Guild Wars 2

Last night I came to the realization that for the first time in my 10 years of playing MMOs. I am not excited about the potential story paths that an expansion has to offer. Upon further thinking I found out why I am uninterested; HOT (and gw2 as a whole) has IMO the worst villains ever for an MMO franchise.

The dragons don’t have anything to make them interesting and because anet won’t definitively take them out of the “dragons are a force of nature” category they remain a flat dry and boring part of the story (a rather large part at that).

Please anet at least create some cool champions of mordremoth who have a background and a cunning plot deeper than I must consume then go take a nappy nap.

So what do you guys think? Do you find the dragons to be a good villain in gw2? Why or why not? Is it not a big deal that they are boring? To me the villain is a huge amount of the story and I play mmos in a large part for the story.

we don’t know how well done the villians are until we see them, so all I can say is wait and see. perhaps mordremoth will prove much more cunning than Zhaitan, or his minions far more interesting. perhaps not. we don’t know until launch.

I completely agree, the issue with fighting a hurricane is that it has no motivation you can get involved with or understand. The greatest villians have a side you can empathise with or are working towards a goal you can understand and appreciate.

Magneto is a great villian as you can totally see yourself siding with him given the proper experience (or just siding with him instantly because its Michael Fassbender).

The Elder Dragons atm have just one motivation – eat because they are hungry. Anet have been trying to weave this “bigger picture” into the story line but it all still feels very much like a chemical reaction or inevitable course of nature and time. We want villians who try to manifest their own destiny for their own reasons not just be part of the cycle of life.

Galactus has this “cycle of life” aspect to him but he is also an independent thinker who is almost cursed with this fate of being the devourer of worlds, there is ‘humanity’ to interact with (though rare to see).

The Dragons need to be more visable and communicative with the players (be it through avatars and champions or themselves), but we need that connection to the villian.

While I enjoy playing the game at no point have I felt an Elder Dragon was interesting.

I actually recall plenty of interaction with Zhaitan through his minions, and had some pretty fun missions in the personal story where I was genuinely excited to take down one of his minions because it felt personal. In fact, the only disappointing thing about Zhaitan was the horrible end fight. I know Anet says he is truely dead, but for me it would be EPIC if Zhaitan rose again as the final dragon to challenge us.

I like the Elder Dragon’s concept and what they do to the world. They put the world in a situation of desperation, making people do drastic actions for survival, like teaming up with your enemies, but at the same time they are forces of nature, and they rise the question of the consequences of fighting and destroying them, since you could be bringing inbalance to the world and cause even more destruction than the Dragons would cause by themselves.

But at the same time, I do think we need more champions and villains with interesting backstory, and we know that dragon champions can have those because of Glint, the Pale Tree and Ceara (who I actually like despite the overall community hating her). So I expect to see more of Mordremoths champions in this expantion, like the Tree that Malyck came from, and maybe other compeling villains unrelated to the dragons.

So, I’d say wait and see. There are a bunch of unawnsered questions and a lot of plot points that could make this expansion’s story really interesting (Caithe, Glint’s Egg and her secret in the jungle, Rytlock and his trip to the Mists, Trahearne and Destiny’s Edge, Malyck’s Tree, the Bloodstone, the Exalted potentially being a branch of the Mursaat and the White Mantle, the corruption of Sylvari and how it affects the main character if it is one, we could even start hearing or seeing potential problems caused by Zhaitan’s death, there could be threat from other Elder Dragons leading to the next LS season, and maybe much more).

They want a villain with mitivations they said, they dont like dragons they said, you guys obviously miss scarlet….

It’s entirely possible.

I’m here migrating from City of Heroes (another NCsoft title), which also brought out City of Villains, as well as a ‘grey area’ alignment system of rogues and vigilantes. I’d love something like this in Guild Wars 2.

Naturally, each race has it’s own in-species bad guys (bandits, inquest, svanir, flame legion and nightmare court). In RP, I’ve seen plenty people play characters from these factions, even pirates and aetherblades.

Even WoW has it;s bad guys, they pretty much started out with bad guys, and games that let you pick and choose sides seem to have larger lifespans than linear heroic ones (at least from what I’ve seen).

jweez.7214:

Last night I came to the realization that for the first time in my 10 years of playing MMOs. I am not excited about the potential story paths that an expansion has to offer. Upon further thinking I found out why I am uninterested; HOT (and gw2 as a whole) has IMO the worst villains ever for an MMO franchise.

The dragons don’t have anything to make them interesting and because anet won’t definitively take them out of the “dragons are a force of nature” category they remain a flat dry and boring part of the story (a rather large part at that).

Please anet at least create some cool champions of mordremoth who have a background and a cunning plot deeper than I must consume then go take a nappy nap.

So what do you guys think? Do you find the dragons to be a good villain in gw2? Why or why not? Is it not a big deal that they are boring? To me the villain is a huge amount of the story and I play mmos in a large part for the story.

Last time we had one of those, it was scarlet and everyone hated her…

I was thinking this the other day to. Ff14 has a cool mmo story all trying to take down an actual villain. Not something you see just one time, fight and kill. I’d love if the dragon had at least some sort of minion that was in charge somewhat that we had fights and encounters with first. Then upon finally defeating them then we can defeat the dragon

Sylent.3165:

I was thinking this the other day to. Ff14 has a cool mmo story all trying to take down an actual villain. Not something you see just one time, fight and kill. I’d love if the dragon had at least some sort of minion that was in charge somewhat that we had fights and encounters with first. Then upon finally defeating them then we can defeat the dragon

You mean like the Shadow of the Dragon? Or maybe you mean like the Eye of Zhaitan? We already have these dragon champions in game that we encounter multiple times before defeating them and moving on to the dragon.

Shaogin.2679:

I actually recall plenty of interaction with Zhaitan through his minions, and had some pretty fun missions in the personal story where I was genuinely excited to take down one of his minions because it felt personal. In fact, the only disappointing thing about Zhaitan was the horrible end fight. I know Anet says he is truely dead, but for me it would be EPIC if Zhaitan rose again as the final dragon to challenge us.

See, I’ll agree some of Zhaitain’s “intelligent” minions provided some interesting moments but on the whole Zhaitan and its minions were pretty dull and boring. In fact the only one I really recall would be the Sovereign eye and that’s only because he hit me right in the Tybalt

By contrast I’m finding Mordremoth has been presented much better. Even if we gloss over everything Scarlet did, he’s shown himself to be a much more significant threat by attacking areas and even waypoints during season 2. He even attempted to take out all the “world leaders” at one point, but settled for injuring the Pale Tree. The story has done a really gold job of showing that this Elder Dragon is a threat. Much of what Zhaitan did was either pre-game or we got told about and never actually saw.

I think there’s always going to be a lack of direct interaction, but as long as the indirect stuff like what we’ve seen so far is good then villains like the elder dragons can work.

But for me it’s not necessarily the villain that matters, and I realise not everyone will share the following views, as long as the story surrounding the villain is good then I don’t care too much if the villain sucks. It’s like with Abaddon, in Nightfall is a practically non-existent villain as we only deal with his agents and then when we meet him all we do is attack him but because the story surrounding him was decent he gets remembered and no one cares too much.

So back to GW2. I feel season 2 was a step in the right direction, with ups and downs. But from what I’ve seen in the HoT beta, between the open world events (which really are part of the story) and the story instance I feel ArenaNet is heading in the right direction for a better story and better story telling. I’m sure there’ll still be slip ups for the lore buffs to rip apart though

We had a villain. She was named Scarlet.

And the entire time she was part of the story, people were complaining about her being terrible and saying “Get back to the dragons!!!!!!”.

So yah, I’m not holding my breath for another villain any time soon.

Trolaw.7095:

They want a villain with mitivations they said, they dont like dragons they said, you guys obviously miss scarlet….

Scarlet had no motivations, she was a crazy kitten who came out of nowhere with no explanation and was apparently amazing at everything she did. She wasn’t an interesting character, her dialogue sounded like it was written by a 3rd grader, and in general she isn’t at all what these people are asking for.

With that out of the way I very much want to get to the dragons. I am tired of anet ignoring the point of this game, where we are supposed to be fighting the elder dragons. That was the whole point, ever since the build up of the dragons and their champions hidden around the world in Guild Wars 1 and Promordus waking up in Guild Wars 1. This is what we have been waiting for.

Yea the problem with Scarlet was the way they presented her. Shame came out of nowhere, practically rewrote bits of lore to fit what she needed to do for the episode, could do anything you’d ever need to do and spent a good year leading us on a wild goose chase while all the heroes became randomly dumb. It wasn’t really until the final four episodes where she started to become an interesting character, which was far too late for most of the player base.

I imagine if the devs remake Season 1 then they would alter her introduction and other parts of her presentation.

I know I shouldn’t compare, but since this is about story mainly, I think it can work here.

Lets look at Burning Crusade in WoW. The final boss was Illidan, but throughout the whole campaign, you really never knew that till the final patch. He was absent from the ‘main story’, so no one really saw him as a big villian pulling all the strings.

Cut to Wrath of the Lich King where we see the The Lich king at times as we travel, eavesdropping in on his plots, his commands, his presence is know, the climax is building up to the final confrontation.

We don’t really get that with the Dragons. We know they are there, but yet, that’s it. Sure, we got vines now, and see undead minions, etc, but that dragon’s presence isn’t felt well.

In all honestly, and this would be cool AND make sense, Trahearne is captured and taken before Mord, and Mord basically possesses him. Thus, the dragon can now walk around and amongst the troops, giving commands, and giving us more interaction. It would also give us something to think how to save him.

Serophous.9085:

I know I shouldn’t compare, but since this is about story mainly, I think it can work here.

Lets look at Burning Crusade in WoW. The final boss was Illidan, but throughout the whole campaign, you really never knew that till the final patch. He was absent from the ‘main story’, so no one really saw him as a big villian pulling all the strings.

Cut to Wrath of the Lich King where we see the The Lich king at times as we travel, eavesdropping in on his plots, his commands, his presence is know, the climax is building up to the final confrontation.

We don’t really get that with the Dragons. We know they are there, but yet, that’s it. Sure, we got vines now, and see undead minions, etc, but that dragon’s presence isn’t felt well.

In all honestly, and this would be cool AND make sense, Trahearne is captured and taken before Mord, and Mord basically possesses him. Thus, the dragon can now walk around and amongst the troops, giving commands, and giving us more interaction. It would also give us something to think how to save him.

As cliche as this would feel, Mord’s spheres of influence are Plants and the Mind, so possession should be within his powers.

that said, it’d work better if it wasn’t trahearne. some other sylvari, with less of a good-friend-turned-evil cliche going on.

More effort spent on developing the character, delivery, and impact of major servants of the elder dragons would go a long way.

Gray.9041:

Serophous.9085:

I know I shouldn’t compare, but since this is about story mainly, I think it can work here.

Lets look at Burning Crusade in WoW. The final boss was Illidan, but throughout the whole campaign, you really never knew that till the final patch. He was absent from the ‘main story’, so no one really saw him as a big villian pulling all the strings.

Cut to Wrath of the Lich King where we see the The Lich king at times as we travel, eavesdropping in on his plots, his commands, his presence is know, the climax is building up to the final confrontation.

We don’t really get that with the Dragons. We know they are there, but yet, that’s it. Sure, we got vines now, and see undead minions, etc, but that dragon’s presence isn’t felt well.

In all honestly, and this would be cool AND make sense, Trahearne is captured and taken before Mord, and Mord basically possesses him. Thus, the dragon can now walk around and amongst the troops, giving commands, and giving us more interaction. It would also give us something to think how to save him.

As cliche as this would feel, Mord’s spheres of influence are Plants and the Mind, so possession should be within his powers.

that said, it’d work better if it wasn’t trahearne. some other sylvari, with less of a good-friend-turned-evil cliche going on.

I know its cliched but…it makes more sense than an unnamed sylvari. I mean, one of the first born, wielder of a powerful sword? It just makes sense. Not to mention, he’s the leader. How much demoralization could be caused to the troops if mord’s power can corrupt someone like him?

Serophous.9085:

Gray.9041:

Serophous.9085:

I know I shouldn’t compare, but since this is about story mainly, I think it can work here.

Lets look at Burning Crusade in WoW. The final boss was Illidan, but throughout the whole campaign, you really never knew that till the final patch. He was absent from the ‘main story’, so no one really saw him as a big villian pulling all the strings.

Cut to Wrath of the Lich King where we see the The Lich king at times as we travel, eavesdropping in on his plots, his commands, his presence is know, the climax is building up to the final confrontation.

We don’t really get that with the Dragons. We know they are there, but yet, that’s it. Sure, we got vines now, and see undead minions, etc, but that dragon’s presence isn’t felt well.

In all honestly, and this would be cool AND make sense, Trahearne is captured and taken before Mord, and Mord basically possesses him. Thus, the dragon can now walk around and amongst the troops, giving commands, and giving us more interaction. It would also give us something to think how to save him.

As cliche as this would feel, Mord’s spheres of influence are Plants and the Mind, so possession should be within his powers.

that said, it’d work better if it wasn’t trahearne. some other sylvari, with less of a good-friend-turned-evil cliche going on.

I know its cliched but…it makes more sense than an unnamed sylvari. I mean, one of the first born, wielder of a powerful sword? It just makes sense. Not to mention, he’s the leader. How much demoralization could be caused to the troops if mord’s power can corrupt someone like him?

if they used a random sylvari, they could use them as a blank canvas, and build up Mordremoth’s character there. with trahearne, it’ll always be a stuggle to tell what’s him and what’s the dragon.

heck, we could meet a sylvari, get to know them, trust them, only to find out they’re the avatar of mordremoth later.

Remember the last time they tried to write a villain? Yeah, Scarlet Briar. Are you sure you still want a villain?

jweez.7214:

Last night I came to the realization that for the first time in my 10 years of playing MMOs. I am not excited about the potential story paths that an expansion has to offer. Upon further thinking I found out why I am uninterested; HOT (and gw2 as a whole) has IMO the worst villains ever for an MMO franchise.

The dragons don’t have anything to make them interesting and because anet won’t definitively take them out of the “dragons are a force of nature” category they remain a flat dry and boring part of the story (a rather large part at that).

Please anet at least create some cool champions of mordremoth who have a background and a cunning plot deeper than I must consume then go take a nappy nap.

So what do you guys think? Do you find the dragons to be a good villain in gw2? Why or why not? Is it not a big deal that they are boring? To me the villain is a huge amount of the story and I play mmos in a large part for the story.

Dragon’s Dogma showed that a bland “force of nature” dull plot is nothing a good “break the cycle of the universe!” along with “You’re the villain!” plot twist can’t fix. At least for me that is.

They also could use the Deep Sea Dragon and pull up the “Paarthurnax” card from Skyrim and make a good dragon wanting this cruel cycle to be over or something of the sort.

As I’ve said before, I don’t want characterization from the Dragons.
I want unknowable Lovecraftian horrors that the Tyrians can’t even contemplate fighting in a traditional sense.
I loved the idea of them being these unbound forces that the world is pretty much at the mercy of…
Then Zhaitan happened. And we got ‘intelligent’ champions and a zombie army (complete with zombie anti-aircraft guns) instead of an unstoppable horde incapable of being contained by normal tactics that serves merely to spread the infection further.
And now we’ve got Mordremoth speaking a normal language like a generic villain…

So much wasted potential.

Dark Saviour.9410:

As I’ve said before, I don’t want characterization from the Dragons.
I want unknowable Lovecraftian horrors that the Tyrians can’t even contemplate fighting in a traditional sense.
I loved the idea of them being these unbound forces that the world is pretty much at the mercy of…
Then Zhaitan happened. And we got ‘intelligent’ champions and a zombie army (complete with zombie anti-aircraft guns) instead of an unstoppable horde incapable of being contained by normal tactics that serves merely to spread the infection further.
And now we’ve got Mordremoth speaking a normal language like a generic villain…

So much wasted potential.

Lovecraft?! Wrong game but you have to be familiar with the Soul series right? Dark Souls 3 has been announced.

What are you guys talking about? We DO have a villain. He’s name is Traherne

jweez.7214:

Last night I came to the realization that for the first time in my 10 years of playing MMOs. I am not excited about the potential story paths that an expansion has to offer. Upon further thinking I found out why I am uninterested; HOT (and gw2 as a whole) has IMO the worst villains ever for an MMO franchise.

The dragons don’t have anything to make them interesting and because anet won’t definitively take them out of the “dragons are a force of nature” category they remain a flat dry and boring part of the story (a rather large part at that).

Please anet at least create some cool champions of mordremoth who have a background and a cunning plot deeper than I must consume then go take a nappy nap.

So what do you guys think? Do you find the dragons to be a good villain in gw2? Why or why not? Is it not a big deal that they are boring? To me the villain is a huge amount of the story and I play mmos in a large part for the story.

Sounds like you want Scarlet to return

I can only assume the people who keep bringing up scarlet are just joking around. I’ll assume this because I don’t think anyone would earnestly believe that just because the writers failed with scarlet it is a legitimate excuse to not try again. Lol could you imagine what the world would be like if at first failure people would just give up?

Whee, I’m remembering an interesting overview from the EC crew:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4L2vPVZFR8
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDx5nG7koA
Force of Nature, specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyyE8c27-9Y

that being said, I’d like to see more interactions between villains. I don’t want it to be pick a dragon > fight the dragon > get knocked down > get up again > you ain’t never gonna keep me down > learn new tricks > beat elder dragon every time. having the dragons fight each other, turn against each other, or even work together would give it all an interesting new feel. especially if an elder dragon came round to our way of thinking, and turned on its peers.

Rauderi.8706:

Whee, I’m remembering an interesting overview from the EC crew:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4L2vPVZFR8
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDx5nG7koA
Force of Nature, specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyyE8c27-9Y

Interesting videos, so the Elder Dragons would be forces of nature representing Hunger and Corruption (to me anyway). Would be nice to have a human cult which want to abolish magic because it is the thing the dragons are obsessed with or unturned Sylvari looking at the Charr as corruption of the natural world with their tar covered landscapes. The Sons of Svarnir are a little dull though – yay dragon is strong so is bestest. The Asura obviously have an issue with hunger for knowledge driving them to morally questionable things.

I guess there is scope for a force of nature villian, but I honestly haven’t seen the delivery of these themes as big questions to think about the world. The dragons just tend to be a rally point for all the races to ignore all the negatives about each other.

I remember not doing the anti seperatist stuff until world completion required it because I totally was on their side, you can’t trust the Charr. I remember what they did because I got to play 250 years ago and its just in their warbeast nature to do something monsterous again – just the fear of dragons keep them from continuing to make war on humanity.

Coulter.2315:

The Dragons need to be more visable and communicative with the players (be it through avatars and champions or themselves), but we need that connection to the villian.

Play a sylvari. Watch the dialogue. I’ll say no more.

Sagat.3285:

Lovecraft?! Wrong game but you have to be familiar with the Soul series right? Dark Souls 3 has been announced.

Also Bloodborne, by the same people, which is cthulhu-inspired.

Sariel V.7024:

Coulter.2315:

The Dragons need to be more visable and communicative with the players (be it through avatars and champions or themselves), but we need that connection to the villian.

Play a sylvari. Watch the dialogue. I’ll say no more.

Don’t just watch, listen. Play the living story once as a non sylvari then as a sylvari.

Its like playing an engineer vs the other classes in that last living story part where scarlet meets her fate.

Many players have the misconception that the Elder Dragons are “forces of nature” even though we’ve seen clear evidence in game that they’re actually more than that and do have personalities. A force of nature wouldn’t mind if its champion betrayed it (yet see how Kralkatorrik acted after he realized Glint’s betrayal), it wouldn’t make its minions gloat and lie about having devoured the gods (listen to the Risen priests during events in Orr) or be angry/afraid when we manage to hamper its schemes (see NPCs describing Zhaitan’s reactions, or the Sovereign Eye’s comments in Personal Story, as we proceed deeper into Orr and purify the land with Caladbolg).

The Elder Dragons are very much sinister because they choose to be so. They want their minions to carry out their will (sometimes to sick levels of devotion as seen with the fanatical Risen), and they’re also egotistical gluttons based on what we’ve learned of them so far, which is why we must replace them with more benevolent beings if we can without destroying the world in the process. For example, depending on how canonical Kralkatorrik’s description still is from the Edge of Destiny novel, we know that he wants everything and what he can’t have, he destroys, more or less, and he does not tolerate betrayal such as Glint’s who he went after personally to teach her a lesson. Other Elder Dragons appear to be, with a few variations, somewhat similar but with their own quirks.

The only reason NPCs view Elder Dragons as forces of nature is because these dragons are so beyond their understanding until recently thanks to Gorr’s theory and whatnot, so they try to comprehend their power level and thus equate them with hurricanes, earthquakes and such. Except in this case the hurricane has a mind of its own and is extremely selfish and has malevolent intentions.

Also, for anyone wanting to see the Elder Dragons being more proactive than what the game has shown us and actually hear them speak, well, you’re in luck as we discovered during Heart of Thorns BWE’s story instance that sylvari characters can actually hear Mordremoth answering its minions’ pleas and giving them orders.

Gray.9041:

heck, we could meet a sylvari, get to know them, trust them, only to find out they’re the avatar of mordremoth later.

So kind of like Gavin from the sylvari White Stag storyline, then, who was a villain pretending to be a good guy until the reveal? I do wish we’d see more Nightmare Courtiers like him instead of the puppy-kicking evildoers most of them are presented as. Gavin was as much of an antivillain as GW2 has presented to us so far: working for the bad guys but still being honorable enough to prefer a one-on-one duel over an ambush and honestly wanting the player character to join his side. Even his ending is a very touching one with that memorable final line he utters before perishing.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Remember the last time they tried to write a villain? Yeah, Scarlet Briar. Are you sure you still want a villain?

If they write these new villains like Gavin was written, then yeah, definitely. We already have our share of antiheroes (Canach, Caithe, Anise, potentially Mr. E who may be Ela Makkay) in the narrative, so it’s time we had more antivillains to show up and make us relate to them too.

Sariel V.7024:

Coulter.2315:

The Dragons need to be more visable and communicative with the players (be it through avatars and champions or themselves), but we need that connection to the villian.

Play a sylvari. Watch the dialogue. I’ll say no more.

I am chosen of Lyssa not some aborted dragon spawn.

I have to agree with the OP’s sentiment. We had a central villain in all three GW1 games.
(Lich and to a lesser degree Charr, Mursaat, the Summit Dwarves and White Mantle in Prophecies. Shiro in Factions. Abaddon in Nightfall.)

All of these we not only can identify with in some way. Another good thing about a villain we can relate to is that we feel good when we thwart their plans. As “forces of nature” their plans are ambiguous and we don’t feel a real sense of thwarting anything. It is more just a means for survival. It isn’t stopping evil, it is figuring out how to stop a hurricane.

Scarlet would have been a wonderful villain but she was just all of the sudden there. Nothing introduced her really. She was all of the sudden our world’s arch enemy who was obviously BSC. Even her motives were not diabolical, they were just born of insanity. I think the actress that voiced her did a great job. Scarlet just didn’t work because of the way she was presented.

The GW1 arch villians were all something we were led to through great story telling. We had to slowly discover the bad guy. He/She wasn’t just shoved down our throat.

I totally agree with you! The villains in GW1 where definitely an asset. Which is probably why I found EoTN lacking compared to Proph, Factions, NF etc. Like the Elder Dragons, the Great Destroyer was just not a good villain.

Gray.9041:

perhaps mordremoth will prove much more cunning than Zhaitan, or his minions far more interesting

Zhaitan wasn’t a character, he was a boss in a dungeon.
We didn’t see him until the end of the dungeon at the end of the personal story and our only interaction was spamming 1. We spend most of our time cutting down mindless minions and when we meet a champion who has the capacity to talk they’re treated much in the same way Zhaitan is, they show up and we kill them.

ArtVeigar.3952:

I like the Elder Dragon’s concept and what they do to the world.

That’s fine, basically you have to do a walking dead and put story emphasis on the characters. Personal Story didn’t really do that either, again mostly because you go through character rather quickly.
The biconics seems to be an attempt have a more stable cast, which in theory would allow for more character development. However with the limitations inherent in video game development (you can only put to much voice over and cutscenes in the game), it can be kinda tricky.

Trolaw.7095:

They want a villain with mitivations they said, they dont like dragons they said, you guys obviously miss scarlet….

Jip that’s what happened. In PS people complained about dragons not having personality, so they gave us Scarlet XD
However I think a lot of the complaining around Scarlet came from the fact that she was a super-genius-diplomat. The character wasn’t flesh out very well in game, or more I think the problem is that Scarlet wasn’t a character either, she was just there to explain why we’re fighting the Marionette, why we’re assaulting the Tower of Nightmare etc. In fact S2 gave more character and depth than the whole of S1 (and she’s dead in S2).
So what I suspect is that the writing wasn’t that bad it might even have been great, but the conversion and implementation of the writing was problematic. The shape of the S1 content was largely open world and it’s hard to force story and character development in there. Also you only have so much resources to develop content, so then you decide: are we going to spend all this time creating narrative heavy content which can flesh Scarlet out as a character or do we focus rather on making fun open world experiences? Since video games are meant to be played (and listening to dialog and cut-scenes tend to run counter to this) I think a lot more time was put into making fun encounters and less on story.

Shaogin.2679:

You mean like the Shadow of the Dragon? Or maybe you mean like the Eye of Zhaitan? We already have these dragon champions in game that we encounter multiple times before defeating them and moving on to the dragon.

Eye of Zhaitan we only encounter like 2 times, once in Abaddon’s temple and then when we kill him / it. I think in total the Eye of Zhaitan only has a handful of lines of dialog and barely does anything.
Shadow of the Dragon was implemented a bit better though. Although again he was treated more as a boss than a character… I really need to figure out how to communicate this better.

Dinks.2478:

Scarlet had no motivations, she was a crazy kitten who came out of nowhere with no explanation and was apparently amazing at everything she did.

Her motivation was very much retroactive given to her (in S2 largely), you assessment of her in S1 is pretty accurate. She shows up, does something then disappears and we fight some of her followers. She was used more to move the plot along. Oh look Scarlet has attacked LA we must stop her! Oh look Scarlet is developing a giant robot, we must stop her!

Serophous.9085:

Trahearne is captured and taken before Mord, and Mord basically possesses him.

This wouldn’t be too bad. Doesn’t have to be Trahearne, but some sort of champion or set of champions that we repeatedly encounter, that we get to know and through whom we can learn the motivations of Mordy wouldn’t be too bad. This could even be used as a mechanism for exploring the nature and origin of the Elder Dragons.

Sariel V.7024:

Play a sylvari. Watch the dialogue. I’ll say no more.

Hopefully it will be more than a few lines here and there.

We are the bad guys. We’re trying to destroy forces of nature.

Plexxing.2978:

We are the bad guys. We’re trying to destroy forces of nature.

we’re the good guys. nature started it. we’re finishing it.

Levels of Villains
Ok here is my take on the Big Meanies

Bad guys come in many shapes and sizes, from the grandiose, to the lowly bully. All have their place in the story and all have differing levels of interaction. Problems start to arise when the Villains exposure moves outside their interaction level. In the samples below I will try to give some in popular fantasy culture examples.

Devine – This is the Godlike villain.
Interaction: This bad guy should never have direct interaction with the player.
Why: This villain is the personification of evil, meant to shape the overall evil and strife in the world. They are way too big for the characters to have direct contact. Since they can squash the entire world with a thought the only interaction should be through stories, rumors and evil underlings.
Examples: Morgoth/Meldor, Cthulhu,
Who: GW2 Dragons

Worldly – This is the Demi-god villain.
Interaction: At this level there should be very little, if any, interaction with the player
Why: Though they cannot just destroy the world on a whim, they can spread their evil worldwide with little effort. Interaction should only be through hushed whispers for fear of drawing any sort of attention.
Examples: Lucifer, Vecna
Who: Grenth, Dhuum,

Regional – This is a villain who spreads their evil across a worldly region or a large part of it, like Tyria, Elona or Cantha .
Interaction: This should generally be the highest level of Villain that most players should ever meet.
Why: They do not have godlike powers but any interaction with the player, group of players or army of players will most assuredly fail. This is an end of story Villain who the players will hopefully overcome in the end
Examples: Sauron, Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader, Kas the Bloody-Handed
Who: Scarlet, Palawa Joko, Shiro Tagachi

Area – This is a villain who spreads their evil across area or map section.
Interaction: Players should be fearful of interaction with these meanies. Solo interaction would normally be near instantly lethal. Group or even Zerg battles should have questionable success.
Why: They’re big, they’re bad, and you know it.
Examples: Smaug, Sith Lord
Who: Tequatl, Three Headed Wurm

Local – This is the elite villain.
Interaction: There should be fear of death for these encounters at the solo or group levels but they can be easily vanquished by large groups.
Why: These are your common big bads which players would normally encounter in standard game play.
Examples: Uruk-hai, Jabba the Hut
Who: Champions, World Bosses

Summary: So there are plenty of places to put Villains in the game. You just need to be careful how you implement and what kind of interaction you encourage. No matter how you slice it though if they don’t have a well written, believable back story the result will be… a Fail. Put your hand down Ceara

Yalora, I get what you’re getting at, but your example – in and out of GW2 – aren’t really correct.

the elder dragons would be much closer to your description of regional bosses:

This is a villain who spreads their evil across a worldly region or a large part of it, like Tyria, Elona or Cantha .

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

This is an end of story Villain who the players will hopefully overcome in the end

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

This should generally be the highest level of Villain that most players should ever meet.

these all sum up the elder dragons quite well – the highest level villains we meet, whoe we fight and defeat at the end of the story after they spread their evil over a large part of the worldly region.

I would also not compare scarlet and shiro. they were very different characters whose strength lay in very different areas. take away their troops, and that difference becomes abundantly clear.

also, Grenth is not a demi-god any more, he’s a full-on god, and possibly the only god to earn the title (looking at you kormir) also, he’s not evil per se.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Who: Grenth,

Grenth was at no point the villain (well maybe Wintersday in GW1, but there it was more playful than serious) and also he is a god and thus atleast as strong as an ED probably stronger. I don’t think he makes sense at all as example. Abaddon maybe, but he is more in the category above. Actually I think the ED’s should be in the demi-god category, as they are still locally confined, while Abaddon easily spread his corruption on all continents. And that when he was beginning to get his power back.

My favourite villains from GW1 were Varesh Ossa (loved her armor too. Wish we had it available as a set of skins) and Abaddon.

Although the fight with Abaddon was short and not that spectacular considering he was supposed to be all powerful and all, I would love to see a return of him because he just oozed darkness, and that’s what I like to see when it comes to villains.

I agree with OP, the entire premise of the elder dragons kills any sort of meaningful or deep interaction we can have as it all boils down to “hurr i hungry i kill.” Scarlet was not a character with good motivations and the fact they had to twist or just conjure up lore to make her seem powerful was off putting. She was not relate-able in any sort of way because they just made her accomplish things without showing us how or why until too late.

Decent villians were present in the Guild Wars 1 series. Some people would chalk it up to nostalgia but
1. The lich and his thirst for power was cliche but his manipulation made him a more interesting character especially when we found out how skillfully he used the shining blade, the dwarves, and even brought back rurik to taunt you. The eye of zhaitan only teased this idea and it just fell flat. The Lich could have even been more fleshed out if his desire for titans was fueled by some sort of unreasonable rage at his actions that led to orr’s cataclysm.

2. Shiro was a corrupted bodyguard who feared for his life so he proactively tried to defend himself but got punished. IIRC the fortune teller had predicted events in the future correctly before so he had reason to have some faith in her prophecy that he would be killed by the emperor at the harvest ceremony. His revenge rampage can be thought of as a way to get back at Cantha for “unjustly” punishing him for trying to preserve his life.

3. Abaddon outright wasn’t a bad god, he simply did not want to grant Doric’s request to keep magic free and not bind it to respective bloodstones. As a result of his “insolence” , the gods beat him down and bound him so his body slowly corrupted into the 6 eyed monstrosity it is when you meet him.

4. Even minor villians like:
-Mursaat (trying to preserve their power over Kryta and keep the titans at bay)
-Palawa Joko (needs a more fleshed out back story but is not just mindlessly evil but a man with designs for Elona),
-Mallyx (attempting to harness the power of his former master)
-Dhuum (expelled from his position due to his stance on death)
-Kanaxai/Urgoz (corrupted or conjured from the Jade Wind)

are more interesting than most of the villians in gw2.

I will say that many of the dungeon storyline villians are interesting but they are not brought out into the main stage and interact with the world. Instead they are locked away in their own little worlds which is sad because they have better interactions than any of the dragons.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Who: Grenth,

Grenth was at no point the villain (well maybe Wintersday in GW1, but there it was more playful than serious) and also he is a god and thus atleast as strong as an ED probably stronger. I don’t think he makes sense at all as example. Abaddon maybe, but he is more in the category above. Actually I think the ED’s should be in the demi-god category, as they are still locally confined, while Abaddon easily spread his corruption on all continents. And that when he was beginning to get his power back.

Yes, I was having rough time coming up with examples for that one. Grenth was maybe a bad example. I didn’t pick Abaddon because well, I killed him in GW1 so how powerful was he really? As for the ED’s, yes they are somewhat locally confined while sleeping and when they wake up it might take them decades just to roll out of bed. Also, they where around way before the Human Gods showed up and the last time they awoke didn’t almost ALL of the civilized world at the time perish?

I guess it is just a matter of perspective, I am not saying that all the Villains in GW are in the correct Tier. This is just an exercise in Villain consideration.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

I didn’t pick Abaddon because well, I killed him in GW1 so how powerful was he really?

We where only able to with the help of the other gods. Also don’t agree with your lists assertion that certain higher grade enemies shouldn’t be defeatable.

I strongly disagree that the elder dragons are boring. while Zaithen had a weak story.
I find Mordremoth to be far more engaging so far. And i am really excited to see how the story moves forward. The racial tension vs the sylvari, the actions of Caithe, what glint has to do with all of it, i’m really excited to find out. Also, i can’t wait for Trahearne to have his Rurik moment (something i think is coming) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YLg-aSRI-M
Since he is the major Sylvari character captured i wouldn’t be suprised if we see another ‘My friends, i do not wish to fight you, but i have little choice in the matter.’ With him being all corrupted and stuff.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Levels of Villains
Ok here is my take on the Big Meanies

Bad guys come in many shapes and sizes, from the grandiose, to the lowly bully. All have their place in the story and all have differing levels of interaction. Problems start to arise when the Villains exposure moves outside their interaction level. In the samples below I will try to give some in popular fantasy culture examples.

Devine – This is the Godlike villain.
Interaction: This bad guy should never have direct interaction with the player.
Why: This villain is the personification of evil, meant to shape the overall evil and strife in the world. They are way too big for the characters to have direct contact. Since they can squash the entire world with a thought the only interaction should be through stories, rumors and evil underlings.
Examples: Morgoth/Meldor, Cthulhu,
Who: GW2 Dragons

Worldly – This is the Demi-god villain.
Interaction: At this level there should be very little, if any, interaction with the player
Why: Though they cannot just destroy the world on a whim, they can spread their evil worldwide with little effort. Interaction should only be through hushed whispers for fear of drawing any sort of attention.
Examples: Lucifer, Vecna
Who: Grenth, Dhuum,

Regional – This is a villain who spreads their evil across a worldly region or a large part of it, like Tyria, Elona or Cantha .
Interaction: This should generally be the highest level of Villain that most players should ever meet.
Why: They do not have godlike powers but any interaction with the player, group of players or army of players will most assuredly fail. This is an end of story Villain who the players will hopefully overcome in the end
Examples: Sauron, Lord Voldemort, Darth Vader, Kas the Bloody-Handed
Who: Scarlet, Palawa Joko, Shiro Tagachi

Area – This is a villain who spreads their evil across area or map section.
Interaction: Players should be fearful of interaction with these meanies. Solo interaction would normally be near instantly lethal. Group or even Zerg battles should have questionable success.
Why: They’re big, they’re bad, and you know it.
Examples: Smaug, Sith Lord
Who: Tequatl, Three Headed Wurm

Local – This is the elite villain.
Interaction: There should be fear of death for these encounters at the solo or group levels but they can be easily vanquished by large groups.
Why: These are your common big bads which players would normally encounter in standard game play.
Examples: Uruk-hai, Jabba the Hut
Who: Champions, World Bosses

Summary: So there are plenty of places to put Villains in the game. You just need to be careful how you implement and what kind of interaction you encourage. No matter how you slice it though if they don’t have a well written, believable back story the result will be… a Fail. Put your hand down Ceara

I enjoyed your post. It was really interesting though I am confused why you categorize the Elder Dragons as Devine instead of Worldly. The elder dragons do not have the power to destroy the world (or if they do possess the power they don’t possess the will to do so).

To me it seems they would fall under Worldly according to your hierarchy.

jweez.7214:

the writers failed with scarlet

I don’t understand why some people think this. I loved Scarlet. Sure, she was a bit similar to Batman’s Joker but she was different enough to be compelling and her characterization and voice acting were top-notch.

Scarlet’s story isn’t over yet, I’m sure of it. There’s a number of reasons why, but Taimi’s character is one of them.

You’ll see someday … Tyria will need Scarlet. And Taimi’s character will be there to finish the work she originally started on: killing mordremoth.