Guild Wars 2

The technology in GW2 seems to be a mash of different eras, for example you have “wagons” scattered through tyria while charr have mechanical vehicles. You have humans running around with swords and bows, while Asurans have golems and lasers.

if we were to assign centuries to the technology you could say

Norn: early middle ages, small settlements, very low tech, some farming mixed in with some hunting.
Human: 15th century, from sailing ships, to farming practices, to military tactics. (pre industrial revolution)
Charr: 20th century, post industrial revolution.
Asuran: 23rd century, robots, lasers, teleportation.
Sylvari: mystery but seem to be able to adapt to any of the above.

So with these cultures all intertwined throughout Tyria, why isn’t the technological advancements influencing the cultures and advancing them.

Why aren’t Tyrians driving themselves around?
Why aren’t asurans putting a golem in every home?
Why is there no TV when asurans demonstrate time and time again that they are capable of long range audio/visual communications?
Why aren’t the Vanguard walking around with laser guns developed by the asurans?
Why are the farmers using ancient technology when the Charr could make them motorised equipment.

Heck they used a mix of technologies to create the airships, why isn’t there more mixed technology in the world of Tyria?

Simple… they are not that good friends… yet.
And I wouldn’t classify asura as 23rd century. It is not scifi modernish rl tech. It is MAGICtech. It is golems not robots, Anet have them have what we see as robotic qualities in the way they talk and stuff, but they are definitely golems which fused with magic to live not tech. Their “lazers” are magic.

You can’t really compare Tyrian technology, or that of any fantasy world, to Earth because they have very different histories. Technological development doesn’t follow some kind of set linear progression and wouldn’t always happen the same way. It’s affected by a huge number of factors, including coincidence.

Even if you took Earth back to the start of human civilisation and ran it again it wouldn’t turn out the exact same way. Just look at examples like the Myans, who had a very advanced civilisation for their time but never invented the wheel or cultivated wheat – two discoveries widely regarded as the essential basis of civilisation in the rest of the world.

In some cases things will filter down. For example now the charr have invented motor vehicles it’s probably only a matter of time before someone invents a motorised farm cart. But it also take a long time for new ideas to spread. People didn’t all go out and sell their horses the day cars were invented. I think it’s the same in Tyria. The charr have invented motors but they aren’t available to the majority of people yet and most wouldn’t be interested in changing over if they could because the idea hasn’t yet caught on.

But other things are very much non-linear and require a combination of discoveries or social changes, or just the right people getting involved to come about. If cinematography hadn’t been invented during a period when music hall, plays and other stage shows were extremely popular the potential for a new entertainment medium might have been missed. Tyria seems to have much less of a strong tradition of stage entertainment, so they might not yet have looked at long-range communication as anything more than a practicality.

Tyrian isn’t real
just wants to be be

questions i want to answer
what is magic
(250 years changes a magic)
how does a farmer use bash and smash
(i try and i
get bashed and smashed not mash)
is the bash and smash within me
(i was offered a choice of boots as Ceera wept)
is it in the stuff
(i have no way to use my hands)

Danikat.8537:

You can’t really compare Tyrian technology, or that of any fantasy world, to Earth because they have very different histories. Technological development doesn’t follow some kind of set linear progression and wouldn’t always happen the same way. It’s affected by a huge number of factors, including coincidence.

Absolutely this. Technology develops in accordance with chances and to meet needs – and Tyria doesn’t really have the same needs as anywhere on Earth. Not to mention the fact that they have magic – which, if you think about it, would definitely make less incentive for technological development. Why bother finding a non-magical way of doing things when you can just hire a mage to do it? This is why the charr as so technologically complex: they’d rather not use magic in everyday life.

Tyrian isn’t real
just wants to be be
questions i want to answer
what is magic
(250 years changes a magic)
how does a farmer use bash and smash
(i try and i
get bashed and smashed not mash)
is the bash and smash within me
(i was offered a choice of boots as Ceera wept)
is it in the stuff
(i have no way to use my hands)

What is magic? It’s magic. It changes? Yeah… it’s a natural force that is harnessed by mortals who, let’s be honest, have no idea of the full picture most of the time. What people do with it changes, who those people are changes – and not even by that much, if you think about it.
“How does a farmer use bash and smash?” He’s had a rough life. He does hard farm labour all day, and regularly has his hard-won stores raided by bandits. He’s tough and he has some experience in fighting. He’s no trained warrior, not used to armour or a sword, but he’s not weak – unlike us modern urban types :P

But I don’t know why I’m answering these because you’re being facetious. No one on the lore forums thinks Tyria is real – the whole forum is an exercise in ‘what if’. We’re engaging with a construction, and thinking its premises through.

Curuniel,
I intended no facetious disrespect to Tyrian lore or lore-ist. Please assign any debt of misunderstanding to asperger. Being understood here is worth a second effort since here is where we build canons.
Tyrian isn’t real just wants to be be and with the help of Tyrians can become ever realer
questions i want to answer because complex model building is fun returning run
Science and technology DO follow a trajectory: from fire to the moon! Scitech progresses as Lifetech by innovation and peer review. Magitech has no peers and in the very near future would naturally spread. Perhaps not TV but certainly mobile phones (chat channel canon?).
what is magic is better asked as what have the Asurans learned about Eternal Alchemy, apparently quite a bit
I know Tyria 250 years ago and (250 years changes a magic). Tyrians possessed much more magic than they do today. Consider the nuance of spells and dual professions, they didn’t even need a weapon to wield magic. Consider how not having an auto-attack changes the nature of magitech.
how does a farmer use bash and smash, the skills of a hoe, to farm?
(i try and i get bashed and smashed not mash)
This is where technical response to the topic ends and the original prose becomes philosophical
is the bash and smash within me? Somehow after brilliant story telling, (i was offered a choice of boots as Ceera wept). The effects of Pixeltech, the lore of servers and rewards, changed that moment
perhaps bold to offer but consider offering:
Nothing (A chance to make a hero’s life worth millions is a treasure)
The chain from which the locket hangs
Whizlets, small flash-bangs of Tonn’s design
anyway I digress
is it in the stuff since (i have no way to use my hands)

Various reasons, from personal drive to how their culture develops to how much they’re willing to share. Even on Earth different cultures had different “Levels” of technology, and we’re only so “even” now due to our ability to communicate so well and our willingness to share our discoveries and developments. Think of how different groups were a couple hundered years ago.

What Chess said except that even now technology isn’t evenly distributed. You still have people farming using crude tools that were available over a thousand years ago. There are still places without power. You still have hunter-gatherer tribes in various parts of the developing world. If anything, Tyria is an accurate reflection of the real world.

Then again, it does seem like 15th would be inaccurate for humans. Humans do have airships even though you only see them in Orr. You could argue they’re not really human airships since they were built using technology from different races. You do see waypoints spread throughout the world. Each city also gets its own Asuran portal to Lion’s Arch.

Humans and Charrs simply don´t get Magitech from Azuras because they are in WAR. Charrs even don´t liked azurans (I saw something ingame about two charrs talking about them). Humans was almost lost send to corners in Kryta. One corner they have charrs, the other Centaurs, it hinders a lot contact with other civilizations.

Azurans aren´t the best neighborhood. Their magitech not always is reliable and they tend to show it with a loud bang. They prefer to experiment on other races than talk and give technology to them (Skritts, Silvary) and prefer to be left alone.

Charrs, a segregacionist race. They don´t like anyone and even can eat other races with satisfaction (maybe not the frogs…). If not for the dragons they could stay like this forever.

Norns, they love their life style (me too). Drink, dance, hunt, more drink… It´s hard life but for them it´s pleasant and a good way to honour the spirits.

Sylvaris, a curious and young race, they can adapt well with everything because their relation with the pale tree, the dream and their hive mind. And they come in the beggining of the war with the dragons and the stop with the hostilities between charrs and humans. their curiosity and ingenuity given the time will surpass even the azurans. But at the moment they look happy to adjust everything to their needs.

innovation and peer review force strategic play
If on Tyria as it is on Earth, we tell a story of leavers and takers, predator and prey, hook or by crook
if in redacting, too many left over parts, stories with lower denominators are missing
charr are 100000/9000
armor is 100000/10
eternal alchemy is 100000/3.14

The races have no particular reason to share their technologies, even if they don’t have strong reasons not to; not to mention that people seem to have not really asked. I doubt the humans want to go to the asura and be ‘enkindled’ (so to speak) to a higher level of civilization, they’d rather do things the human way and work their own way up. The Pact does not currently represent a widespread level of technology – everything they have is experimental, a new combination of things. It will probably spread from there, but this kind of combining hasn’t been done before. Plus, they races work on quite different trajectories (magitech, industrial, plant-based, etc.) so it’s not as easy to combine as it might be to combine, say, Russian and American physics work.

What each race develops depends on where they start, and what needs they are addressing. In neither case will any race in Tyria match up to any people on Earth.

Psientist, I no longer understand what you’re trying to say at all.