Guild Wars 2

Obsidian.1328:

Oh for christ’s sake…

It’s a fantasy game!!! It’s not supposed to be adhere to all the laws of physics and biology and whatever else. Why does everyone keep using real life scenarios as analogous evidence? That’s ludicrous.

Guild Wars is a make-believe world that we, as players, let ourselves be immersed it to participate in and experience that world. There is nothing in those first three games that leads us all to think what we were experiencing and seeing was all legendary hogwash. It’s fake for us as real people, but real for us as players…get it?

Just because another game comes along and makes the claim that all that first stuff was a bunch of malarky, doesn’t make it so.

Disregarding your remark about fantasy worlds not requiring internal logic and such, I’d be interested in seeing you mention an example of a case where GW2 lore overwrites something experienced in person in GW1.

Obsidian.1328:

Oh for christ’s sake…

It’s a fantasy game!!! It’s not supposed to adhere to all the laws of physics and biology and whatever else. Why does everyone keep using real life scenarios as analogous evidence? That’s ludicrous.

Guild Wars is a make-believe world that we, as players, let ourselves be immersed in to participate in and experience that world. There is nothing in those first three games that leads us all to think what we were experiencing and seeing was all legendary hogwash. It’s fake for us as real people, but real for us as players…get it?

Just because another game comes along and makes the claim that all that first stuff was a bunch of malarky, doesn’t make it so.

Oh, but it does. Just because it is a fantasy game it doesn’t mean it’s forced to not adhere to any law of physics, biology or whatever else.
Objects fall, fire burns things, people eat, cities have sewers.
A real world explanation can fit in this world as any fantasy world explanation. That’s what makes fantasy so great. You can explain whatever you want with magic and myth but with common sense too.

Tuomir.1830:

Disregarding your remark about fantasy worlds not requiring internal logic and such, I’d be interested in seeing you mention an example of a case where GW2 lore overwrites something experienced in person in GW1.

+1

Obsidian.1328:

It’s eternally amusing to me how players here try to justify taking GW1 lore as bogus by saying either one of two things:
1) New lore trumps old lore. Period. End of discussion.

New lore trumps old lore. Always. End of discussion, and there is no debate about this.

It’s a known . . . I hesitate to say “rule” but it’s a known thing about fiction that authors and writers tend to change their minds later on, or get ideas thinking “you know, this could work but this little detail is getting in the way. Well I’ll just over-write it and say it was wrong before.”

Any writer who goes back to their older work will inevitably have this happen even in smaller details. And I have yet to meet a writer who didn’t get either sarcastic or defensive if someone brings up the “inconsistency”. For many writers, internal consistency within one piece trumps internal consistency over all pieces in a setting. Especially true when you have multiple people working on something, and the old writers may not be available.

Evidence? “Forgotten Realms”, “Dragonlance”, Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, J.R.R. Tolkein (one of the more eminent examples!), George Lucas (one of the more infamous examples), and many many many others.

Yeah, obsidian. I’m sorry, but this is the way the world works. You cannot just pick and choose whatever you prefer as the lore, in the end the new lore always wins out. That is the way of the world, and you know why? It is because YOU are not the writer.

Obsidian.1328:

Oh for christ’s sake…

It’s a fantasy game!!! It’s not supposed to adhere to all the laws of physics and biology and whatever else. Why does everyone keep using real life scenarios as analogous evidence? That’s ludicrous.

Because the real life example being used here is one in which an old story which people took on faith was overturned due to the discovery of evidence that showed otherwise.

We’re not claiming that Tyria has to follow the same laws of biology or physics as the real world. We’re pointing out that there is an analogy between a legend that was taken as true based on faith (creation of the world by Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah and creation of the world by the Six Gods) being overturned as evidence was discovered that pointed to a different origin. My analogy would hold just as well if, instead of the current most accepted theory being the Big Bang, formation of the solar system through an accretion disk, and evolution, convincing scientific evidence was found that the entire universe was created at 7AM GMT on Tuesday last week by the combined efforts of a flying spaghetti monster and an invisible pink unicorn, and all of our memories and recorded history to the contrary was part of this act of creation.

In each case, a legend which was once believed to be true has been discovered to be partially or wholly inaccurate due to the discovery of new evidence. This is a perfectly natural process regardless of the physical laws of a setting, and something I find much more realistic than the usual fantasy tropes of every legend proving to be 100% true..

Old ideas get replaced by new ones as new evidence is discovered. Creationism has been replaced by a number of scientific theories covering different stages of the genesis of life, the solar system, and the universe. Ptomely’s model of the solar system was replaced by Copernicus’, and then after that it was discovered that even Copernicus didn’t get it quite right. Newtonian physics were replaced by relativity and quantum mechanics. Overturning of old ideas by new evidence is something that happens.

Seriously, Obsidian, you’re starting to come off a bit like the hardline Christians that keep trying to discredit evolution and force “intelligent design” into the curriculum because they prefer the idea that they were created by God than that they may be distantly related to monkeys.

Tuomir & Ludovicus
I’ll come up with some examples for you if you wish Tuomir, but as for the physics thing I don’t think there’s a discussion really. Take Star Trek’s transporter technology. There’s an actual mechanism written into the series called a Heisenberg compensator. Since Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty theorizes that a particles position and momentum cannot be know at the same time, it is virtually impossible to transport particles from point A to B and put them back together in the same fashion. Since Trek’s transporters do just this, the writer’s simply got around this by creating a “Heisenberg Compensator” that supposedly solves that problem. The writers weren’t tyring to pull one over on us, they were simply saying the equivalent of, “Yeah, we know it’s bogus…but for the sake of immersion in the show just pretend it works.” It’s a legit way of inviting the audience to participate in your story, and it happened to work great for Star Trek. But yeah, you can explain fantasy with both common sense and magic…but it certainly doesn’t have to both, nor is it expected to. That’s part of the ‘magic’ of it.

Tobias
Not really. That might carry weight if it were the same writers but it isn’t. None of the writers from Proph and Factions are still with ANet I believe, and as far as I know Jeff is the only one since Nightfall. If you wrote a novel, and I came along and used all of your characters and setting for my own book, and then changed the style, direction, and tone and claimed mine is actually how it really is…would you take issue with that?

Narc
No I’m not the writer, neither is anyone else here. I’m just a guy who calls out bulls&%t when he sees it. I’m not picking and choosing what I want, I’m just pointing out the glaring inconsistencies in storytelling that are more obvious than OJ at his murder trial. Sorry if that bugs you. :/

drax
I don’t know how to respond to you. Personally I don’t believe in creationism, even though a form of it was taught to me as a teenager. And last time I went to mass I was a kid…what does that have to do with this again? /shrug

Evidence is within the realm of the real world. Storybook evidence is whatever the author says it is…it’s not based on human conventions. The GW2 writers can claim whatever the heck they want as evidence, that’s their right as the current owners of the Guild Wars story. But their “take” on a world created by someone else deserves to be scrutinized just like it would for anyone else.

Also, not sure how we switched topics to “gods creating/not-creating Tyria,” I thought this was about whether or not they knew about the dragons. Personally, I don’t remember ever thinking they were the world creators when playing GW1. Everything I remember coming across said they had from come somewhere else, bringing humans with them. Is that wrong? :/

Alright, so none of the Star Wars novels are worth crap. None of Brian Herbert’s Dune books are important to the story. Christopher Tolkien’s books are completely out of line. Heck the last two books of Wheel of Time books don’t even get me started there… Any book ever written that was not written by the original author of the series should never be read. They are abominations. That is about what I am getting from you, anyways.

No, that’s not what I’m saying either. I read Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn series, they were very well done. Great addition to the Star Wars franchise. What’s the problem with those??

I’m not sure we are playing the same game. Are you all really saying that you detect no thematic, stylistic, or contextual differences between 1 and 2?? And I don’t mean subtle changes here and there, but such vast differences that the game doesn’t even feel like we’re on the same planet? Cuz if ya’ll don’t, as Inigo Montoya said, “Then we are at an impasse.”

Even without the style transmogrification, I don’t know how how anyone can play this game and not feel like they are back in junior high. It’s a children’s game.

Edit: I think it was Cary Elwes who said that, not Mandy. Sorry! D=

Obsidian.1328:

No, that’s not what I’m saying either. I read Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn series, they were very well done. Great addition to the Star Wars franchise. What’s the problem with those??

I’m not sure we are playing the same game. Are you all really saying that you detect no thematic, stylistic, or contextual differences between 1 and 2?? And I don’t mean subtle changes here and there, but such vast differences that the game doesn’t even feel like we’re on the same planet? Cuz if ya’ll don’t, as Inigo Montoya said, “Then we are at an impasse.”

Even without the style transmogrification, I don’t know how how anyone can play this game and not feel like they are back in junior high. It’s a children’s game.

I agree with two of your points:
1) GW2’s story line feels far less epic than GW1’s. And I’m just talking about prophecies. Even though I must admit that the world feels much larger in GW2.

2)The world feels too different. Geographicly mostly. Even though there are some points that remained the same. Too many mountains have risen in between. I know that those are needed zone boundaries, but they feel weird sometimes.

But about historian’s inaccuracy about the past events, you must agree that people can forget things in the GW universe and knowledge can get corrupted or lost without breaking the immersion.

As an example: if some char stated that Sohothin was stolen from the warbands, even if we know it wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter. He’s mistaken but he will take actions accordingly. And it’s not immersion breaking.

If the humans believe that Kormir is superduper cool and that she deserves their devotion, it’s ok. That’s what their parents tough them that’s their sincerely mistaken reality. So people in GW2 think that Kormir did great things. Let it be. We know that she was just some bossy sunspear that only did some organizing work. And that after a series of events the gods randomly chose her as the vessel for Abaddon’s power.

Ludo

Hmm, yeah I used to think it felt bigger, but now I don’t think so so much. I’ve noticed that the longer I play the game, the more I notice how the scale of the topography is tweaked. For instance, when walking around Lornar’s Pass, a mountain top in the distance seems like a formidable climb. But when I get to it, it’s a just a short platforming feat to get to the top. Things look immense, but they are actually scaled down much smaller. I would think a lot of games do this actually, but this one seems to “trick the eye” more than I’m used to. Perhaps it’s the awesome graphics, idk.

As for your last point, I would agree…with an important caveat. A lot of the content I have issue with that this game promotes comes with a very large leap of faith attached to it: that a lot of the key themes and ideas shown to us in GW1 were really just mythical beliefs or constructs of a skewed point of view.

The question you have to ask yourself is…was this the intention of the original game. If it was, I’m totally wrong in my line of thinking. If not, then we have a problem. Because then we get into an area of false convictions and artistic truths which I personally have issue with.

Obsidian.1328:

Ludo

Hmm, yeah I used to think it felt bigger, but now I don’t think so so much. I’ve noticed that the longer I play the game, the more I notice how the scale of the topography is tweaked. For instance, when walking around Lornar’s Pass, a mountain top in the distance seems like a formidable climb. But when I get to it, it’s a just a short platforming feat to get to the top. Things look immense, but they are actually scaled down much smaller. I would think a lot of games do this actually, but this one seems to “trick the eye” more than I’m used to. Perhaps it’s the awesome graphics, idk.

As for your last point, I would agree…with an important caveat. A lot of the content I have issue with that this game promotes comes with a very large leap of faith attached to it: that a lot of the key themes and ideas shown to us in GW1 were really just mythical beliefs or constructs of a skewed point of view.

The question you have to ask yourself is…was this the intention of the original game. If it was, I’m totally wrong in my line of thinking. If not, then we have a problem. Because then we get into an area of false convictions and artistic truths which I personally have issue with.

I’m not saying that GW1 didn’t happen. I’m just saying that characters in GW2 don’t remember it accurately. We as players know the truth about the things that happened. But the characters are not forced to know that.

On the other hand, GW1 didn’t have a very detailed lore. We didn’t really know how the gods came to be or if they were eternal. We just knew they can be replaced. We didn’t know much about the dragons. Or about the mists.

That fact gives the writers the liberty to fill the holes they way they see fit, even though those holes weren’t intended to be filled that way. Or even though we didn’t expect them to fill them that way.

I still don’t get what’s the problem with humanity having a false belief about the worth of a god that barely appears in game, except for two statues and a skill. In GW2 humanity thinks Kormir is much more than she really is. What’s wrong with that??

That’s not even a hole being filled.

List these please. I would like to know exactly what you are having issues with.

I agree that the feel of this game is different from the feel of the other game. That there is a lot of stuff added to this game to give it a much more broad appeal compared to GW1. But I whole heartedly disagree that the way in which they have “extended” the lore by adding half-truths and fables is childish at all. It actually makes it so that players have to really think about things and delve a little further to get the full truth behind something.

Narcemus.1348:

List these please. I would like to know exactly what you are having issues with.

I agree that the feel of this game is different from the feel of the other game. That there is a lot of stuff added to this game to give it a much more broad appeal compared to GW1. But I whole heartedly disagree that the way in which they have “extended” the lore by adding half-truths and fables is childish at all. It actually makes it so that players have to really think about things and delve a little further to get the full truth behind something.

And I agree with that. But what do you want me to list??

Tobias
Not really. That might carry weight if it were the same writers but it isn’t. None of the writers from Proph and Factions are still with ANet I believe, and as far as I know Jeff is the only one since Nightfall. If you wrote a novel, and I came along and used all of your characters and setting for my own book, and then changed the style, direction, and tone and claimed mine is actually how it really is…would you take issue with that?

Bad example, because you’re forgetting one detail.

“Say you wrote a novel for someone else and then later I wrote a novel for the same person using the same world and characters . . .”

If I was no longer working for them, and the characters/world notes are their intellectual property due to contract . . . whether I take issue with it or not is irrelevant. It’s not mine to deal with anymore. That’s the case here, with any “Expanded Universe” material from Star Wars to Forgotten Realms to World of Warcraft.

I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. The original writing team don’t own the rights to the characters or story. The company does, and if they want to hand it to someone else, then that’s their right to do so and it doesn’t matter what the original writers think of it. It’s not their call.

Now, if you would be so kind, start listing off cases in which GW2 lore completely rewrites something which existed in GW1. It’s not as often as you think.

The list was for Obsidian, I’m sorry I did not notice you posted before I finished. I wanted him to list all the things in GW1 that bother him that they do not match up with GW2. Why? So we can see specifically what rubs him wrong and discuss it.

One of them he’s made a big deal of before was the magic gifted by Abaddon having come from the Seer artifact (that later got broken up to form the Bloodstones) rather than magic having appeared because Abaddon simply decreeed “Let there be magic!” one day.

Which is clearly a case of hole-filling, since GW1 never said how the gift of magic was granted.

Exactly, I don’t remember much on this, for the most part it was assumption that the gods created magic. This never fully added up though. We knew that the seers and mursaat warred years before humanity, but humanity and the gods were so closely tied together it didn’t really leave room for this. Plus wouldn’t the forgotten have been involved, being the guardians of the world? The old lore of GW1 was too much “God created the world in 7 days, and it was good” and not much factual history. Now Obsidian, again do not take this as anti-christian, I am a christian, and I choose to believe in creationism, even being taught evolution all my life. That is not my point. What I am saying is, the history of the world that we were given was extremely religious, there is no doubt about it. And if there is one thing that religion does not provide, it is a full doubt-free history. This is where faith comes into things.

Kain Francois.4328:

I understand she made a choice only a human could make, yadayadayada, but what exactly did she do as a god anyways? I honestly don’t see why anyone would worship her.

Stole my Kill.

Kain Francois.4328:

I understand she made a choice only a human could make, yadayadayada, but what exactly did she do as a god anyways? I honestly don’t see why anyone would worship her.

What she did? She supposedly persuaded the other gods that they should stop interfering in the mortal world. Succesfully. Just before dragons appeared.

I’m sure that humans appeciated the gesture.

It’s quite possible they did, at the time.

Whether or not she did anything (which we can debate about), Kormir’s the first human that people had actually seen become a god. I understand that others may have possibly done this in the past, but if so it appears most knowledge of this was destroyed, erased, or just plain lost until the Apostate found it. This would make her a role model to many just for the fact that she was once one of them and was now a goddess.

I firmly believe that the gods will resurface in the future. To much has been made of the gods abandoning or withdrawing from Tyria. I can easily see them returning to help with a dragon (or other dire reason) in a future expansion. Of course they might be permanently gone for other developer reasons. Still it is a great and easy plot device to keep in the developers back pocket. It is still my guess that they will be back in one way or another.

I don’t think anyone here believes at all that they are fully gone, written out, or anything of the sort. They were a major force behind the first game and it would be a terrible choice to completely remove them.

Narcemus.1348:

I don’t think anyone here believes at all that they are fully gone, written out, or anything of the sort. They were a major force behind the first game and it would be a terrible choice to completely remove them.

I wasn’t implying that anyone here thought the gods were gone for good. I was just stating my opinion. And you are right, I think it would be a horrible choice to not utilize them again.

I am hoping they are a little more interactive when they do resurface. Maybe more of their background will be revealed.

Some has already been revealed, and I would definitely expect that they may someday explain a little more when it comes to the gods and humanity’s backstory someday. It seems that too much has been added for them to not come back to sometime in the future.

Sorry for the late response, work sucks this week.

I’ll list a bunch of things that I find underhanded with the modern lore if you wish Narc, although I warn you very little of it is specific in nature. I’ve posted before on how it’s not the small details that are irksome(ANet actually did a great job making sure everything technically fit together), but rather the big picture.

-A meticulously planned multi-racial agenda which does not accurately reflect certain historical paradigms that are present in the original game.

• Asuran magi-tech superimposing worldly magic, that all the intelligent races equally shared, as the new premier power in Tryia.
• The replacement of Melandru’s traditional role of earth-guardian by the Sylvari ethos and Pale Tree dynamic.
• Norn inexplicably assuming the social mantle the dwarves once held with slight changes like being more individualistic and human-looking.
• Charr engineering might, which is only surpassed by Asuran genius, as an almost completely redesigned characteristic of an otherwise savage race.

-A distinct effort to discourage or downplay old paradigms in order to legitimize a highly unique, yet unprecedented, cultural shift in the narrative.

• The systematic white-washing of many human accomplishments and historical events to the point of virtual insignificance in modern Tyria.
• The relative dismantling of human cultural distinctions like Elonian, Krytan, Ascalonian, etc, to a single stale culture which can only be described as mostly “white European.”
• The subsequent artificial elevation of a new multi-racial system which surpasses any human meanderings of dominance in Tyria.
• The decision to have 250 years pass between games in order to make all the new cultural shifts seem more palatable, as well as more believable.

-The addition of mainstream MMO ideals which dilutes Guild Wars highly original background and story.

• The introduction of huge dragons in the game follows dozens of other games’ method of “interesting” antagonists and villains.
• The decision to market to a younger audience in the hopes of attaining lifelong fans alienates many of the older players who expected an evolution of material which reflects Guild Wars’ aging fan base.
• The change from a PC customization method that was very high in build diversity and low in visual appearance to one that is very low in build diversity and high in visual appearance.
• The fourfold increase in level max(80) which not only bears almost no resemblance to how Guild Wars played, but also introduces grindier elements to the game for game-shop reasons.

-An overarching, subtle narrative which not only tries to bestow its own morality upon the PC, but absolutely refuses to let the PC retain any legacy of Guild Wars which is counter to this new morality.

• The dissolving of old rivalries in a backhanded and inaccurate manner in an effort to equalize all races for the sake of a forced marketing agenda instead of a more realistic cultural evolution.
• Unrealistically changing old heroes into villains to legitimize the Charr’s social hegemony of Ascalonian lands.
• Removing the gods’ historical role both as the purveyors of magic, as well as the apex beings of power in Tyria, because of their close association to a single race(human) which would run counter to this new narrative.
• Literally asking a Guild Wars player to take a lot of what was known 250 years ago as mere folklore or myth which bears little resemblance to this new reality.

Take one of the Ascended Items for instance: Blood of the Khan-Ur. Why is this legendary Charr’s blood for sale at a vendor in LA? There are dozens of examples of old persons and items of significance used for names on jewelry for players to enjoy. This just shows a complete disregard for old lore conventions. It’s almost as if ANet wants us to think of the past events as quaint nursery rhymes or fables because the real stuff is what’s going on now.

And I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever change things, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying there are right ways and wrong ways to do it. It’s the same when you hear a really bad cover for a Beatles song…or a strip mall addition to a historic colonial building…or any ’84 Mustang model lol. They all have the same thing in common: they failed to adequately reflect the spirit of the thing which gave them life.

There’s a saying in Latin: firman consesus facit. It means “our future will copy fair our past.” Our history defines us, we can’t escape that. What ANet has done is basically to ask us to deny that which they first got us to believe in. It’s not just irreverent, it’s silly…and wrong.

I’m tired of this topic.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Tobias
Not really. That might carry weight if it were the same writers but it isn’t. None of the writers from Proph and Factions are still with ANet I believe, and as far as I know Jeff is the only one since Nightfall. If you wrote a novel, and I came along and used all of your characters and setting for my own book, and then changed the style, direction, and tone and claimed mine is actually how it really is…would you take issue with that?

Bad example, because you’re forgetting one detail.

“Say you wrote a novel for someone else and then later I wrote a novel for the same person using the same world and characters . . .”

If I was no longer working for them, and the characters/world notes are their intellectual property due to contract . . . whether I take issue with it or not is irrelevant. It’s not mine to deal with anymore. That’s the case here, with any “Expanded Universe” material from Star Wars to Forgotten Realms to World of Warcraft.

I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. The original writing team don’t own the rights to the characters or story. The company does, and if they want to hand it to someone else, then that’s their right to do so and it doesn’t matter what the original writers think of it. It’s not their call.

Now, if you would be so kind, start listing off cases in which GW2 lore completely rewrites something which existed in GW1. It’s not as often as you think.

I didn’t forget that detail, I simply don’t think it matters. If I have to choose between doing the right thing and having the right to do something, I choose the former. Who gives a hoot about copyrights?? Ofc they have the right to do whatever they want, that’s not what we are discussing.

Several decades ago, an oil company somehow got the Supreme Court to let them patent a microbe that cleans up oil spills; the very first known patent on life. That seemingly insignificant case has been used over and over by companies putting patents on parts of human genes…our genes! They have the legal right to do so, does that make it right? I would hope you think not.

Obsidian.1328:

A distinct effort to discourage or downplay old paradigms in order to legitimize a highly unique, yet unprecedented, cultural shift in the narrative.

• The relative dismantling of human cultural distinctions like Elonian, Krytan, Ascalonian, etc, to a single stale culture which can only be described as mostly “white European.”

Good call. 250 years ago there was easy passage between Tyria, Elona, and Cantha. As shown in other posts, developers and Anet have stated that classes and peoples from all three areas found a presence in each one. It seems to me that not only human cultural distinctions have been dumbed down, so have classes/professions. To me, much of the uniqueness of the professions have blurred as have the human cultures.

Obsidian.1328:

The addition of mainstream MMO ideals which dilutes Guild Wars highly original background and story.

Preach! Guild Wars 1 was very distinctive and original in its various story lines and quests. You felt like you were discovering something new and wonderful. Each mission or task felt purposeful and urgent. It just doesn’t seem that way now. Each mission seems sort of “more of the same” to me. On top of that, most of the places that made those story lines unique are gone. Most places we knew are gone or destroyed. The dragons were not responsible for all of those changes. Why did they need to destroy The Temple of the Ages, The Granite Citadel, and several others? Why could they not have expanded on them and made them integral to today’s stories? Some of us would have enjoyed the continuity and nostalgia. Instead we are left feeling devoid of many of the things that made GW1 special.

Obsidian.1328:

• Removing the gods’ historical role both as the purveyors of magic, as well as the apex beings of power in Tyria, because of their close association to a single race(human) which would run counter to this new narrative.
• Literally asking a Guild Wars player to take a lot of what was known 250 years ago as mere folklore or myth which bears little resemblance to this new reality.

On this one, I think it is apparent that the gods will make a return in the future. Too much of a big deal has been made about them ‘leaving’ to not be an obvious clue as to their return. It is just my opinion, but their return will open up a whole other can of worms that the races will have to deal with.

As to the lore, I agree. As I said before, to much of the game we love was discarded. It left those of us going from GW1 to GW2 feeling as if it is no longer the world we got to know, instead of the world we knew being transformed by knowledge and time. I often play and wonder “what is this place?” Where is that magical land I knew from the first game?

Wow, well I can’t say I disagree Obsidian. I don’t believe I have ever stated that this game is an example of perfection, and I have complained many times about not having more of the back-handed manipulative enemies in the game, like in the original. I was merely stating that I do not believe that just because we do not like what they have done doesn’t mean that (stupid censor) it has happened (speaking of this specifically in terms of Lore). Just because I loved Dumbledore doesn’t mean I can continue to live in the fantasy that the end of book 6 didn’t occur… I do not find it hard to believe at all that history from 1,000-2,000 years ago was tainted with half or partial truths. I just do not see the effect on lore as being a bad thing like you have stated. Like I said I do agree with a lot of what you have said on the game as a whole, but I just do not see it like you do in the realm of game lore.

Well said Narc, I can respect that I guess.

I’d like to add that it’s the reasoning behind the changes that is the root of my problem with GW2. With Dumbledore it made sense that he died in a way…not only did he save the Elder Wand from falling into the wrong hands, his death near the end of the series gave further meaning to Harry’s ongoing fight with V. His death, while tragic, makes sense in the overall storyline of Harry Potter.

With GW2, the reasons behind these changes are…what again? When I asked myself this question over and over with the lore, one thing kept popping up as the answer…

…more customers.

The new races, the gods’ decline, the long time-lapse, the storyline, etc…all these things funneled back like a river in reverse to a single over-arching decision made probably 6 years ago: we need to make certain GW2 appeals to as wide an audience as possible.

Profit motive, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a healthy and needed thing. But when you let it influence your story to such an extent that it forces you to change the fundamental nature of the foundations of that which you are building on…you’ve already ceased to be a true heir to that foundation.

I don’t mind things coming to an end, everything has an ending, including Tryia. And I don’t mind change at all, it’s the one constant in the universe. What I do mind is changing a creative story and artform largely for the sake of your wallet.

What is really nutty about all of this is that that the game has a one-time fee…unheard in today’s market for a game of this caliber. That takes cajones, and I applaud them for it. But I think they were a bit scared that they wouldn’t have enough people to sustain the game using the old lore. The old story was beautiful…but it was probably hard to see it as something that would attract players from all walks of life. And I suppose they thought that if they were going to gamble with this “no monthly fee” thing, they better make darn sure GW2 has broad appeal.

It’s too bad really, I’d be willing to bet there’d be legions of loyal fans willing to pay a small monthly fee of, say 10-15 dollars, to be able to play Guild Wars with both these new amazing graphics and combat mechanics, as well as a high dose of continuity. I know I would. I mean, it’s more than a little silly that people get upset about spending 20 or 30 bucks a month on a game they play for 3-6 hours a day. That’s like 140 hours of entertainment for the same price as a cheap beer night out with your friends…that’s gotta be one of the lowest return on investments for the entertainment industry.

meh…it’s late and I’m rambling again.

Yeah, same here. I would post, but I think it would be the same thing I said over the last 20 or so posts. I think we’ve done this to death, and then we kept doing it for another 15 posts or so, lol.

She grants swiftness to those who can dodge her priest’s questions

And she grants you random boons

For the god of knowledge, it’s lackluster, but what do you expect? Helping the Durmand Priory?