Guild Wars 2

Hello,

So I love this game. I have put many many hours into this game. I plan to play for many more.

Here’s my complaint, or rather something that makes me uncomfortable.

There are a few hearts in the game, “Help Zippti study the Hyper-agressive skritt” in Caledon Forest to be specific, that force me to ruin an indigenous culture’s art. The Skritt are my favorite indigenous npc’s in the game, but I need to knock over their version of art and culture in order to 100% the area. They stack gears in this specific zone to express art and culture. I need to knock it over.

In Queensdale for the “Assist Laboror Cardy and Ojon’s lumbermill” I need to “topple skritt shiny things”. That’s their art and culture man!

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem defending myself once attacked. I have no problem destroying weapons or supplies during times of war. Why do I need to destroy their culture?

Invading armies have done that to peoples they oppress in real world wars. No one believes it’s ok. They’re considered war crimes.

This is just something that makes me uncomfortable.

Thank you!

So what do you propose? Have Anet remove those hearts because you’re personally not comfortable with them?

All of the Skritt art is created by stuff they stole from other races, especially those noble Asura! Knock it over and steal it back!

well remember that:

-you don’t need world completion
-your character isn’t you
-this is all a work of fiction

if you cannot bring yourself to betray your personal values, even in the context of roleplaying a character in a fictitious setting, that may be irreconcilable with your desire for 100% completion. requesting the devs change it is an option, but holds the potentially to impact other players game experience (possibly negatively) and is the first step on the admittedly slippery slope of knee-jerk censorship.

Also, the argument could be made that sweeping all examples of culture destruction under the rug is to dishonor the real cases where culture destruction has occurred.

Toppling their art towers only creates more materials to create more art.
Their art needs our chaos. If no one toppled their shiny totems, they will stack them ad finitum but will stop stacking them when no other patterns can be formed, which will need the oldest ones to be toppled.

we are advancing Skritt art.

Heaven forbid a game titled “GUILD WARS” draw inspiration from real WARS OP. Jesus Christ, do you want to replace swords with candy canes next because people used swords in real wars?

I’m glad you are ok with all the killing in the game but draw the line at vandalism. It’s good to set boundaries.

To be fair, while I didn’t notice or care about the event in the OP, being forced to do something that I really object to is pretty immersion breaking. Yes this isn’t a role playing game in that sense, but it IS a role playing game, and the characters are our avatars.

An example for me was giving away Taimi’s invention. Yes there are good reasons to do it, but in the moment I definitely wouldn’t have given it away, and it really took me out of the game experience.

The skritt are no more indigenous to the Maguuma jungle than the asura. Both only came up to the surface around 250 years ago after Primordius began waking up and his destroyers drove them to the surface. The asura actually arrived first because they happened to build their Central Transfer Chamber, a key part of their culture, right on top of the dragon so they were the first to be affected.

And the two races have been in conflict as long as either of them can remember. Not like the charr and humans, more like this – the asura build things, the skritt steal them to adapt to their purposes (which vary from stacking them in heaps to re-modelling golems, largely depending on the number of skritt involved), the asura steal them back, ad infinium.

They’re giant rats!?

… It’s a video game …

Wait till you get to the parts where you fight entrapped animals and other people. That is far worse to me than toppling some gears, and makes me feel icky. But its part of the game so we have to suck it up.

Anet should rework Orr and Zhaitan.
It’s way too scary.
Mobs look like a pile of raw and decayed meat.
Risen Chicken cause countless of nightmares every night.
Tequatl looks like a skinned Lizard.
Has no eyes.

Can’t we add some cheerful colors and design to it?
Some rainbows.
Why we don’t have Ponies in game? Just Why?
Such discrimination.

tl:dr
If you dislike specific content – skip it.

The social justice struggle is real.

Rage, if it makes you feel better, the game respawns all their “art and culture” for the next person, so it will live on forever as long as people are rolling new characters!

Just to correct you dear, Skritt aren’t an ‘indigenous’ people. Just like the Asura, they were forced up to the surface by the actions of Primordus and his Destroyer minions. So if anything, they’d be an invading people, and SJWs LOVE to rail against those types, what with their filthy ‘cultural appropriation’ and all that.

It would be a terrible blow to the game industry if we had to apply real life morality, even in fantasy worlds, to video games.

SMH…… This thread is just….. sigh

+5 for caring about a subordinate race, -10 for going with the skritt and not the far more tragic, yet less endearing, grawl.

Rage.5734:

There are a few hearts in the game, “Help Zippti study the Hyper-agressive skritt” in Caledon Forest to be specific, that force me to ruin an indigenous culture’s art.

You can also advance that heart by reprogramming golems around the camp.

In Queensdale for the “Assist Laboror Cardy and Ojon’s lumbermill” I need to “topple skritt shiny things”.

You can also advance that heart by killing hostile skritt or the freaking gigantic wasps in the other direction. I trust you have no problems killing wasps, but if you do then your opinion stops mattering. They are winged hate and must be destroyed.

There isn’t just one way to finish a heart, your complaints hold no water.

You topple the shiny things (which were originally stolen items) so they too busy picking them back up to steal something else later on. You might actually be doing the Skritt a favour. You topple a shiny gear, so the skritt don’t go out and steal something that might end up being too dangerous for them to handle!

You don’t have to destroy their art.

You can just kill them.

….

I…

what..

Pandaman.4758:

Rage.5734:

There are a few hearts in the game, “Help Zippti study the Hyper-agressive skritt” in Caledon Forest to be specific, that force me to ruin an indigenous culture’s art.

You can also advance that heart by reprogramming golems around the camp.

In Queensdale for the “Assist Laboror Cardy and Ojon’s lumbermill” I need to “topple skritt shiny things”.

You can also advance that heart by killing hostile skritt or the freaking gigantic wasps in the other direction. I trust you have no problems killing wasps, but if you do then your opinion stops mattering. They are winged hate and must be destroyed.

There isn’t just one way to finish a heart, your complaints hold no water.

This.

Also don’t feed the OP troll.

I wouldn’t see the Skritt as an analogy for indigenous people in the real world. I wouldn’t see any of the races ans species in Tyria as a direct analogy to a group of people in the real world.
Yes, Anet took aspects of several human cultures to “build” their creatures, the dynamic between the different races, and their world, but that doesn’t make them “the same”.
I think it is wrong to call then indigenous, because they live where they live only since a few hundred years and destroying the “art” of other people is not something that only happens to “indigenous” people.

The thing is that Asura and the Skritt have a very old passionate hatred towards each other, because they were always fighting for resources and living spaces even before they even came to the surface.
As I see it, the other races don’t necessarily trust the Asura, but they want to be on their “friend”-side because Asura are kitten creepy in their unscrupulousness and intellingence and because they brought a lot of useful technologies that the other races want to use. So showing animosity towards the Skritt, which generally are seen as less intelligent and “human” (sorry i don’t know a better word), is a possibility to make plus-points in the relationship ith the Asura.
I personally find the situation of the Grawl (which can be seen as pretty indigenous) much more sad and tragic though.

Actually lets just censor everything and make a nice happy bubble where nothing can challenge your values, trigger feelings or reactions or just make you ponder. Know what? Lets just rework the heart quest completely. You can pick up a cardboard shield with the writing “skritt lives matter and their art is awesome” and stand infront of their cave for half an hour. Wouldnt want a poor, fictional, npc only race in a video game get opressed… -eyeroll-

You have right for you opinions. We will respect your choices, but we won’t respect you forcefully shoving your ideology down our throats.

Leave identity politics out of games. There are websites meant for that, but not here.

If you think that this “will affect others” making them “oppressive”.

Well, news flash, you’re the one affected by this and treating people according to it, since you have the problem with fictional depictions, not others. Problem is with you having issues with mixing reality with fiction…

You do know that there are missions that involves helping skritt and some skritt have taken good positions, since those individuals wanted to do so. Or is individual choice “oppression” to you?

This topic has no meaning, it ought to be locked, since only thing you’re trying to achieve, is segregation of people according to their looks and choices.

And I would suggest you to stop playing video games, since you clearly are unable to discern reality from fantasy, and you’re more likely to hurt people because of it. But that is up to you.

We who play video games, atleast most of us (mean people are here and there, can’t get rid of them, impossible task unfortunately), will not bring anything related to your identity into the game, since we just want to play video games.

Is this guy really complaining about the potential oppression of a virtual rat race in a game that is nothing like the world we live in?

Really, REALLY?

I can’t even. . . .

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I can’t even. . . .

Yes, people are getting more and more weird these days

Personally I have zero issues with doing unethic and unmoralic things in video games.

I like how many people are upset at this thread. Anti intellectualism at its finest.

Sube Dai.8496:

They’re giant rats!?

So what? They’re still sentient people like the Charr and Asura.

Obviously this guy is a troll. No post history. Actually I recall an account called “Rage” doing another troll thread a couple weeks ago but don’t remember the thread itself to find it. Apparently by the responses he is pretty good at trolling. Only a few people noticed it.

GG “Rage”. But next time you may want to choose a different account name like Furious or something.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here you can see politically correct agenda destroying art first hand. Get used to it.

Blix.8021:

I’m glad you are ok with all the killing in the game but draw the line at vandalism. It’s good to set boundaries.

This made me ruin my keyboard mid-drink sip.lol

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

I don’t agree with the OP, but the ridiculous mockery in this thread is truly deplorable.

Thanks to all who provided a logical, intelligent answer rather than bullying the OP for having different values than they do. Go mock “sensitive” players elsewhere-these are not the forums to do that.

The reason I personally have only one Asuran character-an Engineer-is not because I dislike their sprites or armor options, but because their lore and “default” personality is barely above the Inquest. Their emotional detachment is perturbing-I am able to roleplay them only if I go against the grain of their purported society. And ironically, as “detached” as they pretend to be, “they” betray their own allegiance to logic, smarts, and reasoning when under stress. Kudos to the few Asura in the game who are more “balanced” and inspired me to create and play at least one.

(Note that some Skritt can be vicious too.)

There’s a lot of racism in the game, but there are groups that challenge that status quo. Roleplay that side if you wish. Most fantasy worlds have that kind of dynamic-doesn’t mean the game or its developers are (or promote) racist (s)/racism (D&D, etc.)

Nothing wrong with a bit of harmless humor. Self-righteous posters annoy me more.

I think I will go to the skritt and kill them now for a bit of fun. And also vandalise their “art”.

Rage.5734:

Hello,

So I love this game. I have put many many hours into this game. I plan to play for many more.

Here’s my complaint, or rather something that makes me uncomfortable.

There are a few hearts in the game, “Help Zippti study the Hyper-agressive skritt” in Caledon Forest to be specific, that force me to ruin an indigenous culture’s art. The Skritt are my favorite indigenous npc’s in the game, but I need to knock over their version of art and culture in order to 100% the area. They stack gears in this specific zone to express art and culture. I need to knock it over.

In Queensdale for the “Assist Laboror Cardy and Ojon’s lumbermill” I need to “topple skritt shiny things”. That’s their art and culture man!

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem defending myself once attacked. I have no problem destroying weapons or supplies during times of war. Why do I need to destroy their culture?

Invading armies have done that to peoples they oppress in real world wars. No one believes it’s ok. They’re considered war crimes.

This is just something that makes me uncomfortable.

Thank you!

Since the discussion in this thread has derailed and is no longer constructive this thread is now closed.