Guild Wars 2

I’m annoyed just about any time Destiny’s Edge 2.0 of the Living Story shows up or speaks. They’re so boring and flat. I hope ANet does not get rid of Destiny’s Edge 1.0 and force the B-team on us.

“Destiny’s Edge 2.0” is a group of adventurers in their ‘newb’ years.

Remember, originally Rytlock and Logan had trouble with some devourers until Caithe showed them how :P. The ‘b team’ simply isn’t as experianced as adventurers as we the player characters are, or Destiny’s Edge.

They are skilled and experianced, but not as much.

Given DE’s story dungeon performances I don’t think DE 2.0 has a high hill to climb.

Meaning AI actions/gameplay or something else?

The overly pale skins of humans in Kryta.
Sorry, but it does bother me.
Krytans in GW1 were darker skinned, with tattoos aplenty, and sometimes even tight-braided hair.
Elonians reflect various sahelian African cultures. (and superbly, oh MAN superbly)
Canthans reflect both heavily bodypainted central Asians and a more Eastern vibe.

Given the admixture, and the chronology of the various waves of migration, it just always bothers me how pale-skinned modern Krytans are. If I have my timeline right, it’s Kryta + Ascalon, to which Cantha’s refugees get added, and then waves of Elonian migrants arrive as Joko conquers each state, ending perhaps fifty years ago.

Canthan and Elonian numbers wouldn’t be that great though. I mean, Cantha didn’t have refugees really, it just closed the borders (but still traded), and then was cut off because of Zhaitan.

Someone more lore-immersed than me could correct me, but my understanding was that as Joko’s forces spread through Elona, everyone was fleeing fast. So you’d have a massive influx of whole civilian populations trying to flee an undead army in a series of state by state migrations over the past century, all of whom were fantasy-African.

Cantha I don’t honestly know, but I frankly don’t know if it’s as relevant really to the whitening of gw2 – Kurzicks were so monochromatic that it’d not have been an issue, and Luxons I don’t know in terms of whether they’d have left.
I guess my point is even without cantha, you have the Krytans, who look like this tattooed fellow in GW1 below, to the right of my henchie.

To which is added Ascalonians, after which waves of Elonians join them – I’ve got a screenie here of Sunspears and then Margid the Sly. (Can we has her hair pleeeeeeze?)

.. I just don’t see your average modern Krytan being so pale.

I’d have to re-read it, but as I recall, it was more of Joko’s forces suddenly and fiercely put a stranglehold on Elonia by causing massive drought in Vabbi and Kourna, and those two nations simply surrounded fast to avoid starvation wiping them out. Istani I think lasted slightly longer, but was taken quickly.

There were only TWO periods where people fled it. First during his invasion (and it’s worded as “Those who could” which makes me think overall not many actually got away), and then fifty years or so before gw2, another wave of refugees arrived and then all contact/travel to Elona was lost.

By the same token though, the exodus out of Ascalon was the forces who went with Rurik, and they were hit fairly hard as they crossed the Shiverpeaks. I guess I keep not seeing how Ascalonian trumps both pre-existing krytan and the addition of Elonians more recently. It seems off to me. I celebrate how culturally diverse and incredibly well written GW1 was. GW2 just seems a little bit to cater to the ‘safe’ gaming perspective of ‘fantasy white humans’ is all.

Kalavier.1097:

“Destiny’s Edge 2.0” is a group of adventurers in their ‘newb’ years.

Remember, originally Rytlock and Logan had trouble with some devourers until Caithe showed them how :P. The ‘b team’ simply isn’t as experianced as adventurers as we the player characters are, or Destiny’s Edge.

They are skilled and experianced, but not as much.

Their experience will do little for their boring personalities.

Each to their own. I don’t find them insanely boring personally.

Kalavier.1097:

Each to their own. I don’t find them insanely boring personally.

I’m waiting now for either the return of Destiny’s Edge 1.0 or for ArenaNet to develop a Destiny’s Edge 3.0 roster. I’ve known a number of people who have quit caring about the Living Story because they were so bored and exasperated by Destiny’s Edge 2.0.

Obsidian.1328:

You’re missing my point. The Elder Dragons were in no way, shape, or form a necessary eventuality in Tyria. They were specifically invented for the GW2 narrative. So most of what you said up there is irrelevant. While the written lore for them is not bad, the reason for them even being here in the first place is wrong. It’s the same reason they have mad scientist Asura, drunk viking Norn, elvish Sylvari, steampunk Charr, and vanilla fantasy humans…because Dragonz are kewl!! It’s a simple popular fantasy flavor thrown into the Tyrian narrative to feed the masses.

It’s putting marketing ideals above narrative continuity. ANet wanted to appeal to as many players as possible and they knew that if they threw in all these ridiculous fantasy tropes it would work better. That’s what’s wrong with the initial GW2 writing.

I’m curious, but where do you get your facts? What source do you have that definitively proves that Anet only created the Elder Dragons to appeal to a crowd and not because that’s the sort of story they wanted to explore with their next installment of the franchise?

At any rate this is a futile discussion. You’re clearly set in your belief so there isn’t anything to discuss.

Ehecatl.9172:

Obsidian.1328:

You’re missing my point. The Elder Dragons were in no way, shape, or form a necessary eventuality in Tyria. They were specifically invented for the GW2 narrative. So most of what you said up there is irrelevant. While the written lore for them is not bad, the reason for them even being here in the first place is wrong. It’s the same reason they have mad scientist Asura, drunk viking Norn, elvish Sylvari, steampunk Charr, and vanilla fantasy humans…because Dragonz are kewl!! It’s a simple popular fantasy flavor thrown into the Tyrian narrative to feed the masses.

It’s putting marketing ideals above narrative continuity. ANet wanted to appeal to as many players as possible and they knew that if they threw in all these ridiculous fantasy tropes it would work better. That’s what’s wrong with the initial GW2 writing.

I’m curious, but where do you get your facts? What source do you have that definitively proves that Anet only created the Elder Dragons to appeal to a crowd and not because that’s the sort of story they wanted to explore with their next installment of the franchise?

At any rate this is a futile discussion. You’re clearly set in your belief so there isn’t anything to discuss.

I fail to see the reason he states for the dragons being introduced that is so wrong.

Anet expanded the story of Tyria. :P

The new LA and the rushed “change”. I like it artisticaly, but I don`t feel LA.
Looking at it from lore it is a very huge change. A city run by pirates, designs it as navy like disney land with marbel?
That`s what they took the money for? It saddens me somehow. Sure it looks pretty, but where is the familarity charm. It`s like nothing of old LA is still there. Too radical.
Why do I put this here? Since the people of LA planned it (or a least the captains council). So theoreticaly its their design.
Too much pomp for a former pirate town. They went much too far with the redesign.

(disclaimer: I don`t dislike it. I am just saying they went way overboard and it raises too many questions.)

Originally it was the capital of Kryta. And besides, it may have STARTED as a bunch of pirates, but it left that in it’s past and moved on. Honestly I feel it looks more like a city now then it did at GW2 launch sometimes.

Aethgar.1784:

The overly pale skins of humans in Kryta.
Sorry, but it does bother me.
Krytans in GW1 were darker skinned, with tattoos aplenty, and sometimes even tight-braided hair.
Elonians reflect various sahelian African cultures. (and superbly, oh MAN superbly)
Canthans reflect both heavily bodypainted central Asians and a more Eastern vibe.

Given the admixture, and the chronology of the various waves of migration, it just always bothers me how pale-skinned modern Krytans are. If I have my timeline right, it’s Kryta + Ascalon, to which Cantha’s refugees get added, and then waves of Elonian migrants arrive as Joko conquers each state, ending perhaps fifty years ago.

This doesn’t bother you at all? That a game is playing heavily into a cultural vibe that they get wrong. Because from what I understand Gw2 was getting enough negative feedback from their Asian fanbase that they removed the Canthan district entirely. Why can’t black people be ninjas? Is it really that hard to invent a ninja-esque culture and have them not be Asian?

Beyond that, anyone overly pale may just be in a royal line or some other closed off breeding line.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Aethgar.1784:

The overly pale skins of humans in Kryta.
Sorry, but it does bother me.
Krytans in GW1 were darker skinned, with tattoos aplenty, and sometimes even tight-braided hair.
Elonians reflect various sahelian African cultures. (and superbly, oh MAN superbly)
Canthans reflect both heavily bodypainted central Asians and a more Eastern vibe.

Given the admixture, and the chronology of the various waves of migration, it just always bothers me how pale-skinned modern Krytans are. If I have my timeline right, it’s Kryta + Ascalon, to which Cantha’s refugees get added, and then waves of Elonian migrants arrive as Joko conquers each state, ending perhaps fifty years ago.

This doesn’t bother you at all? That a game is playing heavily into a cultural vibe that they get wrong. Because from what I understand Gw2 was getting enough negative feedback from their Asian fanbase that they removed the Canthan district entirely. Why can’t black people be ninjas? Is it really that hard to invent a ninja-esque culture and have them not be Asian?

Beyond that, anyone overly pale may just be in a royal line or some other closed off breeding line.

The way I remember it was less at canthan district and more of they preferred a more unified look across the city.

At least, that is one explanation I had read.

Has there ever been an explanation for why the large majority of Krytans are pale-skinned?

Very possibly, the dominant and recessive genes aren’t the same in Tyria. Perhaps dark skin doesn’t win out against light skin when procreating!

Maybe…

There’s something in the water!

That wasn’t there 250 years ago. Could something in the environment cause such radical changes in skin tone of the general populace in such a relatively short time? Besides magic, that is…

Danged magic, gets in everything.

I think one of the depressing things is how both Jennah and Smodur are shackled by warmongers. Both have to hold back their agendas lest they lose popular support. It has been said Smodur’s greatest fear is the nature of the Charr undoing his plans with the legions reverting to a state of perpetual civil war. This makes the talk of him wanting to destroy the Claw of the Khan-Ur make perfect sense. This does not annoy me though, and I hope we hear more about the Claw in the future.

It is the opposite of some others for me for the technology. It is not believable to me when a fantasy setting does not evolve over time, and it is refreshing seeing science, technology, an even society progress over time. This is hundreds of years after the first game, and I am not a fan of a fantasy world being stuck in a snapshot of time for thousands of years.

I see it as one of the many fantasy tropes they intentionally snubbed, such as the Charr being quite unlike Gnomes and the hive mind race not being arthropods. I like that they broke the mold. Even the magic-based Asuran technology is treated with a more scientific manner, and again I find that refreshing, but of course I am not saying one opinion is more correct than another. I would just find it far less believable if over hundreds of years nothing progressed.

Kalavier.1097:

The way I remember it was less at canthan district and more of they preferred a more unified look across the city.

At least, that is one explanation I had read.

A dev outright stated that the Canthan district was removed due to negative feedback from the Asian audience – they hated hows Anet had mixed in different cultures from across Asia together.

Which to me makes no sense, but hey, prideful people are prideful people and I am not such.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Kalavier.1097:

The way I remember it was less at canthan district and more of they preferred a more unified look across the city.

At least, that is one explanation I had read.

A dev outright stated that the Canthan district was removed due to negative feedback from the Asian audience – they hated hows Anet had mixed in different cultures from across Asia together.

Which to me makes no sense, but hey, prideful people are prideful people and I am not such.

Ah, that was it. Less entire city, more of the District itself.

I think it’s kind of tacky when players try to create a in-universe explanation for Kryta’s whitewashing.

It was done because it sells. Which is gross, but the best thing to do is to leave it at that. Saying, “All the black people turned white because magic!” makes it a zillion times worse.

This reminds me of the story ‘Reunion’ by Arthur C. Clarke.

Lurinna.4306:

I think it’s kind of tacky when players try to create a in-universe explanation for Kryta’s whitewashing.

It was done because it sells. Which is gross, but the best thing to do is to leave it at that. Saying, “All the black people turned white because magic!” makes it a zillion times worse.

Yeah.
And it honestly annoys me. GW1 was stellar in SO many ways because the ethnic diversity was represented in a way that didn’t simply blindly conform to “all fantasy is generic white European fantasy” stuff. At the end of Nightfall, I belatedly realized that everyone, hero and villain, had been a well thought out extremely well made African. They ranged from looking Moroccan to looking Somalian to looking like any of the nomadic people along the southern edge of the Sahara. They weren’t servile, thuggish, or uniformly ‘good.’ They were complex, nuanced, and as capable of greatness as evil.
In short, it was probably the best ingame mass market representation of PoC I’ve ever seen. Even TES’s Redguards don’t offer that level of nuance.

So seeing the whitewashing of humanity in GW2 pretty brazenly to attract the safe crowd.. is sad. It’s definitely my biggest annoyance.

edit: though the fact that one CAN make a very African-looking character is a plus. I won’t lie. Still, getting more hairstyles that allow PoC to be represented, and more skin tone varieties than.. what is it.. 6 shades total darker beyond ‘Caramel’ against something like 12 or so of ‘white’?.. that’d be nice. Darken the NPCs juust a smidge, ANet, and give us a bit more variety.
Or tell us you’re saving that for Elona and let us be giddy and happy.

.. I still find the mysterious whitening of the tattooed Krytans irksome.

The thing with Kryta is that it was a wholesale change, people are getting caught up on racial appearance but the ENTIRETY of Kryta underwent massive changes from GW1 to GW2. Just look at the flora of Kryta, in GW1 it was jam packed full of palms and other tropical plants, in GW2 it’s all deciduous trees and in many places is indistinguishable from Ascalon.

Ehecatl.9172:

Obsidian.1328:

You’re missing my point. The Elder Dragons were in no way, shape, or form a necessary eventuality in Tyria. They were specifically invented for the GW2 narrative. So most of what you said up there is irrelevant. While the written lore for them is not bad, the reason for them even being here in the first place is wrong. It’s the same reason they have mad scientist Asura, drunk viking Norn, elvish Sylvari, steampunk Charr, and vanilla fantasy humans…because Dragonz are kewl!! It’s a simple popular fantasy flavor thrown into the Tyrian narrative to feed the masses.

It’s putting marketing ideals above narrative continuity. ANet wanted to appeal to as many players as possible and they knew that if they threw in all these ridiculous fantasy tropes it would work better. That’s what’s wrong with the initial GW2 writing.

I’m curious, but where do you get your facts? What source do you have that definitively proves that Anet only created the Elder Dragons to appeal to a crowd and not because that’s the sort of story they wanted to explore with their next installment of the franchise?

At any rate this is a futile discussion. You’re clearly set in your belief so there isn’t anything to discuss.

Because GW1 already had dragons??

“Dragons of all shapes, sizes, and origin have called Cantha home for thousands of years, since long before the tribes of old joined to form the empire that took them as its symbol.
— The Guild Wars Factions Manuscripts”

“Dragons are a large theme throughout Cantha and somewhat throughout Tyria and the Mists, resulting in many draconic statues and decorations.”

Given that they didn’t even have to get rid of the gods in the first place(that was yet another decision based on personal narrative preferences and marketing demographics), why make them huge dragons at all when Tyria already had a small but rich draconic theme(much of it loosely based off of Eastern myth)? Why not make them something else not already relentlessly overplayed as the top of the food chain in the fantasy genre? They were given a blank slate to invent something to replace the gods as the arbiters of power in Tyria and what do they come up with? Big dragons.

Give me a solid reason why that isn’t anything but a lazy play for a wider audience?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Kalavier.1097:

The way I remember it was less at canthan district and more of they preferred a more unified look across the city.

At least, that is one explanation I had read.

A dev outright stated that the Canthan district was removed due to negative feedback from the Asian audience – they hated hows Anet had mixed in different cultures from across Asia together.

Which to me makes no sense, but hey, prideful people are prideful people and I am not such.

Why was this not a big deal then in GW1?

I also heard it was because the “Asian” district was inside a “white” city. Like it was offensive to be a mere neighborhood surrounded by Westerners or something. If that’s the case, that’s their own fault for excluding Cantha from the GW2 narrative.

Obsidian.1328:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Kalavier.1097:

The way I remember it was less at canthan district and more of they preferred a more unified look across the city.

At least, that is one explanation I had read.

A dev outright stated that the Canthan district was removed due to negative feedback from the Asian audience – they hated hows Anet had mixed in different cultures from across Asia together.

Which to me makes no sense, but hey, prideful people are prideful people and I am not such.

Why was this not a big deal then in GW1?

I also heard it was because the “Asian” district was inside a “white” city. Like it was offensive to be a mere neighborhood surrounded by Westerners or something. If that’s the case, that’s their own fault for excluding Cantha from the GW2 narrative.

Because in GW1, you didn’t have the several groups all living together? Kaineng, the Forest, and the Jade Sea were all distinctly apart?

Obsidian.1328:

Because GW1 already had dragons??

“Dragons of all shapes, sizes, and origin have called Cantha home for thousands of years, since long before the tribes of old joined to form the empire that took them as its symbol.
— The Guild Wars Factions Manuscripts”

“Dragons are a large theme throughout Cantha and somewhat throughout Tyria and the Mists, resulting in many draconic statues and decorations.”

Given that they didn’t even have to get rid of the gods in the first place(that was yet another decision based on personal narrative preferences and marketing demographics), why make them huge dragons at all when Tyria already had a small but rich draconic theme(much of it loosely based off of Eastern myth)? Why not make them something else not already relentlessly overplayed as the top of the food chain in the fantasy genre? They were given a blank slate to invent something to replace the gods as the arbiters of power in Tyria and what do they come up with? Big dragons.

Give me a solid reason why that isn’t anything but a lazy play for a wider audience?

Dragons, even in GW1, were very limited. You had bone dragons and then the Saltspray and turtle dragons… and that was it.

Even in GW1 the Gods weren’t really present for much, so it’s not like they were forced out. They simply went from appearing randomly to hardly appearing at all.

Also, how would you keep the gods being major influential figures in a multi-race RPG? Because only two races have something like that. Norn and Humans. Charr, Sylvari, and Asura don’t have that.

Think about it. What major influence did the gods personally do in all of the first three campaigns? Ascension perhaps in Proph. Nothing in Factions (That was the envoys), and Nightfall their avatars arrived to basically tell you “We aren’t getting involved, sorry. You can do this kitten on your own though!”

There are a few things that anoy me about the lore:

- Not knowing where is the Ash Legion’s homeland.

- Not knowing the average age of an Asura entering (and leaving) Splorge Metamystics Lab, before he goes to college.

- Not knowing the name of the guy who was Kryta’s previous king. Was he Roderick ?

- The fact there are so few non-white humans in the personal story and the living world, that many roleplayers believe humans from krytan descent are caucasian-like. Yep. Lots of them. I feel sorry for krytan people now believed to be elonians by so many players. Why are there so much people looking like ascalonian spawns in the personal story ? Seriously, they outnumber the rest of the humans our characters meet. What was that ascalonian migration led by Prince Rurik, an invasion ?

- Finding mentions of the canthan district in the game, but no proof it was (or wasn’t) the Great Collapse.

- Hoping to see one day what happened to Malyck, and where he came from.

- The physical ressemblance between Norns and Humans that no one wants to acknowledge.

- Kodans in général.

Koviko.3248:

Has there ever been an explanation for why the large majority of Krytans are pale-skinned?

I’ll invite everyone to see the wiki page on Deborah, and rethink this whitening theory.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deborah

Vilenia.3081:

- Not knowing where is the Ash Legion’s homeland.

Edit: I’m starting to think my mind just conjured up the following. Maybe it’s only the Blood Legion that was pinpointed.
I could have sworn it’s to the east or northeast with a huge swath of land being Blood Legion territory to the north. I have to look this up now.

It’s also quite amazing how the truce faction not only started but actually gained some significant influence as well. The charr of the pre-game lore you can read represent only one faction, with the growing influence of the truce faction. Granted Smodur still fears the historical ways of his people.

Vilenia.3081:

Koviko.3248:

Has there ever been an explanation for why the large majority of Krytans are pale-skinned?

I’ll invite everyone to see the wiki page on Deborah, and rethink this whitening theory.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deborah

And I’d invite you to walk around DR and count the amount of non-white NPCs you see versus the number of white ones, despite Krytans supposedly being in the vast majority.

Lurinna.4306:

Vilenia.3081:

Koviko.3248:

Has there ever been an explanation for why the large majority of Krytans are pale-skinned?

I’ll invite everyone to see the wiki page on Deborah, and rethink this whitening theory.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deborah

And I’d invite you to walk around DR and count the amount of non-white NPCs you see versus the number of white ones, despite Krytans supposedly being in the vast majority.

Yes, a lot of them are fair, but common NPCs are not the worse TT
And they aren’t proof that krytan people got whiter over time. The “Dead Sister” missions in the human personal story show us a NPC supposed to look like its sibling based on their ethnicity. Therefore it’s proof to me that humans with krytan roots aren’t white. If there realy was a whitening phenomenon, the krytan version of Deborah would have been whiter. It’s not like Kryta had three different nations like Elona or Cantha did :/

Vilenia.3081:

Lurinna.4306:

And I’d invite you to walk around DR and count the amount of non-white NPCs you see versus the number of white ones, despite Krytans supposedly being in the vast majority.

Yes, a lot of them are fair, but common NPCs are not the worse TT
And they aren’t proof that krytan people got whiter over time. The “Dead Sister” missions in the human personal story show us a NPC supposed to look like its sibling based on their ethnicity. Therefore it’s proof to me that humans with krytan roots aren’t white. If there realy was a whitening phenomenon, the krytan version of Deborah would have been whiter. It’s not like Kryta had three different nations like Elona or Cantha did :/

But that doesn’t explain why so much of Kryta is pale skinned.

It’s clear that they made an effort to make Krytans look different than humans from other regions. Ascalonians tend to have lighter hair and Canthans/Elonians tend to have different skin colors. But Krytans in general are both pale-skinned and dark-haired instead of tan-skinned and dark-haired. And even those who are both dark-skinned and dark-haired appear very European (Queen Jennah, for instance).

From GW1 to GW2, the average Krytan in Divinity’s Reach has much paler skin.

Koviko.3248:

Vilenia.3081:

Lurinna.4306:

And I’d invite you to walk around DR and count the amount of non-white NPCs you see versus the number of white ones, despite Krytans supposedly being in the vast majority.

Yes, a lot of them are fair, but common NPCs are not the worse TT
And they aren’t proof that krytan people got whiter over time. The “Dead Sister” missions in the human personal story show us a NPC supposed to look like its sibling based on their ethnicity. Therefore it’s proof to me that humans with krytan roots aren’t white. If there realy was a whitening phenomenon, the krytan version of Deborah would have been whiter. It’s not like Kryta had three different nations like Elona or Cantha did :/

But that doesn’t explain why so much of Kryta is pale skinned.

It’s clear that they made an effort to make Krytans look different than humans from other regions. Ascalonians tend to have lighter hair and Canthans/Elonians tend to have different skin colors. But Krytans in general are both pale-skinned and dark-haired instead of tan-skinned and dark-haired. And even those who are both dark-skinned and dark-haired appear very European (Queen Jennah, for instance).

From GW1 to GW2, the average Krytan in Divinity’s Reach has much paler skin.

Well, I like playing the filling-the-gap game too. Ascalonians are… kind of special. Their attitude toward Kryta is a little different from what the elonians (or canthans) seem to express regarding living there. I like to think they arrived in Kryta and started to breed like rabbits, or/and that they were less inclined than their krytan neighbours to join the Lion Guard or the Seraphs during the first years they settled. The Centaurs are killing humans since centuries. It may have affected the genetic pool. Therefore, and maybe with the tsunami’s help, krytan people declined faster than them. This seems to me more likely than a white dominant gene.

But realy, I just think the character designers are affected by so-called aestetic choices, and that they made more light-skinned NPCs than dark-skinned ones. And you know how people tend to always draw the same kind of characters without thinking of it.
Most players do the same when they create their avatars. Some of them don’t know anything about Guild Wars’ lore and some others just don’t give a kitten if their character from canthan descent looks nothing like a canthan guy.
Sometimes, NPCs do change from light to dark and reverse. There’s an old lady in the Ascalon Settlement who has been switching her skin color back and forth since 2012, like there are NPCs who get a new race appearance every now and then.
Who knows ? Maybe this is just due to them wanting to have Human NPCs with different hair color, and so multiplying the number of light-skinned humans. They probably didn’t have the time to create a nice diverity amoung the common NPCs before the game launched. They also didn’t add special character designs for the ghosts in the first halloween release (If you take that seriously, it means that krytan people were white before Guild Wars Prophecies, and that modern Humans dress like 500 years ago)

If this is intentional, homever, it could be ArenaNet wanting to connect the lore to what happened to the brazilian genetic pool. But I don’t see how ascalonians fit in this analogy, beside being white. That would be a very poor lore development.

I’m sure this has been said a few times already, but there was no mass migration of Canthans nor Elonians, so don’t expect to see tons of them around.

The only other major group of humans in Tyria are Ascalonians, which have the Ascalon Settlement, Rurikton, and a direct connection in DR to Ebonhawke. It’s really not surprising to see the more fair-skinned Ascalonians more than Elonians or Canthans.

The biggest contributor to what people are complaining about is that they are few unique models for random NPCs. Run around DR for a little while and you’ll see the same exact people around every corner. You would expect that the majority of Shining Blade would have more tanned skin, but if you run around the Queen’s throne room you’ll see ever Shining Blade there is one of two models depending on gender. Discounting random NPCs, character models are fairly accurate, e.g. Jennah actually looks Krytan.

narwhalsbend.7059:

Discounting random NPCs, character models are fairly accurate, e.g. Jennah actually looks Krytan.

But why would we discount the NPCs that make up the majority of the city? It’s one thing to have a lot of ethnicity in the Ministry because every faction needs a representative. But in the capital of Kryta, the majority of the residents should probably look Krytan. However, especially using Deborah & Jennah as examples, the majority of residents appear to be more Ascalonian than Krytan.

We know ANet understands what makes a Krytan look Krytan, yet they chose to make a lot of Divinity’s Reach’s residents look Ascalonian when, realistically, the majority should look Krytan.

Ascalonian-looking characters we meet during the human personnal story :
- Logan Thackeray (Krytan Politics)
- Anise (Krytan Politics)
- Andrew and his daughter Petra (Krytan Politics)
- Quinn (Krytan Politics)
- Riot Alice (Krytan Politics)
- Doc Howler (Krytan Politics)
- Crusher Dan (Krytan Politics)
- Minister Arton (Shadows of the Past)
- Caudecus
- Lord Faren (Krytan Politics)
- Lady Wi and her husband despite their curious name (Krytan Politics)
- Ministry Guard Reth (Krytan Politics)
- Nicholas Winters (Krytan Politics)
- Lord Benjamin (Krytan Politics)
- Baroness Jasmina (Krytan Politics)
- Baroness Yolanda (Krytan Politics)
- Baron Edmonds (Krytan Politics)
- Confessor Esthel (Shadows of the Past)
- Captain Tervelan (Shadows of the Past)
- Madame Gilda (Shadows of the Past)

Now a list of people encounterd during the same storyline who are more tanned (krytan/elonian/whatever) :
- Commander Serentine (Krytan Politics)
- Two-Blade Pete (Krytan Politics)
- Exemplar Salia (Shadows of the Past)
- Julius Zamon and his sister (Krytan Politics)
- Baron Corone (Krytan Politics)
- Lionguard Dansky (Shadows of the Past)
- Sergeant Bigsby (Shadows of the Pact)

Depressing.

Finding out my favorite fictional race of all time are actually dragon spawn and will likely have no choice in serving said dragon if they want to fight it to free themselves was pretty depressing.

Vilenia.3081:

snip

A few of the Ascalonian-looking characters are confirmed Ascalonians (Logan and Caudecus, for example), but you’re absolutely right that the majority of characters in the story (and in DR) appear to be Ascalonian.

I’d be happy if they called it a bug and fixed it.

I did not know for Caudecus. That leads me to the question why are there so many ascalonians in the nobility of Kryta’s kingdom ?

Oh dear… it’s almost the same in the Ministry. That could mean… ascalonians are trying to take over the throne ! Ascalon has relocated, pretending to hang desperatly on Ebonhawke to confuse us, poor krytans ! Soon, they will invade Tyria ! I should have listenned to Wild-Eye Miller sooner !

Vilenia.3081:

I did not know for Caudecus. That leads me to the question why are there so many ascalonians in the nobility of Kryta’s kingdom ?

Oh dear… it’s almost the same in the Ministry. That could mean… ascalonians are trying to take over the throne ! Ascalon has relocated, pretending to hang desperatly on Ebonhawke to confuse us, poor krytans ! Soon, they will invade Tyria ! I should have listenned to Wild-Eye Miller sooner !

lmao

Well, according to some NPC banter in Divinity’s reach, the Ministry has very few Ascalonians because Ascalonians have very little land of their own. Since the Ministry is maybe 15-20 ministers, total, I’d imagine Caudecus is one of perhaps 2-to-4, total. And we know that the minister that Anise probably had murdered (Minister Brios) was a Minister of Ascalon so that’s 2 down, already. Logically, almost no other ministers should look Ascalonian.

Well, according to some NPC banter in Divinity’s reach, the Ministry has very few Ascalonians because Ascalonians have very little land of their own.

Ah, that again. This is almost a subject of mayem. I wish ArenaNet would say more about that.

Obsidian.1328:

Because GW1 already had dragons??

“Dragons of all shapes, sizes, and origin have called Cantha home for thousands of years, since long before the tribes of old joined to form the empire that took them as its symbol.
— The Guild Wars Factions Manuscripts”

“Dragons are a large theme throughout Cantha and somewhat throughout Tyria and the Mists, resulting in many draconic statues and decorations.”

Given that they didn’t even have to get rid of the gods in the first place(that was yet another decision based on personal narrative preferences and marketing demographics), why make them huge dragons at all when Tyria already had a small but rich draconic theme(much of it loosely based off of Eastern myth)? Why not make them something else not already relentlessly overplayed as the top of the food chain in the fantasy genre? They were given a blank slate to invent something to replace the gods as the arbiters of power in Tyria and what do they come up with? Big dragons.

Give me a solid reason why that isn’t anything but a lazy play for a wider audience?

I asked for proof that Anet went with Elder Dragons for marketing reasons and not because that’s the sort of story they want to write. You just gave me more speculation on your part.

Aside from that the Elder Dragons aren’t your typical fantasy dragons. They are primordial forces that serve a brutal, yet necessary role in the life cycle of the planet Tyria. The fact they resemble dragons aesthetically could well have been a marketing choice, but that doesn’t mean they wrote the story of GW2 specifically to include big dragons.

They also specifically went out of the way to make each content release avoid a list of checking off “the next dragon.”

Kalavier.1097:

Because in GW1, you didn’t have the several groups all living together? Kaineng, the Forest, and the Jade Sea were all distinctly apart?

Hate to tell you this, but Luxon and Kurzik were loosely based off of Greek and German/Russian aesthetics, not Eastern.

Kainang itself, and Cantha proper, was a mix of multiple East-Asian cultures together. Again, why wasn’t this an issue in GW1?

Kalavier.1097:

Dragons, even in GW1, were very limited. You had bone dragons and then the Saltspray and turtle dragons… and that was it.

Glint and Kuunavang don’t count here??

Even in GW1 the Gods weren’t really present for much, so it’s not like they were forced out. They simply went from appearing randomly to hardly appearing at all.

…and being responsible for 99% of all magic usage on the planet. Even the Charr used their magic.

Also, how would you keep the gods being major influential figures in a multi-race RPG? Because only two races have something like that. Norn and Humans. Charr, Sylvari, and Asura don’t have that.

As far as we know, only Kormir is a human god. Are the others human? I’ve never heard that. Since when can a multi-race RPG not have gods???

Think about it. What major influence did the gods personally do in all of the first three campaigns? Ascension perhaps in Proph. Nothing in Factions (That was the envoys), and Nightfall their avatars arrived to basically tell you “We aren’t getting involved, sorry. You can do this kitten on your own though!”

-see above-