Guild Wars 2

First got a bug in my ear on this in Kryta listening to bandits. They were just in their cause. Bandits and to a lesser degree Caudecus are fighting to gain civil protections for common people and to overthrow monarchy. The bandits want a government by the people, for the people: a Republic or democracy. Caudecus wants government by the pparliament with the queen a figurehead: “constitutional monarchy” – what the UK and Japan have today (might not be the right term as this system exists even in places without Constitutions, like the UK).

In short the bandits and Caudecus are “the good guys” fighting for rights of commoners and nobles to be protected.

Shift to metrica province and we get to repeatedly beat down Skritt slaves who are being experimented on… hard to say anything about that…
- but there’s a hidden subtext that the Asura mess with the Skritt to keep them from grouping up as grouped up Skritt might be smarter than Asura…

Now we go to southsun. When it was announced… we were told the settlers are unhappy being kept in camps and lacking the right to leave (freedom of movement restricted) by the consortium.

So I figured we were off to kick some consortium bee-hind so hard even the karka would pitty them… arrive, and they have me beating up “rioting rabble rousers” to protect their corporate masters…
- I feel like I’m a contract gestapo thug…

Oh and then there’s the dredge… just to rewind a tad. Listen to them… theyKre right too. They were held as slaves for centuries and their whole thing boils down to “never again”. We should have been making an alliance with them to take out the flame legion… but instead it somehow went backwards…

Stop putting us on the side of evil…

Kichwas.7152:

First got a bug in my ear on this in Kryta listening to bandits. They were just in their cause. Bandits and to a lesser degree Caudecus are fighting to gain civil protections for common people and to overthrow monarchy. The bandits want a government by the people, for the people: a Republic or democracy. Caudecus wants government by the pparliament with the queen a figurehead: “constitutional monarchy” – what the UK and Japan have today (might not be the right term as this system exists even in places without Constitutions, like the UK).

In short the bandits and Caudecus are “the good guys” fighting for rights of commoners and nobles to be protected.

Caudecus wants power for himself and while the bandit footmen may believe they’re fighting for a noble cause, they’re being used by the white mantle.

Shift to metrica province and we get to repeatedly beat down Skritt slaves who are being experimented on… hard to say anything about that…
- but there’s a hidden subtext that the Asura mess with the Skritt to keep them from grouping up as grouped up Skritt might be smarter than Asura…

Asura are an evil little people with a superiority complex. They don’t want to be outsmarted by the skritt.

Now we go to southsun. When it was announced… we were told the settlers are unhappy being kept in camps and lacking the right to leave (freedom of movement restricted) by the consortium.

So I figured we were off to kick some consortium bee-hind so hard even the karka would pitty them… arrive, and they have me beating up “rioting rabble rousers” to protect their corporate masters…
- I feel like I’m a contract gestapo thug…

We kick consortium brawlers as well. It’s in everyone’s best interests if the settlements aren’t burned down in riots.

Oh and then there’s the dredge… just to rewind a tad. Listen to them… theyKre right too. They were held as slaves for centuries and their whole thing boils down to “never again”. We should have been making an alliance with them to take out the flame legion… but instead it somehow went backwards…

Stop putting us on the side of evil…

The dredge are extremely xenophobic and the moletariat seems to refuse all peace talks, instead only making (bad) deals when it promises them military power, such as with the Inquest and the Flame Legion.

Kichwas.7152:

First got a bug in my ear on this in Kryta listening to bandits. They were just in their cause. Bandits and to a lesser degree Caudecus are fighting to gain civil protections for common people and to overthrow monarchy. The bandits want a government by the people, for the people: a Republic or democracy. Caudecus wants government by the pparliament with the queen a figurehead: “constitutional monarchy” – what the UK and Japan have today (might not be the right term as this system exists even in places without Constitutions, like the UK).

While the common theory these days is “democracy good, non-democracy bad”, the Krytan Ministry is not a parliament as we know it today, but more like it was in medieval England where it mainly existed to preserve the power of the aristocracy. Material on Kryta we’d received pre-release indicates that that the Queen is actually much more concerned about the rights of the common people than most Ministers. The Ministry-controlled judicial system, for instance, explicitly grants greater legal rights to nobles than to commoners, and it’s a plot point in the human noble story that accusations against a noble pretty much have to come from another noble if they’re going to stick. Good luck getting justice as a commoner under the Ministry if you’re mistreated by a noble… or, possibly worse, falsely accused by a noble (note that only nobles have the right to a full trial).

Caudecus is very good at spin and pinning the blame for problems he’s responsible for on his political opponent (there’s another story step where it turns out that Caudecus is actively sabotaging Kryta’s military in order to make the Queen look bad, but the characters don’t get enough evidence to bring him to trial). There are good people in the Ministry, but Caudecus is most definitely not the good guy in Kryta’s politics. He’s a would-be Chancellor Palpatine.

You’re absolutely right. I thought these things as well. When doing the heart quests, you sometimes have very dystopian instructions such as keep the population happy by tearing down posters, “talk” to rabble rousers (who usually have very legitimate grudges) etc. It kind of kitten me off.

Also, to complete daily kill variety, harmless animals like rabits and rats count as well. What the hell? Big macho guy/ powerful sorcerer with legendary weapons going out of their way to take the lives of…insects? Ravens?

Someone at Anet needs to read a little more history methinks…

On the subject of bandits:

Keep in mind that the bandits, while their goal might be “good”, they are extremists. In some cases you’ll find bandit NPCs who don’t agree with their methods and want out. Also, it’s very much implied that many bandits don’t even know the real power behind their organization, this power is implied to be The White Mantle. A order of fanatical zealots who worship the Mursaat as Gods and will do ANYTHING the Mursaat command. The Mursaat do not want a democracy, this is assured. At least not one where any other race but Mursaat has influence.

Now as for Caudecus, you’re completely mistaken. He wants power for the sake of power, and he will do anything to get it and keep himself in the running for it, just ask Denni Beetlestone. And honestly, I doubt he’d have any interest in keeping up a truce with the Charr, likely dooming the races of Tyria as they need all the man power they can get.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mursaat

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/White_Mantle

On the Asura and Skritt: Fair enough point, Asura tend to be very…..morally questionable, often the lines between normal Asura and Inquest are blurred in my opinion. Of course, in other areas of the game the objective is to keep the Skritt safe, happy and as allies.

On the subject of Southsun: Keep in mind the settler negotiators ask you to keep the peace as well, they don’t like their situation no, but they do not want to improve it violently. They seem like they’d prefer a Ghandi approach.

Finally, the Dredge:

Their government is corrupt as all hell, this is make increasingly blatant in higher areas. In one situation you even aid Dredge rebels in their fight against their government. Dredge are pretty much suppose to be basically the Soviet Russia are GW2. Not only that, but their entire reason for wanting to destroy the Durmand Priory is because the last known Dwarf lives there.

A dwarf who is very much a hero and did not have a hand in Dredge slavery. Dredge Slavery was the doing of the Stone Summit dwarfs, a race of xenophobic dwarves who considered themselves superior to all……….wanna guess how close the dredge are to that right now?

Sigh… either people complain that the morals are too black and white, or they complain their actions are questionable…

The bandits are backed by the White Mantle – a group of tyrannical theocratical oppressors.

Bandits are disillusioned into wanting anarchy – not a republic or democracy, not a government “by the people for the people” – they want no government at all. And that’s not really good. Thing is, they’re being tricked. They believe Jennah is a tyrant for whatever reason, and those they’re supporting are the true oppressors.

Caudecus is just wanting power for himself, but his PR is exactly what you’re claiming. And as such, you’re just among those citizens who were bought by his lies.

This is, of course, ignoring the bandits’ alliance with the Inquest, Nightmare Court, and centaurs – or their actions of enslaving both skritt and humans to give them to the Inquest/Nightmare Court and Centaurs respectively. Far from what you would call a good-guy, right?

Onto the skritt experimentation – they’re not slaves, really, but test subjects. Thing is, the only testing done is a bunch of IQ tests. Yes, they’re tricked into becoming subjects, but they’re far from slaves, nor are the testing inhumane. Though the asura are skewed in their views of the skritt, thinking of them as vermin (no pun intended), but they’re still not being cruel to them. As to keeping them apart – you didn’t do the event that’s there, have you? Where they group the skritt together to see how smart they can get… where the skritt then go and start attacking everyone at the lab.

With Southsun Cove – I can’t say much because I haven’t played the content yet, but from my understanding you can help out the Consortium OR you can help out the settlers. This is where you’re chosing between two grays – help the corporation that’s wanting money, and doing so by helping others but are forcing their help onto them even if not wanted, or help the refugees who lost everything but are now causing problems because they’re being helped in the wrong way. Neither side is good, neither side is evil.

But again, I haven’t done that content yet.

For the dredge – that’s their own kitten fault, to be honest. Yes, they were enslaved. Yes, they’re fighting not do so again, however:

1. They’re fighitng those who have no qualm against them, to the point where they become the hostile forces.
2. They’re refusing to let go of old grudges, wanting to kill “the last of the oppressors” (Ogden) despite Ogden never having been part of the oppressors, and are willing to kill anyone and destroy anything to get that goal done.
3. They’re strip mining the lands, laying claim to anything they can and kicking out and oppressing other natural inhabitants (e.g., skritt and grawl).
4. And most importantly, their own leaders have become corrupt, working with the Inquest, Flame Legion, or even enslaving their own kind just to get more power themselves.

The dredge are a “sympathetic evil” race – they had a ton of bad luck, which has caused them to backlash on everyone else. You don’t want to fight them, but they give you no choice.

tl;dr: You’re wrong on the bandits, and seem to be the gullible type that Caudecus is targeting… have fun joining the bandits to kidnap and kill people!

But on Souhsun Cove and the dredge, IMO this is exactly how Anet should do things. They want you to be the hero, but having some “morally questionable choices” to do – things you can avoid or do or work against – only adds to the experience of an MMO. Not everyone enjoys playing the goodie two-shoes figures. Some folks love playing anti-hero figures.

As far as Southsun goes, you don’t really help either group per say. You can pick a side to act in the name of, more or less, but for instance you can fight Consortium agents while under the Consortium buff. It seems to be more of a case by case judgement- the events have you side with the heavily outnumbered side, or, if both parties are equally represented, beat down both without prejudice. If anything, you seem to be on the Lionguard’s side.
That said, another of the achievement spoilers indicates we’ll help the Consortium preserve the contracts that are causing the settlers so much grief, so it could be that in the next update our neutrality will be compromised.

Well Aaron, if you are right about being on the Lionguard’s side, then we are definitely on the consortium’s side as well. If you have read their most recent post about Lionguard Kiel you’ll get the understanding that the Lionguard are there to preserve the peace because of the Council’s gold filled pockets, lined by the consortium…

Just read it. I won’t say that’s the only reason the Lionguard care… but if pushed to it, there is no question of which side they’ll take.

Indeed, the Lionguard first care about the safety of their jurisdiction. Bribes come second.

Keep in mind that the Lionguard and the Captain’s Council are not directly one and the same. Magnus just happens to be the leader of the Lionguard and a member of the Council, but that’s not always so. Though I don’t doubt that in the end, the Captain’s Council can give the final say in Lionguard matters.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Yes, they’re tricked into becoming subjects, but they’re far from slaves, nor are the testing inhumane.

Some of it’s kitten inhumane. The Heart that takes you through Metrica Province, gathering Skritt for a group-intelligence test, has you beating them down when they were just minding their own business in a cave. I had much the same uneasy feeling about the Heart in Wayfarer that rewards you not only for killing Dredge soldiers, but also the (non-aggressive) Dredge workers.

OT: I must say, we don’t “support/ rescue evil” in GW2, though we take part in some dubious practices for Hearts at times. As has been said, though some Bandits are convinced they fight for right, we see a lot more attacking passersby or allying with the Nightmare Court and worse in Brisban. As for Caudecus, I’ll add to his list of crimes by mentioning the assassins he sends after you if you take his daughter for the Whispers storyline.

If you want real “supporting/ rescuing evil”, think about when our ancestors sprung Palawa Joko back in Kourna. Now he’s closer to real evil. We did it to fight an even greater evil, but it’s true, nonetheless.

1. As everyone else has said the bandits are a) misguided and b) hurting innocent people. All three human personal stories delve into this. In the poor one, the bandits try poisoning the entire city which if you fail to stop it leads to deaths.

Queen Jennah is a pretty benevolent ruler. Further, she isnt trying to weaken the power of the Ministery. If anything, its the Ministery trying to do a power grab. If you ask me who is acting more in the interests of the common citizens of kryta its very clearly Jennah.

2. The Asura’s dealings with the skritt are probably now better than they have been in the past. We havent seen any Asuran research on skritt that has been ‘approved of’ by the game. The Asura however arent a very singular society.

There governance definately has problems and corruption as shown by the fact the inquest still has a presence in Asuran society. However Asura as a race arent simply amoral. They are more individualistic than that. Ethics is a concept they understand.

3. On southsun our job has become enforcers of law. The long and the short of it is that all the settlers agreed to their conditions when they signed the contracts. Legally they are bound to them. Law is important, particularly with a city like Lion’s Arch which is held together by commerce and common interest more than cultural or national identity.

Our job on south shore is to insure both sides behave. This isnt one sided though. The Consortium is under pressure to accomidate the Settlers too. The Consortium may not care about ethics but they care about their public image.

4. The Dredge are their own worse enemy. Apart from corruption in their leadership, they are starting all the fights these days. Its not that we are oppressing them. The dredge are already free. The continue to attack us. This is why we fight the dredge. You might find the explorable version of Sorrow’s Embrace interesting if you want more insight into whats going on with the dredge.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Some of it’s kitten inhumane. The Heart that takes you through Metrica Province, gathering Skritt for a group-intelligence test, has you beating them down when they were just minding their own business in a cave.

That’s not inhumane, nor is it cruel.

It’s rude, yes, but not inhumane. Inhumane would be like poisoning their food to see how the poison affects skritt. Roughing them a bit to get their (unwilling) cooperation then asking them a bunch of questions after they’ve healed is far from inhumane.

The key point to recall with the bandits that whatever ideals some may claim (and some are quite upfront about being motivated purely by profit or fun), the brunt of their activities falls on the common folk. Robin Hood and the Merry Men they aren’t. Those that are politically minded are a mix of being in the pay of Caudecus, being White Mantle, or simply anarchists that are upset that society has rules that mean they can’t do what they like… such as, for instance, taking a farmer’s crop and burning the fields for the fun of it.

Since the Ebonhawke heart has been brought up, I have a couple of comments:

First, in the doorknocking part – if you talk to the heart NPC beforehand, she specifically states that you’re not legally allowed to enter their homes – but that Separatists might panic when you knock on their doors and attack. Being a door-to-door salesman must be dangerous work in Ebonhawke. Poster removal is simply removing defacements of public buildings when you get down to it- free speech even in America means you can’t be prosecuted for saying your mind, not that you have a free ticket for vandalism. The ‘talking down a sympathiser’ parts basically follow a script of your character patiently explaining the realities and the sympathiser going “Oh, yeah…” – and in at least one case, you find the sympathiser had been tricked into going on a suicide mission and that you have literally saved their life.

On the Southsun situation – they’ve done a good job, I think, of putting you in the position of a UN peacekeeper. One of the challenges of being a peacekeeper is that you’re forced to ignore injustices for the sake of keeping the peace, because allowing the situation to (re-)escalate into open war will make things worse for everyone. As has been mentioned above, the settler negotiators will tell you that the riots and other settler-induced violence are actually hurting their position, so they’d like you to put a stop to it as much as the Consortium does.

Personally, I’m suspecting that what’s actually going to happen is that we’re keeping a lid on things until political forces elsewhere come down on the Consortium. Half of the settlers are charr, after all, and charr are viewed as being loyal to their Legion first and foremost – I can definitely see the High Legions declaring the contracts null and void because the charr in question had no authority to enter into such a contract.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Some of it’s kitten inhumane. The Heart that takes you through Metrica Province, gathering Skritt for a group-intelligence test, has you beating them down when they were just minding their own business in a cave.

That’s not inhumane, nor is it cruel.

It’s rude, yes, but not inhumane. Inhumane would be like poisoning their food to see how the poison affects skritt. Roughing them a bit to get their (unwilling) cooperation then asking them a bunch of questions after they’ve healed is far from inhumane.

If a group of thugs came to your house, beat you up and dragged you away to ask a few questions, would you consider that just “rude”, or do you think it’s somewhat more serious than that…?

Consider how you would feel about that, especially if you don’t know what your captor’s intentions are and they’re wielding swords and guns (which they use to “rough you up”).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

With Southsun Cove – I can’t say much because I haven’t played the content yet, but from my understanding you can help out the Consortium OR you can help out the settlers. This is where you’re chosing between two grays – help the corporation that’s wanting money, and doing so by helping others but are forcing their help onto them even if not wanted, or help the refugees who lost everything but are now causing problems because they’re being helped in the wrong way. Neither side is good, neither side is evil.

But again, I haven’t done that content yet.

The way it works isn’t exactly like helping one or the other side. Both sides ask you the same: to stop confrontations between both sides, and they even ask you to stop their own side from creating more tension with stupid attacks. You do the exact same things for both sides and fight agressive individuals from both. The only change is that you do it in the name of one (for unstated gold find increase) or the other (for +200% magic find).

So basically both sides representatives really want the same, it’s just that there are tensions in both groups (increased by the increase of agressive wild life thanks to Cannach and some settlers that were misguied by him to spread the toxins).

As others said we know thanks to the spoilers in the achievements pannel that we will protect the contracts cargo, but I think it would have more to do with Cannach schemes given how he has already attempted to make the settlers go against the Consortium so he will probably get some easily manipulable angry settlers to try to destroy their contracts and break havok.

Where is it stated that settlers are working with Canach?

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Where is it stated that settlers are working with Canach?

I didn’t say they ARE working with him, but at least one Norn woman says she was misguided to help him spread the toxins that caused the increased hostility in the local wildlife. She’s founf working at the same post where Kiel is.

Ah, found her. Thank you.

Embolism.8106:

If a group of thugs came to your house, beat you up and dragged you away to ask a few questions, would you consider that just “rude”, or do you think it’s somewhat more serious than that…?

Consider how you would feel about that, especially if you don’t know what your captor’s intentions are and they’re wielding swords and guns (which they use to “rough you up”).

I’m a “the means justifies the end” kind of guy. So it’d depend on why they’re doing that for me to determine them as rude or what. And how rough they were with beating me up. I’d probably be scared during such and consider them kitten at the least, and the skritt certainly felt the same for the asura considering that they went about breaking out and trying to kill all the asura…

You have to keep in mind mechanics, regarding the “swords and guns” part. You can’t really go fighting with your fists in-game, sadly.

And also keep in mind that the heart-related ones there (not the event itself) weren’t necessarily beaten into submission. And also keep in mind that the beating is until they surrender – not until they’re unconscious.

Caudacus is NOT out to set up a democracy. He might be okay with a republic…as long as it’s an oligarchic one where nobles rule. I think he just wants the crown for himself, really. He is the head of a conspiracy to betray his own nation to the centaurs by supplying them with weapons. Weapons they then use to sack and enslave Krytan villages. Kessex Hills is a war zone and settlements in the Gendarran Fields are often overrun. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was funding the Separatists, too, just to embarrass the Queen.

Outside of one lab, I don’t recall the Asura being particularly abusive to the skritt. It should also be pointed out that the skritt are kleptomaniacs who often attack to steal “shinies”, so maybe the Asura just got fed up and are trying to deal with a habitual problem.

Southsun…yeah, I kinda felt like a strikebreaker, so, okay, fair point. Although I haven’t gotten very far into it, so I’m reserving judgement.

As for the Dredge, they have legitimate grievances, but they’re taking them out on the wrong people. Their xenophobia is without justification, unlike the real-life USSR who had no reason to trust the bourgeois democracies after Britain, France, and the US sent troops to aid the White Army. Unless the Norn were helping the dwarves (specifically the evil dwarves), there is no reason for Dredge belligerence. I hope that a) we see more rebel Dredge and b) they’re DemSoc.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s rude, yes, but not inhumane. Inhumane would be like poisoning their food to see how the poison affects skritt. Roughing them a bit to get their (unwilling) cooperation then asking them a bunch of questions after they’ve healed is far from inhumane.

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. I’ve always thought of the Zimbardo experiment as more than a little rude, for example.

My point is simply that it doesn’t classify as “inhumane.”

It kind of is, though. Inhumane is, specifically, lacking pity or compassion. Beating sentient beings into submission is not an act of compassion or pity. It is an act showing no compassion, no pity, and as such qualifies as inhumane.

Le edit: Here are some synonyms to “inhumane”, a lot of which can be used to describe beating sentient beings into submission.
Cruel, savage, brutal, severe, harsh, grim, unkind, heartless, atrocious, unsympathetic, hellish, depraved, barbarous, pitiless, unfeeling, uncompassionate.
Online dictionaries are your friends!