Guild Wars 2

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Rednik.3809:

Because of “Oh my, you can kill children in this game! How embarrassing!”. And yes, those people WILL fail to see difference between children and undead children.

For some reason people always fail to see the difference between real children and computer programs that look like children (npc’s). I never understood what the problem is with having killable children in a game, yet killing/slaughtering every other living thing is acceptable.

I blame Scarlet. She was too soft to put bombs next to kids. If we saw kids dead in Queen’s Jubilee, we might actually take her more seriously.

They don’t need to actually show kids dead on the ground. Just have a bomb go off next to them, and the kids disappears (e.g. blow up to pieces). So they can keep the teen rating and dark theme from GW1 preserved.

Keep in mind that many kids died in The Searing. Many kids died to Afflicted. The White Mantle would have killed everyone (including kids) in Beetletun if we didn’t stop them.

So did anyone read my organization? What’s your opinion on it? :P

17) Story telling must match target audience.

Scarlet would do fine as a villain in a cartoon for 8 years old kids. However most of GW2 players isn’t 8 years old. I would say most players here are 20-40. Putting in a cartoon villain is way too childish for us.

People our age requires better character development in our stories. I am talking about the likes of Grand Admiral Thrawn from Star Wars or Pain from Naruto.

And with GW2’s expansion into Asia, it is very important to look at the story that the locals enjoys. Check out “Attack on Titan” to get an idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Titan

18) Game design must match target audience.

GW1’s target audience are MMO lovers who grew tired of endlessly farming for loots and the next best equipment. GW1 got it right by limiting everyone to level 20 and making max stat armor easy to get. Additional farming is for cosmetic only.

GW2 is straying away from that path by introducing Legendary and Ascended equipments. And now they risk losing loyal GW1 fans.

Its the same way for the “World Event vs Dungeons” and “WvW vs sPvP”. GW2’s target audience wants World Events more than Dungeons. And they want WvW more than sPvP. And Anet should put more resources into what the target audience wants.

How does this relate to LS? Everything. The target audience will always have a preference for something and hate something else. When Anet starts thinking things from the target audience’s point of view outwards, they will do much better.

For example, if the target audience loves bullet hell games, then include some sort of bullet hell game play in GW2. Dodging fast moving projectiles is the key (not AoE the whole screen).

If the target audience loves hack & slash games like God of War, then the world events should have more “easy to kill” mobs than “champion never dies” mobs. Letting the players kill waves upon waves of mobs is the key.

If the target audience loves RPGs, then write a better story to get them hooked.

On the topic of polls, it will be obvious that many people would vote for “I hate Teq!”. But that would be a misunderstanding. People hate the overflow from Teq. People hate how hard Teq is. People hate a million other things about Teq. But they do not hate Teq.

The problem lies with the design of World Events, not the idea of World Event itself.

I posted this on another thread. But since Anet is actively reading this thread, I will include this here. It is very important for Anet to realize that:

1) World Event > Dungeons.

2) WvW > sPvP

I had talk to many people over the past few months, both in game and in the forums. And that’s the general conclusion most people agrees to. I cannot prove it. But just take my word for it.

1) Dungeons. When you talk to people about them, most of them talk about “rewards” and “armor&weapon skins”. Yup, that’s all they care about when they do dungeons. They don’t repeat dungeons because its fun. They do them for rewards and skins. And as soon as they finished farming that skin, or gold to trade gems, they never repeat that dungeon again.

Most player I know only did the new dungeons once, and never went back. There were a few that continue to farm the new TA dungeon for that mini. But most people don’t care.

I am almost certain that dungeons takes more development time (a lot more) than world events.

Everyone knows how frustrating it is to look for a group if you are not a warrior, guardian and mesmer. And everyone know how PUGs can fail in dungeons.

World events needs no introduction. Just read up the number of comments on Teq, compared that to the # of comments on TA Assault, and you can clearly tell that the player base cares a lot more about world events. And guess what, most of those comments isn’t about rewards for these world events. They talk about “slow spawn rates”. They talk about “Teq is too hard”. Why? Because people want to get it done! People want to play the content because its fun!

For the record, I don’t hate dungeons. I actually love the MA and TA dungeon. But I only did each of them once. I just don’t think its worth the development time Anet spent on it.

Many players appears to “hate” World Events. This is a common misunderstanding. The players hates Teq because they don’t think its well designed. They think its too hard. They think they are always stuck in overflows. They think the wait time between retry for Teq is too long. They do not, I repeat do not, hate World Events. They hate “the problems” that they face when they try World Events.

TBH, there is not a single well designed World Event in GW2 yet. Not even one. So it should be obvious that most players have no idea what a good World Event looks like. Teq is already the best World Event of what we have, but even that is pretty mediocre I got to say. There is tons of room for improvement and potential for World Events.

2) sPvP, where should I begin. I guess I will start by saying that their maps are ridiculous detailed and beautiful. Yes, go into a sPvP match right now, and check out the maps. They are some of the most beautifully made areas in the whole game, putting many PvE areas to shame. That shows how much time and effort Anet put into sPvP. Yet, almost no one plays sPvP.

I had met and talk to many people over the past few months. I only know a small handful of players that players sPvP regularly. Most just use it as a training ground for WvW.

If Anet would now totally abandon any update on sPvP, and put all their effort on WvW, very few will complain. Not one person in my guild even cares about it. sPvP already got more than enough updates for their super tiny player base.

So Anet listen to this. You are wasting a lot of resources on dungeons and sPvP, which draws very few players relatively. Look at your player’s gaming hour statistics. Compare Teq against TA dungeon. I am confident that I am right.

Please focus on World Events, and ignore dungeons for now. Do not work on a new dungeon until you guys get the World Events (like Teq) settled down. Trust me you will need to do a lot of trials, errors and player feedback to get World Events right. There is no time to lose. I mean the only “mob invasion” event we got so far was the Karka invasion of Lion’s Arch, and that event was poorly done and filled with bugs. The players already waited over one year for something like Teq. Get these World Events out there asap.

Focus on WvW, and ignore sPvP. This should explain itself.

World Events and WvW is what set this game apart. Dungeons are nothing new. Many other MMOs have dungeons. Many other MMOs have sPvP. It is World Events and WvW that will raise GW2 to new heights. So please pull more resources into developing these two areas of the game.

Also check out my other thread for Living Story recommendations.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/How-would-you-make-LS-better

It is very important for Anet to realize that:

1) World Event > Dungeons.

2) WvW > sPvP

I had talk to many people over the past few months, both in game and in the forums. And that’s the general conclusion most people agrees to. I cannot prove it. But just take my word for it.

1) Dungeons. When you talk to people about them, most of them talk about “rewards” and “armor&weapon skins”. Yup, that’s all they care about when they do dungeons. They don’t repeat dungeons because its fun. They do them for rewards and skins. And as soon as they finished farming that skin, or gold to trade gems, they never repeat that dungeon again.

Most player I know only did the new dungeons once, and never went back. There were a few that continue to farm the new TA dungeon for that mini. But most people don’t care.

I am almost certain that dungeons takes more development time (a lot more) than world events.

Everyone knows how frustrating it is to look for a group if you are not a warrior, guardian and mesmer. And everyone know how PUGs can fail in dungeons.

World events needs no introduction. Just read up the number of comments on Teq, and you can clearly tell that the player base cares a lot more about world events. And guess what, most of those comments isn’t about rewards for these world events. They talk about “slow spawn rates”. They talk about “Teq is too hard”. Why? Because people want to get it done! People want to play the content because its fun!

For the record, I don’t hate dungeons. I actually love the MA and TA dungeon. But I only did each of them once. I just don’t think its worth the development time Anet spent on it.

2) sPvP, where should I begin. I guess I will start by saying that their maps are ridiculous detailed and beautiful. Yes, go into a sPvP match right now, and check out the maps. They are some of the most beautifully made areas in the whole game, putting many PvE areas to shame. That shows how much time and effort Anet put into sPvP. Yet, almost no one plays sPvP.

I had met and talk to many people over the past few months. I only know a small handful of players that players sPvP regularly. Most just use it as a training ground for WvW.

If Anet would now totally abandon any update on sPvP, and put all their effort on WvW, very few will complain. Not one person in my guild even cares about it. sPvP already got more than enough updates for their super tiny player base.

So Anet listen to this. You are wasting a lot of resources on dungeons and sPvP, which draws very few players relatively. Look at your player’s gaming hour statistics. Compare Teq against TA dungeon. I am confident that I am right.

Please focus on World Events, and ignore dungeons for now. Do not work on a new dungeon until you guys get the World Events (like Teq) settled down. Trust me you will need to do a lot of trials, errors and player feedback to get World Events right. There is no time to lose. The players already waited over one year for something like Teq. Get these World Events out there asap.

Focus on WvW, and ignore sPvP. This should explain itself.

World Events and WvW is what set this game apart. Dungeons are nothing new. Many other MMOs have dungeons. Many other MMOs have sPvP. It is World Events and WvW that will “save” GW2. So please pull more resources into developing these two areas of the game.

Also check out my other thread for Living Story recommendations.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/How-would-you-make-LS-better

I recommend Chris and anyone else here interested in the Living Story go contribute to the thread I made. Post your own recommendations or just read up to get an idea. Let’s try to pool all recommandation into one place for easy reading.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/How-would-you-make-LS-better

Aside from this, yes WvW needs more love. And first and foremost, the wvw population imbalance problem, specially in lower tiers.

Oh I never doubted that dungeons will give better loots and money than world events like Teq. I was just saying that Teq gets a lot more player attention than dungeons. Of course not all the attention is positive. We have read enough complains about it to last a life time haha.

But even the players that had been complaining about Teq do actually want to get it done.

Kyrel.8942:

Caithe actually assassinated Queen Jennah and the Jennah everyone knows and loves is Anise’s clone replacement to keep Kryta protected and in denial that Jennah is in reality dead. Anise is none the wiser who the true assassin of real Jennah is and is willing to think that it was all a dream because she has clone Jennah now who she thinks is the real Jennah.

And the reason why Jennah is in love with Logan is because Anise is secretly in love with Logan.

Caithe can’t bring herself to tell Logan that Jennah can’t be who she is because Caithe doesn’t want to see her friend hurt.

You know, its very possible that Jennah was already killed by the Branded back in the noval. The current Jennah is just an illusion created by Anise to stabilize power in Kryta and prevent a civil war.

Or Jennah’s body is used by Livia to turn into an undead minion. So the Jennah we see is just a zombie controlled by Livia. Anise and Livia continue to keep this secret from everyone.

11) Its better to use numerous mobs than overpowering mobs – When was the last time you found a mob that’s weaker than your character? Are we really the superheroes?

I had been saying this for months: The PvE fights in this game stopped being “fun” when the mobs stopped being “relevant” to the player’s health, armor, damage and skill.

How do I know this.

Because GW1, which I love very much, have mobs that are relevant to the player’s health, armor, damage and skill. And the fights were fun.

There is satisfaction in killing 10 weaker “trash” mobs in 5 minutes. It shows how awesome our character is. “Haha look 1 on 10 and I still win!”

There is no satisfaction in spending 5 minutes killing just 1 “trash” mob who have 50 times the health of a normal player character. Even if the player wins, let’s be honest, the player’s character sucks. Look again. A “trash” mob have 50 times the health of your character. “OMG 1 on 1 against a trash mob, and my character takes this long???”

Increase the number of mobs spawn and decrease their stats.

Aedil.1296:

Henge.3907:

Their reasoning could be “That was GW1 and this is GW2. We made nods to the past but we’re moving forward with new lore and ideas.” Which makes me sad because I really miss all the stories.

in gw1 they created a whole unique universe with 1/10 of the resources they have now (maybe more) and now they are not able to make high quality lorewise contents?
I understand someone want to bring new ideas, but since the game is GW2 and not another name, i think it should first close what has began in gw1.
After that feel free to bring new ideas.
GW2 is about dragons and their wake up, but looking at the world there is just no fear about them, or any anxious about it, it’s just like dragons don’t exists.
If u say the old lore team is no longer working there i believe you, is pretty clear looking at the state of lore now.
But you didn’t answer my question, how to make them understand this?
You cannot make a gw2 deleting gw1, choose another name at least, is more honest.

Yes the dragons should come and wipe out our cities. Its been a year. What are they waiting for? Come get us, so we can give them some.

Zoltreez.6435:

CHIPS.6018:

Lucky.9421:

We know she’s fascinated with power. And you know what power does.

They totally foreshadowed a tragic story with Livia and the scepter in the final credits of EoTN.

I was kind of hoping for a dungeon with her as the boss. I bet something like that was planned too, but never followed up on.

That is what is really sad about this. It is clear that they had a lot of cool stuff planned, but it seems that the restructuring of the company, and the loss of many vets, has thrown everything in the air.

Now they seem to be floundering in trying to find their way.

Actually, I think Livia is being set up as a mega powerful ally. We already have like 100+ mega powerful enemies. Let’s get someone powerful on our side for a change.

We are those Powerful Beings.

No we are not powerful We just don’t have a death wish, so we bring healing skills and dodge around. Mobs are more powerful but they do not fear death.

Before I talk about anything else, look at the number of forum posts on “Teq”. And then compared that to the number of forum posts on “TA Assault” or even “MA Dungeon”. You can clearly tell which event gets the players’ attentions. World events are more popular than dungeons.

The only point I agreed with is “the wait”. This is unacceptable and Anet got to find a way to fix this.

I actually enjoy the “difficulty”. We already have way too many mindless content in PvE. I am glad we are starting to get some that needs organization. Yes organization is a requirement now, and that’s how you make yourself a better player. That’s how you get player growth. If you join the TTS guild, there is zero reason why you can’t beat Teq at least once. And trust me when you beat Teq for the first time, that feeling is great.

“Rewards”, I don’t really care about that. I think this game is already too focused on a “carrot on a stick”. Its time this game becomes fun without any rewards.

9) Add cool mission briefings – Mission Briefings are often overlooked in games, but a cool mission briefing really drives home the importances of the mission ahead.

Example:
-Show a 3D battle map of the area. Show some 3D fighting scenes of the enemies expected. Show a recommended path to take. etc. This shows the “professionalism” and importance of the upcoming mission.

-Round table discussions of different main characters talking about the up coming mission. This brings everyone together, and give the player a sense of “team work”.

Provide your suggestions:

1) Play as bad guys – Its always interesting to play from the bad guys’ point of view. And using monster only skills could make for some interesting game play. Gears and levels won’t matter at all, because everyone involved will be playing as bad guys.

2) Focus on existing lore – GW1 and the existing GW2 has tons of lore already (Mursaats and Seers, for example). Anet should focus on explaining and expanding on the old lore first. Afterwards, they can expand into new lores (e.g. Scarlet).

3) Focus on world events – I think both the MA dungeon and TA dungeons were very well made. However I only did them once. I think it is a fair guess that those dungeons took a lot more development time than the Teq event and the Scarlet’s Invasion event.

Yet, I attempted Teq and Scarlet’s Invasion at least 4 times, with 1 success on Teq. And the forum traffic on Teq was MUCH higher than MA and TA dungeons. I am going to guess that the player bases in general much preferred world events in LS over dungeons.

So focusing on world events not only cut down development time, the player also attempt those more often and, more importantly, talk about them more.

I know at least one new guild was set up to help overflow players kill Teq, with great success. I have yet to see a new guild set up to help players do MA and TA dungeons. That shows (at least indicates) how much more player interest world event gets when compared to dungeons.

4) Add world invasion events – World invasion are easy to make and you can give the players a serious challenge. Imagine 1,000s of mobs starts from one direction, and slowly push their way toward the player’s starting point. The player wins if they kill all the mobs. The mobs win if they reach their objective.

One of the examples I love to use is a Centaur invasion. It fits the lore very well. And the map I love to pick is Harathi Hinterlands.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/8/84/Harathi_Hinterlands_map.jpg

This map contains 5 bridge accesses. The Centaurs would start from the north east, and push south west though all 5 bridges. If the players lose any bridge, those centaurs would advance and flank the players defending the bridge next to it. That means the players would need to set up reserve forces to take back any lose bridges as soon as possible, so it doesn’t grow into a bigger threat. It also means communication to update the situation on all the bridges are key.

The players loses of any centaurs get to the one of the way points of Faun’s Gap and Shieldbluff Point.

Example:

http://i.imgur.com/dhQmorE.jpg

GW2 is over a year old, and to this date nothing big actually happened in our world. Zhaitan was never seen in the world (personal story doesn’t count).

If Anet want this Living Story to work, they need to make big changes to the world every single time something happens.

Here is a Risen Baby.

I think Anet is really complicating the world event. They can be really simple. Just send tons of mobs in and try to overwhelm the players.

A few months back I talked about the need for humans to lose and fail. We have seen that in Scarlet’s Invasion and Teq. Both of them need to be completed within a certain amount of time or players fail.

However when the players fail those events, the players didn’t really die. The players simply failed due to time constraints. And furthermore those defeats doesn’t actually harm the world. Scarlet’s minions retreat anyways when they “win”. Teq retreats anyways when he “win”. That’s not an actual defeat for the players.

What’s needed in world events is that players need to die, loss territory “forever”, and be actually defeated.

How?

The game should send 10,000 normal mobs and unique bosses against the players over the course of a 1 hour event. If the players lose, that territory now belongs to the mobs, until the player take it back in a separate event.

Every player wants to feel like Lord of the Rings, where they kill thousands of mobs for a final victory. This is their chance.

Here is a Risen Baby.

Yes its in the game. Here is a Risen Baby.

2 things

1) Elder Dragons – They are boring right now because they are not doing anything. What are they doing? Kill everyone already (or try to). Its been a year since GW2’s release. Get a move on. Come kill us. Or are they scared because we took out Zhaitan?

2) Technology vs Magic – If you look at our 8 professions you will see that magic still rules supreme. Engineer is the only profession that focus on technology. The other 7 professions are mostly physical damage or magic. Just because a warrior uses a rifle it doesn’t mean he is a technology class.

All I see from technology are tanks, golems and airships. So what? I rarely see them on the front lines. Its still your warriors and mages doing the hard work.

Narcemus.1348:

Alright CHIPS, I’m going to give you my personal reading of this situation so that you can make some sense of it in your mind.

IMO, the Molten Alliance probably didn’t start working together until after Gaheron’s death and the start of the civil war for the dredge. I won’t get into why I believe this, but there is nothing to directly prove me wrong at this point so choosing to believe it is not against the given lore. At this point in time I do not believe that the whole of the Flame Legion or the whole of the dredge joined this alliance. My assumption would be that the Flame Legion that first joined up with the dredge would have been one of the multiple sects that were fighting within their own mini civil war. If I remember right from the Citadel of Flame explorable mail, the Flame Legion are at war with each other for power, similarly to how the Nightmare Court looked after Faolain fled. Because of this it makes sense that the early start of the Molten Alliance could have been started by a single group of these Flame Legion charr. I mean think of the desperation you are feeling after a rag-tag group of people come in and demolish your army and kill your leader/god. The Flame Legion are desperate and their magic HAS failed them. They cannot surrender to the other legions, so their only hope is to find someone or something else.

Similarly you have the dredge. Their leaders have had the floor literally drop out from underneath them. Their workers are now fighting against them for a better future for all dredge. And whether or not you want to believe that the dredge aren’t fighting because of being enslaved by their own, it is made very clear in Frostgorge Sound that this is the main reason multiple dredge are joining the cause. Because of this the leadership and those allied to it also need to find help.

Out of the blue comes Scarlet, who somehow speaks about a tempting alliance with each other and makes sense (crazy thought based on the dialogue we get from her in game). Thus far, it doesn’t seem like she was leading them at all. The dialogues from the end of Flame and Frost seemed like she just pointed them in each other’s direction and left it at that. What we see currently seems to have been more of her coming in afterwards and taking control of those that remained (surely some Molten Facilities didn’t get raided) and moving them to a new location, possibly with the Aetherblades backing her.

It isn’t perfect, but my point is, WE actually laid all of the groundwork for her plans in the first place. By us destroying their faith in their systems, we gave them doubts that Scarlet was able to originally fulfill.

I also want to take a moment and point out. However many Molten Alliance are killed in the Invasions, the numbers are actually quite small compared to the Aetherblades. So this may be pointing to their lesser numbers.

Actually surrendering to the Pact would be the logical move. The Pact has been presented as a group that’s more than reasonable.

Instead the Flame Legion choose to continue to fight for a god that they no longer have faith in. Why?

But yes it is possible that the Flame Legion and Dredge are fighting their own civil war right now over the Molten Alliance. We just hasn’t seen it. No Flame Legion member has been seen attacking a Molten Alliance member.

Like I said my biggest beef is that the Scarlet story is shaking up the core beliefs and values of other groups. Its changing these groups into something else. And without these core beliefs and values, the groups becomes empty. They represent nothing. They just attacks the good guys because they hate the good guys so much. And this is exactly what will kill any depth in the story.

The Separatists might as well just give up and join back with Ebonhawke, and the Nightmare court might as well just give up and join back with the Pale Tree. Without any core beliefs and values, why bother fighting on?

Erukk.1408:

The Molten Alliance doesn’t use regular plain Jane technology. They use magi-tech, magi- being the point. It’s a fusion of the Flame Legion’s magic and the Dredge’s technology, and it compliments them both.

To the Flame Legion, it isn’t a matter of them saying they need to rely on the technology, because their magic “sucks”. It is them say, “With this technology, our magics are even more powerful!”.

The same can be said with the Dredge. They aren’t depending on the Flame Legion’s magic. Them joining forces, to form the Molten Alliance, was an alliance of convenience for both sides. (Brought to you by Scarlet!) The Dredge get some of the FL’s magic to build more powerful machines, and the FL got technology to enhance their magics and abilities.

Oh I agree that magi-tech (magic+technology) is stronger. No problem. And this is the logical thing to do if we are talking about logical people.

However we are not talking about some logical Charrs here. We are talking about some religious fanatics. The Flame Legion leadership is clearly saying that their god and his magic alone is “not good enough”. That’s why they need to use technology to form magi-tech.

Strategically sound, but political suicide. Any Flame Legion priest that say this will be deemed a heretic and killed right away.

A real life example would be “Christian Scientists”, who refuse to use any modern medicine and believe that Jesus alone is enough to cure diseases. (no offense)

Now imagine their leadership coming out and say “Sorry guys, but Jesus is not good enough to heal us. We should use both medicines and prayer.”

Imagine the outcry.

Strategically sound, but political suicide.

Konig you don’t seem to understand what I am saying. I will try to break it down.

Q: Why would the Flame Legion ally with the Dredge?
A: Because Flame Legion needs technology.

Konig you agree to this yourself. My point is this makes zero sense if you think about what the Flame Legion represents.

The Flame Legions are religious zealots that believe in the magic of their god. The core belief that holds this group together is the belief that “our god and magic is the most powerful thing in the world.” If they lose this belief, and instead have to rely on technology (e.g. technology is their new god), this group is gone.

Answer this question: How can a religious zealous group stay together, if they ADMIT that their god and magic sucks and technology is the way to go?

The very core of the Flame Legion’s lore is at stake here. That’s what doesn’t sit well with me in this whole Scarlet story. It is destroying important lore of other groups.

As for assumptions, you are doing the same thing. You are assuming that the Flame Legion can even survive as an united group, when their priests openly admits that their god and magic sucks.

Its the same thing with the dredge.

Q: Why would the Dredge ally with the Flame Legion?
A: Because they need magic.

“Freedom and independence from any outsider” is the very core belief of the Dredge. And now suddenly their leadership is admitting that they are not strong enough for freedom? That they need to “depend” on the Flame Legion’s magic to get “independence”?

Think about it. They need to “depend on someone else for their independence”? If the Dredge have any chance of believing in this, they won’t need to be fighting against absolutely everyone and see everyone as future enslavers.

The new Dredge civil war (recently finished) has nothing to do with the people being enslaved by fellow Dredges. That has been happening for ages, well before the GW2 timeline. Sure there are a few rebels that sees this as a problem. But the great majority of the Dredge have no problem being a slave to a fellow dredge, if they believe this eventually works toward a greater goal and purpose.

The main reason for this new civil war was because Shukov decided to rely on Asura technology. To be “depended on someone else for their independence” is what caused this new civil war. Because this, obviously, counters everything that the Dredge believed in.

Answer this question: How can an extreme group who believe in “freedom and independence from any outsider” stay together, if they ADMIT that they need to rely on magic from someone else for their independence? Not them mention they just overthrew Shukov for this exact reason.

Once again, the core lore of the Dredge is being ruined by this Scarlet story.

Sure perhaps not everyone likes the MA. But until I see a Flame Legion member and Dredge member rebel against the MA, I have to assume that they don’t exist or are too small to make a difference.

The story sucks because nothing big ever happens. Nothing big ever changes. When we killed Zhaitan, did the world change? Nope. I can already guess that when we defeat Scarlet, nothing will change.

Until the story writers grow some “guts” and do crazy things like burn down the whole Hoelbrak forever, or change Logan into a villain, the story will continue to suck.

If you need an example, look at Ascalon and the Searing. I still remember that faithful day. I also remember that day that Kehanni died, which I said “Varesh, your head is mine.”

Scarlet is from another dimension, so are all her minions. See my other thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Our-Pale-Tree-never-met-Scarlet

Its time they add some turbo speed enemies.

I am almost certain the elder dragons can corrupt or kill civilians (e.g. non-magic users) just fine. Sure you can argue that there is magic within everyone. But if it is born within everyone, then there is nothing we can do about it.

Sorry Konig but I doubt you can justify the Flame Legion’s action with their religion, and the Dredge’s continued trust in the Inquest and sudden trust in a total stranger (Scarlet).

1) Flame Legion

The very core that holds the Flame Legion together is their zealous religious beliefs. They believe that their god and his magic (was Titans, then Destroyers, and now something else) was superior to any other magic and technology.

By accepting help from Scarlet and the Dredge, the Flame Legion is effective admitting that their god and his magic isn’t enough to win the war. That they need outside help. That means their religion is effectively gone. And when that happens, the priesthood leadership’s hold on its people collapses. A zealous society cannot survive without its religion.

What’s the point of fighting the other 3 high legions? The Flame Legion is admitting that they are wrong. Their god is false. Their magic sucks. The other 3 high legions was right to adopt technology.

2) Dredge

I will keep this short. The Dredge were slaves for so long, that they find it hard to trust anyone. They eventually allied themselves with the Inquest, which led to a civil war resulting in the death of the dictator Shukov.

So a new government was recently install, and the next logical step would be to break away from the Inquest and ally themselves with the Pact.

Nope. The dredge now continue to ally themselves with the Inquest and, furthermore, this new girl call Scarlet.

What?

The whole reason for the civil war was to overthrow Shukov, because he decided to ally with the Inquest. But somehow the new government decides to continue this alliance?

And keeping in the mind that Dredge rarely trust anyone, even older races, why in the world would they suddenly trust a total stranger in Scarlet?

I think the point about demographic misfit applies to GW2 very well. The target audience of GW2 should be 20-40. What that means is the players are old enough to want well written villains and heroes.

Scarlet might be a fine villain for a 10 year old watching the Batman cartoon. 20-40 year olds won’t like her.

Trahearne, well even 10 year olds won’t like him much.

As for veterans, they will stay if Anet shows that they are listening to their feedbacks and actively improving the game.

Many of us here loved GW1, both its gameplay and story. And that’s why we want GW2 to become as good as a game that we had hoped, both its gameplay and story.

Constructive criticism is indeed more useful than negative trolling.

To Konig,

Now let’s talk about Scarlet.

I agree that she has superiority complex. Its written all over her face and voice. But unless she is totally crazy, she should know very well that the future is unpredictable. Look at her plans against us. All of them so far ended in failures. Unless all these failures were part of her plan somehow (which I doubt, since there is little benefit to losing that Airship factory in TA), she already tasted failures. So whatever plan she have, even if she wins, may not lead to the future that she planned.

To Konig,

Make sense or not, I will tell you why this story doesn’t sit well with me at all, if Scarlet and her minions is not from an alternative universe.

One of the things Scarlet said was “My minions works for me now because they are afraid of me.”

Afraid of her? Who are we kidding?

One one hand we have the Dredge, who fought against everything just so they are now no longer slaves to anyone. They sacrificed so much for their freedom.

And now this story want me to believe that the Dredge are afraid of death? And they are now willing slaves of Scarlet because they are afraid of her oppression? They do her bidding because they are too scared to fight back?

The Dredge I know will rather fight until the last man and go extinct than become the slaves of Scarlet.

Secondly we have the Flame Legion. This one legion held the other 3 legions to a stand still, and were actually winning until the female Charrs shown up. Even after defeat, this Flame Legion refused to surrender. They retreated to their stronghold and survived against the whole Charr nation for over 100 years till today.

And now this story wants to tell me that the Flame Legion are afraid of death? They are so scared of Scarlet that they are willing to abandon their religion (magic only, screw technology) for her?

The Flame Legion I know would fight to the last man and go extinct to defend their religion.

The only possible way my mind can even comprehend this story is that the Molten Alliance have absolutely nothing to do with the Dredges and Flame Legion of “Our Dimension”.

To Konig,

Cantha didn’t invade before because they were recovering from their own little civil war/internal struggle.

Japan attacked America in WW2 purely for resources (e.g. oil) in the Philippines. So yes resource is a valid reason to go to war over, and has been done. I am pretty sure the average civilian in Japan does not need oil. So why fight? Because the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy needs oil, and that government (e.g. emperor and prime minister) decided that’s enough reason to fight a war over.

Another reason to fight: Living Space. Room for growth. I don’t need to explain where that came from.

Cantha would be dealing with the ocean dragon before Zhaitan. Zhaitan is in Kryta. The ocean dragon could already dead, kill by Cantha (given how much the general player base hates underwater combat, this might very well be the case). Kryta is next on the plate.

Cantha might very well offers Kryta peace in the beginning, on the condition that they break their alliance with all other races (Charr, Norn, Asura, sylvari, etc) and instead join Cantha to conquer all of them. “Humans are the superior race, and our superiority over other races must be restored, just like ancient times” they say. Cantha killing the ocean dragon with only humans further strengthened this belief. Kryta and the players, being good guys, will naturally refuse. And war is the outcome.

You have to remember that Cantha’s friendship, from the past, only extends to Kryta and Ascalon. Did any Charr or Norn went to Cantha to help them out back in the days? Nope. It was Ascalonians, Krytans and Elonians. They got no relationship with any other non-human races. All they have is racism and hate toward them.

Erukk.1408:

If she is trying to experiment on the worlds, to shape the Sylvari into what she wants them to be, that is changing the world. Her using her huge army of watchwork, Aetherblades, and Molten Alliance to attack people, changes the world. Her effecting the events of a world at all, changes the world.

So, i’ll ask again. Why? What is the point of going to other worlds? You are saying she has this huge multi-dimensional army, a vast store of knowledge, and the power to fuel dimensional portals constantly. If she has that much power at her disposal, why isn’t she just using it to change her world. She obviously has more than enough power to do so.

As for Headmaster Omadd and Baelfire, lore is not lore until it is written down and made. There was always a previous headmaster of synergetics, but Omadd didn’t technically exist until Anet wrote the short story. Now that they have, Omadd is lore. He was there, and he was always technically been there now. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen or heard of him before.

Unless you have proof Baelfire didn’t know about the MA, the argument is at a moot point. Just because he didn’t say he knew about the MA, doesn’t mean he didn’t know about it. “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”.

Scarlet have the ability to go to other dimensions. But she cannot control the future. No one can. The future is by definition unpredictable. Just because she gave an input it doesn’t mean the world will change to how see likes it.

So what does this mean? That means she have to change the events and history of other worlds, and see how the history in those worlds unfolds first. Once “one of these alternative worlds” reaches an ending that she likes, she can then implement those changes to her “own world”.

I repeat. She must first make an alternative world reach the ending that she likes, before she can implement those change to her own world. Else, the future is unpredictable no matter what she does.

Saying that no one knows about Headmaster Omadd is like saying no one knows Dumbledore in Harry Porter. Omadd is a headmaster, not some random mad scientist. If he exists, there is no way we would know nothing about him.

Baelfire’s action shows he knows nothing about the Molten Alliance. He was trying to make himself into a god. Why bother? Scarlet is their all powerful god. And why resurrect him? He is weak when compared to Molten Alliance’s new weapons.

Konig I will reply to you after I come back later. ^^

Erukk.1408:

Hmm, I’m not sure why you made up Pale Tree conversation. Also, while you used the alternate reality to explain how she got superior forces and knowledge, you didn’t really give a plausible explanation of why she would move to an alternate reality. Other than the generic evil villain, "Look at me! I’m super powerful, and I’m out to destroy you all!’.

The short story points out that Scarlet is trying to change the world. If that is true, what is the point of her packing up and moving to another one? Another world that might be totally different from her own? Scarlet moving to an alternate reality would take away all her motives, and it would basically make her short story worthless, because it wouldn’t apply to our world.

While I don’t mind the use of alternate realities, in some fringe(keyword) Asura or Mursaat lore elements, the use of it in major storyline arcs is a horrible idea. It’s the stuff that happens when a series is in its death throes, and they are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for plot ideas.

Scarlet is not out to change the world. She is out to change the rules.

Rules. What are the rules of the world? That’s the history. The pieces of events that make people behave in a certain way.

Scarlet is out to experiment with different set of rules, history and events, to see how things turn out. She is trying to find a set of history and events that will alter the Sylvari into what she want them to be.

Her short story never had an effect in our world in the first place, and that’s prove that she is from an alternative universe. Look around. I ask once again, who in the world was Headmaster Omadd? Has anyone ever heard of him? Have anyone seen this NPC?

Has any “Non-Molten Alliance” Flame Legion and Dredge mention anything about the Molten Alliance? Did they even know about it beforehand? How can Gaheron Baelfire not know about it? Why bother making Gaheron Baelfire into a god when Scarlet is already their god?

Scarlet can use mass amounts of summon portals at the same time to transport her troops. Many people overlooked this, but this is a very important clue. You know who else can? Elder Dragons, Dhuum and the like that’s it. You have to be that powerful of a mage to use summon portals in that quantity. Is Scarlet, a 15 years old Sylvari Engineer (not even a mage), in the same league as the Elder Dragons and Dhuum. Is this even possible? Who needs heroes like us when we have villains like this? If you ask me, Scarlet is much older than she appears.

Alternative universe is already part of our storyline. Steam creatures are 100% proven to be from an alternative universe. Scarlet use them as minions, which by definition means she is involved in an alternative universe.

If Scarlet was indeed from our world, there are thousands of plot holes that need to be filled for this story to make sense.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Meili: If you read the thread, or the Short Story: What Scarlet Saw, you’d know she came from the Pale Tree.

She came from a Pale Tree, that much is true. The question is which Pale Tree from which dimension? :P

Skan.5301:

CHIPS.6018:

Those people who recently (past 2,3 weeks) transferred to those now free (or cost lowered) servers should demand a gem refund. How is this fair to them?

You, sir, made me lol pretty hard. Just ask the question to yourself while you pretend to be ANet and you will have the answer pretty quick.

In case you didn’t, I’ll answer it for you: It’s not fair, but, it makes us more money.

Read again. I said Gem refund, not cash refund. Anet will not lose any actual revenue. Maybe a lost of future potential revenue. But this beats having tons of angry customers that threatens to (or really) quit the game.

Do you have any idea how many guilds transferred around in the past few weeks due to the WvW league announcement? Do you have any idea how many angry players are out there right now?

Galtrix.7369:

ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME?!?!? I just deleted all of my level 80’s, forsook my guild, left an entire set of armor AND trinkets behind, and gave up my main just so I could switch to a server where I actually get to see people, and NOW you give transfers a discount? RAGHAHGHAHRAHHH! Ragequit!!!!

-Galtrix has left the forums-

You should ask for a re-roll. You are far from the only one. I know people like you who deleted everything just so they can transfer for free. (Although they mostly only have one character and very little gold.)

My main point is they should bring the concept of Chronomancers back as enemies, with or without Utopia. I always enjoyed fighting against turbo enemies in games. ^^

I will say alt unfriendly. You will be hard pressed to get one whole set of ascended items for just one character.

Those people who recently (past 2,3 weeks) transferred to those now free (or cost lowered) servers should demand a gem refund. How is this fair to them?

Gandarel.5091:

Then how Caithe met Scarlet long time ago?

Like I said, Caithe met Scarlet in the past. But did Caithe ever question Scarlet’s connection to “Our Pale Tree”? Did Caithe know Scarlet that well? Nope.

Scarlet can easily pretend to be some harmless girl and met Caithe long time ago, just to tease her later.

GussJr.1643:

Where did you find the conversation you list at the top? I don’t remember ever coming across that.

Its a made up conversation by me. It is not in the game.

Cappi.9742:

From the short story about scarlet:
“Welcome, sapling.” The voice was kind, the tone gentle. “My name is Mender Serimon. You are safe here.”
Also:
“Sapling?” Serimon said. “I’m here to help you acclimate. To help you understand your place in this world and identify the purpose Pale Mother has given you.”

Her eyes remained fixed on on the complex living dance of the forest. “I’ll find my own place, thank you very much. And it’s hardly ‘my’ purpose if someone else gives it to me.”
—————-
This mender can be found and talked to in-game if I remember correctly. Also during queen’s Jubilee the asura that was helping us knew that she graduated from all the colleges.

Seems like she’s from our universe to me, nice theory tho!

In the alternative universe theory, the Serimon that Scarlet met in “Scarlet’s Kryta” is different from the Serimon we met in “Our Kryta”.

Those people who recently (past 2,3 weeks) transferred to those now free (or cost lowered) servers should demand a gem refund. How is this fair to them?

Will this blow your mind?

You: Pale Tree, tell me what you know about Scarlet.
Pale Tree: I know all my children by heart, even the one that has disconnected. But in all my memory, Ceara, or the one you called Scarlet, never existed.
You: What do you mean by she “never existed”? We all saw her.
Pale Tree: I have no knowledge of her existence until very recently. She is not a child of mine.

Notice that the Pale Tree never mentioned Scarlet anywhere throughout the story. But the lore said that Pale Tree spoke to Scarlet, and see Scarlet as a major threat.

How is this possible?

WTH????

How did Scarlet find out secrets about Caithe?

Where did Scarlet get all her troops. Why do they (Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, Steam Creatures) always invade by portals?

Molten Alliance and Aetherblades are made up of all races. But why didn’t any NPCs in “our Kryta” never mention anything about it? Like “OMG my son joined Aetherblades and are now killing people!”

Why did Scarlet and all her underlings appear out of thin air.

Who is the world is Headmaster Omadd? Headmaster is a pretty important position. Have you ever heard about this guy as an Asura? He doesn’t even have a wiki page.

Think about it guys.

~-=Answer: Alternate Reality!!!=-~

That’s right. The “Pale Tree” that’s in Scarlet’s story is not “Our Pale Tree”. Its a Pale Tree from another dimension.

Wait! Caithe said she meet Scarlet before.

Sure. Caithe surely met Scarlet. But did Caithe ever question Scarlet’s connection to “Our Pale Tree”? Did Caithe know Scarlet that well? Nope.

Scarlet knows Caithe’s secrets because the “Caithe from another dimension” did something.

Scarlet’s minions arrives from portals because they were literally arriving from another dimension.

No one in “Our Kryta” know any members of the Molten Alliance or Aetherblades because they literally do not exist in our world.

No one in our world knows who Headmaster Omadd is because he literally does not exist in “Our Kryta”.

Scarlet does not care about the lives of anyone in “Our Kryta” and treat us as insects, because we literally does not exist in “Scarlet’s Kryta”. “Our Kryta” is nothing but a “video game” for her.

“Our Kryta” might not be the first dimension she tried to conquer. She might have conquered countless others.

Let me know what you think about this?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Economically Speaking
For Cantha’s economical state, I’ll look to our own history. Merchantilism is the act of trading only within one’s own national boundaries – within one’s country and the country’s colonies. This is effectively what Cantha would do if they went into isolation.

Cantha has a history of going into and out of isolation, however with one exception their isolation has always been prior to the Jade Wind. The Jade Wind not only turned the Jade Sea and Echovald Forest into stone (or gemstone, as it were with the Jade Sea), but also forced the expansion of Kaineng City due to a mass influx of refugees. This resulted in the mass of a maze city full of sewers and slums we see in GW1. Before this expansion, northern Cantha was known for having lush forests and rolling hills. Furthermore, Cantha’s first opening of trade occurred when Shing Jea Island was almost overlogged, and had to agriculturally recover.

Now, with the resources removed thanks to the Jade Wind, Cantha wouldn’t have enough self-sustaining resources to hold its empire for long, probably why trading was still open up to 1219 AE. With Cantha forced into merchantalism for 100 years, there’s really only two outcomes available:

Cantha hit an industrial revolution, like England did by discovering a new power source when Napoleon forced the British Isles into merchantalism. Or Cantha was hit dangerously in their economy like Spain when they attempted it willingly. Given the lack of resources Cantha has thanks to Shiro Tagachi, I suspect the latter occurred.

This means that Cantha, economically speaking, is possibly in worse shape than ever. And that’s not to mention the millions of gold Usoku put into expanding the military – how much do you think that damaged the rest of Cantha? Probably a lot.

Overall
I suspect that Cantha’s in a state of disrepair. The politics move smoothly but are split between traditionalists (Ministry of Purity) and radicals (Am Fah/Jade Brotherhood) with the Emperor inbetween, but they still manage to work together to preserve their nation as much as possible; at the same time, Cantha cannot be self-sustaining, and thus need to find external resources. This forces them – begrudgingly or not – to break their isolation and seek out others. Given the state of Tyria, this may mean they’ve gone and made deals with Palawa Joko for trade.

What you said is very valid. In fact I have no doubt that Cantha is indeed lacking in resource and have a poor economy. Even back in GW1 they got slums everywhere. But I would like to offer an alternative.

When a nation have a strong military, but lacks resources and poor economy, war is usually the outcome.

If anyone remembers Winds of Change, you should know that the MoP troops were the best trained soldiers in the whole GW1 game. They are the only human faction with a mass amount of level 28 troops, making them almost on par with the demons of DoA. Furthermore it seems more of their members are fairly young, making this level of training and discipline all the more impressive. My necro felt like an outdated old woman by the time I faced them, and I only won because I got more battle experience.

TBH I highly doubt Cantha have no one in Kryta. I am sure they have a few spies lurking around. (Delaqua I am looking at you.) That’s what people do before a war; They spy on a nation to understand it.

I had long suspected that Cantha will invade Kryta. The players will defend Kryta, and eventually push back across the sea into Cantha. All the while dealing with the sea elder dragon.

Chronmancers were originally a new profession in the cancelled GW1 expansion Utopia. Their ability was the control of space and time. Since Utopia got cancelled, this concept was not expanded upon.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Utopia

I think its a good idea to bring them back, as foes in living story.

I think they will fit the White Mantle well. Mursaats might have the technology to control space and time, and given that to their White Mantle minions. Since Utopia was originally set in the maguuma jungle, many of the existing concept arts from Anet can be used.

Abilities:
Speed increase (time hasting): They can increase their speed by 4 times the normal speed, which increase their movement speed, attack speed, and skill recharge all at the same time. Chronmancers always hae this affect.

Speed decrease (time slowing): They can also slow down foes to 1/2 the normal speed, which decrease their movement speed, attack speed, and skill recharge all at the same time. While under this effect, their foes cannot dodge at all. This affect lasts from 2 to 5 seconds depending.

Fighting style: To maximize their speed, Chronomancers carries minimal equipment, other than their chrono packs. Their fighters usually wear light armor and uses a dagger. They are also masters to hand to hand combat.

Other Chronomancers are mages that take advantage of their speed and use hit and run ranged attacks.

Weaknesses: Being light armor users, they are fairly easy to kill if they get hit. They also suffers from snares the same way a normal person does.

Examples of turbo enemies in gaming:

Bellyboomer.3048:

Take some time to watch this. I know it’s rather long, but it’s worth it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSicD-CA4lM

The living story is anets way of introducing new character and new stories, it’s much more enjoyable if you’re able to follow. The living story is still something they’re working on, it’s not perfect. The players have been dissappointed by the living story (like the first impression of Scarlet) but have also been nagging om this forum about content that’s not nagworthy. You’ll find that we’re all tempted to nag about the smallest things.
But overall I’m still a fan of the living story and anet is trying to fulfill the players wishes. I find the new characters very promising and engaging and even though the living story still seems young, I’m hooked.

An other unpopular opinion of mine: I liked Trahearne and I liked being his commander. I think Logan is a boring character. Shining armor, long hair, handsome face, uneneding heroism, unquestionable love for his queen… He’s the prince charming of guildwars. But I haven’t read the books yet so who knows…

Logan is boring because he isn’t an anti-villain, yet. He understands “sacrifice for a greater good” more than anyone else on Destiny’s Edge. And to him the “greater good” was saving the queen, which is more important than killing Kral.

Past:
“Sacrifice Snaff, so the queen can be saved.”

Future:
“Sacrifice 10 civilians, so thousands can be saved.”