Guild Wars 2

Erukk.1408:

All the information regarding her superior intellect have been there for months, so you can’t say they “didn’t give any explanations”. All you had to do was look for it.

Yet there was no reason WHY she is that smart. Only that she is. There’s no explanation why she is that much more smarter than other Sylvari, and there’s no perspective. Uzolan for example, was a genious among humans…but he couldn’t quite match the skill of Asura. He could only match them on a rudimentary level. This still makes him extremely smart for a human, but not unrealisticaly so. Scarlet on the other hand, is an Einstein among cavemen with no explanation whatsoever. Why is she so much smarter than a regular Sylvari? Why aren’t the other Sylvari smarter than they are now?

No explanation whatsoever.

Oh, and for the record: the Asura stating that Scarlet has advanced degrees in all colleges was retracted in a later dev post. She’s only got basic training now. Which makes a lot more sense, really.

Dott.5672:

Has anyone else noticed how Bobby Stein never seems to respond to negative feedback about Scarlet? He usually carefully steps around it in his responses – or he just ignores it altogether.

I’ve noticed it. He avoids negative criticism as much as he could it seems, while almost always responding to positive feedback.

He’s really only responded to the negative feedback when it comes to the storytelling – which was always responded to with “we’re working on improving it” – or in the recent LS discussion thread which he finally acknowledged things were not as good as they could have been with her.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t think that’s fair. What do we really expect him to say? As a writer you work hard to make the story as fun as you possibly can. And it’s harsh to receive a lot of negative feedback. I’ve had colleagues in a similar situation, and best thing you can do is not take it too personal, and try to learn from it.

The devs have already acknowledged that they are aware that many players find the story a bit lacking. What more can they say? I don’t think it’s being ignored.

Eh, it’s one thing to not respond to feedback. It’s another to often respond to positive feedback, but not negative feedback.

Doesn’t mean it’s ignored, but at least open acknowledgement before a thread dedicated for discussion between Anet and players when it’s been around months prior to said thread would be healthy.

ThiBash.5634:

Yet there was no reason WHY she is that smart. Only that she is. There’s no explanation why she is that much more smarter than other Sylvari, and there’s no perspective.

Why was Einstein so smart? Why is one person smarter than another? Same thing.

There doesn’t have to be some special reason behind someone having a high IQ. And that’s what Scarlet was.

Being able to go through all the colleges was a bit over the top – but they toned it down (or clarified the poorly written short story that feels like it did not go through an editing pass at all beyond Microsoft Word spellcheck) and stated that she only went through specialized courses to prove that she is capable of handling the coursework of the colleges.

ThiBash.5634:

Why aren’t the other Sylvari smarter than they are now?

Why would they be? There may be some that are smarter, but:

1. Scarlet is disconnected from the dream. She is a Soundless. (Mentioned in an interview with TowerTalk, though the term Soundless is not used).
2. Just because she is smart, or knows a lot, doesn’t mean that even if her experiences went into the Dream of Dreams, that new sylvari would have that knowledge let alone have her understanding of systems which in of itself is more akin to IQ (if not the same) and not experiences and knowledge. It’s the same reason why newborn sylvari are not smarter than the Firstborn.

ThiBash.5634:

Oh, and for the record: the Asura stating that Scarlet has advanced degrees in all colleges was retracted in a later dev post. She’s only got basic training now. Which makes a lot more sense, really.

Not basic training. Specialized. We don’t know what it entails but it “specialized” is different than “basic.”

And not a post but an interview.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

He’s really only responded to the negative feedback when it comes to the storytelling – which was always responded to with “we’re working on improving it” – or in the recent LS discussion thread which he finally acknowledged things were not as good as they could have been with her.

I don’t know what else you were expecting? Do we want the guy to come on the forums on his knees, begging for our forgiveness? I can appreciate that some members of the team find the time to respond at all. I’m sure they are busy enough as it is. Lets be reasonable.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Eh, it’s one thing to not respond to feedback. It’s another to often respond to positive feedback, but not negative feedback.

There’s not much you can say about negative feedback as a writer. I believe any writer sets out to write a good story, and usually they are of the opinion that the story they’ve written is indeed good. But then when faced with overwhelming negativity, what do you say to that? They’ve already stated that they are working on improving the story, what more can they say?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Doesn’t mean it’s ignored, but at least open acknowledgement before a thread dedicated for discussion between Anet and players when it’s been around months prior to said thread would be healthy.

I’m not sure if every negative bit of feedback deserves a response. Besides, acknowledgement can also create false expectations by the players. They’ve already progressed quite far with the Scarlet story now, and it would be impossible to do a 180 turn now, and suddenly make her a compelling villain. Besides, not every player is in agreement with us that she is a badly written character. And to be honest, when she was first introduced I also found her quite entertaining, so I can understand that some players might like the story as it is.

I’m not making excuses here for the bad writing. But please do realize that it is a rare thing for devs to communicate so openly and directly with their customers.

I just hope we get answers after Scarlet concluded.

I want to know what he envisioned and then how it turns out, with references to the negative feedback he got.
Right now they are still protecting the property. he can`t talk, without giving anything away, so i hope we get some honest answers after we ended this chapter

Looks like Bobby responded to the overwhelming complaints:

BobbyStein.2315:

I received a PM from someone this morning. Rather than reply directly I decided to share my response with the community for transparency.

“Why do you never respond to negative feedback about Scarlet? I’ve seen you reply to people who like Scarlet, but almost never to people who dislike her. Why the bias?”

Here’s a tip: Devs are much more likely to engage in discussion when the tone isn’t overwhelmingly negative and hostile. I have to devote what little time I have for forum review to a couple of threads, and lately that’s been the Collaborative Development one. Please post here and keep it constructive and in the spirit of discussion. Also, please understand that none of us can reply to every post. Just because we haven’t responded to your specific question does not mean that we haven’t read your feedback or are discussing it internally.

We can see from a user’s post history if they’re routinely complaining about the same things in a multitude of threads and often taking a sarcastic tone. That’s useless feedback that more often annoys devs to the point that they won’t take you seriously. You want to be heard? Keep the delivery constructive and civil. It’s pretty simple.

I’m totally open to discuss Scarlet, but you have to understand something: it takes months for any feedback to make its way into a release so don’t be surprised if a comment about the November story delivery doesn’t affect the December release (those deadlines are long past). Also, I’m not at liberty to discuss the contents of future unannounced releases, so while you may get frustrated that “we’re not listening” or that “we’re hiding information from you” the reality is much simpler. Building releases takes months, and sometimes features or other items shift dates, or we’ve had to adjust the story or release schedule due to external factors (including community feedback). I know I sound like Subdirector Blingg when I say, “We haven’t revealed X yet, but it will be featured in an upcoming release.” I’m not at libertly to divulge release schedules or story timelines outside of a current release so I can’t say much more than that.

People want more details about Scarlet. We know that. Details will be revealed in the near future and will be paced more aggressively. Until then, I hope you enjoy the game and our most recent Living World release and continue to constructively tell us what you think. Thanks.

And:

BobbyStein.2315:

smeen.4237:

Scarlet, although I do love her voice acting (I think there’s no Sylvari that sounds this good) is shallow to me just because she’s doing all of it herself. Yeah she has her alliances but there’s no interaction, no chemistry, no nothing between them. Scarlet is above all of this, she has nobody to interact with and that doesn’t do her character any good. Characters grow and develop when they interact with others, but since she’s not interacting with anyone she just stays the same. And how she is right now doesn’t work for me. I don’t even think she’s a convincing villain, she’s just a bored child to me.

Thanks for the constructive feedback. I think you’re right in that Scarlet, because she’s not often interacting with other characters, doesn’t have the same opportunities to grow as a character. She just shows up, says a few things, and then blips out. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to play the Twilight Assault dungeon, but Scarlet has a few exchanges with Caithe that hints a bit about their respective pasts.

We’ve known about this issue for a while and have a few things in development that should flesh out her character in greater detail through a variety of methods. I can’t say when they’ll go live, only that they’re written and being built now.

smeen.4237:

Also, I would like to thank you guys personally for that recap cinematic in the latest update. I missed the assasination and it was great to see something of it, even if it was minimal. You should make these recaps more frequently, I think.

You’re welcome. To be honest, we wanted to do this sort of thing for every release but we just haven’t had the resources. I’m glad that for some people this elicited the intended response. Some folks were disappointed that we didn’t reveal more details in the cinematic, and I can understand that, That’s why we made a conscious effort to put more info in upcoming releases, so keep your eyes open.

Erukk.1408:

…..

Erukk, it is preciously because I read those “so called” explanations that it doesn’t make any sense.

“Lore Slayer was born and opened her eyes, and she naturally sees how complex systems are simply a mix of smaller interlocking systems.”

Explanation? There were none. She was just born awesome. Tony the Skritt was born awesome too.

“When Lore Slayer constructed a fully functional golemite on the fly from a small power crystal, a handful of raw ore, and a few select spells, the Arcane Council begrudgingly granted her provisional status as Dynamics student.”

Explanation for her intelligent? There were none. Without attending any Asuran elementary schools or high school, how was she able to make that golem? Because she is the Lore Slayer! Tony the Skirtt made the Sand Gun in the same manner.

“Lore Slayer completed the Dynamics coursework in under a year as the highest-ranked student in her class. Chagrined, the councilors give her the same opportunity in Statics. When she achieved similar results in a similar time frame, they were intrigued enough to see if she could do the same with Synergetics.”

LOLWUT? The Lore Slayer is soooooooooooooooo smart! OMG I should love her, but nope I hate her because she isn’t believable. I actually like Tony the Skirtt more because he is more cute and he fights for the good guys.

“Synergetics took quite a bit longer, however, as Lore Slayer finally found a field of study that was a boundless as her interest. She immersed herself in Synergetics’ miasmic mix of mystical energy patterns and arcane probabilities; in its focus on chaos theory and mapping unpredictable connections; in the pursuit of hidden knowledge and secret mechanisms derived in equal parts from the contemplation of the ephemeral and the application of the practical.”

OMG the synergetics are slightly harder now. But this isn’t a failure! This is more opportunity for the Lore Slayer to show off how awesome she is by being boundless. Everything is possible now! She is not as good as Tony the Skritt, because he graduated even faster than the Lore Slayer!

““Emissary Vorpp: Of course. I know of this Scarlet. She earned advanced engineering degrees at each of Rata Sum’s colleges in record time.
Emissary Vorpp: “Engineering prodigy,“ they said. “Intuitive grasp of phenomenological design and transcendent systems.“ Pfah, I say. Pfah!”

WHOA so that’s 3 degrees! And each time she had to start a fresh because they are different colleges. In our human world, each degree would take 4 years. So what would take us 12 years took her, what, 3 years?

How is the Lore Slayer so smart? Was it explained? Ok let’s look back.

-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.

Because of the above 3 explanations, the readers are 100% convinced that the Lore Slayer’s background is legit.

>_>

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I don’t know what else you were expecting? Do we want the guy to come on the forums on his knees, begging for our forgiveness? I can appreciate that some members of the team find the time to respond at all. I’m sure they are busy enough as it is. Lets be reasonable.

You’re rather exaggerative about my post. I’m not expecting any of that. In fact, I explicitly stated what I’d prefer: just simple acknowledgement of the criticism.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There’s not much you can say about negative feedback as a writer. I believe any writer sets out to write a good story, and usually they are of the opinion that the story they’ve written is indeed good. But then when faced with overwhelming negativity, what do you say to that? They’ve already stated that they are working on improving the story, what more can they say?

As a writer who has faced a lot of negativity to my ideas, I responded with explaining the direction I took and why.

That isn’t really asking much, and I’m not even asking that much. But my post about Bobby (almost) never responding to negative feedback was prior to the open discussion thread. Meaning before they had openly admitted that there are issues with the story and they’re working on improving it. Beforehand, all it was were a bunch of comments thanking people who posted that they like Scarlet, ignoring those who gave critical criticism on the character of Scarlet, and responding to those who gave criticism on the showing of the story with “we’re working on ways to improve it.” The last was good, the first is okay, but the third is rather… silly to do when doing the other two as well.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’m not sure if every negative bit of feedback deserves a response. Besides, acknowledgement can also create false expectations by the players. They’ve already progressed quite far with the Scarlet story now, and it would be impossible to do a 180 turn now, and suddenly make her a compelling villain. Besides, not every player is in agreement with us that she is a badly written character. And to be honest, when she was first introduced I also found her quite entertaining, so I can understand that some players might like the story as it is.

I’m not making excuses here for the bad writing. But please do realize that it is a rare thing for devs to communicate so openly and directly with their customers.

Every? No. That would end up taking too much time. But periodical? Sure. If you’re going to put in time thanking 10 posters who say little more than “I like Scarlet.” then you should at least acknowledge that you have read and will consider but give no guarantees of story direction to 5 of the much longer posts that give critical and non-offensive criticism about the same topic (Scarlet).

It’s the odd proportions that makes it feel like Bobby is giving favoritism to those who like his work. Even if he means nothing bad by it – and I’m sure that is the case – it does not help to see that the well written and well thought up posts get seemingly ignored but the post above and the post below get commented on (and yes, something like that did happen). It can feel like he’s flipping the bird at the poster. Should he be expected to answer even half of the posts? No. Hell, it shouldn’t be expected for him to even read any post. But if you’re going to put time and effort to thank the one-line “compliments” then you should put some time and effort to thank the much longer criticism.

If nothing else, say “thank you for the feedback.”

And I’m not saying he should respond to the posts that effectively say “you’re kittening stupid for thinking up Scarlet” which I have sadly seen. Those should be ignored outright in regards to responses. I’m talking about the ones that are actually constructive.

On the topic of Bobby Stein:

I think it is human nature to treat positive posts more favourably than negative posts. Not everyone takes criticism well. But yes a few simple acknowledgement on those negative posts would go a long way.

TBH right now I only worry about future storylines. This worry came from the past storylines of Traherne, Zhaitan and the Lore Slayer. This is quite a while of dull Mary Sue like characters, anti climatic storylines and storylines that doesn’t make sense.

This whole Lore Slayer sega is pretty much a write off for me. I don’t recommend Anet to “waste” too much time on fixing her. Work on the next villain. Make it good.

CHIPS.6018:

This whole Lore Slayer sega is pretty much a write off for me. I don’t recommend Anet to “waste” too much time on fixing her. Work on the next villain. Make it good.

Sadly I do have to agree on that note. I would prefer if they moved on, and went back to GW1 lore.

And I understand your point Konig, it does feel a bit like we’re being ignored, when a lot of the positive feedback is answered, and the negative is ignored. There are a lot of really good posts that provide ideas on how to make the story better, or which explain why Scarlet doesn’t work for them. I do agree that when posters take the time to write such long constructive posts, that some form of aknowledgement* would be fitting.

(* misspelled to avoid the dumb censor)

I have a question : played the new content yesterday and tried to really pay attention. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The Krait got their brains messed up by the toxins. They didn’t knew they were working with Scarlet or even the NC. Instead, they thought they were their prophets.

If I didn’t get that wrong, at first glance it doesn’t bother me too much. What however bothers me is what it really implies :
-Scarlet didn’t need to Krait to create those toxins, nor does she have any further plans for them since she let’s us kill her creation.
-She (maybe) only needed them to release massively the toxins.
-And the worse : what if all of this was a lie ? Maybe she didn’t have access to the toxins the times we met before, fine. But in the future, that thing touched everyone, everyone ice broods.

Does anyone else think that Kasmeer getting hurt by a torn is something that shouldn’t be considered trivial ?

And do we know who was the mesmer behind the cloaking spell ?

I understand that they wished to take all the bits of Living Story and paste it together.
So they went for a villain. Something the players can work toward to to beat.
This much I understand easily. And indeed, it is a solid idea.

But why only one villain? Why a new villain?
Why not blame it on the existing “evil” factions? There’s the Inquest, there’s the Nightmare Court, the Flame Legion, the Seperatists and Renegades. The list goes on and on.

What it looks like to me is that the designers tasked the writer(s) with the task to create a universal villain. It just massively backfired, plainly because they wanted said villain to cover far too much ground. Scarlet had to be super powerful, intelligent, resourceful and far more to manage all this, but it makes her a mundanely dull thing that is hardly still a person. Often referred to as a Mary Sue – Far too perfect, which makes others arguably unnecessary to even still exist since she can do anything, anywhere, and automatically better than anyone else too.

Lots of people have already suggested it, but here goes again:
Drop this. Kill her off. Have her vanish.
Let her perform a heroic sacrifice as she’s talked out of all this, for all I care.

But please move back to the “real” lore.
There are still the Elder Dragons. We need not topple one instantly, or one every two weeks. Heck no. But knowing we are gaining the grounds to defeat one each year or so would be neat.

If you can build all this, why not build an Underworld or Fissure of Woe instance again? Let old meet new – the old content the veterans all love, with the new mechanics so everyone can enjoy it, with rewards to match.

Also remember that Bobby Stein answer is half of the story. They may not directly respond to overly negative criticism, but they do listen. They can’t be blind to it. Especially if the negative criticism is brought up a thousand times over, or it brings up an interesting point (even if it’s overly pessimistic). They will respond from time to time. However it’s usually in another way. They either make some drastic changes with their methods by delivering certain content within the game. Or they respond indirectly without directly quoting the person. Just like what Bobby himself has done in the past.

The reason for not directly addressing negative criticism is normally because they can become overly emotional at times. For example Josh Foreman when he would talk blatantly about the design decisions he made on SAB. Josh worked exhaustively on SAB. His feedback sometimes to the community was not up to par, to where the Arena Net higher ups wanted it to be. So they reprimanded him for his actions on the forums. In my opinion he did nothing wrong. He even enlightened us that it was not his decision to make the SAB infinite coin, and it was actually marketing. Or the fact that the alpha testers and QA people he sent his second iteration of SAB to, gave a thumbs up to it every time direct feedback was needed. My interpretation of those two problems is that there are some internal communication blunders within Arena Net, that can be easily be fixed for the next SAB update. Nothing astonishing wrong with being open about it. It happens with all companies.

Josh situation is the most transparent one by recent occurrences. However I have seen it happen to to other portions of the development team, whether they admit to it or not. Why do we get the PR speeches most of the time (especially from Colin; which is stark contrast to the actual PR people) and not a direct response? It’s because it would enlighten us of any inward flaws of Arena Net’s strategies. Or where the problem truly is. In their minds they have to work as a coherent team of like minded individuals. There is no inward fighting or disagreements. Because it tears a company apart from the inside out. The problems I have with that is the extreme flip side of censorship that occurs in spite of it. It not only hurts your patrons positive perspective of the company, but it damages your work force who feel driven into a primitive hive minded atmosphere. Nevertheless I will say Arena Net is far from the worst offender of this problem.

Anyways that is a far off topic I want to go on about that issue. Since I know in some way they are working on the problem as we talk about Scarlet now. Maybe that’s why they are supposedly putting Scarlet away for now. Because it will take about 4 months from the date they actually address the issue, to the day we see if their fixes worked. Or they sometimes say it might be longer, due to some content being easily scrapped for other reasons. I just wish they were more open about their issues. Particularly if they have any during the development of a project, then waiting till the last minute. I know they talk about shelving ideas, but they can tell us why this final decision was made.

RedStar.4218:

I have a question : played the new content yesterday and tried to really pay attention. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The Krait got their brains messed up by the toxins. They didn’t knew they were working with Scarlet or even the NC. Instead, they thought they were their prophets.

If I didn’t get that wrong, at first glance it doesn’t bother me too much. What however bothers me is what it really implies :
-Scarlet didn’t need to Krait to create those toxins, nor does she have any further plans for them since she let’s us kill her creation.
-She (maybe) only needed them to release massively the toxins.
-And the worse : what if all of this was a lie ? Maybe she didn’t have access to the toxins the times we met before, fine. But in the future, that thing touched everyone, everyone ice broods.

Does anyone else think that Kasmeer getting hurt by a torn is something that shouldn’t be considered trivial ?

And do we know who was the mesmer behind the cloaking spell ?

The gameplay itself was very well done. I enjoy going though part of the tower, then enter a mini dungeon, and then keep exploring the tower.

Unfortunately the lore was broken once again. Our engineer Lore Slayer just added bio-weapon, genetic modification, Resident Evil to her resume.

We have to keep in mind that the Lore Slayer was an engineer. She is a mechanic that works with technology. The part about her being the best engineer ever lived wasn’t believable, but for a second let’s say the readers accepts this. This explained how she created the Molten Alliance and Aetherblade technologies.

Yesterday the Nightmares Within was released. And the final boss wasn’t some kind of Krait/technology mix. The boss was a Krait/Nightmare Tree hybrid. This is a bio-weapon, a product of genetic engineering.

Scarlet is an mechanical engineer. She shouldn’t know anything about biology. So the lore is once again broken.

A necromancer or a ranger, who worked with biology and organisms, should be the ones who made that hybrid.

Discuss that here: >_>

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Scarlet-is-an-Engineer-not-a-Biologist

People are saying that the living comes too quickly and is rushed etc but each chapter should have a few months lead time for development. The story should come first followed by scripts, voice acting, art design, zone layouts, monster design, play testing etc. So if a story writer decides to finish Scarlet then we wouldn’t see that until months later anyway.

Has anyone else noticed that due to the shortage of villains in the living story our allies are having to double as nightmare enemies within the side rooms? It makes no sense really.

RedStar.4218:

I have a question : played the new content yesterday and tried to really pay attention. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The Krait got their brains messed up by the toxins. They didn’t knew they were working with Scarlet or even the NC. Instead, they thought they were their prophets.

If I didn’t get that wrong, at first glance it doesn’t bother me too much. What however bothers me is what it really implies :
-Scarlet didn’t need to Krait to create those toxins, nor does she have any further plans for them since she let’s us kill her creation.
-She (maybe) only needed them to release massively the toxins.
-And the worse : what if all of this was a lie ? Maybe she didn’t have access to the toxins the times we met before, fine. But in the future, that thing touched everyone, everyone ice broods.

Does anyone else think that Kasmeer getting hurt by a torn is something that shouldn’t be considered trivial ?

And do we know who was the mesmer behind the cloaking spell ?

You got it wrong. Our very first introduction with the Oratuss was that the alliance would bring about their Prophets. The reason why they worked with Scarlet was the promise of bringing/creating a Prophet – which turned out to be the Toxic Hybrid.

And no, we don’t know who made the veil. That is just one of many loose ends.

CHIPS.6018:

RedStar.4218:

I have a question : played the new content yesterday and tried to really pay attention. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The Krait got their brains messed up by the toxins. They didn’t knew they were working with Scarlet or even the NC. Instead, they thought they were their prophets.

If I didn’t get that wrong, at first glance it doesn’t bother me too much. What however bothers me is what it really implies :
-Scarlet didn’t need to Krait to create those toxins, nor does she have any further plans for them since she let’s us kill her creation.
-She (maybe) only needed them to release massively the toxins.
-And the worse : what if all of this was a lie ? Maybe she didn’t have access to the toxins the times we met before, fine. But in the future, that thing touched everyone, everyone ice broods.

Does anyone else think that Kasmeer getting hurt by a torn is something that shouldn’t be considered trivial ?

And do we know who was the mesmer behind the cloaking spell ?

The gameplay itself was very well done. I enjoy going though part of the tower, then enter a mini dungeon, and then keep exploring the tower.

Unfortunately the lore was broken once again. Our engineer Lore Slayer just added bio-weapon, genetic modification, Resident Evil to her resume.

We have to keep in mind that the Lore Slayer was an engineer. She is a mechanic that works with technology. The part about her being the best engineer ever lived wasn’t believable, but for a second let’s say the readers accepts this. This explained how she created the Molten Alliance and Aetherblade technologies.

Yesterday the Nightmares Within was released. And the final boss wasn’t some kind of Krait/technology mix. The boss was a Krait/Nightmare Tree hybrid. This is a bio-weapon, a product of genetic engineering.

Scarlet is an mechanical engineer. She shouldn’t know anything about biology. So the lore is once again broken.

A necromancer or a ranger, who worked with biology and organisms, should be the ones who made that hybrid.

Discuss that here: >_>

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Scarlet-is-an-Engineer-not-a-Biologist

Uh…. scarlet didn’t invent the molten alliance or aetherblade tech that’d be the dredge and inquest respectively… I’d imagine that the Nightmare Tower is just her getting her hands on a seed of the same kind as the pale tree and using sylvari magic (which is well known to be good at growing plants) to get the thing growing at super speeds, and since it was planted at a krait location instead of an old human town it may have taken the krait as inspiration in appearance instead of humans .

plz….for the love of god and all that is holy delete scarlett

erase all mention of her name.

I would be completely fine with pretending that she never existed…i would happily pretend as if the molten and toxic alliances never existed.

The living story has so much potential…..it’s sad to know that it won’t be realized anytime soon because of scarlett.

What they simply need to do, is step up the writing. They need to have the guts to step away from cliche villains. Give us a good reason for her crimes, add other factions into the mix, make it not so black and white.

What if a faction of the Krait realize they are as much a victim of Scarlet as we are, and decide to fight along side us for the time being? Maybe they want to put a stop to the corruption of their kind. Or maybe they want to liberate their kind, allowing them to morph again, but get rid of Scarlet. It would actually be interesting to see Scarlet fail for once. Have one of her alliances turn against her. Have an influential Krait Witch step forward, and take the reigns from her. Have the Aetherblades turn to mutiny, and rescue their old captain, in favor over Scarlet. I want to see something unpredictable happen.

CHIPS.6018:

-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.

Because of the above 3 explanations, the readers are 100% convinced that the Lore Slayer’s background is legit.

>_>

I hate to break it to you, but some people are naturally born smarter than others. It happens. It is used often for villains because it sets up their superiority complex mentality so well, and it is used to explain how they are able to achieve their accomplishments.

A better question would be, if Scarlet wasn’t born with her superior intellect, how would you explain how she is able to do the things she’s able too?

@CHIPS your 3 Scarlet related Lore threads could of all been contained in one thread. I also notice for someone deeply interested in GW Lore, your Necromancer name is cringe worthy :-P

On topic I tend to find myself more often than not in agreement with Konig’s posts about this subject.

Erukk.1408:

A better question would be, if Scarlet wasn’t born with her superior intellect, how would you explain how she is able to do the things she’s able too?

Even born with her superior intellect she does far too much all on her own.
It is a tad unrealistic to say that one Sylvari – the newest race on Tyria – can barge in and, whilst looking as out of place as she does, can convince everyone – including arrogant Asura – of just about anything as the plot demands. I’d not take a whiny child like her serious, less so with the arrogant mannerisms she displayed in the first short story that was written about her.

I feel they left out far too many bits and pieces. A lot of it is left without a proper explanation. How does she sway all these leaders and beings into doing as she wants? So far, she just magically gets what she wants. Or does she? We’re not shown much of the interaction, not even as mere rumours spread by other characters.

As far as most of us can tell, Scarlet automatically sets plot in motion for the sake of needing the Living Story to move on so fast.
It feels unfinished.

ThiBash.5634:

Erukk.1408:

All the information regarding her superior intellect have been there for months, so you can’t say they “didn’t give any explanations”. All you had to do was look for it.

Yet there was no reason WHY she is that smart. Only that she is. There’s no explanation why she is that much more smarter than other Sylvari, and there’s no perspective. Uzolan for example, was a genious among humans…but he couldn’t quite match the skill of Asura. He could only match them on a rudimentary level. This still makes him extremely smart for a human, but not unrealisticaly so. Scarlet on the other hand, is an Einstein among cavemen with no explanation whatsoever. Why is she so much smarter than a regular Sylvari? Why aren’t the other Sylvari smarter than they are now?

No explanation whatsoever.

Oh, and for the record: the Asura stating that Scarlet has advanced degrees in all colleges was retracted in a later dev post. She’s only got basic training now. Which makes a lot more sense, really.

She fell out of the tree and landed on an asura?

She’s possessed by the vengeful ghost of Snaff or some other unmitigated genius?

More likely, as I have proposed previously, Snaff is behind all this. He’s currently a steam cyborg (possibly with telepathic abilities) due to a little boo boo with his post-death contingency plans. Omadd was one of his agents and did something unnatural to Scarlet (rebellious teen persona, perfect candidate for recruitment) while she thought she was seeing the Eternal Alchemy.

I’m still waiting for the plot where Scarlet kidnaps lord Faren again, and then steals the city of Lion’s Arch by lifting it into the air for no reason what so ever.

Tachenon.5270:

More likely, as I have proposed previously, Snaff is behind all this. He’s currently a steam cyborg (possibly with telepathic abilities) due to a little boo boo with his post-death contingency plans. Omadd was one of his agents and did something unnatural to Scarlet (rebellious teen persona, perfect candidate for recruitment) while she thought she was seeing the Eternal Alchemy.

Snaff was cremated. Like all asura are upon death.

And Zojja cremated Snaff on the spot – she didn’t even take his bloody, torn apart corpse out of the golem Snaff died in.

Erukk.1408:

CHIPS.6018:

-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.

Because of the above 3 explanations, the readers are 100% convinced that the Lore Slayer’s background is legit.

>_>

I hate to break it to you, but some people are naturally born smarter than others. It happens. It is used often for villains because it sets up their superiority complex mentality so well, and it is used to explain how they are able to achieve their accomplishments.

A better question would be, if Scarlet wasn’t born with her superior intellect, how would you explain how she is able to do the things she’s able too?

But the audience are not buying the idea.

Of course villains being smarter is ok. But not a thousand times smarter than the smartest Asuras in absolutely everything without any solid explanation.

Take a look at group Akatsuki from Naruto. Its made up of ten very powerful members, with S-rank abilities. However they each fight with different skills, and no one knows the abilities of the other members. Each member spent years training to master their one single field of S-Rank skills. They interact with each other and they team up with each other to get things done.

Scarlet is pretty much all 10 members in herself. She does everything and is good in absolutely everything, with no weakness whatsoever. She knows all 10 fields of S-rank abilities or more. She is the whole Akatsuki in herself. That’s the problem.

CHIPS.6018:

Erukk.1408:

CHIPS.6018:

-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.

Because of the above 3 explanations, the readers are 100% convinced that the Lore Slayer’s background is legit.

>_>

I hate to break it to you, but some people are naturally born smarter than others. It happens. It is used often for villains because it sets up their superiority complex mentality so well, and it is used to explain how they are able to achieve their accomplishments.

A better question would be, if Scarlet wasn’t born with her superior intellect, how would you explain how she is able to do the things she’s able too?

But the audience are not buying the idea.

Of course villains being smarter is ok. But not a thousand times smarter than the smartest Asuras in absolutely everything without any solid explanation.

Take a look at group Akatsuki from Naruto. Its made up of ten very powerful members, with S-rank abilities. However they each fight with different skills, and no one knows the abilities of the other members. Each member spent years training to master their one single field of S-Rank skills. They interact with each other and they team up with each other to get things done.

Scarlet is pretty much all 10 members in herself. She does everything and is good in absolutely everything, with no weakness whatsoever. She knows all 10 fields of S-rank abilities or more. She is the whole Akatsuki in herself. That’s the problem.

Please list everything scarlet is good at, I only see that she’s smart, and use that intelligence to be a great engineer, and then is good at making promises of power to power hungry people, which any idiot could do.

So what else has she done? Because most of the stuff happening isn’t even scarlet but are her allies, which you CONSTANTLY confuse for being her.

I don’t want to see Scarlet suffer because that would be to endure another lame story about her… just delete her from the database. Pretend she never existed.

She is 60’s comic villain, she belongs to an Adam West batman’s episode, not to this epic game.

“I only see that she’s smart, and use that intelligence to be a great engineer, and then is good at making promises of power to power hungry people, which any idiot could do.”

Not believable. If that’s the mistake that the writers have made then the living story is totally doomed.

Durzlla.6295:

CHIPS.6018:

Erukk.1408:

CHIPS.6018:

-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.
-She was born smart.

Because of the above 3 explanations, the readers are 100% convinced that the Lore Slayer’s background is legit.

>_>

I hate to break it to you, but some people are naturally born smarter than others. It happens. It is used often for villains because it sets up their superiority complex mentality so well, and it is used to explain how they are able to achieve their accomplishments.

A better question would be, if Scarlet wasn’t born with her superior intellect, how would you explain how she is able to do the things she’s able too?

But the audience are not buying the idea.

Of course villains being smarter is ok. But not a thousand times smarter than the smartest Asuras in absolutely everything without any solid explanation.

Take a look at group Akatsuki from Naruto. Its made up of ten very powerful members, with S-rank abilities. However they each fight with different skills, and no one knows the abilities of the other members. Each member spent years training to master their one single field of S-Rank skills. They interact with each other and they team up with each other to get things done.

Scarlet is pretty much all 10 members in herself. She does everything and is good in absolutely everything, with no weakness whatsoever. She knows all 10 fields of S-rank abilities or more. She is the whole Akatsuki in herself. That’s the problem.

Please list everything scarlet is good at, I only see that she’s smart, and use that intelligence to be a great engineer, and then is good at making promises of power to power hungry people, which any idiot could do.

So what else has she done? Because most of the stuff happening isn’t even scarlet but are her allies, which you CONSTANTLY confuse for being her.

Counter question: What isn’t Scarlet good at? Make me a list of her flaws.

@CHIPS, she is totally reliant on her technology, her alliances are all extremely volatile, her plans fall to pieces within 5 minutes of being revealed, she’s arrogant as hell, she’s easily deceived (I mean c’mon who WASNT expecting an illusion of Jenna?)

Now how about you answer my question and stop beating around the bush.

Stooperdale.3560:

“I only see that she’s smart, and use that intelligence to be a great engineer, and then is good at making promises of power to power hungry people, which any idiot could do.”

Not believable. If that’s the mistake that the writers have made then the living story is totally doomed.

You must really hate ironman then huh?

Durzlla.6295:

@CHIPS, she is totally reliant on her technology, her alliances are all extremely volatile, her plans fall to pieces within 5 minutes of being revealed, she’s arrogant as hell, she’s easily deceived (I mean c’mon who WASNT expecting an illusion of Jenna?)

Now how about you answer my question and stop beating around the bush.

I am not beating around the bush. I just want to give you an easier time. You see, it is harder to prove that someone is perfect than she is imperfect. But you know what, I would take on the harder task. I am the one who claimed that she is the Lore Slayer after all.

1) totally reliant on her technology – Nope. She just demonstrated her knowledge in biology and genetic modification though that Krait/Sylvari hybrid. She knows much more than just engineering and technology. Who knows what else she know.

2) her alliances are all extremely volatile – Now you are just making stuff up. Did you ever hear any of those mobs saying they hate Scarlet behind her back? Gets your facts straight. Some players WISHED that the alliances would hate Scarlet and betray her. It DIDN’T actually happen.

The players kill thousands of Aetherblade and MA members every day during those invasions. And yet they kept charging the player’s trenches to their certain death. If this doesn’t show absolute loyalty and discipline, I don’t know what else will.

3) her plans fall to pieces within 5 minutes of being revealed – You have to understanding that 5 minutes of game play is NOT 5 minute in the world. For example the Nightmare Within can be done in an hour. But in the story, that siege could have taken months.

And no one knows how long that had been going on before it was revealed to the players. So I can counter argue that she actually did a very good job in hiding the plans from the players. Hack, even now we have no idea what her plans are.

4) she’s arrogant as hell – When has her arrogance led DIRECTLY to her failure? So far all her failures are failures of her “useless” underlings and puppets. When her 100 minions cannot kill a party of 5 players, it isn’t really her fault.

You have to keep things in prospective. For example, Scarlet is MUCH BETTER prepared than the Pact. When is the last time we the players got direct support from the Pact throughout a mission? Never. That last minute airship raid when we the players already did ALL the work doesn’t count. I mean come on the Pact knew about Scarlet. They should have thousands of men on standby, ready to act. But nope they got no one. They just rely on the players because we are so powerful. Who is more arrogant? Scarlet or the Pact?

She cannot be arrogant when her facilities are so well defended. She actually did plan it out. She probably did overestimated the usefulness of her minions. Who would have thought they are so useless against the players? :P

5) she’s easily deceived – Logan, champion of humans and a member of the legendary Destiny’s Edge, had protect the queen day and night for years. But in truth, he ended up protecting a fake illusion of the queen for years (LMAO). The queen was NEVER there. Think about it! Who was more “easily” deceived, Scarlet or Logan? Once again, you have to keep things in prospective.

And if you want to talk about military tactics, Scarlet’s invasion force always put the players on a wild goose chase to close down her portals. This is actually a VERY SMART way to use the portals.

“OMG portal there let’s go close it down!”
“OMG another portal in the other side of the world. Let’s rush there to close it down!”

Running around day and night, in lore, got to have put a strain on the players and the Pact forces. The players, in lore, are tired and frustrated. And, in lore, that is exactly when Scarlet should have launch her ambush to wipe out the players.

Think about it. Scarlet had total control over the player’s movements. And this is one of the important tactics that Sun Tzu like to use. If you ask him, he would say Scarlet already won.

The only saving grace is that Scarlet decided to play nice and never ambushed the players while they were running around.

So who here are easily deceived? Scarlet or the players?

Durzlla.6295:

Stooperdale.3560:

“I only see that she’s smart, and use that intelligence to be a great engineer, and then is good at making promises of power to power hungry people, which any idiot could do.”

Not believable. If that’s the mistake that the writers have made then the living story is totally doomed.

You must really hate ironman then huh?

Ironman doesn’t go make bio-organic-weapons does he? He isn’t loved by absolute everyone does he?

If Scarlet hasn’t decided to go against us (key here: She decided!), we would probably have love her too. She has the magical silver tong that made everyone likes her.

CHIPS.6018:

1) totally reliant on her technology – Nope. She just demonstrated her knowledge in biology and genetic modification though that Krait/Sylvari hybrid. She knows much more than just engineering and technology.

We don’t know if she had any role in the actual making of that creature, for all we know that is a seed that came from the same location as The Pale Tree, and Mallycks tree and the Krait and NC had influenced it.

She gave the impression that she was done with the tree before it even “birthed” the hybrid which would imply that’s not why she was there, and thus not something she was after. This leads me to believe that was the doing of the Nightmare Court and the Krait, not her.

2) her alliances are all extremely volatile – Now you are just making stuff up. Did you ever hear any of those mobs saying they hate Scarlet behind her back? Gets your facts straight. Some players WISHED that the alliances would hate Scarlet and betray her. It DIDN’T actually happen.

I said Volatile, as in they aren’t built to last, they’re built from races that wouldn’t really align after all. The only one that i could imagine lasting longer than the life of Scarlet is the Aetherblades, and that’s because i have a feeling it’s more of a “business agreement” than a true alliance AKA: Pirates give the inquest money and inquest give them tech, i mean seriously, the inquest don’t even fight with the Aetherblades which shows how little the inquest cares about them.

We could see from F&F that the MA does NOT like each other and they’re doing so out of essentially necessity than anything. I get the same feeling from the Krait and NC alliance as well, Krait want their prophets, NC want to cause nightmare, and this section is likely the power hungry section from TA explo paths so they’re probably after that too. Once those are achieved god knows how long they’ll still play nice.

3) her plans fall to pieces within 5 minutes of being revealed – You have to understanding that 5 minutes of game play is NOT 5 minute in the world. For example the Nightmare Within can be done in an hour. But in the story, that siege could have taken months.

Sorry, i really was over exaggerating, i didn’t literally mean 5 minutes of in lore time, just that once we figure out what the plan is we put an end to it really quickly. I’m not gonna lie, she does a really good job of hiding them, but that’s kinda what she’s banking on, if they get found out a little early they’ll come crashing to the ground.

4) she’s arrogant as hell – When has her arrogance led DIRECTLY to her failure? So far all her failures are failures of her “useless” underlings and puppets. When her 100 minions cannot kill a party of 5 players, it isn’t really her fault.

I will give you this, her arrogance hasn’t been a flaw, yet, but she does give off the sort of arrogance where it’s only a matter of time before she starts to feel “safe” and ends up getting burned for it. When or will that happen? I don’t know, it may not, it just seems like it will to me.

5) she’s easily deceived – Logan, champion of humans and a member of the legendary Destiny’s Edge, had protect the queen day and night for years. But in truth, he ended up protecting a fake illusion of the queen for years (LMAO). The queen was NEVER there. Think about it! Who was more “easily” deceived, Scarlet or Logan? Once again, you have to keep things in prospective.

Oh don’t even get me started on Logan, he’s such a bumbling idiot it drives me insane… not to mention he gets furious at Anise for not telling him the plan when he would’ve totally ruined it because of how stupid he is… So happy he was in a nightmare chamber….

That aside, She still was pretty kitten ed that she didn’t get the queen, she keeps referring to it, so i’m imagining that she did kitten up on that one. As for how she uses portals, you are the ONLY other person who thought the same thing as me on that lol. I was trying to explain it to my friends who was saying she was using them very poorly, i’m upset that she didn’t use them to port a ton of mobs into DR and raze it while we were off in the far shiver peaks trying to save a few kodan and wildlife!

That may play into her arrogance though, that or she just really dropped the ball on that…

The thing here is that when Ceara came out of the tree, it was explained that she had a good understanding of the intricacies of nature. “Ceara opened her eyes to a vibrant world of greens and golds and earthy browns. Sunlight streamed down through the canopy, nourishing the great trees and warming the ground level vegetation. All around, creatures of every shape and size called to one another, exploring, chasing, being chased, always in motion. Ceara blinked, pleasantly overwhelmed by it all. The world was a fascinatingly complex system of smaller, interlocking systems that affected one another in an ever-changing dance. It was beyond fascinating: it was life itself, and now she was a part of it.” I would say that in Scarlet’s case, her understanding of the intricacies of the earth was able to help in her understanding of mechanical systems, as opposed to the other way around.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Tachenon.5270:

More likely, as I have proposed previously, Snaff is behind all this. He’s currently a steam cyborg (possibly with telepathic abilities) due to a little boo boo with his post-death contingency plans. Omadd was one of his agents and did something unnatural to Scarlet (rebellious teen persona, perfect candidate for recruitment) while she thought she was seeing the Eternal Alchemy.

Snaff was cremated. Like all asura are upon death.

And Zojja cremated Snaff on the spot – she didn’t even take his bloody, torn apart corpse out of the golem Snaff died in.

Yes. Hence the previously mentioned contingency plans. ;-)

CHIPS.6018:

Durzlla.6295:

Please list everything scarlet is good at, I only see that she’s smart, and use that intelligence to be a great engineer, and then is good at making promises of power to power hungry people, which any idiot could do.

So what else has she done? Because most of the stuff happening isn’t even scarlet but are her allies, which you CONSTANTLY confuse for being her.

Counter question: What isn’t Scarlet good at? Make me a list of her flaws.

She’s bad at having the alliances’ plans succeed.
She’s bad at pro wrestling.
She’s bad at acting.
She’s bad at fighting.
She’s bad with her aim (shoots at queen, hits the bottom of the ledge she’s on) despite training with rifles.
She’s bad at being cute, despite her attempts.
She’s probably got bad breath too.

The list goes on.

Chips, I seriously think you’re over-reacting. I’m no fan of Scarlet, but she’s far from this perfect Brainiac-level intelligent being you’re claiming her to be.

CHIPS.6018:

1) totally reliant on her technology – Nope. She just demonstrated her knowledge in biology and genetic modification though that Krait/Sylvari hybrid. She knows much more than just engineering and technology. Who knows what else she know.

You mean she demonstrated the Nightmare Court’s knowledge in plant magic.

As I said in the other thread, there’s nothing to actually say or even imply she had any direct control over the Hyrbid’s creation beyond overseeing. If you can prove me wrong with a factual source, feel free to.

CHIPS.6018:

2) her alliances are all extremely volatile – Now you are just making stuff up. Did you ever hear any of those mobs saying they hate Scarlet behind her back? Gets your facts straight. Some players WISHED that the alliances would hate Scarlet and betray her. It DIDN’T actually happen.

You’re joking right?

They’re volatile to each other. The entire investigation into the Molten Alliance was about how much they hate each other, yet despite this they work with each other. Did you even do the Whispers’ dead drops assignment during Flame and Frost: The Razing? If you did, you’d know that half of them talked about how they bickered with each other. GIve this a read through.

CHIPS.6018:

The players kill thousands of Aetherblade and MA members every day during those invasions. And yet they kept charging the player’s trenches to their certain death. If this doesn’t show absolute loyalty and discipline, I don’t know what else will.

That’s mechanics, buddy. Or do you honestly believe that there are millions upon millions of dredge, Flame Legion, krait, Nightmare Courtiers, etc. individually? Keep in mind that the whole of the Nightmare Court is about 10% of the sylvari population, and though they’re being born fast they’re only 24 years old now. And the Toxic Alliance’s courtiers are just a splinter factions of the Nightmare Court. You gotta keep in mind that ArenaNet needs a lot of mobs in even a single server so that players don’t wind up in empty foe-less areas.

CHIPS.6018:

3) her plans fall to pieces within 5 minutes of being revealed – You have to understanding that 5 minutes of game play is NOT 5 minute in the world. For example the Nightmare Within can be done in an hour. But in the story, that siege could have taken months.

He was more than likely exaggerating. But her plans only have effectiveness when we (the good guys) don’t know about them.

They’re so easily countered by the good guys that they cannot even be called proper villainous plans. Scarlet’s greatest weapon is secrecy. Something she doesn’t realize.

CHIPS.6018:

4) she’s arrogant as hell – When has her arrogance led DIRECTLY to her failure? So far all her failures are failures of her “useless” underlings and puppets. When her 100 minions cannot kill a party of 5 players, it isn’t really her fault.

Scarlet’s Funhouse. The one and only time we fought her directly, she treated it as a joke because she is that kitten ed arrogant.

CHIPS.6018:

You have to keep things in prospective. For example, Scarlet is MUCH BETTER prepared than the Pact. When is the last time we the players got direct support from the Pact throughout a mission? Never. That last minute airship raid when we the players already did ALL the work doesn’t count. I mean come on the Pact knew about Scarlet. They should have thousands of men on standby, ready to act. But nope they got no one. They just rely on the players because we are so powerful. Who is more arrogant? Scarlet or the Pact?

Funny words coming from you. You have to keep things in prospective too. If the Pact did as much as they are capable of in lore and story, then there’d be nothing for the players to truly do. It’d be a case of Tyrael in Diablo 3 – you can just go afk and let the Pact do all the work.

And nothing says the Pact knew about Scarlet. I’m guessing that you get this from the fact that the Aetherblades – whom weren’t known to be with Scarlet until the Jubilee – had stolen airships from the Pact? Like I said, nothing had linked the Aetherblades to Scarlet until months after they had already modified those stolen airships.

CHIPS.6018:

She cannot be arrogant […]

The entire idea behind Scarlet’s personality is that she’s egotistical and narcesistic. She’s always thought herself better than anyone else, and her belief that she saw the Eternal Alchemy has led her to believe that the only threat to her is the Elder Dragons, and that’s just a possible threat. She honestly believes she can go and take on an Elder Dragon and only have a chance of losing.

Another thing with Anise’s illusion – the impression I had was that that was something done in response to the specific threat to the queen, not a case of “every time the queen has appeared, it was actually an illusion”. I’m pretty certain, for instance, that her appearance in CM story wasn’t an illusion.

That said, given that between them Anise and Jennah are able to weave illusions that can persuade their subjects that they have been turned to stone and fool dragon minions into believing that they are in the presence of their dragon. Being able to be fooled by an illusion concocted by those two isn’t exactly a sign of gullibility.

When it comes to sylvari numbers – not only has the race only been around for 25 years, but there was also a significant gap (seven years, IIRC) between the Firstborn and the rest of the race.

@ Konig

Obviously I am joking around by this point. But all those faults that you listed are not proven. For example pro wrestling. What prove do you have that she is bad at pro wrestling? Her pro wrestling abilities just hasn’t been mentioned!

Until I see another biologist in that tower, I will have to assume Scarlet did it. I cannot conclude that some phantom biologist made that hybrid.

Volatile to each other, yet their loyalty to Scarlet is absolute. That’s what puppets are for. They do exactly what Scarlet told them to do, time and time again. Can’t they think for themselves?

I already talked about how I hate the idea of the Molten Alliance. How the “all magic, no technology” Flame Legion would team up with the “xenophobic, self-reliant” Dredge. I won’t repeat myself.

When you talk about game mechanics, it is still the writer’s responsibility to help the players keep things in prospective. The way I see it, the MA outnumber the Pact a hundred times over. The Pact is useless and never does anything, and they are lead by a useless leader called Trahearne.

Obvious I am wrong. But it is the writer’s job to convince me. The player shouldn’t need to dream up some phantom Pact army that we never saw in the game. The player shouldn’t need to dream up some phantom intelligent that Trahearne is supposed to have but we never see in the game.

The only ones in the Molten Alliance to hate said Alliance are the Dredge. As far as I have read the Flame Legion have no objections aside from taking advantage of the matter(and stealing from the Dredge once they’re dead).

The Molten Alliance is kept whole due to the Moletariate’s greed which the commoner Dredge are displeased with.

Basically the only danger to the Molten Alliance is a Dredge civil war to get rid of the Moletariate which is ironically already happening due to the Moletariate’s other alliance which is with the Inquest(though obviously not fast enough since the Inquest’s ally Scarlet brought the Flame Legion into the picture)….

Yesterday Daniel and Miya suggested that perhaps since Scarlet is saying “darling” so much, that perhaps the writers based Scarlet on my character. Sadly, Daniel and Miya then passed away with my hands around their necks. Dear Grenth, lets please assume they are wrong.

But anyway, back on topic, CHIPS does have a point that it is the writer’s responsibility to make us believe what they’re telling us. Saying that Scarlet is a brilliant master mind who graduated from every Asura college, is one thing. But you have to actually show us that she IS intelligent, and so far we haven’t seen any clever behavior. Sure, she has her alliances build fancy tech, but none of that makes us believe that her character is intelligent. A lot of the plot in fact implies poor planning, and poor reasoning for her crimes, and that contradicts any lore given in a fancy website story. A writer has to actually demonstrate that the character is intelligent, in order to make us believe it.

If Scarlet had used her threats regarding the Queens Pavilion, to free Mai Trin from jail, it would have been a whole different matter. Now that’s a clever plot.

But instead, she just barges in and blatantly disregards possible security (which is conveniently missing, due to the other characters being given the idiot-ball), and on top of that fails with her attack on Queen Jennah. She succeeds only in kidnapping Lord Faren and other less important characters, and when she faces the players it doesn’t really amount to anything. There’s no plan there. No plan to still capture or kill Queen Jennah, or some how trick the players. If she’s so smart, why aren’t we seeing any of it?

CHIPS.6018:

@ Konig

Obviously I am joking around by this point. But all those faults that you listed are not proven. For example pro wrestling. What prove do you have that she is bad at pro wrestling? Her pro wrestling abilities just hasn’t been mentioned!

Until I see another biologist in that tower, I will have to assume Scarlet did it. I cannot conclude that some phantom biologist made that hybrid.

Volatile to each other, yet their loyalty to Scarlet is absolute. That’s what puppets are for. They do exactly what Scarlet told them to do, time and time again. Can’t they think for themselves?

I already talked about how I hate the idea of the Molten Alliance. How the “all magic, no technology” Flame Legion would team up with the “xenophobic, self-reliant” Dredge. I won’t repeat myself.

When you talk about game mechanics, it is still the writer’s responsibility to help the players keep things in prospective. The way I see it, the MA outnumber the Pact a hundred times over. The Pact is useless and never does anything, and they are lead by a useless leader called Trahearne.

Obvious I am wrong. But it is the writer’s job to convince me. The player shouldn’t need to dream up some phantom Pact army that we never saw in the game. The player shouldn’t need to dream up some phantom intelligent that Trahearne is supposed to have but we never see in the game.

You brought up a good point. We don`t see others actually doing something, or better, we rarely see someone else doing something in Scarlet shemes, which urges me.

What we have seen is in F&F some Dredge tinkering with the new “traps” and “weapons” testing them on slaves.

We see some inquest asura beeing killed by his own invention.

We see no one in the toxic alliance doing anything.

Soe we have two groups tinkerng around as they figure out how to work together and the Kraith/NC mix has nothing. Or nothing i can count.

The thing is, we only see the “fruits of their labor”, but not how they are connected.

Are they creating everything themselves and Scarlet is only the instigator, or is she actually involved in the creation of everything we see. Just reaping what she sow.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Yesterday Daniel and Miya suggested that perhaps since Scarlet is saying “darling” so much, that perhaps the writers based Scarlet on my character. Sadly, Daniel and Miya then passed away with my hands around their necks. Dear Grenth, lets please assume they are wrong.

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

There’s another obvious gap in the living story now about who’s trying to track Scarlet down. Surely there would be someone trying to find her given how many powerful enemies she has created. That could make a story, but instead we get a mail each month from someone telling us to fight at a new base that has been stumbled upon.

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

CHIPS.6018:

Until I see another biologist in that tower, I will have to assume Scarlet did it. I cannot conclude that some phantom biologist made that hybrid.

Every single Nightmare Courtier can be counted as a biologist by the same false requirements you’re listing Scarlet as one – as I have said many times now, plant based magic is a natural part of sylvari – in fact every single plant in the Toxic Alliance’s domain is just a slightly modified version of plants found in Twilight Arbor and other NC areas. Even the Toxic Stalks are variants of PBAoE plant poisoners.

CHIPS.6018:

Volatile to each other, yet their loyalty to Scarlet is absolute. That’s what puppets are for. They do exactly what Scarlet told them to do, time and time again. Can’t they think for themselves?

I would hardly call “working so you don’t get killed and do get paid” to be absolute loyalty to Scarlet. And that’s just the Aetherblades. Excluding the presence in invasion events in which the canonicity is questionable due to mechanics, we have never seen the Molten Alliance interacting about Scarlet – sans a prisoner who spires Scarlet and his leaders since it just led to another defeat. I hardly call that absolute as well.

The Toxic Alliance were the most dedicated to Scarlet – and that’s likely because they hadn’t failed yet like the Molten Alliance.

CHIPS.6018:

I already talked about how I hate the idea of the Molten Alliance. How the “all magic, no technology” Flame Legion would team up with the “xenophobic, self-reliant” Dredge. I won’t repeat myself.

And I’ve already explained how they would. The Flame Legion, btw, is far from no technology. They use kittening FLAME THROWERS for Christ’s sake. That’s tech and before the Molten Alliance! You have some skewed version of canon which is making your arguments sound like a pouting child.

CHIPS.6018:

When you talk about game mechanics, it is still the writer’s responsibility to help the players keep things in prospective. The way I see it, the MA outnumber the Pact a hundred times over. The Pact is useless and never does anything, and they are lead by a useless leader called Trahearne.

Then the way you see it is not the canon lore. Plain and simple. Besides, we never see the full resources of the Pact. And they’re still recovering from the fight with Zhaitan which out a big toll on their resources – sadly, stated in an interview.

CHIPS.6018:

Obvious I am wrong. But it is the writer’s job to convince me. The player shouldn’t need to dream up some phantom Pact army that we never saw in the game. The player shouldn’t need to dream up some phantom intelligent that Trahearne is supposed to have but we never see in the game.

good luck showing all members of the pact in game. Same reason why you don’t see cities and outposts as full as real cities and outposts are. It just puts too much stress on computers. Enemies get larger numbers just for the sake of giving players enemies to kill. This is present in every game in the history of games that feature enemies to fight.

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Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

But anyway, back on topic, CHIPS does have a point that it is the writer’s responsibility to make us believe what they’re telling us. Saying that Scarlet is a brilliant master mind who graduated from every Asura college, is one thing. But you have to actually show us that she IS intelligent, and so far we haven’t seen any clever behavior. Sure, she has her alliances build fancy tech, but none of that makes us believe that her character is intelligent. A lot of the plot in fact implies poor planning, and poor reasoning for her crimes, and that contradicts any lore given in a fancy website story. A writer has to actually demonstrate that the character is intelligent, in order to make us believe it.

I don’t disagree with this. But the specifics of CHIPS’ arguments are just getting ridiculous and is now just “bash anything of Scarlet that isn’t shoved in my face!” His last post is literally just saying “if I don’t see it, it cannot happen.” He is basically asking for no room for speculation, for everything to be revealed already and all questions answered as we get those questions. It isn’t the writer’s job to explain why we don’t see an accurate population of a city that is more than likely to be hundreds of thousands, nor is it the writer’s job to leave no loose ends. In fact, a good writer leaves loose ends. But CHIPS complains about any loose end Scarlet has.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In fact, a good writer leaves loose ends. But CHIPS complains about any loose end Scarlet has.

Scarlet doesn’t have loose ends. She is a loose end.

(Mind-controlled by telepathic steam-cyborg Snaff 2.0)

Stooperdale.3560

There’s another obvious gap in the living story now about who’s trying to track Scarlet down. Surely there would be someone trying to find her given how many powerful enemies she has created. That could make a story, but instead we get a mail each month from someone telling us to fight at a new base that has been stumbled upon.

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.

Though, since Scarlet has airships and teleportation technology, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if her headquarters is off grid and very hard to get too. It would make sense, since we are supposed to get new areas next year as well. I can see them probably be opened up and introduced in the “Where in the world is Scarlet Briar!?” LS.