Guild Wars 2

http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-roman-god-baffles-experts-173937510.html

Although…if the writing team continues with its references to the first game, drops the PC/SJW stuff, and gets back to what made the lore great, I just might have to come back full time.

That’s what I study history for. I have to though, thinking that there are maybe people out there that got encouraged to take the path of a historian due to videogame lore, kinda warms my heart. (I didn’t though, with me it the reverse order, I love lore because I love history)

Dunno man, I find the lack of magic in the real world quite disappointing. I’m a transhumanist in real life, if I lived in Tyria, the pursuit of immortality would be my goal. And because of magic, it would be (more easily) attainable.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

That’s what I study history for. I have to though, thinking that there are maybe people out there that got encouraged to take the path of a historian due to videogame lore, kinda warms my heart. (I didn’t though, with me it the reverse order, I love lore because I love history)

Always hated history myself back in highschool, mainly because they taught us only about our history and forced us to remember dates and what every president did.

However, after highschool I started reading more about other cultures and their history and fell in love with it, and a big factor towards my interest was the Total War games. Far from being a historian (I’ve terrible memory, would die hungry if I became one) but games have made me love it, and in consequence, the lore of game as well.

Eluveitie.1290:

Always hated history myself back in highschool, mainly because they taught us only about our history and forced us to remember dates and what every president did.

However, after highschool I started reading more about other cultures and their history and fell in love with it, and a big factor towards my interest was the Total War games. Far from being a historian (I’ve terrible memory, would die hungry if I became one) but games have made me love it, and in consequence, the lore of game as well.

Yeah school history sucks, partly because; atleast in Germany; the people who become teachers are the kind that doesn’t know what else to do for a living. Especially the subject of history falls victim to this as it’s one of those things that you don’t really have to understand to teach it. You can just let your students learn dates and events, while resting your feet on your desk.
Many people fail to realize that history is not about memorizing but about understanding and finding connections. If you understand history, you get invested in it and by default you will be better at teaching it. Heck, there are enough people that claimed to have no interest in history until they had a conversation with me. Suddenly they became interested in things they never cared about before. A good example would be my ex-girlfriend, who now picked up the hobby of genealogy. Before she hardly knew why the people of Alsace (where she’s from) even speak a german dialect.

It’s the same with games though, you get invested in the topic, you want to find out more and you feel the satisfaction of gaining knowledge by research. I don’t think it matters too much if the game is fiction or depicts reality, though the connection between games like the Total War series or Age of Empires and wanting to learn about history is obvioulsy stronger.
And besides, even if you don’t become a historian (please don’t it’s hard enough to find a good job for me anyway, I don’t need more competition T_T*) it atleast raised your awarness for history. Maybe you’ll visit a museum now, or you’ll by a book about a topic that interests you. Important is that you will have your part in the collective memory, so that humanity never forgets where it came from and why it ticks the way it does.
Urgh, I’m rambling again, bottom line is, go play videogames and get inspired by it.

*don’t worry I was just making a joke, I wont end up as a cab driver. :P

DONO.8760:

drops the PC/SJW stuff

I dread to ask, but… what are you counting as “PC/SJW stuff”?

Including women? Having a gay romance?

http://io9.com/the-mysterious-antikythera-mechanism-is-more-ancient-th-1664080893

The name seems kind of familiar…

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

DONO.8760:

drops the PC/SJW stuff

I dread to ask, but… what are you counting as “PC/SJW stuff”?

Including women? Having a gay romance?

Women? No. The other stuff distracts the writers from what they should really be focusing on.

DONO.8760:

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

DONO.8760:

drops the PC/SJW stuff

I dread to ask, but… what are you counting as “PC/SJW stuff”?

Including women? Having a gay romance?

Women? No. The other stuff distracts the writers from what they should really be focusing on.

Eh, I don’t think so. The Marjory/Kasmeer relationship isn’t any more distracting, narrative-wise, than any romance, and Rox and Braham have been practically invisible this season.

DONO.8760:

Women? No. The other stuff distracts the writers from what they should really be focusing on.

What “other stuff” are you referring to? What makes it “pc/sjw stuff”?

DONO.8760:

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

DONO.8760:

drops the PC/SJW stuff

I dread to ask, but… what are you counting as “PC/SJW stuff”?

Including women? Having a gay romance?

Women? No. The other stuff distracts the writers from what they should really be focusing on.

Because… it’s…. impossible to write a lore-rich, complex story that’s also inclusive of a mature gay relationship?

DONO.8760:

http://io9.com/the-mysterious-antikythera-mechanism-is-more-ancient-th-1664080893

The name seems kind of familiar…

Only figured that out now?

Briolase.7306:

DONO.8760:

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

DONO.8760:

drops the PC/SJW stuff

I dread to ask, but… what are you counting as “PC/SJW stuff”?

Including women? Having a gay romance?

Women? No. The other stuff distracts the writers from what they should really be focusing on.

Because… it’s…. impossible to write a lore-rich, complex story that’s also inclusive of a mature gay relationship?

Yup. The modern plague of political correctness makes writing a decent story impossible. Fun fact: they refuse to remake Cantha and Elona because poor Asians and Africans might feel offended. I’m not making this up.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Fun fact: they refuse to remake Cantha and Elona because poor Asians and Africans might feel offended. I’m not making this up.

Source?

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Mental Paradox.3845:

Fun fact: they refuse to remake Cantha and Elona because poor Asians and Africans might feel offended. I’m not making this up.

Source?

It was on the forums a year or so, and I’m certain they only mentioned Cantha. Something about the way that Cantha smushed different Asian cultures/names together didn’t sit well with their Asian audience. It may not seem reasonable, but as an example, many of my Korean friends are pretty racist towards anyone of Japanese descent for historical reasons…

Found the thread (or part of it): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Merged-The-Cantha-Thread/page/3#post1394252

Selene.9415:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Mental Paradox.3845:

Fun fact: they refuse to remake Cantha and Elona because poor Asians and Africans might feel offended. I’m not making this up.

Source?

It was on the forums a year or so, and I’m certain they only mentioned Cantha. Something about the way that Cantha smushed different Asian cultures/names together didn’t sit well with their Asian audience. It may not seem reasonable, but as an example, many of my Korean friends are pretty racist towards anyone of Japanese descent for historical reasons…

Found the thread (or part of it): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Merged-The-Cantha-Thread/page/3#post1394252

I remember something along those lines- except I remember hearing that specifically the Canthan district of DR was removed on the say-so of someone at NCSoft. Nothing about Cantha as a whole, certainly not anything about Elona, and no word on what specifically caused the change- maybe it was political correctness, or maybe something accidentally was legitimately offensive, or maybe it was solely a marketing move to avoid alienating the asian playerbase they were hoping to expand to. Maybe there was even something that would get the game banned in China.

Bottom line, we don’t know why the district was removed, and there’s no basis to jump to the worst of the possibilities and assume it was simply so that someone didn’t get their feelings hurt, and there’s certainly no basis for saying the alteration of a chunk of a single zone means they “refuse” to revisit entire continents that were very popular from the old game. That’s blowing things completely out of proportion.

DONO.8760:

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

DONO.8760:

drops the PC/SJW stuff

I dread to ask, but… what are you counting as “PC/SJW stuff”?

Including women? Having a gay romance?

Women? No. The other stuff distracts the writers from what they should really be focusing on.

If by the ‘other stuff’ you are referring to gay romance and their relationships, then I disagree. Nothing is different than any heterosexual romance. Do all romances distract the writers from writing about the evil gods and big bad dragons? If so, should they have omitted Althea and Rurik’s haunting tale? What about the integral romance of Gwen and Keiran? I would argue that they add to the story, just as the gay romances in this game do.

The romances of the sylvari and some humans shows a world were these things aren’t looked at with disgust and prejudice. They are part of the world, accepted for what it is: a relationship between two who care for each other, regardless of gender. That, I believe, does not take away from the story. If those things weren’t in the game, the most hated characters and events would have still occurred. Scarlet, Trahearne, Zhaitan’s last fight. If you disliked the story, that’s fine. But please do not blame it on the “PC/SJW” as you would call it.

Plagiarised.2865:

If by the ‘other stuff’ you are referring to gay romance and their relationships, then I disagree. Nothing is different than any heterosexual romance. Do all romances distract the writers from writing about the evil gods and big bad dragons? If so, should they have omitted Althea and Rurik’s haunting tale? What about the integral romance of Gwen and Keiran? I would argue that they add to the story, just as the gay romances in this game do.

While I agree completly with you on the part that “who romances who” doesn’t matter at all, I’d also say that most of the romance subplots in any GW chapter felt tagged on and pointless to the overall plot. That includes the cringe worthy Hearts of the North storyline with Kieran and… Gwen. Granted, my vision might be distorted because I loath the character of Gwen so much, but the whole storyline was cheesy and uneventful anyway.
I don’t mind Kasmeer/Majory, as they don’t distract too much from the overall plot, despite pushing Braham and Rox out of focus as others have said before. But the moment their relationship is in the spotlight over my PC’s epic adventures, I will be on of the first to complain. If Anet needs to have NPCs do something so it can be later on referenced in lore (like Kormir ascending to godhood instead of my PC) than they should atleast give that character an interesting backstory and not a run of the mill romance subplot. And I’m one of the few it seems who thinks they got it right in Nightfall, as Kormir was actually a believable character with an interesting subplot, so I have no problem with her becoming a god. If her story was about finding her loved one instead of correcting her past mistakes, I would be one of the people to complain about her becoming a god and not me.

http://om.viralnova.com/sunken-city-of-thonis-heracleion/

We need to return to underwater exploration and combat as the vast majority of Tyria is underwater.