Don’t get me wrong, I love running around with pistols or rifles etc. It makes for great gameplay—so I’m not critiquing their addition to the game.
But from a gw2 universe/lore standpoint, I try to rationalize how this all fits together and it doesn’t make any sense to me at all…
Back in Guild Wars 1, cannons were already available, although limited, to certain human groups (luxon siege turtles anyone?). It would make sense to assume that, before their fall, the ascalonians became even more desperate, and did everything they could to put this foreign technology to use against the charr.
Now, regarding explosives technology in the Guild Wars 1 timeline: the dwarves had reliable powder-based explosives, and the charr had ooze-based explosives (which were difficult to handle).
With explosives technology available, it would seem a natural evolution to attempt to employ such technology in different ways, thus the arrival of personal firearms.
After the Iron Legion reacquired its former territories, and the success of the rebellion against the Flame Legion, charr culture changed deeply. No longer were they willing to rely upon the mystic power of other charr who merely wished to use this power to preserve their privileged position in charr society, but also were unwilling to allow themselves to be manipulated by any kind of greater power, such as a god.
These two events combined, were all the Iron Legion needed to push forward with technological development, thus seeking to harness their very own power. Not granted to them by a god, or acquired through any obscure means, it was simply power created by the charr, and mastered by the charr.
Back to the fireams: history shows us that whenever someone makes a weapon with the potential of changing the outcome of an entire war, everyone will do their best to acquire or replicate the capabilities of such weapons. Thus, were the charr firearms copied by the other races.
And now, regarding the use of bows and melee weapons when firearms are already available (and I mean the real world human history): when firearms were first introduced, they were less desirable than crossbows (which, at the time had already replaced bows). A crossbow was much more precise and would pack more punch, than any pistol available.
A lot of refinements had to be implemented, in order to turn firearms into reliable weapons that could potentially outmatch every other available weapon in the battlefield, such as the introduction of rifled barrels (which is available as a trait to engineers, and thus suggests that the vast majority of firearms currently in use in the Guild Wars 2 universe, lack rifled barrels – this severely cripples their accuracy and effective range).
Now, regarding firearms and armor in real human history: at the beginning, plate armor would still provide protection against firearms, and bullets would not penetrate it unless at short or point blank range (it also depended on the caliber and the amount and type of gunpowder used, but plate armor was still the only thing that provided protection against bullets). As the weapons evolved and were more broadly accepted, certain types of armor were eventually phased out (such as chainmail) as they were completely useless against the increasingly common firearms.
Plate armor was the last one to be phased out, and it happened not because it no longer provided protection against firearms, but because it had to be too heavy and cumbersome to provide an acceptable degree of protection against the ever increasing power of the firearms. It became too expensive and impractical.
Regarding the existence of tanks within the current Guild Wars timeline, this doesn’t seem like a strange idea to me. We know that Leonardo da Vinci drew sketches of a tank, during a time when firearms were available, but some of the most common methods of land-based transportation, were still carriages and carts.
Granted, the charr tanks are nothing like da Vinci’s sketches, but there’s one thing that must be taken into account: the charr industrial revolution. Steam drives charr machinery.
We know the potential of steam to produce work (the mechanical definition of work) was discovered by the ancient greek. Unfortunately, at this moment I can’t remember the name of the man who discovered it. Some historians believe the true potential of steam could have been discovered earlier in history, if certain social conditions had lent themselves to that; among them, the need to find an alternate means of producing work, that outmatched animal power (granted, eolic and hydraulic power were in use, but in a very limited way.).
The charr met precisely the right combination of conditions they needed in order to take the next leap forward, to their industrial revolution.
