Guild Wars 2

It is long time since was the Canthan district in DR changed into Crown Pavillion, which is really loss. It was the only Canthan architecture in game, so if anyone has screens of it, rememembers dialogues or just memories of how it was, share it here, most people who played GW: Factions would shurely appreciate.

the canthan district was never canon. it never made its way to any consumer-playable build. canonically, what became the great chasm (and later the crown pavilion) was an arts district.

To expand on what Bruno said, from launch to the Pavillion a year later, that district was just a massive hole in the ground with no one living in it. The idea for a Canthan district, as far as I know, didn’t even make it into the betas.

Didn´t know that. I would like to see it in-game, it would be great, just like Ossan quarter and elonian architecture. Well, I thing we can only hope for Cantha
Anyway, thanks for response.

I’m still angry about that whole thing. Some asians didn’t want it, so what?
Cantha is part of the lore wether they want it or not.

I am sad that we got no Cantha district.

I am however more sad, that they just covered the whole thing up.
The hole was a great mystery, as no one knew how it happened.

It would have been so cool to go down there and find out it`s cause.

Jaken.6801:

I am sad that we got no Cantha district.

I am however more sad, that they just covered the whole thing up.
The hole was a great mystery, as no one knew how it happened.

It would have been so cool to go down there and find out it`s cause.

It was called “The Great Collapse”, basically the foundations gave way.

Why did they give way?

Well, because the A.R.E.N.A Commando’s stored a nuke there in-case the Elder Dragons of the fabled land of Encee-Sohft got to unruly.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I’m still angry about that whole thing. Some asians didn’t want it, so what?
Cantha is part of the lore wether they want it or not.

When you’re using other people’s cultures you have to respect them. It doesn’t matter if it was already an established part of the lore, if it was going to offend a couple of Asian cultures because it blended them (there are a lot of Asian cultures that are quite hostile towards one another) then it makes sense to remove it until such a time that you can revise it so that it isn’t offensive.

Your attitude is racist. You don’t realise it, but it is. You don’t just get to do whatever you want with other people’s cultural heritage. It holds meaning for them and to abuse that meaning is to enact violence against their culture.

It’s the exact same reason that with the initial release of GW Faction Arenanet removed the Panda as a tameable pet because in China it is illegal to depict a Panda being killed. They were added back into the game when GW ceased operation in all Asian territories. GW2 has been released in China, so like it or not they have to consider what is appropriate and isn’t appropriate for their audience, just the same as they have to consider what is and is not appropriate for an American audience, a British Audience, French, German, Australian, New Zealand, etc.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I’m still angry about that whole thing. Some asians didn’t want it, so what?
Cantha is part of the lore wether they want it or not.

When you’re using other people’s cultures you have to respect them. It doesn’t matter if it was already an established part of the lore, if it was going to offend a couple of Asian cultures because it blended them (there are a lot of Asian cultures that are quite hostile towards one another) then it makes sense to remove it until such a time that you can revise it so that it isn’t offensive.

Your attitude is racist. You don’t realise it, but it is. You don’t just get to do whatever you want with other people’s cultural heritage. It holds meaning for them and to abuse that meaning is to enact violence against their culture.

I think people are just blowing this entirely out of proportion, it’s just a video game… what’s the big deal. And racist? I have nothing against the asian race nor did I ever claim to. Ingame cultures are often based on real life cultures (asian cultures, nordic cultures, european cultures, african cultures, arabic cultures, the list goes on). This is as old as gaming itself, why is it a problem all of a sudden? I honestly don’t understand.

From what I understand, the issue with Cantha as it was represented in factions was that the blending was very poorly done to someone familiar with those cultures. Like having Abraham Lincoln dressed as a leprechaun with a French accent but in charge of the National Socialist Patry of Germany in terms of wtf mishmash and cultural insensitivity.
I loved factions myself, and would love ANet to invent a new Asian culture drawing more respectfully on real world inspirations as opposed to lifting bits without thinking.
like.. Shiro Tagachi is very Japanese, but samurai types (which he really seems to be) are not always a positive image in places which suffered under Japanese colonial ambitions. He’s right beside characters with VERY Chinese names, very Vietnamese names.. each just sort of lifting cultural concepts without really smoothing how they work together.

Aethgar.1784:

Like having Abraham Lincoln dressed as a leprechaun with a French accent but in charge of the National Socialist Patry of Germany in terms of wtf mishmash and cultural insensitivity.

I would either find that very silly or hilarious. But I would not be offended by it. Because it’s just a video game and Cantha is a fantasy world, it doesn’t really need to be historically accurate. And it is quite petty to get upset over a fictional world in a video game because it mixes an interpretation of your culture with other cultures. But that’s just my opinion.

I guess some people are more serious about their culture than others..

Aethgar.1784:

I loved factions myself, and would love ANet to invent a new Asian culture drawing more respectfully on real world inspirations as opposed to lifting bits without thinking.
like.. Shiro Tagachi is very Japanese, but samurai types (which he really seems to be) are not always a positive image in places which suffered under Japanese colonial ambitions. He’s right beside characters with VERY Chinese names, very Vietnamese names.. each just sort of lifting cultural concepts without really smoothing how they work together.

This is exactly what fantasy is doing for decades with european and some times other cultures. Don’t ask me how many times I ran into a knight with a german name, a french armor and an british accent in an RPG. The difference is that in europe nobody cares.
Besides it’s a rather small but vocal part of the asien community that reacted negatively to Cantha. Now those relatively few players dictate what the rest of the world can have and not have in their game. How is that fair? To be honest that looks just like Anet is having their creative freedom removed by nationalists who can’t stand that their beloved culture is stained by another “lesser” one.
I’m all for not explicitly making fun or insulting other cultures, religions and what not, but what Anet did was hardly offensive if anything it could be seen as a compliment that they took so many beautiful ideas from all the many asien cultures. And they sure are beautiful. I wish I could enjoy them in GW2, even if it’s “just a theme park version”.
Of course for the real thing I’ll have to go there. Which I certainly do in the next couple of years, I have to visit some friends in China.

Oh, I agree.. I WANT Cantha. I’m just going on the words of other fans who’ve clarified it from an Asian PoV.

Sorry, maybe came off like I’m angry with you, I ain’t of course. Cantha and Elona withdrawal makes me grumpy though. :P

BrunoBRS.5178:

the canthan district was never canon. it never made its way to any consumer-playable build. canonically, what became the great chasm (and later the crown pavilion) was an arts district.

Isn’t Ghosts of Ascalon book considered canon? I’m pretty sure GW2 wiki states it is. And Canthan district IS mentioned in this book.

Fomivee.3065:

BrunoBRS.5178:

the canthan district was never canon. it never made its way to any consumer-playable build. canonically, what became the great chasm (and later the crown pavilion) was an arts district.

Isn’t Ghosts of Ascalon book considered canon? I’m pretty sure GW2 wiki states it is. And Canthan district IS mentioned in this book.

I believe some npc’s mentioned it too when the crown pavilion was still the great collapse. It’s definitely canon, it was just destroyed before we got to see it, but it was definitely there at some point in the timeline.

Yes it was mentioned in Ghosts of Ascalon, which takes place in year 1324, so it collapsed in 1324/early 1325. Still want to get lore on this.

Tutanchamon.2190:

Yes it was mentioned in Ghosts of Ascalon, which takes place in year 1324, so it collapsed in 1324/early 1325. Still want to get lore on this.

Whether it appeared in the book and in dialogues or not, it was changed to being the arts district in the end. That might be considered a retcon. However, as it stands now, in lore there never was a Canthan district.

Diovid.9506:

Tutanchamon.2190:

Yes it was mentioned in Ghosts of Ascalon, which takes place in year 1324, so it collapsed in 1324/early 1325. Still want to get lore on this.

Whether it appeared in the book and in dialogues or not, it was changed to being the arts district in the end. That might be considered a retcon. However, as it stands now, in lore there never was a Canthan district.

Ikr!

Diovid.9506:

Whether it appeared in the book and in dialogues or not, it was changed to being the arts district in the end. That might be considered a retcon. However, as it stands now, in lore there never was a Canthan district.

For all we know it could have been both the Canthan and an art district. They don’t seem to be mutually exclusive to me.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I’m still angry about that whole thing. Some asians didn’t want it, so what?
Cantha is part of the lore wether they want it or not.

When you’re using other people’s cultures you have to respect them. It doesn’t matter if it was already an established part of the lore, if it was going to offend a couple of Asian cultures because it blended them (there are a lot of Asian cultures that are quite hostile towards one another) then it makes sense to remove it until such a time that you can revise it so that it isn’t offensive.

Your attitude is racist. You don’t realise it, but it is. You don’t just get to do whatever you want with other people’s cultural heritage. It holds meaning for them and to abuse that meaning is to enact violence against their culture.

I think people are just blowing this entirely out of proportion, it’s just a video game… what’s the big deal. And racist? I have nothing against the asian race nor did I ever claim to. Ingame cultures are often based on real life cultures (asian cultures, nordic cultures, european cultures, african cultures, arabic cultures, the list goes on). This is as old as gaming itself, why is it a problem all of a sudden? I honestly don’t understand.

Just because you don’t find it offensive doesn’t mean that others don’t. Just because you aren’t actively being racist doesn’t mean that your comments are coming off that way. Showing a lack of sensitivity to how other people perceive their own cultures is racism. Portraying another culture inaccurately is insulting. It doesn’t matter if you wouldn’t find it insulting if your own culture was portrayed inaccurately, in the West we are quite used to satire and our cultures are already incredibly mixed so often that kind of thing doesn’t seem like an issue. But I’m not sure that you have any right to speak for how another country treats their culture and whether or not they’re open to it being fiddled with in a video game.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Showing a lack of sensitivity to how other people perceive their own cultures is racism.

I always thought racism was prejudice and/or discrimination based on social perceptions of biological differences between different peoples. It might be insensitive but it still doesn’t seem like racism to me.

I will take your word for it though.

I’m with Windu here. Every definition of racism I’ve ever seen was centered on superiority/inferiority or hatred, not disregard- caring too much, not too little. If anything, it’d seem to me that protesting your culture being mixed with another’s is racism- are Japanese influences unworthy of standing alongside Chinese influences? Cultural sensitivity is a good thing, but when crafting fictional settings that don’t even imply that they’re portraying the real world, it’s a very minor concern… unless you’re selling to countries where racism is powerful enough to affect sales, I suppose.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

ICultural sensitivity is a good thing, but when crafting fictional settings that don’t even imply that they’re portraying the real world, it’s a very minor concern…

That’s what I thought.
I really don’t mean to be racist here but apparantly I am :S

Pretty sure that as long as there’s no trademark or copyright violation, Anet can do whatever the hell they want. Freedom of expression dictates so.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

That’s what I thought.
I really don’t mean to be racist here but apparantly I am :S

If it helps you, from my perception you aren’t. Some people like to throw the racist card too easily, which devalues the efforts of people who combat actual racism.

Deli.1302:

Pretty sure that as long as there’s no trademark or copyright violation, Anet can do whatever the hell they want. Freedom of expression dictates so.

Sadly, the freedom of expression in these kind of cases usually falls to the almighty dollar.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’m with Windu here. Every definition of racism I’ve ever seen was centered on superiority/inferiority or hatred, not disregard- caring too much, not too little. If anything, it’d seem to me that protesting your culture being mixed with another’s is racism- are Japanese influences unworthy of standing alongside Chinese influences? Cultural sensitivity is a good thing, but when crafting fictional settings that don’t even imply that they’re portraying the real world, it’s a very minor concern… unless you’re selling to countries where racism is powerful enough to affect sales, I suppose.

Try studying sociology and perhaps you’ll have a better definition.

There was an excellently worded post on, I THINK, Guru.. in which a player of Asian descent addressed the often unknown legacy of imperialism in East and south-East Asia, which fed a lot of problems with how Cantha was received.
To sum the bits I’m aware of.. Japan and China have a lengthy history of invasions and atrocities. Most recently in what was renamed Manuchuko (I think? Africanist here, not East Asian historian!) a.k.a Manchuria, during the middle of the last century, the Japanese treated the Chinese there in a fashion similar to those under the German boot of the same period. People suffered terribly. There’s some seriously bad blood there to this day – mixing up cultural indicators of China versus Japan is seriously.. well. To put it into something the west might grasp, it’d be like assuming that Jewish orthodox wear was a uniform with ‘SS’ stylized at the collar to a degree. That’s how hurt the feelings were. We say we’re cool with mixing cultural indicators but there’s stuff you don’t play with. Wearing an Aunt Jemima outfit, wearing the uniform of a certain regime that ruled in Germany and is censored by the forums..
Some things don’t mix well at all.
Evidently there was some element of that in how Factions was portraying Asia. It was a problem, as I understand, because not only was it at times simply hamfisted and laughably bad, but other times, yeah, it was in the ‘SS’ level of touchy things.

I’m not a member of any of the cultures in question here, so I’m a privileged person who can laugh off stereotypes about my non-oppressed culture. Joke about Scottish people and kilts and I’ll joke with you. I might react very differently if I was living during the Highland Clearances or the generation just after, if you get my drift?

I think ANet is being rightly careful in how they re-imagine Cantha, to go at it neither in a comically bad way for people who know the cultures, nor a downright insensitive way. I hope they take their time and get it right, because I know that they can, and I’d LOVE to see Kaineng again with the ‘jump’ key and jumping puzzles. Man oh man that’d be great!

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’m with Windu here. Every definition of racism I’ve ever seen was centered on superiority/inferiority or hatred, not disregard- caring too much, not too little. If anything, it’d seem to me that protesting your culture being mixed with another’s is racism- are Japanese influences unworthy of standing alongside Chinese influences? Cultural sensitivity is a good thing, but when crafting fictional settings that don’t even imply that they’re portraying the real world, it’s a very minor concern… unless you’re selling to countries where racism is powerful enough to affect sales, I suppose.

Try studying sociology and perhaps you’ll have a better definition.

First off, bear in mind that the only value in a word is insofar as it is able to represent a common meaning to the largest possible pool of people. In any case, the ‘better’ definition is the one you find in the common dictionary, not the one that is used within a specific field of study.

That said, while I thoroughly hated the subject, I have taken a sociology course, and to quote directly from the textbook: “racism: a set of beliefs that one’s own racial group is naturally superior to other groups.”

As for the history between China and Japan, I don’t seek to downplay how horrible that was, and I agree that it’s insulting to the memory of the victims that Japan doesn’t educate their citizens on the subject. Turning that hate around on an entire culture, however, is just that- playing tit-for-tat with collective punishment, matching racism with racism. It’s not stepping up to be the better person, it’s not any claim to the moral high ground, and it certainly isn’t the responsibility of western-based producers to support and accommodate that hate. If ArenaNet or NCSoft has decided to, that’s their prerogative, but I don’t believe it’s the right decision.

Aethgar.1784:

Evidently there was some element of that in how Factions was portraying Asia. It was a problem, as I understand, because not only was it at times simply hamfisted and laughably bad, but other times, yeah, it was in the ‘SS’ level of touchy things.

I don’t remember any backlash about Cantha from the Asian market at that time, can you post any links or anything?

Cantha was specifically designed to not represent any one Asian culture or ethnic group. They used particular cultural elements from all over the SE Asian map(along with some Gothic of all things), mixed them with their own original ideas, and put it down on pixels.

The “issue” wasn’t that Factions reflected poorly on certain Asian cultures, but rather that one could discern the mixing of cultural ideas if they looked for it hard enough. I understand that there are cultures there(or anywhere else for that matter) that take offense to that. But:

1) It’s blatantly obvious GW didn’t have an agenda for this.

2) The mixing is an aggregate of not only RL cultural ideas, but fake ones.

3) It’s a video game.