Guild Wars 2

Certain bits of LS already got added via FoTM, its kinda obvious that Fractals will serve as the medium that previous content gets included, mostly boss encounters and snippets of what you missed.

Interesting but unfortunately downright impossible.

Its difficult as hell to add massive game changing stuff like this for server stability reasons as well as the amount of space it would take to actually add this to the existing game engine.

If what you want is choice, what we should have is more along the lines of the Captains Council vote but with a significantly greater impact.

Players from all servers are given a vote, the vote is put up on the website to show who is voting for what.

At the end of the vote, we are given a major change, and to make things interesting, possibly a fractal that shows us “the other” paths inevitable fate.

Example:

We choose to let Lions Arch get Rebuilt, or move all of LA’s future investments to Southsun Cove, and have it purged of all Karka permanently, allowing it to become a new capital city region.

After the vote is made, the players permanently see some changes invested into the choice made a month after the vote is presented, for example, over time, we will see either.

A) A story that revolves around LA needing help from allies to rebuild LA itself, which leads to alliances with the Tengu and interaction with them.

or

B) Southsun being purged, which upsets the Largos, and causes them to have a tense conflict with us before eventually becoming our business partners when fighting against a mutual enemy.

The choice should in my opinion give us teasers as to what would come if we made the decision, for example…

On the site it tells you that choosing path A or path B gives you this or that, and shows you a few concept art teasers so players can make their own decision which one they want more.

For the path that gets neglected, a fractal is later added reflecting the players who chose the other path, seeing what would have happened from a single scenario of one possible future of Tyria, of which you never got to see.

Often these future’s lead to tragedy, thus adding a degree of immersion to the game’s fractal possibilities.

1. 12+ or not, Guild Wars is still Dark Fantasy
Living Story was, as the OP points out, a good building block for something better, but at its roots, Guild Wars 1 was a dark fantasy, despite some arguments against this. The setting should not be afraid to push boundaries, destroy those you love, places you care about, see characters you value fall to the dark side, or enemies redeemed. This is a setting where Dark must stand out for Light to truly shine, at its roots, 12+ or not, GW has always been a setting where tragedy goes hand in hand with triumph.

2. Use whats already there and represent it in game
Existing places serve as stronger roots to build from, than new things that we have no knowledge of, subtly is the key to introducing something new, such as how the Largos were introduced, a mysterious new species from a place we have yet to visit, this is the key to making new content interesting, leave clues, hints, teasers, but never actually throw it at people. People need speculation to enjoy the value of wanting more, otherwise it ruins the potential for speculation with exposition, which ultimately takes away the game’s core.
Basically, for this point, make more use of existing characters and places, don’t venture forth beyond them without first using them to introduce new things along the way, leaving clues as to what those things could be, over time.

3. Personal Vs Universal
This one needs to be separated into small points.
- Companions, are intended to be a personal thing, they are there to accompany the player and for the player to familiarize themselves with over good voice acted scenes of dialogue, great banter, character development for the companions because of the players actions. They are there to be useful too, agents that help you achieve your personal story and your day by day events. Companions, such as the new LS ones, unfortunately, while having the personality, lack the development, and equally the personal vibe that is needed to make them feel special, like they are part of a family, your family. This is the first objective.
- The second, is Personal Nemesis.
You need a personal nemesis to be someone you interact with in your personal story, a reoccurring secondary antagonist with underlings designed to meddle in your affairs, as stated in the OP’s points. You need someone that harms the companions above, or even turns a few to their side over the course of the game. They must act as someone that acts to hinder your goals of stopping dragons, and other threats to Tyria, for some unknown and mysterious agenda, or a malevolent goal of world destruction. A Personal Nemesis has to be someone I don’t want to hate out of character, but their cruel, sadistic, ruthless, malevolent and manipulative personality of which is hurting the people I care about and the places I value, is making me want to hurt them, deeply.
They must feel vocally and writing wise, actions wise, game wise, a threat that hurts you, personally.
That, is what a Personal, Nemesis is.

I actually saw it coming immediately, but more importantly I cant help but feel that people have this all wrong.

I actually suspect, Belinda may be the beginning of a new LS team, since the reliability of voice actors is untrustworthy, we may be seeing a return of some chars, while others get shelved.

E.g. Kas/Jory who are great and I would love them for eternity, but they do need some time off now to enjoy their company together.

This leaves room for Rox, Braham and Taimi to get some srs char development, while adding Belinda, and possibly redeemed Canach to their party.

Treaherne wont be E for anyone speculating this for one VERY GOOD REASON.

E does not have a necromantic aura, as Marjory herself blatantly states in her back story.

Faren is “The” most likely candidate to be E, if we have met E at all, it could at some remote possibility also be Kyle, Kasmeers brother, but I doubt that since hes apparently a no good lying b-… gentleman.

You sir, have me in stitches, I LOVE THIS XD
In seriousness, best post to date.

I would also apply a few things:

- We did see Mai Trin albeit an almost non existent secondary antagonist make a few minor appearances in earlier content so there’s that if you really need some kind of Scarlet Lieutenant, though indeed, her role was very short.
- We also had Canach but… cricket noises everyone remembers him so well.

Other than that, I entirely agree with every point made, in seriousness, to not hire this player or some of the more constructive critics into a “feedback” team for the writers would be an injustice.

We need feedback players, people who can criticize an IDEA before it even comes into fruition, because those who can, can provide excellent feedback on points that may be needed to be touched upon.

I advise the possible creation of an NDA obligated team who are specially chosen to act as the shepherds for good future content in the game, not necessarily some elite group of egotistic narcissists but rather, a group that have actual experience in writing, role playing, dungeon mastering, ultimately have a passion for actual content lore writing and want to see the universe thrive, without necessarily writing any of it themselves.

I am referring to readers, people who read what you have to say before you actually say it, and tell you if its good, bad, or if there’s something else you could add, or a detail you might have missed.

This, is what A-net needs, people like Shrike, Wooden Potatoes, people who can be obligated under an NDA contract, to point out “maybe you should add this content with this instead. . .”

Insert points here.

I say, think of it like having beta testers, that test not the actual game but rather the story itself, giving a chance for refined plot design in the game to work effectively.

Advantages to this:

1. Its free.
2. Its community interaction, without the community knowing it.
3. It shows A-net actually cares about what refined individuals may actually have to say about the future of the game and how best to keep it and sharpen in a way that is favorable to a large majority of players who, surprisingly enough, actually care about every minor detail of the lore.

While I myself am not the most versed denizen of Tyria, its people like Wooden Potatoes that made me wiki every last article and start exploring every last micro depth for those little snippets of particular topical parts I myself find fascinating to the universe.

Others, who have FAR greater levels of broad understanding, will likely be more viable and better suited to criticizing it because they are actual players of both 1 and 2, who know what inconsistencies to avoid, and how best to refine them.

Consider it, A-net, its not a bad idea.

Bringing back Cantha, Elona and other new continents might actually not be such a bad idea after all.

See, Living Story could act as a means of expanding main continents and expansion continents, while Expansions could literally act as “Expanded” continental areas, new regions of the WORLD of GW2 not just the region we are in.

This allows the Devs to have a healthy compromise of new vs old, and equally space vs compatibility.

Expansions into regions such as Cantha and Elona would work favorably not just for re-using old content and giving fans a new taste of what they look like post alterations, but also giving room to add parts of Tyria’s full world that we have never explored before.

How would this benefit personal story?

By adding new continents, the players main character can journey to new lands seeking allies to bring back to Tyria to fight the dragons, and possibly recruit a few new races along the way!

Living Story only linked to recycling old stuff, that’s boring

No, the point I’m making is, it allows them to, expand the Tyria world map, WITHOUT making all of the game content about that one particular region of the world.

This gives them fresh, new, opportunity, to add dragons previously unseen into places we may not have even been to yet.

Wouldn’t that be a lot, of effort?

Actually no, you see this is why:
- Adding a new continent doesn’t necessarily mean adding EVERY ZONE to it.
- This allows Living Story to interject between continents, which allows new zones to be added further on, and new stories to the universe.
- Allowing re-usability for expansion continents, that would naturally be smaller, than larger continents such as fully blown Tyria by comparison.

Still unsure what that means, an example:

Cantha is divided into several regions, but during the launch of a Cantha themed expansion we would only be able to access Kaineng City, Shing Ji Isles and Echovald Forest, while later being able to access the Jade Sea, and further mainland to places we haven’t been before.

My point is, this gives the devs much needed space to work with stuff for the living story, while giving us, what we direly desperately ravishingly want, new areas, new, something.

More importantly, that big E word we are craving so hungrily.

Thoughts?

It seems somewhat redundant at this point to have a separation between armor types other than “it keeps class identity separate” since even then a big symbol next to a persons name can just as easily point out X or Y is this class or that.

More importantly, it unlocks full customization which I think a lot of people would rather prefer to do at this point than being denied the right to make the character of their personal tastes.

There are advantages to removing armor types

For a start, by removing armor types from the game you allow the designers more freedom to create armor and weapon designs without having to be separated by as many variables because everyone can wear the same thing, they just have to choose weather they want to or not.

Armor defines characters!

At this point I don’t agree, really all it does is separate the guy in a dress from the guy in a suit of plate, since every class is supposed to be essentially free range anyway, I don’t see much reason “not” to simply open the door to that very model of thinking and make all armor accessible to every class.

Wont this be counter productive to the community?

How? In what way is giving MORE options to design your chars personal style a problem for the community? Name one kitten good reason.

Design time would be a pain, armor is hard coded into the game

A valid point, but since features are being swapped around anyway I’m pretty sure in a future features patch this could be easily worked around and hard programmed into the current programming to give players a radical and more interesting redesign to their characters unique appearance.

There are FAR more reasons than not to do this, but if you have a good one against it feel free to post, on the other hand, if you’re in support of it, feel free to add something suggestion wise that might help this topic and the point I’m trying to make.

Its important that the game has a format to creating good expansions, while equally having one that continues stuff in the meantime, to me, this was the best possible suggestion I could conjure at the time, if others have something better id welcome the thoughts!

Mordremoth’s awakening was clearly, blatantly implied to be in the Magus Falls region as we saw the lay line energy trail from Gendarran to the Thauma Nova, and to the further west, it goes directly west of the reactor which is the Magus Falls area.

The Deldrimor Front is in the exact opposite direction, its miles off course, if anything that’s where Primordus would likely be now post his awakening in GW1 since that’s where the Stone Dwarves are fighting him.

Admittingly I suspect we will see more tensions between the races.

Mordremoth’s awakening may indeed cause many Sylvari to fall into decay which may in turn begin to create xenophobic tensions between them and the other races.

Do remember that despite the goody too shoes nature of Gw, at its heart, it is still a dark fantasy and that means that while it may not seem as gritty as something like GoT it has a lot of twists yet to unfold that will spell tragedy and despair for all caught in their wake.

Season 2 is probably going to be the dragons vengeance for not being awoken by the pale tree’s, if it doesn’t corrupt them it may just outright devour them.

What ever the case, expect many people to die, like there was in the case of Zhaitan.

I noticed A-net made a comment a while ago about struggling to decide how best to integrate expansions to the game since you guys clearly want to, but haven’t quite figured out how.

A few ideas I think our community can share, might help to format that and offer advise from experience as players seeking good quality content.

Living Story Seasons

The last few patches have been perfectly well formatted, I admit, I am content with where they concluded, but I am still hungry for more Guild Wars content, and having put so much expectation for content faster I believe the solution to this is, major arcs:

You guys are the ones that write the lore, and decide the formatting, but maybe this will help to organize and plan the future direction living story could generally follow.

The Idea:

Season 2 and onwards could follow a format, where by each season has 3 major arcs, of which are done over the course of four months, thus, we shorten the length of each Season, while increasing the content within them.

There could also be interval’s, which act as minor content updates to bridge the gap between living world, and game expansions, these would work as a minor 2 week long micro event that serves as a prologue to each expansion.

Now the Seasons themselves:

- Major Arc 1
- Major Arc 2
- Major Arc 3

Each of these would act as events, weather related to expansions or not, that carry over the course of the months, weather all happening one after the other, or between each other like chapters in a book over lapping.

These Arcs eventually tie together to conclude yet another chapter in Guild Wars expanding universe, these events will have no consistent tie to the personal story, or the expansions to follow, but act as gap fillers and lore extra’s to buffet the curious and the needy for those that want more character development and back story for individual characters and regions of Tyria.

Expansions

Now Expansions will be done shortly after each of these great arcs are filled, given a teaser announcement, a short prologue chapter between the time gap, which allows for feature patches in the meantime to help balance and game play gripes.

These Expansions are the chunky content, while Living World fills a short amount of time, the Expansions are designed to fill in the long term, giving lots of new content, adding new races, new abilities, new classes, new skills, new regions and most importantly advancement to the personal story itself.

So while the Expansions focus on the individuals personal story and advancement, and add new permanent dungeons to the world, as well as new races and classes and the rest, they also allow the game to separate the two, giving Living Story a focus more on its Story aspect, while Expansions can more heavily focus on the “features” and “Personal” Story.

Confused? Don’t be.

Simply put, I’m basically saying, Living Story works well to the credit of an F2P game and certainly offers some interesting changes to the world, but the format has to be more clear from the start in future, otherwise randomizing everything risks confusing people and upsetting them greatly, to the point people just stop playing.

And while I appreciate you guys are under no obligation to worry about that given Gw2 is F2P… it doesn’t hurt to help your money pocket a little by giving incentive to people to come back with more enjoyable content that’s easier to follow.

People find Personal Story linear enough to follow while Living Story is reliant on people being there for that particular piece of content, that’s fine, as long as you do it right.

This is probably, by my thoughts, the most effective way to organize that so that its easier to manage.

Even so, if anyone else has ideas on how best to make living story and expansions co-coincide together, then feel free to throw down your own suggestion, maybe the devs will take an interest.

I do agree that the idea of having a restored Orr could be do-able, what I personally feel they should do is like Lions Arch, permanently alter the shape and face of Orr with new permanent safe zones when before it wasn’t so safe.

Essentially this could lead to adding heart quests to Orr for the first time, giving it some extra end game accessibility.

We could also see “some” patches of restored Orr where the encrustation around the architecture has been cleaned off and polished to restore it to its original glory.

However, I would believe that even with Zhaitan’s death there are probably quite a number of undead still left to destroy.

Have a few small towns established by the pact, with maybe one “major” area being fort trinity, rebuilt and expanded into a solid dependable garrison with some refugee wards for the natives.

Creating areas that only specific guilds have access to would be incredibly elitist and confining to the community as a whole.

Simply put: it’d be counter productive to new guilds to have a system where only old veteran guilds can ever benefit from it.

So I don’t agree with that Tom.

Regarding the instancing of Claw Island itself:

I think people are making the assumption that this would essentially be an instanced area rather than an entire zone devoted to a guild.

So, if my explanation wasn’t clear enough:

The Player Island becomes a Guild Island

The acting guild leaders version of the island is used as the default guild hall, so that everyone that goes there at any given time, regardless of being in the guild leaders party or not, can enter the guild leaders version of the instance.

Also, Johnny, that’s exactly what I’m saying, so for example.

If you complete a Living Story with your guild, then you and your entire guild unlock say, a new building or a new feature unique to that Living Story that can remain displayable for all time.

New theme’s would be unlocked by achieving Living Story, to allow for more customization.

And regarding the crisis of snow based Claw Island? No problem, thanks to the wonders of Asura technology, the islands sky ground, and landscape can be drastically re-formed depending on the persons preferential climate.

Regarding GW1 style Guild Halls:

I loved those! I really did, but in Gw2 I don’t think that system would be applicable because they have already established their use of personal story hubs, like the Heroes Canton, Salma District, etc etc.

I think this is the more likely option they will go for one way or another, because essentially its easier to implement for them and requires less effort to remodel an existing piece of content than to add new ones.

Regarding existing home instances:

I don’t know if they will ever truly bother to add the ability to customize these such as the personal story home hub, it sounds interesting in theory but in practice I feel that the districts are more smaller instances better suited to a single person than an entire guild.

Also, you’d think after becoming commander of the pact and defeating Zhaitan, being given an entire island would be the smallest reward the people of Tyria could repay you with :p.

My idea for the story of this is that again, after defeating Zhaitan you unlock this as a reward from the people of LA, and can regularly visit and upgrade it over time as part of a goal to “re-establish” Claw Islands presence in the world of Tyria.

However, the manner and format in which one does this is entirely up to them.

Troy’s always been a favorite and his VA suited his part that’s the important thing, he acted the role and played Logan Thackery, they even had him practice some comical out-takes (still on sound cloud) to get into the vibe of the character.

I think the big problem with the game is that while I do appriciate the VA effort, either its a scripting problem or an acting problem, but who ever said after take one it was good needs to try again and say “no, try a second time”.

Rox voice acting is my biggest gripe, shes like the Rule 63 Treaherne, the voice acting can seem incredibly static for her char and lacks any real personality which is “important” to making a char feel like they actually care about something.

Its a case of “re-read the lines and this time actually pay attention to what they are saying”.

I’m not griped against her actress, just that they seem to be letting people act lines by reading them instead of ‘acting’ them.

Scarlet’s acting is solid for example, because while her story wasn’t great, her actress, Tara Strong, knew exactly who the char was and what they needed to do to act her part perfectly.

I really felt attached to Scarlet because of that, she felt just right for the char they were designing.

I deeply hope Tara doesn’t get put off doing future roles for GW2, because honestly, id love to see her come back in some form or another, be it as a past version of Scarlet aka: Ceara in a time-lapse scene, or maybe something else, she just has a great gift for VA and its people like her that make the voice acting of GW2 worth it.

Unfortunately it appears they are more fond of using Fractals to replay old content, as evidenced with the now returning Aetherblade Retreat/Molten Furnace through Fractals.

Tis likely for that same reason we will see a Scarlets Playhouse/ Toxic Tower / Scarlets End fractal.

He does, unfortunately while I do like this theory it is eliminated by the fact that in Majory’s short story “The Last Straw Part 2” we clearly know E is a male.

E is more likely Faren than anyone else, as he was also seen allegedly stalking after Kasmeer during the Southsun Cove short story with Kiel.

I am intrigued by your idea that Mai Trin may not be an antagonist but I personally feel that she is being stereotyped into the “Team Rocket” villain aka: we will see her in every Living Story update as a minor antagonist.

Rather than add player housing/guild halls lets consider another more interesting idea.

After Personal Story, which most probably have done by now, we retook Claw Island and its fate was left unknown.

Well I believe, having defeated Zhaitan, and thwarted Scarlet, we deserve a reward.

Que my idea:

Claw Island, The Players Reward.

With the retaking of Claw Island, the defeat of Zhaitan and of Scarlet, the Lionguard reward the player with the entirety of Claw Island, to restore and rebuild as they desire.

The player then has to reconstruct the island to make it into a new, dependable outpost for Lions Arch and for all Tyria and the Pact.

This is how it will work:

Slot System (Sorry, limited customization but hear me out!)

Basically, restoring Claw Island and enhancing it to its full glory, requires the player to improvise by using the tech they’ve accumulated over the last living story season and personal story.

Using this, they have to spend quantities of Gold, as well as Karma, in order to restore the fullness of Claw Island and even enhance it’s current presence in GW2.

Guild Housing

While representing your guild, you are automatically sent to your guild leaders version of Claw Island, thus allowing the leader to customize the guilds base at whim, when not representing, the island is returned to the players own customized form.

This also works when you are invited to a party by another player, while unrepresented, allowing the leading member of the party to bring people to their version of Claw Island.

An Island of Opportunity

Rebuilding the Island isn’t just about Karma and Gold though, its also about progression, and having new ways to customize it.

For starters, you’d be given the ability to choose a “theme” for the island, this allows the players to decide what kind of visual appearance the buildings around the island style themselves from, for example, Sylvari Architecture? Or perhaps Vigil? Or maybe you want something else like an Aetherblade Island?

The options are endless, but the requirement is effort.

In order to unlock themes, the player must continue to advance their living story, with each living story season and between major events leading to unlocking new themes for the island and new buildings and small features to decorate it.

Incentive For The Guild

So whats to stop players from just doing all the achievements and just leaving their guild in the dirt? Well…

If the guild leader unlocks a season achievement, then anyone that participated during that term that the guild leader achieved it, will automatically unlock those themes and buildings as well, allowing guilds to work together to help their leaders and themselves.

This way, there’s a stronger sense of Guild Community, when your guild leader achieves something, you gain from that and feel motivated to help each other more often.

But wait, there’s more

In addition to buildings, and theme’s the player can build water pumps to extract quantities of oceanic mass and increase the size of the island, allowing for even more buildings and industrialization.

What about People that don’t like Living Story?

Don’t worry, there would be similar themes that require people to participate in WvW seasons, and PvP in order to unlock those too! Unique to each persons preference.

I believe, this could be the first real step in giving proper Guild Customization to the game, as well as player housing, all in one!

Thoughts?

I think if I was to make this about DE, then id say Eir would be the most interesting fallen heroine of the lot.

The reason for this being that her grief at the loss of Snaff, and her failure to be a leader, plus she is the oldest member of the group, makes her the ideal character for a tragic villain role.

It may not be impossible to assume even after defeating Zhaitan she hasn’t completely let go of her desperate desire to prove herself, which may sadly lead her to do something reckless, like try taking on Jourmag on her own, and failing.

As a role player I feel like this needs some addressing, but equally as a player I think its a bit silly since it can spam my chat log.

Player /emotes when players make their own emotes using /e tend to have a pretty silly range, I can see someones emotes from the entirety of the Rurikton district despite the fact they are specifically in minister wu’s house, or other areas.

I believe the emote range needs to be drastically shortened, on that note, while blocking players I cant seemingly block their /emotes which I feel is very annoying.

I believe this is a bug and should be addressed with a simple fix.

To be clear:

What I am basically saying is that I feel player custom emotes need to have their range reduced, so that they can only be heard in a close proximity, e.g. people should only be able to hear your emote in minister wu’s house if you are actually “in” the house itself.

The radius I think for emotes should be roughly 500 yards max.

Equally, please correct emotes so that blocked players emotes are hidden.

3 days… 3 days… 3 days?!

Faolain should be a major antagonist in my opinion, since shes still alive since I last checked and could easily return for this Mordremoth scene, to be the back story for the advance into the Maguuma/Magus region.

This also gives us a chance to explore Caithe in depth, and possibly learn about that secret Scarlet bragged about knowing that Caithe didn’t seem happy about.

It would also be interesting to explore the possibility that Caithe could become a bad guy, temporarily or permanently, given her vulnerable love for Faolain being her one small flaw in a myriad of strengths.

Then again, one could also explore the possibility of the “redeemed” villain with Caithe trying to slowly bring Faolain back to the Dream and thus prove the dragon’s power is not absolute, nor the Nightmares.

As for secondary chars?

Canach, who could easily be re-corrupted given his fallibility and failures.

Mai-Trin, who I suspect will be a long reoccurring antagonist, mostly as a comic relief “great plans with often failed results” bad guy.

Thoughts?

If you were to vote “one” of the five LS chars (Braham/Rox/Taimi/Jory/Kas) to turn evil for a temporary (or even permanent leading to their death) level of time, who would it be and why?

Part 2:

My personal gripe with Rox and Braham

This is where I get gritty.

Rox:

Rox plot can best be summed up as this:
http://th04.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2012/365/5/1/notice_me_senpai_by_sypherella-d5psb1w.jpg

I really am not fond of her complex need to be loved by her half-brother Rytlock or to get into his Warband, her poor voice acting also makes her char feel very UN-emotional and UN-engaging since most of her lines feel like they were read from a script instead of acted from the heart.

She has the most “one” dimensional storyline of the entire cast so far, with almost no personality at all going for her, which is really disappointing me, since while I can see they were trying to go somewhere, it feels empty, and it needs more continuation, this char could make it into S2, if only to see her personality really bloom and to more heavily focus on her char development.

Braham:

Braham has a good voice actor, and a reletivley okay storyline. Taimi gave him much needed char development which is more than I can say for Rox, since at least he now has someone to protect.
That said, wait, didn’t he already have a girlfriend in Flame and Frost that was still alive last I recalled, where the hell is she, and why isn’t “she” in this storyline?
I cant remember her name to save my life, but I know he was in love, and I also feel he could do with more depth. His acting is solid, but until he grows out of being just a Norn stereotype, he feels surface simplistic and lacks any kind of personal growth.

For that reason, Braham needs more Eir time and Girlfriend time and Taimi time, most of all, he needs more story now his legs been broken (I’m sure its healing since, GW2 logic, you can heal death after all).

Taimi kind of suffers from the notice me senpai complex since shes overly fangirling over Scarlet which is both cute and annoying after a while.
Still, she definitely amuses me and makes me smile at how cute she can be, as well as clever.
She could do with more involvement but aside from that, I cant criticize what I’m only seeing on the surface.

Other than that, I feel like really the living story characters all have potential to be more than they are, but with Kas and Jory? What I will say is that I feel they need closure, as I mentioned already.

I am neither for or against LGBT or the whole “equal rights” or “its offensive to heterosexuality” logic, I don’t care, I’m a writer, my only interest is the story.

And I believe their story needs a happy ending, with rings, vows, and their little cottage together, for now.

It will also give Braham/Rox/Taimi more time to develop which I think is very important.

Okay, firstly, I write this PoV not as a “Pro Lesbian” guy but rather someone that writes stories, novels and role playing events.

Secondly, I have to explain my reason for not liking Rox and Braham in absolute contrast to the two mentioned chars the OP is evidently not fond of.

Jory and Kasmeer have the most character development of the 5 LS characters

Jory and Kasmeer have surprisingly the most character development out of the five which I think people haven’t really had the chance to pay attention to, but let me explain from the beginning.

Kasmeer in Southsun:
This was her first debut, before Jory was introduced, Kasmeer made a cameo appearance (everyone suspected she was Scarlet back then) and Lord Faren constantly attempted to make advances upon her.
However, even back then, Kasmeer clearly had an interest in a character named Jory (at the time I assumed Jory was a guy) who seemed to be her Aide back at D.R. and she was taking a short break from her usual escapades for Jory to enjoy SS (Which she didn’t get much chance to).
Despite Faren’s advances, Kasmeer sarcastically retaliates each and every one of them rather humorously which implies she never takes much interest in him, or men for that matter, it was blatantly obvious from day one, this char wasn’t going to develop to love Faren, she had someone else in her life.

Jory’s First Debut:
Jory first came in as this quirky, clearly Canthan investigator whom, honestly, I grew on immediately, I loved her from the start, she was flirty, playful and had a streak about her that kinda struck me as at least highly bi-curious.
Bi curiousity aside, she was fun, I liked her char, but more importantly, during her intro cinematic, she had a brief appearance of Logan Thackery, who also noted Kasmeers sudden arrival to the scene.
When helping her with the LA incident, Kas clearly appraises Jory highly, she really liked her a lot, being someone that can spot tropes 500 miles away, this lead me to two possibilities.
At the time, I still suspected Kas could be the “personal nemesis” and was some kind of spy, but then the other idea hit me, what if she just genuinely likes Jory?
So the other end of the coin came into the equation with the introduction of Scarlet.

Toxic Alliance:
This was the point that the romance between these two started to go from being partnership to something more. We clearly see at this point these two are actually working together actively to deal with this matter, and they definitely do not like what Scarlet is up to, or the Toxic Alliance.
When Kas gets injured, Jory is very clearly concerned, this wasn’t just char progression forced on us, these two chars “knew” each other for a while now, and we shouldn’t be surprised they actually care about one another.

The last few Patches:
Over the Origins of Madness to the Battle for LA, we have definitely seen that love blooms and over time it made a lot of sense these two would inevitably fall in love, even as Rox blatantly asks the question.
Some might not have had time to notice this but aside from Kas extremely emotional and EXTREMELY well voice acted tragic past (which broke me to tears, A-net, you really got me there) we also have another scene during escape from LA, where Jory actually talks about “her” family to Kas in turn, showing the char progression is mutual, these two want to know each other more, and get close to each other.
So by the time they kiss and there’s that wonderful happy ending moment, are you “honestly” that surprised that it lead to this? I for one, am not, I saw this coming 500 miles away.

My only interest now is to see a closure to Kas and Jory’s happy tale, since while I like them, I don’t know if this story could last with them as central chars forever. I believe with the closing epilogue they deserve to get married, then retired for a while until they come back for something epic together.

Part 1 over: Part 2:

Half-Sister, correction, but according to her recent back story, she claims to be related to him directly.

Okay… let me start by saying that some people like Rox and Braham which is fine, but I will be blunt here, I don’t and I am not, alone.

Rox:
The Good:

Rox is what Rox is, a natural stereotypical female Charr trying to get into her brothers Warband, this has merit, she also happens to be fun for her caffeine cat jokes.

The Bad:

Rox voice acting is bad, her VA lacks the same personality of chars like Kasmeer, Kiel and Jory, which consequentially makes her char feel empty and sound as bland as Treesus.
She also happens to be a Stereotype, as I said, she is just generic Dwarf/Elf Fantasy What ever your race is, with no personality, no branch that makes her interesting.

Improvement:

Either give Rox a new VA to make her lines more conveying, or improve the dialogue to make her more interesting, as a character, she has absolutely nothing to give that hasn’t been seen in every fantasy story ever done before. Personality is very important to make people care about a character, and without it, they are just a stereotype.
There’s a reason we liked Tybalt more.
The relationship with Rytlock and Rox could be better portrayed, her desire to be close to her brother is there, but it lacks personality that is desperately needed to make her sound like she genuinely wants to be close to him.
Right now its “I wanna be in his band because its cool” I honestly don’t get the incentive, or the motive, or the reason “I” should care?

Braham:
The Good:

I like Braham, especially since Taimi has come along, he had stuff going for him before that too which people may forget, including his love interest in Flame and Frost (bring her back please, or at least show her to us for the first time).
His voice acting works for his character too, the sharp and eager behavior he expresses make him sound arrogant and confident but also shows he has a heart when he needs to care about someone close.

The Bad:

Braham’s problem isn’t like Rox, with him we have a different issue, we need more character development in the form of his conflicting relationship with Eir (Another char that needs a better VA >_>).
Braham also suffers from the same problem Rox does in one context, hes generic, he is what you see on the surface with little layering or depth.

Improvement:

Braham really needs his girl, he also needs a confrontation with his mother, which I think is important for both chars, Eir really needs to be back into the story, and she heavily lacked any real personality in GW2’s personal storyline.

I think this could force her personality to come back out and make her strong again, give her much needed char development to show she can convey emotions and can be made to realize hiding away isn’t going to make her fight against the dragons any more favorable just cause shes afraid to loose those close to her.

Braham himself is also important for this reason, hes young, arrogant, much like those in her past she has seen go off into battle and die for heroic causes. He needs to bring out the best in her, she needs to bring out the wisdom in him.

Braham needs a more centralized story in contrast to Rox, Rox needs personality, Braham needs char development for unanswered questions in his past.

I do understand people like these characters, but I am sure those that like them can agree they do need ‘more’ development.

On that note:

Who do you think needs voice actor replacements/better voice acting and better character development?

Don’t worry, Canach is already in the back of my mind.

And Treesus.

But yes, thoughts, opinions, your views on which chars need better VA, have good VA, have good char development, and need better char development?

Just as a note, they already said they are trashing the old cinematic style which means that a new race will have a radically different personal story style than the previous races, and that also means, we wont likely have them share the storyline the current five races do.

They will probably be some kind of great big nod to the living story as a means of encouraging people to recap what was forgotten, which would be interesting.

Again though, Mursaat would be awesome, Largos too.

Tengu and Kodan? If they refine their lore to make them less of a one dimensional stereotype, yes, but until then, id rather have sea elves, or wannabe demi-gods, than furies.

AsgarZigel.4530:

It doubt she was supposed to die originally. These Living Story updates are made one to two months in advance, so they likely didn’t have any feedback on her when that decision would have been made.

Which means there is no reason to kill her off, since it doesn’t make any sense dramatically. We were just introduced to her, most of her story-hooks aren’t resolved in any way and she barely had any kind of story arc so far. (apart from warming up to Braham and changing from admiring Scarlet to wanting her dead / be a better person than her after seeing the destruction she brought)

It just would be a waste to kill her off. I haven’t watching Game of Thrones or read the books, but from what I know there the “anyone can die” kinda thing fits into the setting that seems to be rather dark and serious. Whereas GW2 is on average more of an optimistic classic fantasy adventure. While characters, possibly even somewhat important ones will die, it doesn’t happen all that often.

Also it would just be repeating a mistake that was heavily criticized in the Personal Story.

Dark and serious don’t fit into Guild Wars 2?

Did you miss the Foefire, the Searing of Ascalon? The Fall of Orr?

This setting was “built” on dark foundations and is likely going to “stay” dark for a very long time.

Guild Wars 1 showed how dark and cruel the world of Tyria is, and even in 2, towards the last 30 levels we saw many people we loved die fighting Zhaitan.

If you wanted a happier fantasy setting you’ve probably not been paying much attention, Guild Wars was never “intended” to be “happy”.

Magical? Beautiful? Yes, happy? Not really.

Its a Dark Fantasy hiding in light colours, dressing you with that romantic illusion that the world is safe, and that everyone is secure.

The cruel reality is never that comforting.

Don’t get me wrong, I do agree that Taimi dying now would be a waste, she needs to be important before she can die, but that doesn’t mean she “cant” die.

“IF” a situation arises where by her death could be emotion provoking and deep, then definitely, let her die, that would be quite shocking and tragic, even if one saw it coming.

I still had feels knowing what was about to happen with Sieran and Tybalt and Forg, I can still know whats about to happen and get heartbroken because of it.

Or, have a shock twist, have someone completely unexpected die, like Eir, out of the blue, that’d rile up some eyes and set off some anger.

What matters is “how” a char dies and “why” they are killed off, a char has to be important, somehow, to the majority of people involved with them.

The loss of a character has to be meaningful, be it the loss of a wise old woman leading a nation into peace, causing it to fall into chaos. The loss of a young prodigy child that could have been so much more, who had dreams, hopes, things we got to know and care about, and wished back then we might have made reality. The great hero who saved us once against a tyrant of evil and is tragically ripped from our eyes in a brutal assault that takes them from us forever.

Death is important in context, not in content, it cant just be “and that guy you never knew dies because he was nice” it needs to be “the char you came to grow on and like is now GONE forever and you are NOT getting them back, no matter how much you try.”

That, is when it hurts, that, is when you know the pain of loss.

So again, can Taimi die? IF the situation demands it, yes.

They despise each other, as stated blatantly in GW2’s manual, they don’t do “working together” for any reason.

They’re utter primordial disdain of one another is their weakness, they refuse to ally for a good reason, they are primal, primitive, savage, they lack any true sentience.

The Dragons only interest is to devour Tyria’s magic and anything that can create high levels of Magic.

They are basically like the Reapers from ME, destroying civilization to its foundation when it becomes to great, the only difference is, they aren’t some cooperative AI working to achieve it together, they just destroy civilization because by that point it becomes a giant “eat this magic buffet” contest and every dragon is after the first bite, with no care or empathy for their kin.

We already have a problem with that system Incul, its called Achievement points.

Ive already seen LFG groups where the min requirement to join is something as obnoxious as 7K or higher.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, adding this wouldn’t necessarily fix the problem, but what it does do is give people a goal they “can” achieve at any time, instead of one that demands permanent activity.

This is something that says to you “any time you want me, you can have me, you just have to work to earn me” while Achievement Points are farmed regularly and require you to be actively farming them, every day, just to get to the kind of levels the Elitist segment of Hardcore’s want.

PS: Hardcore’s themselves are not Elitist, but there are a lot of Elitists that consider themselves Hardcore gamers. These people are the real plight on the community, people that have no desire to let anyone rise to their level and would rather feel everyone should be in the mud below it.

What we need is a system that can allow the nobody to become the somebody, if they try to, this skill system would work more effectively than the achievement point system does, because its permanent, its there when ever you earn it, rather than demanding being actively on the game just to get any actual achievements.

There is a great plight on mmo gaming in the Elitist, and the Elitist thrives on the nobody being below them.

GW2 was selling itself as a game that catered to the nobody so that he/she could enjoy his or her game as they choose, and become somebody when they felt ready to commit to it.

That, is the way gaming should be, not casual, not unfair, but attainable, when you want, if you’re willing to dedicate yourself to it.

Now you’re probably wondering:

Whats the problem with leveling then?

Leveling itself is the problem, its simply an outdated method of achieving this, and doesn’t allow new people to play with vets, or to get to know many vets since they’re too busy and not interested in boosting some new kid to 80 when they can just play the game and ignore them.

This toxicity is what risks destroying the community and soul of GW2 before it has a chance to thrive.

So by making the process easier, and more rewarding, it also encourages the vets to come back, because they will have skills to unlock, all the while, helping new comers to reach the end game to start unlocking them.

Right now, there is no incentive to cooperate, with this, there is “every” incentive, to do so.

Scarlet’s playhouse and the tower of nightmares chamber will likely be fractals like Aether and Molten are.

The answer is that the game itself caters currently to the level 80 crowd but neglects those that are new to it, making new content quite difficult to catch up on, and the key to solving that is to eliminate the leveling process as effectively as possible, by increasing the methods and quantities of xp someone is required to attain end game leveling.

Note, end game leveling, with a refined skill system, that will require months of people actually going to get those skill points, unlocking the tiers, getting the most interesting utility abilities in the game, honed with balance of course, over the course of time.

New unlockables could also be worked on, for example, once one hits level 80 they could have a “fractal mode” for dungeons, which allows players to enter a tiered, scale heavy dungeon run that grants significantly more marks for each dungeon, but also adds agony, and even ups the mobs damage, health, and abilities in some cases to make them even more difficult.

This isn’t about stopping the hardcore from having his shining moment as a competitive player, nor is it about pandering to casuals to make the game too easy.

Its about making it accessible, and fun to everyone.

And I believe that starts by making it more accessible, while adding a proper end game to this game, which will require months of true dedication to properly attain to its fullest.

For start, do we need more levels?

You mean like 100, or 200? Not really, Level 100 would be a nice round even number but I wouldn’t really think of going further than that, Leveling after 100 would be a luxury, plus its kind of pointless in the long term other than to have the bragging right of an extra 0 to your numbers.

So really, I think if we get to level 100, after that we should focus more upon alternative means of progression that could be used to expand expansions, rather than using level 110-120-130 etc etc.

Proposal:

The Skill Tiers System:

Kind of like we currently have, we have a system where by you require 5 skill points to advance to the next tier of skills, then 15, then so on and so forth.

I propose, that at level 100 you have an “unlock” system for “prestige” tier abilities, that require you to grind out constant skill points via challenges, levels, other methods, that continue to allow progression after the ultimate number is hit, giving people motivation to unlock more things.

System Example:

First you have to unlock the tier itself with a number of skill points, this number ranges heavily and heightens significantly over the course of the game, so for each tier, the number is more punishingly high.

You are not obliged to reach it, you simply have an end game to reach now, for example:

First tier, 50 skill points, every ability also costs a min of 10 skill points, and every class has 5 skills to unlock at this tier.

Next tier, 100 skill points, and every skill costs 30 skill points to unlock.

The number gets steeper, and steeper, giving a motive to continue playing one character for the long term, just as much as playing many characters.

But that brings us back to alts, how do we go about that?

We already have achievements, which award some XP benefits and other gains for the long term account wide, but they aren’t enough I feel to justify doing it for the umpteenth time.

Really this is where we need to reduce some things, and add others.

Leveling Changes:
- Heart Quests should have the amount of influence required to fill them reduced, and the amount of XP gained from completing them increased, for those now behind, as well as those who have many alts. This will re-incentive’s people to actually explore the entire world instead of farming a single part of it during LS just to get fast levels.
- Personal Story should be do-able from “any” level regardless of the present system, you should get an immediate boost to level 80 while in personal story zones, and be able to solo the entire thing (considering it is “personal” story) you should also be able to do it from any location on the map.
- Dungeons should have a soloable story mode, rather than a group required version, to allow players that want to explore the DE storyline to have an easier time enjoying it, and getting immersed into it, while explorable mode should be made more challenging, and equally more xp rewarding in contrast.
- I get 2.5 Bars of XP per Keep I capture, 3.5 per Castle and 1.5 Per Tower… this is not significant enough to justify farming it on WvW long term just to hit an XP cap, long story short, every one of these xp amounts should be increased to another bar, upping castle caps to nearly half a level, keep caps to a third, and tower caps to a 1/4 of your level.
- SPvP’s refined system should include an accessibly easier way to reach level cap, via leveling up in PvP, possibly for every rank you attain you get an instant “level up” booster for your chars account bound to one char per boost.

Now for the additions:
- Remake “activities” so that they now give XP to Leveling instead of PvP.
- Add a passive method of increasing XP over time, such as a contribution system to your personal story hub, maybe you can use this to act as player housing, and over time help develop more community based development.
- Add ‘secondary’ personal stories to zones, giving a small mini story quest that offers a moderate boost of xp per zone, maybe there’s more than 1.
- Add more zones to actually level in, instead of making zones level 80. Southsun for example never sees the light of day at all these days, make anyone that goes there instantly boosted to 80 so they can farm it at will for Karka shells and quick Zerging.
- More “types” of dailies, not just a single one but multiple, such as, daily living story, daily dungeon/fractals, daily world exploration etc etc etc, each one completed offers a single level a day.
- Completing a monthly automatically rewards a player with 5 levels.

So, now your probably wondering why this is all so important…

We all hate it, we all love it, most importantly, we can all agree, there has to be a better way to do it.

Leveling, is boring.

You can still be a die hard leveler who loves to make 80’s on the fly and even you will admit that doing it for the tenth time in a row, gets taxing, tiring, repetitive and downright mind numbing.

The biggest problem with Leveling, is not in the leveling itself, grinding is a method, and for some its enjoyable, but for a lot of us it is not.

So whats your alternatives?

World Vs World:
- This is a double edged sword, with a mass population server this works favorably, but if your population is low, it rarely ends well.
- You can use this as a means to get about 20 levels a day if you’re patient enough.
- Its a chore for the hardcore, but not so friendly for casuals.

Dungeons:
- Dependent on being a minimum of level 30+ to start using this method to reach levels.
- Fast per run.
- Dependent strongly on having people willing to run them.
- LFG has created a toxic community of Achievement level specific players that wont take you in unless you get to X achievement level, so you better farm achievements if you want to be apart of it.

Fractals:
- LFG, see Above.
- Good if you’re able to adapt on the fly, but you’ll be farming lower fractals for a while just to get fast levels.
- People rarely want to boost people this way, ever.

SPvP:
- You can buy Level up Tomes with successful PvP Glory oh wait-
- Future PvP methods might have better ways to add leveling to the game.

Crafting:
- Works if you are patient, and have A LOT of money or are willing to buy gems to make a lot of money.
- Not so good if you lack the above two.

Living Story:
- Most LS content will boost you to 80 and allow you to participate in Zergs.
- Effective, but repetitive and boring after a while.
- Depends strongly on grinding for the most part.
- Battle for Lions Arch also awards level up tomes for 100 found belongings acquired per mob roundup.
- Advise having strong AOE heavy class for this.

World Quest/Exploration:
- Grindtastic Heart Quest Farming and reliance on Events.
- Easier to do but slow as hell.
- Will take you quite some time to do solo.

Personal Story:
- Only really works if you have farmed to later levels before hand.
- Not the best way to level quickly as later quests become too hard for you to do alone.

Whats the problem then?

Leveling is a bandwagon, especially in a game like GW2, where the content is end game heavy, and earlier game light.

Before one says, there’s no end game, there is, it lasts 2 weeks an episode before moving on with or without you.

It also creates a degree of disappointment for those that cant keep up.

So really the problem is, we need to get to 80 faster, we also need more rewarding ways to level up, faster.

This is where I go into part 2 of the topic, how to make this happen.

I only have one thing to say about /Duel

/No.

Regarding levels:

If they insist on adding more levels than 80 I could go with it if they max at 100 and then find some new way to progress beyond there.

I will have a proposal up for that later, but for now I think its better they “don’t” add new levels, rather, they add new zones “to” level in, since people are getting bored of the same old runs, more diversity wouldn’t hurt.

Regarding Maguuma and Magus:

- The Druids or more history on this archaic culture that acted as proto Sylvari.
- Possibly the Sidhe that were never used in the Utopia expansion.
- The other Pale Tree.
- Dragon Influence and the corruption of Mordremoth.
- Bloodstone Fen and the possible nod to Mursaat.

Its actually not impossible to assume that the Mursaat may yet be alive considering we only wiped out the ones that held regency over Kryta, not only that but they DID fight the dragons in the past, it’d be the perfect irony.

The enemy of my enemy is my ally, for now.

I for one like the idea that Scarlet died a bad guy, in the last 5 years of anime and video game releases there have been too many bad guys we feel sorry for in the end or want to become good guys secretly.

No, letting her die a mad, psychopath with that terrifying “I win” grin on her face in her death was perfect, she died how she lived, insane to the very end.

If she had been better engineered to be a bad guy we pity, maybe I would have felt sorry for her, but in the end, her actions spoke louder than her words, she was responsible for genocide and mass murder, there is no need to forgive monsters.

I would have considered her an anti-villain had she been more tragic from the start, and someone you felt sorry for earlier on, but even in the beginning, she was just cold, ruthless and downright malevolent.

Its actually nice and refreshing to have a bad guy that despite her back story, I don’t feel sorry for, because sometimes its better to hate a villain than to pity them.

Interesting idea, dragon v dragon, but I think that if anything like that were to happen it’d be more likely Primordus Vs Jormag.

A actual dragon fight would be ‘awesome’ to say the least, but do remember, even if they fight each other, who ever wins, we loose, they have no redeeming qualities and have no care for anyone between the destruction.

Which means we get to nuke the winner with what ever powerful weapon we develop magical, technological, or old ancient powers to use against them both.

However, Id save the Dragons themselves for Personal Story and expansions, the Living Story could have dragon minions, and dragon influence, but actual dragons might be pushing it too far, plus it eliminates the suspense if we go through the “systematically killing off every dragon” story.

If the situation called for the tragic death of such a potentially interesting character then yes, Taimi would definitely bring a few tear jerkers to their worst state.

I actually think Taimi dying would be the best possible twist, because it’d show how great heroes no matter how difficult their lives can still die, that said, if she does die, I believe she deserves to die a heroic death, and go out with an epic bang, taking out a dragon or something incredible.

So short answer, Yes, but only if she gets to go in some ridiculously epic manner.

I actually would like the idea that on the Isle of Janthir, Surprise surprise, the Mursaat become an anti-villain playable race, in the most ironic of twists they agree to help us, bitterly, and grudgingly, and remain distrusted, but allied to the races of Tyria on loose terms.

The Sylvari storyline is coming to a close, I think of the personal story and living story as chapters 1 and 2 of the Sylvari chain, with Mordremoth being the final chapter in the Sylvari, for a while I suspect.

They have a final story to tell and I’m happy to let them tell it, but after this id like the other races to get “a lot” more attention, I do want the Sylvari heavy theme of Mordremoth to be just that however, Sylvari heavy.

Make enough Sylvari content that it focuses entirely on giving a kitten about this one race of plant people, and in turn their contribution to the world they can give back to it for helping them.

This final Sylvari themed story should focus entirely on Sylvari character development and I emphasis “Character” not race.

This means:
Canach, Caithe, Faolain, Malyck, Treaherne, (Possibly a return to Sieren).

I would focus heavily on these guys being the main people that need major char development in this arc.

Also, maybe a small nod to Scarlet post her death with a bit of exposition back story about what Scarlet knew about Caithe and how she found out.

Is it favoritism? Yes, Is it needed, yes.

While id like more Charr and Norn stuff, and Asura stuff, I do think Sylvari need to have their story finished especially the way LS S1 ended, it set up the stage for Sylvari’s tale to come to its final closure in the next chapter which is greatly needed.

Considering the sheer size of Tyria I significantly doubt there are only 6 Elder Dragons, there are probably 6 in the continental region of Tyria (by the same name) but the actual planet?

The planet is gargantuan.

We haven’t even scraped a tenth of it yet, which means many more dragons will likely exist, we just happen to be in a region that only 6 are known to in that direct location.

Regarding the potential fate of Tyria if all the dragons are defeated, well lets imagine it for a second.

We noticed that Scarlet disrupted a lay line, which sent magic into the maw of Mordremoth, awakening him.

This also implies that magic can also be used to ascend people and equally terraform them into gods.

Yes, you can see the danger now…

Magic could lead to Tyria’s destruction because without a beast to annihilate all civilization, civilization will become too advanced for its own good, wars will be waged between the races and over time, the utter collapse of the world will follow.

We are the greatest threat to the world, for once we have saved it, whats to stop us from conquering it?
Nothing.

I think we are overlooking the X Race V X Dragon thing, remember:

The Durmond Priory makes a note of how there were 6 dragons and only 5 races, so that means that evidently, they were overwhelmed, there was no specific role.

The Sylvari are tied to Mordremoth, most likely like the Sidhe (An unused race in Gw who id love to see appear somehow) are to Druids.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Sidhe

The most likely explanation of the Sylvari is that they are the descendants of the Druids, a race of now forgotten Humans in Gw mythology, considering they look physically like human, with plant like growths, and adapt their teachings from Ventari’s Tablet.

They also have the ability to summon a druid spirit as a racial, further strengthening the high probability the Sylvari are essentially “modeled” off the Human Race, but obviously have very obvious genetic differences.

Their relation to Mordremoth however was blatantly implied from day one, their “immunity” to the corruption of dragons could be no coincidence, not to mention Sylvari structures ability to terraform the land passively, isn’t so different from the way Dragon Corruption works.

The only question now is that with Mordremoths awakening, will the Sylvari remain dormant, or over time will the same thing that happened to Scarlet extend to other Sylvari, thus confirming they are little more than slaves to the Dragon’s will.

Then again, Glint defied her master, it isn’t impossible for other dragons or minions of dragons to do the same, evidenced by this.

The Norn that joined with Svanir weren’t like that from the start, the idea of them being intended to be Dragon Minions is unlikely since they never “intended” to join Dragon until Jora unintentionally made a dark martyr out of Svanir.

Likewise, the entire back story of Humanity before the Charr invaded was about the “Guild Wars” which had the human nations falling into civil chaos, Kryta, Ascalon, Orr in the end were too busy destroying themselves from within to actually worry about Charr, it was only the impending Charr invasion that ended the Guild Wars in the first place.

Human’s weakness in the setting has been their strength, they are a proud, arrogant race of very ambitious individuals, some for good, many for evil.

The themes of all 3 of Guild Wars original storyline before EOTN themed around humanity and its flaws, 9/10 times every story had a human antagonist and human protagonists. You also forget the conflict between the Margonites (Former Humans) and the Elonans, or the fact the Kurzics and Luxons during Factions timeline were fighting wars over Jade.

Humans are the most ignorant race in the setting, that’s why even now with Kryta reborn, the Ministry and the Royal Retainers exist, and I can guarantee eventually the Ministry will have a shot at trying to take over Kryta, since its the nature of the Human race to destroy itself before the dragons do.

Gnashblade is definatley not E despite what people think, hes too much of a kitten to actually be E especially considering he despises everyone passionately.

If I was to pin the tail on the donkey, id say E is Lord Faren, given he stalked Kasmeer by smuggling on board a ship and equally turned up at the most ironic moment to try to save Jennah.

I believe his bumbling noble act is just that, an act, and when he isn’t pretending to be nervous he is in fact quite a talented informant of espionage.

Also do remember he got into trouble a lot over events we have not seen him involved with, which begs the question as to why?

Hes also a prominent figure of the Human Noble story, where he openly helps you expose and denounce the corruption of a Human Noble in the Ministry.

E’s actions are also mostly centered around DR which is also where Faren is fond of hanging around, further implying E and Faren are linked in some way.

Other unanswered questions on that note:

- What was the exact agreement the Zephyrites made with Kiel, and exactly when will it be applied to Living Story.
- The Karka and Southsun, the Consortium, will these guys ever make major appearances again, and will Southsun ever potentially become the Consortium version of LA?
- Mai-Trin choosing to hang in the mists, Scarlet also ordering her to go there in the first place, why?
- Braham’s mysterious girlfriend who was noted to exist in the Living Story and have been saved during Flame and Frost, but never once appeared, also, exactly why did the prisoner that Braham talked to during that very chapter say “I don’t want to talk about it” when Braham asked about her? Is she a potential villain for later? I am curious.
- Why Did Scarlet need the Aetherblade Facility to produce so many ships and exactly how did she manage to produce such a formidable fleet and toxic army when we allegedly dissolved both? Not to mention the Molten Alliance being crushed in the first patch.
- Why did Countess Anise seem to be trying to keep Logan far from Jennah? Is there going to be a rift in their romance soon? Could Jennah be evil just as people suspected? (Or Anise, for that matter?) Especially given her “personal touch” when one of the watch knights conveniently turned into a peeved Rytlock just to upset Logan.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, myself? I pay attention, and I suspect I am not the only one, but others likely have other questions.

My advise to A-net is, if you cant give the answer, write more short stories for “post” living world events to cover missing pieces, since we wont likely revisit things we cant go back to, it’d be better to have some gap fillers.

I think you’re looking into this too deeply.

The Charr are a primal race who have become independent of their former archaic ways, they are a race of conquerors, the flame legion was just a means to an end.

The Norn have no love of dragons, at all, they never have, they utterly despise dragons probably more than any of the other races of Tyria, even before they had to face off with them.

The Asura really don’t care about Dragons, they’re to occupied studying the depths and intricacies of the universe to honestly give a kitten about some over sized reptiles trying to devour everything.

Humans are too busy killing themselves, even during GW1 and its prologue The Guild Wars themselves, Humans have always been more interested in killing and conquering humans than actually fighting dragons.

And Sylvari?

Well they’re the wildcard, we don’t know with 100% certainty they are linked to dragons but Scarlets story does gives us some kind of link, especially when Omadd’s machine only allowed her to explore what was already within her own subconscious.

So, possibly? But the rest of the races, no, no link at all.

The biggest problems with the Tengu is that the Tengu are basically “Parrot Charr” aka: Their racial traits and personality types are almost exactly the same, they are just bird versions of Charr with less technology and more Samurai stuff, but otherwise, their actual personality types are exactly the same.

The Largos are more likely to be added as a playable race primarily for 3 reasons:

1. Actual humanoid bodies with unique animations for male and female on land.
2. Easier to make into a playable species modeling wise and timing wise since most of the real challenge would be for their wings and how to implement them in game mechanics.
3. Lore Wise, the Largos have a fresher outlook on their back story, they add a mystery that the other five races lack, they are a race of underwater “Predator” inspired fellows that have a fondness of hunting, assassination and secrecy, which makes them the “Dark Hero” trope we don’t currently have among the 5 races of Tyria.
4. Adding Largos would also be the perfect way to refine Underwater Combat giving a heavily underwater centric expansion to help give Underwater Combat more value in the game.
5. The Tengu at present are more xenophobic than ever, its actually more likely they may end up becoming antagonists than allies, at least until they are subdued.
6. The Tengu don’t really have any interesting lore going for them, since they were added mostly as a Cantha thing which means the real strength of their lore actually came from the Canthan Empire fondly trying to obliterate them.
7. Bird People Vs Elf-Like Sea Assassins, come on?

On a final note, I don’t think the Tengu are a bad race, but they need to be more interesting, presently, they are just bird people, with very minimalistic lore, even in Gw1 they were never particularly “deep” or engaging, so if they do become playable, they need a major lore overhaul to make them more interesting and also to give them some diversity from the Charr which presently they are too similar to.

Animal: They blatantly confirmed its Mordremoth, they even added a Twitter account that Scarlet Briars twitter now follows.

Regarding the future methods of Living World:

Story is a two sided coin, make it too one dimensional it becomes boring, too diverse, it becomes confusing.

The danger is they go for the confusing path that Living World has done this Season that left a lot more people upset than happy because of its frustratingly loophole filled plot devices.

While I don’t think its a bad idea to have breaks from a main plot, I think its better to have “one” story over many, because at least then you can focus entirely on developing that segment of the world, before moving on, which in a way, works more favorably to giving conclusion and letting us change the flow of storyline somewhere new.

Idea for Catchup:
The Atlas System is interesting to generate little snippets of teasers for the future, but using it to reference the past is pretty lame, honestly.

My suggestion, is a lore book, in game, that speaks to the player, using the talented voice acting of that wonderful woman in the trailers for the content. It tells us the dictated story lines of events we have missed in a story format e.g. “The Legend Of Scarlet Briar” (Season 1 Recap).

Season 2 could have something like “The Wrath of Mordremoth” which gives you parts of the entire story that are filled in as each previous piece of content is left behind. That way the story is more complete until you have caught up to the current events.

Idea For Flow:
To make the pacing better again, as suggested at my OP, consider the focus of a story to be generally “the main plot” with a few side stories to help develop stuff going on outside it. But ultimately, keep the main arc of each “season” generally focused on one thing at a time.

The format id go for is:

1 Main Story
2 Side Stories
1 Character Personal Arc (e.g. a personal story about Rox or Braham) and their personal background development
1 Random Event (Not including Seasonal Events) per year

This to me would be the ideal way to make the story work favorably, so you have the main plot, in S2’s case it could be, Mordremoth, while having 2 side stories, which could be…

Evon Gnashblade forming his own Lionguard replacement or joining the consortium and becoming its president, rivaling the Lionguard for rights to control LA’s future.

Tensions between The Ministry and the Royalty escalate in Kryta, leading to a crucial decision that will change the fate of the leadership of DR forever.

Personal story example:

Jory and Kas are having a wedding! They need the players to help prepare for the celebrations while former enemies of both (from their personal past) try to ruin the affair.

Random Event:

Something akin to Dragonbash, with some ceremonial value to a certain race (or races) of Tyria.

Thats’ the format id go for, with most of the additions focusing on Mordremoth, the Magus Falls/Maguuma Wastes, the Sylvari/Asura involvement and the main chars of both races being heavily involved in the plot of S2.