Guild Wars 2

I didn’t play GW1 at all save a small stretch during beta. What I don’t undertand is, aside from pretending in my mind that I am a bad guy, is there something in the lore that forces everyone to be good? I dislike being forced into one main over arching faction. I picked ferocious, but that just meant i was a jerk.

GW had always a one sided setting. GW2 even more so. Which is too bad, would have been awesome if they pitted races against each other, or at least allowed racial factions to be joinable/playable then you could be whatever you liked (Flame Legion, Nightmare Court, Inquest, Svanir or a Filthy Pirate).

But that would interfere with the dragon slaying story they got going.

there is evil and evil, though the effect should and could be better, but if you always be giving the fist-response (you know the questions where you can answer with a heart, crown or fist) the npc’s will start recognising your bad attitude and treat you thatway. But in the end your actions, like doing dynamic events or personal story is for the good.

So best you can achieve is that people say, ‘ok he is big hero, but jeeeez what a jerk’

It’s pretty much against Anet’s philosphy to make the player evil, they only act evil if they are tricked into it by the bad guys. It’s just there way of writing. The way GW2 is written it’s also impossible to apply. The main story could be rewritten since it’s instanced, but the overworld wouldn’t make sense. In all those dynamic events you help people because you are good guy/gal. Dungeons too, to a degree.

Picking ferocious and dignity is the best you can do, if you even it out, you get “militant”, which is a arrogant jerk, but he/she still has a heart of gold.

All I can say is play WvW and invade someone’s borderland, I think that’s the best you can get…

Problem is, the evil factions tend to be either mindless or losing. Anet was trying to make a game that unified players, not set them against each other (in PvE).

What I don’t get:
It isn’t as if they (ANet) couldn’t have used a “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” routine. Let’s be honest here, most of the “evil” factions would bleeding WELL have a reason to keep our boy Zhaitan slapped down.

But Zhaitan isn’t the only enemy. Say you could join the Flame Legion. Now, you’re running around in Fireheart Rise, fighting the other legions…. along with the Pact, the force that took down Zhaitan. It’s more of a ‘the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy.’

bout the flamelegion…. I had a thought the either day (yip, one of those twisted ones).
I was hoping that in one of the future storylines there is a meeting of the pact, where they are discussing a way to accomplish somethign (e.g. kill and ED). None has a clue, but a whispers agent, who knows bout a flamelegion weapon and we have to restore peaceamong the charr. Think it would be an interesting storyline but thats just my twisted mind

It would be cool if perhaps in PvP or WvW this area could be expanded more. Perhaps race versus race or something similar. But in PvE most likely nothing of this sort will happen.

I think the problem with ‘evil’ factions in MMOs is that they lead to imbalance.

City of Villains had this problem. Everyone wanted to play in the City of Heroes.

Everquest 2 also had some issues with the evil side going underrepresented until they pulled a WoW and turned the evil guys into ‘misunderstood, brutish guys who aren’t all that bad’.

As I recall from pre-launch reviews Anet was considering that approach but in the end decided not to. They want player to be the hero. I can’t blame them for that because going otherwise could rise age rating and made story telling much harder.

Though WvW would have been much more interesting if it was races against each other instead of these abstract servers.
Anyone remembers the days when open world PvP was alive in WoW and everyone would start yelling “HOOORDE!” or “ALLIANCE!” and players would just drop what they were doing, even if severely underleveled, and joined in the fray?

That kind of thing really keeps a community going. PvE… not so much. But yeah, it would have been very difficult for them to tell the story as they did if each race was on its own.

The bottom line is: This just isn’t that type of game.

If that’s your preferred playstyle, there are other games on the market that will appeal to you.

There’s nothing wrong with that preference. At the same time, though, not every game can cater to every player’s preference. No game can please every single person, and developers have to be allowed to take a game in the direction they want to rather than trying to appeal to every possible taste.

GW2 is a heroic storyline. Having the PC be the villain wouldn’t fit in with the world that ANet is trying to create. It’s not about the lore, but it is about the basics of how the game is structured.

Part of me doesn’t believe the game could continue to be rated “T for Teen” if part of your personal story was joining the nightmare court and constantly torturing people to death, or joining the inquest and experimenting on people sometimes turning them into savage beasts or putting them through terrible deaths. I mean if you joined these organizations, that is what you would be doing. It’s a little easier with bandits/flame legion/Sons of Svanir, just kill people, that’s acceptable in games, but torture?

mercury ranique.2170:

bout the flamelegion…. I had a thought the either day (yip, one of those twisted ones).
I was hoping that in one of the future storylines there is a meeting of the pact, where they are discussing a way to accomplish somethign (e.g. kill and ED). None has a clue, but a whispers agent, who knows bout a flamelegion weapon and we have to restore peaceamong the charr. Think it would be an interesting storyline but thats just my twisted mind

Procuring a Flame Legion weapon is actually the reason behind Citadel of Flame. Though you’re only told this if you’re a charr character who’s gone far enough in the personal storyline (maybe other races, but not sylvari).

As things are, I don’t really want to be part of the evil factions. They were all made too black. Separatists and Renegades, for instance, I had high hopes for. Fueled by racial rivalries and disagreeing with the leading government, they could be a rebellious group that just wants to live life how they grew up living it. But instead, we get run of the mill “kill everything” terrorists who would kill their own brother or wife just as easily as killing their hated rival.

Or the Sons of Svanir who have this unnatural bias against women just because of one individual. I actually like the concept of a group worshiping an Elder Dragon and I really like the idea of the Sons of Svanir, except for their women bashing.

Anet just had to add in a stereotypical “this is evil no matter what” concept to every “evil” faction there is. The best we get are some turncoats in the Separatists, Bandits, and Inquest who have just seen how wrong their group is because they’re just so evil.

Just like what happened to the White Mantle in War in Kryta.

Advent.6193:

What I don’t get:
It isn’t as if they (ANet) couldn’t have used a “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” routine. Let’s be honest here, most of the “evil” factions would bleeding WELL have a reason to keep our boy Zhaitan slapped down.

Having all player characters be good, even heroically good, was a design decision. ArenaNet decided to go that way, after considering the alternatives. So sadly you’re stuck with it in-game, and it will be a consistent feature of your character’s story.

Of course, if you want to write fan fictions and/or roleplay, go right ahead. I have to admit that even though I wouldn’t call any of my characters evil, I had way too much fun writing an account of a Nightmare Court revel…

Narcemus.1348:

Part of me doesn’t believe the game could continue to be rated “T for Teen” if part of your personal story was joining the nightmare court and constantly torturing people to death, or joining the inquest and experimenting on people sometimes turning them into savage beasts or putting them through terrible deaths. I mean if you joined these organizations, that is what you would be doing. It’s a little easier with bandits/flame legion/Sons of Svanir, just kill people, that’s acceptable in games, but torture?

The inquest would be acceptable as long as you yell “FOR SCIENCE!” as you’re doing it!

@OP This isn’t the game for you if you want your personal story to be evil, the most i could say is RP that your character is on one of the other factions. I know my Asura is full fledged inquest, but then again, inquest still have REALLY good and pure motives, they just don’t care how many people they step on to achieve those goals.

EXAMPLE: In Malchors leap they were going to nuke Arah, wiping out a HUGE portion of Tyria, but by the gods Zhaitan, his Risen, and quite a few other elder dragons (well maybe just kralk as well) would be no more.

yeah, and in the process if Kralk was taken out Lion’s Arch would, at the minimum, be wiped out by another tsunami, The grove may be no more, and the pact would be obliterated. 2 ED’s aren’t much of a reward for that.

Narcemus.1348:

yeah, and in the process if Kralk was taken out Lion’s Arch would, at the minimum, be wiped out by another tsunami, The grove may be no more, and the pact would be obliterated. 2 ED’s aren’t much of a reward for that.

Well, it’s not just 2 ED’s, it’s 2 ED’s, everything within the crystal desert, every risen that’s likely to be out there, might get Joko too seeing as how Arah would be ground Zero, it’d certainly do a number on just about everything…

Oh, it also would collapse a lot of the underground chasms, likely crushing primordius too, the karka would be fried, and yeah… just complete devastation….

BUT as i said, the inquest have good motives, they just don’t care who gets hurt in the process, and i think that’s kinda shown pretty significantly with what they planed on doing with Orr…

You know, while we’re on the subject. If you could just wipe out all life on Tyria you would starve off the ED’s. Just saying.

Narcemus.1348:

You know, while we’re on the subject. If you could just wipe out all life on Tyria you would starve off the ED’s. Just saying.

False, the dragons feed on magic, so as long as there’s magical things on Tyria the dragons would be good… granted, if the inquest were to drop 2 of those bombs they’d likely get every elder dragon on tyria (as well as a large number of its inhabitants)

No, the dragons starved when Glint hid the races. It’s like something Oola said, “We are the embodiment of magic.” Without races to create or manipulate magic the dragons would run out of food, it may not be right away, but it would end, eventually.

Not to mention, I highly doubt your a-bombs are gonna have a whole lot of effect on the deep sea dragon, and depending on how deep down he is I doubt Primordius will be affected either.

The only way I can see being “evil” in Gw2 would work, would be to be part of an Illuminati-like secret cult society (with its own storyline) with the rest of the world being unaware that you are part of them.

Man I forgot I posted this thanks for all the insight, Legion I like your idea.

Legion, that is kinda what the Order of Whispers was like in the original GW.

That’s not a problem. Players can belong to multiple organizations. The only problem with my proposal is that your character should be at very least a psychopath with perfect skills to fake emotions and lie. A potential group would be a more sneaky Am fah.

What in the Realm of Torment is this “the Inquest wanted to nuke Arah and at the same time Tyria in Malchor’s Leap”? I’ve never ever seen such a thing and I went through the entire area on three characters so far. Only Inquest activity I noticed was the the two or three underwater labs that mostly dealt with acquiring Zhaitan’s essence for their dragon experiments or trying to tap into the power of the golden, alchemical orb in the Pyrite Peninsula.

Thalador.4218:

What in the Realm of Torment is this “the Inquest wanted to nuke Arah and at the same time Tyria in Malchor’s Leap”? I’ve never ever seen such a thing and I went through the entire area on three characters so far. Only Inquest activity I noticed was the the two or three underwater labs that mostly dealt with acquiring Zhaitan’s essence for their dragon experiments or trying to tap into the power of the golden, alchemical orb in the Pyrite Peninsula.

During one of the inquest event chains (the one for the really big lab that even has a waypoint in it) you can read some files that talks about how they want to cause an explosion in Arah that’ll be powerful enough to destroy Zhaitan, as well as a large amount of other things… and the worst case scenario was tyria is destroyed lol

Advent.6193:

What I don’t get:
It isn’t as if they (ANet) couldn’t have used a “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” routine. Let’s be honest here, most of the “evil” factions would bleeding WELL have a reason to keep our boy Zhaitan slapped down.

Megalomania is common amongst evil-doers. The Sons of Svanir can rest easy because of their belief that Jormag could kick Zhaitan’s buttocks, and the Flame Legion probably believes themselves capable of defeating Zhaitan and Jormag.

Durzlla.6295:

During one of the inquest event chains (the one for the really big lab that even has a waypoint in it) you can read some files that talks about how they want to cause an explosion in Arah that’ll be powerful enough to destroy Zhaitan, as well as a large amount of other things… and the worst case scenario was tyria is destroyed lol

Ah, thank you! To tell you the truth, I’ve only wandered in there once, but because of the zerging Inquest that just keeps respawning every 30 secs I couldn’t look around very well. Maybe next time.