Guild Wars 2

I never got the point of fussing about spoilers, if they are clearly marked as such people can just not read them.

I often read up on summaries of books and movies to make sure the ending doesn’t suck before experiencing them myself, doesn’t make me enjoy them any less though.

Having a group of regular Krait ambush and kill a group Toxic Krait “blasphemers” would be a nice addition to the open world. It would make sense for the remaining Oratuss(es? Oratusi? Or is both singular and plural?) to order the death of all those that would seek to create a “false prophet”.

Angel McCoy.1832:

If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.

One explanation for our questions is that it is in fact the case that we aren’t engaging our superpowers and can come to these answers ourselves if only we tried harder. Another is that there needs to be more in game clues to lead us to the answers. It can be a little of both. I don’t think we need to have answers spoon fed to us in a forum post, and I would prefer more of these answers be left out of forum posts, interviews, and short stories ¹. However, It would do wonders if more interesting things made it in game to build back story and expound the lore.

Largely the game presents us with a linear tale. We enter the game every two weeks are given one new task and complete in that tale. Instead of giving us one new task to explore, why not have a main one and several updates to stories around the world, some of which may eventually become part of the main living story thread. Sunroamer’s has a good suggestion for solidifying the lore surrounding the krait in the current Living Story. Just a simple dynamic event chain between the toxic krait fighting the normal krait ² in Kessex Hills would help tighten the in game lore about the Living Story. However, I stress these side updates need not be directly connected to the current Living Story arc. For example, I’m eager to see Fields of Ruin get an update about the peace treaty talks that have been going on for more than two years now.

¹ – Not that I don’t enjoy these things, just that I think you are making a video game not a book and it should be your primary vehicle for conveying the story.

² – Perhaps a fight between the two over collecting slaves in Triskell Quay, which we must prevent.

To make a meeting of those two groups work as heart or DE, we could also be given a krait disguise by an order of whispers-agent and join the krait taking out the toxic krait while still rescuing slaves behind their back. And it’d give us a chance to talk to them as well.
So, something along the lines of the Briarthorn Den in Caledon. Not the most creative solution since there’s already a similar heart quest, but it should do its job.
That way it’d take some steam off the perceived issue.

I have longed for Krait civil war ever since the Tower was revealed

Angel McCoy.1832:

we devs walk a fine line between giving too much lore, thus spoiling players’ in-game discovery, and not giving enough. If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.

Hi Angel thanks a lot for your reply. That did clear up somethings.

So it is now established that the likes of Molten Alliance and Toxic Alliance is just a small faction of the population. It is much more believable that Scarlet convinced a small group of them to join her, instead of everyone. The main population (Dredges, Flame Legion, Kraits, etc) probably didn’t even know about these alliances until very recently.

It is also established now that it is over-generalization to say none of the Kraits will bother talking with other races. It is perhaps true that a good 90% of the Kraits will never bother talking with strangers. But there are always the minority who will. Scarlet found those 10% and made full use of them.

As for giving enough lore or not, the problem isn’t with the hints for “predicting” the future. Those are fine. The problem is with the events (already happening) creating a conflict with the past lore.

I believe the story on Minister Caudecus is a good example. For anyone paying attention, it will be obvious that Caudecus is planning something against Queen Jennah. There are plenty of hints. But we don’t know exactly what he will do.

This is how I think hints should work. There should be more than enough hints for the players to to get a general idea of what will happen. Only things missing should be the details.

Let’s say if in the future Demmi Beetlestone turns out to be evil too and betray the players, did this break the lore? Nope! She had been working for her father all along. She was the perfect double agent; pretending to be a victim only to infiltrate the Order of Whispers for its secrets. The lore flows perfectly.

On the other hand let’s say Caudecus’ wife was seen walking around. The villagers who met her act as nothing special happened. Did this break the lore? Yes! It was stated that Caudecus’ wife died a few years back. So the players will have to guess on why she was alive again and why no villager see anything wrong with this picture. They will spent more time wondering about the past than with the future.

I think this sums up the problem of delivery the the Scarlet story: Players spending more time wondering about the past than with the future.

This mix with a year long delay of the Living Story’s releases didn’t help. In a TV series, the viewers can find out these secrets in a week or two. In the Living story, the players need to wait 6 months or longer to find out anything. 6 months of speculation about the past is very bad.

I think for the Living Story to work well, players must spent more time wondering about what will happen next, instead of what happened in the past. So the past should be clearly defined and very few secrets are there.

In my evil Demmi Beetlestone example, the past was clearly defined. The story flows. So the players are free to speculate the future; exactly where their full attention should be.

Erukk.1408:

Having a group of regular Krait ambush and kill a group Toxic Krait “blasphemers” would be a nice addition to the open world. It would make sense for the remaining Oratuss(es? Oratusi? Or is both singular and plural?) to order the death of all those that would seek to create a “false prophet”.

I like this idea.

Angel,

Thanks for taking the time to explain this to us. I’ve understood for a while now that Scarlet has been working with splinter groups. What surprises me though is the krait reaction to the death of their “prophet”.

If someone came to me and claimed to be able to produce a prophet and then that prophet is killed almost immediately, I think I would consider the person that created the “prophet” a fraud. After all, there’s no way an inferior race could possibly kill a prophet so easily, therefore it couldn’t have been a real prophet.

In addition, I can no longer go home because of the changes this fraud has put me through. I imagine I would be quite angry at the fraud that did this to me and would want revenge. This is why I have a difficult time believing that the krait would continue to follow Scarlet.

DarcShriek.5829:

If someone came to me and claimed to be able to produce a prophet and then that prophet is killed almost immediately, I think I would consider the person that created the “prophet” a fraud. After all, there’s no way an inferior race could possibly kill a prophet so easily, therefore it couldn’t have been a real prophet.

At that point those krait were already turned toxic. Angel suggests this somehow has changed their mentality.

So the toxic krait can’t go home, the molten flame legion need to win to go home, and the molten dredge are in it for the glory of the moletariat. You ducked the nightmare Court, which suggests we’ll find that out in a future release. The Aetherblades were stated back in October to be in it for the loot, and the Inquest doesn’t actually appear to be in it anymore.

And just like that, all my apprehension and negativity over this alliance issue is resolved. Thank you, Angel!

Aaron Ansari.1604:

So the toxic krait can’t go home, the molten flame legion need to win to go home, and the molten dredge are in it for the glory of the moletariat. You ducked the nightmare Court, which suggests we’ll find that out in a future release. The Aetherblades were stated back in October to be in it for the loot, and the Inquest doesn’t actually appear to be in it anymore.

And just like that, all my apprehension and negativity over this alliance issue is resolved. Thank you, Angel!

If only all that was in the game.

Thanks for the clarification Angel. Although I agree with some of the above posters, I wish some of this was in-game. It’s rather important for the story to include these details, to remain believable.

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.

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.

Ive seen the Toxic alliance attack Watchworks.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Cut down to reduce post length You’ll also have noticed that Scarlet was extremely elusive in the tower of nightmares. Can you imagine why?

My question is, why isn’t any of this within the game already? This level of lore should be there to be discovered and not need a separate Q and A with the lore team on the forums.

These are all important clues required to understanding the nature of the first living story arc. And by you revealing them to us, does this mean you had no plans to actually explain any of this in game?

I understand that a 2 week turnaround for patches is likely very intense and a lot is being left on the cutting floor. But these two week patches are leaving much to be desired in terms of actual lore and story telling. The gameplay events that are going on presently can only tell so much. How the krait and the other alliance members were ‘won’ over to scarlet’s side would have been excellent side quests which would have gotten everyone slightly more invested in the story and removed some of the disbelief in the sudden arrival of several unusual alliances.

One very important thing to keep in mind is, do krait exist that split off without having been influenced by the UO religious ones (remember it takes religion to get a good snake to do evil deeds)? Could there be a split faction somewhere? If so will we be able to kitten play as the most kitten race on Tyria that aint giant demon dragon monsters?

Also personal flavour; the Forgotten fighting at the UO where the humans got turned into margonites, could it be that if the krait prophets did exist, that they were abbadon or from another human god influenced forgotten (they did kinda have massive magical powers across the known professions)?

On topic: If it has the human gods cough what kind of monster is shady-b the friendly neighbourhood rapper, since thats a bit too big for a shade, fancy relationships between factions/characters and/or any kind of impact on my character, awesome, if its something stupid like the jotun making up kitten about history that all other races denied and in the end isnt even worth the bytes it uses up in terms of flavor, nope.

Alice.8694:

My question is, why isn’t any of this within the game already?

How can be this in the game? Who can explain those things? Scarlet wouldn’t tell, we do not interact with the alliances. Nobody in game knows this.

Again – thanks for (some of) the answers, Angel!

I think what people mean, underdark is for it to be at least mentioned in-game in some way shape or form. To be fair to ANet they did have I think one NPC who mentioned it was odd that Krait were working with anyone else.

But they could have gone one step further. They could have had priory members study them both during the Nightmares and afterwards and bring questions and theories. One NPC mentioning that these new toxic Krait seem mentally different as well as physically, and mentioning that there are still those Krait who aren’t effected.

It doesn’t take ANet to give us the answers flat-out. If they have people or journals or voice lines in-game that question what we are questioning, then it feels less like a retcon and more like a mystery. Having a bunch of different NPCs giving their own answers/opinions makes the world feel more real and gives us stuff to think about, rather than imagine.

Thanks again for taking time to answer questions, Angel.

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.

Then why do we never see this?

Or are you saying that the Toxic Hybrid was one such “transformation” (despite the appearance and skin texture being that of the sylvari).

Angel McCoy.1832:

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?

That’s actually 4 questions. Can’t fool me. Hehe. Konig, we devs walk a fine line between giving too much lore, thus spoiling players’ in-game discovery, and not giving enough. If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.

Twas more of a single question (the last one) reworded in many ways to try to get the desired response. I know how you folks at ArenaNet work!

And when it comes to “spoiling players’ in-game discovery” – to be a bit blunt… avoiding that is pointless when we don’t get the information at a reasonable point in the game’s story. Why the krait, Flame Legion, and dredge (if not NC and Aetherblades too) continue to work for Scarlet is something that should have been explained either with the Marionette or with this update, maybe with Battle for LA. But even then it feels a bit late…

Angel McCoy.1832:

1. Why did the krait agree to work with Scarlet?

Warning: The following is paraphrased in out-of-game language and doesn’t even pretend to be polished writing.

-snip wordy word words-

That actually makes it feel a lot better because, until your non-polished explanation, it felt (read: was presented in-game) that the krait didn’t do the “you’re lying” or -kill manyaslave in fury- bits.

That kind of thing is something you should have had presented somewhere in-game (not the actual conversation, but mention of the conversations).

Angel McCoy.1832:

3. More so after their “prophet” died?

As you may have noticed, these krait were profoundly changed during their interaction with the nightmare plant and Scarlet. They are no longer the same creatures they were. They acquired a new look, new skills, and new behavior. Scarlet gave them their prophet, as promised—and may be able to do it again one day. Who was it that killed the prophet? Hmmmm.

See, one may come to this conclusion, but that “new behavior” bit never really seemed to translate to many people in-game. That actually sounds perfectly reasonable, but there’s no showing of this in-game. Just a bunch of voiceless mooks to farm bags for – and that doesn’t feed imagination.

Angel McCoy.1832:

4. Why do her alliances…continue working with her?

Each has its own reason.

-snips-

“And they can’t exactly go join other normal krait. How do you think regular xenophobic krait would feel about these toxic ones? "

But the Toxic Krait were all amongst the normal krait, all across the continent. This heavily implies that, unlike the (implied-only in-game) dredge, Flame Legion and (confirmed in-game) Nightmare Court being factions, the krait were not. Was the schism thus after the Tower of Nightmares event, or were those spread out Toxic Krait delivering the shards simply gutted and the shards taken (e.g., Scarlet convinced some Oratuss (perhaps only the three we slew) and thus only part of the krait, but not all as is implied via the Krait Historian achievement)?

Flame Legion bit is an interesting view into their psyche, and should have been added in-game somehow. Could even simply be the Berserker shouting “I will kill you all and become a Tribune!” (warning: unpolished :P).

Angel McCoy.1832:

You’ll also have noticed that Scarlet was extremely elusive in the tower of nightmares. Can you imagine why?

-blinks-

She had a lab. She was elusive to us, and left before the Prophet was born – knowingly so for the Nightmare Court – but the existence of the lab rather heavily implies constantly being up there (or frequently at least) until we got there.

I could see it as “she was there until before the ‘prophet’ would be born, because she wasn’t sure if the krait would accept it as a prophet.” Again, showing this better in-game – without directly stating such – would have been better than leaving people trying to figure it out.

SunRoamer.5103:

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).

I mentioned it in my own words, but I a have to agree with this (sans what’s in the paragraph at the end, because that’s a fully debunked ‘theory’ and makes 0 sense whatsoever with presented – not implied – lore). Avoiding spoiling in out-of-game mediums is pointless if you do not present enough to connect the dots in-game.

And as it stands, even with the initial release of the game, there’s just too few dots that connecting them turns out as abstract as THeo Prins’ art (not to dis him and his artwork, but I am getting REALLY sick and tired of this abstract loading screen art… Use more Jamie Ro, Naomi Baker (LOVED the Origins of Madness artwork – as epic as Kekai’s work) and Ruan Ji’s artwork!). If you want us to not complain about the story, then you need to implement more of it, and if it’s to be temporary like the stuff within the Tower of Nightmares, then it has to be more obvious.

If all these things you’re saying truly were developed for the release (and not just a case of you guys altering the lore to quell the flames), then this stuff need to be put in the game, observably so. It doesn’t have to be point-blank obvious, it can be indirect allusions to such (e.g., a Flame Legion top dog in the MA mentioning being promoted for his deeds in LA; toxic krait and normal krait duking it out around the Obelisk Shards; etc.) – even unspoken animation (though keep in mind that this is the most overlooked bit, especially if temporary!).

Underdark.3726:

Alice.8694:

My question is, why isn’t any of this within the game already?

How can be this in the game? Who can explain those things? Scarlet wouldn’t tell, we do not interact with the alliances. Nobody in game knows this.

1. The Toxic Krait could gain a new aggro line after ToN content: “You killed a prophet! I’ll send you to join the others’ armies!” (This is a reference to the belief of the krait that sacrifices are sent to the other world that the prophets live in, to become part of their army that will be used to take over the land).
2. To show the Toxic/Normal krait, a simple skirmish when the Obelisk Shards were in the open world – or better yet, keeping some of them in the open world and having the skirmishes there after the ToN content.
3. Dredge in the MA having an aggro line of how the magic and conquering of LA will benefit the moletariate.
4. Flame Legion talking – in invasions and LA – about gaining glory to redeem their failure in the Molten Facilities.
5. The Baron/Baronness mentioning, along with Scarlet leaving before the Prophet’s birth, that she hasn’t been around much when the krait are in the Heart.

Simple aggro voiced lines is all that’d be needed to show many of these things. These are blatant examples, though, and don’t leave much to question. Though some of these shouldn’t need to be questioned.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Each has its own reason.

Krait
Dredge
Flame Legion

What about Aethers? I mean, I know they’re pirates and they don’t necessarily like LA because they’re also pirates (and a separate faction, at that), but they’re pretty much the punching bags that Scarlet AND the Inquest just throw into the mix as cannon fodder—how are they blackmailed into service to this maniac? I mean, Scarlet has a grand plan and all, but I’d assume that most Aether lackeys don’t know this plan, as to keep it a secret, and they reference numerous times how Scarlet will flip kitten if they don’t do exactly what she wants. Sounds like to me, a lot of these pirates would shove off from this entire organization and find another place to pirate it up. But even outside of holopirates, we’ve just seen legion upon legion of skypirates. We slaughter them in (not an inclusive list):

Aether JP
Aetherblade Retreat (and kill/capture their leaders)
Fall of LA/Battle for LA (assumedly)
Around tons of seemingly remote Thumpers that Scarlet said she needed guarded
Around the Marionette for a ‘Weapons Test’
TA Aether Path

It just baffles me that their own sense of self-preservation wouldn’t look at that and say, “ya know what, I think i’ll just go pirating in Bloodtide Coast or Timberline Falls instead”. Fine if Nightmare Court are insane, fine if Toxic Krait were ‘changed’, fine if Flame Legion and Dredge are hell-bent on conquest, but Aether? What could they possibly gain from they systematic annihilation of their entire organization for the promise of a plan’s fruition?

The Aetherblades were actually explained a while back – though I can’t exactly remember where, but they’re in it for the looting; got promised bit riches (and LA’s bank and homes no doubt included) – and power, if Mai Trin succeeded.

Risk of death by good-doers is a natural threat to all pirates (and it’s not like there’s much to loot in Bloodtide or Timberline :P).

bloodtide coast is a main shipping lane for trade amongst several different capitol cities :P

Lore is EXTREMELY important to me! I wish there was more story driven solo things like personal story that expands into other story arcs from GW1 and new ones from GW2. But, lately I sense a lack of lore fancy from the community. Like their are no lore videos besides Woodenpotatoes and even he doesn’t do it that much. I had an idea to cover stories and stuff in video form on YouTube but I want to do it right I just need an insane amount of assets and it be good to go.

I love every piece of Guild Wars lore (including first). It’s delivery in GW2 disappointed me a little, but as the Living Story goes, it seems to get better. I wish to see more information about Elona and, especially, Cantha. I loved Factions, and I wish that we will see Kaineng City in GW2. I was so excited when the Bazaar of the Four Winds was announced, because it seemed to me like it had some connection with Cantha, and I was little sad that it wasn’t that much in the end. There were also hints about Glint, but that also seems to be left alone. I hope it will go further in next “season” of Living Story, and that there will be some more information about Cantha to be found.

katiru.4176:

I love every piece of Guild Wars lore (including first). It’s delivery in GW2 disappointed me a little, but as the Living Story goes, it seems to get better. I wish to see more information about Elona and, especially, Cantha. I loved Factions, and I wish that we will see Kaineng City in GW2. I was so excited when the Bazaar of the Four Winds was announced, because it seemed to me like it had some connection with Cantha, and I was little sad that it wasn’t that much in the end. There were also hints about Glint, but that also seems to be left alone. I hope it will go further in next “season” of Living Story, and that there will be some more information about Cantha to be found.

Oh, there are tons of little dangly threads of lore that can be expanded upon, this is how ArenaNet works. I mean the lore behind the Elder Dragons and the Great Destroyer was all tied to a book found in the Sorrow’s Furnace “dungeon” that was just a dangly thread of lore for years. No information on exactly what this Great Destroyer was, until they decided to use it and expand upon it. You will find that this and dozens if not hundreds of other pieces will end up working that way, or will just be left forgotten.

On the topic at hand, I know I am personally a fan of dialogue between the hostiles. This is not just dialogues on agro, but also perhaps a toxic krait and a toxic nightmare courtier talk about their distrust of the MA or Aetherblades as we approach, or the changed state of the Krait since the toxic pollen was created. Perhaps to toxic nightmare courtiers talking about how the pollen changed the krait, and they could perhaps use it to change their own brethren or even other races to the nightmare. Or naturally, Aetherblades kneeling and picking up loot from the busted open bank and talking about all the loot they’re getting (I almost imagine some talk about an amazing precursor they just nabbed or something, lol) Stuff like this (while it is often overlooked in massive zergs) helps to flesh out the hostiles a lot. They are not just punching bags for loot, they have plans and ambitions which would be nice to see a bit of. I know I find myself running solo through mobs of them all the time, and coming upon this kind of convo would be a nice surprise

For starters the obelisk shards are incredibly convenient. We have no explanation where they came from – just that Scarlet acquired them. The thing krait seem to want so badly and is likely found deep in the ocean, yet Scarlet (who presumably knows less about krait history than the krait themselves) managed to find them first (while she was inventing new technology, going mad, building secret bases, forging multiple unlikely alliances, reverse engineering… you get what I mean).

Angel McCoy.1832:

Krait: They’ve been warped by Scarlet and the Nightmare Court. By the end, the scenario had changed. Scarlet proved she could bring back a prophet to their satisfaction (whether it was actually a prophet or not, no one really knows, but the toxic krait believe it was). And they can’t exactly go join other normal krait. How do you think regular xenophobic krait would feel about these toxic ones?

The “prophet” was killed by two humans and their ally. If I believed my race was superior and I was delivered a prophet, I wouldn’t believe it to be real if it died that easily. I would have thought from the krait’s perspective that the hybrid is a false prophet – no true prophet would be that weak – and Scarlet betrayed them with lies.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Dredge: They want power and magic. This group of dredge see an opportunity to add magic to their repertoire. Given their history, this would be a huge feather in their caps. Besides, how often do you get the opportunity to atomize a city like Lion’s Arch? Now that’s fun!

The dredge got the magic. Like the Flame Legion splinter group, they acquired the magic in Flame and Frost. They didn’t get it from Scarlet, they got it by working with charr. They don’t need Scarlet for that and they aren’t getting it in Lion’s Arch. Destroying Lion’s Arch because it’s fun is like arguing they do evil because it’s evil.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Flame Legion: They want technology and power. This group of FL is taking a huge risk. If they can go home with awesome swag, then they’ll be welcomed, but if they can’t, then they’re likely to be killed the moment they arrive. A large body count (especially the charr and human ones) along with whatever weapons technology they manage to acquire is an inspiring reward for them. And, they get to say they helped bring down Lion’s Arch. They hope to be lauded as heroes when they return to the FL.

They got the technology in Flame and Frost. They already have that. There are plenty of charr bodies to kill in the Black Citadel or territory the Flame Legion are currently warring over (territory that isn’t linked to the other three major races and contains an outpost of the three Orders). It doesn’t make sense for this splinter group to waste soldiers fighting Scarlet’s war when they could take the technology they have already acquired and go fight their own war.

Angel McCoy.1832:

You will, of course, have noticed that the three alliances don’t work in very close proximity to one another. There’s a reason for this.

I don’t understand what that reason would be. Using your reasoning for the alliances, why wouldn’t the Flame Legion or the dredge work with the Aetherblades to acquire airships or Inquest technology? Each of the alliances is unlikely in the first place, we are supposed to believe the benefits outweigh the diplomatic challenges (despite almost none of that being dealt within the game) so why doesn’t this argument apply to the other factions? For that matter, why don’t all the evil factions in Tyria recognise the mutual benefits of alliances and crush the good guys? When the good guys ally in the game, it takes great leadership (player commander, Order leaders, Trahearne, Jennah, Smodur) and extraordinary circumstances (fighting multiple wars on different fronts, demonstrated defeat when fighting alone, primordial forces destroying the land). When the bad guys formed an alliance, it took the promise of a better gun?

Even if you disagree with all of that, almost none of “this is a splinter group” or the explanations for why these alliances formed (despite their differences – better tech alone isn’t enough imo) is in the game. The game refers to it as an alliance between dredge and Flame Legion, not AWOL Flame Legion (and even with the accepted suspension of disbelief, the numbers they show up in suggests a large portion of Flame Legion). The Obelisk Shards turn up in almost every krait outpost in Tyria, if that was the incentive to join Scarlet, why would players think only some krait joined her when all the krait suddenly had a fancy rock now?

This stuff needs to be in the story in-game, not on the forums or lore interviews.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Simple aggro voiced lines is all that’d be needed to show many of these things.

haven’t thought about this but I have to say it’s a very good idea…
maybe they could also put some green mobs with a conversation and when is over they become red.

Shiren.9532:

For starters the obelisk shards are incredibly convenient. We have no explanation where they came from – just that Scarlet acquired them. The thing krait seem to want so badly and is likely found deep in the ocean, yet Scarlet (who presumably knows less about krait history than the krait themselves) managed to find them first (while she was inventing new technology, going mad, building secret bases, forging multiple unlikely alliances, reverse engineering… you get what I mean).

It seems, based on your wording, that you think the krait could’t find the obelisk (or shards), though the thing is that they knew where they were – they just had to leave them in their original homes.

It is a bit odd for how Scarlet was able to obtain these, but given that they’re just shards it’s equally possible that the krait intended to “move” the obelisks when they fled their homeland and lost some – those that were found by Scarlet.

Shiren.9532:

They got the technology in Flame and Frost. They already have that. There are plenty of charr bodies to kill in the Black Citadel or territory the Flame Legion are currently warring over (territory that isn’t linked to the other three major races and contains an outpost of the three Orders). It doesn’t make sense for this splinter group to waste soldiers fighting Scarlet’s war when they could take the technology they have already acquired and go fight their own war.

What Angel was saying about the Flame Legion – I believe – is that because of their failures during Flame and Frost, that splinter group cannot return home without some sort of success to them – otherwise the other Flame Legion will view them as weak and traitorous, thus kill them.

It actually does make sense under this knowledge, because if they were to fight their own enemies (read: the three united High Legions), they’d not only be just a mere splinter faction of the Flame Legion (thus not even a third of the High Legion’s power – and even that’s giving the Flame Legion a lot of credit given that they were just regaining power after licking their wounds from the defeat at Kalla’s paws, and they just recently lost atleast 2 Tribunes, the Eternal Flame, and their Imperator while also being in civil war), but also having to fight or avoid their own brothers (the other Flame Legion). However, by taking LA with Scarlet’s factions, they aren’t fighting alone and their target being destroyed would grant them even more reputation points than taking on, say, Ashford Forum.

Shiren.9532:

I don’t understand what that reason would be. Using your reasoning for the alliances, why wouldn’t the Flame Legion or the dredge work with the Aetherblades to acquire airships or Inquest technology? Each of the alliances is unlikely in the first place, we are supposed to believe the benefits outweigh the diplomatic challenges (despite almost none of that being dealt within the game) so why doesn’t this argument apply to the other factions?

I think what Angel was getting at is less of “the splinter groups don’t see any benefit in working with Scarlet’s other alliances” and more of “Scarlet intentionally kept them separate so they don’t mingle too much and decide they don’t need her anymore.” That’s how I took it.

I mean, would the Flame Legion splinter group really think they could benefit in the form of more technology and defeating great enemies from Scarlet, if they start mingling with the Aetherblades and Nightmare Court – thus gaining knowledge of air superiority and (possibly flammable) toxins?

I do hope that there’s some interaction going on that’ll be revealed in the future – they were pretty close with Marionette, and we can see MA and TA almost-mingling on Postern Ward I believe.

Shiren.9532:

For starters the obelisk shards are incredibly convenient. We have no explanation where they came from – just that Scarlet acquired them. The thing krait seem to want so badly and is likely found deep in the ocean, yet Scarlet (who presumably knows less about krait history than the krait themselves) managed to find them first (while she was inventing new technology, going mad, building secret bases, forging multiple unlikely alliances, reverse engineering… you get what I mean).

The “prophet” was killed by two humans and their ally. If I believed my race was superior and I was delivered a prophet, I wouldn’t believe it to be real if it died that easily. I would have thought from the krait’s perspective that the hybrid is a false prophet – no true prophet would be that weak – and Scarlet betrayed them with lies.

Both of them can be explained by simple things:
1.) She plain looted them the same way we can find precursors and buy pieces of the freaking bloodstones.
2.) As mentioned in point 1, the PC is (even if a quaggan loving asura) is kinda the definitive version of one man army to a level where Rambo looks like a common footman.

*also im not sure that they actually even knew there was a “prophet” in their tower since we awoke him too early from the giant leaf egg and then murdered him… wait does that count as giving the tower a abortion?

P.S. The aetherblades/inquest tie was explained in TA/A release trough voice overs. Also explained the norn with the slickpack and the little flame rat.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Angel McCoy.1832:

That’s actually 4 questions. Can’t fool me. Hehe. Konig, we devs walk a fine line between giving too much lore, thus spoiling players’ in-game discovery, and not giving enough. If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.

And when it comes to “spoiling players’ in-game discovery” – to be a bit blunt… avoiding that is pointless when we don’t get the information at a reasonable point in the game’s story. Why the krait, Flame Legion, and dredge (if not NC and Aetherblades too) continue to work for Scarlet is something that should have been explained either with the Marionette or with this update, maybe with Battle for LA. But even then it feels a bit late…

I hate Anet’s mentality of “we don’t want to spoil it” – sounds like a cop out to me for not fully thinking it through. How would knowing these things spoil it? We can’t discover these things for ourselves we can only speculate until its told to us. Unfortunately most of the time it isn’t revealed, or we can’t find the answers in-game, we have to get it from Anet through threads like this.

Give us the answers but allow us to find them in-game some how. That’s called discovery.

I can’t wait to see how many questions get answered by the end of this arc. I have the uncomfortable feeling not many and we will still be asking “why this happened” long after the story has been wrapped up.

Well, we can’t discover stuff that isn’t in the game. And simply setting up mysteries, and then claiming you don’t want to spoil things, while at the same time, never solving any of the mysteries is frustrating.

Regarding the Nightmare Court, we do know that they are not all one cohesive unit, especially after Faolain went incognito. Many of them have many different ways of spreading the Nightmare, and the Retinue all have their own agendas about how to handle that as well.

We have no idea if there is one high-ranking Courtier leading the rest (it’d have to be above the rank of Baron if so, since there were a few of those floating around in the Tower) or if it’s a small coalition of Retinue plus knights and grunts. But we do know that this group also broke off from the rest. But some would find this a perfectly acceptable way of doing things, especially when they can always figure to corrupt, control or betray the rest of the Alliance (as they, like Krait, also enslave other races).

Folks with wiki privileges should probably update the Krait wiki to avoid further confusion, if they haven’t already.

Thobek.1730:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Angel McCoy.1832:

That’s actually 4 questions. Can’t fool me. Hehe. Konig, we devs walk a fine line between giving too much lore, thus spoiling players’ in-game discovery, and not giving enough. If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.

And when it comes to “spoiling players’ in-game discovery” – to be a bit blunt… avoiding that is pointless when we don’t get the information at a reasonable point in the game’s story. Why the krait, Flame Legion, and dredge (if not NC and Aetherblades too) continue to work for Scarlet is something that should have been explained either with the Marionette or with this update, maybe with Battle for LA. But even then it feels a bit late…

I hate Anet’s mentality of “we don’t want to spoil it” – sounds like a cop out to me for not fully thinking it through. How would knowing these things spoil it? We can’t discover these things for ourselves we can only speculate until its told to us. Unfortunately most of the time it isn’t revealed, or we can’t find the answers in-game, we have to get it from Anet through threads like this.

Give us the answers but allow us to find them in-game some how. That’s called discovery.

I can’t wait to see how many questions get answered by the end of this arc. I have the uncomfortable feeling not many and we will still be asking “why this happened” long after the story has been wrapped up.

Like I said all these mysteries are in the past, and that’s why it is so frustrating for us lore lovers. It is already the present, which means there should be more than enough information available right now for the players to figure out what happened in the past.

Giving information on the past are not spoilers. Spoilers only happens if the leaked events in question are in the future. The only exception to this rule is a detective story like Sherlock Holmes. A detective story is about the main character finding clues to figure out what happened in the past. So in this particular case it is a spoiler to spoil the past.

But detective stories are very very difficult to write well. There is a reason why nearly everyone knows Sherlock Holmes, and yet this same population barely knows any other fictional detectives. I really don’t think the story writers should even attempt to write a detective story for GW2.

And quite frankly, this whole Scarlet story arc is not a detective story. I don’t think anyone will claim that it is. The focus on the story was always what will Scarlet do next.

Hope I am making sense.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Krait: They’ve been warped by Scarlet and the Nightmare Court. By the end, the scenario had changed. Scarlet proved she could bring back a prophet to their satisfaction (whether it was actually a prophet or not, no one really knows, but the toxic krait believe it was). And they can’t exactly go join other normal krait. How do you think regular xenophobic krait would feel about these toxic ones?

Flame Legion: They want technology and power. This group of FL is taking a huge risk. If they can go home with awesome swag, then they’ll be welcomed, but if they can’t, then they’re likely to be killed the moment they arrive. A large body count (especially the charr and human ones) along with whatever weapons technology they manage to acquire is an inspiring reward for them. And, they get to say they helped bring down Lion’s Arch. They hope to be lauded as heroes when they return to the FL.

I know you can’t reveal much, but these made my heart glad.
The potential that the splinters be eradicated by their own because they flubbed up feels right.

WARNING! Entering into the place which houses the below links may result in inexplicable loss of time, black holes, and shrivelled eyeballs! WARNING!

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsArmy

Please feel free to do as link advises and check out:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail

and

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EpilepticTrees

I am not saying any of this is YOU. Just maybe some of you. But not you, of course. Or you.

Ceridwen.6703:

WARNING! Entering into the place which houses the below links may result in inexplicable loss of time, black holes, and shrivelled eyeballs! WARNING!

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsArmy

Please feel free to do as link advises and check out:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail

and

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EpilepticTrees

I am not saying any of this is YOU. Just maybe some of you. But not you, of course. Or you.

Only applies if you view big things like “Why did these alliances happen?” and “How is it even possible for these alliances to happen?” and “Why don’t the Krait just kill Scarlet?” and “Why is the Aetherblade willing to die for Scarlet?” as minor details and unimportant to the main plot.

Quote directly from your link:

Say they set a level in a supermarket; a real supermarket stocks thousands of individual products in hundreds of different brands, each and every one with different label designs, and the time it would take to design (or license) all that packaging and trademarks could easily add up to several games’ worth of development cycles. So they use a handful of designs over and over. And it works to their favor: We accept less detail because it is not central to the game.

CHIPS.6018:

Only applies if you view big things like “Why did these alliances happen?” and “How is it even possible for these alliances to happen?” and “Why don’t the Krait just kill Scarlet?” and “Why is the Aetherblade willing to die for Scarlet?” as minor details and unimportant to the main plot.

Quote directly from your link:

Say they set a level in a supermarket; a real supermarket stocks thousands of individual products in hundreds of different brands, each and every one with different label designs, and the time it would take to design (or license) all that packaging and trademarks could easily add up to several games’ worth of development cycles. So they use a handful of designs over and over. And it works to their favor: We accept less detail because it is not central to the game.

Absolutely! I’m not saying what I think about the matter (I already have, earlier in the thread), just chucking some tropes out there to lighten it up a little.

Although somewhere in the links of the links, there’s probably a little light, because that’s how the TV Tropes site works its insidious little magic.

First off, i have to say. Lore is key for me to enjoy the game. It ranks as high as fluid game design and flawless execution of the tech behind the whole ordeal.

So if anything is wrong with one of these elements it actually hampers my enjoyment to a certain degree, depending on how much it is influenced by other parts of the experience.

That`s said, one of my favourite parts of an game is world building. I like to wander around and try to comprehend the world, how everything fits together.

Unfortunatly right now we are asked with a lot of suspension of disbelief to take in the new LS experience.
I do not blame any writers here, since i know it is a difficult task.
I furthermore applaud them for trying to make sense out of our confusion, even though some of it has a little bit of low level psychologic background.

In my opinion Scarlet needs a bit more leverage on these “armies” then just the things that were told so far.
Although every bit of explanation so far put in some more pieces to make it coherent, i have to admit.

My main problem is actually not with the main parts here. armies, characters… they are fine.

What i think was left behind here is the rest of the world.
The world did not really react that much to the thread and we have seen not much effort to do so.

Even if we take things like “higher priority tasks” and stuff into consideration, there is still another major problem here:
It is a magic world

Things Scarlet does should be a more or less common occourence. She does not bring something new to the table.
There should be several people out there able to break to her tech and magic. Even if she is a genius she would not be able to ward off several other intelligent people.
It also is a problem with the timeframe in which the things have happened.
So much time has passed and just now we have a lead, which was found by the B-Team…

I am sorry. as much if you want to make the story about them, the stupidity of the rest of the world is just baffling.
These things should not happen.

There should be set backs or suprises, but these should not be some long lasting problems.
new tech… new magic… if you have so much time that should not be an issiue

The Lore is important, but can’t be the foundation of everything.

On one side, there is the “show, don’t tell” rule. If I have to learn about the world by another source, there is a problem.

For example, Dark Souls story writers did a great job by reducing lore to the bare minimum, leaving to the community the task to make sense out of it, while the small hints come naturally, without actually searching for clues.

Other than that, I feel like the Lore is too heavy.

I have never seen a character that acted differently than what was expected from his/her race. All Norns are obsessed with their legend, all charrs value duty above anything else and so on…
Well, maybe there is some NPC like that, but they are completely unimportant and we know nothing about them.
Worst of all, our characters are bound to follow the rules. They are exactly like the lore expects them to be. And this actually damages the storytelling.

For example, the story of a charr whose father belonged to the Flame Legion might be like this: he joined the Flame Legion to avoid becoming a gladium, and took you, his son, with him.
You were just a newborn at that time. Maybe your father takes you because they threatened to kill you if he joined the Flame Legion without you.
Differently from other charrs, you are grown entirely by your father (or your father protects you in a particular way).
One day, while you are still a child, the place you live in gets attacked by the other Legions. Your father manages to escape, while making sure the attackes get you and spares you because you are nothing more than a child.
You grow and get trained as other charrs, but you are always seen with suspicion by others because of your origin. You aswell can’t hate the Flame Legion as strongly as other Charrs, because of your father (who you think died the day you were caught). On the other hand, you are eager to prove your worth to the Legion of your choice. You might actually be better than the others at what you do because of what your father taught you.

Here, now you have some cool stuff when you are ordered to fight against the Flame Legion: you character is torn between the will to show you new people you can be trusted, on the other hand you have to fight enemies whom you come from, that you can’t really hate. You might capture people that you used to know, and be forced to decide what to do with them.

And when your father is captured… on one side you might feel betrayed, on the other you might respect him even more when you realize that he did all of this to save you. But then, he begs to forget him, because he doesn’t want you to become a traitor like him. You might actually be asked by Rytlock to torture or execute him.

There: you can do a lot of things by making a character a bit different than what the lore expects you to be.

Lore is definitely very important. The story is the spice that makes the game engaging.

Chesed.2890:

Lore is definitely very important. The story is the spice that makes the game engaging.

Lore and Story are two different things.

Let’s make an example with Star Trek.

Some episodes from the Original Series had a great story. But near to no lore whatsoever (the franchise was still at its dawn).

Some episodes from Star Trek: Voyager had great lore (the one built by all those years of Star Trek) but really bad stories.

IMHO lore is what is behind the story.

redslion.9675:

Chesed.2890:

Lore is definitely very important. The story is the spice that makes the game engaging.

Lore and Story are two different things.

Let’s make an example with Star Trek.

Some episodes from the Original Series had a great story. But near to no lore whatsoever (the franchise was still at its dawn).

Some episodes from Star Trek: Voyager had great lore (the one built by all those years of Star Trek) but really bad stories.

IMHO lore is what is behind the story.

Actually http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore
Its just different time frames and scale which split story and lore.

Andele.1306:

redslion.9675:

Chesed.2890:

Lore is definitely very important. The story is the spice that makes the game engaging.

Lore and Story are two different things.

Let’s make an example with Star Trek.

Some episodes from the Original Series had a great story. But near to no lore whatsoever (the franchise was still at its dawn).

Some episodes from Star Trek: Voyager had great lore (the one built by all those years of Star Trek) but really bad stories.

IMHO lore is what is behind the story.

Actually http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore
Its just different time frames and scale which split story and lore.

That’s enough of a difference. The story is the one directly concerning your character. Lore affects your character by founding the story. But lore can’t replace the story. Unless you’re in for a very boring story, where everyone acts like he is supposed to.

And I’m not even sure lore and folklore are the same thing. Most of the time lore is estabilished knowledge, while folkore isn’t.

redslion.9675:

Andele.1306:

redslion.9675:

Chesed.2890:

Lore is definitely very important. The story is the spice that makes the game engaging.

Lore and Story are two different things.

Let’s make an example with Star Trek.

Some episodes from the Original Series had a great story. But near to no lore whatsoever (the franchise was still at its dawn).

Some episodes from Star Trek: Voyager had great lore (the one built by all those years of Star Trek) but really bad stories.

IMHO lore is what is behind the story.

Actually http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore
Its just different time frames and scale which split story and lore.

That’s enough of a difference. The story is the one directly concerning your character. Lore affects your character by founding the story. But lore can’t replace the story. Unless you’re in for a very boring story, where everyone acts like he is supposed to.

And I’m not even sure lore and folklore are the same thing. Most of the time lore is estabilished knowledge, while folkore isn’t.

Well in the lore its said by the jotun that they first interacted with the human gods, but the gods themselves, the forgotten and the humans all plain state that the first time they came to tyria it was with the humans. Lore of a race is very subjective.
Also the word lore came from/is a synonym to folklore.
Story just means that we have core focal points as the perspective for said events.

What you mean is actual storytelling and word/universe building for star trek (since the story is just x amount of races which are just our historical cultures with weird looks and a crew of people which explore and interact with them, lore just going in depth of each race). Either way we are splitting hairs, as MQM said there needs to be more of the “show/interact not tell” going on (or at least stuff like jorys and scarlets journals which give you a narration).

Andele.1306:

redslion.9675:

Andele.1306:

redslion.9675:

Chesed.2890:

Lore is definitely very important. The story is the spice that makes the game engaging.

Lore and Story are two different things.

Let’s make an example with Star Trek.

Some episodes from the Original Series had a great story. But near to no lore whatsoever (the franchise was still at its dawn).

Some episodes from Star Trek: Voyager had great lore (the one built by all those years of Star Trek) but really bad stories.

IMHO lore is what is behind the story.

Actually http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore
Its just different time frames and scale which split story and lore.

That’s enough of a difference. The story is the one directly concerning your character. Lore affects your character by founding the story. But lore can’t replace the story. Unless you’re in for a very boring story, where everyone acts like he is supposed to.

And I’m not even sure lore and folklore are the same thing. Most of the time lore is estabilished knowledge, while folkore isn’t.

Well in the lore its said by the jotun that they first interacted with the human gods, but the gods themselves, the forgotten and the humans all plain state that the first time they came to tyria it was with the humans. Lore of a race is very subjective.
Also the word lore came from/is a synonym to folklore.
Story just means that we have core focal points as the perspective for said events.

What you mean is actual storytelling and word/universe building for star trek (since the story is just x amount of races which are just our historical cultures with weird looks and a crew of people which explore and interact with them, lore just going in depth of each race). Either way we are splitting hairs, as MQM said there needs to be more of the “show/interact not tell” going on (or at least stuff like jorys and scarlets journals which give you a narration).

Yeah, we were talking about two different things. What I meant was that characters are generally too much defined by their culture.

Narcemus.1348:

I have longed for Krait civil war ever since the Tower was revealed

Krait for playable race!

But thank you for that little write-up, Angel. It’s definitely helped fill in some of the blanks. Can we presume that there would also have been Toxic Krait who, after seeing the Hybrid, went “This isn’t our Prophet!” and went back home again? (There is, for example, a single solitary Veteran Toxic Krait sitting at the top of the Timberline Falls Krait fortress.)

Well, this thread proved a more interesting break from packing than I expected…

On the original topic: To be honest, I tend to play for the story. Grindfests don’t particularly engage me. Now, I’m quite happy to repeat content I’ve already seen – I’m close to finishing the PS with a character of each class, for instance – but I have to be able to space them out at my own pace. The current style of the Living Story, which encourages grinding the current stage of the LS until your brain dribbles out of your nose and then moving onto the next, with in most cases never having the opportunity to return however nostalgic you might feel six months down the track – is steadily making me disengage from the game.

Underdark.3726:

Alice.8694:

My question is, why isn’t any of this within the game already?

How can be this in the game? Who can explain those things? Scarlet wouldn’t tell, we do not interact with the alliances. Nobody in game knows this.

Events. Events in which toxic krait are rejected and attacked by their non-toxic cousins. Events in which Molten Alliance charr encounter regular Flame Legion and are accused of being traitors – heck, imagine the soul-searching that a charr player might have to go through if they had to accept assistance from a rival faction of the Flame Legion to take down a Molten Alliance stronghold? Up until now, apart from the toxic Nightmare Court which were explicitly said to be a faction, we had the impression that the Toxic and Molten Alliances had the full support of the krait, Flame Legion, and moleteriate.

Another thing we had the impression of was that the different subgroups were all part of one unified block. While I had noticed that different units were found in different areas, I’d essentially assumed that what we were essentially looking at was the equivalent of different services in a modern military – the Aetherblades are the air force and paratroopers, the Toxic Alliance are the marines, the Molten Alliance a kind of reverse-paratroopers that come up from below, and the Twisted essentially the armoured support. Now, it’s been implied that they’re kept seperate not simply because they’ve been assigned areas of operation that match their skills – which is what I had assumed – but because there is enough rivalry between them to mandate that they be seperated. This is something that could have been shown – for instance, what about a conflict over the spoils of a Priory or Whispers site within the city? I can easily see that as being something that each of the alliances would really want to get their hands on for their own reasons, enough that they might come to blows, or at least heated words, if they think Scarlet isn’t watching, and just a couple of these would go a long way to showing that Scarlet’s armies aren’t the monolithic and united army of evil that don’t sneeze without Scarlet’s permission that they’ve appeared, to all observations, to be in-game.

As Jaken says, though, while I think story-wise the LS from the Tower of Nightmares from the raising of the tower on has been improving (gameplay I still have some issues with, although while originally being sceptical of the evacuations I’ve found them to be quite fun… just wish I could have afforded to spend more time on them), the amount of idiot-ball-holding it’s required of the good guys for Scarlet to railroad the plot has been staggering.

RedWolfCrusader.2365:

Lore is EXTREMELY important to me! I wish there was more story driven solo things like personal story that expands into other story arcs from GW1 and new ones from GW2. But, lately I sense a lack of lore fancy from the community. Like their are no lore videos besides Woodenpotatoes and even he doesn’t do it that much. I had an idea to cover stories and stuff in video form on YouTube but I want to do it right I just need an insane amount of assets and it be good to go.

Some of us have been working on it, but a few ill-timed interferences from real life have put a lot of plans on the backburner. Once those all get resolved, we have big plans… assuming our collective enthusiasm hasn’t drained beyond the point where we still have the impetus to carry out those plans.

draxynnic.3719:

Now, it’s been implied that they’re kept seperate not simply because they’ve been assigned areas of operation that match their skills – which is what I had assumed – but because there is enough rivalry between them to mandate that they be seperated.

I don’t think what’s implied is rivalry. Go to Hooligan’s Route and you’ll see all three alliances mingling there – Toxic, Molten, and Aetherblade – in pretty close proximity to each other.

Seems like Scarlet kept the separate because she didn’t want them mingling for some non-infighting reason. And they’re mingling anyways, in a cave, away from her eyesight.

Can prove interesting if Anet keeps the alliances and the shockwaves of their interactions as side plots in the future.

Speaking of which: The Living Story Needs More Side Plots!

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Speaking of which: The Living Story Needs More Side Plots!

I broke the +1 for this part of your post.
We do need side plots, after all it isn’t like Rata Sum is doing nothing or Hoelbrak is sitting on their thumbs while Scarlet goes around.

Side plots would help seed the next villain for the future season.