Guild Wars 2

Erukk.1408:

Us tracking her down is probably going to be part of the LS early next year, since the next LS seems to be fractals, and then we have Wintersday taking up most, if not all, of December.

That’s possible but the living world is meant to show us the world now. It is bad storytelling to suddenly introduce events that should have been happening all along, such as all Scarlet’s enemies trying to find her.

So, where in the world is Scarlet Briar? Is that a series of personal instances where you need to follow obscure clues regarding landmarks across Tyria? :P

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

draxynnic.3719:

Wait, snowmen can be killed by strangulation? Or is this some other Daniel?

Hang on, you may be right. Darn! Foiled again! That snowman faked his own death!

Next time I should simply bring a flamethrower. :P

Yeah, that’s the sort of thing I was going to suggest. Saves on frostbitten fingers too!

I gather there’s a bunch around Fort Cadence that the Vigil just carelessley leaves lying around – you could probably nab one of those and they’d never notice.

People say scarlet hasn’t succeeded at anything are forgetting she bombed the exits at the queen jubilee killing citizens in the thousands. The time bombs we diffused where distraction for the real ones. Even Logan was crying and at a lose for words. But I guess to players NPC lives really have no value. If people dying left and right don’t motivate you to put some one in a 6ft hole what will?

100% agree that absence of Scarlet motivation for doing what she does makes he an empty 1D character

I doubt it was in the thousands. More likely (low) hundreds though we only saw some dozen NPCs there. I mean if it were thousands, then Divinity’s Reach would have a huge population vacancy after the Jubilee and such didn’t happen.

The Jubilee is the closest thing to success she’s had. But again, that is because the good guys were holding the idiot ball, as Drax likes to put it. She struck in a sudden attack. As I said, she only succeeds when her acts are unknown. Once we had a visible target to strike, Scarlet was down faster than than you can say “Abaddon will feast on your eyes!”

Isn’t that one of the keep strategies strike where you are least expected. It is commonly used by WvW commanders.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: Scarlet is the worst character in the game, beating out even the perceived flaws of character’s like JenLo and Trahearne. A total Villian Sue. Someone who is all tings (evil) to all people. She can make the Krait bend to her will. She can go to all three Asuran Colleges. She can pick up every trade skills and find them boring. She can be an Engineer and Mesmer all at the same time. She slices! She dices! She even makes julienne fries! But, that’s not all! Act now and we’ll throw in the Molten Alliance and Aether Pirates for free!

To paraphrase a common proverb, “* needs to go.” *- insert your favorite noun, pronoun or pejorative, for another person, regardless of gender. I prefer “Salad.”

@ Konig

-That’s my question: Who did it? You said all NC soldiers are biologists, and so by extension all Sylvari are biologists capable of creating that hybrid. I know for a fact that is false. I have a level 30 Sylvari warrior, and from her story so far there is a 0% chance that she can create that hybrid. She can barely grow an apple tree. She is that bad at biology.

-But those invasions did get them all killed. We players are more dangerous than Scarlet. So that “scared of Scarlet” argument is very weak as a reason to fight.

-You mean those Flame Legion Igniters? I am under the impression that their “flame throwers” are magical enhancements, based on how they look. It does not look technological at all.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/e/e6/Molten_Igniter_2.jpg

-Konig of course I know Pact have an army somewhere. But we never see them do anything. The players are doing all the work. It is actually fine if the Pact is recovering from Zhaitan and so cannot mobilize anyone. But if that’s the case, maybe they should have, by lore, made Scarlet into a SMALL TERRORIST GROUP instead of an ARMY OF THOUSANDS. It is the writer’s job to put things into prospective.

Which is more believable? “This band of heroes, all by themselves, defeated a small group of elite terrorists.” or “This band of heroes, all by themselves, defeated an army of tens of thousands.”

Once again, this is only for the lore, not the game play mechanics. They CAN still swarm the players with thousand of mobs for game play purposes. That DOESN’T matter. But it would have been so much better if they stated in the lore that this is just a SMALL TERRORIST GROUP of a hundred or less. And so of course the Pact will not be involved. They do not have time to chase down every single small terrorist group around.

Gameplay and lore should always be separated. But Anet must state this. If Anet do not say anything, the players will assume what they see is what is the truth. They are indeed facing an army of thousands.

Details, details, details. Good story telling always goes back to the details.

If they really meant for Scarlet to be an army of thousand, they could have spread the responsibility.

For example let’s say the Pact have army groups 1 to 8. Why not put the players into the 8th Army? The players would only have to deal with the sector and responsibilities of the 8th Army. Meanwhile the 1st to 7th Armies would be fighting elsewhere.

Anet DO NOT need to show these battles in the game. They just need to say it in the lore, though some NPC.

-Konig, of course I am nitpicking. This thread (Slayer of Lores) was obviously supposed to be a tease. I do want to demonstrated how readers can pick a story apart of the writers aren’t careful. The details are seriously lacking.

If Anet wants to reduce the amount of criticism they receive, then they should spend MORE time working out the “tiny” details of the story. That 2 week release schedule is NOT going to work. Look at how lacking are the details that could make or break a story! That’s the main message I want to give to Chris Whiteside.

From Ender’s game “to defeat your enemy you must love them” we cant beat scarlet cause no one loves her. Which is why she always gets her wacky ways and even in failure she succeeds.

Drakkon.4782:

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: Scarlet is the worst character in the game, beating out even the perceived flaws of character’s like JenLo and Trahearne.

Have we forgotten about Logan Thackery already? You can say many bad things about Scarlet, but at least she has a personality, and is not as boring as Logan. He easily wins the worst character in the game award.

No wait, scratch that. The player is probably the worst character in the game, but Logan is a close second.

I may be wrong, but I think JenLo is referencing Jennah/Logan.

Narcemus.1348:

I may be wrong, but I think JenLo is referencing Jennah/Logan.

Well I disagree with him on that note. Logan is way more annoying than Scarlet. He is a righteous goody-two-shoes without a spine. A character who doesn’t even have the good decency to die during his own moment of self sacrifice, because the writers are in love with him so much. That is why he is forced upon the player throughout the human personal story. We’re constantly told how Logan is important, and the drama with Destiny’s Edge. But we don’t see anything that makes him a compelling character. It would be impossible for me to describe Logan as a character, without referring to his profession, or the people around him. That’s how little there is to his character. I could probably fill half a page about Scarlet. Logan is THE definition of a Mary Sue character. Worse than Trahearne and Scarlet. And he is even an important character in one of the books. I wonder if he’s just as dull in the books too?

I personally found him halfway decent in the books, although I personally enjoyed Edge of Destiny (mainly because of the huge lore drop of Glint’s connection to Kralky) but so many others write it off as the worst piece of writing ever. I personally disagree, I know I have read the worst book ever because I remember reading it. Do not bother asking me the title or author though, because most of it is suppressed memory which would probably be fully irretrievable :P

Narcemus.1348:

I may be wrong, but I think JenLo is referencing Jennah/Logan.

I thought of calling them J-Lo, but there would be confusion. It’s a Bennifer reference.

Logan is such a horrible character. He’s a total lost puppy that Jennah just can’t bring herself to kick. They’re so co-dependent it isn’t funny. He can’t do anything without her approval, and yet she can’t seem to stay out of danger long enough to order him far from her side. So bizarre and emotionally twisted that it makes me sick.

But Scarlet is still far worse. She’s not just poorly written, she’s poorly conceived. Everything about her is just so wrong and perverse that she violates even her own rules of existence. She has no place in the world, literally. She doesn’t fit the established backgrounds for Sylvari, violating their own creation methods, has no place in the Grove, doesn’t know the Pale Tree, never entered the Dreaming (at least not the one the Sylvari come from), and then we get to the rest of the violations, like her Asuran training, and multiple classes. I’m just not sure what they were thinking.

CHIPS.6018:

-That’s my question: Who did it? You said all NC soldiers are biologists, and so by extension all Sylvari are biologists capable of creating that hybrid. I know for a fact that is false. I have a level 30 Sylvari warrior, and from her story so far there is a 0% chance that she can create that hybrid. She can barely grow an apple tree. She is that bad at biology.

Spend one skill point, and your sylvari warrior can cause vines to erupt out of the ground to grab at her enemy’s feet. For three each, she can throw a seed that grows nearly instantly into an autonomous seed-launching mortar, or plant one that emanates a healing aura. For ten, she can cover herself with a shield of vines while growing a ring of botanical mortars around her.

And this is the stuff that non-specialists can do, indicative of how the sylvari affinity for plants allows them to do things with them that would be miraculous for other races. This trend continues elsewhere – sylvari living as far away as the Black Citadel grow specialised plants for housing, human farmers in Kryta comment about recruiting sylvari for their affinity, while specialists among both the Wardens and the Nightmare Court can raise a variety of specialised plants and pretty much make them do whatever they like.

This doesn’t mean that the VillainSue label isn’t justified, but this particular aspect is not a part of it. Whether it’s Scarlet herself or her Nightmare Court allies, it’s entirely reasonable, in fact expected, for sylvari villains to be doing unnatural things with plants. If it really is in your mind that your sylvari warrior is hopeless with plants, than that means she is an exception, not anywhere near a typical member of the race.

On the topic of the Flame Legion Igniters – I think there is a technological element there. It may be a crude form of technomagic* rather than purely technological, but it’s clear that they’ve decided that flamethrowers are nice things to have and decided to make their own.

*If I had to guess, from the look I’d presume that the fuel is some form of concentrated elemental flame or something like that rather than conventional fuel, but it does have a crude technological firing mechanism so they can be given to non-shaman Fire Legion members..

I would agree with drax on the power source to the flame thrower just based on it’s description in GoA. When the hose gets broken, instead of fuel leaking out, flames do. Now in a normal flame thrower, the fire doesn’t start until the fuel reaches the tip of the gun, allowing the fuel and the air to mix well before ignition. It could be a lack of understanding as to how flame throwers work, but I’d say for now that it is likely that the source of the flame may be magical, but it doesn’t make it any less techy than anything the Asura come up with.

Well, there is another possibility – that the Flame Legion is using white phosphorous or some other chemical that lights immediately on contact with oxygen as fuel.

However, that doesn’t explain why the backpack itself glows, which is my main reason for thinking that the fire is being generated and/or stored by magical means. The business end, on the other hand, looks like it definitely has technological components, even if they’re not more complicated than a pumping mechanism to give the flames extra reach and a trigger mechanism.

Durzlla.6295:

@Dromar there’s actually a PoI in Arah that we can not physically get to called The Dragons Lair (can be seen in game), so my bet is they literally ran outta time and rushed the Zhaitan fight into being only 2 phases instead of something much larger, I mean even the cutscenes make it seem like more is supposed to happen.

hmmmm… maybe there was supposed to be 1-2 more phases after you knock him off the tower.

Dromar.1027:

Durzlla.6295:

@Dromar there’s actually a PoI in Arah that we can not physically get to called The Dragons Lair (can be seen in game), so my bet is they literally ran outta time and rushed the Zhaitan fight into being only 2 phases instead of something much larger, I mean even the cutscenes make it seem like more is supposed to happen.

hmmmm… maybe there was supposed to be 1-2 more phases after you knock him off the tower.

That’s what i was thinking myself, not to mention i’m almost positive Glint said you need to use part of the elder dragon to do any real damage to it… which i think we were going to do during one of those other phases.

draxynnic.3719:

CHIPS.6018:

-That’s my question: Who did it? You said all NC soldiers are biologists, and so by extension all Sylvari are biologists capable of creating that hybrid. I know for a fact that is false. I have a level 30 Sylvari warrior, and from her story so far there is a 0% chance that she can create that hybrid. She can barely grow an apple tree. She is that bad at biology.

Spend one skill point, and your sylvari warrior can cause vines to erupt out of the ground to grab at her enemy’s feet. For three each, she can throw a seed that grows nearly instantly into an autonomous seed-launching mortar, or plant one that emanates a healing aura. For ten, she can cover herself with a shield of vines while growing a ring of botanical mortars around her.

And this is the stuff that non-specialists can do, indicative of how the sylvari affinity for plants allows them to do things with them that would be miraculous for other races. This trend continues elsewhere – sylvari living as far away as the Black Citadel grow specialised plants for housing, human farmers in Kryta comment about recruiting sylvari for their affinity, while specialists among both the Wardens and the Nightmare Court can raise a variety of specialised plants and pretty much make them do whatever they like.

This doesn’t mean that the VillainSue label isn’t justified, but this particular aspect is not a part of it. Whether it’s Scarlet herself or her Nightmare Court allies, it’s entirely reasonable, in fact expected, for sylvari villains to be doing unnatural things with plants. If it really is in your mind that your sylvari warrior is hopeless with plants, than that means she is an exception, not anywhere near a typical member of the race.

On the topic of the Flame Legion Igniters – I think there is a technological element there. It may be a crude form of technomagic* rather than purely technological, but it’s clear that they’ve decided that flamethrowers are nice things to have and decided to make their own.

*If I had to guess, from the look I’d presume that the fuel is some form of concentrated elemental flame or something like that rather than conventional fuel, but it does have a crude technological firing mechanism so they can be given to non-shaman Fire Legion members..

Once again, I am not arguing about Scarlet anymore. I am arguing about the lack of details in Anet’s story writing.

Let’s be fair here. Let’s go back 2 weeks, before the release of Nightmare Within. If I told you back then that Sylvari can “easily” change anyone into powerful hybrids, would you believe me? Remember, the only beings that we have seen to do this are the Elder Dragons. They are the only ones that can corruption other life forms.

In the past, I did saw Sylvari manipulating plants. They can grow healing plants, ensnaring plants and such. But what we are seeing in the hybrid is very different. I am pretty sure I have never seen a Sylvari put someone (of another race) into a plant, and change him into something powerful hybrid. And so by lore it isn’t easy to do, if not flat out “impossible”.

So now what you guys are saying is that all Sylvari have the ability to make hybrids, and it is so easy to do that any no name Nightmare Court soldier can do it. Well I am sure this is news to even Sylvari players!

Anet never indicated who made the Hybrid. It could be Scarlet, NC soldiers or NC biologists. Who knows? And it is because of this lack of details that we are arguing over this.

If Anet would slow down their LS releases, and put more details into their work to explain things, we players can just sit back and enjoy the story. We wouldn’t need to spend time arguing over who made the Hybrid.

The main point here is not who made the Hybrid. Like I said many times I only care about the future stories at the point. The main point is for Anet to slow down their LS releases and put down solid details and facts in their LS.

CHIPS.6018:

So now what you guys are saying is that all Sylvari have the ability to make hybrids, and it is so easy to do that any no name Nightmare Court soldier can do it. Well I am sure this is news to even Sylvari players!

Now, you’re strawmanning.

I didn’t say it was something that any random sylvari could do, I’m saying that sylvari have a natural ability to manipulate plants, and the Nightmare Court has members that are explicitly specialised in manipulating plants and/or corrupting living things by twisting them to the Nightmare. It’s not actually a big stretch to imagine that a Nightmare Court faction might be able to take that one step further and graft nightmare-corrupted plants onto an animal subject.

While we don’t get specific names, we do get plenty of indications that there are high-ranking NC members involved, between champions, elites, and the Baron and Baroness that seem particularly focused on the hybrid in the instance at the top of the tower.

Now, yes, it WOULD be much better if we got more of these answers and details rather than having to fill in the blanks with theories, but our focus should be on giving the message that we want to see those holes filled in, not ranting about how something is breaking the lore when it’s actually a reasonable progression from things the faction in question is already associated with.

Yeah, honestly I’m surprised that the NC/Scarlet have seemed to create more of an outrage with you than the whole krait involvement. The krait involvement was the breaking point for me. Even if they explained things about them it still broke the view I had of the krait that I had at this point, and in my mind demeaned them a little bit. I hope that they get saved, but only future story will tell.

CHIPS.6018:

That’s my question: Who did it? You said all NC soldiers are biologists, and so by extension all Sylvari are biologists capable of creating that hybrid. I know for a fact that is false. I have a level 30 Sylvari warrior, and from her story so far there is a 0% chance that she can create that hybrid. She can barely grow an apple tree. She is that bad at biology.

I never said any sylvari can make the Hybrid. Know why? Not every sylvari has a tree like the Toxic Alliance does.

CHIPS.6018:

But those invasions did get them all killed. We players are more dangerous than Scarlet. So that “scared of Scarlet” argument is very weak as a reason to fight.

You. Aren’t. kittening. Listening. I’m saying that those numbers that you see is not accurate compared to the numbers in the lore. On both the sides of allies and that of enemies to the player.

CHIPS.6018:

You mean those Flame Legion Igniters? I am under the impression that their “flame throwers” are magical enhancements, based on how they look. It does not look technological at all.

If they were magic, there would be no need for a gun let alone a backpack. It is likely magitech. Nonetheless, the Flame Legion has never been a “no technology all magic” legion. Hell, they recruit from the other legions including Iron!

CHIPS.6018:

Konig of course I know Pact have an army somewhere. But we never see them do anything. The players are doing all the work. It is actually fine if the Pact is recovering from Zhaitan and so cannot mobilize anyone. But if that’s the case, maybe they should have, by lore, made Scarlet into a SMALL TERRORIST GROUP instead of an ARMY OF THOUSANDS. It is the writer’s job to put things into prospective.

See response to second quote, verbatim repeated and amplified times 100.

CHIPS.6018:

Once again, this is only for the lore, not the game play mechanics. They CAN still swarm the players with thousand of mobs for game play purposes. That DOESN’T matter. But it would have been so much better if they stated in the lore that this is just a SMALL TERRORIST GROUP of a hundred or less. And so of course the Pact will not be involved. They do not have time to chase down every single small terrorist group around.

The Pact only involves itself with Elder Dragons. Not psychotic terrorists. They wouldn’t involve themselves unless, like Citadel of Flames, their involvement results in more resources to fight the dragons.

CHIPS.6018:

Gameplay and lore should always be separated. But Anet must state this. If Anet do not say anything, the players will assume what they see is what is the truth. They are indeed facing an army of thousands.

I disagree and think you have absolutely no sense of disbelief. ArenaNet doesn’t have to spell things out in order for us to figure kitten out ourselves. They shouldn’t have to explain every little detail.

CHIPS.6018:

If Anet wants to reduce the amount of criticism they receive, then they should spend MORE time working out the “tiny” details of the story. That 2 week release schedule is NOT going to work. Look at how lacking are the details that could make or break a story! That’s the main message I want to give to Chris Whiteside.

Then you’re going about it the wrong way. ArenaNet won’t pay attention to the posts that can and are pointed out to be stupid or poor by others who agree with this final paragraph. As draxynnic said in another thread, you’re making yourself into a strawman for others to use against the argument of needing better quality in the game and lore.

Look I am getting really tired of repeating myself. I told you guys again and again that I DO NOT EVEN CARE about this Scarlet plot anymore. I want them to improve their details and facts in their story of the FUTURE.

Konig, look again at what you just wrote:

“I disagree and think you have absolutely no sense of disbelief. ArenaNet doesn’t have to spell things out in order for us to figure kitten out ourselves. They shouldn’t have to explain every little detail.”

Whoa whoa whoa hold on a second. So you do not care who made that big freaking tree and who made that hybrid? You think this is a part of your so-called “every little detail”? You think that this major plot hole should be up to audience to guess? (I mean let’s get real. Everyone here are just guessing, including me.)

Konig I really respect you. You are probably the top lore guy around here. But think again of what you just said. You basically just said “I don’t care about missing important details. I am willing to guess the plot to make it work.” (And yes you are just guessing, just like I am. Let’s get real.)

I am sorry. But I cannot accept this. We are the players and readers of this story. I mean sure for the really small stuff, we are willing to guess. But no way we should willing to guess the major plot holes. The writers should put in solid details and facts for those.

Don’t shoot the messenger. You and I both know major plot holes like this cannot be up to the audience to guess.

And Scarlet isn’t the only problem. It includes Zhaitan, Trahearne and others. I see a lack of details, character development and plot (and other problems I am too lazy to list right now) over and over again.

Konig, trust me when I say that my love for GW and the story is no less than yours. But this story just isn’t working for me right now. This insane 2 week LS release schedule is not going to work.

CHIPS: Most successful Scarlet troll ever?

….I’m beginning to think so.

CHIPS.6018:

Whoa whoa whoa hold on a second. So you do not care who made that big freaking tree and who made that hybrid? You think this is a part of your so-called “every little detail”? You think that this major plot hole should be up to audience to guess? (I mean let’s get real. Everyone here are just guessing, including me.)

That is not what I said at all. I’m talking about explaining why there are so few allied NPCs – Pact or otherwise – versus the numbers of enemy forces. That is among the “every little detail”. The Hybrid is something is expect to be among the “explained only if it won’t be touched in the future” category – if there’s no intention of going into it, then explain, otherwise leave open handed so that players have something major to speculate about. Like “what exactly are the titans?” Which got theorized about a lot before Nightfall. How interesting would the lore be if everything big and small is explained like you’re saying, intentionally or not, in each of your posts.

CHIPS.6018:

Konig I really respect you. You are probably the top lore guy around here. But think again of what you just said. You basically just said “I don’t care about missing important details. I am willing to guess the plot to make it work.” (And yes you are just guessing, just like I am. Let’s get real.)

No, that is not what I said. Try taking what you quoted from me in context to the selected quote I was responding to. Don’t you dare try to twist my words if you don’t care about the Scarlet plot like you claim (you make a very convincing case otherwise which just makes those who “actually” care about the plot and want it improved rather than just ended poorly a bad name). I do care about missing details, but I won’t kitten and moan over the obviously mechanical things like NPC numbers and I don’t want every important detail spelled out because I, like many in the lore community enjoy speculating. It’s probably the most fascinating part of the lore and the story – trying to figure out the missing pieces and where the story will go!

So in a way you’re right, but you’re also terribly wrong in what I said. Because I want eventual explanation of major details, not your immediate explanation of everything.

CHIPS.6018:

Don’t shoot the messenger. You and I both know major plot holes like this cannot be up to the audience to guess.

I’ll gladly shoot the messenger when it is the messenger who’s making the message. But you and I disagree. The major details are often the most fascinating to speculate about. For example: Scepter of Orr, Livia, pre-reveal Scarlet, Dhuum and Menzies, the nature of the sylvari, Elder Dragons, and Six Gods, where humanity came from. These and so many more are often THE most discussed topics on the lore forum, and they are all overall far more important than some krait-shaped sylvsrian plant.

CHIPS.6018:

And Scarlet isn’t the only problem. It includes Zhaitan, Trahearne and others. I see a lack of details, character development and plot (and other problems I am too lazy to list right now) over and over again.

Character development is far from the same thing as plot holes. I agree with character development. I disagree with your so-called plot holes so long as they are explained eventually.

I also agree on the schedule not working. But your complaint of things like the Pact or not being explicitly told who made the Hybrid? Not nearly as important of an issue. What exactly the hybrid is, is infinitely more important than “who among the Toxic Alliance made it” because we know it was the Toxic Alliance. It’s like complaining we don’t know who specifically grafted the Molten Berserker’s cybornetics on. Irrelevant. You only complain about it because it “makes Scarlet more of a Villain Sue” because you, without evidence, claimed she did it.

As a note on the Pact involvement thing…

Keep in mind that most of the PCs over level 60, whether acting in an official capacity or not, represent as a group the primary offensive arm of the Pact.

@ Konig

Numbers are not minor details though. How many enemies did the players actually killed in these missions? Like I said, the lore number can have nothing to do with the game play itself. The players can kill hundreds of foes. And after that mission is finish, why not have a NPC say “Great work at killing that tiny team of NC enemies!”

See here? The gameplay can put hundreds of foes against you. But then an NPC tell you that, in lore, you only killed maybe 30 foes. And that would be perfectly ok in my book. It helps the player keep things in prospective. It also explains why the Pact (or Queen Jennah) will not sent anyone to help the player. It was only 30 foes after all.

This is one of those things that “explained only if it won’t be touched in the future”. This battle is already done. The player already finished it. It will never be touched again. So why not give the players all the details and facts? How can the player went though a battle and still don’t know how big or small it was?

You say you enjoy speculation. Yes me too, but I speculate the plot not the numbers. Why is number important? Because let’s say by lore we only killed 30 foes. That’s actually very small. Its no wonder why Scarlet did not care about this tiny little defeat (yay explanation!).

Now let’s say by lore, the player killed thousands of foes. Now this actually hurts. That means, by lore, the enemy has taken a major blow. That’s a lot of manpower loss. And so Scarlet should get angry, very angry. Because this defeat hurts!

Now of course this is just one of many examples I could use. But now do you see how lore help explains character behaviour?

Small victory scenario:
-Why doesn’t Scarlet care about this defeat? Well it was only 30 guys who cares! It also explains why the Pact didn’t sent anyone to stop that Clockwork invasion. It also shows how small the MA actually is. Only a tiny faction, hundreds, of the Flame Legion and Dredge saw though their differences and allied. The rest, tens of thousands, remained separated from each other. etc

Big victory scenario:
-This defeat costed Scarlet thousands of men? Well she better get angry because this actually hurts! The Pact better send some help (off screen), because how can a party of 5 guys take out thousands of foes? etc

Scarlet is not Mary Sue
-She only managed to convince a small number (few hundred) of members of each faction to ally with each other to form the Toxic Alliance. These members are “rogue” elements. The official stance of NC (tens of thousands) still hates Kraits and view them as public enemy #1. And the official stance of the Kraits (tens of thousands) still hates every land dweller and will eat, enslave, sacrifice anyone they see on sight.

Centaurs doesn’t care about the Tower of Nightmares because its so small
-Small scale events would of course have small effects on the world. Why doesn’t the centaurs seem to care about the Tower of Nightmares? Well only a few hundred guys are in there. So who cares? It is better for the centaurs to take the opportunity to attack the Pact to gain ground and steal supplies.

Details and lore must go hand to hand. It helps the players keep things in prospective. That’s what separate good stories from bad ones.

If Anet does eventually fill those important details and facts, then my personal mission has been accomplished. I see a bright future ahead of GW2’s storyline. ^^

But it is minor. And saying such a thing will actually do the opposite of what you claim it’d do. It would make people think that the NC force, in that example, is really bloody huge if all those hundreds of foes was just a “small force”. And if they gave a number then players will feel cheated out of their accomplishment. It may work for you, but the vast majority of players will feel like they just got the short end of the stick – putting it mildly.

As to the battle being won… I’ll just point out Khilbron and Shiro. I don’t think I need say more to show that just because you think a plot is done and over with, doesn’t mean it is.

And honestly, whether you killed 5, 30, or 100 foes is irrelevant. What is relevant is the tasks done, in most cases. For example, did you really ever stop to think how important it was how many White Mantle you killed during the end of War in Kryta (if you played gw1), or how many Flame Legion you killed in Citadel of Flame? No, you didn’t. You’re only now complaining about numbers because you’re trying to find any arguement to use against Scarlet, no matter how irrelevant or flimsy.

Per your scenarios – I don’t think Scarlet would give a flying kitten if she even lost a million members of her alliances. She’s not after their numbers, but their inventions. Proven by the fact she doesn’t care that the tower and Hybrid get destroyed. Besides, we have been told the NC numbers are small. Sure, no concrete numbers but that’s so that mechanics and lore don’t outright and obviously clash which they would if you had your way. Your way would make the story hare inferior than it is over something trivial. Numbers of the enemy’s force doesn’t matter – their effectiveness and existence does.

But again, did you ever stop to wonder about NPC numbers before this? I somehow highly doubt it. You’re just going to keep trolling about Scarlet in your claims to be trying to get ANet to realize there are issues when not only have they acknowledge some of those biggest issues and you just hurt the argument that they’re messing up.

Furthering this is pointless so I am done.

I had never seen Scarlet before doing the Tower a few days ago, going through the top I was excited to see what this tower was for, what enemy I’d face and then I seen Scarlet’s ugly in game model and her really terrible taunts. I get she’s supposed to be crazy but it takes a well written character to pull off crazy, see the Joker. If the Joker was written like Scarlet is in game, the Joker would be one of the worst villains of all time.

She’s a terrible villain who does things that make no sense and seems to have no real baring on the world at hand. She serves no purpose it seems, in fact I’ve had a more interesting time debating with people about Kasmeer and Marjory being a couple than anything with Scarlet. After seeing Scarlet in game, had no desire to wiki her or find out more. I’ve wikied everything from the Human Gods, flame legion and the Asura, Sylvari, the Dragons, Animal Norn spirits and Orr.

I’ve yet to find one person in my guild or map chat who says they like her, a few seem to be neutral or say living story is a waste of time. You want a really good bad guy? Go read up on the Joker, read game of thrones, or anything similar to that. Hell Tony Sopranos uncle Jun made a better crazy villain, even if his craziness was pretend. It was better than Scarlet. Hell Q would be a good villain to study or even someone like Hitler who could motivate people to do things as people earlier mentioned.

Gotta agree with Konig on that numbers thing. Think, for example, of any number of other games, even ones with highly-developed storylines and background— the Half Life universe, the Bioshock series, etc, etc.

There is never any thought given to how many Splicers you killed in Rapture, or how large, numerically, the Combine force on Earth is. You know the Combine force is bloody huge. Putting a number on it would not deepen the experience, or make it more immersive; it would only put players’ experiences on a collision course with lore.

I think scarlet doesn’t slay lore but she has none. And in the void we are left with hopeful dreams of lore related living story and Scarlet’s quick death.

CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE! The “Scarlet Fiasco” is now making gaming news. MMORPG.COM picked up a feed about it, and it is lighting up their forums the way it was lighting up ours… last month.

So, having read some these complaints….it seems like the general Scarlett Briar plot makes sense to me, and I haven’t even dug that deep into all of the dialogue.

She is independent, resenting the predestination of her Dream, and so she rejected it and started looking for ways to break it. In doing so she managed to experience a vision of what she believes to be the eternal alchemy, which is a “mind of god” kinda thing, more than her mortal man could quite take, so she goes a bit crazy.

Now, we do not know exactly what she saw, but whatever she saw she is now obsessed with disrupting it, and her vision into the eternal alchemy has given her various as of yet unclear powers to manipulate and control things.

So we have no idea what she saw, or what her end game is, but there is nothing inconsistent or lore breaking there, and these mysteries will make for compelling future plot.

Now in the Tower of Nightmares…how did she get the ultra Xenophobic Krait to ally with the Nightmare Court? It kinda explicitly says it if you pay attention to NPC dialogue. The Nightmare Court and/or Scarlett promised to help the Krait give birth to their Prophet, which is the Toxic Hybrid which would have gown to be some kind of immensely powerful Living Krait God if we had not been there to kill it shortly after its birth.

So what is unclear? Except that which is deliberately still unclear.

Many people, like myself, find it extremely unbelievable that the krait would listen to Scarlet or the Nightmare Court. Their xenophobia has been so far reaching that it states in one of the explanations of the race (old blog post) that they think themselves far superior to any race. They believe that once their prophets return they will swallow the world in ocean and all other inferior races will be destroyed or be their slaves. So why would a race that believes they are superior to all others listen to some plant people who say they can give them a god.

I think the biggest problem comes from the fact that we have had no interaction with the krait Oratuss (religious ruling class) but from what we’ve been told, their reaction should not have been what we got.

Narcemus.1348:

Many people, like myself, find it extremely unbelievable that the krait would listen to Scarlet or the Nightmare Court. Their xenophobia has been so far reaching that it states in one of the explanations of the race (old blog post) that they think themselves far superior to any race. They believe that once their prophets return they will swallow the world in ocean and all other inferior races will be destroyed or be their slaves. So why would a race that believes they are superior to all others listen to some plant people who say they can give them a god.

I think the biggest problem comes from the fact that we have had no interaction with the krait Oratuss (religious ruling class) but from what we’ve been told, their reaction should not have been what we got.

What makes you think they wouldn’t accept help from a lesser race who wants to help them bring forth a krait prophet? If they’re right, and the prophet comes back, there is absolutely no downside for the krait, and so long as there’s still a plus for the race being wrong there’s literally no reason to say no.

Most people that don’t believe it seem to think xenophobic = too stupid to accept a good deal.

hensatri.9104:

So what is unclear? Except that which is deliberately still unclear.

It is nothing to do with clarity. It has to do with the fact that this character is a convenient excuse for filling plot holes. One that sadly missed out on the “villain package deal”. You know, the evil genius mixed with personality and style.
The kind of villain we love to beat, since it gives a sense of satisfaction, progressed the plot and woe is me, it actually is an enjoyable trip.

Right now she isn’t fun to deal with or to read about.
All she is, when summed up, is as follows:

• Unnecessarily powerful.
• Redundantly intelligent.
• Unrealistically persuasive, when it comes to other races and/or factions.
• Evil for the sake of being evil. (but only when it suits the plot)

The official team even had to retcon her power of speshul in regards to her time with the Asura, to try and convince the players that she’s not a Mary Sue. It didn’t convince me. And it didn’t convince a whole lot of other people, either.

Scarlet remains a poor excuse for all that’s happened, so we can only hope they manage to crank up the writing quality a bit the next few weeks, since it’s really getting repetitive and boring.

Don’t agree? Try this:
Sum up all the Living Story bits and paste, “-because Scarlet” behind it. No matter how unrelated, she’s almost always been pasted on top of it. Not because it made sense, not because she could realistically have done it. But because the plot demanded we have a universal villain, and sadly this is the one we got.

Durzlla.6295:

Narcemus.1348:

Many people, like myself, find it extremely unbelievable that the krait would listen to Scarlet or the Nightmare Court. Their xenophobia has been so far reaching that it states in one of the explanations of the race (old blog post) that they think themselves far superior to any race. They believe that once their prophets return they will swallow the world in ocean and all other inferior races will be destroyed or be their slaves. So why would a race that believes they are superior to all others listen to some plant people who say they can give them a god.

I think the biggest problem comes from the fact that we have had no interaction with the krait Oratuss (religious ruling class) but from what we’ve been told, their reaction should not have been what we got.

What makes you think they wouldn’t accept help from a lesser race who wants to help them bring forth a krait prophet? If they’re right, and the prophet comes back, there is absolutely no downside for the krait, and so long as there’s still a plus for the race being wrong there’s literally no reason to say no.

Most people that don’t believe it seem to think xenophobic = too stupid to accept a good deal.

To me, their xenophobia has thus far been at the level of “We’re far superior to everyone else.” What is hard for me to fathom is why a race that believes this would think that an inferior race could do what they could not, and bring back their prophets.

The charr were similar in some ways, originally, but we got to see their religious structure and the holes within it. This made a believable transition for me from being an entirely evil race to one that is flawed but usable. The problem I’m having is we’ve had no interaction with the religious group which has chosen to do this. We do not know if they were just duped, or if they are logical fanatics like the Flame Legion and are willing to do whatever in order to increase their power. I think some more interaction than a single piece of dialogue from a single member of the Oratuss could put me at ease, but as of this moment, everything is just wrong for me. I’m fine with accepting that what has happened, has happened, but I think the biggest thing for me is the upcoming view of what happens after this all falls apart. If the krait and NC are still chummy after the krait find out they’ve been duped, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stomach it anymore. I find it far more believable that the actions of creating this alliance will have repercussions for both the Oratuss, the Nightmare Court, and possibly even Scarlet.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Gotta agree with Konig on that numbers thing. Think, for example, of any number of other games, even ones with highly-developed storylines and background— the Half Life universe, the Bioshock series, etc, etc.

There is never any thought given to how many Splicers you killed in Rapture, or how large, numerically, the Combine force on Earth is. You know the Combine force is bloody huge. Putting a number on it would not deepen the experience, or make it more immersive; it would only put players’ experiences on a collision course with lore.

Yes the Combine from HL2 was huge. To balance the story, it was made obvious throughout that Gordon Freeman didn’t fight alone. There are probably millions of rebels out there world wide doing their own battles off screen.

It was the same thing with Resistance. It should be obvious that Nathan Hale didn’t fight alone. There are pockets of resistance everywhere off screen.

We don’t see this indication at all during this whole Scarlet sage. The players are doing everything, while the Pact sits at the sidelines and do nothing. To balance the story, the number of enemies that the players faces must be limited to 30-100 by lore. Why? Because it won’t make any sense for the player to kill a million foes all by himself.

A lot of you guys are saying details like this doesn’t matter. That’s simply an excuse for poor story delivery. Of course it matters. Because without it, how do you know if your victory was BIG or SMALL? How do you know? And what would be the correct response from the NPCs? Details like this is important, but you guys are OK with it being missing. That’s all.

And like I said, this number thing is just ONE of MANY examples. Important details and facts are missing throughout the whole story.

To me the exact numbers have never been important in the GW universe. I killed thousands of afflicted, white mantle, and undead individually, but the exact numbers was never the point. GW2 is muuuuuuuch better when it comes to proportions on these things. I mean me and a few friends held Lion’s Arch with the help of like 20 NPC’s against well over 100-200 foes. In GW2, at least there are some NPC’s to help us along.

I assume your problem, CHIPS, was with the clockwork invasions. I assume this because I haven’t seen thousands, let alone millions, of enemies in any other update. there’s always less than 100 I’d say (with the exception of this fortress which I would hope would have more). I look at those invasions and I see them as proportions not numbers. There are 20 Molten alliance individuals that appear in an area, versus hundreds of Aetherblades or hundreds of the twisted minions. This reads to me that her army is mostly backed by Aetherblades and twisted minions, and she has a few remainders of MA around to push into combat. And I take that along-side the players around me which I see as the combined good of Tyria fighting back. If you require NPC’s to be there fighting your battles for you fine, but leave the rest of us be.

Narcemus.1348:

To me the exact numbers have never been important in the GW universe. I killed thousands of afflicted, white mantle, and undead individually, but the exact numbers was never the point. GW2 is muuuuuuuch better when it comes to proportions on these things. I mean me and a few friends held Lion’s Arch with the help of like 20 NPC’s against well over 100-200 foes. In GW2, at least there are some NPC’s to help us along.

I assume your problem, CHIPS, was with the clockwork invasions. I assume this because I haven’t seen thousands, let alone millions, of enemies in any other update. there’s always less than 100 I’d say (with the exception of this fortress which I would hope would have more). I look at those invasions and I see them as proportions not numbers. There are 20 Molten alliance individuals that appear in an area, versus hundreds of Aetherblades or hundreds of the twisted minions. This reads to me that her army is mostly backed by Aetherblades and twisted minions, and she has a few remainders of MA around to push into combat. And I take that along-side the players around me which I see as the combined good of Tyria fighting back. If you require NPC’s to be there fighting your battles for you fine, but leave the rest of us be.

Let me put this another way. If the writers clearly stated the commitment levels and scales from both sides of a conflict, we would not need the exact numbers.

During the Battle of LA the exact number doesn’t matter because the lore clearly stated that both sides were fully committed into this one single battle.

The whole Shining Blade, Lion’s Guard (SB&LG) and players fought side by side. The ally NPC factions has given the player as much help as they could afford at the time. It was a fully committed, fully invested battle.

It was stated, by lore, that the White Mantle and Mursaats (WM&M) was destroyed in that battle. After that defeat the WM&M cease to be an effective fighting force and had to go into hiding. So that means the Battle of LA was a fully committed, fully invested battle for the WM&M also.

When both sides are fully committed, the results will be decisive. It was victor takes all. It doesn’t matter if this battle involved hundreds of thousands. The exact numbers doesn’t matter, because it should be very clear to the readers that this battle was as BIG as it could have been. This battle was as IMPORTANT as it could have been.

So now let’s look at GW2.

The writers has never told us how big those battles are. For example those Clockwork Invasions. The writters never talked about the commitment level and scale. This leads to many questions unanswered. Let’s separate the questions into 2 types:

Real questions:
Where did Scarlet get such huge manpower?
Why did Scarlet react like she doesn’t care about these defeats?
Why isn’t the Pact there to help?

These questions can be answered by answering:
How big are there attacks? Are they small terrorist raids? Are they considered border skirmish? Or are they fully committed, fully invested battles? What are they?

If the writers clearly stated that these Clockwork Invasions are merely small terrorist raids or border skirmishes, then a lot of questions would have been answered. ’

On other other hand, if the writers said that was a fully committed battle, then perhaps they should give Scarlet more reaction to these defeats.

e.g. Upon hearing of the defeat, the Emperor Augustus, according to the Roman historian Suetonius in De vita Caesarum (“On the Life of the Caesars”), was so shaken that he stood butting his head against the walls of his palace, repeatedly shouting:
“Quintili Vare, legiones redde!“ (‘Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!’)

Why was Augustus so angry? Be a defeat in a fully committed battle changes history.

CHIPS.6018:

Why isn’t the Pact there to help?

The Pact is there.

The main strength of the Pact is PCs. Even in Orr, this is the case – Pact NPCs are mostly just facilitating events and performing the jobs that would be dreary for a player. When you have swarms of PCs descending on a location, it means a significant portion of the Pact’s strength is already there.

Additionally, most of these events have explicitly had two or all three of the orders that comprise the Pact taking an interest. It’s not explicitly stated as being an action of the Pact, but those personnel and resources are nevertheless personnel and resources that would likely otherwise have been dispatched to “official” Pact operations. It’s likely that the reason it’s shown as Vigil, Whispers and Priory operating independently rather than as the Pact is simply so that players who haven’t got that far in the Personal Story don’t get spoilers as to what the Pact is.

When it comes to the invasions, to be honest, I’m inclined to write them off as a gimmick that doesn’t really contribute to canon, at least not on the scale they’re being shown on. So, basically, terrorist raids.

The Pact isn’t there because a player shouldn’t see the Pact before doing his/her personal story where they see it created. The living story by design does not assume the personal story is completed for any character. This is why we always see the three orders in the living story.

I think there have been some continuity errors, such as few NPCs celebrating the killing of a dragon at the dragon bash (without naming Zaitan), but I do see those as errors rather than intentional clues to the timeline.

My impression was that, up to somewhere between Dragon Bash and Tequatl, the idea was that the Living Story was set after the Personal Story, even though they tried to limit spoilers. It was with the Tequatl release that the policy seems to have publicly changed to the Schrodinger’s Zhaitan situation we have now (it may have changed earlier, but there was nothing in the bazaar or jubilee months to suggest whether they were before or after Zhaitan’s defeat).

Given that the ship from LA to Labyrinthine Cliffs had to take you around Orr to enter the Mire Sea, it was after Z’s defeat as well.

Side note: And even then, the geography of Tyria is just totally screwed up now, with the addition of Southsun Cove closing off the northern basin of the Sea of Sorrows. That ship would’ve had a near impossible time getting through the shallows and mini-straits between the Cove and the islands west of Sparkfly, THEN sailing through the Shark Teeth Archipelago which are not only riddled with the shallowest waters in Orr (also ridden with wreckage), but the waterway between the islands are blocked by metal bridges that are way too low for a ship of the LA standard size to cruise below. Realistically, we could’ve never gotten to the Cliffs in one piece.

Yeah, that’s a discussion that’s been had before – there are channels to the east and west of Southsun that you could take a ship down, but it’d be dicey and you probably wouldn’t really want to be relying on wind power.

I’d have to say that it really feels like ArenaNet dropped the ball on that one. It really should have had its long axis be north-south, have it be situated further east (make it explicitly the island off the side of Sparkfly) and/or just put it somewhere else entirely even if that meant expanding the map.

As it is… possibly the best thing they can do is just acknowledge that Southsun is on dungeon scale rather than overland scale, and that compared to the rest of the overland map it just isn’t actually as big as its shown on the map.

draxynnic.3719:

As it is… possibly the best thing they can do is just acknowledge that Southsun is on dungeon scale rather than overland scale, and that compared to the rest of the overland map it just isn’t actually as big as its shown on the map.

That’s the route my suspension of disbelief says. The scaling of the game is really screwy, so I presume everything is larger than we really see it to be in the open world. Southsun seems to be a good exception to the rule, just as dungeons are.

And this goes for depths and heights as much as lengths/widths. I mean, if you look at most of those “rivers” (more like creeks) that you have bridges spanning over, they’re so shallow that unless you’ve got wheels or electrics going over there’s no need for a bridge. And most trade caravans we see are not really wagons but oxen and marmoxen (marmoxes? marmox?). So I just kick in my suspension of disbelief when it comes to sizes (and number of NPCs), because otherwise it just doesn’t make any sense in realism.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

draxynnic.3719:

As it is… possibly the best thing they can do is just acknowledge that Southsun is on dungeon scale rather than overland scale, and that compared to the rest of the overland map it just isn’t actually as big as its shown on the map.

That’s the route my suspension of disbelief says. The scaling of the game is really screwy, so I presume everything is larger than we really see it to be in the open world. Southsun seems to be a good exception to the rule, just as dungeons are.

And this goes for depths and heights as much as lengths/widths. I mean, if you look at most of those “rivers” (more like creeks) that you have bridges spanning over, they’re so shallow that unless you’ve got wheels or electrics going over there’s no need for a bridge. And most trade caravans we see are not really wagons but oxen and marmoxen (marmoxes? marmox?). So I just kick in my suspension of disbelief when it comes to sizes (and number of NPCs), because otherwise it just doesn’t make any sense in realism.

Not to mention that on Southsun there’s mobs like every 3 feet, yet Kiel managed to escort refugees and visitors from the docks (likely the north east dock on the island since there were consortium present and it’d make sense) down to the resort (south east) with what must’ve been minimal to no casualties or life threatening events since more tourists are going to that place…

PS: I’m pretty sure the plural for Marmox is Marmox

Scarlett and LS are just marketing tools for their “every 2 weeks you get ‘free’ DLCs scheme.” They were not well thought out at all, and they keep baiting you guys thinking if "I wait a little longer they will reveal something. "

Definitely signed if Scarlt’s backstory of lack of therefor remains on same level.
As it was mentioned nearly all of problems(at least mine) with that annoying character would disappear if we were given chance to see her “genius” in action. Maybe in form of new fractal. Imagine this:
We are transported in past and take form of some nameless mooks helping forge Flame Alliance alongside Scarlet. Players believing they are reliving past events just go with it. In the end we find out that Scarlet knew who we were all along(thanks to her Mist related backstory) and WE are ones responsible for all events that came to happen in Tyria. Not only we would be able to see Scarlet in action, maybe learn something about her goals or at least see how she/we managed to get two different factions together.
Scarlet is not a bad character, she is extremely lazy designed. She is in a way emulating Personal Story of player character – bringing different factions into a Pact to fight common threat. For us it was Zaithan for her it can be Pale Tree. Maybe we see some nice connections between those plotlines.
Too much is unknown about her to make her even remotely interesting and that what we know doesn’t help.

All I want to add is one thing, one thing that destroys the credibility of Scarlet for me.

The introduction of a “major villain” with no previous direct relation to the Elder Dragons, who were the main plot of the original GW2 Story, specifically Zhaitan. There were many questions or mysteries that were shown during our quest to combat Zhaitan, but none of which would point to the current villain, Scarlet.
The Lore has been built years before the introduction of Scarlet, and there are still many unanswered questions which could had been built off of. Instead we now have a new villain with no previous connection to anything we previously knew. I feel like I started a new book without finishing the previous one. I don’t like unfinished books.