Guild Wars 2

I don’t want this thread to be seen as a place of negativity, since I really do enjoy the Sylvari. My two main characters are Sylvari, and I’m tempted to make yet a third.

I do, however, think that there are some personal story narratives that play out in distinctly un-Sylvari ways. This is sad to me precisely because of how well formed and strong the overarching Sylvari lore is.

In particular, I recently played the level 28 story step “A Tangle of Weeds.”

I felt like this was worth mentioning, since it makes the Sylvari feel like they’re being written as “too human.” They seem to be using distinctly human pre-dispositions, without much reason except for writer oversight.

The only reason I bring it up is because of how much I do enjoy the Sylvari. I hope in future stories involving them we can see a little more the Sylvari’s own unique perspective on the world, with perhaps a little less human flavoring.

In particular, the Sylvari should be more willing to work with the sentient races that the others view as lessers. They should be free of the prejudices and pre-conceptions and ancient bad blood between the other races. That’s part of what would theoretically make them so strong against the Elder Dragons: they are willing to explore relationships and seek allies where human or norn or charr might just see a wild beast to be slain (the asura of course see all of us as their pawns, “greater” or “lesser” races alike ).

With that in mind, have you found any personal story steps that could use a little more Sylvari twist to help differentiate them? How might you have improved on those cases? Are there any good short stories or narratives (fan fics or even works in other worlds/ip) that you feel have good Sylvari-like characters with interesting but non-human perspectives and motivations?

It just goes to show that you cannot, I repeat cannot stereotype an entire sentient race into one personality type or mode of behavior. Individuals will always break absolutely any mold that they are supposedly fit to. Thus the entire business of generalizing groups of sentients is a futile endeavor.

You must remember that the decision to use the centaurs against the undead is an Order of Whispers plan. (If I’m remembering correctly) Also, the sylvari don’t worship Ventari, they merely revere him and his ideals, and they most definitely don’t look upon centaurs of today as sacred or anything like that. they see them as having long since fallen from grace. (according to an NPC conversation somewhere…) The centaurs thru out history have not been a race that takes on peace treaties very easily. They want to rule and subjugate all other races AFAIK. Theres only one centaur that we know of (in Lion’s Arch) that suggested peace, for the good of their tribes, however they got banished for their peaceful ideals quite swiftly.

Correct me if anything seems off here, these are just my observations from playing and speaking to NPCs.

Also i’m just curious as to what you would consider ‘more sylvari like’ I feel they are different enough but in a lot of small subtle ways.

I said "practically worship" because I’m not sure what else you’d call it when someone constantly quotes and references another as the basis for their world view. They don’t shout "Praise Ventari!" but they do constantly remind you of what Ventari said.

Quibbles aside, I just felt like there was an incredible disrespect for the centaur race with no justification.

Being disappointed with the race’s war-like nature after trying and failing to sow seeds of peace or alliance, that would be one thing. But what we see here is lying simply because you either don’t believe the race is intelligent enough to recognize a Sylvari, or because you know they’ve never actually encountered a Sylvari before... then afterwards snickering and making fun of the "beasts" who fell for it.

I realize that a lot of the Order of Whipsers ploys are pretty childish and transparent, but at least for the most part they still fit with the character of those involved (<3 Tybalt!). That’s the important thing: the internal consistency.

The problem here is that the ploy is contradictory to the characters involved. It’s like the story was written for a human character, even though you can only get it by playing a Sylvari.

I expect some Sylvari to go against their code, and I expect individuals to be weaker or stronger for themselves. We see this all over the place, and its great. Caithe struggles with her own weakness constantly (whether that annoys or endears you). Carys has a good heart but is somewhat failing between the ears. Trahearne is greatly intelligent and diligent but seriously lacking any sort of charisma.

As to what I consider to be more sylvari, some of the short stories that were released before the game are excellent examples of what can be done with it. Particularly the tale of Caderyn and his struggle before forming the Nightmare Court.

In this particular case I feel it would have been more internally consistent if the Sylvari had used their own commonalities with the centaurs to get the centaurs to willingly fight the undead rather than leaving the centaurs to be ambushed unexpectedly.

The centaurs revere nature and much of their conflict with the humans is over use and abuse of the land (though obviously the centaurs have a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black in that regard). The Sylvari are in a unique position to capitalize on that, being plants themselves.

Either let them appeal to the centaurs as fellow worshipers of nature (a small lie) or at least use some sort of glamour so that they look a bit different (sparkly, transparent, anything!), then use the current lie of "I’m a spirit of nature."

As is, the Sylvari walked in and assumed that no one would know what they were. Even the hylek and skritt can recognize a Sylvari for a Syvlari, why are we assuming that the centaurs alone are too dim to figure it out?

The reason that this sticks out in particular is because the humans very much do believe the centaurs to be mere beasts intellectually. You find it all over again in their NPC banter. To humans the centaurs are just that little bit smarter than an average horse to make them dangerous and rebellious.

And I find it quite saddening every time a little human assumption like this is copy/pasted over the Sylvari despite the fact that it doesn’t quite fit.

Firstly, I want to say that I am a sylvari lover. I have only made 1 sylvari and gotten him to lvl 80, but he was my first character. I even avoided sylvari during the last beta so that when I got into the headstart the game would be fresh and new for me from a sylvari point of view. And I want to say that in my mind that story choice made a lot of sense.

Now my sylvari is an explorer, the main reason he joined the Durmand Priory, but when I was making the choices between the groups, I honestly wanted to go with the Whispers. You see in his journeys through Queensdale, Snowden Drifts, and Gendarran Fields, my character saw the destruction that the centaurs created. He saw that they do not revere nature as much as covet land. Have you seen the areas owned by the centaurs? The grass is brown, trees are clear cut, new structures dot the area, I can hardly say they revere nature after what they do to it. But after all my character would see, I can hardly find it in myself to see centaurs as doing anything other than sowing discord and slowing the war against the dragons. Whether I like it or not, their attacks against the Durmand Priory outposts, Norn, and humans make them an enemy of anyone that wishes to create a pact.

You realize that the sylvari are not self enclosed correct? The OLDEST sylvari is Trahearne and he is exactly 25 years old.

This means that to simply survive the sylvari had to learn rapidly. Remember also that if a multitude of sylvari experienced a lot of hate from a species (centaur) or whitnessed a lot of killing by a species (centaur) and made peace with a race (humans) that naturally is at war with said species (centaur) thent he dream will inform all future generations of sylvari about this. Knowledge that remains in the subconcious.

Hence it is entirely possible that the sylvari as a race hold a mish mash of belief from the 4 other playable races (of which they DO hold a general melting pot of belief from the other races).

Have you read the lore? It says that the pale tree was planted by a human and she got all her values from watching humans and centaurs working together. And possibly, this is why the sylvari have a human look and somewhat human values.

The way your seeing things, that’s how the nightmare court feels. They want the pale tree to stop showing the sylvari the dream and change it so they are uniquely sylvari rather than human/centaur values.

Well, that may be how the nightmare court started, but this isn’t true of them anymore. They’ve become so centered in their beliefs about pain and death that they are becoming just as specific about the way sylvari should be as the dream, thus hypocrites.