killed during the attack. Even Faren was kidnapped, not killed. Is it some kind of a show? For Anet it’s showbusiness but for us it is what?

I’d really like to set my mind appropriately to this. I just don’t know what and why is goin on.

Basically when you have to push out content every 2 weeks you need a lot of fluff without much substance. Don’t expect any answers, they need new content in a new direction in 2 weeks, they don’t have time to be making cohesive stories.

Presumably Scarlet is behind the whole thing. She was the one who got the dredge and flame legion to work together…I’m guessing so she could access the weapon they were designing. She’s behind the steam mechs that have been around since launch. No one knew where they came from. And she’s behind the aetherblades…possibly modifying them and supplying them weapons to follow her.

Why? Why does any evil character in a game do what they do? She’s clearly nuts. She wanted a seat on the Captain’s Council under her control, and when that failed, she turned her attention to the Queen’s celebration in Kryta, most likely because she saw an opportunity in taking over and controlling the clockwork knights.

The invasion is payback for her plans being thwarted.

It’s not great literature, but there’s definitely a story there.

When they first started doing these invasions the first thing that came to mind was Rift.

Vayne.8563:

Presumably Scarlet is behind the whole thing. She was the one who got the dredge and flame legion to work together…I’m guessing so she could access the weapon they were designing. She’s behind the steam mechs that have been around since launch. No one knew where they came from. And she’s behind the aetherblades…possibly modifying them and supplying them weapons to follow her.

As far as I know the steam mechs are not her creation. There’s spoiler here so I will not talk about it (see Asuran story with infinity ball).

Dredge have very primitive weapons, Flame Legion don’t use machinery at all. She’s supposedly to be a genius. She should have no need for any of their ‘technology’. They did nothing for her and still doing nothing. They could attack cities from underground, pirates from the sky, yet they just spawn in random locations outside any important place.

Why? Why does any evil character in a game do what they do? She’s clearly nuts. She wanted a seat on the Captain’s Council under her control, and when that failed, she turned her attention to the Queen’s celebration in Kryta, most likely because she saw an opportunity in taking over and controlling the clockwork knights.

The invasion is payback for her plans being thwarted.

It’s not great literature, but there’s definitely a story there.

Where is written anything you said here (apart from her being nuts. IMO she’s not crazy, she is just stupid as one can be)? Who said that? Please provide links or tell me in game where can I found these informations.

prenavo.3926:

When they first started doing these invasions the first thing that came to mind was Rift.

That was my first thought. But here they are on a different level of class – worse!. My brother showed me Rifts and they were spectacular, not a zergfest. They are varied, monsters are interesting, they just have something in them that give you goose bumps.

Edit: In Rift I feeled tension, I knew that powerful enemy was attacking, you had to be careful. Here we have bunch of colorful toons screaming “YAAAHHOOOOOO!” and just farming loot.

I was wondering the same thing last night, as the OP. These invasion mobs are just sitting around in the zone picking their noses until the zerg comes to wipe them out. What happened to them knocking over water towers (centaurs in manifesto!), or setting a camp on fire? I hate to bring the manifesto up, but its really funny. Colin said something like “In most games, you get a quest telling you whats happening. In guild wars 2, you see it. You see centaurs destroying XYZ”. True, we did. But did that whole effort stop with living story? Spawn 30 mobs, let them stand there emotionless until we decide to kill them? How come they aren’t trying to ransack the nearest town?

While this update is a lotbetter than previous living story (more action and a bit better story telling), it’s kind of silly…just a huge loot farm. Like Pavilion.

Wheres the AI? Wheres the purpose?

Gizmo.8623:

prenavo.3926:

When they first started doing these invasions the first thing that came to mind was Rift.

That was my first thought. But here they are on a different level of class – worse!. My brother showed me Rifts and they were spectacular, not a zergfest. They are varied, monsters are interesting, they just have something in them that give you goose bumps.

Edit: In Rift I feeled tension, I knew that powerful enemy was attacking, you had to be careful. Here we have bunch of colorful toons screaming “YAAAHHOOOOOO!” and just farming loot.

This is nothing like the Rift invasions. In rift, these things would come out of rifts and just run in a direction killing a town. Killing the NPCs. Eventually, they establish footholds…where we have to defeat the mobs there(which contained some powerful mob), destroy the foothold so that the town can return.

Here, the mobs stand still like target dummies until we zerg and wipe them. Theres no threat to tyria.

The Flame Legion and the Dredge were promised power if they joined forces and attacked Tyria. They attacked both Norn and Charr lands orginally. The victims from these attacks sought refuge in Southsun until crazy Canach made the wildlife go crazy and we had to stop him.

Seems as though Scarlet was behind it all along and also has the Aetherblade at her disposal (which she formed I think?) and took control of these new Watchwork creatures.

That’s the gist of it from doing the LS events since release.

I don’t think even anet knows. They just spam us with reskined mobs of enemies so you go zerg some more instead of complaining that this game has nothing for you to do. I mean, don’t try to follow a story in an mmo because its an mmo, stories worth following isn’t something known to this genre.

After reading all this I think that my younger sister could provide better story sitting on a toilet on monday morning still without coffee. God, month after month there’s not enough story for one full sentence.

This content I’d describe as: “Scarlet (who?) invade.”
Former ones: “Molten Alliance destroys signposts, heroes repair.”
“People on new island, where dangerous creatures attack (surprise!).”
“Balloons for unimportant people.”

…

Gizmo.8623:

After reading all this I think that my younger sister could provide better story sitting on a toilet on monday morning still without coffee. God, month after month there’s not enough story for one full sentence.

This content I’d describe as: “Scarlet (who?) invade.”
Former ones: “Molten Alliance destroys signposts, heroes repair.”
“People on new island, where dangerous creatures attack (surprise!).”
“Balloons for unimportant people.”

…

LOL created by kids, made for kids.

cesmode.4257:

I was wondering the same thing last night, as the OP. These invasion mobs are just sitting around in the zone picking their noses until the zerg comes to wipe them out. What happened to them knocking over water towers (centaurs in manifesto!), or setting a camp on fire? I hate to bring the manifesto up, but its really funny. Colin said something like “In most games, you get a quest telling you whats happening. In guild wars 2, you see it. You see centaurs destroying XYZ”. True, we did. But did that whole effort stop with living story? Spawn 30 mobs, let them stand there emotionless until we decide to kill them? How come they aren’t trying to ransack the nearest town?

While this update is a lotbetter than previous living story (more action and a bit better story telling), it’s kind of silly…just a huge loot farm. Like Pavilion.

Wheres the AI? Wheres the purpose?

That requires $$ and time. We left that model long ago. We are in the pump out crap content really fast to make people spend butloads of cash in the gem store era now.

Basically they are doing poor quality versions of other MMO’s now. First we had time gated gear progression, but done much more poorly, like WoW. Now we have Rifts from Rifts, but done with much less time and effort. Who knows whats next.

Vayne.8563:

Presumably Scarlet is behind the whole thing. She was the one who got the dredge and flame legion to work together…I’m guessing so she could access the weapon they were designing. She’s behind the steam mechs that have been around since launch. No one knew where they came from. And she’s behind the aetherblades…possibly modifying them and supplying them weapons to follow her.

Why? Why does any evil character in a game do what they do? She’s clearly nuts. She wanted a seat on the Captain’s Council under her control, and when that failed, she turned her attention to the Queen’s celebration in Kryta, most likely because she saw an opportunity in taking over and controlling the clockwork knights.

The invasion is payback for her plans being thwarted.

It’s not great literature, but there’s definitely a story there.

pretty much this. I hope that they will expand on Scarlet though. A sylvari outsmarting asuras? No, something is wrong there.

I’d be pretty ok with 2-week weak content like now but from time to time I’d expect something better. Just to, you know, know that my needs for good content are also respected.

Gizmo.8623:

Vayne.8563:

Presumably Scarlet is behind the whole thing. She was the one who got the dredge and flame legion to work together…I’m guessing so she could access the weapon they were designing. She’s behind the steam mechs that have been around since launch. No one knew where they came from. And she’s behind the aetherblades…possibly modifying them and supplying them weapons to follow her.

As far as I know the steam mechs are not her creation. There’s spoiler here so I will not talk about it (see Asuran story with infinity ball).

Dredge have very primitive weapons, Flame Legion don’t use machinery at all. She’s supposedly to be a genius. She should have no need for any of their ‘technology’. They did nothing for her and still doing nothing. They could attack cities from underground, pirates from the sky, yet they just spawn in random locations outside any important place.

Why? Why does any evil character in a game do what they do? She’s clearly nuts. She wanted a seat on the Captain’s Council under her control, and when that failed, she turned her attention to the Queen’s celebration in Kryta, most likely because she saw an opportunity in taking over and controlling the clockwork knights.

The invasion is payback for her plans being thwarted.

It’s not great literature, but there’s definitely a story there.

Where is written anything you said here (apart from her being nuts. IMO she’s not crazy, she is just stupid as one can be)? Who said that? Please provide links or tell me in game where can I found these informations.

It was said, and don’t ask me where, that the flame legion specialize in magic and the dredge specialize in sonic techology (which is not necessarily primitive, but it is different) and that they were combining their technologies to make a weapon. I’m pretty sure, actually that it was in Flame and Frost itself, as well as a scholar who if you spoke to him said that it isn’t natural for the flame legion and the dredge to get together. Both groups are mistrustful of other groups and something had to get them together.

Most of this stuff I’m saying came from somewhere, but I get a lot of input and I don’t write an index as I go along.

She can be a genius with gates and robots and still put two groups together to experiment to see what they come up with. She is, after all, manipulative and a meglomaniac. Why wouldn’t she mess with the dredge and flame legions?

Yeah, I get she is an evil megalomaniac, but I think OP has a point here. Imagine noone would fight the enemies who just spawned. What would happen to Tyria? They would peacefully despawn, nobody would have been hurt.

Compare that with the bandits near the Vale waypoint in Queensdale. They will attack the nearby ranch and they will hold it until it gets defeated. Or Fireheart Rise: the Flame Legion will conquer the Citadel of Flame area as long as it takes for us to do something against it.

Enemies are threatening. If you let them, they do nasty things. Except Scarlet’s minions. They are puppets ready to be massacred and looted.

Don’t misunderstand me, I like to massacre and loot as the next guy. But it is a bit of a letdown that I don’t save the world at the same time – as I do everywhere else.

@Vayne:
Don’t find it so wrong that very the beginnig of the LS is introducet so poorly? There’s no visible information about anything. After so many months I still don’t know what it is all about in a bad sense. I just don’t want to know the rest. I wasn’t encouraged.
Personal story had so many different missions and interesting ones among others. There was something for everybody. Now there’s one tiny mission each update which is far behind of each other in Personal Story. I just don’t know why? The only reasonable explanation is that every ambitious concept is rejected because of lack of time. Only simplest ones are taken.

My another question is what happened that we cannot get something at the level from a year ago? More and more people are getting disappointed and angry. And will get bored. PvP, WvW and PvE are lacking freshness and quality despite of everything.

See what happened with team responsible for Diablo 3.

Gizmo.8623:

@Vayne:
Don’t find it so wrong that very the beginnig of the LS is introducet so poorly? There’s no visible information about anything. After so many months I still don’t know what it is all about in a bad sense. I just don’t want to know the rest. I wasn’t encouraged.
Personal story had so many different missions and interesting ones among others. There was something for everybody. Now there’s one tiny mission each update which is far behind of each other in Personal Story. I just don’t know why? The only reasonable explanation is that every ambitious concept is rejected because of lack of time. Only simplest ones are taken.

My another question is what happened that we cannot get something at the level from a year ago? More and more people are getting disappointed and angry. And will get bored. PvP, WvW and PvE are lacking freshness and quality despite of everything.

See what happened with team responsible for Diablo 3.

I’m not saying that Anet has been great at telling this story. I think it could have been done a lot better. There are many ways that Anet has failed to bring the Living Story to life…which is quite different than saying there’s no story.

However, we’re still in the middle of the story. We don’t really know that much about Scarlet and we don’t know how much will be revealed or when. These invasions are obviously payback.

I don’t know what would happen if no one did them, since I haven’t seen that happen yet. I assume they’d just despawn at the end of a timer.

But I can also see why that would be necessary. Imagine a slower server, middle of the night, and someone can’t enter a zone at all to get to their personal story because of an event no one finished.

This is a game first, not a movie. Not a book. The story has to take a back seat to practicality.

I’d love it if they took over if no one did anything and killed everyone in a zone….but a lot of people wouldn’t.

Vayne.8563:

I’d love it if they took over if no one did anything and killed everyone in a zone….but a lot of people wouldn’t.

So the content should be different to avoid this kind of situations where on one side it’s moronic (host of enemies spawn and just stand there and timer starts for them to despawn), on the other it’s preventing players not interested in it… well, to play.

let me get this straight.

the endless mobs in all the maps, and world bosses spawning every few hours everyday, doing nothing but die for us… how they are different from the invasions and scarlet?
the former, nobody complains about lack of motive and endless supply of mobs… the latter according to this forum, not only they need a motive, not only they need to threaten cities (and divinity’s reach was threatened btw), not only they need to be limited in number, they also need feelings and be sensitive enough to stop the invasion because they re dieing for no reason…

guys… i think you are asking too much! there is a story for every single thing happening in the world, they are tied to either lore or living story or both, but it is still a game, we still need endless supply of mobs to kill, the story, the motive whatever comes after, i know i complained about some lack of story too, but if i must be honest this is a game and the most important thing is i have to enjoy the game play, when i want to enjoy a story i watch a movie or read a book. the story in the videogame is important of course but it is expected to suspend your disbelief sometimes.

about scarlet motives, i guess we will discover in time, like we discovered in time everything else related to story…

p.s. i really wish i could write all of this in italian because i feel idiot writing in english and my thoughts cannot be expressed properly

@Amadan:
Sometimes I really don’t know why people just agree to everything.
What you’ve said sounds like you never saw the game but heard about it.
Sure that we have endless mobs in the areas but they at least pretend to have their reasons – bees flying in the forests, spiders dwelling in caves, drakes living in swamps.
Now we have major event – invasion. At least by the name. They want to take our grass?
Today we have times when we can portrait EVERYTHING! Without a exception. In the movies we see animated animals that are hard to guess if they are really just an animation. Books should demand imaginations, thinking how something could look like.
In a game when someone says army we should see an army. When somebody says – defeat Jotun, you will fight Jotun for christ sake. But now when they said invasion we got masses of mobs spawning everywhere but not there where they should be. In this moment my imagination stops and takes a walk. Should I really just do one thing and think that I’m doing the other (fighting mobs in the forest thinking that I’m saving the world)?
It’s beyond any criticism. Next time when somebody says that something is happening EXACTLY THIS SHOULD HAPPEN! Or maybe Scarlet was the main developer behind this and you know… she’s a genius.

Divinity’s Reach was threatened? How? These 10 monsters threatened whole city? These 5 bombs that never exploded? Oh I know! It was lord Faren! He must have been the real danger! His beauty could melt steel!

This far-fetchet content must stop. Maybe there will be an explanation somewhere in this chaos but I guess if there will be anyone to care about it. Again, the game is deprived of any meaning or purpose. There’s no sense of advancing in anything – story, character developement, exploration, knowing lore.

We are not asking for too much. WE ARE ASKING EXACTLY FOR WHAT WAS PROMISED! Nothing more.
If we are to hear Queen’s Speech, we expect more than one interrupted sentence… sigh

Amadan.9451:

let me get this straight.

the endless mobs in all the maps, and world bosses spawning every few hours everyday, doing nothing but die for us… how they are different from the invasions and scarlet?

The normal DE mobs in the zones do not spawn and die for us. Centaurs take camps, water towers. Risen take over a camp in Orr, waypoint is now contested and all npcs dead.

These invasion mobs spawn and literally stand there until we come by.

You want to know the living story, thus far.

Watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSicD-CA4lM

and this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EsWtkj6f2k

That will bring you all the way up to the Queens Jubilee and then now, Scarlet’s Invasion.

You can also check out the GW2 wiki to fill your mind with information. It’s pretty awesome.

Basically – somethings wrong? We fix it? Monsters attack – we kill them. Someones resposible, we catch him. All is done immediately.

And despite that we have done this all Scarlet attacked with full force and molten alliance still stands.

It’s just on so low level – storytelling and presentation (big battle with Canach? This tiny cave with mines in it?). I still don’t get alot of things. They are sporadic, minimal, hard to remember, not bolded out.
It seems that the story and details are reserved for people who dig deeper than doing what menu in upper-right corner tells you.
It should be important! The story, characters, motives. Don’t separate actual events from every bit of information about it.

Again I’ll say that it’s very weak, a lot of things are barely fitting at all to story in general. You want me to believe that one Sylvari managed to make alliance with Dredge and Flame Legion and tricked (she’s sa genius) them to just randomly attack here and there and later just send them to die. And they still happily die for her despite that she hasn’t done anything for them, they even had no chance to use what the alliance gave them.
Even the smallest of Charr cub would bite her leafs off after this.

Every time the story is presented in a way that everybody knows that something will happen. And we exactly know what. Karka attack (danger in the waters), invasion (Scarlet just came and said that she will attack soon), molten alliance attack (they attack farthest of places but to have things interesting not a single person want to tell you that either they were Charr or Dredge, even the mighty Norn who fought Elder Dragon…).
Why pirates attacked during Dragon Bash? They just spoiled their surprise!

A little spoiler of personal story below:
Where is the armada of ships that attacked Zhaitan? Even one didn’t show up to help the balloons (this still sounds so stupid…) which supposedly had to take important people to Divinity’s Reach of each race!
Don’t excuse it that they patrol Orr or whatever because they are not. They too aren’t damaged and repairing. And no crap about that they cannot be spared for humans because they belong to Orders. Aren’t Orders protectors of Tyria and made a permament alliance themselves?

On the other hand, we shouldn’t be surprised if we get Logan as a chief of defensive force.

Everything is put on a very thin thread and barely holding. The story can be a strong point of this game! Just force yourself to write more than 1 or 2 lines for each character to say! It even don’t need to be voice recorded. Just, you know, be there as text…

cesmode.4257:

Amadan.9451:

let me get this straight.

the endless mobs in all the maps, and world bosses spawning every few hours everyday, doing nothing but die for us… how they are different from the invasions and scarlet?

The normal DE mobs in the zones do not spawn and die for us. Centaurs take camps, water towers. Risen take over a camp in Orr, waypoint is now contested and all npcs dead.

These invasion mobs spawn and literally stand there until we come by.

Invasion mobs are part of movement Occupy Tyria! They gather and protest!

kRiza krimos.1637:

Invasion mobs are part of movement Occupy Tyria! They gather and protest!

You know what? You’re absolutely right. I’m tired of doing what some queen or “leader” tells me mindlessly like a drone. Those “invaders” aren’t hurting anyone, they just stand there. Only one attacking anyone is Scarlet, and even she says Aetherblades work for her because “they like living”, implying she has some kind of leverage over thousands of them – which really, really pushes my suspension of disbelief – unless she has like some kind of exploding collar on each one.

So rather than fighting them we should work together to remove Scarlet. I’m tired of being a murderer of hundreds of Aetherblades (not to mention thousands of hapless creatures, bandits and centaurs I’ve killed during my quest for world peace) and I hereby refuse to hurt any more “invaders” who just stand around in zones hurting no one. ANet, keep your invasion!

Gizmo.8623:

A little spoiler of personal story below:
Where is the armada of ships that attacked Zhaitan? Even one didn’t show up to help the balloons (this still sounds so stupid…) which supposedly had to take important people to Divinity’s Reach of each race!
Don’t excuse it that they patrol Orr or whatever because they are not. They too aren’t damaged and repairing. And no crap about that they cannot be spared for humans because they belong to Orders. Aren’t Orders protectors of Tyria and made a permament alliance themselves?

On the other hand, we shouldn’t be surprised if we get Logan as a chief of defensive force.

As far as I know, the Living Story is a side story to the Personal one. It wouldn’t make sense for the players who haven’t completed the story to be missing out. So any mention of the Pact would be avoided.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Gizmo.8623:

After reading all this I think that my younger sister could provide better story sitting on a toilet on monday morning still without coffee. God, month after month there’s not enough story for one full sentence.

This content I’d describe as: “Scarlet (who?) invade.”
Former ones: “Molten Alliance destroys signposts, heroes repair.”
“People on new island, where dangerous creatures attack (surprise!).”
“Balloons for unimportant people.”

…

LOL created by kids, made for kids.

I’d LIKE to think I could come up with better, but I’ve gone back objectively and looked over four of my tabletop campaigns.

I really CAN’T.

Making a really good story for a game is harder than it looks

Halcyon.3981:

As far as I know, the Living Story is a side story to the Personal one. It wouldn’t make sense for the players who haven’t completed the story to be missing out. So any mention of the Pact would be avoided.

It’s another fine example on painting yourself in the corner with the personal story. Because new players will do it, you can never kill or even remove characters featured in it (ones that survive it, that is). Ultimately, it restricts the storytelling heavily.

I’m not saying I want Trahearne back, but it’s like the personal story never happened at all. I’m the 2nd in command of the largest military organization of Tyria and I’m treated like an errand boy.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Basically when you have to push out content every 2 weeks you need a lot of fluff without much substance. Don’t expect any answers, they need new content in a new direction in 2 weeks, they don’t have time to be making cohesive stories.

I’d better wait a year for nice dialogues, logical plot, live characters, something but zergfest as PVE content, new PVP modes instead of THIS every 2 weeks.

People seems to be under the illusion that Scarlet’s invasions is actually trying to take over.
I would say based on Scarlet’s character it is much more likely that they are simply trying to create chaos and hide the real things going on (which can also be implied by completing the Funhouse).

Find me a group (and here we’ve got 2) that will be willing to die by the thousands just to create chaos…
Besides if we want this chaos to stop, heroes should stop going into the wilderness hunting teleporting groups which do nothing at all.
No big deal. If they attack a settlement, there are asura gates – any army can teleport there in a second and defeat threat.

Still my question stands – What is it all about?

It is quite usual for certain groups to be willing to die for their leader. And based on Scarlet’s comments they don’t have much choice either (seems like the Aeatherblades will simply be killed by Scarlet or her superior if they don’t follow orders).

They are still killing people, and ignoring them won’t really help.
The whole continent is in chaos at the moment, due to the unpredictable attacks.

Very few settlements actually have Asura Gates though, so they still need to walk quite a bit. And due to the fact that she can clearly attack more or less anywhere without warning they can’t really send an army out either.

Gizmo.8623:

Find me a group (and here we’ve got 2) that will be willing to die by the thousands just to create chaos…
Besides if we want this chaos to stop, heroes should stop going into the wilderness hunting teleporting groups which do nothing at all.
No big deal. If they attack a settlement, there are asura gates – any army can teleport there in a second and defeat threat.

Still my question stands – What is it all about?

Right now? The best we can conclude is that it is all about causing chaos and running people ragged chasing them down.

@Tobias Trueflight:
That’s what I’m talking about. We are killing them. Defeating them. They are being eradicated. Chaos would be if culprits wouldn’t get caught. Here they are slaughtered without survivors.

We are not chasing them. We are massacring them without mercy.
Only Scarlet escaped and by it she should be left without allies, wounded, unable to endanger anybody while we are getting stronger by uniting in fight, by learning to coordinate.

IT ALL DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE!

Gizmo.8623:

@Tobias Trueflight:
That’s what I’m talking about. We are killing them. Defeating them. They are being eradicated. Chaos would be if culprits wouldn’t get caught. Here they are slaughtered without survivors.

We are not chasing them. We are massacring them without mercy.
Only Scarlet escaped and by it she should be left without allies, wounded, unable to endanger anybody while we are getting stronger by uniting in fight, by learning to coordinate.

IT ALL DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE!

Welcome to trying to dissect MMO game mechanics and reconcile with writing logic. Better people have tried and gone mad . . . mad! . . .

Ever count how many White Mantle soldiers died in the War in Kryta? Really hard to do since there are always some spawning in the instanced outdoor areas.

How many times did Countess Crey miraculously get out of confinement after getting arrested caught cold doing what she was doing?

. . . how many times did Lord Nagafen die and STILL survive to be in the sequel to Everquest?

. . . and how the heck do I have eight backpacks?! HOW?!

There is a disconnect with story and gameplay. To make a compelling open world experience, they’ve heavily pushed the massive mobs spawning etc. yet this is completely unrealistic from a story perspective. Scarlet is doing things that the entire Pact or even the Elder Dragons haven’t done. Then again, I doubt even Zhaitan could graduate from all three asuran colleges, so maybe Scarlet is just better than an Elder Dragon?

If you’re looking for some greater mystery to solve, some engaging purpose for the events up until now, something to make your time invested in the story worthwhile, I’m beginning to think there is none.

Of course that I don’t demand logic in everything.
I demand in something that is to become trademark of Guild Wars 2 – Living Story, to not be stupid.

“Hey, I play in that game that has this great Living World – you got mobs spawning that invade, but they just stand there. You get main villain who is defeated but doesn’t care. It’s really great, you should try it. Loot is in abundance, you don’t need to immerse at all to enjoy it. Ah, supposedly there is a story which is not told at all. You need to watch youtube to know what is going on IF you want to know. Really, great product of XXI century and veterans of MMO genre.”

^ She wasn’t defeated though.
She quite clearly plays with us. IF we had defeated her that easily people would have complained about it being too easy.

She is clearly one of the most powerful characters in the world (as far as we know) at the moment, it will take time to take her down.
The youtube-clips that talks about the story are all taken from information found in-game, or purely speculations.
Just because you are too lazy to actually pay attention doesn’t mean it is not there.

Gizmo.8623:

“Hey, I play in that game that has this great Living World – you got mobs spawning that invade, but they just stand there. You get main villain who is defeated but doesn’t care. It’s really great, you should try it. Loot is in abundance, you don’t need to immerse at all to enjoy it. Ah, supposedly there is a story which is not told at all. You need to watch youtube to know what is going on IF you want to know. Really, great product of XXI century and veterans of MMO genre.”

“Dude, let me know when the Smoke Monster shows up and I’ll tune in okay? Til then it’s just a bunch of people on an island not doing anything.”

Also, give me five hours of playtime in a game of your choice, and I could probably write up an equally biting cynical summation of it. Well, except for Minecraft, I can do that in one sentence ten minutes in.

“You mess around with these blocks which look like they’re straight out of Nintendo, then the sun sets and you die from not knowing there were enemies which would kill you.”

By the by, from a couple posts back?

Gizmo.8623:

@Tobias Trueflight:
That’s what I’m talking about. We are killing them. Defeating them. They are being eradicated. Chaos would be if culprits wouldn’t get caught. Here they are slaughtered without survivors.

The chaos isn’t about them getting left to go do whatever, it’s in causing people to scramble all over the world (note, we’re not supposed to consider Waypoint use as something NPCs do, thus not in the “reality” of the world) fighting back an invasion (mostly of clockwork creatures which, possibly, don’t suffer the same rate of casualties as the other two factions in play) which . . . win or lose, Scarlet pulls back.

Chaos isn’t the win condition, it’s the effect these invasions have on the world until such time as Scarlet is forced to withdraw them entirely. (Which as we learn, isn’t happening at the end of this story section. But it happens less frequently, so she does have less to throw at us in a semblance.)

lordkrall.7241:

Just because you are too lazy to actually pay attention doesn’t mean it is not there.

I don’t deny that I was lazy to not find all the information but the story is really hard to follow, imo. It tells one thing and shows the other.
Survivors are pouring into Hoelbrak and Black Citadel. Correct me if I’m wrong but did anyone seen even one person fleeing? For whole time of the attacks of Molten Alliance on Norn and Charr we were fixing signs and collecting mementos from dead people for some characters who suddenly appeared asking for them. This was a bit too much for me already.
Then Karka assault. Well, I’d say that it was more of few Karkas appearing here and there. And later hundreds of heroes assaulted their home killing ancient being. Because why not, yes?
Of course that if you want you can elegantly connect all of this into story.
We destroyed Molten Alliance facilities, Pirate base, we destroyed all that was to destroy, we are still destroying, there’s no stopping for us and there is still more.

The world hasn’t changed ONE BIT due to all these attacks. Not a single thing is different. At least in the game. We all may IMAGINE that there are cities burned, people killed or kidnapped, chaos everywhere.

Go to Divinity’s Reach and listen to the music. Feel the tension, the drama. It’s there, isn’t it?

@Tobias Trueflight:
It is biting and cynical, isn’t it? Maybe even too much. But that shows how deeply I’m disappointed by the level of the patches we’ve been given in the last months.
I don’t want to believe that the story we received every 30 days could be closed in one or two sentences.
Without sarcasm now:
“Survivors pour into cities.”
“Facilities of Molten Alliance are found. Destroy them and defeat attackers.”
“Wreckages found. Threat imminent. Karka attack, Karka repelled, Karka chieftain defeated.”
“Member of Council killed. Find the ones responsible. Destroy their base.”
“Elect new Council Member.”
“Meet the human Queen and enjoy the arena. Culprit announces her attack.”
“Culprit attack with large force”.

There’s really not much more to it.

Gizmo.8623:

lordkrall.7241:

Just because you are too lazy to actually pay attention doesn’t mean it is not there.

I don’t deny that I was lazy to not find all the information but the story is really hard to follow, imo. It tells one thing and shows the other.
Survivors are pouring into Hoelbrak and Black Citadel. Correct me if I’m wrong but did anyone seen even one person fleeing? For whole time of the attacks of Molten Alliance on Norn and Charr we were fixing signs and collecting mementos from dead people for some characters who suddenly appeared asking for them. This was a bit too much for me already.

There were refugees on the road, with pack dolyaks. You could score volunteer points for helping “Injured Refugees” which were on the paths the signs were directing people through.

I find it hard to think you missed those, or the burned-out homestead and ranch in Wayfarer’s Foothills and Diessa Plateau respectively. Though not impossible, if you weren’t going there. And, well, you may not have had a reason to.

Then Karka assault. Well, I’d say that it was more of few Karkas appearing here and there. And later hundreds of heroes assaulted their home killing ancient being. Because why not, yes?

The karka trouble was older than that, and they WERE a huge problem for the weekend of Lost Shores. They would go into Garrenhoff, or Morgan’s Spiral, and sometimes Lion’s Arch (twice scripted) and seriously mess things up. The Lionguard got Investigator Ellen Kiel to get information together from adventurers about where they were from, and how it was possible to harm them. (A special solvent weakens the shells.)

Then the Lionguard went on the offensive and worked down through Southsun Cove battering a path, raising a bridge, and setting up a base camp before scouting out the hive and figuring out how to kill the Ancient Karka (boil it in lava).

Later, Canach incited everything into a frenzy, which was still a huge number of karka calling Southsun Cove home.

Of course that if you want you can elegantly connect all of this into story.
We destroyed Molten Alliance facilities, Pirate base, we destroyed all that was to destroy, we are still destroying, there’s no stopping for us and there is still more.

The world hasn’t changed ONE BIT due to all these attacks. Not a single thing is different. At least in the game. We all may IMAGINE that there are cities burned, people killed or kidnapped, chaos everywhere.

There were things different. Cragstead was a bombed out ruin during Frost and Flame when we could get in there. I haven’t been back yet to see if it’s rebuilt. There was a small ranch near Butcher’s Block and a smaller steading near the Frozen Maw which got wiped out.

These current invasions? No, there’s no changes. But then, that doesn’t seem to be the point of the attacks in the first place. They seem to be more “you’re going to dance to the tune I call, and not the one you want to follow”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . and how the heck do I have eight backpacks?! HOW?!

http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20000915

I just had to, sorry. Please continue your conversation, I’ll show myself out.

One of the best map chat lines I’ve seen so far:

“Guys, I need help; I was playing GW2 and somehow ported over to Rift. Any suggestions?”

^Give this man a medal.

I think a lot of the criticism is valid, especially about this army turning up and standing around to be killed. The game mechanics are not supporting the story. Unfortunately as players we want the world to be populated with events (such as a big zone war in Fireheart Rise) but we individually don’t want the consequences of others having failed these events (such as not being able do CoF, personal story, hearts, etc after the zerg loses a zone war in Fireheart Rise). Overflows and guesting make it even more difficult to provide a consistent game world for a player based on the consequences of parallel events.

I sometimes think that some of the originality of the game design creates problems that the designers are only solving by trial and error. It generally seems to be slowly getting better so future events are likely to improve, I hope.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also, give me five hours of playtime in a game of your choice, and I could probably write up an equally biting cynical summation of it. Well, except for Minecraft, I can do that in one sentence ten minutes in.

Having tons of other weak stories out there isn’t a justification.
I’d probably too could describe these stories with few sharp sentences but I wouldn’t do it with aching heart – that’s the difference.
I’ve just started a new necromancer and for me playing from the very beginning is 1000x better than any content we’ve received through LS.

I’m saying this all to criticise lowering overall quality of the game.
How long GW2 was in developement? 6 years?
If I’m not mistaken shouldn’t we receive additional 1/6 of every aspect of the game till now?
So about 4,5 full maps, tons of new events, quests, maybe skills, PvP maps, maybe new types of gameplay, tons of WvW content, overall improvements. And I’m sure that the content itself wasn’t created in these 6 years but faster.
What we’re getting is cheap entertaintment shipped very fast which leave only a small portion of it in the world.

I’m not saying that this should be as simple as that – 1/6 of expanded world every year. There must be time for things to carefully design, test a lot, do some experiments, trying and deleting content which wasn’t good to give.
I just hope that it will get better.

One more thing – through this almost a year when I was enjoying the game I wasn’t active on forum at all – I’ve written few posts with some ideas for improvement here and there. Now I’m very active because I see the need to. I give you my word that when the content we receive will be better, I’ll write words of praise. I didn’t do it in the past and I’m sorry for that.
I care for this wonderful game and I really really would like for it to shine.

I find it funny, how you can spare the poor, opressed dredge and starved flame legion soldiers by destroying the tunnler and leaving them, but can not, by any means, spare the pirates.
You are meant to commit genocide there. No questions asked, no1 accusing you of war crimes. It’s an ethnical cleansing. Aetherblade? Then die!

the point is that anet is creating inflation by allowing people to earn lots of money fast, and since there isn’t really anything to spend gold on, people buy gems driving the prices sky high. And when everything is over and you can’t make gold so easy anymore, the gem prices will stay high, so if you want something from the gem store you’ll have to pay real money.