Guild Wars 2

GUILD WARS HAS NO LORE.

Unless we’ve built content around something, it’s usually considered malleable from a design and lore standpoint. Occasionally we decide to go in a different direction months or years after the first ideas are documented or even talked about externally. In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

In short, go by what’s in the game.

source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Interesting-things-in-Scarlet-s-Room/first#post4185815

We were outright told that Abaddon was truly dead… in an interview.
We found out Livia was still alive… in a book.
All of Cantha’s history comes from… here

So basically, everything we know about the lore in this game is not sacred. We can’t even trust in game lore because the NPC could be lying or speaking out off his kitten . Our only source of accurate lore was through these external sources, and now those aren’t true either. What’s the point of even having a story?

Example: Ree Soesbee herself said that the Seconborn were born 6-7 years after the Firstborn. Now they’ve changed it and they didn’t even tell us.

Lore section to find people who are interested.

Guild Wars has lore. A plenty of it. And 3 expansions.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lore

AND

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lore

There is lore to the GW games. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it is not there.

You mean like the liberties ESO took with the lore of it’s franchise. Lore always takes a backseat to game play. It doesn’t mean there’s no lore. Indeed Jeff Grubb and Ree Sosebee are Lore Masters and everything in the game storywise is run by them. That would seem to suggest some lore.

Guild Wars has a lot of lore. I do agree that more of it should make it into the game but it’s not like it isn’t there…

To be honest, I have no idea what the story is about in Guild Wars 2. All the renowed heart NPC’s didn’t seem to explain it very well to me, and I’ve read just about 90% of the 301 ingame.

I only learned that Gwen is the great grandmother of Logan due to a gravestone in a skill point challenge.

Mada.5319:

GUILD WARS HAS NO LORE.

Unless we’ve built content around something, it’s usually considered malleable from a design and lore standpoint. Occasionally we decide to go in a different direction months or years after the first ideas are documented or even talked about externally. In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

In short, go by what’s in the game.

source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Interesting-things-in-Scarlet-s-Room/first#post4185815

We were outright told that Abaddon was truly dead… in an interview.
We found out Livia was still alive… in a book.
All of Cantha’s history comes from… here

So basically, everything we know about the lore in this game is not sacred. We can’t even trust in game lore because the NPC could be lying or speaking out off his kitten . Our only source of accurate lore was through these external sources, and now those aren’t true either. What’s the point of even having a story?

Example: Ree Soesbee herself said that the Seconborn were born 6-7 years after the Firstborn. Now they’ve changed it and they didn’t even tell us.

Why didn’t you just post in the existing thread you linked? That would seem to be the appropriate place to post your views on the subject.

If the lore gets tweaked to enable better and more cohesive story-telling/gameplay, it suits me. I would rather have entertaining gameplay in a game…for engrossing story, I find books or even movies are a better bet. But, that’s just me.

Vayne.8563:

You mean like the liberties ESO took with the lore of it’s franchise. Lore always takes a backseat to game play. It doesn’t mean there’s no lore. Indeed Jeff Grubb and Ree Sosebee are Lore Masters and everything in the game storywise is run by them. That would seem to suggest some lore.

Lore that apparently can be blown away by a single statement by a single writer on a french fansite, which becomes the “source” of the new “lore”.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Vayne.8563:

You mean like the liberties ESO took with the lore of it’s franchise. Lore always takes a backseat to game play. It doesn’t mean there’s no lore. Indeed Jeff Grubb and Ree Sosebee are Lore Masters and everything in the game storywise is run by them. That would seem to suggest some lore.

Lore that apparently can be blown away by a single statement by a single writer on a french fansite, which becomes the “source” of the new “lore”.

You mean the statues comment(About Malchor making Kormir’s statue)? Which was never supported anywhere else and thus ignored? If not that, do say the statement and how it’s 100% fact canon now.

Also, there is lots of lore in the game. You just have to remember that when talking about events hundreds of years back, details are lost, especially depending on the npc. Is it a scholar of the priory or a priest? (More likely to know their stuff), or a random civilian on the street? (Less likely).

Like when Zojja comments on the Iron Forgeman being a dredge creation. I wanna punt her, but I know that she truly doesn’t know better because the original forgeman was destroyed 250+ years ago.

Kalavier.1097:

Like when Zojja comments on the Iron Forgeman being a dredge creation. I wanna punt her, but I know that she truly doesn’t know better because the original forgeman was destroyed 250+ years ago.

I don’t think it was destroyed. You didn’t fight it in Sorrow’s Furnace, it was just a set peace where you oogled at it and went, “Wonder what it would be like to fight that.” That being said, the Asura then weren’t really breaching the surface so they had no idea what the Stone Summit and Dredge were doing then. If anything the Stone Summit would have fought them out, tried to enslave any Asura who entered, and/or killed them. So yes, they really didn’t know much about it.

Ronin.7381:

Kalavier.1097:

Like when Zojja comments on the Iron Forgeman being a dredge creation. I wanna punt her, but I know that she truly doesn’t know better because the original forgeman was destroyed 250+ years ago.

I don’t think it was destroyed. You didn’t fight it in Sorrow’s Furnace, it was just a set peace where you oogled at it and went, “Wonder what it would be like to fight that.” That being said, the Asura then weren’t really breaching the surface so they had no idea what the Stone Summit and Dredge were doing then. If anything the Stone Summit would have fought them out, tried to enslave any Asura who entered, and/or killed them. So yes, they really didn’t know much about it.

Um, you explicitly destroy it. It’s a quest. You kill the rage-binders (that’s their name IIRC), then kill the three djinn/elementals powering the forgeman, and he exploded after that.

The dredge/inquest simply gathered the wreckage and started rebuilding it.

Kalavier.1097:

Ronin.7381:

Kalavier.1097:

Like when Zojja comments on the Iron Forgeman being a dredge creation. I wanna punt her, but I know that she truly doesn’t know better because the original forgeman was destroyed 250+ years ago.

I don’t think it was destroyed. You didn’t fight it in Sorrow’s Furnace, it was just a set peace where you oogled at it and went, “Wonder what it would be like to fight that.” That being said, the Asura then weren’t really breaching the surface so they had no idea what the Stone Summit and Dredge were doing then. If anything the Stone Summit would have fought them out, tried to enslave any Asura who entered, and/or killed them. So yes, they really didn’t know much about it.

Um, you explicitly destroy it. It’s a quest. You kill the rage-binders (that’s their name IIRC), then kill the three djinn/elementals powering the forgeman, and he exploded after that.

The dredge/inquest simply gathered the wreckage and started rebuilding it.

Right but you don’t actually fight it is what I meant to say.

@OP

If you don’t think there is any lore, or that the existing lore changes on a whim, just talk to Konig in the Lore sub-forum. You can pretty find his work in almost every thread. He is considered to be one of the player “lore masters” by many. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t shown up yet in this thread…

pdavis.8031:

@OP

If you don’t think there is any lore, or that the existing lore changes on a whim, just talk to Konig in the Lore sub-forum. You can pretty find his work in almost every thread. He is considered to be one of the player “lore masters” by many. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t shown up yet in this thread…

Read the thread the OP linked to. Konig has already said his piece about it there.

what this boils down to, is that Loreheads over in the Lore section are throwing a temper tantrum because during a discussion about Scarlet Briar’s age being changed, a ANet dev came by and said “What happens in the Game takes precedence over what was said in an Interview.” Which is standard procedure for any MMORPGs lore, and something that should have been understood by all.

Game > Books > Interviews. that is the lore Priority of pretty much ANY GAME EVER MADE WITH LORE. Things said in interviews are Canon, UNLESS the Game says it isn’t. If the Game does not say “no that’s wrong”, then it can be considered Canon.

so according to the Lore Forum, every single piece of out-of-game lore doesn’t exist anymore because Anet COULD decide to retcon it in the future. Basically they are discovering for the first time that Santa Claus doesn’t exist and a Video Game’s in-game lore takes precedence over Out Of Game interviews.

JMadFour.9730:

what this boils down to, is that Loreheads over in the Lore section are throwing a temper tantrum because during a discussion about Scarlet Briar’s age being changed, a ANet dev came by and said “What happens in the Game takes precedence over what was said in an Interview.” Which is standard procedure for any MMORPGs lore, and something that should have been understood by all.

Game > Books > Interviews. that is the lore Priority of pretty much ANY GAME EVER MADE WITH LORE. Things said in interviews are Canon, UNLESS the Game says it isn’t. If the Game does not say “no that’s wrong”, then it can be considered Canon.

so according to the Lore Forum, every single piece of out-of-game lore doesn’t exist anymore because Anet COULD decide to retcon it in the future. Basically they are discovering for the first time that Santa Claus doesn’t exist and a Video Game’s in-game lore takes precedence over Out Of Game interviews.

Yeah… except for the little caveat that lore barely exists in the game. What few barebone nuggets you can find, you REALLY have to look for and even then you can’t take full stock in it because it MIGHT be coming from a biased or incorrect prospective (the stories of Thrulnn the Lost, for example. Some nuggets of truth, but the rest is total bunk). How many people would know that Cantha exists if they either weren’t gw1 players, read the out of game lore, or tracked down the one or two obscure npcs or props that actually mention it?

Official out of game lore sources are the closest thing we have to word of god since the game does such a bad job of it.

I think Yojimaru kind of hits the nail on the head. Arenanet has relied a LOT on out of game sources to deliver lore, especially with all of the stories that were posted up on the blog during the living story because for some reason they couldn’t actually use the GAME to deliver the story. And for them to just go and say that unless the lore is in game it can be changed to suit their whims is ridiculous. They’re essentially saying that every single blog post they’ve made, every single developer interview, is moot. People are completely justified in being angry about that.

There is lore in this game, the problem is its badly delivered. They expect you to hunt it down, but most of the new stuff they come up with isn’t that interesting so no one pays that much attention to it.

JMadFour.9730:

what this boils down to, is that Loreheads over in the Lore section are throwing a temper tantrum because during a discussion about Scarlet Briar’s age being changed, a ANet dev came by and said “What happens in the Game takes precedence over what was said in an Interview.” Which is standard procedure for any MMORPGs lore, and something that should have been understood by all.

Game > Books > Interviews. that is the lore Priority of pretty much ANY GAME EVER MADE WITH LORE. Things said in interviews are Canon, UNLESS the Game says it isn’t. If the Game does not say “no that’s wrong”, then it can be considered Canon.

so according to the Lore Forum, every single piece of out-of-game lore doesn’t exist anymore because Anet COULD decide to retcon it in the future. Basically they are discovering for the first time that Santa Claus doesn’t exist and a Video Game’s in-game lore takes precedence over Out Of Game interviews.

Wait, I constantly browse the lore sections and I’ve not seen this rage, or is it a specific topic?

Either way, um… I agree. Information in short stories, books, etc is solid. An Interview? That might change if they are talking about things NOT covered by any book or other source. They might decide to go into that area and while making it, the extra thought changes it slightly.

Kalavier.1097:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Vayne.8563:

You mean like the liberties ESO took with the lore of it’s franchise. Lore always takes a backseat to game play. It doesn’t mean there’s no lore. Indeed Jeff Grubb and Ree Sosebee are Lore Masters and everything in the game storywise is run by them. That would seem to suggest some lore.

Lore that apparently can be blown away by a single statement by a single writer on a french fansite, which becomes the “source” of the new “lore”.

You mean the statues comment(About Malchor making Kormir’s statue)? Which was never supported anywhere else and thus ignored? If not that, do say the statement and how it’s 100% fact canon now.

Also, there is lots of lore in the game. You just have to remember that when talking about events hundreds of years back, details are lost, especially depending on the npc. Is it a scholar of the priory or a priest? (More likely to know their stuff), or a random civilian on the street? (Less likely).

Like when Zojja comments on the Iron Forgeman being a dredge creation. I wanna punt her, but I know that she truly doesn’t know better because the original forgeman was destroyed 250+ years ago.

I am talking about the deeply entrenched lore of the 6 Gods, the origins of Magic, and the Bloodstones in GW1. A lot of fairly original lore that was abruptly thrown out of the game and replaced by tired, unoriginal pulp fantasy “leylines” and explained away by simply stating the lore of GW1 “was mistaken”. Cuz, ya know, Scarlet.

Nothing in game. Stated in an interview on a french fan site, and then one paragraph on the forums, which the wiki links to as “source”.

i somewhat agree, there is much to be explored in tyria 250 years after jora..
current arena net just does a poor job of delivering it, though they seem to have
no trouble kicking a dead horse until all other lore dies of unmitigated apathy..

gw2 – your fortnightly zerkatronic web comic

Again, source link/the actual interview or quotes?

IIRC, the lore of the origins of magic was simply tweaked, and added backstory BEFORE the gods first arrived. The wiki page on the six gods features one interview as a reference, and that’s for a single line on the entire page :P.

Mada.5319:

GUILD WARS HAS NO LORE.

Unless we’ve built content around something, it’s usually considered malleable from a design and lore standpoint. Occasionally we decide to go in a different direction months or years after the first ideas are documented or even talked about externally. In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

In short, go by what’s in the game.

source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Interesting-things-in-Scarlet-s-Room/first#post4185815

We were outright told that Abaddon was truly dead… in an interview.
We found out Livia was still alive… in a book.
All of Cantha’s history comes from… here

So basically, everything we know about the lore in this game is not sacred. We can’t even trust in game lore because the NPC could be lying or speaking out off his kitten . Our only source of accurate lore was through these external sources, and now those aren’t true either. What’s the point of even having a story?

Example: Ree Soesbee herself said that the Seconborn were born 6-7 years after the Firstborn. Now they’ve changed it and they didn’t even tell us.

Thats not what that Bobby said in that thread. The example you give is something Ree said in 2011 Prior to the game release no less. What Bobby is saying is until something happens in game (I assume this also applies to books) just like every other feature its subject to change based on needs. I imagine somewhere along the line the 6-7 years didnt work out and was changed. Lore is in development just like anything else until its made official and sometimes just like the game you also need to change what is official out of necessity though like Bobby said in his post they really try to avoid that. Nothing is perfect in life and there will always be that mistake that makes it through the cracks but thats okey as long as the vast majority of it stays true. There is a ton of lore in the game and I haven’t seen anything that makes me think bothering with lore is useless.

Not just that but in this example the issue is with time which is always tricky in a game. Time flows differently between the real world and the game and it also flows differently with in different events in the game. Creating and maintaining a timeline I imagine is probably one of the hardest thing writers have got to do in an MMO.

OP is blowing stuff out of proportions, and the wrong stuff at that.

As Yogimaru and FlamingFoxx said, lore interested players are upset that the dev basically put an asterisk behind all the lore/canon that isn’t in game. The asterisk standing for, “this may be subject to change in the future”.

We can still craft theories and try to predict stuff, but it gets difficult when a large portion of GW’s lore comes from out of game sources. That little (*) puts a lot of lore in a state of limbo. We can believe it’s true, but with the new dev statement, we can never really be sure now. The ambiguity is very frustrating.

It’s also important to note, that the change regarding the Sylvari timeline causes contradictions. They basically made a big boo-boo when writing Scarlet’s backstory, and now it all conflicts with established Sylvari lore, which was not needed. So this isn’t just a simple case of a little date being moved. They’ve messed up the timeline, which they didn’t need to do, if they stayed consistent, and kept proper track of their own timeline.

This is all explained here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Scarlet-Briar-A-Timeline/first#post4190397

Sometimes it feels as if the lore community checks the consistencies better than the writers.

I always wanted to ask the Devs about something. In GW1 we had already two Elder Dragons in lore (Kralkatorrik and Primordus) and they were even shown in the game as actual models and yet they decided to present one completely unknown. My question is… why didn’t they use the old lore (which in my humble opinion was better than the new one)? Sometimes I feel that every aspect they touch is completely new. It looks like they don’t want to hear about the GW1 lore anymore…

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Sometimes it feels as if the lore community checks the consistencies better than the writers.

This is why they need to either put a timeline and codexes in-game or have a dev help with the wiki or something. Something to add a bit of dialogue between the devs and players so they can more easily check one another before stuff like this happens.

What is wrong with imperfections? I like when things are contradictory. It feels more real. Look at the real world. How much of our own, real world, “lore” is lost to history? How much of what we think we know about history is speculation based on incomplete records or contradictory writings from hundreds or thousands of years ago? How many times has a widely held historical belief been turned on its head due to newly found artifacts or writings? There have been plenty of wars fought over differing interpretations of “lore” in the real world.

I think people are getting way too upset over imperfections in the lore. I prefer the imperfections because, for me, perfect lore takes the fun out of things.

I don’t understand what’s all the fuss about, hasn’t it always been the case that in-game lore comes first and the lore from external sources is second?

Or things can’t change during the development process? From what people is saying that interview was 3 years ago and the age of the second-born was based on that, well now we know the “real” age due to the in-game specification isn’t it just a matter of changing the dates??

If there’s a contradiction somewhere just raise a ticket or post a thread (like the timeline one) to let the devs know and then let them figure it out the changes, instead of doing some rage-quitting threads which serve no purpose.

Or out of the sudden this means that they will now reveal in-game that Abaddon was actually Chibi-Gwen in disguise since they can do it because it wasn’t detailed on an interview 3 years ago??

Oh Great! A thread to talk about another thread. Should we start a third thread to talk about this thread? Why do we need so many duplicate threads?

OP might blow thing out of proportions, but not so much. Up to this point we were sure that what devs say in interviews is true. Now it’s said that all of it may or may not be wrong. Clarification what is canon and what was thrown out would be much appreciated in this point.

sAdam.5876:

OP might blow thing out of proportions, but not so much. Up to this point we were sure that what devs say in interviews is true. Now it’s said that all of it may or may not be wrong. Clarification what is canon and what was thrown out would be much appreciated in this point.

Nothing’s thrown out out of hand. What he said is if there’s a conflict, go with what’s in the game. That’s been standard operating procedure for any game, movie, or book. If another source conflicts with the original, go with the original.

I’ve always treated interviews with any developer as ambiguously canon.

I just hoped that if developer in charge of lore says something in interview, he/she knows what he/she is talking about. It’s not like they talk about whatever they want, they must clear that with team, whatever those are things that they can reveal. If they intend to change them better not to say them. If they already did, they should try work around it. Blatant contradiction is lazy.

sAdam.5876:

I just hoped that if developer in charge of lore says something in interview, he/she knows what he/she is talking about. It’s not like they talk about whatever they want, they must clear that with team, whatever those are things that they can reveal. If they intend to change them better not to say them. If they already did, they should try work around it. Blatant contradiction is lazy.

Look at the Star Wars EU.

LucasArts had to approve all the books and comics that were published by Dark Horse or Del Ray. They were in charge of setting up writer interviews and basically dictated what would or would not be written about.

Two examples that come to mind is Lucas personally forbidding Yoda’s species to ever be defined. Another is he didn’t want a character named Anakin being a major player as the authors had planned because he felt it would confuse people.

Now, however, a lot of those books and comics and what have you is going to be invalidated, even though LucasArts previously established it as canon, as new movies are going to be made and the movies are the baseline of canon, not the books. So they’re going through twenty five years or so of established canon and throwing a bunch of it out, even though they previously approved it. Boba Fett in particular being canonically pronounced dead, if they decide that, would completely wreck a lot of what’s been written, as he’s been a recurring major player.

Sometimes you don’t know what’s going to change in the future, whether you’re the director of the writing staff or you’ve established an entire universe for people to write in.

…..new Star Wars EU and lack of validity of old EU is still painful experience. If that’s what you think is happening, your post wasn’t reassuring at all.

It’s just an establishment of facts and how this isn’t a unique situation to Guild Wars. I have no idea what’s going on, but this isn’t a new concept as far as lore goes in general.

The movies are the canon. The books may or may not be.
The game is the canon. The interviews may or may not be.

It’s always been this way for any game. Changes happen. Conflicts of information happen. When there’s a conflict, the established source is easier to work with than an interview as far as further development is concerned.

Thaia.5146:

I always wanted to ask the Devs about something. In GW1 we had already two Elder Dragons in lore (Kralkatorrik and Primordus) and they were even shown in the game as actual models and yet they decided to present one completely unknown. My question is… why didn’t they use the old lore (which in my humble opinion was better than the new one)? Sometimes I feel that every aspect they touch is completely new. It looks like they don’t want to hear about the GW1 lore anymore…

What do you mean “Didn’t use the old lore”?

Are you saying because they had Zhaitan as the first ‘big bad’ they didn’t use the lore of EotN?

Calys Teneb.7015:

Nothing’s thrown out out of hand. What he said is if there’s a conflict, go with what’s in the game. That’s been standard operating procedure for any game, movie, or book. If another source conflicts with the original, go with the original.

I’ve always treated interviews with any developer as ambiguously canon.

The problem is that he didn’t just talk about interviews. He said all out-of-game content is malleable. But the problem with that, is that almost all our GW lore is based on out-of-game sources. And Anet is directly contradicting something they stated, -not in an interview, but in an officially released lore article. If lore articles released by Anet can be thrown out the window that easily, do we have any lore left? We can’t even trust the source of all lore any more? We can’t trust what the developers release directly on their own website as a trustworthy source?

Bobby should have just come out and said, yep, we messed up, lets try and correct it so it makes sense again.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Mada.5319:

GUILD WARS HAS NO LORE.

Unless we’ve built content around something, it’s usually considered malleable from a design and lore standpoint. Occasionally we decide to go in a different direction months or years after the first ideas are documented or even talked about externally. In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

In short, go by what’s in the game.

source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Interesting-things-in-Scarlet-s-Room/first#post4185815

We were outright told that Abaddon was truly dead… in an interview.
We found out Livia was still alive… in a book.
All of Cantha’s history comes from… here

So basically, everything we know about the lore in this game is not sacred. We can’t even trust in game lore because the NPC could be lying or speaking out off his kitten . Our only source of accurate lore was through these external sources, and now those aren’t true either. What’s the point of even having a story?

Example: Ree Soesbee herself said that the Seconborn were born 6-7 years after the Firstborn. Now they’ve changed it and they didn’t even tell us.

If the lore gets tweaked to enable better and more cohesive story-telling/gameplay, it suits me.

If a story they are trying to tell doesn’t fit into the world as it is, the thing that should be tweaked is the story, not the world. The fault lies in the new story, not the old lore. If they can’t tell a cohesive story with the old lore, look at their ability to tell the story.

I agree this thread is questionable considering the other thread is having (an offtopic) discussion heavily covering it, but the specific instance being dealt with doesn’t match what people are saying in this thread.

The issue was the age of the secondborn. Back when the sylvari were redesigned, Ree Soesbee had one of the CM’s post some extra information. In that information was a line saying the Secondborn of the sylvari were born 6-7 years after the Firstborn. This informed player’s view of the sylvari, the life experiences of the Firstborn, the huge jump they have on the Secondborn and the roles of those two generations in Tyria today. Being the only sylvari for 7-8 years is a big deal and feeds the idea that the Firstborn are special (the age of the sylvari, their experiences in the world, how each generation benefits the next via the Dream and the Firstborn’s relationship with the Pale Tree compared to the Secondborn and future generations – these things matter a great deal and feed into stories like the Nightmare Court’s formation and the characterisation of Canach).

No story being told in GW2 since then contradicted that. This is not some pre-launch lore that was changed to fit post-launch GW2. Tyria was fine for almost two years with this lore remaining intact. Players interpreted Caithe’s, Trahearn’s, Faolain’s, Canach’s, Cadeyrn’s stories as if this 7-8 year gap actually took place. To players who interacted with the story in that manner, this lore mattered for almost two and half years (I know most of the players posting here may not even have known about it, but those same people probably don’t care about Scarlet’s age).

We had a piece of lore that fit into the world perfectly fine post launch until now. Players had been engaging with the world as if this was canon (because it was, Ree Soesbee wrote the sylvari, created this race, their notable figures, their history, their relationships – all as if this age gap took place, details and nuances matter, it’s disingenuous to claim otherwise as the current Living Story writers are placing in nuances that they want us to engage with as if they matter).

The thread title is sensationalised, but there is a real issue here.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It’s also important to note, that the change regarding the Sylvari timeline causes contradictions. They basically made a big boo-boo when writing Scarlet’s backstory, and now it all conflicts with established Sylvari lore, which was not needed. So this isn’t just a simple case of a little date being moved. They’ve messed up the timeline, which they didn’t need to do, if they stayed consistent, and kept proper track of their own timeline.

This is all explained here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Scarlet-Briar-A-Timeline/first#post4190397

Sometimes it feels as if the lore community checks the consistencies better than the writers.

I think its a bit premature to say they didnt need to. You dont do something like this just for the fun of it. It is still episode one and we’re already dwelling into scarlet’s past and we need too cause there is still alot of scarlet’s deeds, the why and hows that we dont know yet. It entirely possible the timeline move happened because the ultimate timeline would not have added up and thus it might have been necessary to move dates simply to give scarlet more time to do what she did.

sAdam.5876:

OP might blow thing out of proportions, but not so much. Up to this point we were sure that what devs say in interviews is true. Now it’s said that all of it may or may not be wrong. Clarification what is canon and what was thrown out would be much appreciated in this point.

It is still true but with a disclaimer that until it makes it into the game it is still subject to change. It doesnt mean it will definitely change but if the need arises it might. Same thing like when they talk about future releases.

replying to the other posts…. thing is Lore is not real history. You said in a subsequent post “I just hoped that if developer in charge of lore says something in interview, he/she knows what he/she is talking about.” That really is the wrong question, this is not an issue of a writer / developer who got the facts wrong, it about “facts needed to change because of the overall story”. As I said lore is not history, its not about learning what happened and reporting what happened its about building a framework on which all other story is based. Arenanet was very brave when they developed the sylvari, they just gave themselves 25 years to fit in all of their history. When they wrote the sylvari history internally they didnt have to worry about scarlet or any other sylvari and their whole story. At that stage they probably decide okey so the first born where born in 1302 and the second born 6-7 years later. Fast forward a few years. For some reason they decided scarlet should not be first born. No idea why, they still have 3 firstborn slots they could use but maybe those 3 firstborn are decided and have future stories to tell fine. By the established lore they had to make scarlet secondborn thus born around 1308-1309. Then I imagine something happened which caused a problem in the storyline. The secondborn being born 6-7 year later wasnt official in that it was an internal lore bit that Ree told people who asked on a forum. That probably left 3 options. Go on with a timeline that wouldnt add up, rewrite the rest of story which was probably not feasible, change the date when the secondborn where born to accommodate the timeline. This is all my speculation of course but if this is indeed whats happened I think it made sense to go with changing the not yet established lore. Still bad, not saying it was the prefect decision but sometimes you need to choose the lesser of 2-3 evils. But it was certainly not a case of Ree not knowing what she was talking about when she gave the 6-7 years. Its not a question that 6-7 was wrong when they came up with the number either. Its just that with that 6-7 years they’d only be left with at most 19 years for scarlet to do all that she done and probably that time wasnt enough to explain it all.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The problem is that he didn’t just talk about interviews. He said all out-of-game content is malleable. But the problem with that, is that almost all our GW lore is based on out-of-game sources. And Anet is directly contradicting something they stated, -not in an interview, but in an officially released lore article. If lore articles released by Anet can be thrown out the window that easily, do we have any lore left? We can’t even trust the source of all lore any more? We can’t trust what the developers release directly on their own website as a trustworthy source?

Bobby should have just come out and said, yep, we messed up, lets try and correct it so it makes sense again.

In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

His only example pretty much is interviews.

Kalavier.1097:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The problem is that he didn’t just talk about interviews. He said all out-of-game content is malleable. But the problem with that, is that almost all our GW lore is based on out-of-game sources. And Anet is directly contradicting something they stated, -not in an interview, but in an officially released lore article. If lore articles released by Anet can be thrown out the window that easily, do we have any lore left? We can’t even trust the source of all lore any more? We can’t trust what the developers release directly on their own website as a trustworthy source?

Bobby should have just come out and said, yep, we messed up, lets try and correct it so it makes sense again.

In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

His only example pretty much is interviews.

Actually he “pretty much” said if it isn’t in game, it isn’t valid. Without qualification of any sort.

As regards interviews.. even a casual look through GW and GW2 wiki lore pages will show a staggering amount of lore whose only source is interviews. All of which are now malleable and suspect. Any of it can be blown out today by a single current writer saying “They were mistaken” in order to put some pet project in game.

The OP statement of “No Lore” is an overstatement, but there is absolutely no doubt that the amount of reliable lore connected to the game has been grossly diminished by this blanket discounting/dismissal of “out of game” lore.

BobbyStein.2315:

lakdav.3694:

Well they did move away from most of the things they said during development (see the manifesto), it only figures that interview-lore isnt sacred either.

Unless we’ve built content around something, it’s usually considered malleable from a design and lore standpoint. Occasionally we decide to go in a different direction months or years after the first ideas are documented or even talked about externally. In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

In short, go by what’s in the game.

“Content” can mean books IMO.

And no, he didn’t say It’s not valid if it’s not in the game, he just said game is the top tier canon basically.

His statement (quoted above) says “Go with the game for the most part.”

NOT ONCE does he dismiss everything outside the game as ‘non-canon’ or worthless.

Voice your complaints to fans of the Star Wars EU.

Just adding a sense of scale.