Guild Wars 2

I’m making this thread to give an general idea to the story developers on everyone’s current position on Scarlet.

Please use this to answer : http://strawpoll.me/802332

Don’t forget to explain why you like/dislike Scarlet in this thread!

Edit: I mean like, as in… is her quality as a villain good enough for you?

^ You make good points but explaining what you think could change about her or the next villain would be nice.

I voted like even though I still do have issues with her.
I like her, but she’s so boring now.
I like her, but the voice is just wrong (in my opinion) for a villain that ANet is trying to sell us.
I like her though I think I would like her better if she changed a bit like Canach did.

I don’t think she needs to be retconned out of existence, but at least wrapped up to a point where we don’t see her as much if any.
Of course I’ve always been a fan of multiple power blocs, different factions piling on each other all at once, and multiple storylines where some come together.

My ideal entertainment runs along the lines of Babylon 5, Game of Thrones, Alpha Centauri (one of the best video games ever), and titles that follow similar format.

When they first brought up the evolution of the Living Story one thing that gave me hope was the fact we would meet many interesting characters.

“Aside from the Living Story main characters, we’ll also be surprising you with interesting villains, one of whom will become your personal nemesis. "

So in my eyes, I thought we’d see multiple villains scheming and plotting against each other and us players. We then could decide if we liked a specific one to be our nemesis.

One release would be a Bad Guy A story, the next a Bad Girl D story, the one after might combine the two or something of the sort.

Yet in the Living Story we had one villain who was quickly arrested (Canach) and another which has spanned for nearly a whole year.
Okay great, but does she need to be in every update somehow? No she does not need to be, but ANet feels like we need to be reminded of her at every turn.
So as a villain I don’t mind her, in a way, but in no way possible will she be my personal nemesis despite how many times she’s shoved down my throat.

I’m actually mostly curious if Tara Strong enjoys playing her. I like Scarlet if she does, but am indifferent to her otherwise.

I voted, but unfortunately this is going to be extremely biased towards people that feel most strongly about the topic. This means that it’ll be impossible to draw any conclusions from this poll, which is disappointing.

Curious about the results anyway, though.

Theundersigned.4761:

I voted, but unfortunately this is going to be extremely biased towards people that feel most strongly about the topic. This means that it’ll be impossible to draw any conclusions from this poll, which is disappointing.

Curious about the results anyway, though.

When it comes to entertainment, the sum of opinions prove greater value than the sum of facts that measures the position of her existence on the ladder of standards about story presenting.

Polls can be useful tools in recording a community’s thoughts on something, but only when made correctly. This means that a random sample representing the entire player base would have to be selected. Otherwise, only those that feel the most strongly about this topic will be most interested in replying. This bias is known simply as “Non-Response Bias.” (Now that I think about it, even a response bias might have a role here considering the number of “I don’t like Scarlet” threads.) The very nature of bias means that a conclusion cannot be reached about voters’ overall opinions of something.

If Arena Net was truly interested in figuring out Scarlet’s true, unbiased reception, they would have us fill out information about our age, race, and gender, sending surveys to a random selection of these people.

Now, if we use a biased survey, we can only conclude how many people that feel strongly about this topic vote. This doesn’t take into account the many, many other people that have an opinion, but for some reason have chosen not to vote, are unable to, or don’t know this poll exists. This isn’t even taking into account sample biases such as a skewed age, gender, or racial demographic (each of which plays an important role in opinion making).

However, even a biased poll can be effective (if used with the knowledge that it was biased). Under certain circumstances, for example, biased surveys can be used to follow the general trend of strongly-voiced people. But to assume that everyone feels the same way would be a mistake.

So long as the poll is biased in this way, we won’t be able to conclude that the general populace of GW2 likes or dislikes Scarlet Briar simply because the poll is not recording the opinions of the general populace but rather a very small portion of the community.

Considering how she’s practically the Living Story at this point, your contribution still is valid.

I like Scarlet. I liked her background story, I like the voice acting. I like the cutscenes featuring her.

Most issues I have with her is how she is presented during the LS itself. If someone hasn’t read her story, she has zero character, just some random nut. And since we have no new material on her. No character development, nothing.
She is slowly descending into a one dimensional cardboard cutout.

Give us character, something to care about. The Living Story needs a STORY. Story is more than “stuff happened”. And lately, it’s not even that anymore, by now it is only ‘Scarlet happened’. No surprises, no plot twists, no character dilemmas, zip.
The dialogue of the characters in the nightmare chambers is a start in the right direction. Give me something like this for Scarlet. Make me care about her beyond “she sure be crazy, hurr”. Her most redeeming factor is the voice acting that brings her at least a bit life.
Even I was disappointed when I saw Scarlet in the thaumanova fractal.

tl,dr: The problem isn’t with Scarlet, it’s the writing of the LS.

Hate the character, and not in a good way. She’s poorly written and presented.

I’m on the fence.

^ Any reason buddy?

Chaotic Storm.2815:

I’m on the fence.

This is my opinion too.

I do not despise the character, nor do I particularly like the character. She is amusing enough to me, but not really engaging. She is presented as an arch-nemesis, but she functions like a villain-of-the-week.

One of the basic rules of storytelling is “show, don’t tell”, which means that actually demonstrating what a character is about is a far more powerful way of telling a story then just explaining what a character is about. The problem is that Scarlet has a disconnect in this regard: what we get to see from her is not the same as what we are told by ArenaNet (through NPCs in-game or by staff out-of-game).

What we are told (and what ArenaNet wants us to experience) is a brilliant sylvari mind that has gone over the edge and become dangerously unhinged, resulting in a destructive mad scientist who will stop at nothing to realize her mysterious-but-powerful agenda. She is also reported to have a wicked sense of humor that causes her to make an immediate and powerful impression on us.

But what we see (and what sticks with us) is a raving lunatic with hordes of improbably minions, who does not appear to have any well-defined goal except for causing chaos for the players to mop up. Her signature move is appearing out of thin air, pulling many tricks out of thin air, and disappearing again, all while laughing uncontrollably and making bad puns.

These two accounts do not appear to tell the same story.

While I do kind of like the story about mopping up messes left by a raving lunatic, I see little of the story ArenaNet actually appears to want to tell about Scarlet, making her a missed opportunity.

I like certain aspects of her, and dislike other aspects.

I like her personality and interactions with characters and the players. I like the fact that she manipulates people so well. I like the part of the backstory where she’s seen something that drove her to madness. I like her appearance, though that’s not really a big factor or anything.

I despise the part of her backstory where she’s pretty much the smartest being ever many times over. That really annoys me and almost single-handedly ruins the character, honestly, its just so unbelievable. I dislike how she pops up EVERYWHERE, I get they’re trying to make her seem like some mysterious “big picture” sort of character but that doesn’t mean she needs to have a hand in everything and only further adds to the unbelievability.

Aren’t we supposed to dislike her?

I love that she mailed us bombs, that she found joy in trying to cook Lord Farren, and uses such corny turns of phrase such as ‘later tater’. I dislike the evil alliance of the month, that her size is different depending on when and where you see her, and that I just really don’t understand why she’s there.

im not going to go into why i dislike her but she could have been better if we were given clues to why shes does stuff. journal droppings with a wish list. something that shows she has a direction not cause she can. i think she should care about what shes done and react to what put her into a disadvantage maybe make us foes that she trying to get back at for destroying her plots. they explain in interviews but they should of given it to us in game a lot of her background. yes if she doing something there should be motive and we should know the motive and be able to understand why she doing it which might lead us to speculate what she might do to achieve her goals. when she just pops in and then leaves it doesnt really give us too much about her or why. and the why is what we are asking the most because without why she shallow

Cole Eyre.8471:

Aren’t we supposed to dislike her?

There’s a difference between disliking a well executed villain and disliking a rambling mess of activity that tries to play a villainous role.

Personally i see her like tyria’s version of the joker: just want to see the world burn in her madness: reminds everyone that the dragons are not the only threat to the world.

While i do admit she is annoying (specially during invasions when she ambushes me when im not part of a zerg ._.) , it just builds up her character as one who makes up her own rules.

Recently i loved how she refrences some parts of the personal story of your character: (my primary is a charr with sourcerus father: get scarlet saying “Like sire, like cub? How is your papa’s redemption going? Any slip ups?”)shows she actually has interest in your character (again like joker to batman).

im really looking forward to scarlet’s finale

Phantom Master.9582:

^ Any reason buddy?

she has a few annoying things, The main one just being how she is just involved in everything. I’m getting burned out. It’s more like we see what is coming for the next story without any hints at what it might be and my only thought is “and what’s scarlet doing this time..”

I like her as a villian but if its just her over and over it gets old fast.

Does answer “I don’t care anymore” count?