Guild Wars 2

except you like the other two fail to see the fact that i AGREE with the OP. I have simply been pointing out that the information has and is available even if it is poorly presented and in most cases hidden in text conversation with obscure NPC’s and/ or out of game short story’s (heck even a bloody pod cast gave more information than the game itself lol.) It is for these reasons that i agree with the OP. The other two simply are annoyed that i had a go at there opening posts. Nothing more, nothing less.

Also you probably will not get a response from anet as they are far too busy. All though someone probably has read this thread and will use it constructively to help develope future LS.
Now i have been at this all day. I have shared information as well as locations of said information. Left my opinion on the subject at hand. Had a god kitten ed war with two fellow posters that finally ended with them degrading into insults and over all it has been a very long day. I do believe i will call it quits on this thread and go to bed. What happens from here is of no further concern especially since i no longer wish to further protract a discussion so far off topic as to be looking at it from the back.
I hope you all have a merry x-mas.

Natsu.2589:

So, in his own belief, his obviously biased opinion (meaning his zealot-like defiance) holds no further weight in this discussion. ;-)

No he’s not biased. WE are all biased, but not him. He said so himself so it must be true.

Singer.8740:

except you like the other two fail to see the fact that i AGREE with the OP. I have simply been pointing out that the information has and is available even if it is poorly presented and in most cases hidden in text conversation with obscure NPC’s and/ or out of game short story’s (heck even a bloody pod cast gave more information than the game itself lol.) It is for these reasons that i agree with the OP. The other two simply are annoyed that i had a go at there opening posts. Nothing more, nothing less.

Also you probably will not get a response from anet as they are far too busy. All though someone probably has read this thread and will use it constructively to help develope future LS.

Yay, let’s twist a bit! … The OP – if I’m not mistaken – is … me. So, you agree with me? g
Nevermind, let’s just stop, ok? Fact is, many people read it the way the author of the article did. For a reason, right? Right! That’s why Anet clarified. This point is through, I think.

Let’s just get back to the topic. Even if Anet is busy, I’m still asking, because I’m curious. That’s what people do in general if they’re curious, they ask stuff… Maybe I get lucky, for once and get an answer.

I had a huge post made up for Singer where I quoted previous posts they’ve made in this thread, but…

You’re right, back on topic. After one more, little thing.

Singer, you called me out on that little YouTube link. And on that, you’re right. That was uncalled for snark, and I apologize for doing it.

Now, back to the real topic.

Shiren.9532:

I’m really glad the Massively article touched on the handwaving that goes on in the Living Story. … Why is Kasmeer investigating the tower? She conveniently a mesmer of notability (despite that not being noted prior to the tower) with an illusion to dispel.

I would just like to point out that Marjory & Kasmeer’s involvement in the tower is very well explained. They’re private investigators. Before the Tower of Nightmares update they stated (in game) that they were hired by an asura (who was already captured by the Toxic Alliance by the time we arrived) to investigate the disturbances in Kessex Hills.

As for why we didn’t know Kasmeer was a mesmer before, well we also didn’t know Marjory was a necromancer. We saw neither of them in combat before this update so their profession was irrelevant at the time.

This Singer guy really needs to stop. It’s ok to have a point of view but to attack others and get it wrong then dig his hole deeper. You have to stop Singer.

The fact is you tried to discredit my post but got your facts wrong and went off in some weird tangent talking about her entry to the Asura colleges not what we were talking about which was her degree’s.

Hmmmm try again, or in this case please don’t.

Vexander.9850:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’m surprised they didn’t also explore the problem with her being a typical female villain stereotype.

I don’t think anyone could complain about this game having, “Typical female villain stereotypes,” all that much. It barely has -any- female villains. The majority of villains are male, and the majority of heros are female. It’s been that way since Guild Wars, and continued into Guild Wars 2. I mean, let’s keep count for a moment…

Of the Six human Gods, Four are Female.
The Last known Human Royal is a Queen, who has a male Minister as her political arch nemesis at this point.
Destiny’s Edge is composed of 3 females, 2 males, with a woman being their leader (Eir Stegalkin), and another female being the Catalyst to bring them together (Caithe).
A massive part of the Charr conflict with the Flame Legion is their treatment of female Charr.
The Pale Tree, a deity-like being, is portrayed as Female.
The Sons of Svanir is an entirely -Male- antagonist group.

I mean really, Scarlet may be a lot of things, but its almost -refreshing- to have a female antagonist for a change. I really, personally do not consider gender inequality to be a huge issue in this game or story. There’s a fair mix of male and female characters, and all characters are, for the most part, portrayed well.

I just think its silly to pull the gender card into this. I’ve had arguments with people who thought Guild Wars 2 was a Misogynist game before for one reason or another. I really just don’t think gender has that big of a role in Tyria when it comes to characters like Scarlet. Being male or female wouldn’t really change her in my opinion.

1) There are Eight gods, 2 are dead or disempowered, the 2 dead/disempowered ones are male. (Dhuum, Abbadon) so there are 4 male and 4 female gods.
2) There are 6 members of Destiny’s Edge, 3 male, 3 female, one male is dead.
3) The leaders of Rata Sum, Black Citadel, and Hoelbrak are male.

Not trying to poke holes in your argument as I agree with your points, but cant be too sloppy. To me Anet is intentionally striking a balance. Roughly half the cast is male, the other half is female.

While the article has some good criticism, it really only talks about half of the problems with Scarlet. Her awful dialog, her level of power, her really poorly presented “insanity” & her extremely annoying personality are just a few things they ignored.

DarksunG.9537:

While the article has some good criticism, it really only talks about half of the problems with Scarlet. Her awful dialog, her level of power, her really poorly presented “insanity” & her extremely annoying personality are just a few things they ignored.

He can’t be that judgemental. truth be told she is just like you said she is… a disgrace. The writers should be ashamed at her creation. I’ve heard half a dozen better ideas from players that eclipse anything these ‘professional’ writers have to offer.

They are low brow/second rate fantasy writers that are trying to be involved in gaming, and its obvious it is proving too much for them.

The only thing that is holding this game together is the amazing art and sound team. Which is amazing… I can’t fault them.

This was a good article. Addresses the problems with Scarlet while making a call for reasonable discussion about her.

I honestly think her character design would be fine if it was executed a little bit differently. She’s a cool looking character with great voice talent, and there’s nothing wrong with villains who are overly chaotic – they can be interesting. The problem lies with her motives (or lack thereof), her nonsensical backstory and the suspension of disbelief we require as players to take her seriously.

Hello everyone.
We want to remind you to keep this thread productive and respectful. Thank you for your understanding.

Riot Inducer.8964:

Shiren.9532:

I’m really glad the Massively article touched on the handwaving that goes on in the Living Story. … Why is Kasmeer investigating the tower? She conveniently a mesmer of notability (despite that not being noted prior to the tower) with an illusion to dispel.

I would just like to point out that Marjory & Kasmeer’s involvement in the tower is very well explained. They’re private investigators. Before the Tower of Nightmares update they stated (in game) that they were hired by an asura (who was already captured by the Toxic Alliance by the time we arrived) to investigate the disturbances in Kessex Hills.

As for why we didn’t know Kasmeer was a mesmer before, well we also didn’t know Marjory was a necromancer. We saw neither of them in combat before this update so their profession was irrelevant at the time.

Scarlet’s supposed to be a huge threat to Tyria. The Tower of Nightmares is a giant bioweapon that is built in humanity’s backyard, the amount of logging and suspicious krait activity involved in that would have to set off red flags, if not for the order of whispers, at least for the Queen and her people (this area is heavy with centaur activity, there isn’t a shortage of Seraph soldiers running around). A forest was cut down, a village was demolished and a giant force field appeared in the middle of the lake. I find it hard to believe the tower could be built without raising alarm bells and a simple asura was the one to bring those two to the location (something I don’t think is supported by what Marjory says during Blood and Madness)? That’s like the US government hiring a private investigator to look into a terrorist operation in Ohio because Jennah, Caithe, Anise and Logan were too busy watching Dancing With the Stars.

From “Blood and Madness”:

Player: Why are you here?

Marjory: The Great and Gorgeous Mesmer Collective, or whatever they call themselves, contacted Kasmeer to come down and take a look. Seems they admire her for more than her looks.

The Living Story cast have the same handwaving writing problems as Scarlet. They are shoehorned into the story when they shouldn’t be (simply because they are the Living Story cast but their positions in Tyria don’t justify their involvement unlike Destiny’s Edge) and it dumbs down the overall plot and damages the scope and threat of the story (it’s hard to take Scarlet seriously when the power people in Tyria are constantly ignoring her). Their only redeeming value is their banter because their story involvement is so flimsy. It doesn’t matter to me whether Marjory was a known necromancer prior to this or not, she’s not the one being summoned by the Great Mesmer Collective to deal with some serious mesmer magic when it makes much more sense for known qualified and relevant mesmers should have been involved instead. I don’t care that we found out Kasmeer is a mesmer, I care that she’s suddenly a mesmer of notability. Being a mesmer is one thing, being a mesmer notable enough that the Mesmer Collective summons to investigate a terrorist threat should have been established prior to being summoned.

The whole timeline in which this giant Tower of Nightmares was built also bothers me. We started seeing the forcefield during Halloween, and right after Halloween suddenly we have this massive tower. I suppose you could say that the tower was simply invisible before, and they started working on it much earlier than Halloween. But even then that’s not enough time to build a tower of that size, and also cut down a whole forest unnoticed. There’s an awful lot of plot convenience at work here.

For me, Kasmeer being a mesmer was a confirmation, not a surprise. Her outfit and general demeanour in previous appearances has been in-line with the way human mesmer NPCs have typically looked and behaved in the past (Gwen excepted). I can’t point to anything specific off the top of my head, but whether Kasmeer was made specifically to break the illusion on the Tower of Nightmares or not, it seems clear to me that she was planned as a mesmer from her first appearance.

Maybe it’s coincidental that she turns out to be a powerful enough mesmer to break the illusion, but what else could they do? Had her carry around a sign that reads “Powerful Mesmer” around on her previous appearances? While she has the personality to be a mesmer, she doesn’t seem the type to go around boasting of it. I guess they could have put her in combat previously to give us confirmation that she’s a mesmer, but even that wouldn’t establish her as being anything special when it comes to mesmerism.

For that matter, it’s also possible that what she did was nothing that our own mesmer characters couldn’t have done, had they had the time to spend studying the barrier that Kasmeer did. Having an NPC mesmer to do the honours, though, means that the sequence works regardless of whether there is a PC mesmer present or not.

NPC’s that are much more powerful than the players kind of bothers me. I can understand that there can be power differences, especially when there’s a villain. In this regard, I’m fine with Scarlet being a master of everything. But what does grind my gears is when allied NPC’s do things that no player in the game can do. It is plot convenience at it’s worst. It’s also a big missed opportunity, because this is an MMO. You don’t need to have an all powerful NPC to lift a huge illusion, you have hundreds of players to do it for you.

How much more awesome would it have been, if the forcefield required a large amounts of player mesmers to take it down? The other players would then be needed to defend them, so they can maintain their concentration. One mesmer on each side of the tower, all players, and they work together to bring down the illusion. Now that’s getting the players involved with the story.

Draygo.9473:

1) There are Eight gods, 2 are dead or disempowered, the 2 dead/disempowered ones are male. (Dhuum, Abbadon) so there are 4 male and 4 female gods.
2) There are 6 members of Destiny’s Edge, 3 male, 3 female, one male is dead.
3) The leaders of Rata Sum, Black Citadel, and Hoelbrak are male.

Not trying to poke holes in your argument as I agree with your points, but cant be too sloppy. To me Anet is intentionally striking a balance. Roughly half the cast is male, the other half is female.

1. – What about Menzies? Poor Menzies, always forgotten.
3. – Wasn’t Rata Sum ruled by a council, that consists of members of both genders? And Hoelbrak isn’t exactly ruled (it’s more like “watched over”). If you want to see Knut as a leader however, you would have to count his wife as well, since Norn relationships are plain and simply on equal terms. So she would be the … uhm … ‘leadress’. ^^’

In any case, you at least have to admit, that males are defeated more often, I guess? ^^

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

How much more awesome would it have been, if the forcefield required a large amounts of player mesmers to take it down? The other players would then be needed to defend them, so they can maintain their concentration. One mesmer on each side of the tower, all players, and they work together to bring down the illusion. Now that’s getting the players involved with the story.

I think, that would have been great. To simulate the weaving of a spell (or the cracking of an illusional code) Anet could have implemented such graphical puzzles like they use over in Warframe. You know, something like this here: http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/247363/preview
You have to connect the lines by rotating these panes, within a given time.

Of course, this would have demanded for a certain amount of Mesmers at everyones disposal, but maybe Anet could have built in something like an emergency solution? E.g. beeing able to activate NPC Mesmers (after a certain time, because they have yet to arrive in the area – meaning: reinforcements) that simply need much more time to crack the veil than players. This way it would be just a question of convenience, nobody however would be locked out.

The Arcane Council is lead by Flax:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/High_Councillor_Flax

Menzies hasn’t achieved god status, seems to be seeking to kill his brother for it though. If he succeeded we would have another dead male god but w/e.

PeterThomas.7243:

She’s a cool looking character with great voice talent, and there’s nothing wrong with villains who are overly chaotic – they can be interesting. The problem lies with her motives (or lack thereof), her nonsensical backstory and the suspension of disbelief we require as players to take her seriously.

I think she looks awful. Varesh? She looked awesome. was menacing & strong & a good leader. & had a very believable insanity.
About chaotic characters, because I keep hearing this excuse. Scarlet is not chaotic or insane. She’s a quippy, “sassy” strong-girl trope that spouts some token “crazy” dialog. The cheesy “i’m crazy” whispers. The “chaotic” things she does are silly & rediculous for the sole purpose of making people think she’s “fun”. It’s all a veneer of crazy that rps like to use because it has all of the “fun” elements & none of the horrifying, crippling ones. That might work as a small time villain with no powers, but when you get to the galactic power level or hyper intelligence & omni-proficiency it just turns into an rp fantasy.
There are very few successful crazy/zany villains.

Draygo.9473:

The Arcane Council is lead by Flax:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/High_Councillor_Flax

Menzies hasn’t achieved god status, seems to be seeking to kill his brother for it though. If he succeeded we would have another dead male god but w/e.

Thanks for the info!

You know, after reading this – I really like this little guy … I can’t help but say, even if there are just a few lines about him, he already is much more interesting than Scarlet. That would be a more convincing villain, imo. Same goes btw. for Caudecus. I really don’t understand, why they had to come up with a new character for all this. Even a conglomerate of already available shady guys would have been better (pooling resources and knowledge), than this totally overpowered plant.

draxynnic.3719:

For me, Kasmeer being a mesmer was a confirmation, not a surprise. Her outfit and general demeanour in previous appearances has been in-line with the way human mesmer NPCs have typically looked and behaved in the past (Gwen excepted). I can’t point to anything specific off the top of my head, but whether Kasmeer was made specifically to break the illusion on the Tower of Nightmares or not, it seems clear to me that she was planned as a mesmer from her first appearance.

Maybe it’s coincidental that she turns out to be a powerful enough mesmer to break the illusion, but what else could they do? Had her carry around a sign that reads “Powerful Mesmer” around on her previous appearances? While she has the personality to be a mesmer, she doesn’t seem the type to go around boasting of it. I guess they could have put her in combat previously to give us confirmation that she’s a mesmer, but even that wouldn’t establish her as being anything special when it comes to mesmerism.

For that matter, it’s also possible that what she did was nothing that our own mesmer characters couldn’t have done, had they had the time to spend studying the barrier that Kasmeer did. Having an NPC mesmer to do the honours, though, means that the sequence works regardless of whether there is a PC mesmer present or not.

My issue isn’t that she’s a mesmer or that she wasn’t known to be a mesmer until now. It’s that as soon as the story needs a powerful mesmer, out of nowhere she is established as one. The noble fallen on hard times, who didn’t show any battle prowess or mesmer-like abilities (that I can recall), who seemed to stand out all the time as someone who didn’t belong outside of a beach resort or noble gathering, all of a sudden a powerful mesmer is needed and the “Great and Gorgeous Mesmer Collective” (for all I know this is Kasmeer’s friend and her “talking” cat but the implication is they have some credibility) send for her. Not someone who has a demonstrated ability (to the player) in mesmer magic, Kasmeer. To me it looks like an artificial development to shoehorn Kasmeer (and Marjory) into this plot, especially considering existing options (Anise, Jennah, the mesmers behind Watchwork Knight illusions or someone from one of the orders – or any other mesmer) made more sense. It’s similair to what was done with Scarlet with her hefty resume dropped as soon as she appeared, yet no-one in Tyria mentioned her before that day. By including Kasmeer here they’ve cheapened her character with unearned abilities to suit the plot, similair to what is constantly done with Scarlet, and they’ve damaged the scope of the story and the credibility of the more believable factions that should have done the job before Kasmeer (Seraph, Shining Blade, Vigil, Order of Whispers, Durmand Priory etc). Right now all the of the relevant factions in Tyria look bad at their jobs for letting some unknown but notable mesmer investigate what they themselves should have been looking into, and Scarlet (and the tower – originally it wasn’t known Scarlet was behind it) is less threatening because it appears as though the big wigs don’t deem her important enough to take seriously.

This has all moved into me talking about Kasmeer’s “problems” but I only brought it up as I don’t think “Scarlet’s problems” are just her own – they are replicated for other characters in the Living Story, Scarlet just carries more of them simply because she’s involved in almost every release.

Who else could it have been?

The main powerful mesmers we have in established lore are Jennah and Anise, and both have good reasons to not be on the front line for something like that. Kasmeer is a character who was presented all along as a character who would be important later on (possibly more important than Marjory, although she foreshadowed Marjory’s appearance) and who many people tagged as being a mesmer pretty much on her first appearance. (Human mesmers have a long history of being people who don’t appear to belong outside of a beach resort or noble gathering until they have a reason to cut loose, and there were hints of something beneath that facade in her first appearance – working for a private investigator, for instance.)

Sure, we had no indication she was a mesmer before, but neither she nor Marjory had been involved in combat before then and Kasmeer had no reason to show her hand. Given that I have a hunch that the “Great and Glorious Mesmer Collective” likes to have some members that aren’t known to be mesmers – assuming it isn’t actually a pseudonym for the Shining Blade to begin with – so they can serve as incognito information gatherers.

It really does seem that you seem to have wanted Kasmeer to be effectively wearing a sign declaring her as a powerful mesmer from first appearance. What you’re missing is that there are good reasons that a character who almost certainly has connections with, and may be an official member of, Jennah’s intelligence agency and who is an expert in a school of magic that focuses on deception might (shock! horror!) have been putting up a facade of being far less competent than she actually is.

draxynnic.3719:

It really does seem that you seem to have wanted Kasmeer to be effectively wearing a sign declaring her as a powerful mesmer from first appearance. What you’re missing is that there are good reasons that a character who almost certainly has connections with, and may be an official member of, Jennah’s intelligence agency and who is an expert in a school of magic that focuses on deception might (shock! horror!) have been putting up a facade of being far less competent than she actually is.

I don’t think that this is what Shiren wants. I have to agree with everything in her last post, and I daresay, she would have had no problem with Kasmeer whatsoever, if the character would have been introduced more properly. What this means is, you slowly build up a character by spreading tiny bits of information about him and his deeds over time. Just suddenly throwing him in, and making him do seemingly great stuff, is like hitting someone with a wet cold rag in the face.

It’s just not believable. You know, with aaaaaaall the fuss we had on our way to Zhaitan, where … the hell … was she? Where? Honestly, she seems to have some serious abilities. Why didn’t she help a bit? Where was she in the novels? Ever mentioned? No. That’s just something a decent writer would never do. I know that’s always a pretty harsh thing to say, and I’m really sorry that others and I have to, but these are things you learn in a basic course for writing.

That’s what baffles me so much regularly. There is a company that has big resources to hire professional writers and then they produce so much blunders. I just can’t wrap my head around this and it makes me sad to see a loved franchise handled this way.

I don’t want to see the same mistakes made over and over again – like they did with Scarlet. Everybody would profit, if Arenanet learns to do these things in a better way.

Given her background, why would we necessarily have heard of her?

Publically, she doesn’t seem to be anything special. She had some falling out with her father and her father disappeared, but this is probably something that’s only news for a week before some new scandal appears in Divinity’s Reach’s aristocracy. Her more hidden talents demand no requirement for us to have seen or heard of her before because for a start, just because we were in Orr didn’t mean that the various problems on the home fronts of the various races didn’t just go away, and for a second, if my suspicions are correct, the Shining Blade has regarded the full extent of her talents as highly classified.

And with all this, we’ve had enough of a leadup to present her as a significant character. She appeared back in Southsun with very mesmerish look and behaviour (albeit without using any magic to confirm those suspicions), including having a short story written for her. She then appeared in the Dragon Bash where she was further developed despite playing a minor role, giving us a glimpse of her tragic backstory.

It was pretty obvious then that she was going to be an important character, so it was just a matter of whether she was going to be an NPC hero like Rox and Braham or a cliche ditzy damsel in distress, and I know which of those options I prefer. Her outfit being available to light armour wearers showed she was a spellcaster, and her demeanour and day job point to that being mesmer. All the evidence was there, if you just did the logical thinking. Maybe you’d have a point if she was anything other than a mesmer or a thief, as the other professions are more overt, but as a member of a profession that thrives on deception – an art that is probably most effective when the target is not put on their guard by being aware of the practitioner’s skills – there’s really no reason why she’d advertise this fact, particularly if she is someone’s secret agent.

I think we also have a big disconnect on how powerful we think bringing down that barrier makes Kasmeer. Having an NPC bring down the barrier is, I think, a plot convenience for ArenaNet – it means everyone can participate in that story piece without being reliant on the right other players being around or having needed to be there at just the right time. It’s entirely likely that, given two weeks of study instead of running around chasing after bloody princes, a mesmer PC could have brought it down. Maybe if it had been a PC, it would only have taken one week… but we were busy.

Even if this is something that our PCs don’t have the skills to do, this doesn’t mean Kasmeer is simply better. Different people, even within the same discipline, have different skills. Our PCs, regardless of profession, have specialised in killing things, possibly at the cost of some of the more utility skills. Creating disguises is a common trick for mesmer NPCs while not being available to players, for instance, but apart from Anise most of these NPCs end up in need of revival if engaged by a couple of trash mobs that we could clear easily. Kasmeer is probably one of the better allies in the Tower, but even she pales in comparison to a well-played level 80 PC (even if I am jealous of her Illusionary Defender that doesn’t die when her target does). In short, Kasmeer may not be “more powerful” than mesmer PCs, she’s simply specialised in different things – mesmer PCs specialised in battle magic, she specialised in magics suitable for investigating things others wanted hidden.

Scarlet, by contrast, is the reverse. She’s clearly more powerful than a single PC when she’s not just horsing around (try being her special target during an invasion. It’s not fun). Backstory-wise, she only came out of nowhere to us. After she did, suddenly we’re hit with stories about how she studied under a legendary norn smith, some of the best engineers and alchemists of other races, and not one (unusual enough for a non-asura) but all three of the asura colleges. This is not a case of being this month’s scandal – this is a person that is obviously getting noticed and is aiming to do great things. And yet we get no mention of this until Clockwork Chaos, when suddenly it’s all infodumped on us in an effort to impress us with how awesome she is.

Kasmeer, by contrast, had a great leadup to the big reveal. We got a chance to meet and interact with her a bit before her full importance was revealed. There was enough between the lines that, if you were paying attention, you can see what she was behind the facade, without making it obvious enough that you could be sure. And this is for someone who is, relatively speaking, still a relatively minor character.

Scarlet, now, got nothing.

What would have made Scarlet much better would have been if we’d had a chance to see her development. Have Caera show up in each of the places she studies under in turn, possibly having us help with experiment or with talking someone into letting her study with them (possibly even take statistics on what players do, to establish who she successfully gets tutelage from and who she doesn’t). Have us come across the site of the experiment that made her into Scarlet, and, depending on how we’d felt about Caera, feel satisfaction at her coming to a sticky end or sorrow at her presumed death.

Then start Flame and Frost, and the big reveal that the spunky traveler who that maybe the PCs have helped along or maybe they’ve developed a rivalry with… is now the big villain that is causing all the problems they’re having to run around fixing. That’s how to go about making her a personal nemesis.

The more important a character is, the more important the leadup… and at the moment, Kasmeer is undoubtedly a less important character than Scarlet, but she had more leadup before we found out what was significant about her.

I have to admit, that I really don’t like how you mix lore fragments together with engine and even gemshop elements to create arguments. They have nothing to do with each other in terms of storytelling. That’s why I assume, it makes no real sense to talk any further about this specific thing. You have a very, very different view on this – we might even think on completely different levels here. Thus the basis for a good discussion is somehow missing. It’s like you talking about apples and me talking about pears.

Before we’re running in circles, let’s just agree to disagree.

Gemstore…? Ahhh, Kasmeer’s armour. Much as I dislike the way nearly all new art assets have been only made available through the gemstore, I don’t think the classification of Kasmeer’s armour as light is any less valid than the classification of Rytlock’s armour as heavy.

By engine arguments, I’m presuming you mean the discussion on relative fighting capabilities in-game, or is it a reference to citing gameplay or development convenience reasons to have an NPC be the one who does something? The first I’d admit has flaws, given how easily Destiny’s Edge members tend to fall over in dungeons, for instance, but the core part of my point that Kasmeer is not necessarily more powerful than the PC mesmers remains. The second… well, when criticising something, you do need to think about why the subject of your criticism was done that way.

Either way, you could remove all these elements from my discussion, and the core points remains:

1: Kasmeer was clearly going to be an important character from the attention placed on her in her first appearance. The only question was whether she was going to be a passive (information source, damsel in distress) or active (hero, villain) character. If an active character, she would need to be of at least comparable power to other active characters such as Destiny’s Edge and the PCs.

2: A member of a profession that thrives on deception may consider hiding that they’re a member of that profession, until forced into the open, to be an advantage.

3: She’s not necessarily any more powerful than PC mesmers, or even skilled spear-carrier NPC mesmers such as those we sometimes fight alongside in Orr. She just happened to be the one that figured out the puzzle.

4. Her general demeanour is (and, more importantly, was) highly reminiscent of many GW1 mesmers. This is something that’s hard to quantify, so it’s essentially a case of being a gut feeling, but it’s there. (Elementalists also tend to be a bit exhibitionist, but generally don’t have the charm and “people person” nature mesmers do, while necromancers tend to be, well, darker in outlook. Of course, exceptions exist, but the spellcaster classes do seem to draw particular personalities to them, and Kasmeer’s personality came across as mesmerish.)

5. Many people predicted quite early that Kasmeer was a mesmer, and to my memory there were no predictions that she was anything else, so I’m not the only one whose thoughts went in that direction.

Maybe we are thinking on different levels here – I’ve been analysing GW lore and events for a long time, after all. However, thinking on that level does seem to have given me a satisfied “Called it!” moment at a point that to you was an apparently unforeseeable “WTF?” moment.

Still, if you’d prefer to bow out while retaining your position, that’s your prerogative. Consider this, then, my closing statement.

draxynnic.3719:

-snip-

What would have made Scarlet much better would have been if we’d had a chance to see her development. Have Caera show up in each of the places she studies under in turn, possibly having us help with experiment or with talking someone into letting her study with them (possibly even take statistics on what players do, to establish who she successfully gets tutelage from and who she doesn’t). Have us come across the site of the experiment that made her into Scarlet, and, depending on how we’d felt about Caera, feel satisfaction at her coming to a sticky end or sorrow at her presumed death.

The old saying of show, don’t tell. I think you’re right on the money here. Had we seen what happened to Scarlet, and experienced her before she went crazy, it would have been a slightly different story. Instead we read the back story after she was already introduced, and we read it on the website.

Pretty good article. Even has a decent shortlist of how to fix Scarlet. Make her Asura rather than Sylvari and show-don’t-tell; the second of which is writing 101.

Elementalist Owner.7802:

The article suggests that Scarlet should be an asura instead of a sylvari, which is completely disregarding the whole message Scarlet is trying to send.

Every Sylvari is born with a Dream. The Dream represents destiny – all Sylvari are believed to either follow the Dream or become lost to the Nightmare. Scarlet wants to choose her own destiny, her own path. It isn’t about breaking rules she doesn’t like, it’s about leading her own life apart from the Dream and the Nightmare – something that no other Sylvari has done before.

If Scarlet were Asura, the whole point of this would be shattered. I’m sorry for the criticism, but the journalist who wrote this article needs to go over the facts.

I disagree. The fact that Sylvari can walk their own way (and do so regularly) was shown more than enough times. In the novels, as well as the game itself. Another one wasn’t necessary. Her power level is just so over the top, that by simply making the charakter an Asura it automatically would have come down a little – because it’s much more convincing that a brainiac like an Asura is able to pull such stuff. She falls out of the picture frame – big time. That’s what’s considered bad in most cases. You know, why would one choose a character from one race and depict him like a member of another? What’s the point in creating specific backgrounds for the races?

What they did was, drawing a plant out of the hat and slapping huge, fat illuminated advertising all over her, that said: “ATTENTION PLEEEEAAAASEEE! THIS ONE HERE IS …. <drum roll>…. SPEEEEEECIIIIIIAAAAAAAL!!!!1111oneoneeleven”. That’s …. ugh. Just … ugh! … In RP this would be considered a classical beginner’s mistake.

Granted, such flat characters appeal to some people. Drizzt Do’Urden for example surely pulled a good fortune out of the wallets of his fans. But there are enough people who hate this guy for what he is, because following him has nothing to do anymore with the Drow race itself. ‘The War of the Spider Queen’ and ‘Lady Penitent’, now that was some good stuff! Drow stories with meaning, drow stories that take place in the picture frame and are still exciting/entertaining. No freaking Hey-there-I’m-so-important-because-I’m-soooooo-different-guy…

draxynnic.3719:

Maybe we are thinking on different levels here – I’ve been analysing GW lore and events for a long time, after all. However, thinking on that level does seem to have given me a satisfied “Called it!” moment at a point that to you was an apparently unforeseeable “WTF?” moment.

Still, if you’d prefer to bow out while retaining your position, that’s your prerogative. Consider this, then, my closing statement.

Nah, you still missunderstand me. I’ve made the exact same observations you did. And believe it or not, you’re not the only one who has an eye on GW lore for a long time now. It was never a “WTF?-moment” for me, because – lore and snippet clues aside – nothing Anet does these days really can surprise me anymore.

My main gripe is (and I assume that goes for Shiren as well), that Kasmeer suffers from the same problems Scarlet does. The way she is introduced as a somewhat important character is lacking convincement. Both are crudely forced over figures – which could have been avoided, by introducing them another way (and in Scarlets case, reducing her power level). It seems so, that you don’t think this way. I think, you’re trying to say, that you are very happy with the introductions (at least Kasmeer’s). And that’s the point where we simply should call it quits and agree to disagree.

“Very happy” is an exaggeration, and I really don’t like how Scarlet was introduced and her story has progressed so far, but I’m really not seeing how Kasmeer is as flawed as you’re saying. Your main objection seems to be that there were no hints as to her power before it was revealed – but I’m just not seeing any reason why she would have revealed that beforehand, nor (unlike Scarlet) why we would have found out about it from another source. Possibly there was some scope for someone who might be in the know (Logan, perhaps) to comment about how she trained in mesmer school and was a gifted student, but that’s about it.

Elementalist Owner’s point is that it seems that Scarlet’s overall plans and motives will turn out to be driven by her antagonistic relationship with the Pale Tree and the Dream. We haven’t got to that point yet, but it would be pretty strange to have made her an asura all along, and then have her strike a blow against the Dream in the name of rebellion against predestination.

This is a point where we’ll really need to see the end to judge – if once we’ve seen the full story we still don’t see any good reason why she had to be sylvari rather than asura, that’d be a fair criticism. If, as I suspect and Elementalist Owner seems to, that her being a sylvari who wants to bring the Dream crashing down is an important plot point, though, then that would mean a substantial alteration of the story would be needed to have her be a non-sylvari.

That said, a lot of those problems could have been solved by giving her a supporting cast, so that instead of being the super-genius who does everything herself, she can have her own specialisation while her cronies cover the other stuff. She’d seem a lot less Sue-ish if instead of having all those skills herself, she had had an asura engineer as an assistant, a hylek alchemist for the poisons and such, and so on. This would also allow us to take down a couple of them over time and get a feeling of satisfaction of denying her the capability that expert offered.

draxynnic.3719:

Elementalist Owner’s point is that it seems that Scarlet’s overall plans and motives will turn out to be driven by her antagonistic relationship with the Pale Tree and the Dream. We haven’t got to that point yet, but it would be pretty strange to have made her an asura all along, and then have her strike a blow against the Dream in the name of rebellion against predestination.

This is a point where we’ll really need to see the end to judge – if once we’ve seen the full story we still don’t see any good reason why she had to be sylvari rather than asura, that’d be a fair criticism. If, as I suspect and Elementalist Owner seems to, that her being a sylvari who wants to bring the Dream crashing down is an important plot point, though, then that would mean a substantial alteration of the story would be needed to have her be a non-sylvari.

See, and that’s usually the part where I say: “Yeah fine, but why not just take already existing characters or groups and evolve them a bit?”. What about the Nightmare Court for example – Faolain? Sure they’re not exactly about bringing down the Dream, but altering it. However the potential is there. While exploring the possibilities connected to the dream, Faolain finds out something intriguing and now follows her own little experiment, maybe she even drags the court in, or a part of it? That’s just an example, but NOOO, they absolutely had to bring in a new character … as they did several times now – while other interesting ones are partying in limbo… (Caudecus anyone?) Anyways …

draxynnic.3719:

That said, a lot of those problems could have been solved by giving her a supporting cast, so that instead of being the super-genius who does everything herself, she can have her own specialisation while her cronies cover the other stuff. She’d seem a lot less Sue-ish if instead of having all those skills herself, she had had an asura engineer as an assistant, a hylek alchemist for the poisons and such, and so on. This would also allow us to take down a couple of them over time and get a feeling of satisfaction of denying her the capability that expert offered.

Here I can agree completely.

Natsu.2589:

See, and that’s usually the part where I say: “Yeah fine, but why not just take already existing characters or groups and evolve them a bit?”. What about the Nightmare Court for example – Faolain? Sure they’re not exactly about bringing down the Dream, but altering it. However the potential is there. While exploring the possibilities connected to the dream, Faolain finds out something intriguing and now follows her own little experiment, maybe she even drags the court in, or a part of it? That’s just an example, but NOOO, they absolutely had to bring in a new character … as they did several times now – while other interesting ones are partying in limbo… (Caudecus anyone?) Anyways …

As a general sentiment, I agree completely. Heck, I’ve said myself that Scarlet’s outlook and apparent objective would fit in perfectly with the Nightmare Court (particularly Cadeyrne’s motives for founding it in the first place) and that it seems the only reason she isn’t a member is that she sees herself as too much of a precious unique snowflake to follow someone else’s footsteps (or, worse, orders) however closely their goals are matched to her own.

On the specific “she should have been an asura” criticism, though – for the story that ArenaNet has planned out, as opposed to the stories you and I may have preferred them to go into instead, I think it is going to prove to be sufficiently important that she is in fact a sylvari that plugging an asura into her place just wouldn’t work – that would require creating a different story entirely.

draxynnic.3719:

Kasmeer, by contrast, had a great leadup to the big reveal. We got a chance to meet and interact with her a bit before her full importance was revealed. There was enough between the lines that, if you were paying attention, you can see what she was behind the facade, without making it obvious enough that you could be sure. And this is for someone who is, relatively speaking, still a relatively minor character.

If Kasmeer turns out to be Scarlet in diguise using Mesmer powers that were only hinted about during Tower of Nightmaresthen that would mean the leadup wasn’t wasted merely hidden deeper than we assumed(the End of Nightmares release hints even further with this theory I found with the reveal that Kasmeer’s outfit was an illusion) .

draxynnic.3719:

On the specific “she should have been an asura” criticism, though – for the story that ArenaNet has planned out, as opposed to the stories you and I may have preferred them to go into instead, I think it is going to prove to be sufficiently important that she is in fact a sylvari that plugging an asura into her place just wouldn’t work – that would require creating a different story entirely.

I … sincerely hope so.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

If Kasmeer turns out to be Scarlet in diguise using Mesmer powers that were only hinted about during Tower of Nightmaresthen that would mean the leadup wasn’t wasted merely hidden deeper than we assumed(the End of Nightmares release hints even further with this theory I found with the reveal that Kasmeer’s outfit was an illusion) .

In my opinion, the only way to salvage part of this whole mess is such a twist. It may lack elegance at this point, but at least it could bring in a little bit more sense.

On a side note: knowledge about Kasmeer’s outfit was actually a quite interesting lore snippet. Not because of the fact that she is nude, but because it gave a little insight into what is really possible to do with mesmerism. Aside from the fact that it was funny, I liked that one. Please Anet, give us more lore substance! Maybe about the gods next time? ^^