Guild Wars 2

During the 60-80 story quests the Pact’s resources seem to balloon unrealistically. The large, well-equipped, and heavily fortified Fort Trinity is constructed while you are away for two missions with the same guy in the same zone. Later on Vigil soldiers are advancing on Orr with the Iron Legion’s armored units, you get to play with a state-of-the-art Asuran battlesuit, and Zhaitan himself falls to a giant laser that probably would have been better off used by the Asura to subjugate the militaries of all the other races.

I understand they are pooling the resources of three major world orders but how could they possibly have this level of cooperation, funding, and support from their racial governments when there is otherwise so much conniving and bureaucracy. I thought uniting Destiny’s Edge was to be the allegory for the unification of the races against the dragons, but instead of that concept taking center stage, it seems like just uniting the orders got us everything we need.

Those three orders actually have a lot of resources. The Durmand Priory is quite possibly the premier research organisation in Tyria (and unlike the competitors, is multiracial and can draw upon the expertise of multiple races – a lot of the Pact’s stuff is, after all, the result of multiracial collaboration), and the Order of Whispers and Vigil have a lot of contacts and support in the various nations. Furthermore, while the orders are the starting point, the nations (as well as Lion’s Arch) do seem to have got behind them once they formed – everyone knows the dragons are a threat, so once a force arose that they thought had a fighting chance, resources start coming in.

Certainly, the leadership of the three most organised nations are behind the Pact – the Pale Tree is the most obvious, Jennah tells Logan that dealing with the dragons is the most important thing (and thus can probably be expected to send what she can spare… and since the storyline seems to include decisive defeats of the centaurs in the open world events, that probably means more than you’d think from Kryta’s situation at the start of the game) and the High Legions are specifically called out as putting their muscle behind the Pact. So the races have united, it’s just that the orders – probably because their membership represents an elite force – serve as the ‘tip of the spear’ while the official forces of the nations are continuing to hold down the home front.

If you pay attention, though, there are a few soldiers in the Pact that appeared earlier in the story as Seraph, Wardens, charr warbands within the legions, and so on. Where there’s a few we recognise, there are probably a lot whose history we don’t know.

The few minutes you spent clearing story after story may actually translate to several days/weeks/even years of in game time. And like the fella above me stated, the three orders already have vast resources at their disposal.

Fort trinity was already there as an unused fort or something, the pact just moved in and decorated. Most of the equipement and machinery already existed and was created before the pact formed, they’re even featured in some early storylines.

The only thing the Pact actually created would be the airships and the blue light fences. But they both are based off of pre-existing technology (the latter being a combination of asura magitech and sylvari magic, created by a Priory scholar who takes up residence in a secluded jumping puzzle in Malchor’s Leap iirc). Those two, and the weapons given by Pact Weapon Requisitioner Hargrove. The helicopters also seem new, but still is only an improvement on something that existed.

Like drax said, most of those resources already existed – the Orders and Trahearne just started calling in a bunch of favors they asked, as well as pulling in their own resources. Some of Trahearne’s are outright stated – the smiths and Sayeh – but there are likely others. The Pale Tree may have begun working to put in favors with the other nations right after showing Trahearne and the PC the vision during A Light in the Darkness.

In the end, we see the all five playable races’ nations put in varying degrees of support (asura, sylvari, and charr putting in the most effort of the five), as well as the three Orders and the Lionguard/pirates (Lionguard putting in the least effort). But again, while things are said to be “state of the art” advancements, we see the prototype versions throughout the game earlier. The Pact just pulled resources from others, effectively borrowing all that “state of the art” equipment.

It’s not unrealistic once you realize that it’s just them going to their neighbors asking for a cup of sugar 10 times over, then going to their other neighbors to put some cinnamon into that sugar.

And like Lindbur said, while gameplay takes only minutes to hours, the steps/events played through are days, weeks, perhaps even months apart. The only real timeframe we have at the moment would be that from Forging The Pact to The Source of Orr’s second instance is “several weeks” (stated by Occam). Which isn’t very definitive and probably results in ~2-3 months.

qynvee.4157:

Later on Vigil soldiers are advancing on Orr with the Iron Legion’s armored units,

These armored units were introduced early in the game in one of the Norn storyline.

you get to play with a state-of-the-art Asuran battlesuit,

Another technology introduced at the early levels in one of the Asura storyline.

and Zhaitan himself falls to a giant laser

You can find this laser take out TeaKettle in one or the later level areas.

I understand they are pooling the resources of three major world orders but how could they possibly have this level of cooperation, funding, and support from their racial governments when there is otherwise so much conniving and bureaucracy.

Each character represents the nation of their race and thus was comissioned and well funded by that nation. For example, Humans has the backing of the Queen, which explains the abundant supply. If bureaucracy is at play, it is ever more apparent that other nations will attempt to surpass the effort of the other nations. In the end, the Pact is very happy.

I thought uniting Destiny’s Edge was to be the allegory for the unification of the races against the dragons, but instead of that concept taking center stage, it seems like just uniting the orders got us everything we need.

Destiny’s Edge has so much problem that they did nothing to help out in the war effort. All the time that we are preparing to take on Zhaitan, they are doing speed runs in the dungeons. :/

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Destiny’s Edge has so much problem that they did nothing to help out in the war effort. All the time that we are preparing to take on Zhaitan, they are doing speed runs in the dungeons. :/

It’d be nice to think that ANet had slipped in a jibe about all the fail and drama that goes with traditional instanced dungeons vs open world events. But then they made the last part of the story an instanced dungeon, so that theory doesn’t really add up.

The actions of DE in the dungeons would help back up the Pact forces. Each dungeon solves a major issue in their areas that would otherwise eat up manpower and resources that could have gone to the Pact. Getting DE to hug and be friends again is only a minor part of it. The only one that really doesn’t is honor of the waves, and that’s just because the Kodan are jerks who only help themselves and dump their problems on everyone else (You think those Quaggans like having a sinking iceberg ship overflowing with icebrood parked over their city?)

Lindbur.2537:

The few minutes you spent clearing story after story may actually translate to several days/weeks/even years of in game time.

This. For my own peace of mind I tend to assume that the personal story takes place over months, rather than days as the missions might have you believe. Being promoted to a top rank within your order after one mission might seem a bit ridiculous, but reaching, say, Warmaster after a few months of impressive service makes a bit more sense. Insert a month between each 10 levels, say, and the speed at which things happen starts to seem impressive, but not totally unrealistic.

I wouldn’t be so inclined to say a month between each 10 levels, though it’s probably close to. The game seems to start near the beginning of 1325 AE (there’s mention of the Great Hunt happening during the winter, which in Tyria the end of winter=end of the year), and Zhaitan’s defeat likely happens before late autumn (the content updates seem to be going at a “real-life passing” of time, so to speak, where events in-game occur at the same rate as in rl – unlike GW1, and despite the GW universe having 5 days fewer in a year – if so, his defeat was not only before The Lost Shores, but before Thorn’s return). So the entire campaign (tutorial to Arah story) could have taken around 8 months. Though the only real timeframe we have is Forging the Pact to The Source of Orr being “several weeks” (which could fit into that, if tutorial to Forging the Pact was ~6 months long).