Guild Wars 2

Actually, it could be funny to run into such circumstances that Rox and Braham get alone and semi-naked (and injured), and they are asking themselves if their brotherhood of arms could lead to some mild hetero- or homeo-sexual opportunistic relationship. Imagine Rox palpating Braham’s twigh and taunting him to be more like a meaty and tasty bull than a real and appealing warrior, but this could be kind of an interesting experience, and Braham answering that he wouldn’t figure to hug a woolly dolyak skin, even if he could spend the night stroking and patting such a soft fur. Both would like to share something more beyond friendship, but would hold on to some tender gestures and soft half-ironical words, bewildered by such cultural and racial differences, and yet similarities.
I believe the writers may have an opportunity for some real and subtle work here.

Beware the form under which she’s going to return!

The charr:

• The Personal Story allows you to start and recruit again:
  - your fellow partner,
  - your father (optionally),
  - a NPC saved (an elementalist if I remember)

• You could have recruited all the worthy NPC you encouter in your quests, and at least a honorable gladium in the Black Citadel, and even a non-charr because your warband is not the everyone’s warband, but the personal body guard of your Legion’s Second in command (you). I’d have ended the PS with a complete and ready for action warband (made out of gladiums), the real spec-op of my legion.
• Also, what do you think about the #2 or #3 in the Ash Legion hierarchy (you) entering any Order? Seriously, no double agent here? I’d have a single PS mission to return at the Black Citadel and discuss with my Legion Commander, and Rhytlock about what is the charr purpose. I believe that it would have helped you to feel like a charr.
• Then there is the elite skill: two chars from my legion appearing from nowhere… couldn’t have they been from my own warband (appearing from nowhere as well)?
• The warband could have follow you in the Pact (and before), not helping you in the fights, just being there, showing at the beginning of an instance… They would have been your eyes and hears, your scouts, your escort. Belonging to the Vigil, you would have found an atypical group of charrs at Vigil Keep (and then at other outposts further south when the PS unfolds), in Legion uniform : your guys. Salute and dialogues when you approaches… The same was possible at the Chantry because it’s an instance too (that could have been private). For the Priory, I don’t know (if a public zone, you would need a big group from the three legions…).

[Godwin]Well, what are we waiting for now, instead of declaring war on each other at once? Is Europe in so bad a shape that it needs its little war of the century to regain some stamina, or did it grow in maturity and modernity since the last major one?[/Godwin]

If Scarlet has became mad for some time before the end, how can we explain all her acts with logic alone?

I’d see three path:

• She was kind of subtly corrupted by the dragon in the Dream, and looked for awake him, becoming his champion. She even wished to die right at the moment when he awoke, knowing that she could return to another… form (thus taunting the player into killing her).
• She decided to awoke the dragon before his time, for some reason she saw in the Dream, or beyond, and knew that no one, nor Mother nor the Pact, would agree to do so. She’s a sylvari with kind of an asuran mind, free from any Venturi teachings, and thus totally amoral by human standards.
• She encountered a greater threat (“the Great Devourer of Worlds”) that drew her mad, but in her madness, she managed to assert that only an alliance of all the Elder Dragons, god-given magic and a few heroes would have any chance to oppose to. Corrupted beings are lesser, spiritless draconic servants, but enlightened draconic servants, such as Scarlet, the champions and what will become some heroes in a few years, are full-fledged magically enhanced creatures who will ultimately fight on behalf of the world’s true defenders. I mean, the true defenders of the Cycle of Magic.

Plant reproduction is more complex than the mammal one, but obviously the Pale Tree is even more alien. A normal plant would either clone itself, or make seeds by itself (autogamy), or make seeds with sexual partners (allogamy). Autogamy would lead to clones (except for some mutations during the seed formation), allogamy would allow for out-crossing. But all these cases would result in another tree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoecious

Let’s consider out-crossing, and keep “rational”:

Either you consider the sylvari as being intermediary spore/seed/egg bearers (as it is common with parasitic life forms) that are simply walking fruits… that would be sterile for now… (I mean, the seed the bear are sterile, not the nutshell the sylvari are). There seems to be big flowers in the Grove, and pollen (?) floating everywhere.

Or you consider them as not being part of the reproductive apparatus of the Pale Tree, only a byproduct of it. Yes, she call them “fruits” and “children”, but only like a static hymenopteran queen would call its sterile walking worker “children” (or daughters).

A third solution could be that two children of two different trees could be inter-fertile gamete bearers or producers… like walking male and female gametocytes (resp. pollen and immature ovum), or outright walking reproductive organs (with same genetic material for both gender of the same tree).

Haaznahnuff.1907:

Now, after having read the Scarlett novel, I’m less sure about the Dream of Dreams.

I really got the feeling that the Dream wasn’t made up from sylvari experience fragments only, but something pre-existing, older than the Pale Tree, maybe a medium used by the Tree to communicate with her children.

About how sylvari learned to speak vehicular Tyrian, I’d guess that the Pale Tree gained this knowledge like he got Ronan’s memories, and that this is part of the Dream’s infused teachings. What’s why I wrongly used “full-grown”; I should have used “fully educated” instead. Educated, infused, but not trained! They really are like amnesic adolescents.

Thanks for the GW1 lore I was lacking. It could explain somehow how Malyck could possibly be so close to a sylvari. But still, it would quite ruin all that has been told about the Pale Tree, in case the mere contact with Ronan in the seeds cavern would have been enough to “make all the job” the adult Pale Tree had to do with her proper child-pods.

A solution to Malyck’s enigma could be that the only specificity of the Pale Tree are the Ventari tablets and Ronan’s dedication (and memories). The rest, the sylvari morphology, the ability to speak right after the awakening, etc., would come from another source. Again, it would be against what has been told, but lore may be twisted a bit, doesn’kitten

The dragon approach is very… stimulating.

Notwithstanding the above lore and RP arguments, wouldn’t naming a character as “Havroun of” be quite borderline according to the few naming rules that are upon us? It would be the same for “Eirsson” or “Voice of the Wolfborn”, e.g., wouldn’kitten

I was unable to retrieve this rule under the Naming policy but the “be influenced, but don’t mess with GW2 lore (past, present and future)”, I’m pretty sure to have read it somewhere. Or maybe did I have over-interpreted the policy. ^^

Oh please, get “n_’_t__it” out of the filter!!

Hello there,

I think that you are over-estimating a bit the role of the Dream in the sylvari education.
Sylvari awake full-grown and it should be so without the Dream. The Dream seems to give them motivation, intuition to help them determinate some of their choices. It prepares them to the open world also, by attenuating the awakening shock. Menders are still needed in most of the cases, at least psychologically. One could say that Malyck benefited from a Warden mender.
Know-how wise, the sylvari don’t awake fully-able and master-craftmen, they may have roughly witnessed the basics from inside the Dream so that they may be basically efficient more rapidly, and that’s all.

As for the other Tree, what we discussed about on the French forum was:

• how can Malyck be so akin to the children of the Pale Tree, whereas it is stated that the Pale Tree shaped her children in allegeance of Ronan. She even simulated the gender dimorphism of the humanity, because she accessed Ronan’s or Ronan’s family memories. Except for Ronan, his family and followers, the Pale Tree have had no contact with humanity before the firstborn went outside the Grove.
• why Malyck’s tree wouldn’t have been “seeded” by a hylek or an asura?
• is it a design oversight? (Conversely, how could they know explain for the very human shape of Malyck?)

Now, after having read the Scarlett novel, I’m less sure about the Dream of Dreams.

My 2 cp.

Only the actor performance, though. But it is worth to be praised, you are perfectly right.

When fun becomes work

There. For me, fun is being a virtual actor in a persistent virtual world, where I have a reasonable number of activities to socialize, test myself, and evade from irl (like in a conscious dream, a book or a movie). Anything that opposes these premises generates a sense of frustration.

So, if any activity (in GW2: fighting, gathering, exploring) doesn’t make any sense for my avatar, I will most certainly start questionning why am I doing that (in stead of doing another activity or disconnecting from the game).

So, to answer the OP, we should answer these questions :

• When gathering in a persistent, coherent virtual world starts becoming grinding, and what mechanic favours this impression?
• When fighting starts becoming grinding?
• When exploring starts becoming grinding?

That said, I am well aware that whereas GW2 has tried to be nearer to a real MMORPG (not that weird sort of game we’ve got since computer games were in infancy), the usual technical limitations are prevalent. However, I think that the sense of grind (in the negative sense) can be mostly avoided by a clever and scripted design of the open world. Work still in progress ?