Guild Wars 2

I have got one problem with current story, but first some background.
250 we were told information, facts even, about creation of world, appearance of humans and creation of magic and Bloodstones by Six True Gods etc. Due to changing view of game to less human-centric many of those “facts” were named myths, superstitions.
Now we are led to belief that philosophy created by Asurans, Eternal Alchemy is somehow 100% accurate. It is all despite the fact that over course of GW1 many now-myths got much better reasons than Eternal Alchemy proven mostly by Asurans’ technobabble.
Maybe Eternal Alchemy will be proven as misguided as human look on world, I hope so. It’s irritating that Asurans are used as Deus ex Machina even when it comes to theology/cosmology of Tyria.

250 years ago on Earth we had loads of stuff that were “facts”, yet today many of those things have been confirmed incorrect.

Back in the days it was common knowledge and a fact that the Earth was flat, that is clearly not the case. It was also a fact that the Sun moved around the Earth and not the other way as we know now.

What is facts today might very well not be facts in 10 years.

Yeah, but we actually met the Gods.
I understand that for simplicity reasons, impact of human Gods’ lore was minimized. I’m slightly annoyed about fact that if Asura says something it’s treated as 100% truth by everybody in the game, whatever it’s astronomy or Human religion. I don’t like inclusion of other races’ viewpoint by overcompensating – making them nearly always right(asura) and to smaller degree Sylvari as Chosen Ones of Tyria.

No we didn’t. We met their Avatars but never the Gods themselves (unless we count the brief moment after at the end of Nightfall with Abaddon and Kormir).

But just because the gods themselves exist, doesn’t mean they created the world and are those all powerful being that we were told in GW1.

Why was it okay to treat everything said in GW1 as 100% truth but now it is not okay to do the same with the new information and technology?

Because things from GW1, now shown as mere myths, got better background and reasons behind them than many information taken as certainty only because who gave them (usually asura or sylvari).
Back to Eternal Alchemy, basically it says that everything is connected. World is cosmically complex machine and Gods/Spirits/Elder Dragons are just gears in it’s mechanism. All good but how we are certain it have any truth in itself outside of Asuran statement? Much less than we had while human religion was presented in GW1. I don’t say Eternal Alchemy is wrong. I say we got better proofs for thing that is now considered mostly superstitions.

But why assume that the Eternal Alchemy is true? It is fully possible that in 250 year it will have the same status as the Human Gods have today.

It is also possible that the machine doesn’t show us the Eternal Alchemy at all, but we are just assuming it is.

Well, we first find out about the Eternal Alchemy 250 years ago during Eye of the North. If so much about the gods/bloodstones were deemed myths then surely everything about the Eternal Alchemy isn’t going to be 100% true. There’s no reason to believe that the Asura are all knowing.

lordkrall.7241:

Back in the days it was common knowledge and a fact that the Earth was flat

No it was not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

I think the thing to remember with the Eternal Alchemy is that it can basically be used as an excuse to explain anything. The Eternal Alchemy is just the working of the world, it isn’t necessarily a theory of creation. So while the game does present as specifically Asuran, I don’t really think it is. The Eternal Alchemy I guess you could sort of compare to the circle of life or something like that, it’s just how things are and work?

But I completely understand hating Anet using Asura as some supremely intelligent beings who have managed to explain away everything else in the world.

What is the point of having humans believe in the gods or the norn believe in the spirits when the Asura can just come along and say ‘lol guys, all of that is just a really really tiny aspect of the all encompassing eternal alchemy, you’re such bookahs’ – it’s a cop out and it is bad storytelling.

It seems that the asura were on the right track, although they’ve probably never been able to grasp exactly what the “Eternal Alchemy” is. There was speculation even in EotN that the human gods were just manifestations of that “alchemy” though:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Kerrsh
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Cipher_of_Melandru
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Path_to_Revelations
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Varajar_Fells_Notebook

It is especially curious that there happen to be six human gods covering their various portfolios… and also, apparently, the same number of elder dragons. And the elder dragons are part of the world of Tyria, or so we’re told. I get the impression there is some kind of connection there – though what it is I couldn’t guess.
I don’t believe that the human gods are similarly part of the world though – from what I recall, they originally came from elsewhere. That, and gods have come and gone over time. But I figure they would know something about this “eternal alchemy”… and I would also wager that their becoming more “distant” has something to do with that, with the dragons, or with the Pale Tree – maybe a mix of all of the above.

I don’t figure we’ll be getting answers to that anytime soon though.

The Eternal Alchemy is the same as our Scientists who believe that there is a possibility that god exists.

The Eternal Alchemy is not dismissing the old information we had, it just rearanges the priority of some variables.

While the six human gods are indeed powerfull beings, they are nothing more then that. Just beings that hold a lot of power and are able to use more of the “eternal alchemy” then anyone else.

In the past we thought air was the breath of god that allowed us to live.
Now we know it is part of a biological cycle.

The parts did not change, it is just that we now have a greater understanding on how these parts fit together.

Things that were very important in the past, might not be so important, after we discover new connections.

It can be that something small can become something more sygnificant, if we are able to look at it from the right way.

That said, look at our own history once more. Who would have thought we would be close to Star Trek like we are now?
Smartphones, Sliding Doors, Space Stations, intelligent computers, augmented reality, lifelike CG, robots that can read emotions, etc…

Fiction and Myths become reality.

Of course there is always the downside. The magic vanishes. In the end it is just a “simple” formular…

What if…
6 Gods, 6 Dragons, 6 Spheres in the Cinematic.
What if the gods and the dragons represent a specific type of energy (or magic) and the eternal alchemy is just a way to describe how this system functions?

I think the problem for a lot of people though is that this isn’t humans or norn or charr discovering that what they previously knew is part of something larger, this is Asura knowing everything and all of the other races having some reductive simplistic understanding of the world that is wrong. At least for me that is the problem, you can’t have equality between races when one race is the designated ‘we know everything/figure everything out’ race. You can argue that each race brings something unique to the collective, but the Asuras involvement has become ridiculously deus ex machina, as other people consistently point out.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I think the problem for a lot of people though is that this isn’t humans or norn or charr discovering that what they previously knew is part of something larger, this is Asura knowing everything and all of the other races having some reductive simplistic understanding of the world that is wrong. At least for me that is the problem, you can’t have equality between races when one race is the designated ‘we know everything/figure everything out’ race. You can argue that each race brings something unique to the collective, but the Asuras involvement has become ridiculously deus ex machina, as other people consistently point out.

Well, the only thing the Eternal Alchemy is really saying is that everything can be declared and everything has a purpose. One could say that it’s the same as the laws of nature for our world. The humans believe in their gods which represent the 6 spheres we saw. So you could argue that the gods have indeed created the world or atleast were involved in the creation. You just have to look at the gods from a more abstract point of view. They’re no entities but a part of a larger entities which also act as forces of nature.

Jaken.6801:

The Eternal Alchemy is the same as our Scientists who believe that there is a possibility that god exists.

If we were talking about Charrs science and philosophy I would agree. Charrs are race using thing closest to science in our understanding of the word.
Also Eternal Alchemy isn’t science. Science (or Magitech to some extant) is Science. To quote after wiki “The Eternal Alchemy is the ideology of the Asura”.

As stated previously I also don’t like that one specific group has answers to everything. Players/character in game could at least entertain idea that Asura or other race in spotlight may be mistaken in their believes, like it was shown with Humans or Chars.

For example I like relationship between Human and Norn mythology. Norns see Six Gods as Spirits of specific actions.

sAdam.5876:

As stated previously I also don’t like that one specific group has answers to everything. Players/character in game could at least entertain idea that Asura or other race in spotlight may be mistaken in their believes, like it was shown with Humans or Chars.

But for some reason it was totally okay that the Humans were 100% correct about everything in GW1?

We don’t KNOW if the Asura point of view is correct or not. It might be correct AT THIS TIME but in a couple of hundred years be confirmed to be faulty.
Just like how it is and always have been in the real world.

Sure, but we got people substituting their believe in a god/creator to science.

So the Asura believe in “science” aka “Eternal Alchemy” (because that is their equivalent in this world)

There is a great book by Terry Prachet in which he talks about these thoughts: “The Last Continent”
On the discworld there is no evolution in the normal sense. There is a force called narativum which, as the name implies, allows things to exist just because they fit the narrative structure of the world.
In the book the magicians of the world actually meet a lesser god of evolution, however even thought they are more or less the “scientists” of their world, they cannot accept the gods way of thinking.

I never say that the Asura know everything. They just substitute their believe in gods/myths with something they can better understand.

In that case they do not limit themselves to one explanation, but they are open to inlcude “everything”.
Though on the other hand, they are quick to dismiss if something makes no sense at first, like every other scientist does. You know, as long as it is not proven otherwise, my theory is right.

What else are beliefs/myths but theories about things we cannot grasp with our mind?
Things that are outside our capabilities.

Many say that religion is nothing else then grasping for some kind of “hope”. An answer to the old question: “Why are we here?”
Nobody knows what is real for sure. Is there a god? A creator? A Joke? Random? or something completly different.

Nobody knows. Even the Asura have not all the answers.
They are however on the right way, but the question is then: “is this a way we mortals shall travel?”

sAdam.5876:

Jaken.6801:

The Eternal Alchemy is the same as our Scientists who believe that there is a possibility that god exists.

Also Eternal Alchemy isn’t science. Science (or Magitech to samoe extant) is Science. To quote after wiki “The Eternal Alchemy is the ideology of the Asura”.

Ya, it kinda is. The Eternal Alchemy is what the Asura basically call Tyria’s own version of the “theory of everything”. They study and try to expand upon their knowledge of it to help them understand on how the world works.

lordkrall.7241:

sAdam.5876:

As stated previously I also don’t like that one specific group has answers to everything. Players/character in game could at least entertain idea that Asura or other race in spotlight may be mistaken in their believes, like it was shown with Humans or Chars.

But for some reason it was totally okay that the Humans were 100% correct about everything in GW1?

Actually humans and Player Character was wrong plenty of time. Over course of GW:Prophecies we were actively helping bad guy achieve his goal for a good part of a game. Not to mention whole nations(and player character, at least in the begging) being swayed by not so well meaning individuals.
Also my take on Asurans is simmilar to Flat Earth Atheists or Nay-Theist

I do have one good reason to doubt our current understanding of the Great Alchemy is the sum and totality of everything as in accordance to the Asuran cosmic view. Our understanding as players came through the Ormad Machine. The Ormad Machine was added to by Scarlet. Scarlet herself was largely a product of Asuran academia. Ormad and Scarlet who worked on the Ormad Machine both have an asuran mind set. Not only that the Ormad Machine was created specifically to look for the Great Alchemy of the Asura. The Ormad Machine certainly found something and because the machine has a priori to find the Great Alchemy what it has found has been cast as the Great Alchemy. All players were in fact receiving information from an asuran interpretation through the Ormad Machine.

my first problem with “seeing the eternal alchemy” is that i’m a freaking human character, and not even a scholar at that. how do i know what the eternal alchemy “looks like?”

secondly, seeing the eternal alchemy is akin to becoming omniscient. the eternal alchemy is an “all encompassing machine, and all things are cogs”. so not exactly the kind of stuff that should be easily pictured.

It might explain things if we’re just seeing a replay of Scarlet’s vision, rather than creating our own interpretation. My Norn would surely envisage magic with spirits rather than geometry.

It could also be the case that we’re not seeing the eternal alchemy but something else related to ley lines, dragonic energy, or something completely different.

ET doesn’t condtradict with anything. it is an all inclusive philosophy that simply states that all things are intertwined in some way shape or form. That is basically a given when we deal with any facts of reality. the only deviation for error on the asuras part is how things intertwine and relate to each other.

I just “love” how ArenaNet dismissed the gods’ actions because it was too human centric and they wanted to make it less human centric (despite the fact they could have kept the gods’ actions unchanged but give the other races’ views and interpretations to it).

And then they go and make the Pale Tree the center of all things – or at least the entryway into the meaning of the Elder Dragons’ existence, by all appearances.

Yeah, we’re not human centric. We’re sylvari centric!

With a side of asuran centric.

Humanity gets looked over even in their greatest nation (Orr) where they could have had the biggest lore impact, in favor of sylvari stuff primarily (with a side of asura and charr). And now we’re going all sylvari again (with a side of human and asura).

Where’s my norn focus? Charr focus? Human focus?

So much for being multi-racial in storytelling, am I right? :/

And as a side rant: The funniest thing to me, though, is how they introduced ley lines as being so uncommon and unknown… but yet they exist wherever waypoints are. Wow, they already went and reduced the importance of their new lore just like they did their old lore.

Really… sigh.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I just “love” how ArenaNet dismissed the gods’ actions because it was too human centric and they wanted to make it less human centric (despite the fact they could have kept the gods’ actions unchanged but give the other races’ views and interpretations to it).

And then they go and make the Pale Tree the center of all things – or at least the entryway into the meaning of the Elder Dragons’ existence, by all appearances.

Yeah, we’re not human centric. We’re sylvari centric!

With a side of asuran centric.

Humanity gets looked over even in their greatest nation (Orr) where they could have had the biggest lore impact, in favor of sylvari stuff primarily (with a side of asura and charr). And now we’re going all sylvari again (with a side of human and asura).

Where’s my norn focus? Charr focus? Human focus?

So much for being multi-racial in storytelling, am I right? :/

And as a side rant: The funniest thing to me, though, is how they introduced ley lines as being so uncommon and unknown… but yet they exist wherever waypoints are. Wow, they already went and reduced the importance of their new lore just like they did their old lore.

Really… sigh.

While I don’t rubber stamp all of your conclusions this post, IMO, is spot on re replacing one centrism with another.

Re Ley lines.. for me, it is bad enough to keep flogging Alfred Watkins/John Michell in pulp fantasy as an explanation for everything, but they could have been brought in on Tyrian terms and with, at the very least, Tyrian/Asuran terminology. They didn’t need copypasted as other games/works have done, originality suffered greatly, and we are already seeing them used to explain anything unexplainable, just as they are in New Earth mysticism. The concept has been beaten to death. http://www.wowwiki.com/Ley_line http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LeyLine

“Humanity gets looked over even in their greatest nation (Orr) where they could have had the biggest lore impact”

To be fair, Orr is the setting for the fight against Zaitan with the temples to the human gods at the heart of many endgame event chains. Orrian lore was crucial to the personal story.

Yes, but it were Asuran and Sylvari specialist that uncovered all necessary rituals. Why ask human historian, if you have Asuran Plot Device that can summon ghost to recreate whole event. I don’t recall any important human character in Orr. Charr, Sylvari, Asura – yes. Human and Norn – not so much.
Sry for rant.

Well if both the gods and the dragons are part of the spheres we’ve seen, it could be possible that we not only will hear something about them sooner or later, but also that their disappearance is connected with the appearance of the dragons.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I think the thing to remember with the Eternal Alchemy is that it can basically be used as an excuse to explain anything. The Eternal Alchemy is just the working of the world, it isn’t necessarily a theory of creation. So while the game does present as specifically Asuran, I don’t really think it is. The Eternal Alchemy I guess you could sort of compare to the circle of life or something like that, it’s just how things are and work?

But I completely understand hating Anet using Asura as some supremely intelligent beings who have managed to explain away everything else in the world.

What is the point of having humans believe in the gods or the norn believe in the spirits when the Asura can just come along and say ‘lol guys, all of that is just a really really tiny aspect of the all encompassing eternal alchemy, you’re such bookahs’ – it’s a cop out and it is bad storytelling.

Not really. The Asurans are the kind of race that would just walk up to you and explain away all the things you thought you knew.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And as a side rant: The funniest thing to me, though, is how they introduced ley lines as being so uncommon and unknown… but yet they exist wherever waypoints are. Wow, they already went and reduced the importance of their new lore just like they did their old lore.

Really… sigh.

I remember them saying leylines exist close to where waypoints are, not exactly directly below them.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Where’s my norn focus? Charr focus? Human focus?

So much for being multi-racial in storytelling, am I right? :/

I think the Norns will take center stage when we take on Jormag. The Charr come to focus when we take on Kralkatorrik.

Humans, I agree should have been the focus with Zhaitan and Orr. Should’ve gotten some backup from the Gods seeing as how we were fighting for THEIR home on Tyria. They could’ve made the story so much more interesting.

lordkrall.7241:

What is facts today might very well not be facts in 10 years.

10 years ago Pluto was a planet…

Torsailr.8456:

lordkrall.7241:

What is facts today might very well not be facts in 10 years.

10 years ago Pluto was a planet…

And now I am sad ;_;

Why is everything that the Asura say automatically the truth? Oh sure they act as if everything they say is the absolute truth and everyone else is dim witted, but such arrogance in ‘scientifical/magitech’ subjects is just an Asura trait, nothing more I think.

Regarding the cutscene, I think that it was assumed to be the Eternal Alchemy because that is exactly what the machine (made by an Asura) supposedly did for Scarlet, according to her journals.

Human cities are full of statues to the Six and Norn lands are full of shrines to the Spirits, no sight of Eternal Alchemy in there. :P

Torsailr.8456:

lordkrall.7241:

What is facts today might very well not be facts in 10 years.

10 years ago Pluto was a planet…

well, nothing really changed about pluto, we just decided to give it a different title.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Humanity gets looked over even in their greatest nation (Orr) where they could have had the biggest lore impact

Well, the playerbase obviously doesn’t want Humanity lore, I mean look at the Kiel/Evon debacle, players chose Asura lore over Human lore. The playerbase has spoken and ANet has run with it. Thanks a lot Kiel supporters….. grumble grumble

webtoehobbit.4201:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Humanity gets looked over even in their greatest nation (Orr) where they could have had the biggest lore impact

Well, the playerbase obviously doesn’t want Humanity lore, I mean look at the Kiel/Evon debacle, players chose Asura lore over Human lore. The playerbase has spoken and ANet has run with it. Thanks a lot Kiel supporters….. grumble grumble

And yet… they chose the human candidate over the non-human candidate.

And humans are the most common race of player characters.

Hmmm, you sure the playerbase doesn’t want human lore?

Human candidate, but the main part of the vote was the fractal we would get, and over and over people reiterated the point that, “We already know the lore of the Gods, we don’t want to hear that lore again.” Maybe people view Human lore as old lore since they were the ONLY race in GW1, I for one don’t miss Human lore at all, people want Asura, Norn and Sylvari Lore cause lets face it, they’re new to the playing field, Charr and Humans have been around since Pre Searing. I think the reason why we’re getting SO much Sylvari lore, is cause they are so new to the playing field of Tyria and the world needs more Sylvari lore. Once we’re done with Mordremoth, the lore will turn to another race, I am sure of it.

To be fair, what did Evon really bring to the table at that point aside from a possible “abaddon”?

Evon
Evon was portrayed as a ruthless buisnessman. He was doing things for money and further his agenda (mostly).
Other then that, he was not written as a sympathetic character.
The promise of “seeing” abaddons end in person, even though we allready know the majority of it, might entice people to vote for that, however there is still the big point of: “we allready know the majority from the gods themselves.”

Even if we considered that there might be “more to tell” or seeing it in person will give us some new information, it would not be enough to beat the competition.

Kiel
Kiel, even though she was protrayed as someone who is just doing her own thing in the background, taking your “glory” with Canach for example (which is not even the case, she was just going a different route and did you just do the dirty work. She was using you for the greater good and i am totaly fine with that), is still someone who does the “right thing”.

She was not portrayed sympathetic, but someone who does what has to be done for justice and not for money.
She has a dept she feels to pay off to the people who took her in and is doing exactly that and nothing more.

Her offer of the Thaumanova reactor might seem to be Asuran lore, however it is conected to an ongoing mystery in GW2. Nobody knew what has happened there. We only knew it was the prototype for the Crucible of Eternity in some way and that thing was dabbling in eldar dragon magic.

Case in point, the Thaumanova reactor was more exciting because it would have been able to tell a “new” story, instead of bringing up something most people have seen, experienced and heard of before.

It did not really have anything to do with the race the lore is from, but what did really matter to the world right now.

webtoehobbit.4201:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Humanity gets looked over even in their greatest nation (Orr) where they could have had the biggest lore impact

Well, the playerbase obviously doesn’t want Humanity lore, I mean look at the Kiel/Evon debacle, players chose Asura lore over Human lore. The playerbase has spoken and ANet has run with it. Thanks a lot Kiel supporters….. grumble grumble

It’s cute that you still think the election results weren’t predetermined

The election was psychological predetermined with several mechanics. I didn’t even know who Evon was until that point, except he leads the BL company. He tried to buy my vote with coin bags and so on. At all he appeared as shady character while Kiel was another hero we met before cleaning Southsun.

That shows more about the preferences the fans have. WarHammer fans may well have chosen the gritty shady character of Evon over the bright and shining hero of the alli… Tyria.

I like gritty Warhammer, but evon was in for the money.

Kiel was even more WarHammer dark justice.

She had everything planned, exploded a whole ship in the end and behaved like it was just a normal job. Cool and calculating.

Evon did not much so far as i am concerned. Or can you tell me one thing he did so far? Aside from corperate fluff? (BL deals do not count, it is still buisness)

However, we are getting offtopic, dont we?

ellen won because cheap waypoints. we all know that.

now moving on from this year old discussion…

Jaken.6801:

I like gritty Warhammer, but evon was in for the money.

Kiel was even more WarHammer dark justice.

She had everything planned, exploded a whole ship in the end and behaved like it was just a normal job. Cool and calculating.

Evon did not much so far as i am concerned. Or can you tell me one thing he did so far? Aside from corperate fluff? (BL deals do not count, it is still buisness)

However, we are getting offtopic, dont we?

Evon being in it for the money is dark and gritty. The whole theme in WH is that there is no real good guys. They all have a darker side even when doing heroic things.

Isn’t the EA just an overarching idea the asura have? I feel like it’s along the lines of us on Earth saying “there is no magic or supernatural stuff; everything can be studied.” A way of looking at things rather than something that produces products. Kerrsh basically says neither norn nor dwarf nor human spiritualities are necessarily wrong, they just exist and are things that happened.

That’s how I interrupted it all anyway.

Fluffball.8307:

Isn’t the EA just an overarching idea the asura have? I feel like it’s along the lines of us on Earth saying “there is no magic or supernatural stuff; everything can be studied.” A way of looking at things rather than something that produces products. Kerrsh basically says neither norn nor dwarf nor human spiritualities are necessarily wrong, they just exist and are things that happened.

That’s how I interrupted it all anyway.

Agreed. it’s our RL version of science. How does everything we know to exist interact with everything else. Since It would need to in some way shape or form then it can be studied as long as there are fairly constant rules. The ET is those rules and the idea behind those rules.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Where’s my norn focus? Charr focus? Human focus?

Good point.

I expect ley lines will be used to join it all together ;-)

Wanderer.3248:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Where’s my norn focus? Charr focus? Human focus?

Good point.

I expect ley lines will be used to join it all together ;-)

like a present, all tied up

Dustfinger.9510:

Agreed. it’s our RL version of science. How does everything we know to exist interact with everything else. Since It would need to in some way shape or form then it can be studied as long as there are fairly constant rules. The ET is those rules and the idea behind those rules.

I still think Science is Science. Viewpoint of asures is known in real world as Holism. It’s just a philosophy, asuran scientific theory at best. Most races have got scholars, why only Asuran one have answer to it all.
Saying that everything is connected, is part of bigger design, is closest to our monotheist than anything else. Intelligent design, anybody?
I think viewpoint of just one race shouldn’t be considered vastly superior to any other. The same way Asurans and other are cautious when it comes to matter of Gods and Spirits, other races also shouldn’t take Eternal Alchemy as sure thing.

The Eternal Alchemy doesn’t make the human gods or the norn spirits obsolete.
We know for a fact that the realms the human gods control are real. we’ve been there in gw1. Dwayna even controls a very specific realm which is equivalent to heaven, and thats where humans go for paradise and etc. etc. Because the eternal Alchemy is real doesnt mean that Dwayna and her paradise realm for dead humans isnt real. We know they are, from GW1.
The Eternal Alchemy just explains how the human gods fit into the universe, amoung other powerful beings like the pale tree, the dragons, and the norn spirits.