Guild Wars 2

Because they can be easily missed, I figured I’d make a thread for a couple recent lore interviews had.

GuildMag LW Season 1 Interview

TowerTalk Season 1 Interview Part 1
TowerTalk Season 1 Interview Part 2

Kudos to Aaron for pointing out the Towertalk one.

Nice! Thanks for this! Although I can’t listen to the podcasts now as I’m at work, but I will check them out later!

Anything interesting in the interview? Started listening, but can’t bear relive this story again.

There’s a few interesting bits once you hit the Twilight Assault (mainly a heavy hint that the secret with Caithe will be revealed) and Tower of Nightmares stuff (which Aaron went over in the “You are the present of my becoming” thread that’s still on the first page atm), and the occasional mention of how they intended to portray Scarlet and other new characters (Braham and Rox were gone into with F&F stuff) – which is basically a carefree madman who turns serious over time as her goal came to be… which I kinda see but they did a rather bad job of showing that it was anything like a pre-designed intention.

But it’s mostly just a recap. Though it is interesting how they worded their response about how Scarlet would affect the Dream and other sylvari. Seems to me they intend to have a sylvari in Season 2 go mad like Scarlet due to her share of into the Dream.

The Scarlet/Caithe comments were obviously going to come back because for no reason at all (other than to remind us it happened) they clumsily added it to the blueprints months later in one of the final releases. It was a kind of “Remember Scarlet and Caithe crossed paths but that plot went nowhere?”. The first reference to it could be dismissed as a plot hole/loose thread, bringing it up again at the end of the story for no reason relating to the plot at the end of the story, it seemed like a reminder to pay attention again.

I was sad to hear Rox, Braham and co are going to be primary characters going forward. I kinda figured as much when that massively article praising them got so much positive attention from the writers. While I enjoyed some of their stories individually (usually just their first appearance) I think they are like an anchor weighing the other stories down. We seem to be sacrificing the big world of Tyria for a recurring cast of characters and I believe the story and experience suffers as a result.

Scott’s comments on Kasmeer being a close childhood friend of Faren really irked me. Faren is supposed to be my human noble’s good friend, Kasmeer is someone I’d just met yet she’s now really close buddies with my close friend? It’s another case of the story being written to accommodate these characters even if that means pushing aside the player character. Scott also said Kasmeer was on Southsun to get away from her family’s fall in status, at the time I thought she said she was there on business (From Welcome to Paradise: ““Please: Kasmeer. And thanks for the advice. I work for a private investigator in Divinity’s Reach, and I’m meeting a few potential clients for dinner on Pearl Islet. I don’t imagine they’ll serve us outdoors.” She smiled a warm, dazzling smile. “Not at the prices they quoted me, anyway.”).

It was an interesting listen but I guess I just didn’t like season 1 all that much and I’m not eager to see many of its problems brought forward into season 2 (so unlike many here, I am fine with lose threads and plot holes – I’d rather leave most of them be than waste more time fixing/finishing a story that had its chance). As far as I’m concerned, the majority of lose threads (especially Scarlet specific ones) should have been cleared up by the epilogue of season 1. Setting in motion events for season 2 (or beyond) is fine, but setting up a plot point (Scarlet/Caithe) without giving us anything only to pay off over 6 months later, it’s one of the things I didn’t like about season 1.

I disagree with the core concept of a core cast of new characters always being involved (I think the bonus of familiar characters is in no way worth the large expense of story-specific NPCs) and telling stories that can’t be experienced one month later let alone five years later (I love that I can see Rurik’s quest to save his people or the evolution of Gwen from innocent, young dreamer in Pre-Searing to the damaged, capable kitten from EotN today). I love that GW1 has so many stories involving so many different heroic protagonists. Even if Devonna and co were often present they were background, it’s why we were able to tell the stories of the Factions henchmen and NPCs, the Nightfall henchmen/heroes and NPCs, the EotN heroes and NPCs. Characters like Mhenlo were given greater prominence when it made sense (the Tyrian link to Cantha).

I know the comments about Scarlet and her impact on the Dream are from the original TowerTalk about her, so maybe it’s a resurgence of that discussion, or it could be an idea that caught their interest and they’ve developed it fully. If sylvari don’t send all their memories/experiences to the Dream when they die, how much of Scarlet would be retained if she purposely closed herself off from the Pale Tree? Unless us killing her in the end when she expressed a desire to tell us more resulted in her final thoughts passing over to the Dream (as in, Scarlet stopped blocking the connection with the Pale Tree) and a newborn sylvari isn’t made like her, but is born with a Wyld Hunt involving the knowledge Scarlet couldn’t share (kind of like a reincarnation via the Dream, Scarlet might be dead but another sylvari can come along and pick up a fragment of her leading to their Wyld Hunt to be the “good” hero Scarlet was unable to be).

I found the explanation of the question about Nightmare Court involved in Toxic Alliance pathetically blunt.

“Because they wanted more chaos”. What the hell is this? That’s so simply lazy that I can’t even tell. Literally anything, giving any background and reason for them would be better. “Because they wanted to use Scarlet’s knowledge to steal the toxin later when it becomes deadly and use it on their own” – Literally, anything.

I feel like losing any hope for the story. There could be so much good, interesting stuff but everytime there’s any chance for it, turns out to be dumbed down idea.

Same with Toxin Hybrid. That model and concept was really cool, one of the strongest points of Nightmare Tower in fact. Could’ve been re-used again, given more reason and mystery. But it’s purpose was just to be a single temporary boss.

And there we go with our wonderful hero group. Seriously, they’ve served their purpose already. All of them had their deals ith Scarlet, now she’s dead. Move on, people! If I have to deal with all of them through entire story again, I’ll just skip all the story just to get achievements and another back piece, knowing there’s nothing interesting.

Seriously, where did GW1 story developers go ? I miss them!

Don’t get too frustrated about the Nightmare Court- my money is still on it tying back to the Mordremoth connection that they can’t acknowledge (never mind that Colin already confirmed it). I’ve been thinking of it as more of a loose end that will lead us into Season 2- and given their insistence that they’ve learned a lot doing Season 1, and ANet’s good track record of responding to fan feedback, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as to the overall quality of our upcoming story. For the time being, anyway.

As to the core cast… I’m torn there. I do agree with all that has been said, specifically the bit about core characters curtailing the potential of the Living World strategy. The only thing this approach has going for it is the implied spontaneity, the idea that anything, anywhere, at any time can change; but that wasn’t what we saw in Season 1. Either the world’s story was stuck within the confines of the characters’ stories, stinting all the work the devs had put into the vast majority of Tyria (Example: the way we returned to Lion’s Arch every other month but barely didn’t even touch Ascalon after Flame & Frost); or else the character’s were shoehorned into events unrelated to their stories, at the cost of believability (the ever more threadbare excuse of Rytlock’s absurd assignments). Frankly, for the sole reason of the core cast I think that Season 1 would have been much better served as an expansion release. All that said, though, we still haven’t gotten a return out of the extensive investment we’ve been forced to put into these characters. Scarlet may be dead, but none of the character arcs have come to a conclusion, Scarlet’s included. At this point, I feel we need to see those things through. ANet pushed through to the end of the story fans were skeptical of, they can’t just abandon the one most of us actually enjoyed.

From my perspective, the best thing they could do is this: keep Marjory and associates around for Season 2, and make their storylines the main focus of releases. Do them justice, instead of making them info dumps interspersed with multi-month dry spells. And at the end of Season 2, wrap things up. Give the storylines satisfactory conclusions and let the characters retire. As things stand, not only does their inclusion detriment the Living World, but there simply isn’t enough to them to stretch out for multiple seasons to come. They should end on the high note they’ve been building up to, but they need to end.

“Retirement” might be a bit strong – depending, of course, on what you mean by ‘retirement’. I’d probably say let them go out on a high note, but rather then putting them on a bus entirely, let them fade into the background. They might show up occasionally, at some stage they might even spring back into the spotlight – but let the focus go to other characters without the “Biconics” being pushed into everything.

Kind of like has happened with Destiny’s Edge. Their story was, basically, the storyline of the dungeons, culminating with the death of Zhaitan… and now, they’re largely waiting in the wings. They get the occasional cameo – when it’s reasonably logical for them to appear – and there’s always the potential that they’ll jump back into the limelight when the time is right, but they’re allowing other characters and stories to be focused on for the time being and there isn’t the sense of them being shoehorned in just so they can be involved.

Let the stories of the biconics come to, at the least, a set of good stopping points – and then start building up the supporting cast that demonstrates there’s a whole other world out there besides the X-iconics and their inner circles.

I would support the recurring cast approach.

Let the characters have their fun in the sun, but they need to fade out after awhile to make way for new characters. They can come back at times, when that character would suit the storyline, but they shouldn’t be forced into it just because they are the main character at the moment.

Angel’s comment about not wanting to write the cliche ending where the villain tells us their plan once we defeated them seemed a little ironic when right after Scarlet gets stomped one the biggest cliches ever (the heroes embrace for a kiss) was not only written, but animated.

I actually support avoiding tropes and agree with telling that story via other methods, my big problem with this is that these loose (I can spell!) threads are big season 1 plot points. If they chose not to give Scarlet a villain’s monologue (fair call imo) to explain things, I think the ending of season 1 would have been much better if these questions were answered somewhere else. Maybe they consider the UI text on the control panels behind Scarlet to be explanations for everything? I feel like there are so many questions about the entity, the grand plan and what’s going on in Scarlet’s mind, some of these things feel like you won’t get the full story from anyone but Scarlet or that they really belong in season one, not clean up for season two. Models and references to Scarlet’s different buildings/structures from future releases showing up in her hideout or the Tower are examples of what I think is foreshadowing done write. An entire release including a major Tyrian character which results in a loose thread (seriously, we know as much going out of TA Aether path as we did when we first found out Scarlet claimed to know something), only to be brought up again with no development and then a several month wait before it’s (maybe) touched on again after the villain dies, that’s just annoying imo. To me that’s an example of the pacing issues the story had in season one.

Side note: Does anyone think Scarlet’s mental deterioration from “whacky” to “dark” was communicated well? Did you see it as a consequence of her fight in her head? I didn’t really see much of a change in her, anything I did see I probably wrote off as tweaks from player feedback or tone changes as a result of us meddling more with her direct plans as opposed to something she did as a distraction (but no really, but kinda).

After all that negativity I should say I do like Tyria and I do like the world they’ve created. I’ve enjoyed plots and characters from season one and most releases I found something to like. I just sometimes think season one was below the standard set by the rest of Tyria.

Most of what was said I can agree with.

Overall, the presentation got a lot better by the ToN-arc but kitten Grenth if Anet didn’t pick the most ridiculous plot-line possible for a pilot-project. Like yeah okay it’s a new system and a new thing for them and us but absolutely everything required more explanations than they could possibly put into each release for the story to make sense, yet alone be as fascinating as they apparently envisioned it.

Generally speaking, it’s still about a ridiculously gifted and plot-blessed Sylvari who went mad, got cut off from the dream and saw some entity that has been taking over her mind but she is still such a genius that she’s ahead of everyone on Tyria with her inventions and can bring xenophobic and xenocidal armies together thanks to her being SOOO AWESOME AND SMART or convenient plot-devices out of nowhere.

Wanna flesh that out and make it actually epic and intriguing, make it something people are genuinely amazed by and invested in? Well yeah I KINDA guess that requires a LOT of exposition. A lot more than their tech apparently allowed them to.

And I wholeheartedly agree with the shoehorning of the biconics… and the bad guys.
Between Marjory conveniently remembering “Oh I know poisons! I can make an antidote!” and the weak “they’re hungry for power!” explanation for the flame legion faction, idk which one still gives me more headaches when I think about it.

Other than that, welp it’s still a new thing.
GW was always more about the lore than the plot IMO. It’s a learning experience.
As long as they don’t take the Final Fantasy 13-3 route, things should get better little by little. (Tho the way they’re amazed about Scarlet sometimes made me afraid they did… /shudder )

“Side note: Does anyone think Scarlet’s mental deterioration from “whacky” to “dark” was communicated well?”

I’m guessing the voice actress tried her best but he writing didn’t back it up. Flame and Frost is a dark storyline to start with and the Marionette is just straight whacko Scarlet at the end.

Rym.1469:

I found the explanation of the question about Nightmare Court involved in Toxic Alliance pathetically blunt.

“Because they wanted more chaos”. What the hell is this? That’s so simply lazy that I can’t even tell. Literally anything, giving any background and reason for them would be better. “Because they wanted to use Scarlet’s knowledge to steal the toxin later when it becomes deadly and use it on their own” – Literally, anything.

Its the Nightmare Court. Sowing chaos, pain, and terror for what they feel is the greater good is their sort of thing.

(And why the Mordremoth / Nightmare connection is tenuous to me. The Nightmare is adamant about hard ground making broken roots. And replicating human nobility structures. Stuff that’s rather extraneous to Mordremoth’s goals.)

Rym.1469:

Seriously, where did GW1 story developers go ? I miss them!

… Who wants to tell him that they’re still here?

Uruz Six.6594:

Rym.1469:

Seriously, where did GW1 story developers go ? I miss them!

… Who wants to tell him that they’re still here?

Not really all of them. A good chunk of the founders of Arena-Net have moved onto Undead Labs (State of Deacay (trying to evolve it into a MMO with Microsoft help)). Also as much as they promoted they have hired people, they have also gotten rid of a few familiar faces over time.

As far as these interviews go, I can tell there is a different story going on in the writers heads then what is actually being directed/implemented into the game. Perhaps it’s the games director screwing it up. However I am not overly optimistic for season 2. Either it be someone within the community hyping it up or Arena Net themselves; I lower my expectations accordingly, so I don’t completely give up on the game entirely. Like so many people prior.

I actually enjoyed a few of the releases that have not been heavily story driven and are more of a side plot. For instance both Super Adventure Box and Bazaar of the Four Winds (minus the political BS that happened) were very engrossing in their own ways. I am waiting for the inevitable Jar Jar Binks character archetype to show up soon then everyone will say A-net has officially jumped the shark. You think Trahearne or Scarlet was bad? Wait till next season when we bring you a Sylvari that can break dance and used derogatory terms; just like in certain Michael Bay movies you have become accustom to.

Shiren.9532:

Scott’s comments on Kasmeer being a close childhood friend of Faren really irked me. Faren is supposed to be my human noble’s good friend, Kasmeer is someone I’d just met yet she’s now really close buddies with my close friend? It’s another case of the story being written to accommodate these characters even if that means pushing aside the player character. Scott also said Kasmeer was on Southsun to get away from her family’s fall in status, at the time I thought she said she was there on business (From Welcome to Paradise: ““Please: Kasmeer. And thanks for the advice. I work for a private investigator in Divinity’s Reach, and I’m meeting a few potential clients for dinner on Pearl Islet. I don’t imagine they’ll serve us outdoors.” She smiled a warm, dazzling smile. “Not at the prices they quoted me, anyway.”).

Faren and Kasmeer having a history is actually established in-game, it’s not quite out of nowhere. And it makes sense to me as well, that they’d know each other.

Rym.1469:

“Because they wanted more chaos”. What the hell is this? That’s so simply lazy that I can’t even tell. Literally anything, giving any background and reason for them would be better. “Because they wanted to use Scarlet’s knowledge to steal the toxin later when it becomes deadly and use it on their own” – Literally, anything.

For almost any other faction this would be a poor explanation, but actually in the case of the Nightmare Court it’s consistent with their other actions and what’s more has a solid basis in lore—in other words, there’s a reason why “wanting more chaos” would be an understandable objective for the Nightmare Court.

With every terrible act (and acts against sylvari are particularly effective), the Nightmare Court darken the Dream, the collective memory of their species, just a little bit. Their hope is that if they can darken it enough, the sylvari as a whole will be free from the Ventari tablet’s influence and they will be free to fight the Elder Dragons with whatever means necessary.

Shiren.9532:

-snip-

The lack of explanation bugs me as well. Between the A Study in Scarlet instance and the control panels on the Breachmaker, I feel like I’m dumb for not getting what Scarlet’s plan actually was. Awaken Mordremoth because…Mordremoth was controlling her? She was fighting Mordremoth somehow? The game holds your hand with text like “Her plan all along…was the dragon”, but other than the bits that the game explicitly tells you, her plan is not clear at all. And I don’t feel like this was the intent. I feel like we really were “getting” the answers we were promised, it’s just that they were too vague for anyone to understand. They even did things like add dates to Scarlet’s journal, to help us place when these events were in her timeline, but it just…didn’t help much at all.

Scarlet, despite everything, had potential to be sympathetic. She was a sylvari who didn’t want to be constrained by the path set for her by the Pale Tree, who felt its call oppressive. That’s a very relatable, I think, a very human impulse. What’s more, she didn’t want that for the rest of her people either. Her profession, an engineer, set her apart from the rest of her people, and if painted in a different light her determination and single-mindedness could have made her admirable to some and an enemy to others. Her alliances of races that would never ordinarily work together could have served as a foil to the Pact, and yet not once was this mentioned. She was inquisitive and unyielding, and all the while she was contending with another dark force that threatened her ability to act independently, which was the thing she valued most.

Instead, what we got was madcap. Wacky, unexplained antics, the promise that every defeat somehow contributed to her “master plan” (which they only did in the most obvious way possible, namely that she “watched you fight and learned your weaknesses”, and yet she never seemed to learn her lesson), and unexplained tonal shifts. The dark turn to her story was a welcome one, but most it happened offscreen, for reasons that aren’t clear (and I’m not sure if they’re supposed to be), and just as we think we’re able to use it to create something like a timeline for her, she comes along and gives her “fancy panties” speech at the end of Tower of Nightmares and we’re not sure how far along she’s supposed to be.

She wasn’t even a villain that we hated enough that we could forgive a lack of explanation. I think I’ve used this comparison before, but if that were a character as hated as Joffrey Baratheon on the floor of the Breachmaker (so I’m talking someone you hate in a way that means you’re invested, rather than a character that you hate because they make you less invested), I think we’d forgive Braham for giving them a swift, brutal death without the satisfaction of a grand speech. As it was, the remaining investment players had in Scarlet’s story was predicated on her explanation of her plan, and Braham robbed us of the opportunity to hear that. Unless that was intended to make us resent Braham, and will come back to bite him when a piece of information Scarlet could have revealed but didn’t because of him becomes important (which I doubt), then all it does is delay season 1’s already overdue make-or-break moment until the next release, in a few months’ time. This is assuming that we aren’t supposed to understand Scarlet’s plan yet, by the way. If we are, and that was it, well…I guess it was a break.

Where was Scarlet at the end? “Tyria needs me”? Or “Tyria will bow before a new master”? Apparently both, but they’re fundamentally contradictory. I think it’s still possible to redeem her somewhat, if handled carefully. But I’ll be disappointed if “Tyria needs me” ends with “…because that’s what Mordremoth told me”.

Tamias.7059:

Where was Scarlet at the end? “Tyria needs me”? Or “Tyria will bow before a new master”? Apparently both, but they’re fundamentally contradictory. I think it’s still possible to redeem her somewhat, if handled carefully. But I’ll be disappointed if “Tyria needs me” ends with “…because that’s what Mordremoth told me”.

Well if we assume Scarlet was indeed corrupted, then it wouldn’t be the first time a dragon minion has claimed that countering their master is poisoning the land. So it isn’t so contradictory.

It’s also possible that her “Tyria will bow to a new master” is a “if I die here” kind of statement. Or she was to the point of bipolar – which her rant before the Prime Hologram fight certainly shows happening. But yeah, everything else you said, concur.

Indeed, right up when we were introduced to Scarlet she believed she had a ‘play both ends against the middle’-type plan – awakening Mordremoth (we presume) may have been a step along that plan. On the other hand, just because Scarlet thinks that was only a step along the way to her overall plan does not mean this was actually the case.

It would be nice if they pulled a Failed Ozymandias from Scarlet. She sounded very resentful of the term “heroes” to the point of mocking them in her defeat (much like Ozymandias would mock the other heroes for their childish heroics in Watchmen). Telling us why she did what she did and revealing that it might have been with a good reason (with immoral execution) could have been mindblowing sequence, something she would have relished the irony of. Alas Braham shut her up and we may never know what her overall plan was. Its like if Ozy failed and only blew up one city, resulting in the nuclear war he wanted to prevent in the first place…

Shiren.9532:

Side note: Does anyone think Scarlet’s mental deterioration from “whacky” to “dark” was communicated well? Did you see it as a consequence of her fight in her head?

I didn’t think the tone difference was communicated well.
To me it seemed like she’s still goofy during the Tower then suddenly gets sullen and “serious business” in her voice right when Mecha Puppet came into play.

It is difficult sometimes to convey a villain breaking down mentally in a media like this given how they were releasing content and story. I’m not defending Scarlet, but I do understand that if they didn’t hit it right I see why.

I think it would have helped the story if she had her own stable of ‘biconics’ to show how she deteriorated at the time. Yes we had Mai, but after she was beaten and jailed there wasn’t much said other than “she’ll kill me”.

If we couldn’t get into the head of Scarlet due to limitations, at least provide some insights from the folks she’s hired/conscripted. That helps sell the tragedy of a character if the story is written right.