Guild Wars 2

… when she came out, I hated Scarlet. But recent events have made her character make more sense. Clearly, the three alliances she forged were going to make Tyria great again.

I actually like the character, I never got to experience ls1, but it is awesome to have a single sylvari causing so much trouble in all of Tyria. Not only huge dragons can do that.

For all Scarlet’s faults (and there were plenty), for all the shortcomings of both Season 1 and 2 (and again there were plenty), I’d take another round with Scarlet in a heartbeat rather than months of…nothing.

As has been said, she may have been annoying and badly written and the plotline may have been unbelievable but boy, did she bring the action. I want that game back, the one with the zone invasions and the huge meta-events and I’ll take Scarlet as the price if necessary.

yeah, zone invasions should be a more regular thing. something happening once in a while, like seasonal events.

And I wish they would bring the Marionette back as another meta event boss, on a long timer like Teq.

The more the OP posts, the more it feels like GW2 just isn’t the game they desire.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And I wish they would bring the Marionette back as another meta event boss, on a long timer like Teq.

Agreed, me too. Maybe not quite the same as last time, since Scarlet is dead. Would have to be possessed or powered by something new for the sake of The Lore. Maybe, Steam Creatures have started to advance their own AI type thing or something on those lines.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And I wish they would bring the Marionette back as another meta event boss, on a long timer like Teq.

Agreed, me too. Maybe not quite the same as last time, since Scarlet is dead. Would have to be possessed or powered by something new for the sake of The Lore. Maybe, Steam Creatures have started to advance their own AI type thing or something on those lines.

Or maybe some Asura decided to tinker and things got out of hand… not like that would be a first

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And I wish they would bring the Marionette back as another meta event boss, on a long timer like Teq.

Agreed, me too. Maybe not quite the same as last time, since Scarlet is dead. Would have to be possessed or powered by something new for the sake of The Lore. Maybe, Steam Creatures have started to advance their own AI type thing or something on those lines.

Or maybe some Asura decided to tinker and things got out of hand… not like that would be a first

I can imagine that Asura being Taimi xD

penelopehannibal.8947:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And I wish they would bring the Marionette back as another meta event boss, on a long timer like Teq.

Agreed, me too. Maybe not quite the same as last time, since Scarlet is dead. Would have to be possessed or powered by something new for the sake of The Lore. Maybe, Steam Creatures have started to advance their own AI type thing or something on those lines.

Or maybe some Asura decided to tinker and things got out of hand… not like that would be a first

I can imagine that Asura being Taimi xD

Lol yup

penelopehannibal.8947:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And I wish they would bring the Marionette back as another meta event boss, on a long timer like Teq.

Agreed, me too. Maybe not quite the same as last time, since Scarlet is dead. Would have to be possessed or powered by something new for the sake of The Lore. Maybe, Steam Creatures have started to advance their own AI type thing or something on those lines.

Or maybe some Asura decided to tinker and things got out of hand… not like that would be a first

I can imagine that Asura being Taimi xD

It needs to involve raptors in some way, as Ploint in Metrica Province said, “Any plan that involves raptors is, by design, foolproof.”

Just a flesh wound.3589:

penelopehannibal.8947:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And I wish they would bring the Marionette back as another meta event boss, on a long timer like Teq.

Agreed, me too. Maybe not quite the same as last time, since Scarlet is dead. Would have to be possessed or powered by something new for the sake of The Lore. Maybe, Steam Creatures have started to advance their own AI type thing or something on those lines.

Or maybe some Asura decided to tinker and things got out of hand… not like that would be a first

I can imagine that Asura being Taimi xD

It needs to involve raptors in some way, as Ploint in Metrica Province said, “Any plan that involves raptors is, by design, foolproof.”

So….she’s dragging the Marionette remains into the jungle, maybe to a ley line point for energy purposes, and she needs the raptors bones cause she can’t find the right filaments… yup…I can see this

Some how we end up a part of a whole re-activation chain, and then we have to beat it down after it goes haywire. Check.

That’s one things I really like about the game, is the constant reminders of things that changed. I appreciate the fact that littered around the world are the probing device remains that Scarlet planted as well as remnants of the toxic spores in Kessex. That’s why Scarlet also should be remembered. Course I am biased and liked Scarlet even as she was causing us grief. Was still hoping in the end to take her in on the team kind of like how Canach joined up. Still remember the Scarlet invasions and heading to the zones under assault. And of course the quotes, “Sorry about all the death! <giggles>”.

Good hunting and here’s another vote for Scarlet to return as a Mist Hero in Stronghold.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

And I wish they would bring the Marionette back as another meta event boss, on a long timer like Teq.

YES! Still one of the best fights and a decent reward system.

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

Donari.5237:

The reason for that recap is that they needed to put something in to bridge the narrative gap for people that weren’t around for LS1 (and tons of people begged them to do it, as a matter of fact, as a stop gap until they can reintroduce the content in playable form when it was originally designed to happen and end like RL events do).

I don’t think that recap explains things terribly well to someone that wasn’t there at the time; to me it feels more like a reminder for those who played through it. But it’s better than having no in-game indication of how things went from Zhaitan’s fall to Mordremoth’s awakening.

To be honest with you I’m trying my best to rush-play through the hot story, skipping cinematics etc (something I never do). I think at this point I’m a bit worn out after the really long plot I enjoyed with my sylvari character. It was fun, especially towards the end when things started heating up. I especially liked the whole Claw Island saga. Then we defeated the dragon.

Then came Scarlet Briar, and everything after that just seems like re-hash stuff. I mean after defeating the most evil enemy in all the land, to continue fighting and fighting again is just tiresome to me. This is not a complaint – for those who think I’m always complaining and bashing the game. I just feel like I’ve enjoyed what I was mean to enjoy.

Right now what I REALLY want is my glider mastery!

The bold part just says everything. You’re playing GW2 all wrong, soon you’ll be fully worn and burnt out from the game and will shelf it like so many others. You want to get to end-game when you’re literally rushing through it. Through the end-game. If you’re playing GW2 and are not having fun, 3-4 years in I can tell you, you’re doing it wrong, which makes most of your complaints pretty much invalid. The very fact that you’re getting burnt out and you complain about the apparent lack of a reward by the end of your level 80 Personal Story, just further reinforces how invalid your excuses against the Season 1 recap are – Your perception over it was blurred and wronged from the get-go, by none other than yourself.
I’d advise you to seriously rethink your current game style, or better yet, start from scratch(Yes, seriously). The very best advice I can give to any player, whether they have played MMO’s before or not, is to unlearn everything they thought they knew about MMO’s and online games in general.
Nothing else to see here, moving along.

James Quall.6029:

Scarlet was a cringe-inducing self-insert fanfiction character that was somehow accidentally written into a major market game

That’s about accurate. Allegations of being a Mary Sue came back from the jury with a Guilty verdict.

Sartharina.3542:

… when she came out, I hated Scarlet. But recent events have made her character make more sense. Clearly, the three alliances she forged were going to make Tyria great again.

Either that, or she forged a conveniently disposable army for the races of Tyria. I’ve often wondered if Scarlet was actually evil. Insane, yes, but evil? I thought it was very interesting that she got together the groups that all of us were fighting against and was grooming them up for war….and then goes and intentionally pokes the dragon…

I wondered if she was planning on taking that army to face the Mordremoth and that she was on our side. I mean…that way, sure, we lose Lions Arch, but she chucks the inquest, flame legion, nightmare court, krait etc etc at Mordremoth. That would have worked in our favour. She tried constructs too – those steam creatures. I doubt she would have wanted to be Mordremoth’s slave, and she did say something like “Someday you’ll see. Tyria needs me.” to Caithe.

Maybe I’ve lost the plot, but I thought taking all your enemies and throwing them at your enemy was a good idea. Its just hard to do when you’re insane and can’t work with the so called good people cos one of the races ran experiments on you and stuffed your brain.

Sindex.9520:

James Quall.6029:

Sindex.9520:

However the writers gave her way too much leverage that was never fully explained. She even got one of the most xenophobic race (Krait) in guild wars franchise to work with the Nightmare Court.

This actually raises an interesting point that has always bothered me. If one has done the different paths of Twilight Arbor (including the old spider path that they just got rid of instead of trying to fix) you see that with Faolain gone the Nightmare Court starts ripping itself apart with infighting at the first sign of a power struggle.

There was one living story update that included a bunch of audio logs from Scarlet and the entire deal was a clumsy, ham fisted plot dump meant to catch people up with the story. One of the logs was regarding getting the dredge and the Flame Legion to work together: “Flame Legion gets gears, dredge get magic, and I get two armies” or something like that. That was seriously all the explanation she had to give for how and why they worked for her.

Scarlet didn’t need (or apparently even have) any other reasons for why she could gather so many different armies with conflicting goals and ideals, including the Flame Legion who would never follow a woman in the first place. Somehow she got all of these people to be her perfectly loyal slaves that never disobeyed and there was no conflict between them and no infighting or power struggles whatsoever.

She was just so brilliant and perfect and a master tactician and engineer and leader and she can do anything because she is just so wonderfully wonderful~ Seriously, the book Sea of Sorrows is all about how Lion’s Arch withstood attacks from Zhaitan and Kryta attempting to recapture their old capital. But Scarlet, who had been beaten at every turn and had wasted so many troops and resources, still managed to succeed in destroying Lion’s Arch where even elder dragons had failed. I really mean it, Scarlet was someone’s Mary Sue fanfic character that inexplicably got into the game.

Yeah, actually I have the answers to some of these question via Angel McCoy’s response she made on the official forums (under the lore section). I left it out originally because this evidence was never presented in game. So take it as will. Since I am still not totally convinced by it.

Angel.4918:

I believe Matthew was alluding to the fact that we didn’t detail out any specific leaders, other than the characters you met in the weapons factory.

So, I will say this. We have been going on the premise that the groups working with Scarlet are not the main population, but splinter groups. It’s not “The Nightmare Court” who has allied with the krait, but a sub-group of them. Faolain, for example, is not allied with either the krait or Scarlet. We have not publicly detailed out who each of these groups is or who their leaders are because we didn’t think that was something the average citizen of Tyria would know. If you’re really dying to know the answer, I can look it up in the next couple days and post something about it. But, they won’t be characters you’ve met before.

Angel McCoy.1832:

That’s actually 4 questions. Can’t fool me. Hehe. Konig, we devs walk a fine line between giving too much lore, thus spoiling players’ in-game discovery, and not giving enough. If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.

That’s the key. It’s all about you and your experience. Eight hours a day, five days a week, and often more than that, we’re all here, working to make your in-game experience as good as it can be.

Here are some concrete answers for you. Activate imaginations now!

1. Why did the krait agree to work with Scarlet?

Warning: The following is paraphrased in out-of-game language and doesn’t even pretend to be polished writing.

Imagine with me for a moment….

Scarlet sends a missive to the krait in the deeps there. It says simply, “I have shards of one of your obelisks. And, I know what it will take to bring back your prophet.”

The krait replies: “Take a hike. You’re lying. Prove it.”

Scarlet sends the smallest shard with a note: “There are more.”

Krait: “Give them all to us or we’ll kill you and enslave all your friends.”

Scarlet laughs. “You’ll have to get to me first. Can you fly? Of course, if you don’t want your prophets, then I totally understand.”

Krait (after much cussing and killing of slaves): “Hm. What do you want from us?”

Scarlet: “I’ll be sending a Nightmare Court posse along with further proof that I can bring back your prophets. Listen to them. If you kill them, I’ll assume our deal is off, and I’ll turn the shards over to your enemies. You do take your religion seriously, don’t you?”

2. Why did they not take the obelisk shards, perhaps enslave some of her minions, with the ruthlessness they are known for?

See above.

3. More so after their “prophet” died?

As you may have noticed, these krait were profoundly changed during their interaction with the nightmare plant and Scarlet. They are no longer the same creatures they were. They acquired a new look, new skills, and new behavior. Scarlet gave them their prophet, as promised—and may be able to do it again one day. Who was it that killed the prophet? Hmmmm.

4. Why do her alliances…continue working with her?

Each has its own reason.

Krait: They’ve been warped by Scarlet and the Nightmare Court. By the end, the scenario had changed. Scarlet proved she could bring back a prophet to their satisfaction (whether it was actually a prophet or not, no one really knows, but the toxic krait believe it was). And they can’t exactly go join other normal krait. How do you think regular xenophobic krait would feel about these toxic ones?

Dredge: They want power and magic. This group of dredge see an opportunity to add magic to their repertoire. Given their history, this would be a huge feather in their caps. Besides, how often do you get the opportunity to atomize a city like Lion’s Arch? Now that’s fun!

Flame Legion: They want technology and power. This group of FL is taking a huge risk. If they can go home with awesome swag, then they’ll be welcomed, but if they can’t, then they’re likely to be killed the moment they arrive. A large body count (especially the charr and human ones) along with whatever weapons technology they manage to acquire is an inspiring reward for them. And, they get to say they helped bring down Lion’s Arch. They hope to be lauded as heroes when they return to the FL.

You will, of course, have noticed that the three alliances don’t work in very close proximity to one another. There’s a reason for this.

You’ll also have noticed that Scarlet was extremely elusive in the tower of nightmares. Can you imagine why?

I am now seeing the originator of this heinous story as clear as daylight.

eduardo.1436:

I liked Scarlet AFTER we learn why she was so crazy, everything makes more sense, and whether we like it or not Scarlet’s history will forever be remembered. (from her constant mentions in LW S2 to that poor charr coughing and cursing at her :P)

Trust me, I won’t be one remembering her history. Looks like I should be grateful to have missed her story.

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

eduardo.1436:

I liked Scarlet AFTER we learn why she was so crazy, everything makes more sense, and whether we like it or not Scarlet’s history will forever be remembered. (from her constant mentions in LW S2 to that poor charr coughing and cursing at her :P)

Trust me, I won’t be one remembering her history. Looks like I should be grateful to have missed her story.

Not necessarily. She was poorly written, but despite all this, some of the most epic and finest content updates have come about because of her story. In hindsight, I can live with the trade off.

EragamerLG.2390:

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

Donari.5237:

The reason for that recap is that they needed to put something in to bridge the narrative gap for people that weren’t around for LS1 (and tons of people begged them to do it, as a matter of fact, as a stop gap until they can reintroduce the content in playable form when it was originally designed to happen and end like RL events do).

I don’t think that recap explains things terribly well to someone that wasn’t there at the time; to me it feels more like a reminder for those who played through it. But it’s better than having no in-game indication of how things went from Zhaitan’s fall to Mordremoth’s awakening.

To be honest with you I’m trying my best to rush-play through the hot story, skipping cinematics etc (something I never do). I think at this point I’m a bit worn out after the really long plot I enjoyed with my sylvari character. It was fun, especially towards the end when things started heating up. I especially liked the whole Claw Island saga. Then we defeated the dragon.

Then came Scarlet Briar, and everything after that just seems like re-hash stuff. I mean after defeating the most evil enemy in all the land, to continue fighting and fighting again is just tiresome to me. This is not a complaint – for those who think I’m always complaining and bashing the game. I just feel like I’ve enjoyed what I was mean to enjoy.

Right now what I REALLY want is my glider mastery!

The bold part just says everything. You’re playing GW2 all wrong, soon you’ll be fully worn and burnt out from the game and will shelf it like so many others. You want to get to end-game when you’re literally rushing through it. Through the end-game. If you’re playing GW2 and are not having fun, 3-4 years in I can tell you, you’re doing it wrong, which makes most of your complaints pretty much invalid. The very fact that you’re getting burnt out and you complain about the apparent lack of a reward by the end of your level 80 Personal Story, just further reinforces how invalid your excuses against the Season 1 recap are – Your perception over it was blurred and wronged from the get-go, by none other than yourself.
I’d advise you to seriously rethink your current game style, or better yet, start from scratch(Yes, seriously). The very best advice I can give to any player, whether they have played MMO’s before or not, is to unlearn everything they thought they knew about MMO’s and online games in general.
Nothing else to see here, moving along.

Ain’t buying it.

A game is a game, and there’s only one way to play it – to play it!