Guild Wars 2

He responded to a comment on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1usdvw/unanswered_ls_questions/cel8hpa

Transcription:

Hey Lon-Ami, good questions here! This is Matthew Medina, one of the content designers at Arenanet. I don’t have my dev tag here on Reddit, but some of these have been answered though maybe need some additional clarity as the answers could have easily been missed, and some are new, but let me try and shorten your list somewhat with what I know I can say.

1. Q: What did Canach’s expedition exactly do to enrage the karka?

A: They were simply there at the wrong place at the wrong time. The karka are territorial at all times, but when they actually have a colony led by an Ancient, they’re even more aggressively so, which is why the Consortium landing on Southsun Cove when they did set off the response from the karka colony there. With the Ancient gone, the colony has broken up and the karka that remain on Southsun are largely disorganized. This information was conveyed, perhaps poorly, during the Lost Shores weekend event.

2. Q: When did the karka arrive to Southsun Cove?

A: This is unknown. What we have said during the Lost Shores weekend was that Southsun, prior to the deal the Consortium struck to develop the territory, was pretty much unexplored and mired for years in various land deals and red tape.

3. Q: What was the expedition searching? Just safe territory that was no man’s land during the risen presence on the Sea of Sorrows? Or they were after the karka for some sinister reason?

A: They weren’t really searching for anything, the Consortium was literally looking to build a resort there to make money for the company and compete with Lion’s Arch for trade and tourism.

4. Q: Why did Canach corrupt and enrage the karka to screw up the Consortium? Even if he has kind of a weird moral, taking a torch and burning the contracts himself is faster, easier and kills no innocents. We know he was there in Molten Weapons Facility (hate how they didn’t include him with a hood or something, even in the fractal would have been a good reference), so he does care about innocents and the refugees. Is this because the karka had a role in the Consortium’s plan?

A: Canach is…complicated. We’ll be returning to him in due time, but for now, all I will say is that Canach’s intentions don’t often lead to the results he wants.

5. Q: How and why did Canach join the Consortium? Was he employed by his skills on chemistry? Was his later corruption of the local fauna related to the skills the Consortium wanted out of him in the first place?

A: Canach’s expertise on matters like botany and alchemy were certainly boons to him being selected by the Consortium for their plans. As to why Canach would seek such a position, I’ll again have to defer that question since we’ll be returning to Canach again.

6. Q: Who are the leaders of the Consortium? For an organization operating in the middle of Lion’s Arch, and at a pretty decent size, the Captain’s Council surely wouldn’t leave this unanswered.

A: Good question, and one I can’t answer other than to simply say the Consortium is a private company. Very private. What the Captain’s Council knows or does not know about the Consortium is Captain’s Council business. ;-)

7. Q: In line with the previous question, the bases of the Molten Alliance were present only across the conflict region, or further, too? (Conflict region = Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau)

A: The molten weapon facilities were limited to the areas you saw during the Flame and Frost content. They didn’t extend further, largely thanks to the many heroes of Tyria. :-)

8. Q: Who are the leaders of the Molten Alliance, in both the dredge and the charr side?

A: There weren’t any “leaders” per se of the Molten Alliance from the flame legion or dredge. The various Berserker and Firestorm champions of the Molten Alliance were created by Scarlet to give each side someone to rally behind, but she was calling the shots and pulling their strings.

9. Q: The notes of the Order of Whispers agent (Who we never get to meet, wasted opportunity) mention horrors underground. What horrors? His tone and wording made it sound like terrible monsters or terrible dark rituals. They say it’s worse than dredge or charr, too. Maybe the Moletariate destroyer-enslavement project went further with the help of the Flame Legion? (Remember they were involved with destroyers 250 years ago) Maybe new monsters? Maybe new creations by Scarlet?

A: Sadly this is probably just down to poor communication on our part. This was meant to be a reference to the various pairings of flame and dredge throughout the release, and specifically an attempt on our part to foreshadow the Berserkers and Firestorms. We don’t meet the Order of Whispers agent because they’re ninja like that.

10. Q: There was a pair of human thieves, trying to sell something dangerous, mentioning someone from the Vigil was getting dangerously close, too. What happened with this plot? Did they steal something from the Pact? From the Zephyrites?

A: These two characters were really just added by one of our writers to give the area some flavor, but maybe we can prompt him to explore these two some more one day. :-)

11. Q: Who created the sanctuary/town where the Zephyrites landed? The architecture is identical to the Zephyr Sanctum, and it’s full of religious references to the Aspects with paintings. Does anyone live here while the Zephyrites are in the air? Do some Zephyrites stay here? The Bazaar of the Four Winds seems to be a separate entity from the Zephyr Sanctum, maybe the Zephyrites hosted it in a town they built specially for the bazaar event?

A: The Bazaar and the Zephyr Sanctum are separate entities, and it’s entirely possible that we could return to the Labyrinthine Cliffs someday without the Zephyrites being there. It’s clear however that the Zephyrites use that area to trade a lot, which is why the areas share so many similarities in their visual appearance. Some Zephyrites have remained on land, and some Tyrians have given up their life on the ground and joined the Zephyrites. There’s definitely some element of symbiosis between the two areas, and yes people live here with or without the Zephyr Sanctum being docked.

12. Q: What are the repercussions of the trade agreement between Lion’s Arch and the Zephyrites? It had no impact at all in the game, wish there was some kind of Zephyrite shop in LA now.

A: Well it helped get Ellen Kiel elected to the Captain’s Council. :-) But I hear what you’re saying, and yes this is one of those areas where many of us on the team wish that we had been able to visually represent the trade agreement in Lion’s Arch somehow. I simply have to chalk this one up as a missed opportunity for us, as we transitioned off of one release and onto another.

PS: I feel like scrapping the speech from the winner was an awful decision. Cutthroat Politics felt so abruptly ended, with no winning ceremony, no speech and no talk between Kiel and Evon. A: Yes, this was really unfortunate. It always pains us when we author content and then it gets left on the development room floor. I take full responsibility for this, because this was on my plate to implement and coordinate with the next team’s release (that content would have to be hooked up in their release stream), but something else of higher priority always ended up landing on my plate, and before I knew it, it was time to ship.

I’ll leave this here for now, and might have time to answer a bit more later.

In case you see this, Matthew: thank you! Hope to see more interaction between you (and any other lore master from ArenaNet) and us in the future. We’re pretty passionate about it.

: )

Thanks for posting this.

And Thank you Matthew for taking the time to answer these questions!

With knowing these questions are on players’ minds, hopefully having a repeat of this with future LW updates can be avoided.

Guess I’ll have to be the one to add this new intel onto the wiki, huh…

Edit: Hah. Half of the answered questions I had known from the releases and were explained. Even some on the ones on Canach that Matt didn’t answer were explained somewhere.

Big thanks, it´s good to know that devs are listening and answering the lore questions and such….we need more of this!

I’m really interested on what they’ve on store for Canach, from these answers and this livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/494199178 seems like they have something big prepared for his story.

I hope so. He’s a much more compelling character than Scarlet, even if he leans more towards anti-hero than villain.

Eluveitie.1290:

I’m really interested on what they’ve on store for Canach, from these answers and this livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/494199178 seems like they have something big prepared for his story.

Canach is instrumental in countering Scarlet’s plans and screws it up so it accidentally makes Primordius mad enough to lash out at the surface more actively?

It would have been a major loss had they left him behind and forgotten about. I’m hoping that Kiel’s investigations on the Consortium get turned to Canach and we, perhaps, become “chaperons” of his as we try and bust the Consortium or some sort of thing.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I hope so. He’s a much more compelling character than Scarlet, even if he leans more towards anti-hero than villain.

“Even if”? You mean “because.”

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I hope so. He’s a much more compelling character than Scarlet, even if he leans more towards anti-hero than villain.

“Even if”? You mean “because.”

Villains can be done right, and anti-heroes can be done very, very wrong. If anything, I’m rather more leery of anti-heroes- if it doesn’t start there, the character is all too easy to break when the writers decide to force them onto Team Good Guy.

My subliminal message was that in general people seem to like anti-hero figures more than strait up villainous heroes, especially anti-heroes who do not go redeeming themselves and joining the good guys. Mainly because anti-heroes are more gray and people love the gray.

Honestly, Canach would not be interesting in the least if he was a straight up villain. But by being an anti-hero, he becomes interesting. Similarly, though she has many many flaws, Scarlet would be more interesting if she had more to her than pure evil insanity.

Hey, good to see this was posted here already. I posted it at the Dolyak Express thread but it didn’t seem to get attention.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

My subliminal message was that in general people seem to like anti-hero figures more than strait up villainous heroes, especially anti-heroes who do not go redeeming themselves and joining the good guys. Mainly because anti-heroes are more gray and people love the gray.

Honestly, Canach would not be interesting in the least if he was a straight up villain. But by being an anti-hero, he becomes interesting. Similarly, though she has many many flaws, Scarlet would be more interesting if she had more to her than pure evil insanity.

I have to agree and i really hoped they would bring him back.
As soon as i saw a botanic weapon in Scarlet`s hands i really thought they would bust him out to create an antitoxin.
Unfortunatly they went with majory for some weird reason (Yes she is a necor, but come on. Just because she dabbles with the dead does not mean she knows her poisons. I rather have an engi or a ranger for that part, thank you very much)

However we do not know where he is beeing hold.
Maybe the upcoming attack will have him being busted out and in a way to redeem himself he will actually create said antitoxin over the next few patches.
like:
- Attack on LA, which helps him escape and he wants to get away (we only see that but cannot stop it)
- Canach sees the destruction and danger of the bioweapon (or whatever Scarlet is planing) and comes back with remorse and again wanting to show his “goodwill”, since he is actually not a bad guy. However that just happens two releases later, right before the finale.
- In the end he is being set free, but on a leash by Kiel, or even Majory to prove himself for the greater good, grumbling since he still has his agenda against the Consortium, but happy he is out of his cell.

Well, i can dream.