Guild Wars 2

So going into GW2 I was led to believe the humans were on their last legs. The once dominant race has been pushed out of Elona and Ascalon, shut off from Cantha and now struggles to hold their last remaining nation of Kryta against a threat from within, the centaurs, let alone the fragile treaty with the charr or the looming threat of the Elder Dragons.

Is that story being sold very well when last year we had one of the most extravagant displays of wealth in Tyria, the Queen’s Jubilee, takes place in their capital? Not only did it come with a lavish redesign of a massive section of their city (that’s not very frugal of the Queen) but now the Queen is once again throwing another big party to raise funds for Lion’s Arch. From a story perspective, Guild Wars 2 is still coming across as a game where the humans are still the world leaders and in no way appear to be weak or struggling at all (selling a story about war ravaged people, losing land and struggling to supply troops to the front lines is far from our minds now).

We have five major races in Tyria, the humans, the norn, the charr, the sylvari and the asura, yet the humans and Queen Jennah seem to be the movers and shakers of Tyria (it doesn’t help that so many of the Living Story recurring characters are humans in a franchise that was partly motivated to make a sequel to make it less human-centric).

Does anyone feel like the Living Story in particular is doing a poor job of portraying humanity as a race fighting for survival? At launch we had personal story that covered the dealt with how difficult the war with the centaurs was, in Ebonhawke we explore the difficulties of maintaining that location and fighting all the mobs there. In open world dialogues we see ministers and citizens debating about where the nation’s finances should be best spent, the fight with centaurs, guards within the city or send them off to Ebonhawke. In the Living Story we see Jennah constantly throwing big extravagant parties and acting as the most notable race helping to rebuild Lion’s Arch.

Where are the stories about trying to keep Ebonhawke properly funded? One of the human personal story choices was to be a street rat, so we know there is poverty in Divinity’s Reach and we also know there are displaced people and victims from the war with the centaurs, but the Crown Pavillion seems to shrug all this away.

Does anyone else feel like the Living Story is portraying humanity as one of the strongest of the five major races?

At the start of the game humans were in a bad spot. The centaur forces were right outside of divinity’s reach. Shaemoor was pretty much the last line of defense before the city gates.

During the story the have gained ground however and are not in the state they were when you start the game. So you are right, they are stronger then they seemed at the beginning of the game.

I will admit that the ridiculous display of extravagance that was the Queen’s Pavilion was… odd… and I was badly disappointed that release not to see Riot Alice living up to her name. However, while the Living Story is showing humans to be too well off, to say that they’re on their last legs does the opposite. Yes, as a race they’ve lost a lot of ground across the continent, but that doesn’t mean much when the kingdoms were independent. the fall of Orr didn’t make Kryta’s position any worse, and the searing actually indirectly helped them. Cut to the modern day, and yes, most of their coastal settlements were abandoned, but otherwise they occupy more or less the same amount of territory. People often cite the centaur war, but that’s only as bad as it is on account of elements of the Krytan government deliberately crippling their own army. All in all, Kryta is going through hard times right now, but it is not meaningfully diminished from what it used to be, and actually may be better off than it was in GW1. The other things you cited at the start, the charr and the Elder Dragons, are a potential drain on resources but too distant to be a threat.

Also compare the human nation’s involvement in world events to the charr, norn, sylvari and asuran involvement. It’s not just a case of “is it believable that they would show this level of wealth” but also consider that the other races are not showing the same things. On a world stage, the humans seem to be outspending everyone else.

I wouldn’t say that either. Of course they’re more involved than the norn or the asura, who have no real sense of national unity. And the charr, besides not being the most generous of folk, also have so many problems in their own territory that the entirety of the centaur war must seem like a small skirmish to them. That leaves the sylvari, who I think are more active than the humans- but they have no nation, no taxes to build up a natural treasury, and so no resources to lend to things like rebuilding a city. That leaves the humans. They practically win by default.

I’ll give two examples, one a real world one and one from another work of fiction.

Australia recently announced a national budget which is aiming to reduce debt significantly and in that budget were significant cuts to welfare, pensioners and many government departments and projects were cut. One of the biggest cuts was 80 billion dollars in foreign aid (those people don’t vote). While Australia does not have a large debt at the moment (compared to other countries), its financial wealth is heavily drawn from the export of raw minerals, they call that the “mining boom”. It’s a financial force so strong it plays a big part in the economy (part of why the Financial Crisis didn’t hurt Australia so bad, China still bought Australia’s exports), unfortunately the mining boom is ending and forward planning is needed to ensure the economy is strong in the future. Even without being at war, Australia needs to look at its own spending and the best interests of it’s own people, and part of that cut meant an end to foreign aid.

The other example I will use is from A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. Stop here if you don’t want to read spoilers up to the current season of Game of Thrones. A certain kingdom is able to act as one of the most powerful in the seven kingdoms because they are known as the wealthiest. They recently won a war because the second wealthiest kingdom came to their aid. A current plot in the story is about how the wealthiest kingdom is secretly vulnerable because their mines have run dry (similar to Australia's mining boom ending). This isn't currently known by anyone else but it was foreshadowed when the wealthy kingdom's head of the family was stingy on excessive spending on a royal wedding. Another kingdom (without knowledge of mines running dry) has approached the biggest bank of the world to ask them to financially back them instead of the current kingdom.

I think the other nations have more resources to give than you credit them with. Asurans would be some of the wealthiest because of the asuran gates and WPs. I’m guessing here but sylvari would have to be some of the best at growing produce. I agree norn have no obvious (to me) way to contribute, I still think the humans are poorly portrayed as the wealthiest of nations to aid by a significant margin when so much of their prior story had me thinking otherwise.

Humanity as a whole is “fighting for survival” compared to how much of the world they used to own. Kryta though, seems to be in pretty good shape. Their battle with the centaur goes back and forth which indicates a type of balance and we are seeing diplomats from the centaur which indicates that that kryta could be in an even better position than it has been.

I wouldn’t take the unknown amount of presence of poverty as a sign that the entire kingdom is in trouble. we’d have to see a high level of poverty compared to the level of middle class in order to make that determination.

(mandatory disapproval of how the show added in unnecessary financial filler plots)

The asura are certainly the wealthiest, I don’t deny that, but their government is weak, and more importantly, completely uninterested in the rest of the world. The Arcane Council would like nothing better than for everyone outside the walls of Rata Sum to just up and die. The sylvari may be good with plants, but I can’t imagine them selling in bulk- that would require either businesses or government, and there’s no room for either in sylvari society.

To expand on my previous point, I don’t think Kryta is wealthy, not truly. They’re only the most prominent supporters because their little is better than everyone else’s nothing.

Humanity is in a tight spot but as the Queen’s Jubilee was meant to point out, they’re stillstanding tall. They’ve fallen from their former height – a fall that began with GW1 – but they’re still a major power, and this is shown right off the bat. The war with the centaurs has been doing poorly but they pushed back with Caudecus’ antics lessened (see every human lvl 1-20 personal story, as well as Caudecus’ Manor story) though they’re not gone completely.

ANet just overstated their “down”, while underplaying the “but not out” part.

There was also a centaur in LA saying he was cast out for trying to convince his leader to stop the war with the humans. Because humanity now has a treaty with the Charr they can fully focus on the Centaurs and also use charr weaponry. This is further evidenced by an iron legion charr bombarding a centaur camp in the Harathi Hinterlands.

I believe it was the camp near Recovery Camp Waypoint. Though that Charr might have been a mercenary I’m not sure.

In any case, the war is going poorly for the Centaurs (and good riddance).

Edit: Found him Outcast Qindova

Ok the status seems to be :
Peace treaty with Charr (excellent) – Peace treaty might yet collapse (bad)
Zaitan down (good) – new dragon appears and Kralk is still near Ebonhawke (bad)
Scarlet is gone (good) – she destroyed Kessex Hills (bad)
Centaurs are still outside Divinity’s Reach (bad)
Bandits are rife and have hidden alliances (bad)
Internal politics with the ministry (bad)
Gods are missing (awful) – Zaitan is no longer corrupting the temples (good)
Watchknights are unreliable (bad)
Jennah has no heirs (bad) and has Logan (bad)
The great collapse (bad) is going to reveal something worse eventually

All in all, not looking so good. If anything major happens there will enemies on all sides ready to take advantage.

-Kralk is doing a lot more damage to the Charr than it does to Ebonhawke. Also all the damage kralk did to Ebonhawke in the book mysteriously vanished.
-New dragon has not done anything yet (not good or bad yet)
-Destruction of kessex is indeed bad, but it damaged the centaurs too and Scarlets forces are all but destroyed, it can be restored.
-Centaurs are just outside Divinity’s Reach because zones don’t always change with the
time. If anet removed all the centaurs there then new players would have nothing to
do. Lets keep in mind there’s a certain gameplay-story segration here.
-Bandits are indeed bad but that’s just part of the race nemesis thing. Every race has it.
-Internal politics with the ministry have been mainly taken care off with Caudacus
neutralized. (notice that I said neutralized, not death)
-Gods missing is indeed bad but we can adapt, other races do without gods so can we.
-Watchknights are no longer being used afaik.
-Jennah has no heirs is not really a problem yet, only if she dies before she has an heir.
-The great collapse hasn’t been around for a long time so not sure what you mean by
that.

All in all, not as bad as Anet would have us believe. And lets not forget we also still have Cantha.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

-Centaurs are just outside Divinity’s Reach because zones don’t always change with the
time. If anet removed all the centaurs there then new players would have nothing to
do. Lets keep in mind there’s a certain gameplay-story segration here.

A-net did say in interview that the centaur are not defeated. The war continues to go back and forth. Still, all in all humans are a strong power in the world.

If it’s the interview I think it is, though, they also said that the centaurs had been hit back hard. They’re not out, but they are on the back foot (hoof?) At some stage just before Shaemoor, all those centaur camps were part of a coordinated invasion force that had reached the gates of Divinity’s Reach leaving a few fortified settlements as holdouts – now, it’s the centaur camps that are the holdouts within a territory that is mostly under human control, and the ‘front lines’ are mostly in the Hinterlands.

And as has been pointed out, a lot of Kryta’s problems were caused by Caudecus basically trying to pull a Palpatine – sabotaging the country in order to make the current administration look incompetent, in the hopes that he’ll be seen as the better alternative. That’s the sort of political move you don’t pull unless you’re reasonably certain that when you stop aiding and abetting the country’s enemies, you can deal with the problems you’ve created. Now he’s been partially defanged (by being put in ‘protective custody’ after CM story) Kryta’s in a substantially better position.

Incidentally, for the record:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Cut to the modern day, and yes, most of their coastal settlements were abandoned, but otherwise they occupy more or less the same amount of territory.

Those coastal settlements plus Lion’s Arch represented three out of Kryta’s four most populous provinces back in GW1, and there are indications that the northern provinces – those that now compose Kryta – were considered something of a backwater in that day. You’re also underestimating how much territory it represents – I’d estimate that in real estate terms, Kryta has shrunk by at least a third since GW1, possibly even half.

Actually…. Caudecus might be manipulating the queen into throwing these parties, now that he is right there in her court all the time. Just look at his continuing party in the lower eastern ward with Uzolans music machine. Look at Beetletun itself. The renown heart itself there is all about making the town look good, and thats not just the kid who gives the renown heart, its the mentality of the whole town. And it works. Morale is high, there is a stable income via trade and turism attraction of the carnivals.

The watchknights are very much a factor still though. Unless the Queens Pavilion changed its premise entirely, the mobs and bosses in the pit are still supposed to be watchknights with mesmer illusions cast on them. (havent had the chance to see it though, sometimes they used to lose the illusion when fought.)

They are watchknights again.

editL I doubt Caudecus is manipulating Jennah. She is cunning and that’s why she put him into her protective custody, because then his actions become a lot smaller because of being constantly watched.

Could be. Not making crazy theories here. Its just telling how the Beetletun effect seems to be spreading. Bread and circuses. Even if you dont have enough bread, just add more circuses and it will be fine.

Yeah – I’d have to say I haven’t visited the Pavilion yet, but the premise was certainly that it’s watchknights doing duty as ‘aggressor’ forces.

I was kinda expecting there to have been some update on what the status of the watchknights is with the reopened Pavilion, but it seems they’re being left in limbo.

There was a small note not too long after Scarlet abandoning the pavilion, from the queen telling how she will not abandon the watchknight project, and once they are safe again, Divinity’s reach would see them again, back in the service of humanity. If they are only inside tha Pavilion and not out, lorewise i see no reason for a riot. If they are outside again, posing as the protectors they were introduced as last year, and after they turned into the watchknight nightmares and killed many civilians, i would expect at least a bit of discomfort if not outright riots against them.

Yeah, keeping them in the pavilion is an effective way of keeping them in operation so they can be tested while limiting the risk. It would be good to see an NPC that can discuss their current status, though, even if it’s just a reaffirmation that they’re having the security holes plugged and in the meantime arena use is relatively safe – that would provide more context to any players who missed last event while giving at least some indication that the watchknights will ever have plot significance beyond giving Scarlet an army. (Which, at the moment, I’m a bit cynical about – they’ve got “these only existed to be stolen and then forgotten” written all over them.)

Dustfinger.9510:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

-Centaurs are just outside Divinity’s Reach because zones don’t always change with the
time. If anet removed all the centaurs there then new players would have nothing to
do. Lets keep in mind there’s a certain gameplay-story segration here.

A-net did say in interview that the centaur are not defeated. The war continues to go back and forth. Still, all in all humans are a strong power in the world.

I never claimed they are defeated, I just believe that they shouldn’t be just outside the gates of Divinity’s Reach anymore (lorewise). But I understand they are there for gameplay’s sake.

About the Watchknights, Lord Faren in the pavilion states that he was amongst the noblemenane other overseers who oversaw the Watchknight’s reconstruction and whatnot so that they couldn’t be tampered by outside forces mechanically or magically. So it is touched upon, and right in the middle of the Watchknight presence.

I’m actually more surprised that they aren’t around outside the pavilion – perhaps it is because the thought is that there hasn’t been enough time since Scarlet’s attacks yet. Or as part of the testing to ensure they are safe, which would explain Faren’s presence as the apparently sole noble there.

As to Caudecus manipulating Jennah, I doubt it. Caudecus’s parties and Jennah’s parties are for completely different reasons. Caudecus was after blinding cityfolk from problems with joy. While Jennah is after using celebrations for proclamations of overcoming the threats. One tries to hide the threats that exist, the other highlights them and marks them as overcomeable.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Dustfinger.9510:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

-Centaurs are just outside Divinity’s Reach because zones don’t always change with the
time. If anet removed all the centaurs there then new players would have nothing to
do. Lets keep in mind there’s a certain gameplay-story segration here.

A-net did say in interview that the centaur are not defeated. The war continues to go back and forth. Still, all in all humans are a strong power in the world.

I never claimed they are defeated, I just believe that they shouldn’t be just outside the gates of Divinity’s Reach anymore (lorewise). But I understand they are there for gameplay’s sake.

When a-net said that the war goes back and forth it means that the centaur get driven back as we saw but they also still drive the humans back. it goes back and forth. So lorewise, we don’t know that they are on the way to losing. They simply lost a big battle. But they always come back. that’s why there is events like the seraph and the centaur continually taking and retaking key points like bridges. So the story plays out one point in time where they are driven back. the in game world shows them continually being driven back and them regrouping and coming back. A-net confirmed that the war goes back and forth.