Guild Wars 2

We deserve an apology for Scarlet’s existence and inclusion in / invasion of the Living Story all year long.

We payed for a game about the Elder Dragons.

We did not buy a game with Scarlet’s face on the cover, yet we may as well have.

I won’t be logging in again until we get a formal apology and are assured that Scarlet is done with or very soon to be done with. If she is all we have to look forward to for another year, I am so far past done. That is all.

The plot points are set in stone so youll have to wait for her story to be over so stop complaning and actually post something constructive so they do better on the next story. They are not going to give us dragon after dragon after dragon because that would get old as well and they want to save those for bigger things probably their form of expansions

No more scarlet. Please. She’s just lame. I’ll post a rant by one of my guildies:

In my opinion, they need to end the Scarlet story. This is becoming a total joke. Really? We get a new fractal about how the reactor blew and they stick Scarlet into it??? So if Evon had won and we got the Abaddon fractal, would they have stuck Scarlet into that, too? What’s next, the Centaur/Bandit alliance? Or maybe the Quaggan/Frostbrood alliance? This is just getting sad, these writers are nothing like the writers that made the Guild Wars universe so wonderful in the first place. Every.Freaking.Thing. Scarlet’s behind it. What, will it end that Scarlet is the one who created the Elder Dragons and is controlling them? Obviously fighting the Elder Dragons has been of no importance for a full year since we’ve been dealing with Scarlet the whole time.

So, so, so sad. If anything happens, Scarlet is behind it. If there is some kind of totally and completely unlikely alliance between two races or factions, Scarlet is behind it. It’s never explained how she is so all powerful to convince all these races/factions to do this, but she just keeps doing it and these races/factions keep falling right into her hands. With her little story line they have managed to break established lore multiple times. The most blatant of all dealing with the Krait. How so? Here’s what the Wiki states about the Krait:

Quote


Originally from the Unending Ocean, the krait rival even the charr for viciousness and cruel ingenuity. These intelligent creatures are vicious and xenophobic, attacking and enslaving all other species on sight.

Xenophobic, attacking and enslaving ALL other species on sight. Yet, out of the blue, they accept Scarlet and join up with the Nightmare Court.

I…just…ugh. This is getting terrible, and so far there hasn’t been much of any hint that there is any hope in sight with the direction they’re going.

In my opinion, they need to end the Scarlet story.

I would rather they not end the story prematurely. Let them figure out the kinks through this story before moving on to other stories.

Really? We get a new fractal about how the reactor blew and they stick Scarlet into it??? So if Evon had won and we got the Abaddon fractal, would they have stuck Scarlet into that, too?

You have to understand that Scarlet being there actually makes sense. She had ties to the Inquest, she studied the Eternal Alchemy. It is not far-fetched to think Scarlet would be there.

I also want to reiterate: Scarlet was not the cause of the meltdown. We learn that the facility was initially intended to study chaos magic but the Inquest pushed the direction of the facility towards dragon magic. The Inquest learned that there was a link between the Elder Dragon energy and chaos energy. They concluded that the chaos energy and dragon magic may have a link or even be the same. They also concluded that this magical energy follows a course through the globe and crisscrosses at certain areas. One of these areas was the Thaumanova Reactor. So their study of the two energies at this interception of magical energy is what caused the meltdown.

Scarlet was not behind the meltdown. She was there when it happened. She even tried to tell the Inquest that the study would be a bad idea. She tried to STOP it.

Xenophobic, attacking and enslaving ALL other species on sight. Yet, out of the blue, they accept Scarlet and join up with the Nightmare Court.

Yes, the krait are xenophobic, but that is the GENERAL POPULACE. They follow the code and teachings of their Oratuss (priest-like individuals). Scarlet tempted the Oratuss’ with the coming of their prophets and gave them obsidian shards as a sort of proof. The Oratuss’ are not the general populace, and are not blinded by their religion (which is what makes the krait so xenophobic), so they took the deal with Scarlet to bring back their prophet (which they believed they were doing; if the Hybrid was or was not is to be debated). The Oratuss’ then convinced the general populace that branch of the nightmare court are on their side. Remember that the Krait do not have a written language and thus go only by what the Oratuss tell them. The Oratuss were manipulating them as much as Scarlet was manipulating the Oratuss.

I am so tired of people claiming to speak for everyone. ANet does not owe me, or many people I know, an apology.

It’s become fashionable for some to join the hysterical anti-Scarlet bandwagon. She is, in my opinion, a poorly-presented character written by writers who desperately want to tell their prove that their new supercilious story about an insane rhubarb is better than the original GW story about dragons. I’m hoping ANet ties her to the dragon story firmly.

But to constantly harp on Scarlet is ridiculous. It’s a game, folks.

They should be working in more game mechanics and fixing the existent ones.
In my opinion, GW2 evolution is slow or they are not doing the right thing, the game lacks of almost everything that other mmo’s offers yet they did nothing new to compensate the lack of mechanics or content, saying this Living Story is far from being any kind of compensation to the game model and its still premature feels rushed content, and the lack of those elements make the game claustrofobic, being in PVE or WVW.

Stop talking about the ‘free’ updates as if those are a boon to the game. Those ‘free’ updates have destroyed everything I have found fun about this game. The game was brilliant until those ‘free’ updates.

I would much rather throw down 40-50$ annually for a good expansion then to watch my favorite series die.

Yes. Please Anet, make Scarlet go away forever. Nobody likes her, nobody asked for her and she is terribly written. Bring back the elder dragons.

Elbegast.6970:

Stop talking about the ‘free’ updates as if those are a boon to the game. Those ‘free’ updates have destroyed everything I have found fun about this game. The game was brilliant until those ‘free’ updates.

This is simply an awesome analogy.

People need to understand that these ’free’updates are going to sculpt the future of the game, and their quality is going to be what separates this game from just another mmo, or even a random browser-based mmo, which is also, mind you, ‘free’. They already said they don’t consider an expansion in the near future, and if this is going to be how they deliver content, it has to meet the players’ expectations, that the game itself has set high, or at the very least, not devalue the lore that was already in place.

A clear example of this are the alliances, they could have just kept the molten alliance and developed on that, instead of creating another one that doesn’t at all fit into what they said in the first place about any of these races, and instead of one alliance that we could have gotten an explanation about, we got two, still no idea why the first one started, and what is going on.

So, I beg of you, keep the quality to the standard you set. If you consider your players willing enough to spend money on reskinned armor and/or parts of one at the same price, you can bet they would spend it, and I can say that I would, for good, quality content. Just to compare, Guild Wars Factions was released a year after the original, and Nightfall less than a year after that, adding approximately 3x the content of the original game. Since it was the begining of the series, they probably didn’t have the playerbase this game does now, and still they managed to create a magnificent game. I am not arguing in favor of expansions here, but if this is their choice, they better make it good.

To be honest, I don’t think Scarlet is the problem. There can be any other villain and they’ll just be as kittencarlet. I think Scarlet could be great. But the quality in writing is poor.

The problem with Living story is identifying the protagonist. Hint: it isn’t the player. The player gets zero screen time, they call zero shots, and they have zero character.

It is no longer a story, but a list of enemies to kill because they happened to be enemies. Then at the end, they will giving a speech on how the player foil their plans.

I want to have a personal relationship with the villain like how Batman had a personal relationship with the Joker. I want a personal relationship with my sidekick npc, and not be the henchmen that do the dirty work. I want a interdependent relationship. I want to be the hero in the game.

Think about it, Scarlet targets you, the Commander, Slayer, Valiant, Hero, Centurion, Savant. Why? Because Scarlet finds it fun to torment you. When you and Scarlet fight each other. Scarlet doesn’t just give out a speech, You two actually talk to each other. Therefore establishing a bond of hate.

It is better to get to the root of the problem: Player is not the protagonist.

Otherwise, Scarlet will just repeat.

Sytherek.7689:

But to constantly harp on Scarlet is ridiculous. It’s a game, folks.

You know what I get tired of hearing… when people say “It’s a game, folks”

People invest time and money supporting Anet so their product becomes successful and their company continues to grow. If they make boring characters and horribly written story then I will harp on about it until I’m blue in the face.

Why? because I actually like this game and so do the others that are constantly posting their feedback. People want to see this game succeed, and to do so they want a compelling story.

So bring it on. the more complaints the better until we hammer into the writers heads that they need to step it up a notch. They are supposed to be professional writers after all and should be used to criticism. I just hope they take on board what has been said so the next major story won’t be such a mess.

Luckily for them this current story won’t be too hard to beat.

I did buy the game. I enjoy the content that’s in it. I don’t enjoy when the Living World content intrudes into the WvW I enjoy or the fractals I enjoyed. I consider dungeons and fractals to be the sole reason I play PvE…Not for rewards, not for leader-boards, but because I enjoy that content.

Like many others, I work. I did buy this game and I would pay for an addition to it if I wanted it. I don’t want these things they’re adding. I don’t want dungeon paths replaced with other ones. I don’t want cheesy bosses added to fractals to please open world players who won’t step foot into the fractal once this achievement window is over.

This isn’t an assault on you or anything. I just hope I can convey that these “free” updates shouldn’t just be cut a break because they are free. While many game companies don’t deliver this much content, a lot of them also work on patching bugs, fixing broken mechanics, etc… These are the things that EVERYONE would benefit from. These are the things that should be free and every two weeks. As far as story, you’re right! I got what I paid 40$ for…I got it and I don’t regret a penny of it. I just honestly feel that, bit by bit, half of the updates take a little bit of that worth away from my experience.

tl;dr- didn’t ask for free updates. LS doesn’t need to be in everything. Stop with scarlet. Start fixing bugs.

Scarlet is a terribly written character and the Living Stories have been terribly written. However, I doubt getting rid of Scarlet is not going to solve the problem.

The Scarlet plotline no doubt had to pass many peoples’ approvals — and the fact that it did pass means that Anet does not have the ability/good taste to properly vet storylines.

So even if Scarlet were removed from the game, her replacement would likely be another terrible storyline with terrible characterizations.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Scarlet is a terribly written character and the Living Stories have been terribly written. However, I doubt getting rid of Scarlet is not going to solve the problem.

The Scarlet plotline no doubt had to pass many peoples’ approvals — and the fact that it did pass means that Anet does not have the ability/good taste to properly vet storylines.

So even if Scarlet were removed from the game, her replacement would likely be another terrible storyline with terrible characterizations.

Oh god-…

I hadn’t even thought of that… BUT… I don’t think I can imagine many things worse than Scarlet, it has to be up hill from here, it just has to-… Unless there is no hill and we’re stuck in a never-ending pit of Scarlet…

…Anyway, I’m glad I kept reading, even though the people defending “free manure” were a pain to read through. I know I’m not just a spoiled brat stomping on the ground, I know that Guild Wars 2 is turning into something that is actually offending it’s fans and vomiting all over the setting that has been established.

It’s so true, that since we’re not getting expansions, these Living World updates are our only form of new content, and yeah, they may be free, but no game should dump manure on their fans and say “Well hey if you don’t like the smell you can just stop playing now, we know you spent a lot of time leveling up those characters and decking them out in gear, but we’re doing something new and terrible with the game, where we literally pump manure into your computer, her name is Scarlet, and you will love her or you will leave, and we don’t really give a rat’s @$$, deal with it.”

Glitched.7456:

It’s so true, that since we’re not getting expansions, these Living World updates are our only form of new content, and yeah, they may be free, but no game should dump manure on their fans and say “Well hey if you don’t like the smell you can just stop playing now, we know you spent a lot of time leveling up those characters and decking them out in gear, but we’re doing something new and terrible with the game, where we literally pump manure into your computer, her name is Scarlet, and you will love her or you will leave, and we don’t really give a rat’s @$$, deal with it.”

Nah, you’re spot on. Saying, “It’s free. Deal with it” is unacceptable. Consumers who are buying that rhetoric are selling themselves short. Price doesn’t excuse poor quality.

Scarlet is not that bad of a villain. She’s a fairly common archetype that you’ll find in many stories. Don’t take her appearance in the LS so personal.

DaShi.1368:

Scarlet is not that bad of a villain. She’s a fairly common archetype that you’ll find in many stories. Don’t take her appearance in the LS so personal.

It’s not that she’s merely a bad or poorly written villain but rather that her story destroys the lore of Guild Wars 1 and the devs/writers don’t seem to care.

That’s debatable. And rarely the primary complaint against her.

I have seen the word “Scarlet” more than any other word in the english language for the past however long, and I’m pretty positive that is not hyperbole. If you’re gonna have a main villain, cool. But every thing is Scarlet, and even if it’s not, people will go out and just say Scarlet because that’s what it’s become and what they’re used to: World of Scarlet Online. There’s no escape, it’s everywhere!

I would like if the Living Story could focus on separate things, say one week we’re doing something about the Mursaat coming back, then next patch, look out, Largos are doing something. Two or so patches later, back to the Mursaat. But of course, make these snippets meaty.

What worries me about that is though that comment from one of the devs who wanted Mursaat to be implemented during the Queen’s Jubilee somehow but said there just wasn’t enough time to do them justice. Patch cycle has not changed. Are we stuck with stories like “It was Scarlet again! She did -something of zero consequence-!” until the living story dies? I hope not.

captaincrash.6528:

I have seen the word “Scarlet” more than any other word in the english language for the past however long, and I’m pretty positive that is not hyperbole.

Um, that’s a perfect example of hyperbole.

AzureShiron.7658:

The plot points are set in stone so youll have to wait for her story to be over so stop complaning and actually post something constructive so they do better on the next story. They are not going to give us dragon after dragon after dragon because that would get old as well and they want to save those for bigger things probably their form of expansions

Its hard to be constructive when the point of many of us is “Make Scarlet go away” and Anet wants to just jam more and more of it down our throats. Its past the time when that character could have been salvaged. Anet is doing nothing to speed up her demise and is going to march to their own drummer no matter how many customers they tick off.

Glitched.7456:

We deserve an apology for Scarlet’s existence and inclusion in / invasion of the Living Story all year long.

We payed for a game about the Elder Dragons.

We did not buy a game with Scarlet’s face on the cover, yet we may as well have.

I won’t be logging in again until we get a formal apology and are assured that Scarlet is done with or very soon to be done with. If she is all we have to look forward to for another year, I am so far past done. That is all.

+100500… no comments.

Quick fact, I’ve never played a game because I considered it to be great literature. Typically, I enjoy games for their cheesy story lines. I enjoy the LS in GW2. If I want great literature, I’ll read a book.

Sytherek.7689:

I am so tired of people claiming to speak for everyone. ANet does not owe me, or many people I know, an apology.

It’s become fashionable for some to join the hysterical anti-Scarlet bandwagon. She is, in my opinion, a poorly-presented character written by writers who desperately want to tell their prove that their new supercilious story about an insane rhubarb is better than the original GW story about dragons. I’m hoping ANet ties her to the dragon story firmly.

But to constantly harp on Scarlet is ridiculous. It’s a game, folks.

Thank goodness someone finally said this.

Please. Immortalize this reasonable, wise, and intelligent post in the forums for all eternity.

Reasonable: The writer doesn’t throw mud at people (including writers/developers) and concedes some points of opposing arguments.

Wise: The writer urges people to avoid making broad assumptions and enforces the “it’s just a game” argument. “It’s just a game” only serves to remind people not to feel like the world is ending when something they don’t agree with happens (generally leading to verbal abuse of some form, of which there has been a good deal on this topic).

Intelligent: The writer is both reasonable and wise.

I hope people from here on out use this writer’s post as a model for excellence.

Now, this may just be me with rose-colored glasses, but I believe that many other cultures don’t manifest these problems nearly as clearly. Perhaps our problems stem more from differing cultural values. (Although things may have become more and more diluted as the world has become more and more “westernized”).

Personally, I would be tempted to place the blame on the consumerist mindset we have here in the United States and…nearly everywhere else with a system of mass production and a putrefaction of values.

For example, we seem to become self-entitled so quickly when raised in a society of individualism and rabid consumerism. If things don’t meet our standards, often we take it as a personal assault and lash out violently at the “oppressors” of our personal pleasure. However, whose fault is it that we become so offended? It’s ours. Without a doubt it’s ours.

This isn’t to say that all criticism is a bad thing. Where would improvement be without criticism? Nowhere. I’m only trying to say that if we were to demand an apology for something so trivial, we would demonstrate a severe issue of self-entitlement.

If we want change, we should not achieve it because we were the ones that shouted the loudest. These changes would be biased, catering to only one group of people, and most likely they would feel forced and hollow.

Rather, we should achieve change through reason, intelligence, well-structured arguments, and empathetic concession. These changes would be fluid, enthusiastic, and unbiased—all the better for an MMO.

In fact, I’d say that a method of well-structured dialogue (rather than argument) would yield much more satisfactory results. In an argument, we are only concerned with us coming out on top and beating the other people.

When dialoguing, we collaborate together to find the objective truth (or, in this case, an enjoyable game). By the end, we each have to make sacrifices, and we compromise. And if we don’t come in here ready to compromise, then I doubt we’ll come away with anything at all.

I don’t know why you’re talking for me, OP. I CERTAINLY didn’t join the game for elder dragons. I tolerated the elder dragons because they’d already been annouced. But after Dragon Age, Dragon Age 2, Skyrim and Rift, all of which center on Dragons, I’ve had quite enough of dragons.

And yes, I know this was planned before all of those, but that’s not really the point. Dragons as a fantasy trope are as played out as elves. I’d rather have almost anything but dragons….even Scarlet.

Has the name of this game been changed from Guild Wars 2 to Scarlet Wars 1 yet?

I suspect the " 2 " has significant meaning to a large part of the player base.

I don’t care too much about Scarlet, I don’t see her utterly destroying lore everywhere she turns up, and it’d be great if we did see some forward progress towards the end of her storyline or a hint at where it’s going so people stop claiming there’s no end or it’ll continue ad infinitum.

But! You know who kitten ed me off more for being involved even a little in the story? Zojja and Kudu. In fact, if you guys successfully lobby for Scarlet to get junked I want to start a lobby to remove ALL the asura except for Vekk. Just retcon it so they never survived on the surface this long for whatever reason.

Either that or have them get wiped out by destroyers again.

1) WoW is indeed the game it is today because of its expansions, and gw2 should definitely have at least one to keep people interested for an extended period of time. But people seem to have forgotten that WoW didn’t get it’s first expansion for 3 years and vanilla WoW got boring after the first year too. An expansion will likely come but gw2 is still a baby in the grand MMO race.

2) I am not owed anything by anet, least of all an apology and as an avid player of the original guild wars for 8 years I would consider myself a fan and therefore appreciate if you wouldn’t say we ALL are disgusted. I paid for guild wars 2 as it was when it released. I got my retail moneys worth out of the core game by having played it for over 1000 hours. That’s more than many games I’ve paid more for.

If you have an issue with Scarlet that’s perfectly understandable, but stop saying its a fault with the game we all paid for because it isn’t. As you said you paid for a game about elder dragons and that is what you got. All these LS updates are just bonus free content whether we enjoy them or not.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Its hard to be constructive when the point of many of us is “Make Scarlet go away” and Anet wants to just jam more and more of it down our throats. Its past the time when that character could have been salvaged. Anet is doing nothing to speed up her demise and is going to march to their own drummer no matter how many customers they tick off.

You have to keep in mind however that they have about 4 months dev time for the updates.
That means that the current updates were already started on when Scarlet made her appearance and thus they couldn’t really do much about it.

Or do you suggest they just throw away months of work just because some people seems to hate the current story?

If the devs are gonna put Scarlet in every LS expansion, then we’re gonna complain about Scarlet every LS expansion until they get it right.

lordkrall.7241:

Or do you suggest they just throw away months of work just because some people seems to hate the current story?

Yes. That’s actually fairly common business procedure: take your losses before things get worse.

ThiBash.5634:

Yes. That’s actually fairly common business procedure: take your losses before things get worse.

It is extremely unusual that lets say a series suddenly decide to delete several months of work (and thus also putting it several months behind, which would mean literally several months of nothing released) just because some people dislike it.
As far as I remember right now it has actually never happened.

Just deleting stuff and leaving this storyline that they have been building on for almost a year hanging would most likely create way more issues than just going ahead with the plan.

Tumult.2578:

Has the name of this game been changed from Guild Wars 2 to Scarlet Wars 1 yet?

I suspect the " 2 " has significant meaning to a large part of the player base.

You seem to be fine with Dragon Wars 1. I can’t believe I’m the only person that found all these undead to be redundant.

The 2 has no meaning to the player base.

lordkrall.7241:

ThiBash.5634:

Yes. That’s actually fairly common business procedure: take your losses before things get worse.

It is extremely unusual that lets say a series suddenly decide to delete several months of work (and thus also putting it several months behind, which would mean literally several months of nothing released) just because some people dislike it.
As far as I remember right now it has actually never happened.

Just deleting stuff and leaving this storyline that they have been building on for almost a year hanging would most likely create way more issues than just going ahead with the plan.

Are you kidding? It happens constantly in entertainment. If a large enough part of the consumer base doesn’t like something, it’s changed… or removed entirely. That’s how it works. The last thing ANY business that’s run with a bit of sense would do is stick to it’s guns and shove something the customers hate into their faces.

The only question is, how wide spread is the Scarlet hate and whether or not a significant number of players have stepped away from the game over it.

@OP: how do you think Elder Dragons will be more fun and engaging than Scarlet? At least she has a character, the only Elder Dragon encounter we had was an utter disappointment. Scarlet CAN have a lot of interesting dialogues, story arcs, and turns… Elder Dragons can not.

stormspirit.6598:

Are you kidding? It happens constantly in entertainment. If a large enough part of the consumer base doesn’t like something, it’s changed… or removed entirely. That’s how it works. The last thing ANY business that’s run with a bit of sense would do is stick to it’s guns and shove something the customers hate into their faces.

D20 System D&D, Jar Jar Binks, Highlander 2, Captain Janeway, TNA Impact, Matt Schaub.

Your move

I see everyone is giving Trahearne a rest then … who is this Scarlet anyway?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

stormspirit.6598:

Are you kidding? It happens constantly in entertainment. If a large enough part of the consumer base doesn’t like something, it’s changed… or removed entirely. That’s how it works. The last thing ANY business that’s run with a bit of sense would do is stick to it’s guns and shove something the customers hate into their faces.

D20 System D&D, Jar Jar Binks, Highlander 2, Captain Janeway, TNA Impact, Matt Schaub.

Your move

That list really just illustrates my point. These are situations where they didn’t do the sensible thing and change course…. and the results were highly negative. TNA in particular, if you know anything about that company, hasn’t actually made money for most of it’s existence, is only around because the parent company keeps it afloat, and is currently in a state of decline with layoffs left and right.

Highlander is practically dead as a franchise. Seen any new Highlander movies lately?

Voyager finished it’s run, but Star Treks mistakes caught up to it soon after and again, practically killed the franchise until J.J. Abrams saved it.

Jar Jar Binks WAS shifted to the background after fans backlash and was not shoved in our faces, as he was planned to be.

D20 System D&D also has changed and continues to do so. It’s also a template. If you don’t like it, you can change the rules for your own games so it’s questionable if this counts or not.

Matt Schaub? Only a matter of time before either he’s gone or the franchise suffers.

do what i do, ignore all LS’s and simply play the base game.
if Anet finds out the updates they add are so bad ppl simply don’t play them they might stop and think things trough.

i really rather see them unlocking parts of tyria like they said they would then dealing with all the LS crap, the crystal deserd without anything to do is more fun then the LS we have now.

The general sense I get about Scarlet is that if she is, in fact, infuriating you then she’s totally happy with that. Wouldn’t surprise me if she was aware of the fourth wall after coming out of the machine and want to explicitly troll players. Would be rather post-modern but…

Anyways, the Living Story content is largely temporary and optional. However good or bad Scarlet is, she’s temporary.

stormspirit.6598:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

stormspirit.6598:

Are you kidding? It happens constantly in entertainment. If a large enough part of the consumer base doesn’t like something, it’s changed… or removed entirely. That’s how it works. The last thing ANY business that’s run with a bit of sense would do is stick to it’s guns and shove something the customers hate into their faces.

D20 System D&D, Jar Jar Binks, Highlander 2, Captain Janeway, TNA Impact, Matt Schaub.

Your move

That list really just illustrates my point. These are situations where they didn’t do the sensible thing and change course…. and the results were highly negative.

There’s also on the other side, the repeated outcry against things like the Transformer M.Bay movies, or LOTR/Hobbit films, or so on but they still remain successful financially. So . . . take that as you will.

Also, I ask people please stop making topics presuming to speak for me as a “fan who doesn’t like X”. If I don’t like it enough and want it changed, I’ll chime in. If I don’t chime in, I either don’t care or hate it enough to give it the silent treatment and play something else. I still have my UFO: Enemy Unknown CD somewhere . . .

Glitched.7456:

We deserve an apology for Scarlet’s existence and inclusion in / invasion of the Living Story all year long.

We payed for a game about the Elder Dragons.

We did not buy a game with Scarlet’s face on the cover, yet we may as well have.

I won’t be logging in again until we get a formal apology and are assured that Scarlet is done with or very soon to be done with. If she is all we have to look forward to for another year, I am so far past done. That is all.

The Scarlet arc is confirmed to be ending. If you don’t like Scarlet don’t play the living story. Lots of other things to do in game that Scarlet has nothing to do with. Anet did nothing wrong introducing a new story arc so don’t expect an apology. Lots of players like Scarlet and this arc.

Fault falls upon Scarlet’s repetitive actions: mess things up with Aetherblades and creating alliances of enemies.
From a writer’s point of view, I see this chain of events just as the preparations for greater things to happen. After all, she’s just begun to show an insterest to Elder Dragons… and I can already imagine where this may take.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Arenanet’s writers have been preparing up their sleeves.

If an elder dragon randomly came out of the sky stomping her during a cut scene before flying off again, that would be enough of an apology for me.

Chris RJ.1843:

I did buy the game. I enjoy the content that’s in it. I don’t enjoy when the Living World content intrudes into the WvW I enjoy or the fractals I enjoyed. I consider dungeons and fractals to be the sole reason I play PvE…Not for rewards, not for leader-boards, but because I enjoy that content.

Like many others, I work. I did buy this game and I would pay for an addition to it if I wanted it. I don’t want these things they’re adding. I don’t want dungeon paths replaced with other ones. I don’t want cheesy bosses added to fractals to please open world players who won’t step foot into the fractal once this achievement window is over.

This isn’t an assault on you or anything. I just hope I can convey that these “free” updates shouldn’t just be cut a break because they are free. While many game companies don’t deliver this much content, a lot of them also work on patching bugs, fixing broken mechanics, etc… These are the things that EVERYONE would benefit from. These are the things that should be free and every two weeks. As far as story, you’re right! I got what I paid 40$ for…I got it and I don’t regret a penny of it. I just honestly feel that, bit by bit, half of the updates take a little bit of that worth away from my experience.

tl;dr- didn’t ask for free updates. LS doesn’t need to be in everything. Stop with scarlet. Start fixing bugs.

I actually like the living story, not for the story but for the content. Having something to do. Coming from a game with fewer bugs (although, fewer QOL features as well), loads of dungeons – with fully fleshed mechanics, and raid content with varying tiers of difficulty; Guild Wars 2 appealed to me because they had things to do between pushing content. In other games, aside from achievement whoring, there was so much dead time in which players were left to their own devices, for little enjoyment/entertainment. Why bother playing when you have to look for things to do? While GW2 lacks the end game progression/challenge of other games, it’s refreshing to have random things to do if I don’t feel like dungeons/fractals/wvw. I like that it changes frequently, not an event every other month/once a year. I like that events don’t stick around (despite having missed all of them between Nov 12 – Oct 13) – a benefit noticed when observing the Scarlet Invasions (who does those anymore) and Tequatl event.

It’s not an either/or situation – those working on story line/LS content are not the same individuals who work on bug fixes. Different teams/job titles/skill sets.

Scarlet is annoying, although she doesn’t play a very big factor in my gameplay – and I’m sure they’ll use her story arc (chaos/dragon magic, ley lines, “Do not touch” generators throughout the world) to justify the reintroduction of dragons in terms of story.

TL;DR – Mmmmmm, content.

Theundersigned.4761:

Sytherek.7689:

I am so tired of people claiming to speak for everyone. ANet does not owe me, or many people I know, an apology.

It’s become fashionable for some to join the hysterical anti-Scarlet bandwagon. She is, in my opinion, a poorly-presented character written by writers who desperately want to tell their prove that their new supercilious story about an insane rhubarb is better than the original GW story about dragons. I’m hoping ANet ties her to the dragon story firmly.

But to constantly harp on Scarlet is ridiculous. It’s a game, folks.

Thank goodness someone finally said this.

Please. Immortalize this reasonable, wise, and intelligent post in the forums for all eternity.

Reasonable: The writer doesn’t throw mud at people (including writers/developers) and concedes some points of opposing arguments.

Wise: The writer urges people to avoid making broad assumptions and enforces the “it’s just a game” argument. “It’s just a game” only serves to remind people not to feel like the world is ending when something they don’t agree with happens (generally leading to verbal abuse of some form, of which there has been a good deal on this topic).

Intelligent: The writer is both reasonable and wise.

I hope people from here on out use this writer’s post as a model for excellence.

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Now, this may just be me with rose-colored glasses, but I believe that many other cultures don’t manifest these problems nearly as clearly. Perhaps our problems stem more from differing cultural values. (Although things may have become more and more diluted as the world has become more and more “westernized”).

Personally, I would be tempted to place the blame on the consumerist mindset we have here in the United States and…nearly everywhere else with a system of mass production and a putrefaction of values.

For example, we seem to become self-entitled so quickly when raised in a society of individualism and rabid consumerism. If things don’t meet our standards, often we take it as a personal assault and lash out violently at the “oppressors” of our personal pleasure. However, whose fault is it that we become so offended? It’s ours. Without a doubt it’s ours.

This isn’t to say that all criticism is a bad thing. Where would improvement be without criticism? Nowhere. I’m only trying to say that if we were to demand an apology for something so trivial, we would demonstrate a severe issue of self-entitlement.

If we want change, we should not achieve it because we were the ones that shouted the loudest. These changes would be biased, catering to only one group of people, and most likely they would feel forced and hollow.

Rather, we should achieve change through reason, intelligence, well-structured arguments, and empathetic concession. These changes would be fluid, enthusiastic, and unbiased—all the better for an MMO.

In fact, I’d say that a method of well-structured dialogue (rather than argument) would yield much more satisfactory results. In an argument, we are only concerned with us coming out on top and beating the other people.

When dialoguing, we collaborate together to find the objective truth (or, in this case, an enjoyable game). By the end, we each have to make sacrifices, and we compromise. And if we don’t come in here ready to compromise, then I doubt we’ll come away with anything at all.

I think I love you. Well said.

islarose.7356:

Worth noting, we don’t know where the story is going, how it will tie in, or really anything regarding Anet’s plans for a character they’ve made quite an effort to include on a regular basis. The end result could redeem the complaints some of the players have. Maybe not, but let’s not promote this idea of scrapping all of the content to be left with months of nothing, and throw the baby out with the bathwater in our haste.

The people who heap the hate on Scarlet and throw out any counter-arguments with “but she sucks” aren’t going to care about where the story goes. And to be honest, I can’t blame them. I’ve skipped many TV series because a character just outright bugs me and they get enough screentime for me to want to shout “GTFO” at it.

Everyone knows what I’m talking about, even if they don’t watch TV currently, they probably did at some time. Or a movie. Or read a book where there was that one character . . . even if it turns out they were completely integral to the plot, there is not enough to overlook how annoying they were.

. . . see also “Wesley Crusher”.

I get why people don’t like Scarlet. I have a low tolerance for “quirky” myself. But for me, the hallucinating visions/voices in Tower of Nightmares (“What if your sister could see you now?”) pulled things a little more out of the trash for me. And I’m . . . not entirely sure she was actually there and not a hallucination.

For the record, not all players agree with the OP, so the blanket statement “your fans are horrified…” is inaccurate. People need to stop talking like everyone in the game feels this way (most I talk to in game are still having a lot of fun).

While not mindblowing, I think the Scarlet storyline offers some entertainment value and I happily play through each step as it comes out. I am excited for what they come up with next (and dont care if it is about the elder dragons or not).

Wow OP way to be a completely melodramatic self-centered buttbaby. A formal written apology just because you personally don’t care for a particular character? This is a joke, right? Build a bridge and get over it. It’s not like Scarlet’s existence actually removed the existence of the elder dragons from the game completely, and you actually have the option of ignoring the living story completely to go kitten around with the dragons that are already in the game while we wait for the dumb living bs to conclude and move on because it’s not actually permanent! WHAT A CONCEPT.