Guild Wars 2

The Pact did come together to defeat Zhiatan. I believe that the pact will continue on fighting the other dragons.

I know that will mean the unfortunate return of Trahearne (well unfortunate in my eyes), and it will make for great continuity.

Thoughts on The Pact’s future?

Well I agree on the pact. But that doesn’t mean that trahearne has to return (for long). I hope Arenanet listens to all the citicism and writes him a glorious but quick end off him. So many bad things can happen. He can fall out of an airship, slip into the lava, sink into the artic ocean. You know those kind of ‘accidents’ happen

Actually I wouldn’t hate Trahearne so much if they didn’t write his dialog so long winded, and full of such Syfy channel d-movie, rah-rah speeches. If they gave him decent lines and interactions maybe I could tolerate him continuing to lead the pact. If not, as mercury ranique said, there is always a nudge over the side of an airship away from any waypoints…

I dont reallt like him but i dont hate him. I hope that the pact gets a real city like LA and not only a fort where you need to go to for the story mission.

I don’t have anything against Trahearne, but I don’t think he will return. He’s already finished his wildhunt.

If they are going to keep him around, he NEEDS a change in armor. While wearing cultural does good to introduce him. It hardly does anything good when he’s leading a multi organization army.

If they were to give him some form of unique armor then it’d make sense for a visual appearance.

He’s the leader of the pact and he needs to wear something that not only shows he’s a leader but shows that he cares bout his safety by wearing specialized armor so the pact’s leader isn’t so squishy in appearance.

Pavees.7281:

If they are going to keep him around, he NEEDS a change in armor. While wearing cultural does good to introduce him. It hardly does anything good when he’s leading a multi organization army.

If they were to give him some form of unique armor then it’d make sense for a visual appearance.

He’s the leader of the pact and he needs to wear something that not only shows he’s a leader but shows that he cares bout his safety by wearing specialized armor so the pact’s leader isn’t so squishy in appearance.

He’s the pact political leader, he isn’t even a strategical leader. Even though he had to take some strategic decisions, he relayed on the players and to make them and then he assumed the responsibility for them. He’s just the glue to the pact.
He’s got a fine sword, but his wildhunt is fulfilled, so I don’t see him fighting any longer.

mercury ranique.2170:

Well I agree on the pact. But that doesn’t mean that trahearne has to return (for long). I hope Arenanet listens to all the citicism and writes him a glorious but quick end off him. So many bad things can happen. He can fall out of an airship, slip into the lava, sink into the artic ocean. You know those kind of ‘accidents’ happen

I pray that ArenaNet has a lot more tact than this. I mean, from what I’m reading I think Mercury wants to become pact leader (at least temporarily until another is chosen). This means that his first 30 missions will be filing paperwork, writing out reports, and listening to long winded dialogue between liasons from the various orders as to what the Pact’s next move should be. I personally think Trahearne can keep that job, and just kind of disappear more into the shadows with us still reporting back to him every once and a while.

The Pact already is fighting other Elder Dragons – well, their forced. In Frostgorge Sound, they’re fighting the Claws of Jormag. During Flame and Frost, if you were the Pact Commander you could be asked by Smodur the Unflinching at one point “What’s a Pact commander doing here? Don’t you have dragons to fight?” Indicating that the Pact’s still fighting the good fight.

Ludovicus.7980:

I don’t have anything against Trahearne, but I don’t think he will return. He’s already finished his wildhunt.

You should pay more attention to dialogue more. At the celebratory ending instance during Victory or Death, Trahearne says he’s still got to lead the Pact through five more “impossible victories.”

As for Trahearne’s “reception” by players… Personally, if their voice actor for him just sounded less mechanical, I think most folks would be fine – or at least better off – with him. But as Narcemus said, he can easily “slip into the shadows” being pre-occupied with the politics of things. Nations aren’t really all that willing to give when they’re not in immediate threat. Jennah and Smodur are cooperating, but you can bet your arses that tanks won’t do so good in the Shiverpeak Mountains or Crystal Desert, let alone underwater or underground. Trahearne’s actions when going after the other ED is dealing with the political red tape that is negotiating with Bangar, Malice, Flaxx, Knut, and perhaps even Caudecus, the largos, kodan, and other races’ dignitaries.

Though I suspect that he’s going to primarily remain in Orr to keep restoring it.

I agree with Narcemus and Konig here. In fact, if I was ArenaNet, I’d make a big deal of Trahearne’s appearances in the future having him mostly doing paperwork and other boring stuff just to highlight how much the players actually don’t want his job.

On the negotiation side of things, I think the current political landscape goes something as follows:

Asura: The Inquest has placed itself in direct opposition to the Pact, while the Arcane Council so far has preferred to stick its head in the ground. It’ll be interesting to see how the Pact’s successes – and, by extension, the successes of krewes associated with the Pact – affect that, though.

Charr: Smodur is definitely behind the Pact. Malice probably is, since she appears to have been a supporter of the truce and the Pact is the logical extension. Bangar is, as has previously been noted, a wild card.

Humans: Jennah is behind the Pact. Caudecus is probably against it, but he seems to pretty much be against everything Jennah is for because he’s just interested in making Jennah look bad. Any political work involving Caudecus will probably involve discrediting him and swaying his supporters rather than directly negotiating with him, beyond whatever level is needed for show.

Norn: The norn seem to be ‘in principle’ behind the Pact, but don’t operate as a nation.

Sylvari: The Pale Tree is, of course, behind the Pact.

Of the nations of playable races, then, Kryta, the Grove, the Iron Legion, and the Ash Legion all seem to be for it. The Blood Legion is questionable, the Arcane Council wants no part of it, and the Norn aren’t truly a nation at all.

Moving into nonplayer races, there’s more opportunity to diplomacy. The Pact will probably want to keep the hylek proto-nation in Sparkfly intact and expanding, try to bring the Dominion of Winds on side (and the Tethyos Houses if they actually do form a ruling body) and exploit discontent among the dredge and centaurs.

High Councillor Flaxx’s actions hardly show to me that they’re sticking their head in the ground. His “official” – or public – stance is that he supports whoever gets the most efficiency with minimal cost when it comes to Inquest, and he ignores the Elder Dragons as a threat, like Caudecus. Unofficially, behind the scenes, he’s wiping all things that’d scare Rata Sum with the Elder Dragons – even helpful information – so that he can give a false pretense of security. One can thing he’s an egomaniac, believing that the Elder Dragons will wipe the world but leave the asura unscathed; others, like myself, can call him delusional.

Either way, the Arcane Council seems to be holding the same goal as the Inquest: Survive, and rule afterwards. The Inquest are just being proactive about it, while Flaxx is just hiding in his little levitating bunker with his canned sardine rations (figuratively speaking).

When speaking of national negotations, the main ones that we players come from – Jennah, Knut, Smodur, Pale Tree, and Flaxx – with the exception of Flaxx are all pro-Pact. There’s little to no negotiations to be had. All that’s really needed to figure out is how much support they can and will give, primarily with Knut and Jennah (the former is a leader among independent individuals, the latter is hard pressed with intrigue-based civil war and a different war with unknown state).

What’d be more interesting to see is Trahearne having to negotiate with the true unknowns, or even the enemies: Flaxx, whoever took over the Inquest after Kudu, the dredge (or rather, the revolters), Bangar, whoever took over the Flame Legion after Gaheron, Caudecus, the tengu, the largos, the jotun, and even Faolain.

I can easily see one of the plots mirroring the racial sympathies with “expanding the Pact’s allegiances” – one can go the direction of the more isolated or even hostile races (kodan, largos, tengu, krait, jotun), getting more independent groups of the already-chosen racial sympathy (if Anet knows what’s good for them, they’d do this – bringing back the contacts we met previously to unite the minor races a bit among themselves), or going to open up cease fires with rival groups.

Personally, I think trying to make negotiations between Trahearne and Faolain would be most intriguing. She’s still living, and we’ve been told in an interview that the Nightmare Court are still anti-Elder Dragon (even though there are theories that the NC are, at the very least, indirectly influenced by the Jungle Dragon). One would think it to be possible for Faolain to “put aside differences” temporarily… unless she really is too far gone. But I can definitely see an attempt at such being made.

Another negotiation path that could be explored is getting the backing of more multi-racial orders: the Zaishen, for one, or the Consortium (“if you fund the Pact, and once we succeed, the Consortium will be known for those who gave aid to those who saved the world – that would bring in a lot of revenue from promotions.” – I can easily see such an argument being made).

Most would probably consider negotiation-related missions to be rather boring, but they might not always be… if kept short enough. And no need to have combat in every story step either. Sometimes having to use your wits, rather than weapons, is an equal challenge. Though it’d make all too much heavy working with the dialogue boxes, rather than cinematics, if our own characters were to argue – which would be needed if it’s mostly talking.

One possibility there, too, could be to make the negotiation-style missions optional, with a more combat-oriented alternative. It’s something that was talked about with respect to order choice – choosing your order was, in part, supposed to be choosing the style of the next few parts of the game. Vigil is more direct combat oriented, Priory more oriented to Indiana Jones-style seeking of the macguffin, while Whispers is more about intrigue and negotiation.

Problem is, of course, your choice of order only really counted for a little over a half-dozen story steps. However, there’s the common belief that the army/navy/air force arcs near the end of the Personal Story were originally connected to the orders – there certainly does seem to be one each in the style of each of the orders.

Anyway, to end my digression… it would be quite simple to have points in the hypothetical future expansion of the Personal Story where you have a choice between a negotiation-style mission and a more combat-oriented mission, even if the Pact is in negotiation mode. For instance, a mission to the Dominion of Winds has a good chance of being mostly talking, while if you’re part of a security detail escorting a diplomatic effort to the krait… well, we know how that’s probably going to turn out, but at least the attempt was made. Or there could be a situation where a faction has already demanded the recovery of something that’s going to require fighting the current holders to get, similar to Ghosts of Ascalon – for instance, a story step may involve leading a team in support of a dredge rebellion, creating a newly independent dredge settlement that can throw its support behind the Pact.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Personally, I think trying to make negotiations between Trahearne and Faolain would be most intriguing. She’s still living, and we’ve been told in an interview that the Nightmare Court are still anti-Elder Dragon (even though there are theories that the NC are, at the very least, indirectly influenced by the Jungle Dragon). One would think it to be possible for Faolain to “put aside differences” temporarily… unless she really is too far gone. But I can definitely see an attempt at such being made.

I agree. I think this would be an amazing plot device. I doubt that Faolain is too far gone to work with the pact. She obviously has some self-preservation going on. That would probably extend to fighting the elder dragons by whatever means necessary if she thought they were a threat to her life and limb. Even if this meant a temporary truce or alliance.

It would be awesome to see how this might force Caithe and Faolain to work together.

Given the nightmare’s court alliance with the bandits and the inquest along with their open attack of strangers, I find it hard to believe the pact would form an alliance with the nightmare court taking into account their very violent and sadistic nature. I don’t see trahearne considering the possibility if you remember he’s had plenty of experience with them and considers them threats to be killed considering they wanna kill/harm his mother(he seems to have the closest relation with the pale tree out of all the sylvari).

Also remembering the pact believes in honor, compassion and all that good stuff is the complete opposite of the nightmare courts philosophy and I SEVERELY doubt the nightmare court would bow to the very rules they are vigorously fighting against.

That’s why I mentioned cease fire. Kind of going about saying “we can settle our differences after all our lives aren’t threatened by external forces.”

I don’t think that Trahearne is any more against the NC or closer to the Pale Tree than other Firstborn – he certainly isn’t more against the NC than Caithe, or more against the Inquest than Malomedies. And as he loves to say, he’s a scholar – a man who thinks logically, and the logical option is to get allies where you can when facing against impossible odds. At the very least negotiating, or trying to negotiate, a cease fire would lessen the strain on the Pact and the Wardens, allowing more resources to go after the Elder Dragons.

1. Get the Nightmare Court to join your side.
2. Send them into a situation as a suicide mission without their knowledge.
3. NC destroyed, no additional minions
4. Pact has easier time plowing through.

I highly doubt he would do this though, seems to have too much honor or some such thing.

The problem with the idea of negotiating a ceasefire with the NC…

Would you trust them to hold to it? Because I wouldn’t.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

That’s why I mentioned cease fire. Kind of going about saying “we can settle our differences after all our lives aren’t threatened by external forces.”

I don’t think that Trahearne is any more against the NC or closer to the Pale Tree than other Firstborn – he certainly isn’t more against the NC than Caithe, or more against the Inquest than Malomedies. And as he loves to say, he’s a scholar – a man who thinks logically, and the logical option is to get allies where you can when facing against impossible odds. At the very least negotiating, or trying to negotiate, a cease fire would lessen the strain on the Pact and the Wardens, allowing more resources to go after the Elder Dragons.

If i recall the nightmare court are extremely prideful to the point if the pact did approach them, I’d reason they’d just respond “We’ve survived so far without your aid. We are true sylvari! We don’t need humans or any of these other races to survive since true sylvari don’t adhere to the morals of humans or centaurs. why would we bow our knee to the very people we fight against when we can survive just fine on our own!”

The nightmare court can’t be reasoned with. This is constantly emphasized in the shield of the moon storyline. It’s why caithe favors just flat out killing over any form of conversation(excluding faolin but it’s obvious why she tries here). For all we know they’ve already tried to reason with the nightmare court or the inquest and that didn’t work out.

It’s really emphasized the nightmare court are zealous to the point they’d do anything to prove their values to be the truest form of the sylvari to the point they’d burn down the pale tree in favor of corrupting another tree to their ideals. They are prideful and you know pride hampers reason and makes a person illogical. They have no reason to believe they need help surviving the dragons since none of the dragon minions are really out there aside from a few risen(who engage with the normal sylvari comparatively more then nightmare court since I don’t recall either side going at each other or if so the outcome of it).

Remember they already have formed pacts with other villain groups so what would they gain from the pact when their already current allies are fighting the pact(regarding the inquest not the bandits). They already have allies they believe will help guarantee their survival. While they have formed a pact with humans i believe it’s because they get their agendas furthered more then just plain survival. The humans they are allied with behave alot like their ideals so they probably just tolerate them a bit easier. Regarding the inquest I don’t know much between them. All I know is this alliance is more of them using each other to get their goals achieved instead of just survival against their enemies.

Trahearne honestly doesn’t like the nightmare court that much and I doubt he’d wanna risk pact soldiers in a veiled deal with people he know who betray and deceive to achieve their goals. He’s had experience with them before. He’s not some human or some charr, he knows how they act and what they’d do and he wouldn’t risk it based off his previous experience. That’s what a logical person would do. Use past experiences as a basis for future decisions.

Heck he’d talk to caithe if he even considered this idea and she REALLY hates them and executes them even disregarding honor at times(sylvari early missions show this). She’d also just say faoline is too far gone based off her experiences from twilight arbor and trahearne would listen to her opinion.

Side note you should make a sylvari and do the story paths since you seem to show little to no understanding regarding trahearne in these storylines. If you have done them but forgotten then I retract part of my statement but you don’t seem to have any understanding in this regard.

There is a Nightmare Courtier in the White Hart storyline that can be reasoned with, but he’s very atypical – doesn’t take pleasure in harming other sylvari, avoids causing harm that doesn’t further his goals (including reigning in other Nightmare Courtiers) and generally behaving in a fairly honourable, if antagonistic, fashion. However, I suspect he hadn’t truly fallen to the Nightmare Court, but was taken in by their claimed objective to free the sylvari from the outside influence of the Tablet – and because he came willingly, he didn’t get put through the forceful conversion process as happens to prisoners..

draxynnic.3719:

There is a Nightmare Courtier in the White Hart storyline that can be reasoned with, but he’s very atypical – doesn’t take pleasure in harming other sylvari, avoids causing harm that doesn’t further his goals (including reigning in other Nightmare Courtiers) and generally behaving in a fairly honourable, if antagonistic, fashion. However, I suspect he hadn’t truly fallen to the Nightmare Court, but was taken in by their claimed objective to free the sylvari from the outside influence of the Tablet – and because he came willingly, he didn’t get put through the forceful conversion process as happens to prisoners..

He could only be talked with, not reasoned with. You couldn’t talk him out of his objective or persuade him to leave. While yes he was honorable and seemed different from the others he still stood by the nightmare court opposing the pale tree. Citing him is hard to say the nightmare court are like this since their whole personality majors around being as perverse and cruel as possible. Heck initiation is usually something messed up that’s suppose to rob you of the last amount of virtue or honor you had left.

I think of this guy as an anomaly. Since 1 in over 1000 is hardly grounds for much except he’s the exception in this part. I do know of the guy you’re talking bout but I’m honestly confused why bring him up since you even admit he’s an anomaly amongst the vast majority and even then his rank wasn’t higher the faolin.

jheryn.8390:

Thoughts on The Pact’s future?

Yeah… its “future” needs to knock it the hell off with this constant “here’s someone you just met 5 minutes ago and oops, they’re dead or corrupted now … NVM but plz be sad over losing them anyway”… even though you could totally have saved them with enough skill if the mission mechanics wasn’t locked so tightly onto Rails.

Also… there needs to be a frikkin BANK in their base’s Future as well.
They got all this high tech crap but they don’t have a Bank for our sakes?

My point was that there was one who could be reasoned with, to an extent (you can’t talk him out of what he thinks is the right thing, but really, neither can he talk you out of taking your course, so I don’t think it’s fair to call him unreasonable) but he is definitely the exception to the rule.