Guild Wars 2

I am just curious how important lore is for players in gw2 because i see Anet focus alot on story and lore in this game. Maybe someone can make a survey, i don’t know how to make one. I for one like having a nice story in the game but usually i find it important in single player games and not so much in mmos.

Story and lore is why I play. Can’t play a single player rpg with my husband, thus why we’ve gravitated to MMOs. So we can partake of the story and adventure together.

If I wanted just a strait up hack and slash without a lot of story or adventure, I’d play mortal combat, tekken, or soul caliber. Sure those have some story, but they aren’t rpgs. It’s not the same thing.

Personally, I think we could use some more story in the pve setting. There really isn’t reason why an mmo can’t have as much story as a single player rpg. It just has to be adapted to a larger scale with co-op capability.

VERY important. Going in wvw and seeing those midgets with glowing armor, flashy weapons and rainbows makes me want to cry a little.

How on earth do people in this game reach the conclusion that gaudy is better?

Just imagine Almorra Soulkeeper with holographic wings, radiant pauldrons, any legendary weapon and a quaggan backpack. I’d quit the Vigil right then.

Pleurodesed.7625:

VERY important. Going in wvw and seeing those midgets with glowing armor, flashy weapons and rainbows makes me want to cry a little.

How on earth do people in this game reach the conclusion that gaudy is better?

Just imagine Almorra Soulkeeper with holographic wings, radiant pauldrons, any legendary weapon and a quaggan backpack. I’d quit the Vigil right then.

I turned my WvW character quality to “lowest” for this very reason. It turns everyone into generic chain mail armor and it actually looks like 2 armies fighting each other instead of the aftermath of a care bear binge drinking party.

Firstly you use lore and story interchangeably and they’re not. Lore is a body of knowledge (how and why things work the way they do in a given world, in the case of games) while story is a sequence of events. For example, I found skyrim to have wonderful lore-the gods, daedra, vampires and other mythical creatures, factions and the political climate set a very immersive backdrop for the game….the story on the other hand is ZZzzzzzzzzzz.

That said, when it comes to rpgs I value being given a compelling reason to do a given task to be the most important. As far as gameplay goes rpgs tend to be very….lacking in comparison to other genres. They aren’t as reflex dependent as and lack the spectacle of action titles, they aren’t as strategic as rts titles, they aren’t as dynamic and transformative as fighting games, but they do usually have the advantage of putting your actions into context. Indeed if you trace the history of the genre back to its pen and paper days, story is the ONLY thing (….and rng-but it was a fun story-impacted rng) so its always been a core part of the experience. Another example in-game is this patch and the gauntlet (I think or Jubilee..one of them), where we’re essentially doing the same thing-watching the minimap for an orange circle then rush there and kill things, but during the DR LS it felt hollow, cheap, pointless. Here there’s context and so doing the very same thing feels different, directed, focused, worthwhile, immersive and as a result I have greater satisfaction/appreciation for this event.

One of my main wishes however is they realize a mmorpg is not a single player game and crafting a single player story and sticking it in a mmorpg is just a horrid idea *cough*personal story*cough*. The story must take into account that there are multiple players and have it in such a way that it’s only through the combined effort of multiple players that it will be progressed-and to be fair this particular LS is just that, so fingers crossed for the future.

The personal story writing bored me so badly that I don’t care one iota for the lore or the story. I never played GW1, so I have no history to be nostalgic about. I don’t play for the lore/storey/role playing aspects. Maybe that’s why I’m very bored with the game in general now. I do the LS events when I can, but I have no idea what the actual story is behind Scarlet and the toxic baddies, nor do I care.

TL:DR; I mute the sound and skip all cutscenes. Nope, lore and story are not important to me at all.

Both are very important to me. It’s why I play.

Lore is of 0 importance.
A coherent and well told story is of the utmost importance. This generally requires decent lore.

I tried to be interested in the lore, like I was in GW1, but there’s barely any point. They tweaked/minimized (or used the infamous “No we didn’t retcon, it’s just that the NPC who told you that wasn’t all-knowing. In fact you can’t take anything we say for granted”) a lot of GW1 lore and the most interesting bits of GW2 lore aren’t even learned in the game. You learn them by reading short stories on the websites, or through interviews.

And that whole Scarlet thing is terrible. It’s like they ask us to complete a 10 000 pieces puzzle yet they only give us 1 piece every two weeks…

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I do the LS events when I can, but I have no idea what the actual story is behind Scarlet and the toxic baddies, nor do I care.

You want to know something “funny” ? Even if you paid attention you wouldn’t know that much more about Scarlet.

Lore is pretty important. I’m not really loving this shift the game is doing away from GW1 lore to this tech-punk-Scarlet nonsense.
I wish it would go away.

Stopped caring the moment I discovered tree people.

On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being not important and 10 being very important …

0

I consider Lore very important. It’s the foundation of the world the game is set in. Much like if you asked me whether I consider physics to be important. Inconsistent Lore is a big deal in a game or fantasy universe.

The story is a little less heavily weighted in my book. Story arcs can be altered and concluded. The only requirement for a story arc (imo) is that it can exist within the Lore. Past that, good/bad is a matter of opinion on the art of writing (and the medium it’s presented in).

As long as I have a decent grip on the main story line and its metaphors, I’m happy.
I don’t play mmo’s for their story though.

The lore and story is what kept me interested in the GWverse since 2006 – I hadn’t really had any breaks since then excluding last winter, despite the years of no-content in GW1. The quality of such is falling, continuously, from my point of view with constant retcons under the guise of “they were wrong” and new things added which makes little sense with old lore, or is utterly unneeded with old lore, that my interest is continuously waning.

To a point but i do not play mmorpg for lore its just nice to have an ok story there. Mmorpgs for me is more about playing with other ppl when i played ff11 i had no ideal what was going on in that game but i enjoyed it because of the ppl i played with and i love there skill-chain system.
For realty good lore and stores its best to keep with single players games or at least games made to be played alone with online drop in. When you add another person in person or adding in a lot of ppl into a game it takes a lot away from the story because the story is not what the game is telling you its the story your making with the ppl your playing with.

You will find more GW1 players who where big time into lore tend to play the game solo or used it like a drop in game and not an mmorpg that every one keeps trying to forces GW1 to fit into (its was not an mmorpg so there are just simply truth that could and could not be done with it).

When I play a themepark MMO like GW2, lore and story are the most important things to me. Immersion is what I am looking for.

While I like the lore, the story in GW2 is abysmal. It makes the lore futile anyways, as it is just set up on something random and new.
The story offers no immersion – only the old gods know why ANet is trying to avoid the rich lore they have…

I like lore, but I dont’ like readying over complex plot line and story. I think really it is how the story is presented to you.

It’s very important to me, I can’t enjoy RPG type games if I don’t like the setting or story. I can’t even imagine me playing an RPG where I wouldn’t care about the lore but only about the gameplay.

I always give my characters appropriate names and dress them up appropriately to the setting. No flaming shoulders, no overuse of skulls, no rainbows, no boilerplate dredge armour, no nightmare armour on non-sylvari, no horrible full abyss demon guardians with bat wings or whatever it is they do, and no tentacle backpacks. Luckily, the pieces that I consider to be fashion disasters are quite limited in this game. ^^

While I’m really a traditional swords and sorcery person, I love how they blended in the steampunk-like elements. Though currently with the whole Scarlet stuff, it became a little too prevalent.

About the story .. I think with the personal story they started out quite good! But unfortunately it then started to feature the tree commander with the most uninspiring voice I’ve ever heard, who casually announces in one mission that he’s going to summon some blood fiend skeleton horde. My faithful guardian should really have had an option to deter him there, i.e. punch his lights out. :P

With the living story it was the opposite for me .. I think they started out quite weak with the seemingly random collect things in 100 places quests. Then some time later they got the content right; and even if some things turned into a zerg fest the first few days it was really nice to see that actual things happened, such as the Zephyr Sanctum and Jubilee. At times the writing was a bit hit and miss though, some parts were great and some (almost zany) parts less so. But overall I think it has improved tremendously over the year. To me, that was especially visible during the last few episodes starting with that tower in Kessex. That intro instance accompanying the Seraph was brilliant. Partly because I really like the Seraph imagery, and partly because it finally finally finally felt actually threatening.

Anyways, yes story and lore is very important to me. I discovered Tyria after friends nagged at me for ages to get GW2 at launch, and I like it to the extent that somewhere last year I also purchased GW1, to discover more about the history of the setting. Quite different-yet-similiar, yet it holds up very well for a 10 year old game!

They are both very important to me, you cannot have a good story without having good lore as well. I am bothered however with the increasing amount of silly lore-breaking items they are adding to the game. Quaggan backpacks, holographic wings, halo, devil’s horns, THE ZODIAC ARMOR, etc.
In my opinion these items do not bring anything good to the game, they only add a ‘asian mmo-feeling’ to the game, since items like those are generally found in the asian mmo’s.
I am all for new items and such, but let them be coherent with the world and the living story. The recently added Zodiac armor really had NOTHING to do at all with the current living story. They should add items related to the current ongoing living story, not something completely random.
Taking the Phalanx armor as an example (since the Zodiac armor is just really bad), they should have added NPC’s who wear the armor-set. Pact elite soldiers or something like that. This alone would make the items feel more related to the world.

Lore is incredibly important. I need to know why things are happening in the game, I what to know what got us to this point, rich backgrounds, developed characters.

I really need it to enjoy the game, which is why Scarlet has made this very difficult. The next major story will be fantastic I can sense it. It will be a high fantasy adventure of epic proportions.

I think the level of importance all depends on the part of the game you play:

• PvP – Not Important
• WvW – Little Importance
• PvE – Paramount Importance

PvP is about smiting your fellow man so lore doesn’t really matter. WvW is about crushing the opposing army so again lore has very little use there. But in PvE it is about exploring the world, helping others in need and roleplaying, so lore aka history very much enters into it.

This is why the Living Story exists in its majority in PvE with a smattering in WvW.

Now you may or may not like the Story but its roots come from some point in history, with the storyline(secret or not) established for future use.

I personally believe they do not tie enough of the lore that has already been established in GW1 to the current game and this reason why the Living Story seems so disjointed. They are still lacking the continuity to bring things together.

With the Scarlet storyline coming to a close I am looking forward to see how they start using the rich lore base of GW1 in the next Living Story.

When I came aboard the “Tyrian” train in 2008, I was amazed at how the lore instantly grabbed me. The music also grabbed me, bringing me closer to the lore. The way you could go to different parts of the world and feel the pains of that area. Each area was unique and the culture true.

For those of you who played SNES, it brought me back to the times of “Gaia” and “Zelda”. The deep connection which made you forget what time of day it was. A true world built around the fight between evil and good.

Now here in the “new age”, when I try and get that same connection, I see flying ponies, pop guns, and ultimately pop culture reference stuck in places where they shouldn’t be.

I’m not sure whether I should take any of this seriously or if I’m living in the twilight zone.

(I can still remember those early morning getting up and logging in, hearing the music, and just being stoked by the time a particular map was loaded.)

It’s important to me. I couldn’t play something I couldn’t use my imagination on, and lore gives me a foundation to run with. I read stuff outside of the game, inside of it, and it makes the whole thing come alive for me. I don’t keep it as close to my heart as others might, however, so if it goes belly-up in some cases, I can live with it. And then proceed to have fun with it at the expense of.. someone or something, somewhere or other.

Story... well, I’m going glass half-full on it. It doesn’t always do it for me (seriously, my engi refuses to continue with anything until she receives PTSD counselling, and my ranger and mesmer are just hoping for cake after Arah, if I ever get my nerve together to run the story instance again).

For all PVE players who’re interested in LS, it is… as you see above and below… VERY important!
It is an another question why are the lore disappointing for a high percentage of players…

I wish there to be DEPTH, EPICNESS, and replacing a lot of things that I would just call lazyness, or childish idiotism… aka laser beams… laser beams everywhere…

I don’t know. Sometimes I watch cutscenes and pay attention to ambient flavor dialogues, but sometimes I skip or ignore them. I’d have to go with not so important. Though watching and listening has taken the lead on ignoring lately; I think the characters are growing on me. Kasmeer’s bear omg.

Jski.6180:

To a point but i do not play mmorpg for lore its just nice to have an ok story there. Mmorpgs for me is more about playing with other ppl when i played ff11 i had no ideal what was going on in that game but i enjoyed it because of the ppl i played with and i love there skill-chain system.
For realty good lore and stores its best to keep with single players games or at least games made to be played alone with online drop in. When you add another person in person or adding in a lot of ppl into a game it takes a lot away from the story because the story is not what the game is telling you its the story your making with the ppl your playing with.

You will find more GW1 players who where big time into lore tend to play the game solo or used it like a drop in game and not an mmorpg that every one keeps trying to forces GW1 to fit into (its was not an mmorpg so there are just simply truth that could and could not be done with it).

For your information, it is physically impossible for you to have a “story” with the people you play with.

Why?

You are the solo commander of the Pact, TreeHero’s right hand man.
The people you played with are also all the solo commander of the Pact, TreeHero’s right hand man.

You cannot possibly exist in the universe of the people you played with. Neither can they exist in yours.

So you and them playing together was purely a game play mechanic. That didn’t actually happen in the story.

Do I like this system? Nope. GW1 was much better. And it was simple:

GW1: You are all Chosen. You are all Closer to the Star. You are all Ascended.
GW2: You and you alone is TreeHero’s right hand man.

Small wording. Big difference.

As for the topic, lore is very important. It keeps things in prospective. Lore is what gives the story room to grow.

I am not offended by the likes of holographic wings. Yes they made no sense, but they are obviously just for looks. If they give us the option to turn them off, so we don’t see them on other players, it would be fine.

What does offend me are the lore breaking stuffs. Take Kraits for example.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/Kind-of-concerned-anyone-else/first#post3688452

Lore is important to me, but I also understand the need for a sequel to do their own thing for the sake of story.

250 years have passed, things have changed. I didn’t anticipate GW2 to exactly jump right out of EoTN’s stuff or GW:Beyond and keep up with old characters I liked in the first game.

I liked how the Charr grew and beat down the Flame (Gold) Legion.
The Asura adjusting to the surface was a nice touch.
The Humans losing Ascalon and holding their lines at Divinity’s Reach made for decent beginning drama.
I loved how the Norn were pushed back, but still they think there’s a chance to win against the Dragon.
Finally I was somewhat curious about the Sylvari, especially considering how they were formed.

Yes I miss the Five Gods…and Kormir maybe, but I also like the potential story in them leaving our world.

(eyetwitch) Certain things like the Krait and Scarlet’s involvement with them raise my hackles, but I’m willing to overlook such things until it gets to be too much.

Very important, that’s why I’m so annoyed about ANet retconning or blatantly disregarding it. (read: Scarlet)

I cared a lot about the lore, right up to the absolute dismissal of GW1 lore in the McCoy interview. “they were mistaken”

Now.. not at all in this game. The LS has made a mockery of lore in too many ways.

I don’t even know any of it. I can’t even get into the personal story because unless I do each stage without a break my bad memory allows me to forget why I’m even doing what I’m even doing. I log in later, go to some star on a map, watch some more cut scenes and then go some place else and kill some stuff. I have no idea what the story is in this game. I have no idea who the major NPCs are what and what they mean. It’s like watching some strange puppet show between battles.

I don’t care because I’m half-crazy with a significant memory problem. From what I can tell and recall it seems no matter what I do makes no difference anyway so I don’t care what NPCs do. I just login, decide what is fun for me to do at the moment and do it.

Then I log off and go eat some nachos. I love nachos. Well aside from the time my dog knocked them off the table and got nacho cheese all over him. Trust me it is a real pain in the rear to clean nacho cheese off your dog.

CHIPS.6018:

Jski.6180:

To a point but i do not play mmorpg for lore its just nice to have an ok story there. Mmorpgs for me is more about playing with other ppl when i played ff11 i had no ideal what was going on in that game but i enjoyed it because of the ppl i played with and i love there skill-chain system.
For realty good lore and stores its best to keep with single players games or at least games made to be played alone with online drop in. When you add another person in person or adding in a lot of ppl into a game it takes a lot away from the story because the story is not what the game is telling you its the story your making with the ppl your playing with.

You will find more GW1 players who where big time into lore tend to play the game solo or used it like a drop in game and not an mmorpg that every one keeps trying to forces GW1 to fit into (its was not an mmorpg so there are just simply truth that could and could not be done with it).

For your information, it is physically impossible for you to have a “story” with the people you play with.

Why?

You are the solo commander of the Pact, TreeHero’s right hand man.
The people you played with are also all the solo commander of the Pact, TreeHero’s right hand man.

You cannot possibly exist in the universe of the people you played with. Neither can they exist in yours.

So you and them playing together was purely a game play mechanic. That didn’t actually happen in the story.

Do I like this system? Nope. GW1 was much better. And it was simple:

GW1: You are all Chosen. You are all Closer to the Star. You are all Ascended.
GW2: You and you alone is TreeHero’s right hand man.

Small wording. Big difference.

So a real story is any thing you make it to be just having word on paper dose not mean its a story you must have a reader to make it a story. In a way a game cant have a story until some one is playing it. To have other ppl with you you start to make a story with them and not with the game. You can make up any back ground story as you wish and apply it to your hero this is not RPing this is how you want to play and think of your hero. I am saying that once you add in other ppl you take away from the first story that you and the worlds where trying to make because the worlds become less important due to the other person point of view.
Ask your self this if you see a tree fall in the woods is that the same as seeing by your self as it is with seeing it fall with another person? This can be applied to every thing you do in life. When you read a book by your self its about the book and your self and what you think about that book once you start talking to another person about that book your viewing that book though there point of view as well as your making the book less important because it becomes more about the different in points of views.

GW2 is made to be played with other ppl a lot of other ppl that why its know as a them-park type of game the story IS less important in games and the ideal of a them-park what is more important is the story that the ppl who are playing it with you make up.
GW1 was a HUB games that let you have npc run events with you and you only had a set number of npc and or players in a zone. There was simply no room for in game many points of view. Once you got to the forms then it changed because you where using more then your point of view and making it less about the game but in game it was not this way.

Lore and story is extremely important to me and its because of this, I am greatly disappointed as to how the lore is being handle in this game. The amount of Sylvari favoritism is extremely strong and I don’t like it one bit.

As you all know, the Personal Story becomes “Trahearne Story” at a certain point of the game and how he was basically Jesus to everyone he met. The PS also made it seem that the Sylvari race was the best race in the game and how no matter what race you are, your character is forced to meet up with the Pale Tree, watch her crown Trahearne as the Chosen One, and how we are forcefully calling the Pale Tree “wise” for her action. I am speaking this from a human and a charr perspective and I find this a load of crap. We also get to hear that they are immune to Zhaitan’s corruption or how the “purification of Orr” is more important than killing the Elder Dragon. We get to watch Trahearne pick a Sylvari as one of the best weapon smith in the game. We get to see their best attack unit npc game and guess what? They are the Pale Reavers and they are Sylvaris. Its not just the PS but everywhere else in the game. People always commented how special or cool the Sylvari are. There was that human and asura chat in LA where a human suggest the asura that Sylvari tech is the best choice to make. The Kodan, whom consider most of the smart race inferior, consider the Sylvari to be a special case and actually praise them. One of Norn’s specialty is about becoming a Legend? The Sylvari did that with all that hivemind crap they have when a Sylvari die. That plant die and everything he or she knows goes to every other Sylvari’s mind. It was through this race that brought in all that same-sex fiasco and how I have to see this crap ruin more stories being told in future stories.The way the Living Story play out, the Sylvari, NOT the Asura, is the smartest race in the game because of Scarlet’s existence. Playing out the hivemind crap, when she dies, EVERY sylvari will now have her knowledge link from the Pale Tree.

With that out of the way, I can clearly say that the Sylvari Race is one of the poorest written race in Guild Wars 2 and it sicken me how a race of plant people could ruin such a nice game.

Traveller.7496:

Very important, that’s why I’m so annoyed about ANet retconning or blatantly disregarding it. (read: Scarlet)

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I cared a lot about the lore, right up to the absolute dismissal of GW1 lore in the McCoy interview. “they were mistaken”

Now.. not at all in this game. The LS has made a mockery of lore in too many ways.

The Living Story itself is an abomination to the lore of the game and show how the writer of the said story didn’t even bother looking at the lore of GW 1 AND GW 2. I hated Scarlet and I hated how she kept being shoved into ever content in the game or how she is very favorable to a certain writer. Speaking of that certain writer, here is her take on Guild Wars 1 lore and how she retcon that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Angel-McCoy-Interview

Jski.6180:

snip

Its like you never played Guild Wars 1 at all. That system was perfect in regards to how to make multiple of PCs feel like heroes and that they actually did something to the world or the game.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I cared a lot about the lore, right up to the absolute dismissal of GW1 lore in the McCoy interview. “they were mistaken”

Now.. not at all in this game. The LS has made a mockery of lore in too many ways.

I agree, she certainly likes to take over and control things. Its all a bit insulting to the writers of GW1 imo.

I found one thing from the first major story arc. I don’t like her writing at all.

Thank you for your reply and time Angel. It is always a pleasure when you (or one of the other devs) come to the forums.

I always wondered though. Will we ever find out if the Toxic Hybrid was ever a true prophet or just a krait shaped sylvari like construct? Or is it one of those things to be saved for a later LS or a obscured reference for the future?

Angel McCoy.1832:

I’ll tell you a little secret about the krait, that’s perhaps not so secret, but that may help you understand how and why they’ve changed since GW1. The krait once believed themselves to be the top of the food chain.

But, in these intervening years, they’ve been attacked, driven from their deeps, scattered into smaller groups, and forced to move into more shallow waters. The rise of the dragons gave them a little taste of humble pie. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unending_Ocean)

This group of krait are hungry to regain their previous level of power and confidence, and they believe that the one way they can do it is via their prophets. And Scarlet offered them a chance to take back what they’ve lost.

As the wiki says, “Krait doctrine fortells the return of the obelisks’ prophets, bringing with them massive armies to flood the surface of the world and destroy other species.” (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Krait)

They may have wished they could do it a different way, but this particular group of krait agreed to Scarlet’s offer of obelisk shards and the chance to “grow” a prophet.

That actually makes a lot of sense.

I think this is a problem that GW2 has struggled with. When detailed and explained, things like the context here allow things to make a lot of sense. One of the things I’ve loved about the past 5 – 6 releases is that that context is being far better presented. Its a real struggle cause really for the average player, they need to be aware of that context without having to dig too deeply.

GW2 perhaps is particularly prone to this issue since it has a very detailed history set 250 years in the past. For a lot of old lore much has happened since then but being unaware of the details of those changes, the stark differences now make things look more like a retcon than an natural evolution. Its a tricky problem, to be sure.

Its a funny thing I’ve had with the LS. I’ve had several discussions with people who haven’t seen the last 4 releases either to having only just started playing again or having not played in a long time. Universally the issues seem to be that they see scarlet as shallow and what she does as silly and unrealistic. After I explain the detail behind the event though they usually say ‘oh, that makes sense’.

Context is really big and hard to draw in small bits.

I will say I found the calendar change a strange one. I would have expected that civilisations in the past as obsessed with celestial bodies as they were would have noticed a number of missing days.

Angel McCoy.1832:

I’ll tell you a little secret about the krait, that’s perhaps not so secret, but that may help you understand how and why they’ve changed since GW1. The krait once believed themselves to be the top of the food chain.

But, in these intervening years, they’ve been attacked, driven from their deeps, scattered into smaller groups, and forced to move into more shallow waters. The rise of the dragons gave them a little taste of humble pie. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unending_Ocean)

This group of krait are hungry to regain their previous level of power and confidence, and they believe that the one way they can do it is via their prophets. And Scarlet offered them a chance to take back what they’ve lost.

As the wiki says, “Krait doctrine fortells the return of the obelisks’ prophets, bringing with them massive armies to flood the surface of the world and destroy other species.” (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Krait)

They may have wished they could do it a different way, but this particular group of krait agreed to Scarlet’s offer of obelisk shards and the chance to “grow” a prophet.

Are we playing the same game? The Kraits were all over the Tarnished Coast by the time the heroes of GW 1 reach the EotN and I am pretty sure they would have knew they weren’t the top of the food chain with all those Dinosaurs running around and chopping everything with their Twisting Jaws.

As for the recent Kraits that came out of the sea, I can’t fathom to think that they would place their alliance with Scarlet with all the thing she done for “them”. After having their prophet kill, having countless of countless of Kraits dead in those countless amount of Living Story events, having them work with an equally xenophobic group of sylvari (which I can’t fathom as to why THEY would work with Scarlet) with no other reason other that combining toxin, and watching your employer insult you with all those “sssssssssss”, you would think there was a point where the Krait would just abandon Scarlet altogether. But I guess I am not in charge of writing up the lore and making it “sense” to fit the Living Story.

The Kraits are better off allying with an elder dragon.

Angel McCoy.1832:

I’ll tell you a little secret about the krait, that’s perhaps not so secret, but that may help you understand how and why they’ve changed since GW1. The krait once believed themselves to be the top of the food chain.

But, in these intervening years, they’ve been attacked, driven from their deeps, scattered into smaller groups, and forced to move into more shallow waters. The rise of the dragons gave them a little taste of humble pie. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unending_Ocean)

This group of krait are hungry to regain their previous level of power and confidence, and they believe that the one way they can do it is via their prophets. And Scarlet offered them a chance to take back what they’ve lost.

As the wiki says, “Krait doctrine fortells the return of the obelisks’ prophets, bringing with them massive armies to flood the surface of the world and destroy other species.” (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Krait)

They may have wished they could do it a different way, but this particular group of krait agreed to Scarlet’s offer of obelisk shards and the chance to “grow” a prophet.

Thanks for the extra back story on the Krait, it is much appreciated. We should put this on the wiki somewhere.

Qawsada.4251:

Angel McCoy.1832:

I’ll tell you a little secret about the krait, that’s perhaps not so secret, but that may help you understand how and why they’ve changed since GW1. The krait once believed themselves to be the top of the food chain.

But, in these intervening years, they’ve been attacked, driven from their deeps, scattered into smaller groups, and forced to move into more shallow waters. The rise of the dragons gave them a little taste of humble pie. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unending_Ocean)

This group of krait are hungry to regain their previous level of power and confidence, and they believe that the one way they can do it is via their prophets. And Scarlet offered them a chance to take back what they’ve lost.

As the wiki says, “Krait doctrine fortells the return of the obelisks’ prophets, bringing with them massive armies to flood the surface of the world and destroy other species.” (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Krait)

They may have wished they could do it a different way, but this particular group of krait agreed to Scarlet’s offer of obelisk shards and the chance to “grow” a prophet.

Are we playing the same game? The Kraits were all over the Tarnished Coast by the time the heroes of GW 1 reach the EotN and I am pretty sure they would have knew they weren’t the top of the food chain with all those Dinosaurs running around and chopping everything with their Twisting Jaws.

As for the recent Kraits that came out of the sea, I can’t fathom to think that they would place their alliance with Scarlet with all the thing she done for “them”. After having their prophet kill, having countless of countless of Kraits dead in those countless amount of Living Story events, having them work with an equally xenophobic group of sylvari (which I can’t fathom as to why THEY would work with Scarlet) with no other reason other that combining toxin, and watching your employer insult you with all those “sssssssssss”, you would think there was a point where the Krait would just abandon Scarlet altogether. But I guess I am not in charge of writing up the lore and making it “sense” to fit the Living Story.

The Kraits are better off allying with an elder dragon.

The Nightmare Court would ally with Scarlet cause what she is doing is their thing to a tee.

The Krait were top of the food chain in the same way humans are. Krait were a society and if they wanted to they could have slaughtered the dinosaurs or other large predators. They were top dog until an elder dragon came along and utterly kicked their kitten.

The Krait are a theocratic society. There religion is central to all they do. Scarlet turns up and offers them the equivalent of fragments of a relic which would cause the second coming. That’s huge for them. They may hate Scarlet but what she offers them is too good to pass up.

And no one would be better off allying with a Elder Dragon.

Lutinz.6915:

The Nightmare Court would ally with Scarlet cause what she is doing is their thing to a tee.

The Krait were top of the food chain in the same way humans are. Krait were a society and if they wanted to they could have slaughtered the dinosaurs or other large predators. They were top dog until an elder dragon came along and utterly kicked their kitten.

The Krait are a theocratic society. There religion is central to all they do. Scarlet turns up and offers them the equivalent of fragments of a relic which would cause the second coming. That’s huge for them. They may hate Scarlet but what she offers them is too good to pass up.

And no one would be better off allying with a Elder Dragon.

That isn’t enough information in regard to why would the Nightmare Court would work with Scarlet in the first place, or with the Krait for that matter. I am quite aware that they are two timing back stabbers from the explorable of TA, but I can’t picture them working for someone like Scarlet, who treated her employees like crap.

They could but seeing that the land was heavily dominated by T-rexs, Riders, Undead, Humans, and other jungle monstrosity, that wasn’t the case at all. If we’re talking underwater, I am placing my bets on the Largos for being top dog underwater. We seem them as assassin of the sea and they are the closing thing to being a humanoid.

I could picture a few selected Krait going zealous for the relic, but based on what the game shown up in the Nightmare update, it tells us that ALL kraits are willing to deal with Scarlet and that is a pretty big no-no on my account. I still wouldn’t believe they would follow her for this long right after we kill their prophet.

And I would think otherwise with the Elder Dragon. Each and every one of those dragons seem to hate each other and the krait could just use them (or have themselves being corrupted) with one of the Elder Dragon to get Bubbles out of the water. Its a much more straight forward approach, if you ask me.

Actually, the game didn’t. There were a lot of Krait that were normal and not “toxic” glowing.

Also, As Angle explicitly said for the Krait, the wiki clearly stated the Nightmare court with Scarlet is a splinter faction.

Growing a giant tree to poison massive amounts of land? That’s pretty horrible and would affect the dream.

Also, the Krait willing enough to following Scarlet for the Obelisk shards, would also be the ones who would follow her still. Why? Vengeance. A bunch of adventurers just murdered their prophet after it emerged. A super “religion is everything” group would basically follow Scarlet simply to get the heads of those who did it.

I, personally, feel the lore and story of games are essential to my enjoyment. I play for the same reason that I read, or write- i want to get out of my world for a bit and into another. To me it seems like the people who don’t value the world must be masochists to put up with the grinding and the zerging without even the payoff of enjoying the context. I’m more happy sitting in the middle of a city for hours at a time soaking up the ambient dialogue than I am spending half an hour running the latest and shiniest content with a group.

That said, and it has been mentioned before, there’s a difference between lore and story, especially in an MMORPG. I understand you putting them together, because they are inextricably intertwined, and damage to one will hurt the other. But lore is what gives the player room and a structure to find their own niche in the world; story is what gives them cause to leave that niche and interact. And I think it’s in part because of how uncompelling the Living Story has felt that I’ve been so reluctant to leave my shell and let other players in on my experience of Tyria. I think that’s what Jski meant when he was talking about us insular GW1 players- it felt like a kick in the teeth when I logged in to this patch and (erroneously, I do admit) concluded that I had to stay with the group to get through the content, and I attribute that feeling to the setup that Lion’s Arch is just the grinding in between the story bits in the camp. To the Living World teams’ collective credit, they have gotten much better since the dark days of Sky Pirates of Tyria and the Bazaar of the Four Winds, and I am very interested in Season 2… but I think it’s a kitten shame that I can’t muster enthusiasm for the grand climax next week, and I regret that some of that early bad storytelling has not only put me and many others in this state of apathy, but it has also violated the lore that has been tiding me by until another good story comes around.

@Angel I too appreciate the time you took to chime in, but I think your explanation highlights one of the problems with the delivery, one that I haven’t really seen addressed yet. I’m sure you and the rest of the people involved in the content do sit down and reason that stuff out, figure out between yourselves how it would make sense, and how it could make sense, for things to change in Tyria… but that doesn’t reach the players. We’re just presented with the fact that things have changed, often without any word as to why, let alone a satisfactory explanation. I do get the fact that some things have to be kept close to your chest, in case you want to do some big reveal with them later, but surely you see that it needs be balanced against the pitfalls of this kind of damage control, months after the first impressions have seeded bitterness?

Kalavier.1097:

Actually, the game didn’t. There were a lot of Krait that were normal and not “toxic” glowing.

Considering the LS daily event consist us in going to the hot spot of those Krait area just to kill them and the Witch, I would say otherwise.

Kalavier.1097:

Also, As Angle explicitly said for the Krait, the wiki clearly stated the Nightmare court with Scarlet is a splinter faction.

Again, That isn’t enough information in regard to why would the Nightmare Court would work with Scarlet in the first place, or with the Krait for that matter. I am quite aware that they are two timing back stabbers from the explorable of TA, but I can’t picture them working for someone like Scarlet, who treated her employees like crap. The only excuse for this is writing new lore to fit the Living Story and that is a whole new kind of terrible.

Kalavier.1097:

Also, the Krait willing enough to following Scarlet for the Obelisk shards, would also be the ones who would follow her still. Why? Vengeance. A bunch of adventurers just murdered their prophet after it emerged. A super “religion is everything” group would basically follow Scarlet simply to get the heads of those who did it.

Except they could just go to the adventurer’s home land and just attack there, like they always did. Cut out the middle man (or sylvari in this case) and go directly to their heart.

I dont mind “shallow” lore as long as it is engaging

It could be mistery, action, comedy, anything counts as long as it is enjoyable and engaging

Qawsada.4251:

Kalavier.1097:

Actually, the game didn’t. There were a lot of Krait that were normal and not “toxic” glowing.

Considering the LS daily event consist us in going to the hot spot of those Krait area just to kill them and the Witch, I would say otherwise.

Toxic alliance krait glowed. A good, large majority of Krait did not.

Kalavier.1097:

Also, As Angle explicitly said for the Krait, the wiki clearly stated the Nightmare court with Scarlet is a splinter faction.

Again, That isn’t enough information in regard to why would the Nightmare Court would work with Scarlet in the first place, or with the Krait for that matter. I am quite aware that they are two timing back stabbers from the explorable of TA, but I can’t picture them working for someone like Scarlet, who treated her employees like crap. The only excuse for this is writing new lore to fit the Living Story and that is a whole new kind of terrible.

Why do the nightmare court do half the things they do? This splinter faction obviously felt what Scarlet was doing was horrible enough for them. Also, she only has been confirmed as treating the Aetherblades ‘like crap’. :P

Kalavier.1097:

Also, the Krait willing enough to following Scarlet for the Obelisk shards, would also be the ones who would follow her still. Why? Vengeance. A bunch of adventurers just murdered their prophet after it emerged. A super “religion is everything” group would basically follow Scarlet simply to get the heads of those who did it.

Except they could just go to the adventurer’s home land and just attack there, like they always did. Cut out the middle man (or sylvari in this case) and go directly to their heart.

How would they attack all the capitals? Assuming a multi-racial adventurer group that killed their prophet.

Maybe Scarlet implied the group lived in/came from LA. Maybe she promised them more shards. Who knows.

Angel McCoy.1832:

I’ll tell you a little secret about the krait, that’s perhaps not so secret, but that may help you understand how and why they’ve changed since GW1. The krait once believed themselves to be the top of the food chain.

But, in these intervening years, they’ve been attacked, driven from their deeps, scattered into smaller groups, and forced to move into more shallow waters. The rise of the dragons gave them a little taste of humble pie. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unending_Ocean)

This group of krait are hungry to regain their previous level of power and confidence, and they believe that the one way they can do it is via their prophets. And Scarlet offered them a chance to take back what they’ve lost.

As the wiki says, “Krait doctrine fortells the return of the obelisks’ prophets, bringing with them massive armies to flood the surface of the world and destroy other species.” (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Krait)

They may have wished they could do it a different way, but this particular group of krait agreed to Scarlet’s offer of obelisk shards and the chance to “grow” a prophet.

Thanks for your reply. I do have two questions:

1) Does this mean the Kraits were driven out of the ocean homes by the elder sea dragon 250 years ago, so they were forced to live on land?

That also means the elder sea dragon was awoken at about the same time as Primordus.

Primordus’ awakening was slowed down by the players destroying the Great Destroyer.
Nothing slowed down the elder sea dragon, so it was already awoke 250 years ago?

The time of awakening for the elder sea dragon is a very important part of the lore. So please clarify. ^^

2) If the Kraits were xenophobic 250 years ago, and as of today they are no longer xenophobic, does that mean they are no longer the force of pure evil that we thought they are?

All races were xenophobic once upon a time. Humans were xenophobic. Charrs were xenophobic. etc. Does that mean the Kraits will also be “redeemed” to become a good race in the future?

And it sounds like some of the Kraits are willing to talk with other races now. Does this mean that in the future, it is possible for some of the kraits to ally themselves with the Pact?

Kalavier.1097:

Actually, the game didn’t. There were a lot of Krait that were normal and not “toxic” glowing.

Also, As Angle explicitly said for the Krait, the wiki clearly stated the Nightmare court with Scarlet is a splinter faction.

Growing a giant tree to poison massive amounts of land? That’s pretty horrible and would affect the dream.

Also, the Krait willing enough to following Scarlet for the Obelisk shards, would also be the ones who would follow her still. Why? Vengeance. A bunch of adventurers just murdered their prophet after it emerged. A super “religion is everything” group would basically follow Scarlet simply to get the heads of those who did it.

No one will avenge false prophets, who lied to their own people.

The prophet(s) were supposed to lead the Kraits to conquer all the land dwellers. That’s the prophecy. If someone claimed to be a prophet, yet failed to fulfill the prophecy and died, that person is a false prophet.