Guild Wars 2

Seras.5702:

I got a really cool cutscene with a clear recap of the events since Molten Alliance. Nothing really progressing the story yet.

From the NPC dialogue in the instance I get that the Nightmare Court are intentionally deceiving the Krait. I’m hoping to see that play out.

Scarlet’s little diatribe makes me feel like she’s just having fun & showing off with all that she’s done. Which negates the importance of her actions, making it seem like a child playing with puppets rather than orchestrating a grand design.

I very much got the impression that this is in line with her orchestrating a grand design. Maybe it’s because we’ve seen enough of her actions now that a pattern is forming, but I think it’s likely at this point that she’s working on something specific, and the alliances were only necessary to create the tech she needed (and to provide manpower, but that’s becoming less important as she uses her new technology to create purely mechanical/holographic/hallucinatory minions). I don’t think the alliances were ever her real aim; she’s contemptuous of them and they’re getting played with, yes, but it’s starting to become clear that she’s driving these factions to ruin along with us.

She’s smart. By bringing together groups that normally would have had nothing to do with each other, she’s reaping technology and magic that otherwise would never have been conceived of or built—but at the same time, she’s bringing those groups into direct conflicts that they would never have faced otherwise. I don’t think many people saw the dredge lamenting having joined up with her at the end of Molten Weapons Facility; they got talked into it thinking it would be a mutually beneficial partnership, and Scarlet took what she came for and left them at the mercy of the consequences. Now we have the krait and Nightmare Court, both of whom are intrinsically backstabby, and both of whom think they have the upper hand. Scarlet is deliberately striking incompatible materials against each other to create sparks.

I think it’d be really cool if we could have a character-specific title available from creation that reflected the racial biography choices, similar to the profession-specific choice granting a unique armor skin. The racial biography choice is a big part of how a character defines themselves personally, but there’s no real way to display it in-game (and for humans, it doesn’t even figure into the personal story in any way). Racial skills can show it off in some cases, but those are rarely worth using over profession skills.

For norn, it could be something like “Guarded by ____” with the appropriate Spirit of the Wild, depending on what the player chose—a player who chooses Raven at creation would have access to the title “Guarded by Raven.” Or “Becomes the ____,” the way shapeshifting norn NPCs have (shapeshifting as a norn trait has sort of disappeared into the background since players have to choose to make it their elite skill over something likely more useful).

For sylvari, it could be “Born of Twilight/Dawn/Night/Day.” For charr, “Soldier of the _ Legion.” For humans, “Blessed by _.” For asura, “College of _ Alumnus.”

It’d be awesome to have something available to make that connection to our character’s biography visible.