Guild Wars 2

“… that could include you as a player character”

Relevant quote and context is at about 2:30

Should be very interesting, as a sylvari main, I’m intrigued.

Reddit parallel thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3e7sxq/leah_hoyer_interview_any_sylvari_could_turn_that/

Yeah….she says that, but they’d never actually do it. I’m sure they’ll do additional conversations, and maybe even some mildly dark internal struggle, but they’d never actually let the player character turn (and remain) evil.

(Feel free to make me eat those words Anet, I dare you )

She has also said stuff about giving us new armor sets to earn in the game to balance out the loads of cash shop outfits. Until it happens, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Choosing to make a playable race have the ability to turn “evil” is a bad idea in a game where you are supposed to all be heroes. If only the NPCs do it, why do none of the players. Ill choice all around.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Yeah….she says that, but they’d never actually do it. I’m sure they’ll do additional conversations, and maybe even some mildly dark internal struggle, but they’d never actually let the player character turn (and remain) evil.

(Feel free to make me eat those words Anet, I dare you )

if they make us eat those words
i gonna be so happy xD

that would be such a sweet taste. all of a sudden sylvari characters can have the choice to play the story against the forces of Tyria

and maybe when mordremoth dies, you return to normal

arenta.2953:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Yeah….she says that, but they’d never actually do it. I’m sure they’ll do additional conversations, and maybe even some mildly dark internal struggle, but they’d never actually let the player character turn (and remain) evil.

(Feel free to make me eat those words Anet, I dare you )

if they make us eat those words
i gonna be so happy xD

that would be such a sweet taste. all of a sudden sylvari characters can have the choice to play the story against the forces of Tyria

I’d be perfectly ok with eating my words. But it’s extremely unlikely that they would let a character go full out evil, as I said.

arenta.2953:

and maybe when mordremoth dies, you return to normal

That’d be a cheap way out. Would rank right up there with WoW’s DK’s “change of heart” for “easy button.”

If they go the route of letting player characters become evil, they should have some additional story / quests / events to cleanse those characters to return them to our side. Including letting us kick their tails, and tada…open world pvp (with limited scope).

Iason Evan.3806:

She has also said stuff about giving us new armor sets to earn in the game to balance out the loads of cash shop outfits. Until it happens, I’ll believe it when I see it.

So, when did we get the last armor skin in the gem store as opposed to in-game?

They are very well capable of having a mechanic that “turns” players.

Those that were around for the end of the first beta weekend will tell you so.

The branded zombie apocalypse in Plains of Ashford was the most epic event GW2 ever had. Branded invaded the area. If you were killed by branded you re-spawned as a branded and attacked other players and turned them too.

Maybe battles like in AvA, except that it won’t be Kurzicks vs Luxons but Sylvaris against others

Without more details, I’m going to assume it’s just a story progression thing, and “even the player characters could turn” just means Sylvari players will have “resisting Mordremoth” as a major theme in their stories.

It could be quite interesting if Sylvari PC’s were able to be turned, especially with 8 Sylvaris (9 when Revenant available in HOT). I’d deleted 4 lvl 80 humans after “Seeds of Truth” last year, so I could have at least 1 Sylvari per class (all now lvl 80). Always wanted to be in the Nightmare Court, being a minion might be better.
The cynic in me says that if that does come to pass, the Gem Store will have a Potion of Resistance Recipe for 800 gems to prevent our characters from turning LOL

Story wise it’s interesting, but they’d better not freaking touch my characters looks, I spent hours getting them exactly right.

If they actually allow Sylvari players to join Mordremoth, it’s likely possible they’d do the same for all the other races.

I mean, there’s other dragons and factions to join/be corrupted by. Other races could become branded or overcome by Jormag’s corrupted ice, or whatever it is that the next dragons to awaken will be able to do. Or maybe players could gain the ability to sign up with the Inquest, Sons of Svanir, Flame Legion, Atherblades, etc.

Or maybe once mordremoth gets powerful enough it’d be able to corrupt non-plants and warp the minds of any race. (It’s two dominions are Plant, AND Mind. Not mind of plants, minds in general) So any kind of Mordremoth corruption or “Evil player faction” mechanic is easily extendable to all races.

There’s also the fact that there was an obtainable “buff” that let other players attack you in PvE (While making certain enemies friendly) seems like a potential beta test of just this type of feature. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bandit_Boon

For what it’s worth, I’m actually generally against the idea of your race forcibly putting you on an enemy faction. It’s what I don’t like about so many MMOs like WoW, Aion, Wildstar, etc where just because you want your character to look a certain way, it determines who you can and cannot play with. But if “falling to Mordremoth” becomes a totally optional choice opted into by certain players it’s something that makes sense in the current game lore and may or may not have interesting implications. Not really in support of the idea, but I’m not dead-set against it either.

I only have Sylvari characters. I don’t want to “turn” because evil things always lose in games so what’s the point? Eventually, every dragon will be defeated, it makes no sense to stand on the loser side. xD

glehmann.9586:

Without more details, I’m going to assume it’s just a story progression thing, and “even the player characters could turn” just means Sylvari players will have “resisting Mordremoth” as a major theme in their stories.

thisis prob correct

Mireles Lore.5942:

They are very well capable of having a mechanic that “turns” players.

Those that were around for the end of the first beta weekend will tell you so.

The branded zombie apocalypse in Plains of Ashford was the most epic event GW2 ever had. Branded invaded the area. If you were killed by branded you re-spawned as a branded and attacked other players and turned them too.

And as a Branded you were traumatized by destiny’s Edge. I remember you and your arrows Eir…

Still sad to this day that a lot of non-branded abused the defenses of some fort at the end of the event instead of forming a full-branded family ;(

Way back when, when Rift (another MMO) came out, there was a quest line that took place in a zone called Gloamwood. (think Duskwood, for those familiar with WoW)

Near the end of the quest chain, you became infected with Lycanthropy, and any town you went to, the guards would kill you on sight. You had to finish the quest chain that eventually cured you of your lycanthropy.

This was the first time I had ever encountered a questline that really did something different like that. It was pretty involved and interesting, something that I just don’t really see in GW2. I felt like part of the story. I cannot really think of any time in the living stories where I felt like that.

If they could somehow pull it off that you, as a Sylvari that turns against the Pact, I would really be impressed.

lordkrall.7241:

Iason Evan.3806:

She has also said stuff about giving us new armor sets to earn in the game to balance out the loads of cash shop outfits. Until it happens, I’ll believe it when I see it.

So, when did we get the last armor skin in the gem store as opposed to in-game?

I don’t know if you quoted the wrong person or what, but timing is not even close to the same thing as frequency.

We’ve gotten 2 in-game armor sets since launch. We’ve gotten 2 additional “partial” armor sets as well.

Gem store we’ve gotten 14 armor sets, 10 partial armor sets, and 17 outfits

So hopefully that answers your question.

Edit: Forgot about PvP, don’t play a whole lot, add 1 more in-game fora total of 3.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

arenta.2953:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Yeah….she says that, but they’d never actually do it. I’m sure they’ll do additional conversations, and maybe even some mildly dark internal struggle, but they’d never actually let the player character turn (and remain) evil.

(Feel free to make me eat those words Anet, I dare you )

if they make us eat those words
i gonna be so happy xD

that would be such a sweet taste. all of a sudden sylvari characters can have the choice to play the story against the forces of Tyria

I’d be perfectly ok with eating my words. But it’s extremely unlikely that they would let a character go full out evil, as I said.

arenta.2953:

and maybe when mordremoth dies, you return to normal

That’d be a cheap way out. Would rank right up there with WoW’s DK’s “change of heart” for “easy button.”

If they go the route of letting player characters become evil, they should have some additional story / quests / events to cleanse those characters to return them to our side. Including letting us kick their tails, and tada…open world pvp (with limited scope).

cheap way out? maybe

but it would mean for once you lose your personal story. you fight on and in the end lose.
it would be something not normally done. adding a sense of realism into the game by reinforcing the fact you can’t always win.

of coarse, your character would accomplish alot, maybe in the end choosing to betray mordremoth on purpose, or joining him to protect the other sylvari trees.

it could be that while you do lose the war, its your actions that save the sylvari race.
a victory in a loss

None of my human characters have turned Branded in the Dragonbrand yet, or Undead in Orr yet, so I highly doubt any PC Sylvari will turn fighting off the Mordrem.

sorry guys im Asura sooo lemme just get my flamethrower here just in case my sylvari guildmates try anything funny while we explore the jungle

eduardo.1436:

sorry guys im Asura sooo lemme just get my flamethrower here just in case my sylvari guildmates try anything funny while we explore the jungle

what are you. a human?!
put that flamethrower on a golem ASAP!

carrying weapons…pah! who does that anymore.

arenta.2953:

eduardo.1436:

sorry guys im Asura sooo lemme just get my flamethrower here just in case my sylvari guildmates try anything funny while we explore the jungle

what are you. a human?!
put that flamethrower on a golem ASAP!

carrying weapons…pah! who does that anymore.

pfffft everybody knows that you dont give golems weapons! THEY ARE weapons! just use them as metal shields while you use weapons

eduardo.1436:

arenta.2953:

eduardo.1436:

sorry guys im Asura sooo lemme just get my flamethrower here just in case my sylvari guildmates try anything funny while we explore the jungle

what are you. a human?!
put that flamethrower on a golem ASAP!

carrying weapons…pah! who does that anymore.

pfffft everybody knows that you dont give golems weapons! THEY ARE weapons! just use them as metal shields while you use weapons

or….
lights golem on fire
BRING IT ON PLANTS. ITS TIME FOR ASURA BATTLEBOTS

All hail Mordre… Mom?? Mordremom!

Welp, it looks like I’ll start HoT on my human, than go straight to my sylvari.

lordkrall.7241:

Iason Evan.3806:

She has also said stuff about giving us new armor sets to earn in the game to balance out the loads of cash shop outfits. Until it happens, I’ll believe it when I see it.

So, when did we get the last armor skin in the gem store as opposed to in-game?

When Leah said it she was talking about the ratio of gem shop outfits to earned in game armor and saying there needed to be more parity because we get more outfits on the gem shop as opposed to armor sets we can earn in the game. It’s an issue. People like to have things to play for. The last earnable armor set was when Silverwastes came out. That’s a long time ago. We have had several outfits on the gem shop since with little to no content to speak of.

I said as much in my post that it was “cash shop outfits” to “new armor sets to earn in the game”.

ANET turning PVE into a Semi-PvP now?
Then I just logged into my non-Sylvari char. What’s is the point of this?
Or better yet, ANET should just ask everyone who are playing Sylvari to delete their chars and make other race, because they will stop making Sylvari as a playable class. If not, the storyline loophole and this PvP in a PvE nonsense doesn’t make any sense at all!

I remember, that when we had Guild Wars 2 main game beta testing weekend, there were that kind of meta event going on. There were Dragon and it turned some players to the foes. Those foes killed others and turned them to follow that Dragon. We tried to hold up, but our world tuned all the way foe world. That wasn’t so fun after all.

Mireles Lore.5942:

They are very well capable of having a mechanic that “turns” players.

Those that were around for the end of the first beta weekend will tell you so.

The branded zombie apocalypse in Plains of Ashford was the most epic event GW2 ever had. Branded invaded the area. If you were killed by branded you re-spawned as a branded and attacked other players and turned them too.

Well other than some balance issues (not sure how many Sylvari there are compared to other races) but yeah something like this would be pretty nice.
Not sure if it should be implemented in the same way as the Branded events.

glehmann.9586:

Without more details, I’m going to assume it’s just a story progression thing, and “even the player characters could turn” just means Sylvari players will have “resisting Mordremoth” as a major theme in their stories.

Most likely. I’d prefer narrative though mechanics, although that’s kinda error prone.

Mea.5491:

I only have Sylvari characters. I don’t want to “turn” because evil things always lose in games so what’s the point?

Except Scarlet, she pretty much wiped the floor with us. Oh sure we killed her but she set out to awaken Mordy, she succeeded and destroyed LA to boot.

Arioso.8519:

If they actually allow Sylvari players to join Mordremoth, it’s likely possible they’d do the same for all the other races.

I’d love this. If only for added character customization. Just imagine being able to go through a long, difficult and (ideally) awesome quest line in which you get to add some more visual flare to your character. Would you like some Branded Crystals character customisations? How about some Icebrood ice? A Risen zombie-look? How about a bit of molten Destroyer?
Wouldn’t happen, too much work.

uglydan.1638:

Near the end of the quest chain, you became infected with Lycanthropy, and any town you went to, the guards would kill you on sight. You had to finish the quest chain that eventually cured you of your lycanthropy.

This was the first time I had ever encountered a questline that really did something different like that. It was pretty involved and interesting, something that I just don’t really see in GW2. I felt like part of the story. I cannot really think of any time in the living stories where I felt like that.

If they could somehow pull it off that you, as a Sylvari that turns against the Pact, I would really be impressed.

This would be awesome… until the forumites complain that ‘oh I can’t pvp, or dungeon, or whatever! Stop forcing me to not play the way I want!‘.
Eh but then again some players don’t engage with story, so they’d hate something like this.

SirDrygan.1823:

ANET turning PVE into a Semi-PvP now?
Then I just logged into my non-Sylvari char. What’s is the point of this?
Or better yet, ANET should just ask everyone who are playing Sylvari to delete their chars and make other race, because they will stop making Sylvari as a playable class. If not, the storyline loophole and this PvP in a PvE nonsense doesn’t make any sense at all!

And this is someone who doesn’t care about story, rather mechanics. This is the issue, those who engage mechanics won’t like it when for narrative purposes mechanics are changed or removed (however this being a video game you’d likely want to steer away from ludonarrative dissonance).

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’d be perfectly ok with eating my words. But it’s extremely unlikely that they would let a character go full out evil, as I said.

They did say several times that adding options for pc’s going evil is one of the things they do not intend to do. They want pc protagonists to be heroes, not villains. So i agree, that them changing on that point is really unlikely.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Edit: Forgot about PvP, don’t play a whole lot, add 1 more in-game fora total of 3.

It’s actually 4 base sets (radiant, hellfire, carapace, glorious hero) and 2 variations (luminescent and glorious), 3 of those (radiant, hellfire, glorious) are beyond reach of almost every player (well, to be more specific glorious is. Currently noone has full radiant or hellfire).
Still doesn’t change the disproportion one bit.

Yeah right.

New personal story will have an option to say:

“Oh, I almost turned to Mordremoth….”

And that’s it.

CureForLiving.5360:

And this is someone who doesn’t care about story, rather mechanics. This is the issue, those who engage mechanics won’t like it when for narrative purposes mechanics are changed or removed (however this being a video game you’d likely want to steer away from ludonarrative dissonance).

Ok, I am interested in what you have to say about the narrative purposes mechanic changes that will happen. Theory or whatever.

Full out evil probably not but I guess its doable through the personal story. It would be pretty good if perhaps in the sylvari personal story you start to turn, have a mission to somehow breakout from the elder dragon control and if you fail you turn and your subsequent missions are about destroying the invading pact fleet (well what remains of it). Then I guess at the end the remnants of the pact fleet rally and manage to break mordremoth’s control over all sylvari and we can all get the same ending or something.

But yeah full on evil, open world PvP, I dont see it and actually hope not to see it. That being said maybe it could go beyond the personal story, say it starts there but then there would be instances you can join from the open world where the pact is fighting for some object against mordremoth’s minions, only if you’re an evil sylvari you join mordremoth’s side not the pact’s. That could be cool tool.

In anycase I better get a 2nd Sylvari character to 80 just in case it turns out to be a choice or something you can win/fail

I had 2 ideas about how this could be done:
1) An opt in, Friendly Fire: On

A player with a Sylvari can go into options or have a toggle on the hud and turn this feature on. Still appearing as friendly until they change their status. A zerg battling one of Mordremoth’s Champions is suddenly burst apart by a party of Sylvari minions among them.
Lots of potential for roleplay and (unfortunately) trolls (Mordrem Trolls?)

2) Environmental triggers. Certain areas, or times of day lower a Sylvari’s resistance to Mordremoth. Note: All the Sylvari that were turned, were off the ground at the time. Did this weaken their connection to the Dream? In trying to reconnect to the Dream connect them to Mordremoth instead?

Just some musings that made me think how this could be implemented.

I could see this happening in an instanced story episode, not on the open world map.

It would be very cool in an instanced story episode, not so much on the open world map.

I could see it happening in a solo instance with breaking Mord’s influence as the ending.

There is a Sylvari starting area heart where your sylvari disguises itself as a nightmare courtier. You supposed to sabotage the nightmare base but you do have the option to do evil things instead.

If you do evil things, you get a stacking debuff which reads that you feel your heart darkening. Very hard to get to max stacks (as each stack bleeds you and they expre fairly quickly) but I really wanted to see what happened to a sylvari on hitting max nightmare corruption.

I did it. Was very excited.

Died instantly.

Fairly disappointed.

And mildly wondered how there are so many nightmare devotees when “falling to nightmare” instantly kills you -.-

If they bring back the mechanic used in the Branded Zombie Apocalypse from the beta, sans revive-as-a-zombie mechanic of course, that would effectively allow players to have sylvari characters that experienced the Calling. ANet is historically bad about checking threads that might imply they should put more work into the game, so i’m not holding my breath.

that said, FEEL FREE TO PROVE ME WRONG. DO IT. PLEASE.

Until then, we can vainly hope.

As a human main, I look forward to the Human Elder Dragon so I can turn and play a bad guy.

rapthorne.7345:

“… that could include you as a player character”

Could but wont as that goes contrary to Anets PvE philosophy of players working together.

I could totally see this as part of the living/personal story. So..i’m pretty excited.
And I still remember that beta weekend, fun times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz5hM-9illc

arenta.2953:

eduardo.1436:

sorry guys im Asura sooo lemme just get my flamethrower here just in case my sylvari guildmates try anything funny while we explore the jungle

what are you. a human?!
put that flamethrower on a golem ASAP!

carrying weapons…pah! who does that anymore.

Clearly a bookah in disguise. A mesmer perhaps. If not, he should have his ears clipped!

perhaps some living story style storylines will have separate branches for sylvari characters that transform the characters to “evil” for parts of it, as you fight to break control and HAVE to fight your once-allies, until you finally break control and regain your freedom.

I could see that as doable without making you “evil” in the “real world.”

SirDrygan.1823:

CureForLiving.5360:

And this is someone who doesn’t care about story, rather mechanics. This is the issue, those who engage mechanics won’t like it when for narrative purposes mechanics are changed or removed (however this being a video game you’d likely want to steer away from ludonarrative dissonance).

Ok, I am interested in what you have to say about the narrative purposes mechanic changes that will happen. Theory or whatever.

So given this problem I find it highly unlikely that ANet would alter or lock away mechanics for story purposes. Or at least do so for any span of time. Maybe within the scope of a story instance you can turn evil and at the end of the instance you’re good again. I don’t think they would spread it out over multiple instances, maybe the corruption process but not full out corruption.

Sankofa Jimiyu.1567:

1) An opt in, Friendly Fire: On

A player with a Sylvari can go into options or have a toggle on the hud and turn this feature on. Still appearing as friendly until they change their status. A zerg battling one of Mordremoth’s Champions is suddenly burst apart by a party of Sylvari minions among them.
Lots of potential for roleplay and (unfortunately) trolls (Mordrem Trolls?)

So I was in curse shore today, and they were doing the fail farm. Noting my disapproval with purposefully failing events, I was somewhat berated. Now it’s nothing report-able but I’ve heard other players complaining about the similar and worse encounters.
Given people this option would enable grieving which could lead to a lot of hate, cursing, and abuse.

Sankofa Jimiyu.1567:

2) Environmental triggers. Certain areas, or times of day lower a Sylvari’s resistance to Mordremoth. Note: All the Sylvari that were turned, were off the ground at the time. Did this weaken their connection to the Dream? In trying to reconnect to the Dream connect them to Mordremoth instead?

I’d be all for it in the scope of an event. Say an event in which Sylvari players can be corrupted for the scope of that event.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

As a human main, I look forward to the Human Elder Dragon so I can turn and play a bad guy.

Oh no need to worry, humans can become branded, risen and I’m fairly sure icebrood. So there’s a lot of options.

I’m a Sylvari main (and in total I have 6 Sylvari characters) . I’ve gone on record saying I don’t want my guys and gals to be evil, and they and I refuse to be so.

I hope there is something of a choice - or it’s just for a short period (like an event as mentioned further up). Something like the Lunatic Court at Halloween would be absolutely fine - but not the story. No way! My mesmer will have a tremendous sulk if so. I don’t want to deal with him sulking. He’s terrible, and has embarrassed me in public before. So please, no forced evil outside of some fun events!

Actually i think could be really cool if the player could choose which side will he fighting for. Having a WvW like in Pve although this could need much more work than just choosing sides.

It’s not impossible. In the first Beta, there was a closing event that caused you to become Branded if you died, and then you could defeat your once-allies. It was sort of an elder dragon zombie outbreak.

If it occurs it will happen in one of two ways:

1). A single player instanced story mode where you are briefly turned and somehow restored (probably the intervention of the Pale tree or – knowing ANet’s writing – an NPC who was recently introduced will sacrifice themselves for you). Basically it will play out like the WoW DK starter zone.

2). A more interesting but far less likely approach would be that you are taken by mordremoth and commanded to spy on your allies and arouse no suspicion unless he calls upon you. In effect this allows you to act normal out side of the story steps while going through the story line with a different approach than the other races. The above mentioned intervention in #1 will happen towards the end allowing you to regain your faculties just as you lead your allies into a trap.

Good thinking, Dastion. (2) sounds intriguing.

I think there’s something to support the idea that ’vari’s won’t be force changed as well: They’ve said there will be multiple paths in each LS instance, some unlocking as you gain Masteries, and you’ll be able to replay the instance with different choices. So it’s entirely possible the ’vari player will choose whether to take a corruption line or not.

I hope it would be a map wide battle where we can become modified versions of modrem, such as a warrior type mordrem champion, instead of an activity like mini game. I mean for example sylvari will “evolve” and grow further to a more monstrous form. That, or mordy will implant mind control plants to players who chose (or randomly chosen) to play on the side of Mordremoth, not only Sylvari. As for me, All hail Mordremoth!

If it’s possible to make a Sylvari turn in the storyline I would make y thief turn.
I refer to her as my Sylvari Borg lol. If it’s too far in the story already I would make my Revenant turn either way my Revenant will turn at the very least.