Guild Wars 2

CHIPS.6018:

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.

And the super zealous hardly see reason so clearly. To them the prophet was coming, and was slaughtered as he awoke by a group.

I reckon that the rule is really important as it explains more about the character. in LOL i always read the law before i get the character.

Qawsada.4251:

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.

Its true we don’t know all the details. Frankly it could be as simple as the fact that Scarlet is causing large scale suffering and death and they love that stuff. Alternately, depending on how much you buy into the Mordremoth theories and the dream, the voice in Scarlet’s head could easily be linked to the Nightmare itself. That would draw the Nightmare Court like flies. The point is its an easy alliance to explain, particularly since the Nightmare Court treats each other like dirt all the time.

There is nothing at all indicating that the Largos were ‘top dog’ in the oceans and their humanoid form would be as much a hindrance as a benefit below water. We know that the Krait were a powerful race that dominated their territories. A powerful nation that arrives on land isn’t going to be any more thrown by large predators or other races than, say, the Charr would have been. The Krait have always been powerful spellcasters, strong warriors and extremely adaptable to their surroundings.

Even if the prophet was false, the Obelisk shards are real. You need to remember Krait are religious zealots. Its the core of their society. Its why they do all the things they do. Obelisk shards are central to that, and while Scarlet can potentially offer them access to more, it would be stupid for them to stop.

We also aren’t dealing with all Krait. If we were we would probably be in a lot more trouble.

As for the Elder Dragons, name one group that has actually successfully allied with an Elder Dragon? Not the Sons of Svanir. They are servants and cultist, not allies, and all end up as corrupted minions in the end anyway.

Mortals are dirt to Elder Dragons. They aren’t interested in allies. Even ‘using’ dragon stuff has almost universally backfired on people who try. Trying to ally with and ED would just get the Krait, and anyone else who tried, killed. Might as well try and ally with a volcanic eruption.

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.

While I appreciate your time, there is one thing that I feel I must point out:

“Equally comfortable above and below the water, the krait have never felt truly threatened by any of the land-dwelling races of Tyria. Perhaps that is why they have not bothered to communicate with other races. They have no need of anything land-dwellers can give them, other than slaves for their use and sacrifices for their rituals. However, the krait can seize those for themselves—with ruthless efficiency.
Even the amphibious hylek are at a disadvantage when fighting underwater. No hylek tribe has been able to mount an effective force against the krait. The quaggan are terrified of them and tell tales of their monstrous chantries beneath the sea. The krait have never been beaten, and do not believe themselves to be defeatable. They are convinced that they are blessed and elevated: the superior species in the world."

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadows_in_the_Water_%E2%80%93_The_Krait

Originally posted on arena.net/blog before it was taken down, written by Ree Soesbee. Original version via web archive.org.

This article is obviously written from a GW2 viewpoint, as all the other lore blog posts were, and thus would logically include their little exodus – during which they ruthlessly slaughtered the quaggan royal family and, according to at least one pastkeeper, their goddess Mellagan. Even in-game prior to Scarlet’s antics, they are never seen communicating with other races, not even threats during fights except in rare cases like in the personal story with Nimfassa or with the three witches’ events.

And as the blog post shows, even though they were forced out of their homeland, they have never felt threatened by land-dwelling races. So why, all of a sudden, would they communicate with a land-dweller, be threatened by a land-dweller, and not ruthlessly take whatever a land-dweller has to offer, as it is stated that they oh so clearly do in this blog post (our best source for krait lore, and the source for most of the information on the wiki articles you linked).

I hate being the “red shirt guy” of GW (irony: I’m wearing a red shirt while typing this post), but I do hate inconsistencies and GW2 has an ever increasing amount of such – seemingly for the sake of “it looks cool” if not simply un-admittedly overlooking things. And it is little things like this – little things that never occurred in GW1 – that’s making me lose my interest in the game.

Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t really sound like Scarlet’s threatening them. Leveraging the service that only she can provide, sure, and if you want to toss a term with negative connotations in you could call that blackmail. But the implied “or else” is “or else I won’t help you”, not “or else I will harm you”.

I read that implied “or else” as “or else you won’t get your precious obelisks.”

The tone is by far threatening, as is the last of her vocab. She is basically saying, in a threatening tone, “work for me or you won’t get what belongs to you.”

It’s not a threat of bodily harm like with the Aetherblades, but it is still a threat.

And even then, it wouldn’t explain why they don’t just take the obelisk shards seeing how, as the blog post says, the krait will just take whatever land-dwellers can offer them. Mind you, it’s usually in the form of slaves and supplies, not their own ancient cultural objects and promises of power – still, it is left unexplained, to an annoying degree, why the enslaving race of utmost hostility and fanaticism, don’t just gut Scarlet, take the shards, and enslave the Nightmare Court, which is how the blog post presents them as what they would do.

I agree with that last bit. I don’t think it’s really a break in character for them to cooperate to get the shards, but once they have them there’s no reason to stay on with her alliance, especially since her first plan literally collapsed out from under them.

-Edit: got ninja’d while writing my wall xd-

On krait, as much as I love them as race and their potential to bring and push moral ambiguity to GW2’s setting, I feel like a big problem is that unlike all other races (with exception of Karka and Largos) we REALLY don’t see much of what their lore-post told us about them.

Compare to Hylek where we hear and see about their tribe-mentality, their poison and alchemy skills and their religion in the PS and events. Or the Dredge their backstory as dwarven slaves which we also saw in GW1, then their troubles with the moletariate and there’s also lots of dredge-dredge and player-dredge interaction ingame.

And the krait….? Well, what we knew before the living story without the lore blog from the game alone: They sacrifice and enslave whatever crosses their path in the name of their prophets.

That’s it. Nothing ingame ever came close to suggesting that they’re ‘ardent mathematicians’ or showed any kind of high intelligence (beside forming coherent sentences), nothing ingame ever hinted to what’s happened to their shapeshifting, nothing ingame ever even hinted to an established priesthood and social structure among them, nothing ingame ever suggested that the krait would go grawl-mode at the mention of their prophets and least of all, nothing ingame ever hints that they’re slowly getting ‘desperate’ for power.

Heck without the lore-blog post they’d appear to be a bunch of primitives who live in tribes and fanatically kill whatever they come across. The LS gave us a few Oratuss (finally!) and they weren’t much more than regular mooks unfortunately.

So coupled with of the quality of the LS in terms of lore delivery (like with this case going pretty much against exactly what we were told in the blog) and just how …errr… borderline nonexistent interaction between krait and krait or player and krait is (and therefore information ingame which would have given us more insight on what Angel told us) I think the lashback is kinda …natural?

…oh and for the sake of Topic: You see this wall up there yeah I love lore. P:

Actually, there’s a bit of krait-to-player interaction, though it’s highly limited to just the personal story with Apatia, and doesn’t explain much nonetheless. But it does emphasize their egoism and lack of feeling threatened by, oh, anything but Elder Dragon minions.

@Konig des Todes

That’s what I meant with borderline nonexistent. :P It’s the only quest involving krait and beside the blue orb it doesn’t touch anything new at all. Every other event ingame involving quaggans with their village 10 feet next to a tower crying for help can tell you more or less exactly the same about them.
But Oratuss? Obelisks? Numerology? Shape-shifting? What’s that.

Lore is very important to me, that’s why I quit playing this game. Somehow the lore in this game just never got to me. I really tried looking for it in the story, in the world, via wiki, but it’s just to diffuse, to unclear to me for it to work. I still don’t quite get what those dragons are all about. So they consume magic and now they are asleep? That just doesn’t tell me anything about what they want, what’s really at stake here. (I didn’t play GW 1, so all I know is from what’s in this world).

Then I read some developer interviews and it became clear to me that they don’t have a clue where they want to go. It just feels like they make it up along the way, and imo that’s not a strong point. I think you should have an ending in mind, somewhat of an arc in order to tell an interesting story instead of producing content for the sake of content that leads nowhere. That’s soap, not storytelling. And that’s exactly the feeling I got from the LS I played up untill Cutthroat politics.

I’m still following it, because I’m curious as to where it leads, but the Scarlet arc hasn’t convinced me that Lore and story in this game are solid, tight and focussed. And when it’s not treated seriously why would I bother to delve in and connect the dots?

The lore is very important to me
it is why I play games really

Aaron Ansari.1604:

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.

This describes how I feel about reading books, writing stories and games and their lore/story.

Angel McCoy.1832:

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.

Thank you for the information, but even after reading that I still can’t enjoy this splinter group of Krait.

My personal hope is that they die off, leaving the really black hat versions still around until their inevitable decline like the Jotun.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t really sound like Scarlet’s threatening them. Leveraging the service that only she can provide, sure, and if you want to toss a term with negative connotations in you could call that blackmail. But the implied “or else” is “or else I won’t help you”, not “or else I will harm you”.

I will tell you what the Krait should have done, after finding out Scarlet have the Obelisk.

-Kill and enslave Aetherblades that they can find. Torture them until they give up Scarlet’s location. Everyone have a breaking point and one of them will crack eventually.
-Kill and enslave Molten Alliance that they can find. Torture them until they give up Scarlet’s location. Everyone have a breaking point and one of them will crack eventually.
-Locate Scarlet and kill Scarlet.
-Take the Obelisk and continue worshipping.

This is the Krait’s way of dealing with problems. They don’t communicate or play nice with anyone. They just kill and enslave you. Any questions? :P

That is, until the old lore got changed to make room for Mary Scarlet Sue.

By the way nevemind the Krait. Even the Pact should have done this. If I am truly the commander of the Pact, I would have tortured the Aetherblades and Molten Alliances members for information long time ago. Cut off a finger here. Cut off a feet there. Someone must know where Scarlet is.

It would have prevented the deaths of thousands of lives in LA. When you play nice with your enemy, the people you love and care about suffers. It is purely due to the “play nice” attitude of the Pact, that thousands are now dead in LA.

It was the same reason Ascalon lost the war against the Charr. Talented people like Verata should be used to their maximum effect. Instead they were outlawed and banished by the Order of Necromancers. What foolishness!

I am a 300 years old necromancer and I approve this message.

I greatly enjoy both lore and story. I prefer games with strong lore and strong story writing. I feel that there have been times when GW2 has succeeded and failed. I would be interested in Anet creating a survey to see how players feel about the individual LS instances. I know we have the forums, but I think it could be beneficial for Anet’s lore and story development and so that players who care about how the lore and story are being used could feel more heard.

I also believe that players who do not care about the lore and / or the story should be able to check that option.

As far as PvE is concerned I believe that the story, lore and LS should be strong. With WvW it is less important to me to see LS. As I don’t spend too much time in PvP I cannot really comment on LS, lore or story.

Have a wonderful day everyone.

Lovin’ the interaction, Angel – keep it up, please.

CHIPS.6018:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t really sound like Scarlet’s threatening them. Leveraging the service that only she can provide, sure, and if you want to toss a term with negative connotations in you could call that blackmail. But the implied “or else” is “or else I won’t help you”, not “or else I will harm you”.

I will tell you what the Krait should have done, after finding out Scarlet have the Obelisk.

-Kill and enslave Aetherblades that they can find. Torture them until they give up Scarlet’s location. Everyone have a breaking point and one of them will crack eventually.
-Kill and enslave Molten Alliance that they can find. Torture them until they give up Scarlet’s location. Everyone have a breaking point and one of them will crack eventually.
-Locate Scarlet and kill Scarlet.
-Take the Obelisk and continue worshipping.

This is the Krait’s way of dealing with problems. They don’t communicate or play nice with anyone. They just kill and enslave you. Any questions? :P

That is, until the old lore got changed to make room for Mary Scarlet Sue.

By the way nevemind the Krait. Even the Pact should have done this. If I am truly the commander of the Pact, I would have tortured the Aetherblades and Molten Alliances members for information long time ago. Cut off a finger here. Cut off a feet there. Someone must know where Scarlet is.

It would have prevented the deaths of thousands of lives in LA. When you play nice with your enemy, the people you love and care about suffers. It is purely due to the “play nice” attitude of the Pact, that thousands are now dead in LA.

It was the same reason Ascalon lost the war against the Charr. Talented people like Verata should be used to their maximum effect. Instead they were outlawed and banished by the Order of Necromancers. What foolishness!

I am a 300 years old necromancer and I approve this message.

What if they tried, only to find out neither the Aetherblades or Molten Alliance knew anything about where Scarlet is? who is to say either group know where her lairs where? For Krait OR Pact questioning. What if she held the obelisk and had it trapped to explode if she didn’t open the door? Who is to say the Krait aren’t playing along as soon as they get the rest of the shards, they’ll turn on Scarlet or leave her to rot?

I truly doubt either group had any clue where Scarlet hides between appearing to give them information/objective. There is a difference between “Play nice” and “Hey, I’m going to be a torturing kitten who has no problems murdering friendlies.” Because that’s what Verata was doing. He was experimenting on his fellow refugees. That’s why the Order of the Necromancers went after him, not his research. IIRC, the quest actually was like “This guy is experimenting on how to make minions last longer. That’s great. He’s using fellow refugees and civilians for his experiments, that’s not cool.”

My 300(almost) year necromancer(GW1 necro, not ingame atm lol) wouldn’t support such actions, and she’s basically ditched caring about politics. Though if they made a VERY, VERY good offer, she might wander into LA and clear out a chunk of the enemies, as she never stopped practicing or improving her abilities and thus is very powerful :P.

Angel McCoy.1832:

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?

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?

The answer to your first question is in this wiki page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unending_Ocean

Keep in mind the “about”. There’s a wiggle factor of 10-15 years either before or after that number that you should keep in mind. In other words, that number isn’t exactly correct.

As to your second question—the krait are evil. I don’t see them joining the Pact any time soon.

The krait are still xenophobic. But, xenophobia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia) is a fear of or hatred for any person or group that is not like the accepted group. It’s racism. In the same way white-supremicists are xenophobic.

They’re not so xenophobic that they won’t even consider taking slaves. They do take slaves. A lot. So they do deal with other races on a regular basis. No, this isn’t an alliance with them, but it is using them. They have proven they’re willing to use other races, if it suits their purposes.

With regard to the article by Ree Soesbee, that particular article was written on May 4, 2011, while we were still developing the game (launched over a year later).

The article provides a general description of krait based on their personality profile and history. You might call it a preview. We (Ree, Jeff, and the entire team) did more development of the krait after that article went live.

Ree even says in the article, “The krait were featured in the original Guild Wars game, and we very much wanted to continue their story in Guild Wars 2. We knew so little about their culture and society; as we were expanding the game into new underwater regions, it was exciting to add new depth (pun intended) to an existing race.” Though she speaks in the past tense in this article, the adding new depth didn’t stop there.

You’ll find references in-game to how quaggans were driven from their homes by krait that had been driven from theirs.

Hi Angel. Thanks a lot for answering. ^^

1) So about 50 years ago the Kraits were driven from their ocean homes by the sea elder dragon. That means the kraits we saw 250 years ago in GW1 weren’t living there. They were on land looking for new slaves. Is this correct?

2) From what you said, it indicate to me that the lore as written on the wiki about Kraits is no longer valid. Those were based on the 2011 envision of them. I am talking about the descriptions such as:

“These intelligent creatures are vicious and xenophobic, attacking and enslaving all other species on sight.”

“They believe other, lesser races have nothing to offer them, so the krait never bother to communicate with them. Never beaten, they are convinced that they are blessed and elevated: the superior species in the world. The krait will seize whatever they want for themselves — slaves in particular — with a ruthless efficiency.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Krait

So here is what I think happened, based on your reply:

After being driving from the ocean 50 years ago, and then suffering defeat in the hands of Zhaitan’s Risen and the Pact, many Kraits are getting desperate.

They no longer view themselves as superior to other races. The reality have set in. The Kraits are, in fact, in very serious trouble. They are trapped between the Elder Sea Dragon, Zhaitan’s Risen and the Pact. Their years of isolation and hostility against everyone has made it impossible to find allies.

A small group of Kraits were especially desperate. Scarlet had been scouting this group for a long time. When the moment was right, she defeated and captured this group of Krait.

Instead of killing them, she sweet talked them into joining her. She promised them the Obelisk and their prophet. They in return have to assist Scarlet in taking LA. The group of Krait then spread the message to gather even more followers.

These Kraits do not like Scarlet. They are still extremely xenophobic and racist. However in these desperate times, a group of them are willing to try anything, even an alliance with a stranger.

The Nightmare Court want to spread pain and suffering throughout the world. They see the Kraits as an excellent tool to use for this. Though their plant poison and magic, they created the Krait Hybrid Oratuss. Scarlet has very little to do with the hybrid, since she doesn’t know biology that well.

Angel McCoy.1832:

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?

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?

The answer to your first question is in this wiki page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unending_Ocean

Keep in mind the “about”. There’s a wiggle factor of 10-15 years either before or after that number that you should keep in mind. In other words, that number isn’t exactly correct.

As to your second question—the krait are evil. I don’t see them joining the Pact any time soon.

The krait are still xenophobic. But, xenophobia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia) is a fear of or hatred for any person or group that is not like the accepted group. It’s racism. In the same way white-supremicists are xenophobic.

They’re not so xenophobic that they won’t even consider taking slaves. They do take slaves. A lot. So they do deal with other races on a regular basis. No, this isn’t an alliance with them, but it is using them. They have proven they’re willing to use other races, if it suits their purposes.

With regard to the article by Ree Soesbee, that particular article was written on May 4, 2011, while we were still developing the game (launched over a year later).

The article provides a general description of krait based on their personality profile and history. You might call it a preview. We (Ree, Jeff, and the entire team) did more development of the krait after that article went live.

Ree even says in the article, “The krait were featured in the original Guild Wars game, and we very much wanted to continue their story in Guild Wars 2. We knew so little about their culture and society; as we were expanding the game into new underwater regions, it was exciting to add new depth (pun intended) to an existing race.” Though she speaks in the past tense in this article, the adding new depth didn’t stop there.

You’ll find references in-game to how quaggans were driven from their homes by krait that had been driven from theirs.

Since the blog is more of a draft then and a few things might have changed, would you mind clarifying a few unclear points if time allows it Angel?

1. No really, what happened to their ability to shape-shift? Did you decide to retcon it out or is there a lore explanation that we will eventually come across ingame? I mean the blog mentions it too and we see their near-death frenzy (as in gaining more might-stacks and fury the less HP the Damoss-type krait have) but we don’t see them transforming which was their defining feature in GW1.

2. Is it still true that the Oratuss invented the prophets to control the krait people? I had a discussion with Konig some time ago and it led nowhere because it wasn’t clear whether the blog was outdated on that. According to the behind-the-scenes section of the blog, the priesthood invented their prophets. But the Oratuss we come across ingame during the LS firmly believe in their return. Retcon or is there an explanation?

3. Does “not anytime soon” in reference to joining the pact indicate that you’re willing to change their ‘black hat’ status if the story demands it and that the possibility that they can change exists (it’s a living world after all cough) or is it just your way of saying never? :P

4. Last but not least – need moar krait interaction ingame. Preferably without the annoying whining Quaggan middle-(wo)man. ;(

I think everyone would benefit from having Living Story chapters be historical events that change the way the lore works. Scarlet is along that vein, but in a different regard. She was pulled out of the blue. Imagine if we had an opportunity to see the transactions that took place that got the Krait to where they are now. I understand most of the important, lore changing things happened in the 250 years that we didn’t get to play, but the “behind closed doors” way of delivery is really what’s severing the GW1 universe from GW2.

You’re absolutely right. GW1 handled this really well when they released the Bonus Mission Pack – which let players take part in historical events AS characters from history. If GW2 were to release something similar I imagine it would be really well received. They’ve tried to do it to an extent with the fractals, but the fractals are not a good storytelling medium, they’re also hardcore content that a lot of players just don’t really want to play.

I loved the bonus mission pack. That would be something great in GW2.

The Fractals are great and all, but they suffer from a couple of major setbacks- we have yet to see one do anything more than tease a story, and due to the nature of the fractals we can never be sure that what we’re seeing is even close to something that happened. Some doors do indeed need to be opened, but the Fractals are not the key for the job.

A bonus mission pack would be awesome- the first thing since launch I’d actually consider spending real-world money on.

I care about the story, and you need lore to make the world interesting so fun stories can happen there, so yea I do… though not to the extend that I’ll freak out and cry bloody murder because the calendar has one less day or whatever.

I think it’s worth pointing out that this post was originally put in the GW2 Discussion forum and then moved to the lore forum – I can’t imagine someone in the lore forum starting this thread because well yeah….

Angel McCoy.1832:

-snip-

You said a lot of things without saying much at all. Or at least, little to nothing new or important.

Just like when there were issues over your espirits interview.

You’d make a great politician!

The important matter that you’ve yet to answer is simply this question – all other questions don’t really matter, as they’re just flavor context that only help deepen the lore rather than solve the conflicts that are making people scratch their heads and go “wtf?” – the question is:

Why did the krait agree to work with Scarlet? Why did they not just take the obelisk shards, perhaps enslave some of her minions, with the ruthlessness that they are known for? More so after their “prophet” died? Why do her alliances (krait, dredge, and Flame Legion particularly) continue working for her?

This is perhaps one of the biggest unsolved conundrums of Scarlet – other issues of her got lessened from when their roots were first presented, but this one has not.

On an aside, I would really, really love for those old racial lore blog posts to return – in an updated post-release form.

With all due respect, that is something I’m wondering about as well. Scarlet seems very eager to throw her alliances at her enemies, and let them die by the thousands. So why do they continue to work for her? Why don’t they betray her, or fight each other? Why don’t the Krait attack the Aetherblades or Molten Alliance? It kind of stretches the believability of the story.

It’s strange how these mostly selfish and evil groups, conveniently seem to be loyal to a random Sylvari, and with all her plans going off without a hitch. None of the alliances seem to even consider betraying her, which seems out of character. Especially for the Krait.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

With all due respect, that is something I’m wondering about as well. Scarlet seems very eager to throw her alliances at her enemies, and let them die by the thousands. So why do they continue to work for her? Why don’t they betray her, or fight each other? Why don’t the Krait attack the Aetherblades or Molten Alliance? It kind of stretches the believability of the story.

Prepare for epic glibness!

… they do it because it’s in the script. And they have self-esteem issues. And maybe the krait involved know more than we do. And they mostly come at night. Mostly.

:( I’m so sorry!
__________

In (written) entertainment, sometimes things appear overlooked, or not explicitly concentrated on. If taking time out to explain it would remove the pacing, and/or get in the way of the story, then it should be nipped in the bud swiftly. And sometimes, way down the line, those things you thought were just pointless filler, ridiculous and nonsensical, or those things you thought never got tied up satisfactorily, actually will come back to bite you in the backside. There can still be payoff!

In GW2, we have a few angles of the story at any time: chiefly whatever we make of it (or what we imagine our own characters make of it), and what the NPCs make of it. Occasionally our antagonist(s) may give us something, but it won’t be the whole story of them. That’s for the pre-death monologue* at the very least, right? ( )

Anyway, the NPCs have told us what they know. Perhaps that’s all they’ll ever know. It’s not like they’d be getting hold of a krait and asking it nicely (unless they have already and I missed it, for shame). Not that I think we’d ever really find anything deeper than what’s been given. I also think lore changes aren’t the end of the world. People can be very wrong about what they thought was right at the time. When it feels like a plot device, well…

…A lot of things may well be crafted as they are from a gameplay standpoint. Time constraints and things such as whatever character models are available for modification are examples of this. Why the constraints are there is a different thread somewhere else.
Also, the writers may want the pertinent details close to their chests for future use.

I’m on the fence for this right at the moment, truth be told. Lore is still important to me (I already mentioned earlier I use it as a foundation for my imagination within the world), but I’m reserving total judgement for the end times. Fear my apocalyptic wrath! (or apoplectic is really more like it if my twigs have to be dragon minions.)

Angel McCoy.1832:

As to your second question—the krait are evil. I don’t see them joining the Pact any time soon.

The krait are still xenophobic. But, xenophobia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia) is a fear of or hatred for any person or group that is not like the accepted group. It’s racism. In the same way white-supremicists are xenophobic.

They’re not so xenophobic that they won’t even consider taking slaves. They do take slaves. A lot. So they do deal with other races on a regular basis. No, this isn’t an alliance with them, but it is using them. They have proven they’re willing to use other races, if it suits their purposes.

I guess my next question would be the following:
How do the “normal” Krait feel about the Toxic Krait?

Yes the Krait are up against a wall, the Elder Dragons moved them out of their homes, and they are desperate. Apparently a splinter faction was willing to take this risk, but now with the heroes stomping down on their homegrown god will the normal Krait look kindly upon these Toxic versions?

Well everywhere where normal Krait are, there are Obelisk Shards, so it seems like the whole Krait race is benefitting from the alliance.

Blurk.6231:

Well everywhere where normal Krait are, there are Obelisk Shards, so it seems like the whole Krait race is benefitting from the alliance.

*benefited. That’s all in the past now.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Blurk.6231:

Well everywhere where normal Krait are, there are Obelisk Shards, so it seems like the whole Krait race is benefitting from the alliance.

*benefited. That’s all in the past now.

Arguably. A few krait escaped with some of the obelisk shards to beyond the plot so they’re still benefiting from the shards they got (whatever they’re doing with them atm) at the price of errr… a dead fake prophet, their first crushing defeat in their history and a still growing number of thousands of causalities including 3 Oratuss of which all in the end didn’t change their overall situation …what.

And even if they are still benefiting from the shards, they aren’t still benefiting from the alliance. It’s not like Scarlet’s paying them a consistent salary of obelisk pieces.

Maybe after Scarlet ends there will be fallout between these alliances and their respective parent organizations.
Which would be kind of neat seeing regular Krait hunt down the ‘heathen’ Toxics or see some Flame Legion soldiers try to re-recruit a Molten ‘deserter’.

I guess we won’t know until then, but if something like that were to show up then that would show real growth in a story for me.
She’s put together these groups that normally wouldn’t work, it stands to reason some won’t continue after she’s no longer a factor.

The Aetherblades maybe could stand on their own, after all Pirates like money and power and Inquest love free experiment fodder—-er I mean volunteers.
Molten could crumble unless they consolidate their leadership after Scarlet is gone.

The Dredge females probably aren’t too keen with the Flame Legion side of it telling them to ‘get back to the Dredge kitchen’ so to speak.

As for the Toxic, I just can’t see the Krait sticking around with the Nightmare splinter after Scarlet is no longer a factor.

@Aaron Ansari

Unfortunately until Angel or the LS itself give us their reason for sticking around at all despite all the things listed in this thread we actually can’t rule that obelisk-shard salary out.
And assuming the alliance is still supported by the other krait settlements there’s gotta be a benefit for them somewhere.
And if they’re not, well that’d bring us back to Atlas’ question.

(Tho IMO the splinter-faction thing is starting to push gameplay/story boundaries of the numbers of alliances now but that’s kind of another issue.)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Angel McCoy.1832:

-snip-

You said a lot of things without saying much at all. Or at least, little to nothing new or important.

Just like when there were issues over your espirits interview.

You’d make a great politician!

The important matter that you’ve yet to answer is simply this question – all other questions don’t really matter, as they’re just flavor context that only help deepen the lore rather than solve the conflicts that are making people scratch their heads and go “wtf?” – the question is:

Why did the krait agree to work with Scarlet? Why did they not just take the obelisk shards, perhaps enslave some of her minions, with the ruthlessness that they are known for? More so after their “prophet” died? Why do her alliances (krait, dredge, and Flame Legion particularly) continue working for her?

This is perhaps one of the biggest unsolved conundrums of Scarlet – other issues of her got lessened from when their roots were first presented, but this one has not.

On an aside, I would really, really love for those old racial lore blog posts to return – in an updated post-release form.

In the Escape from LA questions I saw before the release, Anet said the different forces were working with Scarlet for the endgame rewards. Each group probably has a ‘different’ reward in mind, but whatever was promised to them at the end is enough for those left to stick around.

Why didn’t they take the shards? Maybe they didn’t know where it was. Maybe they did try torturing Aetherblades only to find out Scarlet had hid them, and (probably) like her lairs, only SHE knew the locations. For all we know, this ‘splinter’ group of Krait could’ve tried their normal ways for a while until finally just throwing their arms in the air and going “FINE, we accept. You better deliver those shards!” (Which probably were the ones we looked at during that update). Heck, afterwards it’s noted that the shards all disappeared through portals, but I forget if it’s just said “They disappeared” or if the krait guarding them took them through.

I mean, when we talk about super zealous Religious extremists, we can’t expect predictable, rational thoughts. It’s happened before where they accept help/items, then later turn against the gift-giver. Example, if somebody today convinced the super zealous religious groups that he is the second coming of Jesus, and somebody gunned him down, would you expect those groups to just go “Oh, probably wasn’t true them. Move on.” Nah, they’d go crazy. Like the ones declaring days to be “The end day” when life continues they still don’t just admit they are wrong, they cling to it.

These Krait may very well be the group that takes the normal Krait religion to the extreme, and are now in it not for the obelisk/obelisk shards, but also for vengeance on their slaughtered prophet.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Angel McCoy.1832:

-snip-

You said a lot of things without saying much at all. Or at least, little to nothing new or important.

Just like when there were issues over your espirits interview.

You’d make a great politician!

The important matter that you’ve yet to answer is simply this question – all other questions don’t really matter, as they’re just flavor context that only help deepen the lore rather than solve the conflicts that are making people scratch their heads and go “wtf?” – the question is:

Why did the krait agree to work with Scarlet? Why did they not just take the obelisk shards, perhaps enslave some of her minions, with the ruthlessness that they are known for? More so after their “prophet” died? Why do her alliances (krait, dredge, and Flame Legion particularly) continue working for her?

This is perhaps one of the biggest unsolved conundrums of Scarlet – other issues of her got lessened from when their roots were first presented, but this one has not.

On an aside, I would really, really love for those old racial lore blog posts to return – in an updated post-release form.

What I got from Angel is, those background on the Kraits on the GW2 wiki are “outdated”. They were from Anet’s envision of the Kraits back in the year 2011. Currently this is no longer their vision.

Those background is also from before the Kraits were forced out of their ocean homes by the Elder Sea Dragon. So they were enslaving people from before too.

Since in GW2 the players first meet the Krait after they were forced out of the ocean, all that background on the wiki pretty much does not apply.

It does bring another huge question:

Which other lore/background written on the wiki no longer applies? Which parts can we lore lovers view as the truth?

And this question is perhaps even worst than the Krait question.

>_>

CHIPS.6018:

It does bring another huge question:

Which other lore/background written on the wiki no longer applies? Which parts can we lore lovers view as the truth?

And this question is perhaps even worst than the Krait question.

>_>

I’dsay the answer to this has remained consistent. “Everything is true until it isn’t”.

Kalavier.1097:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Angel McCoy.1832:

-snip-

You said a lot of things without saying much at all. Or at least, little to nothing new or important.

Just like when there were issues over your espirits interview.

You’d make a great politician!

The important matter that you’ve yet to answer is simply this question – all other questions don’t really matter, as they’re just flavor context that only help deepen the lore rather than solve the conflicts that are making people scratch their heads and go “wtf?” – the question is:

Why did the krait agree to work with Scarlet? Why did they not just take the obelisk shards, perhaps enslave some of her minions, with the ruthlessness that they are known for? More so after their “prophet” died? Why do her alliances (krait, dredge, and Flame Legion particularly) continue working for her?

This is perhaps one of the biggest unsolved conundrums of Scarlet – other issues of her got lessened from when their roots were first presented, but this one has not.

On an aside, I would really, really love for those old racial lore blog posts to return – in an updated post-release form.

In the Escape from LA questions I saw before the release, Anet said the different forces were working with Scarlet for the endgame rewards. Each group probably has a ‘different’ reward in mind, but whatever was promised to them at the end is enough for those left to stick around.

Why didn’t they take the shards? Maybe they didn’t know where it was. Maybe they did try torturing Aetherblades only to find out Scarlet had hid them, and (probably) like her lairs, only SHE knew the locations. For all we know, this ‘splinter’ group of Krait could’ve tried their normal ways for a while until finally just throwing their arms in the air and going “FINE, we accept. You better deliver those shards!” (Which probably were the ones we looked at during that update). Heck, afterwards it’s noted that the shards all disappeared through portals, but I forget if it’s just said “They disappeared” or if the krait guarding them took them through.

I mean, when we talk about super zealous Religious extremists, we can’t expect predictable, rational thoughts. It’s happened before where they accept help/items, then later turn against the gift-giver. Example, if somebody today convinced the super zealous religious groups that he is the second coming of Jesus, and somebody gunned him down, would you expect those groups to just go “Oh, probably wasn’t true them. Move on.” Nah, they’d go crazy. Like the ones declaring days to be “The end day” when life continues they still don’t just admit they are wrong, they cling to it.

These Krait may very well be the group that takes the normal Krait religion to the extreme, and are now in it not for the obelisk/obelisk shards, but also for vengeance on their slaughtered prophet.

Without knowing what happened, I can still say with near 100% certainty that the Kraits never attacked Aetherblades and Molten Alliance. They never tortured them for information.

Why?

Because right now in LA, the Kraits are fighting side by side with the Aetherblades and Molten Alliance. If the Krait did indeed enslaved and tortured them before, there is no chance they can work together right now.

The Charr and Human situation is extremely rare. Only once in a blue moon do factions, who had been killing each other for years, to suddenly ally with each other. Anymore of these things happening will simply be plot convenience.

Even today many humans (Separatists) and Charrs (Renegade) still hold onto the old grudge. My 300 years old necromancer from Ascalon still hates the Charrs today, for example. It is just that the Elder Dragons are bigger threats right now. Once the Elder Dragons are dead, you Charrs better watch out.

We have to remember the core problem here: Believability

To sell a story, the story writers have to make it believable. Else you will have a situation where 90% of the readers don’t believe in the story.

The Krait or the Quaggan? Because if you mean the Quaggan will be around for a long time then may I propose a joyous new seasonal event. We could call it “The annual Quaggan hunt”, and players could hunt the Quaggan to extinction. It would be glorious. Imagine the story possibilities Angel! This is exactly the kind of thing you need in order to convert the Krait into allies.

I think for me I want the gameplay to be decent enough to support my interest in the lore/game world. I’m willing to overlook a flaw in gameplay before I’m willing to overlook a flaw in story (or badly written story, or a poorly constructed world etc.) This may sound bizarre, but graphics and story kind of win over gameplay for me. But GW2 has great gameplay and I enjoy it immensely.

I’d say that lore is very important to me, the storytelling and characters are as important as the gameplay itself in my opinion. It’s definitely the main things keeping me around ^^ It’s kinda funny because I joined GW2 because I loved how free the combat was and other MMO’s hadn’t hooked me…..yet I probably spend more time listening to idle dialogue, talking to NPC’s and speculating than I do fighting things lately :P

It’s what makes the world seem real and believable and it plays a big role in how immersed you are whilst playing. The event system, for example. You see an event on the map, run in to help, someone wants you to collect eggs for an omlette he’s making, you help him out. He thanks you and then runs off. Most people would leave it there and get on with what they were doing, but if you were to follow him he’ll go back home, presumably make the omlettes and then sell them as a food item for karma. The world continues to run regardless of if you’re paying attention or not, NPC’s will talk to each other, move about the world doing their daily business, some will get in trouble and need help sometimes. The whole world doesn’t revolve around the player character, which I think is great because it allows people who are interested to stick around to witness these interactions and those who are not, to carry on playing the way they want to play. Much like real life :)

The base lore of this game is really interesting, I love the variety and backgrounds of the races and Sylvari being an almost blank canvas I find really awesome, I can’t think of another game that has such a young and naive playable race in it. I’m pretty new to the Guild Wars universe, I hadn’t heard of the original and only became interested in GW2 during the second beta weekend. But the lore interested me enough to go back and purchase the first game as well as read all the books, so I could get a stronger grasp on the world Tyria is.

I’ll admit I was a little cynical about the living story idea, back in Flame and Frost, but it’s grown on me a lot. I love the speculation that goes on before each update, I really love seeing the characters progress and the story continue and that my character can be a part of that. The biconic characters are really endearing in their own unique ways and I’m loving the interactions between them, particularly Kasmeer and Marjory and Taimi and Braham, it feels like we really do know them. There was only a handful of characters from the personal story that I even remotely cared about, wheras the new characters that’ve come about as part of the living story really do feel completely fleshed out and believable and I think loosing any one of them would feel like a huge loss.

There seems a lot more focus on storytelling recently, which I’m really thrilled about and hope continues :) I don’t think there’s any other game that lets you grow alongside the characters and the world like this. Things like trees being cut down in Kessex before the nightmare tower patch and the very subtle character development is a huge breath of fresh air. It’s nice to gradually learn about the characters we’re fighting alongside, rather than have it all chucked on a plate and handed to us in one go, something I’ve been used to with single player games ^^ I’m excited for the future of this game and seeing the lore continue to be built upon.

Overall, yes lore is very, very important to me :)

I like the depth brought to the lore by delving into different groups within each of the enemy societies. So it isn’t just “All krait are working with her now”. It’s “A faction of krait are working with her for their own reasons”. The same way factions of charr work with humans and factions work against humans and charr. Much better than painting the entirety of each enemie with one big brush.

Angel McCoy.1832:

1. No really, what happened to their ability to shape-shift?

They can still shape-shift. This was one of the features about them that drew Scarlet to them. Their ability to shape-shift makes their forms more malleable and thus a better subject for the transformation in the nightmare plant.

2. Is it still true that the Oratuss invented the prophets to control the krait people?

This is ancient history. No one knows the truth behind this, not even the krait—although most krait would not take kindly to the implication. If and when we reveal the truth behind this, you’ll hopefully be there to discover it in-character.

3. Does “not anytime soon” in reference to joining the pact indicate that you’re willing to change their ‘black hat’ status if the story demands it and that the possibility that they can change exists (it’s a living world after all cough) or is it just your way of saying never? :P

I’m always willing to make changes to characters if it makes sense with the story. I learned long ago to never say never. I mean…look at the charr.

4. Last but not least – need moar krait interaction ingame. Preferably without the annoying whining Quaggan middle-(wo)man. ;(

They’ll be around for a long time.
:)

Thank you very much for taking your time to answer these questions, Angel!
Also the detail in the other post about how the toxic krait are perceived by the normal krait is actually very pivotal (and I hope it will be touched upon in some way outside the forum).

FlamingFoxx.1305:

The Krait or the Quaggan? Because if you mean the Quaggan will be around for a long time then may I propose a joyous new seasonal event. We could call it “The annual Quaggan hunt”, and players could hunt the Quaggan to extinction. It would be glorious. Imagine the story possibilities Angel! This is exactly the kind of thing you need in order to convert the Krait into allies.

Sign me up.

First off Angel, thank you very much for taking the time to post in here! You definitely cleared up many questions I had!

But well, my issues lie more with the in game delivery of all this – and I know you at ANet are all aware of the faulty delivery yourselves, and have been actively striving towards improving this. Note: The following concerns your latest comment, and focuses mostly on the krait!

It’s just that you mentioned that you “walk a fine line between giving too much lore, thus spoiling players’ in-game discovery, and not giving enough”, which somewhat… irked me. Because, I honestly think that most of the lore explanations you just gave us, they are never established at all within the game. You can’t give us too much lore in this thread and thus spoil our discoveries when there’s nothing in the game to base any kind of speculation on. The only thing we can do is, pretty much, conjecture, and that’s not fun (well, in some cases it can be fun, i.e. the really cryptic lore surrounding the Elder Dragons and the Pale Tree leading to Pale Tree = Dragon/Dragon minion theories).

Since the toxic alliance is going to stay in Kessex Hills for some time, I think it would be awesome to eventually have minor changes brought to that zone which reflect the fact that both the krait and Nightmare courtiers of that alliance are considered splinter factions. Especially in the case of the toxic, warped krait I would LOVE to see interactions between them and another group of good ol’ xenophobic krait. In many of those cases, just a single scripted encounter (even if it’s similar to the patrolling Rytlock in Origins of Madness. People will find it, and they will definitely hear about it in here) would go a long way to solve this!

So far, while it’s true that their looks have changed, there is not much in-game which actually made me think, “oh right, by doing their thing with Scarlet, there’s no turning back anymore”. Which actually seems to be a really evident explanation, now that it has been spelled out – so it’s even sadder that there was nothing which would have helped us get to that discovery ourselves

In any case, cheers! And I look forward to the Finale next week!