Guild Wars 2

Played GW 1 several years (pre-night fall) before GW 2

I fell in love with the different stories of guild wars 1, the story/lore created in each of the expansions was fantastic. Morality was black and white sometimes, other times very manipulative (check spoilers), and plainly black and white.

Ascalonians were fighting a desperate war for survival, Canthans were struggling from internal strife, and racial conflicts were illustrated/explored in Elonia.

But what do we get in Guild Wars 2? we get everything that is listed, Humans in general feel discontent being “friendly” with the Charr, Every faction is facing internal strife, and at least humans are facing a struggle for survival against everything already swarming in the world.

What is lacking in GW2 at least concerning lore, is the intensity of the conflicts. Check spoilers by what I mean by “lacking intensity”.

For those of you who don’t want to spoil the story of GW1 from the spoilers, the main point is that the strife and conflicts we experience in GW2 is not explored well enough from beginning to end levels. Even past lvl 80 into the living story, it’s not enough, there isn’t that deep hatred that old players felt against the Charr, the vibrant urge for aggression over controlling NPC towns by player alliances.

For people new to Guild Wars 2, entering guild wars, they could understand the idea of races unifying for a common purpose, but for many of GW 1 veterans, there is a burning desire to murder all the Charr and continue the conflict in Ascalon. What makes this worse is the creative direction that is being forced onto players of sticking onto one sided morality sticks, that was first felt with Nightfall.

At least in Prophecies, morality was very clear among all factions at the end of the stories. Cantha (post purity movement) morality was moved side to side, but clear, afflicted are evil, the Gangs aren’t all that bad.

But in NF and EOTN, it just felt wrong, why should we tolerate the insultingly arrogant Asura, the ignorant Norn, the undead hordes of Palawa Joko, or our long hated enemy the Charr? The obvious answer among players is that either they should because of a larger threat and “no” because they are truly despicable.

And what of the other races?

Centaurs have remained the same in Kryta, the Dredge turned into a means for Anet to show a authoritarian communist state, and Jotuns are the same.

What the hell happened to all the vicious giant Dinosaurs that caused all the terror throughout the Tarnished Coast?

There were so many lore/story concepts removed, and shoveled in was under developed concepts that did not have very many deep expositions.

Morally gray scenarios positions are forced upon us, such as Ascalonian decedents are forced to become the enemy, Centaurs who largely want peace (but coerced by the Modniir Tribe) are forced to become the permanent enemy.

And already morally gray scenarios are left without progress, the centaurs are already a clear example, the inquest are still considered a vibrant part of asuran society given the atrocious and unforgivable acts commited for their twisted ideology, the nightmare court still remains at large but are left with no additional substantial developments, minister Caudecus is still left in complete haitus (even though he’s apparently one of the most powerful men in the world), and Ebonhawke is still the same.

I think what makes Guild Wars 2 weaker than Guild Wars is that the world might too big with multiple stories to actually build everything forward, therefore the enjoyment of the plot is overall weak. In Guild Wars, the stories may have been linear, but they were explored fantastically.

I loved the lore concerning the Gods and their relationship to humanity/Bloodstones I loved pre-searing to the deepest parts of my love for the franchise.

There are plenty of other mechanical aspects to Guild Wars 2 that I love/hated (mostly loved) transitioning from Guild Wars 1.

But these are the feelings concerning story/lore/setting development and exposition.

People always seems to remember the “good old Guild Wars 1 days” completely different than people actually talked about them back during those times.

lordkrall.7241:

People always seems to remember the “good old Guild Wars 1 days” completely different than people actually talked about them back during those times.

Which doesn’t change the fact that the overall quality of story/writing has deteriorated significantly.

leman.7682:

lordkrall.7241:

People always seems to remember the “good old Guild Wars 1 days” completely different than people actually talked about them back during those times.

Which doesn’t change the fact that the overall quality of storytelling has deteriorated significantly.

Honestly the overall quality of story telling has been the exact same. Doesn’t mean its great or terrible story telling. I would say its average, which is actually not to bad for an MMO.

Chrispy.5641:

Honestly the overall quality of story telling has been the exact same. Doesn’t mean its great or terrible story telling. I would say its average, which is actually not to bad for an MMO.

Edited for clarity. I meant story and writing quality.

I don’t know who in their right mind could compare the Season 1 story quality to anything in GW. It was that horrible.

leman.7682:

Chrispy.5641:

Honestly the overall quality of story telling has been the exact same. Doesn’t mean its great or terrible story telling. I would say its average, which is actually not to bad for an MMO.

Edited for clarity. I meant story and writing quality.

I don’t know who in their right mind could compare the Season 1 story quality to anything in GW. It was that horrible.

(I will say the Bazaar of the Four winds update was terrible, and some of that writing had holes in it with some pretty arbitrary explanations) not all was terrible. Tower of Nightmares was S1, and it wasn’t too bad, and I think that was better than a lot of the quests in GW1 (especially every quest ever that was named after a pop culture reference. Those got old real fast)

leman.7682:

Which doesn’t change the fact that the overall quality of story/writing has deteriorated significantly.

That is of course a matter of opinion rather than straight out facts. I have seen rather many people dislike the whole fragmented and weird Prophecies storyline for example.

Also the whole “Abaddon is behind every single thing that have ever happened in all of the Guild Wars campaigns” was rather silly.

Nostalgia goggles are hard to remove sometimes.

While I liked/loved most of the story elements (characters, locations, background lore, etc.) in gw1, the storyline itself, to me, left a lot to be desired at times. I can say the same about gw2’s. S1 was a harsh start, but s2 seems to be shaping up to be a lot better.

Fun fact:

Around the time of Guild Wars 2’s release, Bobby Stein became the new lead writer.

Around that time, Jeff and Ree began to become less prominent as we saw.

Around that time, Angel McCoy and Scott McGough (Mc Mc Mc Mc Mc; McMcky!) became the narrative continuity writers.

IMO, at GW2’s release, ArenaNet saw a passing of the baton from the “senior” to the “junior” (I refer to position status, not length in the company, as Stein and McCoy were there since Prophecies, iirc, while Ree and Jeff were only since Nightfall). This may attribute to the quality of the Season 1 story, on top of it being purely and 100% experimental and based on a design similar to the War in Kryta’s release (which was heavily praised – more out of the final return of content to GW1 than the quality of the content itself).

As to the stories not being as deep as GW1, that’s questionable. The issue, I think, is not the “depth” of the stories, or the “level of conflict and strife” so much as 1) quality of writing (there’s a LOT more continuity errors in the Living World than there ever was in GW1 or GW2’s initial release, though most is of the small time stuff), 2) the lack of side-stories (everything of relevance is shoved into the main plot, making it feel chaotic), 3) it really doesn’t account for the story of GW1 – it’s the same backplot, but a totally different story.

I am going to agree with Erukk that there’s quite the bit of nostalgia goggles blinding the view. But at the same time I’m going to agree that the various factions feel a bit flat and their presentation don’t really match their background lore. This goes double for the enemy factions, which feel like copy-paste of the same thing with different faces – like a roleplayer who plays the same archtypal personality regardless of race, gender, profession, and name of their character; or a nobleman who goes to many masked balls each with a new mask, but acts the same regardless.

In all truthfulness, Scarlet Briar was the most unique villain seen in GW2 thus far. But she wasn’t a good villain either. She was, quite literally, a one-note song. And half of her not being a good villain comes from that one-note she sang (“UNUSUAL” Alliances! – or as the lorebase puts it, lorebreaking alliances); and half was presentation and delivery – which CONTINUES to be an issue in the Living World.

Side-tracking a bit: one of the biggest issues I see with the Living World, aside from its back-and-forth into sideplot nature – is amptly defined in a comment in this article – “Stein and Waller said that speculation is precisely the reaction they’re looking for when creating living world content.” To put it simply, this is the wrong way to go about a story. You do not want to write a story to make people keep on guessing, you make a story where people want to see to the story’s conclusion. This will often inspire questioning, theorizing, and thus speculation, but the “keep them guessing” is not the goal, “keep them interested” is. And the Living World – especially Season 1 – was chocked full of what really felt like the writers making faces at us and going “na na nana na, we won’t tell you!” in a very annoying tone. That just makes me – and others, I’m sure – more annoyed than not. Episode 5 was a step in the right direction, giving more answers than producing questions, but it had its issues in other grounds (sideplot as mainplot!).

-more in next post-

Back to original point…

As the OP says, there really is no connection to the enemies of GW2. They all feel so copy-pasta and flat that there’s so little desire to either want to work with them (like the White Mantle or Joko) or to hate them (like charr).

Separatists: “Mwuahaha! I will break into your houses at night and burn it all down!”
Renegades: “Growr! I will break into your fortresses at night and burn it all down!”
Sons of Svanir: “For Jormag! I will break into your homesteads at night, kill your women, and turn your men into icebrood!”
Flame Legion: “Praise the fire! I will break into your fortresses at night and burn it all down!”
Bandits: “Mwuahaha! I will break into your houses at night and sell you to centaurs!”

Minor differences, but the same feeling spreads across them all. They feel like the same pure black villains. Where are my shades of gray? WHERE IS THE REDEEMING VALUE? There is none.

I disagree with the OP about Nightfall and Eye of the North was “wrong” after Prophecies and Factions. It produced that shade of gray needed to truly love and hate villains. It showed that not all undead are mindless decaying machines of devastation ruled by a single man. It showed that the charr weren’t mindless animals that scavenged weapons to use, little better than grawl. It showed that not all centaurs are man-eating tribes, and that perhaps their hatred for humans is warrented.

It made you stop and think whether they’re all worth killing. In all honesty? When doing the Cathedral of Flame dungeon, and came up to all the charr gatekeepers, I kept thinking to myself “why do they always have to fight…” whenever my PC asked them to step aside for we shall deal with their ghost problem, but they say ‘only over my dead body’. I LIKED THIS.

But I never get such a situation over GW2 enemies. I slaughter centaur, krait, renegade, separatist, Flame Legion, Son of Svanir, Inquest, courtiers, etc. without mercy or care. Only race I’ve felt such thoughts as “why do they force me to kill them?” or the like have been the hostile groups of skritt.

Skritt in GW2 feel more compelling as a race than all villain factions in the entire game.

And that, my friends, is just sad.

One thing by the OP I don’t get, however, is this:

Morally gray scenarios positions are forced upon us, such as Ascalonian decedents are forced to become the enemy, Centaurs who largely want peace (but coerced by the Modniir Tribe) are forced to become the permanent enemy.

The Separatists are far from ‘morally gray’. Unless you count murderers and terrorists who kill their own family due to their hatred of the charr to be “morally gray”.

Except for the two NPCs that “didn’t realize how horrible they were” and thus left which exists for all player race enemy factions, incidentally the sole case of not pitch-blackness, there is no morally gray in any enemy faction. No grayness in the Inquest, Nightmare Court, Sons of Svanir, Flame Legion, Renegades, Bandits, or Separatists.

The centaur tribes would not be peaceful either; true, they’re being forced by the Modniir, but they hate humanity regardless. They would simply be more cultured – the subjugation by the Modniir has resulted in the Harathi and Tamini losing some of their religious side, like the Modniir themselves have a bit.

Shun.9475:

And already morally gray scenarios are left without progress, the centaurs are already a clear example, the inquest are still considered a vibrant part of asuran society given the atrocious and unforgivable acts commited for their twisted ideology, the nightmare court still remains at large but are left with no additional substantial developments, minister Caudecus is still left in complete haitus (even though he’s apparently one of the most powerful men in the world), and Ebonhawke is still the same.

These are also not morally gray scenarios. You are complaining about how the Living World focuses on only one plot at a time, despite being called a Living World. Things update at the need of the story, rather than at the progress of time. This is true for all things, regardless of their morality state.

But the inquest, nightmare court, Caudecus, etc. are not “morally gray” in the least. They are all clear villains, either the “I kick puppies and kittens for fun” or the “mustache-twirling” villains, but all clear villains with no redemptive quality to them.

-more in next post-

Shun.9475:

I think what makes Guild Wars 2 weaker than Guild Wars is that the world might too big with multiple stories to actually build everything forward, therefore the enjoyment of the plot is overall weak. In Guild Wars, the stories may have been linear, but they were explored fantastically.

Guild Wars 1 had a lot of stories that were left without conclusion. Though equally as many were told from “start” to finish via side-quests. Without quests in GW2, they must tell side stories either in the main plot… or in the open world. And if it’s in the open world… it cannot be concluded without removing it.

THAT is the issue GW2 has, when it comes to the side stories: they either cannot complete it (because open world), or they put it in the main plot (side-tracking main plots, “woo”).

Chrispy.5641:

(I will say the Bazaar of the Four winds update was terrible, and some of that writing had holes in it with some pretty arbitrary explanations) not all was terrible. Tower of Nightmares was S1, and it wasn’t too bad, and I think that was better than a lot of the quests in GW1 (especially every quest ever that was named after a pop culture reference. Those got old real fast)

Every update in Season 1 had its own issues.

Delivery and asthetically, Tower of Nightmares was on the top. However, lore continuity wise and in regards to proper storytelling, it was horrendous. Like much of Season 1, it left too many intentional unknowns with no proper clues to guess about it (“we want players to speculate!” as Anet puts it, paraphrased, results in them not giving us anything except unknowns), it created lore discontinuities by not establishing a clear reason in-game for why the xenophobic enslaving krait would ever trust or work with Scarlet and the Nightmare Court, let alone let them alter their bodies.

Anet’s lore is astounding if what they say to quell the forum outrages was there the whole time (it’s happened so many times I have become doubtful). But they intentionally leave so much unknown, without even hints to it. This is the biggest difference aside from the lack of side-quests from GW1.

And it changes EVERYTHING.

The quality of presented lore and writing in GW2 is vastly inferior to GW1; the aesthetics, music, and even voice acting in GW2 is vastly superior to GW1. The background lore is, questionably, the same quality – sans situations like Scarlet’s alliances.

And just to note: I recently replayed GW1, and found it far more enjoyable than GW2. Despite the fact I played through it countless times. And I’m usually a “I can only enjoy a linear plot once regardless of how good it is” person.

Prophecies’ plot is awesome, Factions, Nightfall and EotN’s plot are not that cool.

GW1’s problem is that it’s too focused on humans. We don’t see many valuable non-human characters until EotN.

As for GW2, I think the main plot was ok, but the characterization is quite horrible. In the Personal Story, most of the characters are quite bland except the mentor. The villains are also weak, Zhaitan wasn’t like a character, but just a giant evil menace. Most of his Risens weren’t well developed or didn’t get enough time to expand the potential(1 mission then died) either, even if we compare them to the Risen in Seas of Sorrows, the GW2 Risen’s characterization is weak. In the Living Story, the NPCs seems to get better development but the villains are getting worse. Other than Scarlet, Modremoth and its minions don’t have any characterization at all, just pure nature threats, this is even weaker than Zhaitan.

A common problem of both games’ stories is that our character, the PC don’t get much development, we don’t make much choices to build our characters, we mostly just follow whatever the NPC told us to do, this is also getting worse in Living Story.

The Elder Dragons were cool, but they just feel more like than “giant world terror” than actual character. Many of their minions suffer the same problem. Jormag probably had the most “characteristic” but that’s just one dragon. Also it raises a question about how to “nicely” defeat the dragons in the game. The Zhaitan fight in Arah was a major disappointment. Sure he might get greatly weakened after so many events but it’s still too weak. I’m not saying the fight should be very hard, just need to let us feel the threat and power of the dragon.

In GW1, even Abaadon let me feel more like a character than Zhaitan and Mordremoth, he had his reason and anger to release upon mortals and the other gods.

lordkrall.7241:

leman.7682:

Which doesn’t change the fact that the overall quality of story/writing has deteriorated significantly.

That is of course a matter of opinion rather than straight out facts. I have seen rather many people dislike the whole fragmented and weird Prophecies storyline for example.

Also the whole “Abaddon is behind every single thing that have ever happened in all of the Guild Wars campaigns” was rather silly.

That’s also an opinion. I personally thought it wrapped things up quite nicely. I mean, if anyone/thing could pull all the things that happens in GW1, it’d be a vengeful God that’s trying to escape from his eternal torment.

In my opinion, I’d rather have that kind of story telling instead of what’s shaping up to be a generic dragon-of-the-year type of thing.

Abaddon’s concept was cool, but it felt a little bit disconnected since Jeff only became the main story handler in Nightfall.

Usually in a game or a movie, it’s not just about how good the story is, but the way you tell it also matters a lot.

lordkrall.7241:

Also the whole “Abaddon is behind every single thing that have ever happened in all of the Guild Wars campaigns” was rather silly.

One of my top 10 peeves with serial writers is the way they just have to tie every conceivable plot line together in some awkward way. (Not just in Guild Wars either, series like Doctor Who are guilty of it too).

For example I wish they had just left Scarlet in charge of the Sky Pirates & Clockwork, and had other villains for the other factions, instead of making the LS a big mess. The Molten Alliance would have been fine without Scarlet, so would the Toxic Alliance.

I still can’t buy having a Steampunk mad genius as the minion of a Plant Dragon.

And now we have four factions, who were individually quite interesting, that are effectively written out of the game. I think it’s a shame that there aren’t still Aetherblade raids, or Clockwork horror attacks.

And the Mordremoth plot would have been much better without her involvement.

I think Abaddon being behind of Orr’s destruction makes a lot of sense, the Searing was also fine if that was part of the plan as well. The Jade Wind, not that much.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

~Snip~
Side-tracking a bit: one of the biggest issues I see with the Living World, aside from its back-and-forth into sideplot nature – is amptly defined in a comment in this article – “Stein and Waller said that speculation is precisely the reaction they’re looking for when creating living world content.” To put it simply, this is the wrong way to go about a story. You do not want to write a story to make people keep on guessing, you make a story where people want to see to the story’s conclusion. This will often inspire questioning, theorizing, and thus speculation, but the “keep them guessing” is not the goal, “keep them interested” is. And the Living World – especially Season 1 – was chocked full of what really felt like the writers making faces at us and going “na na nana na, we won’t tell you!” in a very annoying tone. That just makes me – and others, I’m sure – more annoyed than not. Episode 5 was a step in the right direction, giving more answers than producing questions, but it had its issues in other grounds (sideplot as mainplot!).

-more in next post-

Here’s where we don’t see eye to eye, and I’m going to compare this to a really good or excellent book series. I, personally, thoroughly enjoy reading book series(or any type of series for that matter) that keep adding questions as they go along, resolving some items along the way, but always expanding on those questions until the very bitter end, and then closing all the loopholes in the finally. And some of the things that have changed since GW1, can be explained by the little fact that ~250 years have passed, and on some issues people’s feelings will have changed..and others they never will.

The Inquest, in my opinion they have at least one redeeming quality, and that is they’re willing to explore, examine, experiment, what have you on theories, ideas, etc. that ‘normal’ Asura refuse to look into. The fact that they wouldn’t necessarily use what ever the outcome may be for good diffuses that a bit, but they’re still willing to step completely outside the box…and that’s at least one redeeming quality, in my eyes. The Charr…are they not willing to share their mechanical know how with humans? Is that not redeeming? (I know we don’t see much of it, but remember the Pact airships, a combination of Asura, Human and Charr technologies), if they had absolutely no redeeming qualities would they have ever been willing to help the Pact(that’s putting aside a lot of their arrogance I’d say).

Obviously all my opinions, and a lot of these redeeming qualities are, shall I say, well hidden and not blatant…but they’re not all entirely evil(other that what you pointed out before). What is that saying about being blinded by seeing your desires or wants as being the only real solution…something about not being able to see the forest through the trees. That’s what I think people like the Nightmare Court, Caudecus, Separatists, Renegades and others have as their main problem, they can’t see the forest beyond the trees.(Or something like that, said the madman).

As for the dragons, it’s a bit like LotR, since Sauron takes the form of a giant flaming Eye, is more like a symbol rather than a character, they needed to expand Saruman’s role to give us a real villain character. That’s what we needed from the Elder Dragon war. Too bad Scarlet is dead.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Fun fact:

Around the time of Guild Wars 2’s release, Bobby Stein became the new lead writer.

Around that time, Jeff and Ree began to become less prominent as we saw.

Around that time, Angel McCoy and Scott McGough (Mc Mc Mc Mc Mc; McMcky!) became the narrative continuity writers.

IMO, at GW2’s release, ArenaNet saw a passing of the baton from the “senior” to the “junior” (I refer to position status, not length in the company, as Stein and McCoy were there since Prophecies, iirc, while Ree and Jeff were only since Nightfall).

I’m not sure if this is a typo on your part and you pulled an “Ogden Stonehammer” but I think you have some of these incorrect.

I thought I remembered reading an interview with Angel which implied she didn’t work on GW1 (http://nevermetpress.com/interview-with-angel-leigh-mccoy-stories-in-the-ether-author-guild-wars-2-designer#.T5loP6tSRDs) and instead began with GW2 so I looked up the Linkedin.

Angel McCoy has been with ArenaNet since 2008, which is after the release of Eye of the North and thus even after the groundwork of the lore for GW2 was even imagined (the Elder Dragons, the five races etc – EotN was basically a prequel to transition to GW2). Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/angel-mccoy/a/213/335

Bobby Stein has been with ArenaNet at least since 2007 (that’s the earliest date on his GWW staff profile – http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Bobby_Stein&action=history), same for Ree Soesbee (http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Ree_Soesbee&action=history) and Jeff Grubb has been with ArenaNet since 2006 (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeff-grubb/14/439/bb4?trk=pub-pbmap). Scott McGough joined in 2008 (https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmcgough).

So of the people you listed, Ree, Jeff and Bobby all worked on GW1 while Scott and Angel seem to have been hired after they started working on GW2. If you really wanted to pin down who worked on what game you could just do the final mission of each GW1 campaign and their names should be in the credits.

They aren’t the only writers though. I think on the Living Story specifically, John Ryan is a writer (hired in 2010) and I think Peter Fries might also be a writer for Living Story (an Environment Artist on Guild Wars Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2) but it’s unclear who does what. I think ArenaNet has a very collaborative approach to creating content and their stories and it seems like multiple people add pieces to the puzzle to get to what we see at release. While certain things seem to credited to specific people (Angel imagined the biconic’s core identities iirc but I’m sure others have added to them, I believe Peter Fries wrote the dialogue for the Anise/Kasmeer/Canach noble party mission in Living Story Season 2 etc) it’s all a very collaborative effort.

I think if players truly knew who was responsible for what piece of content a lot of us would be surprised at who wrote something we liked a lot. Even if we didn’t I think all the writers and developers have created content that at least on part of the fan base has responding to very positively. Before I get too bogged down in the implication that the length of time someone has been at the company has something to do with the quality of their work, Leah Hoyer was hired in July this year as Head of Narrative and the most recent release (Echoes of the Past) was the first one she worked on. Not only was it probably the single most reverent release in relation to GW1 lore but overall I think many people consider it to be one of the best releases since the Living World began. Of course not all of this is because of Leah, but I’m sure she played a role.

Konig I think you are right about passing the baton from senior to junior at GW2’s release (specifically, moving from the Open World and Personal Story to the Living Story) but I don’t think it’s truly passing the baton. Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb still work at ArenaNet afaik. I don’t think they stepped down, I think they are working an an unrevealed project (the expansion) and are busying world building content from scratch. Basically I think the Living Story isn’t the most senior project going on at ArenaNet.

Just a reminder guys (this is more for me than anyone else) the ArenaNet writers are people. Let’s try to keep that in mind when discussing their work, especially when we mention them specifically.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Side-tracking a bit: one of the biggest issues I see with the Living World, aside from its back-and-forth into sideplot nature – is amptly defined in a comment in this article – “Stein and Waller said that speculation is precisely the reaction they’re looking for when creating living world content.” To put it simply, this is the wrong way to go about a story. You do not want to write a story to make people keep on guessing, you make a story where people want to see to the story’s conclusion. This will often inspire questioning, theorizing, and thus speculation, but the “keep them guessing” is not the goal, “keep them interested” is. And the Living World – especially Season 1 – was chocked full of what really felt like the writers making faces at us and going “na na nana na, we won’t tell you!” in a very annoying tone. That just makes me – and others, I’m sure – more annoyed than not. Episode 5 was a step in the right direction, giving more answers than producing questions, but it had its issues in other grounds (sideplot as mainplot!).

This is a big theme with the Living Story and I agree it hasn’t been consistently implemented well. Too often mystery exists for the sake of mystery and inane speculation and not because it makes the story better. The clearest example of this, imo, is literally Mr. E. What a crappy plot point. We had a lore thread a while back which tried to figure out who it was, but even when you gather every detail given, it becomes abundantly clear that it could be literally almost anyone and it’s nearly impossible to narrow down the options conclusively. The writers might enjoy reading all the posts claiming it’s Livia, or Evon, or Kiel or Glint or whatever wild theory latching onto some obscure lore thread, but ultimately it falls flat because there was no substance to the discussion because the writers didn’t give us substance to discuss. They keep reminding us that E exists but that’s all they do.

Honestly I think Scarlet’s story is going to look OK in hindsight (it’s still not finished) but it was so poorly delivered over such a long period of time, it can’t be considered good. Ignoring the lore bending changes made to accommodate the things she’s supposed to accomplish (including altering an entire race’s timeline), the interest in Scarlet’s story is all rooted in the question – what was she up to? The line from the Spinal Blade Pack Blueprint implies this question still needs to be answered – “Caithe, someday you’ll see, Tyria needs me. -Scarlet”. I think it’s pretty obvious that Scarlet was written as an “the end justifies the means” villainous hero, we just have to wait two or more years to see it.

Scarlet’s Alliances were terrible and there was little story value from them. By the time the Toxic Alliance turned up, not only did people know it was Scarlet, they actively expressed a strong desire for it not to be Scarlet and then dissatisfaction when it was “revealed” to be Scarlet. The actual mystery of why she specifically formed that alliance is yet to be revealed (or it’s the shallow reason given last year).

My biggest issue with the mysteries atm is we are given more mysteries than answers (Season One is full of questions) and when we do get answers I don’t think they are communicated clearly enough all the time.

Slowpokeking.8720:

As for the dragons, it’s a bit like LotR, since Sauron takes the form of a giant flaming Eye, is more like a symbol rather than a character, they needed to expand Saruman’s role to give us a real villain character. That’s what we needed from the Elder Dragon war. Too bad Scarlet is dead.

In the movies they used several villains who acted for Sauron. The mouth of Sauron. Gothmog. Saruman and Denethor. Golem. The Balrog and Smaug (creations of Morgoth rather than Sauron, for what difference that makes).

Neither the books or the movie felt the need to have a single super villain. Sauron was essentially the devil. He’s not supposed to be something that you ever confront directly.

Shun.9475:

But what do we get in Guild Wars 2? we get everything that is listed, Humans in general feel discontent being “friendly” with the Charr, Every faction is facing internal strife, and at least humans are facing a struggle for survival against everything already swarming in the world.

Actually humans have it pretty easy. They’re major threat is centaurs. The Norn are fighting Sons of Svanir (and in general Jormag), the Asura are fighting the Inquest (and their own mad rush to self destruction), the Sylvari have the Nightmare Court and to a lesser degree the Risen, while the Charr are fighting the Flame Legion, Branded, Foefire Ghosts and to a lesser degree the separatists.
So I’d say human it’ a bit hyperbolic to say they’re struggling against everything in the world.

Shun.9475:

For those of you who don’t want to spoil the story of GW1 from the spoilers, the main point is that the strife and conflicts we experience in GW2 is not explored well enough from beginning to end levels. Even past lvl 80 into the living story, it’s not enough, there isn’t that deep hatred that old players felt against the Charr, the vibrant urge for aggression over controlling NPC towns by player alliances.

So basically you want Alliance vs Horde. That’s fine I guess and I will admit that in-game racial dislike is kept to a minimum, although lore wise there’s still a lot of distrust between the Charr and the Humans particularly in regards to Ebonhawke. But ok yes, in game my Charr never get’s cursed at when walking down the streets of Divinity’s Reach (although he’s a pretty big scary charr so that seems understandable…). I think the primary problem is more related to the areas in game we get to play, in game we have a very clear distinction between ‘this is X land’ and ‘this is Y land’. So we rarely see the overlapping areas where one race gets to run into another race and thus interact in some fashion. In the higher level zones we also see a focus more on the multi-racial factions (the orders) so again we don’t have a lot of opportunity to see what happens when homogeneous groups run into each other and thus interact.

Shun.9475:

Morally gray scenarios positions are forced upon us, such as Ascalonian decedents are forced to become the enemy, Centaurs who largely want peace (but coerced by the Modniir Tribe) are forced to become the permanent enemy.

And already morally gray scenarios are left without progress, the centaurs are already a clear example, the inquest are still considered a vibrant part of asuran society given the atrocious and unforgivable acts commited for their twisted ideology, the nightmare court still remains at large but are left with no additional substantial developments, minister Caudecus is still left in complete haitus (even though he’s apparently one of the most powerful men in the world), and Ebonhawke is still the same.

Well some people (like me) prefer a world of grays (much like the world we live in today), because it very much adds depth and complexity. Having everything black and white doesn’t leave room for much else.
In terms of the examples of story threads, I’ll admit they’re there, but I’ll also like to point out that given the nature of a MMO world (and thus the diversity of possible stories) that a lot will not get touched on for a long long time. Vanilla WoW had story threads laying around for years (some of them were only ever gotten back to in Cataclysm). It’s simply unrealistic to expect ANet to continue every single story line in every single aspect of the game all at once.

I was a huge fan of GW1 and played it for years. Granted, I took major breaks of many months, but eventually always came back. It was only after 7 years that I managed to get my Guardian title for completing all campaigns. I devoted most my time in doing quests and reading the stories behind them, I really loved that. They were stories in their own right, but often, also added info to the campaign missions and characters we saw throughout the world.

The campaigns in GW1 I really loved. Yes, they had their flaws. But overall, they had me hooked from the start (especially prophecies, I felt Nightfall was the least).

My problem with GW2 personal story is the same problem the first Assassins Creed game had. The end, and a large portion of the journey towards that end, is already revealed very early in the story.
Even before release, I knew the goal of the story was to stop/kill Zhaitan, the Elder Dragon. Because? He was threatening the lives of all races on Tyria. Why? He lived to consume magic. How to stop him? Unite the order/races of Tyria to fight him.

All the above, I knew before I even created my first character. From the very first personal story instance, I knew my end-goal and my road to it. There was absolutely nothing new. Throughout the entire story it felt like a drag up until the inevitable meeting with Zhaitan, who’s boss fight was in turn the largest let-down in this game lol
Add to this I find most the PS and LS chapters really fragmented, small and extremely short. My personal preference goes to the “lengthy” GW1 mission instances really. (last patch LS was a lot better though).

Side note, I really wanna find out what happened to Devonna, Aidan, Eve, Cynn, Mhenlo and the likes D;

Hay guiz, remember during LS1 when we were kinda _ supposed to know_ that krait and toxic krait don’t get along and telling us would have been a spoiler despite nothing ever even hinting to this possibility existed ingame or elsewhere?

-Tidus laugh-track playing-

Okay, laughable example from LS1’s many issues aside, I need to applause Konig for that thorough breakdown. I wanted to put my own 2 cents, but it’d basically be a less detailed repeat of what’s already been said.

Furesy.6935:

Side note, I really wanna find out what happened to Devonna, Aidan, Eve, Cynn, Mhenlo and the likes D;

I’m thinkin’ they died. Well, maybe not Eve. She’s too crazy to die. I heard Mhenlo killed himself though. Poor man. I knew Cynn would be the death of him.

CureForLiving.5360:

~Snip~

So basically you want Alliance vs Horde. That’s fine I guess and I will admit that in-game racial dislike is kept to a minimum, although lore wise there’s still a lot of distrust between the Charr and the Humans particularly in regards to Ebonhawke. But ok yes, in game my Charr never get’s cursed at when walking down the streets of Divinity’s Reach (although he’s a pretty big scary charr so that seems understandable…).
~Snip~

A scenario like the one above is easily explained…it’s been roughly 250 years since the Charr stopped attacking the regular human settlements besides Ebonhawke because of the ghosts from the Foefire. People tend to forget things when that amount of time goes by unless they’re constantly reminded of it, and now the humans have to deal with the Centaurs…so why would people in DR resent or be afraid of a Charr in their city, they’ve had almost no conflict with them for a couple of centuries, as opposed to Ebonhawke which has been fighting some form of Charr for those same couple of Centuries.

Zaklex.6308:

Here’s where we don’t see eye to eye, and I’m going to compare this to a really good or excellent book series. I, personally, thoroughly enjoy reading book series(or any type of series for that matter) that keep adding questions as they go along, resolving some items along the way, but always expanding on those questions until the very bitter end, and then closing all the loopholes in the finally. And some of the things that have changed since GW1, can be explained by the little fact that ~250 years have passed, and on some issues people’s feelings will have changed..and others they never will.

Well you’d have to point me to a book series that does this so I could properly compare and contrast.

But in general, comparing the Living World to a book is rather silly, in my opinion. As is comparing it to a television series as ArenaNet loves to do. First, in regards to the TV series comparison – with exception for series that is effectively a media change for a book or comic series (e.g., The Walking Dead, True Blood, almost every anime out there), an TV series tend to have two plots per episode: an overarching season plot, and the individual episode plot that gets closed up in that episode. Usually, the former is hinted upon in every episode, sometimes not though; and the episode’s plot is always closed up in a single episode (sometimes, rarely, in two or three). The Living World does not follow this, taking months rather than a single 1 hour to close up that episodic plot. And unlike TV series, the Living World jumps around chaotically amongst various topics because the PC must be acknowledged in all the plots.

The way Anet’s envisioning their storytelling is better for a non-game media, where the audience doesn’t have to partake in every scene.

Secondly, comparing to a book, is similarly false. A book does usually close up all questions by the end – book series close them up by the end of the series. Only those which are irrelevant to the plot, or are relevant to keeping the door open for a follow-up (series) remain unanswered. Usually, however, you get answers presented – indirectly – every few chapters. Old questions answered, and some new questions presented.

The Living Story only presents new questions. In all of the two seasons, we’ve had two scenarios of questions answered: A Study in Scarlet and Hidden Arcana

And the thing is, Scarlet’s story is closed, so by a book’s standard, all the questions revolving her forces that should be answered, would have been. But we don’t have those answers – who leads the Molten Alliance? We don’t know. We only know that leaders exist. Who leads the Toxic Alliance? We don’t know. We only know that leaders exist. What are the statuses of the alliances? We don’t know. We only know that they still exist, and that they’re hated by their old communities. And all that little we know, we got from forum posts, not the game.

So, in all honesty, the Living World is NOT like a book. It is NOT like a TV show. It is not like anything else, because its attempts to emulate other things have failed. Miserably.

Zaklex.6308:

The Inquest, in my opinion they have at least one redeeming quality, and that is they’re willing to explore, examine, experiment, what have you on theories, ideas, etc. that ‘normal’ Asura refuse to look into. The fact that they wouldn’t necessarily use what ever the outcome may be for good diffuses that a bit, but they’re still willing to step completely outside the box…and that’s at least one redeeming quality, in my eyes.

If you lookat the background lore for all groups, they have redeeming qualities. The Renegades and Separatists hate the opposing race to great extents. The centaurs have been beligered for nearly 1,000 yearsn ow without apro per homeland. The Inquest as you say are willing to cross moral boundaries others refuse for the sake of not forgetting knowledge like what happened when Primordus rose.

But then you are presented the in-game versions. And instead of wayward children rejecting other races’ philosophy, you get:

Tiachren: Let us celebrate our union with fire and blood. We’ll make the Pale Tree gorge herself upon the pain of these dreamers!

Instead of a stubborn people too full of hatred for an enemy race, you have:

Mad Bombardier: Have you forgotten what the charr did in the Searing? Let us remind you!

Zaklex.6308:

The Charr…are they not willing to share their mechanical know how with humans? Is that not redeeming?

I said enemy factions in GW2. For charr, that’d be Renegades and Flame Legion. While the bad guys are irredeemably evil, the good guys are unfaultering (except in stupidity) helpful.

Tyria is a world of black and white when you look at the game.

But it is a world of a hundred grays and no black or white when you look at the actual background lore.

Shiren.9532:

I’m not sure if this is a typo on your part and you pulled an “Ogden Stonehammer” but I think you have some of these incorrect.

I was going off of Angel and Bobby stating in the past that they’ve been around since Prophecies. Unless my memory falters.

Shiren.9532:

They aren’t the only writers though. I think on the Living Story specifically, John Ryan is a writer (hired in 2010) and I think Peter Fries might also be a writer for Living Story (an Environment Artist on Guild Wars Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2) but it’s unclear who does what.

I’m aware. I was talking about leads, however, not people in general.

The point remains, however, that the baton was passed with GW2’s release.

Shiren.9532:

Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb still work at ArenaNet afaik. I don’t think they stepped down, I think they are working an an unrevealed project (the expansion) and are busying world building content from scratch. Basically I think the Living Story isn’t the most senior project going on at ArenaNet.

I’ve heard that Jeff now works at NCsoft in general – being a writer of Firefall. Ree has been fully unheard of completely since Sea of Sorrows.

Shiren.9532:

Just a reminder guys (this is more for me than anyone else) the ArenaNet writers are people. Let’s try to keep that in mind when discussing their work, especially when we mention them specifically.

As a writer myself, I will say that those who cannot handle criticism are not really meant for publicizing their work.

But regardless I do keep such in mind and that is why I do not go about insulting the individuals or just spouting that the work sucks. I am pointing out, even though in general senses, what I find wrong about the work. I will not handhold the makers of poor work – no one will benefit of that – so if I find something with quality that is lacking, I will state such and why, just as I have.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

~Snip~
Well you’d have to point me to a book series that does this so I could properly compare and contrast.

~Snip~

Have you ever read the Wheel of Time series? Quite often sub plots would be added throughout the various books in the series…on top of sub plots that already existed, and often branching off from those same sub plots without resolving them till much later in the books.

The concept of sub-plots upon sub-plots is not the same concept as having mysteries for the sake of having mysteries, where you have questions left unanswered even after the answer loses relevance but more questions added.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The concept of sub-plots upon sub-plots is not the same concept as having mysteries for the sake of having mysteries, where you have questions left unanswered even after the answer loses relevance but more questions added.

I think this sums up perfectly the issue I have with Living Story.

Actually, there stills hatred between humans and charrs.

If you EXPLORE the Black Citadel as a human, you will be harassed some times. You will even find a place with enslaved humans, and some Cub Charrs making wrong assumptions about Humans, and the same at Divinit’s Reach with little kids about Charrs. You have the hate against chars that remains in Ebonhawke, and even in Divinity’s Reach where some humans question the alliance with the Charrs.

You have the Asuras that are an extremely racist Race.

The Sylvari that just doesn’t understand anything about the world.

And the Norn with the most bad and unexplored and basic lore in the game.

You just need to explore to see these things, and notice that the society in Kryta has changed a lot too. It’s been 250 years with the struggle of Dragons and all the bad things that they’ve caused to EVERY race, so It’s understable that with all these conflicts would be put aside with the emerging of the Vigil, the need for the Claw of the Khan-Ur to form peace between Humans and Charrs, the Pact and eveeeerything else.

I just have humans on my account, and I love their lore and everything about them. I used to hate the Charrs too, and didn’t understand why everything was so peacefully after everything that happened… but… as a human in Divinit’s Reach said to another human with the same indignation as mine: “Get over it.”.

We have more important things to care about, like the extermination of everything by the Dragons. There is no place anymore for such things, and even if there are people who still think like this, there are a lot other more of other that doesn’t care about it anymore because, as I said, times have changed.

And all of that ins’t in stances like it used to be in GW1, neither in the PS. You need to explore and search for things.

Now for the LS I almost agree with everything because I feel that the lore isn’t evolving… it is just being filled with fillers every two weeks… but who knows what can come from all of this~

Also, sorry for the bad writing. English isn’t my main language.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The concept of sub-plots upon sub-plots is not the same concept as having mysteries for the sake of having mysteries, where you have questions left unanswered even after the answer loses relevance but more questions added.

Perhaps so, but do the answers every really lose relevance if they were never answered? I guess some people just don’t understand that more questions always arise during almost any investigation or story…if it’s done properly…as long as at some point in time all questions get answered, or at least lead to new questions that will lead to answering those questions…sort of like archeology or paleontology…how many times has the discovery of a new dinosaur or ancient site brought up a host of new questions without answering the already existing ones? That’s what we see happening in the LS, imo.

Zaklex.6308:

Perhaps so, but do the answers every really lose relevance if they were never answered? I guess some people just don’t understand that more questions always arise during almost any investigation or story…if it’s done properly…as long as at some point in time all questions get answered, or at least lead to new questions that will lead to answering those questions…sort of like archeology or paleontology…how many times has the discovery of a new dinosaur or ancient site brought up a host of new questions without answering the already existing ones? That’s what we see happening in the LS, imo.

The bold is what’s not happening in the LS.

Unless you think it’ll become relevant, somehow, in over a year, about who leads the Molten Alliance. Because that has not led to new questions, and has not been answered, and at this point, no, it is no longer relevant.

Anet had a chance to make it relevant, and they intentionally didn’t even let it be known that there were leaders of the alliances. Until people were gripping and Angel McCoy tried playing damage control and told us on these forums that there were, indeed, leaders of the individual alliances as well as motivations for their continued assistance with Scarlet – neither of which was hinted in any way, shape, or form in-game, and seemingly done so intentionally.

The Toxic Alliance may still prove to be relevant given that a lot of their art assets are being used – most likely intentionally – for Mordrem. But the Aetherblades and Molten Alliance? We don’t even see the later, at least we know the former are still around (in the Mists, digging in, under Mai Trin’s command).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Zaklex.6308:

Perhaps so, but do the answers every really lose relevance if they were never answered? I guess some people just don’t understand that more questions always arise during almost any investigation or story…if it’s done properly…as long as at some point in time all questions get answered, or at least lead to new questions that will lead to answering those questions…sort of like archeology or paleontology…how many times has the discovery of a new dinosaur or ancient site brought up a host of new questions without answering the already existing ones? That’s what we see happening in the LS, imo.

The bold is what’s not happening in the LS.

Unless you think it’ll become relevant, somehow, in over a year, about who leads the Molten Alliance. Because that has not led to new questions, and has not been answered, and at this point, no, it is no longer relevant.

Anet had a chance to make it relevant, and they intentionally didn’t even let it be known that there were leaders of the alliances. Until people were gripping and Angel McCoy tried playing damage control and told us on these forums that there were, indeed, leaders of the individual alliances as well as motivations for their continued assistance with Scarlet – neither of which was hinted in any way, shape, or form in-game, and seemingly done so intentionally.

The Toxic Alliance may still prove to be relevant given that a lot of their art assets are being used – most likely intentionally – for Mordrem. But the Aetherblades and Molten Alliance? We don’t even see the later, at least we know the former are still around (in the Mists, digging in, under Mai Trin’s command).

I’ll accept that for the above, considering I had no interest in LS1 and there fore skipped it with the exception of the very first couple of missions for Flame and Frost(I got involved in something else and just didn’t really care about it). From that perspective about the Molten Alliance and their leadership, which somehow got left out(though, never mind, I can’t talk about that)…

Anyways, points well taken, those kind of left open questions can and are quite annoying.

leman.7682:

lordkrall.7241:

People always seems to remember the “good old Guild Wars 1 days” completely different than people actually talked about them back during those times.

Which doesn’t change the fact that the overall quality of story/writing has deteriorated significantly.

I don’t think so, I think it’s just readily more apparent as we have:

- More players who got exposed to it.
- Less other diversions from the PvE story.
- More efforts to work story into a persistent path rather than adding stale, stable experiences.

The writing isn’t “worse” so much as the LW tends to show all the cracks due to it being in motion and trying to progress instead of being “here’s Sorrow’s Furnace, don’t mind how you never heard of it”, or “here’s 10 dungeons which have almost no bearing on the story of Eye of the North at all, just go have fun and score loot”.

Or even worse “here are three Realms of the Gods, check out how they’re mostly challenges to be overcome with little context at all with each other Realm . . . or each region within the Realms themselves”.

The big difference was GW1 could be excused for its story problems by basically being another form of the base Diablo “hack, slash, and loot” game with twists to keep it from inflating too much into chasing the high stat loot. Instead you chase the really neat art with 1% or less drop rates.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The concept of sub-plots upon sub-plots is not the same concept as having mysteries for the sake of having mysteries, where you have questions left unanswered even after the answer loses relevance but more questions added.

My exact sentiments.

In my opinion the writers have to realise (which they do i bet) that they have a limited working space in the game genre and that time is a very valuable ressource.

They should plan accordingly , however it seems like they handle it mostly like very other story.
Like they can a lot of open mysteries and resolve it at some point later.

However they seem to forget that by the fact that they are only able to give out a certain amount of information over a very limited timeframe the amount of resolutions and engaging new mysteries is not the same.

Right now resolutions to a lot of questions are far and few between, reaching back to Guild Wars 2 and most of them are opening new questions, since they are often relucant to give us straight answers to them, no matter how unimportant they become in the long run.

There is no way to cover all bases and answer everything, however if a certain plotpoint has run its course and is not planned to be used later, then I would like it to be resolved.

It can be seen as a loss of a potential storyline in the future, but on the other hand it really calms down the players and would allow them to enjoy the parts of the story more, which are the mainfocus, instead of debating about loose end number 65, which the writers hold themselves open for a point in time that might never come.

Every release so far opens more questions. Time is a valuable ressource which I feel they do not really honor.

If I have to point out things, then these are the ones I feel strongly about.

They want to make a 12 Episode Season with content for half of it, with plans for second already in motion, which may or may not be resolved in Season 4.

I am sorry, but we are getting into Lost territory and by all means, that was not a good resolve.

I do not know how they handle these things. It is not like we do not go into enough detail of what we feel is “missing” or still a mystery.
Is there no one keeping taps on these things? Is there no List of things they have to resolve?
It cannot be that hard can it?
I made the list of open questions (and run out of place, that`s why there could be so much more) and I just went over the bigger questions, well knowing that there a lot of subquestions and cross related stuff.
I would really like to know if there is a list with unresolved plot threads and questions from the forum in the office, because I am fully aware of how hard it is to keep track of what you as a writer know and what the audience does.

There is a lot of feedback on these forums and everywhere else and I really hope (since I do not know) they have someone dedicated to this and communicating questions and issues we have.

You cannot please everyone. You have your artistic liscence and honor. Your vision. However there is an audience to be pleased, not only to be amused.

It is not the same. It is too little too late. Scarlet (and i hate to bring her up) threw a big wrench into the credibility as she is still a big questionmark, which should already be resolved by now. Guild Wars 1 has lots of unresolved storylines, which should have been resolved by the time in between 1 and 2 and subsequently be answered somewhere.

If there is a list, I really hope they are actively working on crossing huge parts of it off, instead of adding more, just to get the own mark on the game.
We need a good and solid foundation first, before we can add new parts to the building, or it will just crumble

The story of GW2 seems to be written by an 10 year old. When LA got destroyed I was like: pff who cares? In GW1 it was like: kitten! Those kitten charrs just nuked our whole country!
Whoever wrote the story for GW2 managed to turn it into some kind of bad written dull fairy tale. And even classical fairy tales are better than the story here, they have real villains at least.

Schwarzseher.9873:

The story of GW2 seems to be written by an 10 year old. When LA got destroyed I was like: pff who cares? In GW1 it was like: kitten! Those kitten charrs just nuked our whole country!
Whoever wrote the story for GW2 managed to turn it into some kind of bad written dull fairy tale. And even classical fairy tales are better than the story here, they have real villains at least.

And yet back during Guild Wars 1 people were complaining about how much that story sucked as well.

Funnily enough back during the whole Scarlet hatered people where complaining about how Scarlet was behind everything and then referred to how Guild Wars 1 was so much better, when in fact Guild Wars 1 had more or less the EXACT SAME THING with Abaddon.

Except Abaddon being behind everything was subpar storytelling but still logically sound (for the most part) and in the realm of the lore.

Scarlet’s whatever-part of the LS was the GW2 equivalent of the Avatar the last airbender-movie.

GW1’s story is on par with GW2’s PS. Mediocre, but decent enough for a MMO.
However there doesn’t exist much that deserves being compared in a negative light to LS1 story-wise.

lordkrall.7241:

And yet back during Guild Wars 1 people were complaining about how much that story sucked as well.

Funnily enough back during the whole Scarlet hatered people where complaining about how Scarlet was behind everything and then referred to how Guild Wars 1 was so much better, when in fact Guild Wars 1 had more or less the EXACT SAME THING with Abaddon.

I never met folks who said GW1’s story sucked. They weren’t calling the story itself a masterpiece (all praise was more towards the background lore rather than the actual storytelling, with many a joke on the voice acting), but they never said it sucked from what I’ve seen.

The issue with Scarlet being behind everything was that she was behind xenophobic and misogynistic factions uniting together with non-xenophobic/misogynistic factions. Which was one of her main “personality attributes” – she loved mixing things that don’t make sense together. Which resulted in us getting lore breaking alliances (krait allying with Nightmare Court) or lore questioning alliances (dredge working with Flame Legion), and the writers provided no concrete reason for this – particularly for the Toxic Alliance, which is where the puppetteering hate came from.

Abaddon, however, was only ever behind demonic and spiritual happenings. Khilbron, Shiro, Titans, Varesh, Tomb of the Primeval Kings, Dragon Festival ‘06 – all were tied to demons and spirits before being tied to Abaddon. These things made sense, even if there was no indication of Abaddon’s ties and even existence beyond very minor lines or names (Abaddon’s Mouth; Suun’s words after beating Shiro) until Nightfall.

Scarlet, however, was tied to things that just made no lore sense. Abaddon had proxies to all things he worked with – Scarlet did not. And then, all of Abaddon’s proxies and tricked individuals had their motivations (even if created by Abaddon and/or his proxies – Khilbron wanted to the power of the Flameseeker Prophecies; Shiro was, via Abaddon’s agent, convinced he would be betrayed and killed and enticed to act “first”; Varesh was a cultist follower of Abaddon, introduced by a mentor). Meanwhile, Scarlet’s tricked individuals had no known motivations beyond the Molten Alliance (dredge wanted fire magic; Flame intended to enslave dredge when they got the knowledge they wanted) – but what was the motivation of Mai Trin and the Aetherblades? Unknown. What was the motivation of the Toxic Alliance and their unknown leaders? Unknown. Though we got told the NC’s goal: “Spread the nightmare” (so uh… why is the alliance beneficial to them when next to no sylvari were affected by the Tower of Nightmares?) and the krait were “to bring forth their prophets” (but why would they ever think that a lesser species like the sylvari could assist them in such a thing?).

Then there was the fact that Abaddon is a tragic villain – his fall was caused by him disagreeing with reducing magic. We don’t really have many details to the fall, but people interpret him as a misunderstood villain who by Nightfall’s time suffered 1,000+ years of continuous torment and acted in vengeance of the Five Gods.

Scarlet? She’s just a looney genius who proclaimed seeing the workings of the universe an all reality, who learned from every race of technological note and excelled beyond reason and belief. She was just so perfect and convincing to everyone and didn’t have a care in the world who just decided to go “I’ll kitten up the human’s celebrations =D”. Not to mention how we got two personalities of Scarlet – one “talked about” and one “shown to us”; the former being this cruel and murderous evil that keeps her troops in line with death threats (and actual deaths), while the later was just this carefree “I don’t give a kitten about anything and I’ll prove it by killing you all with a Joker Smile”.

That’s why people love Abaddon, but hate Scarlet. They may both be puppetmaster villains, but they’re polar opposite versions of a puppetmaster villain.

Guild Wars 2 suffers from a lot of inconsistency that really punishes you for trying to resolve it.
- 1
It’s a “living world” supposedly, but most everything is simply ‘there’. For instance, there were no devourers in Ascalon areas before the Searing. They are a burrowing creature like a trap door spider. Now? They’re wherever some dev-team decided to throw some creatures on a map.
- 3
Arbitrary creature use more to do with copy-and-pasting being the cheap and easy way than having anything to do with making creatures for a place.
- 2
Distinct peoples were people, not people-made-into-distinct-animals. Guild Wars 1 had Heket’s as entirely something NOT human. Now they are human and a kind of human arbitrarily. Grawl were these terrifying primitive half-ape things that probably ate babies. Now they’re just a joke on the Sean Connery movie Zardoz:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zardoz
- 3
Charr burned people alive because they were psycho. Motivated by religious reasons or not, it is NOT okay to burn people alive. Those Ascalonians that survived it either became the Ebonhawke or went to Ascalonian Settlement. The Charr have been bashing on the Ebonhawke doors all that time. Who has played Guild Wars 1 or suffered any form of Racial persecution would for a moment believe the Separatists to be a minor story element? There are more Separatists in the game than there are Ebonhawke. The visual plotholes emphasize narrative plots holes the size of Valles Marineris.
- 4
Scarlet is a genius who suicides, knowingly? What? Einstein didn’t join Rommel in Hitler’s closed meetings with a bomb, he went across the ocean and made Atomic Energy; among other things. Scarlet, by all rights, is either a personification of the Library of Alexandra (destroyed by Christian zealots) whose destruction created a 2000 year lag-time for human development after that… yes, the West did something… or she’s the most misused character yet in gaming. She:
- Created US-Marine-like Special Forces drops using a combination of precision air drops in groups using every class type practically partnered with robotic infantry.
- Created a flying (anti-gravity btw) drill machine she just parks over LA
- Creates a (known) Tyria wide geological survey mission (even into regions we’re only just getting a look at)
- Has laser guided energy weapons technology (which means the power behind it was at least equal to anything we have now and some levels beyond)
- Had teams of Inquest, Molten Alliance, Toxic Alliance, and Nightmare Court coordinated in the efforts to do all this: which means hordes of people were exploded to her innovations and technologies (the guts and numbers of it that add up to the ‘means’)….
- Scarlet Briar is like Tyria’s Roswell with LA and Twilight Arbor like the epicentres. Any race of group that failed to get her technology would be so far behind those that did we shouldn’t even be bothering to concern ourselves with Dragon threats…

The problem with this game’s writing is that it is so blastedly simple it has become erratic. Most of the time I feel it would challenge someone mentally handie-capped because it is so simplified it went somewhere that’s just bad. On the other hand, there are moments of genius, but seems accidental.

Often the level of ‘depth’ to the story is only as deep as the packet of content it arrived in. Consistency is mostly narrative creation from us people delving the forums for keys to lore; basically doing the work the writer’s should have slipped in ahead of time. Even the Priory library recently feels this way. You have to click one sentence at a time, making the whole text feel like it was a cheap compilation of sentences. It is NOT, but there’s no impression of a ‘page’ anywhere in this game. So feeling of ‘surface level’ detail and superficiality is incredibly strong.

Haha, mixed my numbers during editing and forgot to correct the rest. :/

- Scarlet Briar is like Tyria’s Roswell with LA and Twilight Arbor like the epicentres. Any race of group
= race _or_* group

Eirdyne.9843:

Guild Wars 2 suffers from a lot of inconsistency that really punishes you for trying to resolve it.
- 1
It’s a “living world” supposedly, but most everything is simply ‘there’. For instance, there were no devourers in Ascalon areas before the Searing.

You don’t say.

- 3
Charr burned people alive because they were psycho. Motivated by religious reasons or not, it is NOT okay to burn people alive. Those Ascalonians that survived it either became the Ebonhawke or went to Ascalonian Settlement. The Charr have been bashing on the Ebonhawke doors all that time. Who has played Guild Wars 1 or suffered any form of Racial persecution would for a moment believe the Separatists to be a minor story element? There are more Separatists in the game than there are Ebonhawke. The visual plotholes emphasize narrative plots holes the size of Valles Marineris.

Because humans never ever did anything atrocious to the charr, and have always been the victims.

Eirdyne.9843:

For instance, there were no devourers in Ascalon areas before the Searing. They are a burrowing creature like a trap door spider. Now? They’re wherever some dev-team decided to throw some creatures on a map.

Uhhhhh…

Yes they were.

Eirdyne.9843:

Arbitrary creature use more to do with copy-and-pasting being the cheap and easy way than having anything to do with making creatures for a place.

I’m 100% not sure what the hell you mean.

Eirdyne.9843:

Distinct peoples were people, not people-made-into-distinct-animals. Guild Wars 1 had Heket’s as entirely something NOT human. Now they are human and a kind of human arbitrarily. Grawl were these terrifying primitive half-ape things that probably ate babies.

This isn’t a bad thing, given that there was culture and the like hinted amongst the non-human races. It just wasn’t really seen.

You going to complain about how the tengu suddenly became human-like with Factions? Or centaurs becoming such with Nightfall?

Eirdyne.9843:

Charr burned people alive because they were psycho. Motivated by religious reasons or not, it is NOT okay to burn people alive. Those Ascalonians that survived it either became the Ebonhawke or went to Ascalonian Settlement. The Charr have been bashing on the Ebonhawke doors all that time. Who has played Guild Wars 1 or suffered any form of Racial persecution would for a moment believe the Separatists to be a minor story element? There are more Separatists in the game than there are Ebonhawke. The visual plotholes emphasize narrative plots holes the size of Valles Marineris.

Technically, I don’t think it was ever said they burned people alive. But that’s besides the point – they weren’t ‘psychos’ even if their leaders were fanatics.

Burning people alive is actually rather calm for between warring groups, to be perfectly honest. You’d be sick what some humans came up with in both times of war, and times a peace. Especially if you think burning alive is so horrid. Hell, you see humans using sentient races for furniture, clothing, and armor. Even musical instruments. Amongst other things, no doubt.

Eirdyne.9843:

Scarlet is a genius who suicides, knowingly?

You do realize she was killed, not commited suicide, right? Thus a good chunk of your argument is moot.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Eirdyne.9843:

Scarlet is a genius who suicides, knowingly?

You do realize she was killed, not commited suicide, right? Thus a good chunk of your argument is moot.

“Forget it, they’re rolling.”

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Eirdyne.9843:

Arbitrary creature use more to do with copy-and-pasting being the cheap and easy way than having anything to do with making creatures for a place.

I’m 100% not sure what the hell you mean.

I’m pretty sure they’re talking about the way most mobs don’t seem to have distinct species distribution. Some mobs are better than others, of course- ettins, for instance, tend to make sense, as did drakes up until the latest patches (Ascalon specific drakes in the Maguuma Wastes, often far from any body of water that would constitute a sufficient drake habitat, kind of killed that), whereas skelk varieties beyond the reef or alpine kinds seem to be picked at random, and skale are a baffling assortment of different breeds jumbled across regions and often even sharing territory.

Still, Eirdyne, while regional distinctness of fauna isn’t as ironclad as it was in GW1, I’d say that just makes it more realistic- think of it as similar to the way that the US spans a large variety of environments, but still has common animals that can be found in almost all of the states alongside the more local varieties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species

Sounds legit to me.