Guild Wars 2

Lines from Ceara escorting us through the instance:

“Red, I’ve always loved the color red.”

“Simply redefine the transmatter vortex. Mother have mercy, I really need to stop hanging around Asuras.”

“Careful there, I’m flamable. Because I’m essentially a tree.”

“Does anyone else have a sense of deja vu, or is that jamais vu? I don’t really know what I’m saying.”

“These really aren’t appropriate working conditions. We should form a worker’s collective.”

“This much power could really go to a person’s head. Get it- power. I’m hilarious.”

“You guys don’t seem like most Asuras, none of you have detailed your past accomplishments, or implied I’m an idiot- and it’s been at least five minutes.”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’ve stopped reading posts like this or responding them — there are just too many loud and strident voices who are sure that their view is correct and I’ve grown weary of repeating the same thing: I’m happy with the evolution of the living story and I like Scarlet as a villain. The current setup allows Tyria to evolve slowly and yet look extremely different to people returning after a few months.

I pay a lot attention to lore and I don’t see anything in terms of story in which major continuity is broken. There is a tendency by many “lore experts” to believe everything said about anything, if it’s in-game. In a good story, lots of people have differing points of view. Just because Pale Tree followers say nice things about the Dream doesn’t mean it’s true; just because Nightmare Courtiers say negative things doesn’t make them wrong.

Consequently, I don’t see anything in the original post that concerns me.

tl;dr Keep up the good work, Bobby Stein and fellow writers. I’m looking forward to more.

Nauseous posts like this make me incredibly sick. These so-called “writers” only look at sappy bootlicking like this to stroke their already-inflated ego and discredit every negative critcism about their cough “work.” Or if they respond to negativity (which started out as well-founded concerns first, and only developed into bashing when they refused to listen for the Nth time), they instantly go turtle-mode, shouting they’re being kittened and begging not to hurt them because they didn’t deserve it.

Why do I get the feeling that the vast majority of their testers are made up of people like you, salivating to the garbage they dump into the game every second week?

Risingashes.8694:

What if: Instead of Scarlet appearing for 5 seconds and monologue-ing at the end of the fractal we were escorted through the instance by a young Sylvari called Ceara. Fresh out of the academy we and Ceara battle through the facility to get her to the core, that she explains she has the knowledge to prevent from going supernova.

She helps us with tips for the puzzles, and explains why a Sylvari is in a place you’d expect only to have Asura (actually get some of that short story in to the game).

You battle the anomaly with Ceara’s help. She explains that the facility was built too close to magic laylines, and future facilities should be built as far away as possible.

You bid the helpful Sylvari farewell, and are able to talk to her after the rest of the party leaves for some backstory/foreshadowing.

well the main issue is that if you were fighting the anomaly with her she’d most likely be dead because once that thing goes down the whole reactor blows.

Durzlla.6295:

well the main issue is that if you were fighting the anomaly with her she’d most likely be dead because once that thing goes down the whole reactor blows.

That seems like a very strange issue you have there. You’re escorting her to the core to stop it from blowing up entirely. Something which didn’t happen originally because you weren’t there.

Originally Ceara stayed where she was, and got out of Dodge. But regardless of that, even if you pretended Fractals actually happened, she could easily get out from what the current setup was. Even if it’s just: “You fight the instability, I’ll try and deal with the reactor from the control room.”

Just a very strange issue. I’m more equipped to deal with “No, you’re idea is stupid because it’s stupid.”

Risingashes.8694:

What if: Instead of Scarlet appearing for 5 seconds and monologue-ing at the end of the fractal we were escorted through the instance by a young Sylvari called Ceara. Fresh out of the academy we and Ceara battle through the facility to get her to the core, that she explains she has the knowledge to prevent from going supernova.

She helps us with tips for the puzzles, and explains why a Sylvari is in a place you’d expect only to have Asura (actually get some of that short story in to the game).

You battle the anomaly with Ceara’s help. She explains that the facility was built too close to magic laylines, and future facilities should be built as far away as possible.

You bid the helpful Sylvari farewell, and are able to talk to her after the rest of the party leaves for some backstory/foreshadowing.

I like it! I like it a lot.

Ok I have stayed up all night thinking about the living story and scarlet and the fractals and the recent lore direction. I have finally figured it all out.  It all makes sense when you realise that:

Scarlet = Kim kardashian

Anet = kanye west. 

Consequently the recent living story = http://m.youtube.com/index?&desktop_uri=%2F#/watch?v=BBAtAM7vtgc

I’m glad Bobby came in to read and reply to this thread. I think a lot of players have difficulty understanding how a lot of the story is planned out in advance. Players feel frustrated when they complain about Scarlet, only to have her pop up again in the latest Living Story. It makes them think that their complaints are being ignored, when in fact it just takes a lot more time to turn the boat around.

It’s pointless to hate the writers, and demand that they be fired, or something along those lines. That sort of bile is unconstructive, and ignores the fact that the writers love the game just as much as we do. They are trying to create a fun story all of us can enjoy.

That said, it is my personal opinion that perhaps a one-villain approach simply doesn’t work well for the monthly release schedule. It makes any villain feel like a villain-of-the-week. Players become too focused on this one character, and feel like she is being thrown in their face with each new Living Story installment. Personally I would rather interact with more characters, both good and bad. Not every villain has to be a bad guy you fight. And not every bad guy has to be a saturday morning cartoon villain, that always gets away (The Shredder or Dr Claw stereotype). By mixing up the number of characters we interact with, we become less focused on just this one villain (Scarlet) and it opens up a broader story with multiple angles.

For example, I liked receiving the letters of Mr E. It lead to a lot of speculation, and I’m glad the mystery hasn’t been revealed yet. That is the sort of stuff that works.

I feel like Darmikau’s post was great. That being said, I also feel like somebody saying on the forums that a writer should be fired, should result in an immediate forum ban. It goes against everything the CDI initiative stands for, and its honestly just trolling. People care a great deal about their jobs, and calling for somebody to lose their job is so destructive to a person’s peace of mind and self confidence… especially on a forum of the company they work at. Its gotta be tough not to take something really personally when its directed in that manner.

SingularityEclipse.4796:

I know they said they had Scarlet planned out as early as the elections, but what they didn’t say was that she was necessary to both sides. Maybe there were two villains planned, and Scarlet was the one assigned to that arc, while another with a whole different living story arc was planned in the event of a win by Evon. never know… but that might mean that Scarlet would not be in an Abaddon fractal..

Scarlet had been mentioned in the LS arc that triggered the election, so I doubt that they would have been able to break off and run an entirely different villain first if we had voted the other way.

To the people who’ve been saying Scarlet should just be aborted right now: Keep in mind that the development cycle is four months… and many people have commented that it seems ANet could do with a longer cycle. If they pulled the plug on Scarlet as people have been saying, that would mean that the holes in the update schedule left by the Scarlet arc will either need to be filled in by rushed content or we’ll have no updates there at all as the development teams have to restart from scratch.

It does seem likely to me that, if the Scarlet arc isn’t finished in four months, it will at least be close enough to it that we might as well finish it off properly and give the next arc that much more time for ArenaNet to work it out in advance and, hopefully, avoid repeating the problems that the Scarlet arc has had.

And on the criticisms on how ArenaNet has been responding to criticism: I’m a little of two minds here. Personal attacks are unjustified and should be discouraged – in fact, there have been some posts where I think Bobby is showing thick skin by not pointing them at a moderator and getting the poster infracted. On the other hand, I was perturbed to see a post in one of the CDI threads to the effect that a poster who’d shown a track record of negative posting might get ignored – it’s one thing to not respond well to hostility (it’s human nature), it’s another to disregard someone who’s expressing their concerns politely because they’ve vented elsewhere.

On the gripping hand, though, we have had a response to the effect that they’ve acknowledged that the Scarlet story has had its shortcomings and that they’ll try to do better next time. At this stage, I’m really not sure what else we can really ask for – we can judge how well they’ve kept that pledge when next October rolls around and we’ll hopefully be able to look back on Scarlet as a complete package along with the opening stages of the next arc.

Speaking of the complete package, it’s entirely possible that it will prove to be of plot significance that Scarlet was at the Thaumanova disaster – of minor enough significance that they could have revealed it in another fashion if Evon had won the election, but still significant enough that having the Thaumanova fractal without her appearing would have created a bigger plothole later on. Thinking on it, in fact, her presence there might actually explain some of the things she’s been pulling off since – such as her ability to summon steam creatures and open portals in random places in general. Let’s see where this is going – in a few months, we may be looking back at this as the start of the turnaround.

BobbyStein.2315:

Dott.5672:

I think ANet needs to fire Bobby and everyone else on the lore team right now and rethink everything they’re doing, because Bobby and his buddies only know one way to advance the “plot” at this point:
SCARLET DID IT.

Everyone is tired of it. The few who aren’t never give any good reasons they like Scarlet beyond “lol shes crazy crazy is kewl”

Hey, Dott. I get that you’re passionate about the game and that you’re not a fan of Scarlet but you’re not living up to the collaborative spirit of the forums. I’d take your feedback a lot more seriously if you weren’t so hostile and personal with your comments. Let’s keep things civil here.

I’d say a lot of that hostility comes from frustration though I agree people should be constructive in their criticism. Then again, cholerics exists so…

As for the topic… I think most of the anger comes from Scarlet character itself. Problem is a lot of players see her character as shallow. I’ll admit I don’t like her myself – she just seems too overpowered. Nothing we do in game really hurts her – we manage to uncover her tower and actually invade it, ah doesn’t matter because she knew that would happen anyway I guess… I get it, villains need some success in order to be threatening but Scarlet just comes of as someone who is trying too hard to look threatening.
Also, constant alliances come off as a little lazy and makes an experience of that particular part of LS a little worse even if the content itself is good. I think if she was a good villain no one (well almost) would mind her in Thaumanova fractal.
Just my opinion though and I’ll not go so far as to personally attack anyone. At the end of the day it’s just a game and I still enjoy playing it. Although good story would make the experience better by far.

I think what they could do, is simply have Scarlet be defeated. Maybe not have her be killed, but have her be arrested and thrown in jail. Then you could hint at darker tidings which Scarlet refuses to talk about. Sort of like what Nolan’s The Dark Knight did with the Joker (he also got arrested eventually, only to escape again). It’s realistic to have the villain fail every now and then.

Usually when I write a villain for like say a DnD campaign, the villain tends to get rounded up pretty quickly. Then I place the players in a situation where they actually have to work together with the villain to achieve mutual goals. Or maybe the villain is set free by an ally of the players, for reasons unknown, and this turns this ally into a villain instead.

So imagine this scenario: We defeat Scarlet, and Kiel has her thrown in jail. A week later, Scarlet is visited by Queen Jennah, who talks to her in private. Weeks later she is set free by the demand of Queen Jennah, without a reason given. Kiel protests this, and goes rogue to hunt down Scarlet. Kiel becomes an outlaw, and Scarlet becomes a grayish villain. Jennah keeps her reason for setting Scarlet free a secret, and this leads to more mystery. As the new Living Story progresses, Scarlet occasionally drops in as villain or ally, but is no longer the main focus of the story.

Arewn.2368:

If they started work on the fractal in august (as they recently stated they did), the part where they actually implemented Scarlet in there was far off from August.

Depends on when they get the voice acting done for the releases. If they get it done the first month, then no it would be done during August. if they get it done in the first or second month into – this case being September or October – then it would have been off from August.

However, in this particular case, to play the Devil’s Advocate, do keep in mind that initial responses were mixed between “she’s awful” and “she’s great” with a good deal of the latter changing their minds because the qualities they like make her a 5-minute wonder (because she lacks depth). Thanks to the break we had from her in September, ArenaNet couldn’t pull meaningful long-lasting feedback about Scarlet until Twilight Assault had passed, meaning mid-October was when they got better feedback thanks to that break. Meaning that if they were past the no-going-back point for the fractal at that point, then they couldn’t change it even if they wanted to.

Initial feedback only goes so far in being valuable, because a lot of people tend to have a new view on things upon a return – initial feedback is too heavily influenced by expectations they had going in, and the content being compared to said expectations rather than being judged for its own worth.

Thobek.1730:

I also want to hear about these “reveals” from Dunan Atreides. What did I miss that was so revealing to the mystery of the Thaumanova Reactor??

Quite a lot, actually. Most are just new questions to be asked, though.

• Dessa’s nature and the whole “she cannot leave” concept, and a bit of her history. Some answers, some questions.
• Thaumanova was indeed studying dragon energy as was theorized.
• In-game mention of the ley lines, as well as one location about where they criss-cross, and on top of that the kind of things that can happen if you experiment with powerful or uncontrollable magic (dragon energy/chaos magic respectively) on top of these ley lines (or at least where they criss-cross). The explosion was caused by the experiments happening on the ley lines, not the experiments themselves.
• Thaumanova’s Anomaly – the end boss. This is mainly a question: experimentations on chaos magic and dragon energy for some reason results in a humanoid lightning-made being? Possibly a djinn (it resembled the air djinns from Nightfall – who were paragons, thus spear throwers much like the Anomaly) or possibly something else.
• That giant shining orb at the very end where you get the chest.
• Subject 6 – whom functions like Subject 7 from the Queen’s Gauntlet. Gives a bit of possible history of Subject 7.

And that’s just the obvious stuff. Scarlet was there for maybe 30 seconds, and her ties was only that she was the specialist brought in, and didn’t bother to stop the explosion – possibly even tampered with it to push it to the brink.

spiritus.7983:

how old is scarlet anyway? must be less then 20 years. I think the pale tree is 20 years old. Never did fractals but I heared she pop in the last fractals update, she even was alive back then?… not to mention if was the abandon fractals, lol. fractals suppose to be old?.. I’m bad at lore :/

The sylvari race is 24 years old now (current year being 1326). And she’s not a Firstborn, and unlikely to be Secondborn. Her history points to at least 15 years of age, and the Secondborn are roughly 7 years younger than the Firstborn (exact # of years unknown).

We don’t know when the Thaumanova exploded, but it was a recent event. Likely happened in 1324 if not 1325 (same year the game began). So yes, Scarlet was alive when Thaumanova exploded. Unlike the Fall of Abaddon, it is not an ancient event.

Risingashes.8694:

What if: Instead of Scarlet appearing for 5 seconds and monologue-ing at the end of the fractal we were escorted through the instance by a young Sylvari called Ceara. Fresh out of the academy we and Ceara battle through the facility to get her to the core, that she explains she has the knowledge to prevent from going supernova.

She helps us with tips for the puzzles, and explains why a Sylvari is in a place you’d expect only to have Asura (actually get some of that short story in to the game).

You battle the anomaly with Ceara’s help. She explains that the facility was built too close to magic laylines, and future facilities should be built as far away as possible.

You bid the helpful Sylvari farewell, and are able to talk to her after the rest of the party leaves for some backstory/foreshadowing.

Would have definitely preferred this.

If the explosion was that old (she hasn’t been Ceara for a few years).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think what they could do, is simply have Scarlet be defeated. Maybe not have her be killed, but have her be arrested and thrown in jail. Then you could hint at darker tidings which Scarlet refuses to talk about. Sort of like what Nolan’s The Dark Knight did with the Joker (he also got arrested eventually, only to escape again). It’s realistic to have the villain fail every now and then.

Usually when I write a villain for like say a DnD campaign, the villain tends to get rounded up pretty quickly. Then I place the players in a situation where they actually have to work together with the villain to achieve mutual goals. Or maybe the villain is set free by an ally of the players, for reasons unknown, and this turns this ally into a villain instead.

So imagine this scenario: We defeat Scarlet, and Kiel has her thrown in jail. A week later, Scarlet is visited by Queen Jennah, who talks to her in private. Weeks later she is set free by the demand of Queen Jennah, without a reason given. Kiel protests this, and goes rogue to hunt down Scarlet. Kiel becomes an outlaw, and Scarlet becomes a grayish villain. Jennah keeps her reason for setting Scarlet free a secret, and this leads to more mystery. As the new Living Story progresses, Scarlet occasionally drops in as villain or ally, but is no longer the main focus of the story.

Agreed. Or at least let us wound her pride or corner her. Desperate villains tend to do the most shocking things.

Durzlla.6295:

well the main issue is that if you were fighting the anomaly with her she’d most likely be dead because once that thing goes down the whole reactor blows.

That actually isn’t an issue at all.

Fractals are imperfect re-creations.

Hell, can we even be 100% certain Scarlet was even at Thaumanova truly? Answer: Nope.

Donut.6914:

….

I’m really curious though, if we had gotten the Abaddon fractal, would Scarlet still be involved? I’m starting to think the elections really were rigged, I just don’t see how Scarlet could have anything to do with Abaddon.

Bobby, if you are able to clarify what the Abaddon fractal contained, that would be pretty cool. Thanks.

Abaddon = Chaos Energy,
thats the link with Scarlet Briar. Maybe she would take control of Dessa Engine to study Abaddon and we would try to prevent this.

Sat browsing this topic, very intrigued by the replies to the original question.
Konig again nails the replies.

Yes, lore matters.
No, a writer mustn’t retcon unnecessarily, nor should he or she ever overwrite existing lore for convenience.
No, I do not believe Scarlet can still be retconned anymore. What we can give her though…

Celestina.2894:

Listen, I actually like Scarlet, but Christ enough is enough Bobby. Either give us a bit of a break from her, or hurry and finish her arch.

I’d love to see her go down in a great manner. A good battle, a worthy ending of a “worthless” villain, like so many people say. Make it worthwhile, and move on to the old lore.

As Dunan Atreides.5436 mentioned earlier in the thread, a lot of things are being buried under the Scarlet hatred. I’m not a fan of Scarlet either, but I really want to try and like the newly released content. The character just distracts so heavily. A shame, since it does have a lot of potential.
The gameplay is still enjoyable, too. And the old lore is still there.

Also adding this one, to highlight one of the main issues I have with Scarlet:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It’s realistic to have the villain fail every now and then.

If she fails, she lollers about it. She doesn’t care. Or if she did, suddenly turns 180 degrees for no apparent reason to act “cool” about it.
Please, let her suffer a true failure before eradicating her from the story completely.
I know a lot of this was pre-written and pre-planned, for the sake of programming, voice acting and so forth, but… yeah.

I don’t see where all of the confusion about the lore is coming from. Here’s a handy infographic that will explain everything from here on out:

http://imgflip.com/i/52eqi

Realization just dawned on me. Scarlet is the Lich King from WoW:WotLK. During leveling the writers wanted the players to have a lot of interaction with the LK in order to create a reason to loathe him in order for the heroes to WANT to defeat him. He comes off as ridiculously overpowered and you cant even scratch him, he also just escapes when you manage to harm him a little. You cant even fight him till death until the FINAL unlock of the entire expansion. The difference between scarlet and LK is that the players KNEW the lore behind LK, in fact played as him during founding in WC3, he wasn’t just retconned in, he was known and a known threat to all existence. With the introduction of Scarlet not only have we NEVER heard of her before, we also do not know the extent of her abilities, so we do not see her as a threat as we did with the LK bringing destruction to the entire planet. We have no reason to fear or hate her as a villain and want to bring her to justice. The writers are attempting to do this now with the LS. The LS is like the story between Personal Story; the PS deal with new dragons and progress the personal story with the LS being everything to do in between. The writers WROTE a story and are trying to bring it to fruition and give you a reason to HATE scarlet and to FEAR her… its just taking to dam long for us to see her as a threat; that’s what the writers tried to implement with the Divinity Reach arc. The problem is we as players do not have the same feelings for DR as home as the NPCs do and don’t really see the fall of DR a big deal or that Scarlet COULD do more.

Basically we can’t gauge the scope of the threat, but the writers/devs do, so they see scarlet as this big bad boss Joker to be defeated, where we see Harley Quinn. Now i may be wrong and she may be the harley to a more kitten joker, but that needed to be established early in the lore or we just fought an underling for more than a year and feel like we just wasted most of our time chasing phantoms.

TL;DR; We as players do not see scarlet as a threat and therefore do not regard her as a villain to be slain, but as a nuisance to be tolerated.

Risingashes.8694:

Durzlla.6295:

well the main issue is that if you were fighting the anomaly with her she’d most likely be dead because once that thing goes down the whole reactor blows.

That seems like a very strange issue you have there. You’re escorting her to the core to stop it from blowing up entirely. Something which didn’t happen originally because you weren’t there.

Originally Ceara stayed where she was, and got out of Dodge. But regardless of that, even if you pretended Fractals actually happened, she could easily get out from what the current setup was. Even if it’s just: “You fight the instability, I’ll try and deal with the reactor from the control room.”

Just a very strange issue. I’m more equipped to deal with “No, you’re idea is stupid because it’s stupid.”

But fractals are essentially reliving events in the past, granted they do have anomalies and are not exactly as they happened (just look at the MF and AR fractals, they confirm this), but they wouldn’t have THAT drastic of a change, the reactor blowing up is a MAJOR event in the world of Tyria, the fractal wouldn’t show us a version (which would clearly be in an alternate Tyria) where it didn’t blow up.

Keep in mind, we aren’t actually there, we were turned into inquest members for that fractal because inquest were the ones in charge of the blow up. I’d bet that the inquest cooled down the reactor enough that Scarlet (while she was still inquest) could get core readings and other information from the console and then leave to share the information with the other inquest, which eventually got to Kudu who built CoE off of a Leyline crossing…

I don’t know why this whole Scarlet thing surprises anyone.

I mean, nearly the same thing happened with GW1 with Abaddon. He was rewritten to be behind not just Nightfall, but the Searing and Shiro as well. Same major players in the dev team too.

Obsidian.1328:

I don’t know why this whole Scarlet thing surprises anyone.

I mean, nearly the same thing happened with GW1 with Abaddon. He was rewritten to be behind not just Nightfall, but the Searing and Shiro as well. Same major players in the dev team too.

I was about to make the same comparison, but at least “blame” an ex human God of all that and then do the same but now with just a Sylvari prodigy is kinda weird.
Also we only knew that Abaddon was behind it all in the end, along the way the story didn’t open much doubts and could be finished without the add of Abaddon.

Obsidian.1328:

I don’t know why this whole Scarlet thing surprises anyone.

I mean, nearly the same thing happened with GW1 with Abaddon. He was rewritten to be behind not just Nightfall, but the Searing and Shiro as well. Same major players in the dev team too.

Abaddon was behind the Titans’ power, but he didn’t convince the Charr to worship the Titans, and he didn’t convince the Charr to cause the Searing. Shiro is more of a stretch as to what, exactly, Abaddon stood to gain from subverting him.

That said, the difference between Scarlet and Abaddon is immense. The point isn’t what they’re behind, obviously large villains are behind a lot of things. A massive part is who they are. Abaddon was a god. He was vengeful, powerful, and in a lot of ways believable. A lot of people sympathize with Abaddon because his original motivations could be believed: he wanted to gift magic to the race of humans, a story founded in the tale of Prometheus. As human players, this obviously resonates in a way that says “you know, he might be evil, but he was originally looking out for us.”

Scarlet has none of this. She’s not a god, her dialogue is poorly written, we still don’t know her motivations (if any), and she’s not believable. She showed up out of nowhere to cause a bunch of chaos for no reason, and the only background we have on her is “she’s super special and smart and learned from all the races.” There’s nothing believable or interesting about her.

Even the minions they use having different standings in the lore. The Margonites were ancient seafarers who attempted to ascend to the Gods and were cast down, so they turned to Abaddon. They were formerly people, turned bitter and driven insane by power.

Who are the Aetherblades? We still don’t know where they come from or why they’re following Scarlet. Their appearance and weaponry is steampunk-esque in a high fantasy setting which is completely out of place. This is part of an overarching problem with a lot of the story and lore so far in Guild Wars 2. It doesn’t use the world itself, it keeps inventing new things. In every mission in Guild Wars 1 there was some kind of set piece that made sense in the history of the world. The ancient spirits of Tahnakkai, the weapons of Archemorus and St. Viktor, the Druids of Maguuma forest, the Great Wurms of Joko. It all intertwines richly into the histor yof the world and made for a compelling story. Guild Wars 2, so far, relies primarily on introducing things that have no conceivable place in the world. The Molten Alliance is another terrible offender – Flame Legion would never listen to Scarlet (a non-Charr, non-male person) and would never ally with an inferior race (Dredge). Charr by their nature are self-reliant. So even when the story DOES try and use given set pieces, they can’t even remain consistent with their own lore.

But I’m digressing. Back to the original point, the main issues is that while Scarlet and Abaddon share the similarity in that they’re a “mastermind” type being, their executions and believability are vastly different. That’s why a huge number of players want Scarlet gone, and yet those same players revere Abaddon and wanted more of him (through Fractals).

Darmikau.9413:

-snip-

Oh I agree they are very different in character and motives. My point was simply that the same people who gave us “Abaddon’s behind everything” are the same ones who gave us Scarlet. Up until EotN or perhaps Nightfall, there was nothing in the lore that implied Abaddon was behind Shiro(and I mean indirectly through the fortuneteller), the Titans, or the Cataclysm. That stuff was inserted into the lore post-script. The core of the dev team now got their start with Nightfall and EotN. If you look at it that way Scarlet makes more sense, unfortunately so.

I’m disappointed in the Thaumanova fractal from a lore perspective, and here’s why: we didn’t really learn much of anything new.

We already surmised that the Inquest was behind the explosion. We had already guessed they were trying to work with elder dragon energies based on parallels to the Crucible of Eternity. Most of us guessed (or feared) that Scarlet would be a factor. All we learned or can guess from this fractal are the following:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS – DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE THE THAUMANOVA FRACTAL
What we knowDessa was once a member of the Inquest. Mistlock Observatory itself is a fractal. Scarlet advised the Inquest in their research and they didn't listen to her, but somehow maybe that was her plan all along (because isn't it always?).

And I think that’s it.

That’s a pretty puny lore payoff in my opinion.

Am I wrong? Did I miss something? I sure hope so, because otherwise, I’m not thrilled. Sure the fractal itself is fun, but I wanted a juicier bit of lore to go with it.

Risingashes.8694:

Lines from Ceara escorting us through the instance:

“This much power could really go to a person’s head. Get it- power. I’m hilarious.”

Or for more foreshadowing something like:
“(Ceara mumbles to herself for a second) Oh! Do forgive me, I didn’t remember you were here. Sometimes I see a problem and I get so focused, as if everything else doesn’t matter.”

I would have liked such an idea.

Tupi.2967:

Abaddon = Chaos Energy,
thats the link with Scarlet Briar. Maybe she would take control of Dessa Engine to study Abaddon and we would try to prevent this.

I fail to see how Abaddon = Chaos Energy. If any of the gods holds ties to chaos magic, it is Lyssa, not the god of secrets and water.

There was never anything tied to chaos about Abaddon.

Obsidian.1328:

Darmikau.9413:

-snip-

Oh I agree they are very different in character and motives. My point was simply that the same people who gave us “Abaddon’s behind everything” are the same ones who gave us Scarlet. Up until EotN or perhaps Nightfall, there was nothing in the lore that implied Abaddon was behind Shiro(and I mean indirectly through the fortuneteller), the Titans, or the Cataclysm. That stuff was inserted into the lore post-script. The core of the dev team now got their start with Nightfall and EotN. If you look at it that way Scarlet makes more sense, unfortunately so.

The issue – as I see it – is less that Scarlet is behind everything, and more that Scarlet is just a poor quality character. People, mistakenly, say that Scarlet being behind things is the bad part when it’s not – not entirely.

The huge difference between “Abaddon did it” and “Scarlet did it” is that what Abaddon was behind was all the demonic attacks – or rather, the major demonic attacks. And this made sense – he was imprisoned in the Mists, in a realm which the demons would thrive in. Scarlet, however, is behind alliances that don’t really make sense (krait + Nightmare Court) and is presented without any faults. Abaddon had faults, had strengths, and had redeeming value. Scarlet just has strengths. That is the biggest difference, alongside the fact that what Scarlet is behind doesn’t make sense half the time.

Scarlet being part of Thaumanova actually does make sense. People are kittening and moaning about her ties to Thaumanova because her character is so poor.

As to Abaddon being behind Shiro: not entirely so. As early as the development of Factions, ArenaNet had given indications of a powerful force behind events – the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, Dragon Festival’s invasion, and Shiro. Suun outright states that there was something more at stake than we had knowledge of with Shiro’s threat. Abaddon wasn’t really shoehorned in – no more than Scarlet was with the Molten Alliance. In both cases, we knew there was an underlying forces, we just didn’t know who or what it was – and it’s possible that ArenaNet hadn’t finalized what was that underlying force just yet. But we knew there was some underlying force nonetheless.

Abaddon was only put in behind the events of Prophecies (Khilbron and Titans specifically). He was always behind t he events of things after Prophecies.

biggs.4702:

We had already guessed they were trying to work with elder dragon energies based on parallels to the Crucible of Eternity.

But at least we got confirmation. Before, it was only speculation.

biggs.4702:

All we learned or can guess from this fractal are the following:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS – DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE THE THAUMANOVA FRACTAL
What we knowDessa was once a member of the Inquest. Mistlock Observatory itself is a fractal. Scarlet advised the Inquest in their research and they didn't listen to her, but somehow maybe that was her plan all along (because isn't it always?).

And I think that’s it.

That’s a pretty puny lore payoff in my opinion.

Am I wrong? Did I miss something? I sure hope so, because otherwise, I’m not thrilled. Sure the fractal itself is fun, but I wanted a juicier bit of lore to go with it.

You are very wrong.

Firstly, nothing says Dessa was former Inquest – just that she knows folks who were Inquest. We also learn:

• Dessa cannot leave the Mistlock Observatory, and we learned what happens if she tries. We also know that she didn’t know Thaumanova had exploded (not too surprising).
• There’s the nature of the Thaumanova Anomaly to question.
• There’s Subject 6 – likely connected to Subject 7 from the Queen’s Gauntlet.
• There’s the ley lines, though we knew they existed we now got in-game mention of them, as well as a location where they criss-cross and by extension knowledge that they aren’t at the Infinite Coil Reactor, and we also know what happens if you experiment with chaos magic/dragon energy (and/or) over them. This is perhaps the most important aspect.
• We know what caused the explosion (the above experimentation on top of ley lines).
• There’s also that odd shining sphere at the end of the fractal to question.

We get just as many questions as we do answers.

Konig

I totally agree with your reasons why Scarlet is both different and…erm…suckier than Abaddon. I’d argue the “force behind Shiro” point though. Having a name for the man behind the curtain, and simply knowing there’s “something” behind it all, are two different things. Sure ANet may have some glimmering idea of a bigger fish pulling the strings, and meant to implement it later, but I don’t think who exactly that was supposed to be was finalized until Nightfall personally. Or at least until development was underway for it.

It’s one thing to have a vague understanding of a great power behind the main plot of that campaign. It’s quite another to solidly tie that in with the other two campaigns. They could have used a lot of possibilities really, but they chose to go with the Abaddon theme.

I do not disagree with your statement there Obisidian, and if you read my full post you’d realize that I even mentioned that as a possibility. But they didn’t retcon Abaddon in or shoehorn in him or whatever. They created a space for him, and they created that “man behind the curtain” – Abaddon existed at the time, but yet “Abaddon” did not exist.

It’s a Schrödinger’s cat kind of situation. They created some mysterious threat-behind-the-threat figure, but they didn’t specify it. This gave them leeway for what direction to go with it, but the figure was there. Abaddon had existed in lore since before Faction’s release – with the changes to Tombs of the Primeval Kings. It’s just that the figure which became Abaddon was not yet called Abaddon, to players at least and likely in development.

So it was no retcon or what-have-you for Shiro’s case. It can arguably be so for Khilbron’s and the Titan’s case (though without comment from the developers, we cannot really be absolutely certain). It’s just that – like the figure behind the Molten Alliance – we knew there was some kind of threat there. We just didn’t have a name or face for it.

“Abaddon” existed no later than December 2005 (first mentions of Tomb of the Primeval Kings’ changes). But “Abaddon” did not exist until August 2006 (Nightfall’s release). Schrödinger’s cat situation.

Wait, so your saying that you think the force behind the Fortuneteller was always going to be Abaddon? And that perhaps the long tale of Abaddon was in fact the result of this as-yet-unnamed force in Factions?

Why couldn’t it simply have been someone or something else behind the Teller, and still keep the current Abaddon story in Nightfall?

By that name? No. But it was rather clear that there was some force behind Shiro and possibly the Fortune Teller. The mention by Suun after Shiro’s defeat that I quoted before as well as the following line from An Empire Divided: “But somewhere along the way, dark forces corrupted Shiro Tagachi, forces that he sought out against the laws of his empire and his gods. He learned the ways of forbidden sorcery and engaged in studies and rituals well beyond the disciplines of the Assassin. He found that these taboo powers were second nature to him, and the darkest forms of magic were the easiest of all.” all pretty much screamed “there’s someone behind Shiro’s actions!”

Honestly, initially I thought it to be Dhuum. It could have easily have been someone or something else behind the Teller. But my point is that it was known that someone was behind Shiro. Who it was wasn’t revealed until Nightfall. Nonetheless, it is a fact that Abaddon was no more retconned into being behind Shiro as Scarlet was retconned into being behind the Molten Alliance – unlike your claim.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Scarlet being part of Thaumanova actually does make sense. People are kittening and moaning about her ties to Thaumanova because her character is so poor.

Can I offer an alternative? Rather than her ‘character’ being poor- isn’t it really the way she’s presented.

Her character is a rebellious genius, obsessed with freeing people from destiny, but losing sight of the individuals she’s trying to free in the process. She’s shunned by her equals, and shuns those who actually respect her.

She knows horrible secrets to the point where the only way to function is to turn everything in to a game.

The character seems fine to me, the problem is the presentation. All we see from Scarlet is meaningless goodbyes, where she says the same thing in different packaging. “Goodbye, this is exactly as I expected HAHAHA”.

We know nothing about her history, we’ve never worked together, we don’t have any reason to feel that she hasn’t always been this way. In short we have no connection to her at all, and since we never know what she is thinking- only what she is doing- we’ll never have a chance to form a connection from the format of interactions we keep being subjected to.

Ask yourself this: would you have rather been escorted through the facility by Ceara who was a young intern in the facility after graduating from Statics? If so then is it the ‘character’ of Scarlet that is the problem or the presentation.

Umm, Konig, doesn’t Dessa refer to the deceased Inquest guys as her ex krewe mates (at least the female one for sure), thus hinting strongly towards the idea that Dessa herself was Inquest at least for some time?

Risingashes.8694:

Can I offer an alternative? Rather than her ‘character’ being poor- isn’t it really the way she’s presented.

Same thing.

Risingashes.8694:

She’s shunned by her equals, and shuns those who actually respect her.

Wait, what? She’s not shunned by anyone. That’s part of why her character is poor. Every NPC seems to do what she says, regardless of how stubborn or xenophobic they are otherwise presented to be.

Risingashes.8694:

She knows horrible secrets to the point where the only way to function is to turn everything in to a game.

That’s more of just her pure insanity. And yes, it’s officially stated that she’s bonkers.

Risingashes.8694:

We know nothing about her history

We actually know a good bit about her history. Most of it, in fact, up to the point where she started calling herself Scarlet Briar.

zwierz.9012:

Umm, Konig, doesn’t Dessa refer to the deceased Inquest guys as her ex krewe mates (at least the female one for sure), thus hinting strongly towards the idea that Dessa herself was Inquest at least for some time?

Nothing hints or imply that they were her krewe mates while they were part of the Inquest. We know nothing of their history to assume that Dessa was Inquest because former krewe mates were Inquest at the time of their death.

Do keep in mind the nature of krewes – they disband once the project ends and they join a new krewe. Dessa could have been in 20+ krewes before being part of the Mistlock Observatory.

Good point, Konig, thanks! I was just wandering

Eh, I never said they created “a force” behind the Teller after-the-fact. Only that they hadn’t decided on that force being Abaddon until later.

Deciding to have some vague, unnamed villain behind the curtains is one thing. Deciding to make that villain the same one in the current story you’re working on(Nightfall) is quite another.

It’s not a “Schrodinger’s Cat” scenario if you don’t know it’s a cat in the box until you open it later. It’s “Schrodinger’s Creature” I guess. lol

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Same thing.

It most certainly isn’t, because the solutions are the polar opposite of one another. A bad character needs to be shot in the head and forgotten about. Bad presentation requires identification of why presentation is failing, and what methods can be used to fix it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Wait, what? She’s not shunned by anyone. That’s part of why her character is poor. Every NPC seems to do what she says, regardless of how stubborn or xenophobic they are otherwise presented to be.

Seems. We’ve never actually seen the interactions between Scarlet and others. We’ve only ever seen her appear after everyone is dead and then say something approximating to “I’ll get you next time Gadget, hahaha!”

We’ve never seen her before the insanity. I’d imagine the Asuras weren’t exactly nice to her, despite the fact they begrudgingly let her in. But we never see anything like this. So ‘seem’ is just another problem with presentation. Until we actually see we don’t know whether it’s a problem with her character or not.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

That’s more of just her pure insanity. And yes, it’s officially stated that she’s bonkers.

Which is a very boring interpretation. Just because she’s nuts doesn’t mean she doesn’t see a greater truth. I think you’ve got a fairly limiting understanding of what insanity is both in real life and as a dramatic storytelling device.

We actually know a good bit about her history.

The same way “He went to jail. Then was released.” Is us knowing the history of Nelson Mandela. Descriptions of facts and some trippy dream-scape vagueness is what we have. It’s a nice short story but it’s hardly appropriate as the sole source of Ceara knowledge.

We’re playing a game here, and the mechanisms used to tell the story of one of the main characters makes no use of the actual game. That doesn’t count as knowing, just as a fanfic for Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn’t appropriate source material for characters on the show (why I picked that show I have no idea).

Abbadon storyline had really excellent pacing because it was subtly dropped in over time. Even after he was introduce as the primary antagonist he still was hiding behind his pawns. It as also then we learned of his full motivation which was bringing about the Nightfall Prophecy. Which would lead to his freedom. The story with Scarlet has been obscure and overly flamboyant so far in comparison. With more focus on her theatrics and the twisted alliances she makes somehow.

During the events of the Thaumanova Reactor incident I would not have mind if it was Kudu in the forefront, and Ceara was an assistant to Kudu. It would interlocked the events that happen during the time Ceara was spending with the inquest before they screwed her over (the first time). It would also allow us to witness how Ceara would differ in characteristics from her current alter ego. I mean it would convey her past a bit more to us, as she is transitioning into a morally ambiguous individual. Which is something we have yet to see in game.

Risingashes, I would argue that it has less to do with presentation than the character itself. I think her voiceacting, and even dialogue, is perfectly fine. I think she would make a great addition to the living story under different circumstances.

The problem is too many aspects of her as a character make little to no sense, and she comes off as an adolescent fanfiction character. She’s a sylvari (the only race that I could have remotely accepted for this would be an asura) who somehow graduated from all three asura colleges and goes on to become a star pupil of just about every race under the sun, and manages to transcend any and all prejudices that the members of her alliances would have had with her. She’s insane and mentally unbalanced, yet she commands the loyalty of what appears to be the single largest unified group of villains in the history of Tyria.

It’s absurd. If the explanation does indeed involve alternate realities and manipulation of the Eternal Alchemy, which at this point is the only thing I can come up with that even approaches some semblance of a coherent story, it still doesn’t fix the problem. The very fact that she as a character was set up in this way cheapens and damages the lore and world of Tyria.

She would have made a great recurring minion for a better and more realistically constructed villain if she didn’t have the outrageous background. She is a fun character if you take the personality, voice acting, and dialogue by itself. It’s the combination of everything else that has poisoned the entirety of the living story arc and has left such a bad taste in players’ mouths.

BobbyStein.2315:

Eluveitie.1290:

This would give a lot of people peace of mind, Bobby, I hope you respond: is the end of Scarlet’s arch already on its way?

I mentioned this elsewhere on the forums, but I’ll say it here again. There is an end to the Scarlet story that has been planned out. I’m not at liberty to discuss release dates or the timeline, though.

Yesterdays fractal was the last straw for me, I cannot care about the living world story any more. As long as scarlet persists in the in game world I will continue to ignore anything that is produced with her involvement, such is the absurdity of her character. I am a big fan of GW lore and the continued existence of scarlet is an effrontery to all the lore you have crafted in the past.

I sincerely hop your live teams continue to create at least half decent gameplay because that and the community is all that is holding my interest now, the lore component is gone.

I really look forward to seeing an end to the whole Scarlet story line. To be honest, GW2 lore has been pretty disappointing for me so far. I feel like the Elder dragons have been barely touched and left in the dumpster. Instead we focus on the cobbled together Molten Alliance or the Toxic Alliance or Scarlet. It all feels shallow and forced. All these have been so underwhelming to me.

I love GW2. You’ve got ALOT going with this game. It’s got so much potential. But it’s just not where it needs to be yet. And the Living Story is a huge reason why it’s being held back. You guys have the lore. It’s there from GW1 and it’s pretty decent. Why not draw on that? You would make so many people happy.

Either focus back on the dragons…..say, let’s start a huge war to get back the homeland of the Norn and fight our way up through the Far Shiverpeaks to face Jormag. Or let us go to Elona to find out what is going on with Palawa Joko. Or Cantha (I would especially love this). Hell, you can throw in the dragons AND Cantha? (Bubbles just might be chillin’ around there afterall).

I WANT to care about the living story, but I just don’t at this moment. And because of that I pretty much have been ignoring all these patches. Because I just don’t care about this story. Please, make me care.

I’d also recommend making the patches last at least a month. Instead of breaking it every two weeks, just focus on a month worth of content instead. That would give people a bit more time to do things. And why not have more impact on the world as well? Have these events leave some permanent content in the game for people to do.

Sorry, this went on longer than I expected. But we’re all very passionate about this game.

BobbyStein.2315:

True.

Related to your comment, what reveals resonated with you?

Scarlet made mention of chaos energies being related to elder dragon magic. Ok, I shall take that and say it is part of the development of lore for GW2. In which case in the grand scheme of things, Scarlet Briar is meant to be a vehicle to help progress the story and is a temporary villain at best.

Her being temporary and thus “dispensable” doesn’t mean that she can pop out of nowhere. Have some Inquest npcs make mention of some “crazy female sylvari” in Metrica Province, or of her genius in the College of Synergetics in the Asuran personal storyline. Let the Order of Whispers take note of a vile person forming alliances amongst the enemies of the various races, or the Durmand Priory speak of a rogue element researching elder dragon magic which worries them.

I understand that development of this Scarlet living story has been in the works for months. How is it then, that the rest of the game world wasn’t updated to accommodate her in all that time?

Before any character can appear, especially one with so much power, influence, and resources, there must be mention of the mechinations within the game world. It’s the little details that makes lore believable. And the information must be found in-game and NOT as a blog or story post online like some kind of band-aid. The absence of detail regarding Scarlet makes her implausible and thus unbelievable, which is a far-cry from all the detail to lore which exists within the Guild Wars universe.

Part of exploration in a game such as GW2 is hunting for lore, talking to npcs to help carry the story forward. Running to areas and visiting the ruins. In the case of Scarlet, it would be for us players to be able to retrace her steps and speak to people who knew Ceara before she became the abomination she is now.

We players are passionate about the world that was created for us. The question now is whether the writers as passionate about the world they are creating.

Edit:

I forgot to add WHY good story and lore is important to player, in case anyone doesn’t know. Good lore bring richness and depth to the game world, and allows the player to fully immerse themselves into it. A good story give impetus to the player to continue playing. Instead of having a culture purely based on people zerging and champ farming, a better reason would be to play in order to further the story.

Like watching our favorite tv series and having the episode ends on a cliffhanger, a gamer and fan wants to be so enticed by the storyline that he/she simply has to find that npc, that artifact, that location to trigger that all revealing conversation or cutscene or text dialog box. Right now whenever Scarlet pops up I feel like logging out and seeking solace in those favorite tv series.

There is also an element of nostalgia when we come across something that was mentioned before. Further clues about the Forgotten, the Mursaat…information about the Tengu or Palawa Joko over at Elona would whet our appetites AND lay the groundwork for futher expansions or living stories. Even having the Thaumanova fractal resemble the actual Thaumanova reactor would have brought up those feelings if we could run through both places and visit the same spots in the instance as we did in the open world.

As it stands now, GW2 is is slowly devolving into a farmfest for new gear and a huge experiment on the intricacies of virtual economies. There is a dire need for the infusion of a solid plot to respark things. Remember all the plot twists and turns in GW1? It was a huge selling point for the game and the reason why I recommended it to my friends, I am very sad that I do not feel like I can say the same for GW2.

I seriously miss the days when I could play the Factions GW theme and really feel that asian-esque Canthan vibe…it was a much better feeling than the current one of making sure I earn a certain amount of gold each day so I can craft my next ascended.

So as the thread title asks, Does Lore Matter?

YES IT DOES.

On the anomaly:

I wonder if the anomaly is in fact exactly what it looks like – a lightning djinn? We’ve seen djinn being used to power reactors before (the Flame Djinn with the Stone Summit) and IIRC regular asura have no qualms with using non-sapient elemental spirits to power golems and the like – the distinction is that the inquest are willing to use sapient spirits (which would include djinn) as well. Since we appear as Inquest in the fractal, the djinn attacks us when it might not otherwise, just as if we came into the Urban Battlefield fractal as humans rather than charr it would likely have had a very different ending.

On Abaddon…

The “campaign” model GW1 had involved two rotating teams with a one-year cycle for each team. So, while Abaddon was possibly still a Schrodinger when Factions started development, they probably knew who the god behind the curtain was before Factions was finalised.

With that said, I think one thing Abaddon’s story had that Shiro lacked was a supporting cast. Bonfaaz Burntfur, Khilbron, Shiro (although for all the manipulation, I don’t think he actually fully sided with Abaddon until after Factions), the Fortune Teller, Varesh, Kahyet, Bayel, possibly even Dagnar Stonepate – all elements of Abaddon’s plan (whether they knew it or not) whose influence we feel long before we get to actually defeat them, and who matter enough that we feel a sense of accomplishment on bringing them down even when we knew a bigger problem still loomed behind them.

To a lesser extent, even Zhaitan had this, even with the largely impersonal nature of most Risen. Depending on your race, you might have had Mazdak, Kellach, or Rissa. You then have the Plaguebringer, Labwan if you take that arc, the Eye and Mouth, and finally King Reza twisted in an Eye that was foreshadowed back in the vision by the Pale Tree.

Scarlet doesn’t have this. So far, every ally Scarlet’s had has been introduced and then defeated within the space of a single month. Some of them haven’t even had names. There’s no satisfaction in killing the overseer of the TA Aetherpath when we hadn’t even heard of him before the promotional material for the dungeon where we kill him off.

Now imagine if the inquest guy from AR, instead of being electrocuted in his own equipment, had made an escape instead. Then, in Clockwork Chaos, it turns out that he helped make Clockwork Chaos possible – maybe it was actually him that figured out how to subvert the Watchknights. Then, when we corner him in the TA Aetherpath, it actually means something.

Similarly, there’s no reason the Dredge Engineer from MF had to die there rather than beating a hasty retreat… to have us have to deal with his traps several other times making it all the sweeter when we finally get the chance to personally gut him (or incinerate him, or whatever rocks your character’s boat).

Part of the problem with Scarlet’s storyline is that we don’t have any such secondary villains that serve as milestones in the fight against Scarlet – the only recurring villain in the LS is Scarlet herself, which means we’re not going to get any of that satisfaction of a nemesis defeated until we finally get to bring her down and end the current arc entirely. Longrunning stories need a supporting cast of secondary villains that actually mean something when they’re defeated and give us significant victories on the way to the final climax, not just a parade of minibosses that are eliminated almost as soon as they’re introduced.

Obsidian.1328:

Wait, so your saying that you think the force behind the Fortuneteller was always going to be Abaddon? And that perhaps the long tale of Abaddon was in fact the result of this as-yet-unnamed force in Factions?

Why couldn’t it simply have been someone or something else behind the Teller, and still keep the current Abaddon story in Nightfall?

This is actually something I loved about Guild Wars lore. The developers obviously and deliberately left quite a few holes in both their minor, and major plots which allowed them to grow the world naturally while simultaneously giving everything an air of mystery.

Regardless of whoever wrote the hole into the dialogue/plot, just about anyone could come in and fill it so long as it wasn’t reserved. So the team could collectively look at what they were planning and look for holes that made sense to fill. Abaddon didn’t necessarily have to be behind Shiro’s betrayal, but when the writers were creating Nightfall’s plot, they saw that incomplete thread and filled it because it made sense to them and not necessarily because one writer had gotten excited about an idea and laid everything out in advanced. This also meant that community feedback could really shape the plot, and writers weren’t forced to chalk everything up to experience and wait for the current plot to end before they could react in a significant manner.

The production values on a lot of these new LS releases is looking great, but the plot feels rigid and less organic than it used to be. Scarlet had a lot of potential, but the developer-community feedback loop has far too much latency to really help her meet her potential as something greater than an infuriatingly shallow annoyance.

BobbyStein.2315:

Edusd.7893:

I just can’t believe they did it again…I know these things are in the works for months…but they’ve known the hatred of Scarlett for way longer…how could they do this to us….AGAIN!?! :‘( Another golden opportunity to give the community something its been begging for, for the better part of a year now….a good lore story. I doubt I’ll ever get my hopes up again.

Fractal work started back in August, which is when players first encountered Scarlet and around when the votes were tallied.

Ive been only playing the game recently (started in the middle of the tequatl LS) , but even in the short time ive been playing im kind of bored with scarlet.

I played tower of nightwares, reached the top/final instance. And then get a cutscene which i barely cared about because i got to experience none of the things shown.

All the fighting to find out….nothing.

For me the living story kinda lacks progress. We cant actually kill scarlet , so the only way for progress would be info about scarlet. Not about what she does. But how she does it. Why she does it.

We need info, we need (possible)motivations. Mystery is fine , but to much mystery and people just stop caring altogether. They need teasing/bait to keep that intrested and i couldnt that in the LS patches that i did play. I dont feel like im gaining any progress and i think many others share that feeling. A simple npc which would unveil a little detail about scarlet would already be good.

As scarlet said ‘’Hooray for progress’’

just end the scarlet story… whole scarlet living stories has already made me disdain GW lore and story. You guys are actually making the weak campaign looking like a master piece.

I use to enjoy GW1 campaign and lore, and now I don’t even want to think about it.

BobbyStein.2315:

ThiBash.5634:

BobbyStein.2315:

Fractal work started back in August, which is when players first encountered Scarlet and around when the votes were tallied.

That makes sense…I suppose the story is among the first things to be developed and once it gets underway, ít’s basically too late to change things.

I’m curious though…has the player feedback regarding Scarlet affected your upcoming lore?

We look at as much feedback as we’re able and take it under consideration when planning our updates. Understand that what you’re seeing on live was under way four months prior.

Sooo not to come out as hostile… but does this mean that Wintersday is doomed to be a failure like Halloween? In the sense to where you push the content out on the first of the month, and at the 2nd week point you forget about it and start something else…

Previously in GW2 and in GW1 Halloween, Wintersday were both month long events that had a lot to do quest and story line wise. This years Halloween was rushed and done with by the 2nd week of October with nothing new related to Halloween even being released on the week of Halloween.

So following that format, will Wintersday be:
December 10th Tixx workshop, toys malfunction, recycled quest stuff and art work.
Maybe a new helper that we will only get to know for 14 days before he or she vanishes.

December 24th, back to scarlet and the Living story, nothing is mentioned about Tixx or the workshop, wintersday content is effectively over with and people are back to hating Scarlet over their Christmas Break & New Years.

I doubt we’ll get anything on December 24th. Or January 7th.

Holiday breaks and all.

JNetRocks.3652:

I think that Scarlet has a lot of potential. She is a fun, interesting villain and definitely different from anyone else in the game. I feel like the flaw isn’t with Scarlet as a character but more with the very long arch and lack of meaningful story.

I absolute disagree. I think her character & personality is an extreme flaw. It doesn’t fit the world it’s in, its not believable, it makes what she’s accomplished laughably impossible, she’s supremely annoying in dialog & attitude, & her abilities marginalize that of past villains & that of current heroes in a broad-stroke-wish-fulfillment way.

most of all, she’s just annoying.

Oh I agree they are very different in character and motives. My point was simply that the same people who gave us “Abaddon’s behind everything” are the same ones who gave us Scarlet.

This is a prime example as to how the problem with Scarlet’s character is with her character, not only that she’s connected to everything or isn’t “deep enough”.

Obsidian.1328:

Darmikau.9413:

-snip-

Oh I agree they are very different in character and motives. My point was simply that the same people who gave us “Abaddon’s behind everything” are the same ones who gave us Scarlet. Up until EotN or perhaps Nightfall, there was nothing in the lore that implied Abaddon was behind Shiro(and I mean indirectly through the fortuneteller), the Titans, or the Cataclysm. That stuff was inserted into the lore post-script. The core of the dev team now got their start with Nightfall and EotN. If you look at it that way Scarlet makes more sense, unfortunately so.

Problem with this statement is that the most egregious disregard for existing GW1 lore comes from a writer who was not an employee at all during the time the GW1 stories were being written.

I would say, in my opinion, some facets of the “new” lore are being sourced anywhere but GW1.

Go to GW wiki. Search Ley Lines. Then go to WoW wiki. do the same. Come to your own conclusion.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I would say, in my opinion, some facets of the “new” lore are being sourced anywhere but GW1.

Go to GW wiki. Search Ley Lines. Then go to WoW wiki. do the same. Come to your own conclusion.

I’d agree with the first sentence here. But not the implication afterwards. Ley lines are a common element in fantasy universes.