Guild Wars 2

Before I had a chance to read this; I simply saw her as this comic book villain essentially much like the joker, but I see now this more grand idea or intention to her that makes for a much more interesting villain and I hope to see more from her.

Lucky.9421:

She saw the universe! And it made her want to…kill people?

Been done. Also lame.

PS – The writing is alright at micro level. Nice job there. Typo in the second paragraph though.

Almost everything have once been done or been told. =p

Aye. This is what was needed to save Scarlet as a character, and it holds interesting implications for Tyrian metaphysics, and the nature of the Pale Tree. I just wish they hadn’t already depicted Scarlet as a shallow, nay, flat character, not unlike the Aetherblades. I worry that some may be unable to let go of that first impression.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/short-story-what-scarlet-saw/

This story is, by far, the best released until now, in my opinion.

“Please: go no further. In seeking to comprehend the forces that shape us, you will unleash them. Society cannot withstand that.”

Ominous. I’m looking forward to the continuation of this all.

Erm, have you set a living tree on fire? Or thrown wet wood on a fire? Ain’t easy.

As for the rest of this topic, I’ll bow out. I have no interest in sylvari haters topics.

Xaton.1902:

here is probly reason why no ont is truely openly worried about sylvari cause they are plants. they can be ignited fast easy have all races turn on them and with fire magic charr warmachines flamethrowers or plasmathrowers from asura shut theri gates down and then basicly torch the forest.

Just because they are verdant doesn’t mean they catch fire any easier than humans do, Anet has said this. Why do you think there are sylvari blacksmiths?

Again, they aren’t universally loved. Many members of the other four races feel uneasy around sylvari. You mentioned Caithe and Killeen, but both had problems fitting into their respective groups. Logan and Rytlock still think Caithe is shady, a ‘conniving vegetable’, and Killeen creeped Dougal out repeatedly. There are NPCs, particularly in the Black Citadel and, iirc, either Rata Sum or Metrica Province that share the opinion that they are spreading worryingly fast, often invoking the term ‘weeds’. Bottom line, the sylvari are not universally loved. ANet just put too much emphasis on them, trying to make up for their absence from GW1, and people can’t be bothered to look past the resultant deluge of good press.

“They’re a young race of people who have a strong tendency to learn faster than anyone due to their giant shared, but not truly shared racial conscious.”

I’ll give you that one, but they’re also very young, and many of them struggle with some aspects of common knowledge. But yes, that’ll be a problem once we start seeing sylvari reach 50+ years.

“Despite humans losing their god, they essentially have their own with the Pale Tree, who is pretty much a demi-god (if not a god outright, as seems implied by the Scarlet short story).”

The Pale Tree is not even close to the level of the human gods. Really, she can only do two things: grow sylvari, and maintain the dream. While the later does give her access to a large pool of knowledge, she’s still a tree, and can’t do anything about it without her children’s help. Compare to Balthazar, who was said to have scoured the entire Orrian peninsula, or Melandru, who turned those ashes into a verdant paradise.

“Immune to magics of the series main antagonist (dragons).”

Again: they still die. Yes, the dragon’s armies are formed by corrupting people, and if sylvari were the primary component of an army the dragons would be severely hindered. But they aren’t, they’re roughly one-fifth of the Pact. Not being able to reclaim one out of every five potential new soldier isn’t a massive setback.

“So far have one character who is the games main good guy, and another who is the games main villain (that isnt a dragon)”

The character critique or Trahearne has been done to the ground, but the important bit here is that he isn’t the game’s “main good guy.” Yes, the perception exists because he seems to be better rewarded than the PC, but it’s still the PC that is the primary protaganist, without whom the Pact never would have been founded, without whom none of Trahearne’s plans could have succeeded, and without whom Zhaitan never would’ve been destroyed. Yes, the portrayal is bad, but consider: all Trahearne really has to his name now is an unparalleled knowledge of a mostly defunct threat and a single great victory that woud have been futile without us players’ subsequent efforts above Arah.

“Well loved or at least tolerated by all the races with rather little explanation for it”

Patently false. The charr on the whole can’t stand sylvari, and tolerate them only because their imperator forces them to play nice, and the asura on a whole are either irritated by sylvari (and most races) or view them as potential lab experiments. Your mistake is taking the feeling of camaraderie that exists in the Pact, the Orders, and Lions Arch, and applying it to the whole game. Yes, most of the personal story revolves around those centers, but in four out of five of those cases sylvari are embraced simply because all hands are needed.

“The one member of destiny’s edge who can’t really be said to be at fault for their breaking up, and who the other 4 all still respect.”

Also not true. Rytlock and Logan at the very least don’t trust Caithe, due to her habit of holding secrets and attempting to manipulate others.

“Makers and users of pretty much the series most powerful weapon (that we know of).”

If you are referring to Caladbog, that is hardly the most powerful weapon. It bypassed certain immunities to harm in the powerful undead and seemed to act as a conduit to combat Zhaitan’s corruption specifically. That’s not “most powerful”, that’s “most specialized.”

Mary Sue seems to be an overly used phrase on these boards. Why is everything thought to be a Mary Sue? Do the people who talk and read about it know exactly what it means?

I don’t have a problem with the Sylvari. They are not perfect just because they are well spoken. We do generally meet the pleasant, clean living Sylvari who are following their wyld hunts but we do know the hedonistic Sylvari are hidden away in the Nightmare Court. In the personal story all the major Sylvari characters have character flaws. Trahearne has this “I’m a scholar, not a general” thing that is really badly portrayed and you have little sympathy when he voices his self doubts. Sieran is a reckless scientist who could be seen as a good version of nasty Scarlet. Caithe, Tegwen & co are hardly perfect as well.

I have far more problems with the Asura. Whenever anything needs to be done in game some magi-tech from the Asura turns up, solves the problem, and then vanishes again. It’s all technobabble and lazy storytelling.

“Immune to magics of the series main antagonist (dragons).”

Well… They don’t get corrupted, but die instead if a dragon tries to corrupt them… so it’s not really a valid point, no ?

I agree. I’m not a role-player but I was very surprised when I noticed this as well.

I don’t know exactly how Tyrian human beliefs work on this point but it seems like it should be at least mildly controversial to remove a shrine to one of the gods to create a ‘shopping area’. And if there’s one deity in Tyria I wouldn’t want to offend it’s Balthazar.

At the very least I feel like they should have added an NPC to comment on it or something. At least acknowledge that it’s gone. But really leaving it in place would have made sense with the giant fighting arena added just next to it.

Didn’t they say rather that only 5 testers defeated her with 5 penalties at once? Which is the threshold required to get the most difficult rewards.

Well if these are the same testers who in beta said that explorable modes were so hard that they never managed to beat them then I am not too worried…

I am worried about the queuing, ticket gating and temporary nature of the content though.

Agreed. Should be a jamboree instead.

Traditionally speaking 10 years is a Decennial (Also known as Tin or Aluminium).

A Jubilee doesn’t really come into it until you hit 25 years then it’s a Silver Jubilee
At 50 years you have the Golden Jubilee.
At 60 and then again at 75 years you get Diamond Jubilee
At 70 and again at 100 years (out of order to above) you have Platinum Jubilee.

Before people rage at me, I understand this is a game and Tyria is an invention so they can make a Jubilee out of 10 years if they want. Shrug Just, you know. Putting it out there.

There was a pirate near the baskets that sold tickets for outrageous prices. Tadaa.

From what I saw it was people spamming tickets into a basket. How is that a pirate election?

Ketto.6508:

ArenaNet may take it as a sign that players do in fact want to see more content based on GW1 lore, rather than the typical “I’m not saying it’s Asura, but it’s Asura”

Meanwhile all of GW1 lore is human lore, but you don’t have a problem with that…

Face it, you had 4 games and 6 years to play GW1 based on human lore, stop trying to demand that GW2 be about the same old kitten. It’s time to let the other races and new stories have a chance to be in the spotlight.

You yourself admit that guild wars 2 is 250 years AFTER guild wars 1. A lot of things have changed since then. The Elder Dragons have awoken, the Norn and Kodan have been pushed south, the assura have been pushed above ground. Oh, and Humans and Charr have a peace treaty.

I myself was an Evon supporter. I was voting for everything he offered. We all know that little Herald incident and then the mail came… sad for us who though he actually did win and cheered it out….

But just remember, Evon will always be #1 for us.

Edit: But we should not be jerks to all the Ellen Supporters.