Guild Wars 2

Makes sense, I guess

Demented Sheep.1642:

It has some elements similar to but is not rennaissance Europe so there is no issue. It makes perfect sense that they could be tolerant of it as other cultures have been. T

They also couldn’t just bring this stuff in and then do nothing significant with it and they probably don’t want to focus that much on this subplot or the story is going to get muddled. It makes more sense to include racism/speciecism plots because the races learning to work together and get past previous conflict to fight the dragons is focus point for the story. That said the racism stuff is still fairly light in this story and not from the same mindset (great chain of being) that Europe was either.

Racism only became prominent in the Industrial Age during the time of colonial empires; that’s when people came up with such thing as scientific racism.

That is, I am pretty sure there was an asura in my personal story that described a pretty kitten Nationalsocialistische racial hierarchy: Asura > Sylvari > Humans > Charr > Norn, I believe.

Fluffball.8307:

It would be terrible PR because the issue is still so fresh in our world. They can use speciesism as a metaphor for xenophobia or racism in our world because those are issues we’ve been dealing with for millennia. Homophobia is way too recent. When I was a child it was accepted by pretty much the entire world that that was the correct way to think.

And it still is in among many in my country. sigh My mother included. (though she is more heteronormative, she respects gays but is not accepting of their lifestyle)

I guess you’re right. GW2 isn’t edgy enough for that kind of thing.

Templar.3418:

Doesn’t agree with you = narrow minded. Logic lol.

What are you talking about?

Danikat.8537:

(Speaking in very general terms it’s only really the Abrahamic religions that go in for explicit rules, so that’s not surprising.)

Dharmic, too!

It may even be that their families aren’t concerned because they practice some form of polyamory. Which actually wasn’t that uncommon amongst nobility in various parts of the world throughout history, although more so for men. You’d have your husband or wife, your official partner whose children would be your heirs, and then you’d also have one or more mistresses who you actually liked and wanted to spend time with. This is why some countries had established systems for nobility to acknowledge and provide for their illegitimate children.

So maybe Kas and Jory’s families are assuming that yes, they have their female lover but when the time comes they will each take a husband as well and have children with him.

^ This would actually make a lot of sense in Renaissance society.

Ponku.7925:

Imperios.2543:

That’s what I don’t get. Classism and racism is a thing in Kryta, but gays are fine?

As we can read in this thread, we can find a reasons why classism and racism exist in Kryta, but the main reason of homophobia does not exist there.

Imperios.2543:

Producing heirs too is obviously important in Kryta given that they have nobles, unless it is like Imperial China or Russian Empire where you can recieve an aristocratic title through military service or passing an exam.

Your explanation for gaining nobility may be true for Kryta, aslo there can be magicaly induced pregnancy, which wouldn’t require ppl of different gender to engage to have a heir.

Also from your original post i understood that you wonder why noone form ingame characters find they relationship unusual and i thought that was mostly what ppl tried to answer here, that from what we can understand in Kryta there is no prejudice toward that and why.

Come to think about it, a Rennaissance society with no homophobia is probably concievable. So I guess it’s like Ancient Greece… though magical-induced pregnancy seems to be more like an asura thing.

Which brings us back to the suggestion I came up with a few posts ago.

We should see a LGBT charr erastes and eromenos romantic duo! Would be fun.

…

…

…

Still would like a forbidden love story. Though I can’t see any other species aside from humans as homophobic so… interspecies romance! Yay!

Sitkaz.5463:

Imperios.2543:

What I said is that it’d be interesting to use the fact that KasJory are lesbian and make people oppose their romance; ever heard of stories of forbidden love? “Othello”, “Romeo and Juliet”, like that. This way their story would become more realistic and less idealised.

People who encounter opposition to gay romance all the time in real life might not find it all that enchanting and romantic to encounter it in a fantasy world too.

It would make their romance more relateable then. Right now KasJory love just popped out of nothingness which I don’t get.

kippey.9860:

Imperios, I think you are REALLY over thinking this. The objective of the GW2 writers is clearly not historical realism, or we would not be seeing women really anywhere except for in the domestic sphere and the marketplace. Many societies are based around reproductive viability and producing of heirs but Tyria is not one of them.

As great as forbidden love would be, the only difficulty I see would be if somehow Kasmeer reclaimed her noble titles and social class got in the way of things. Even in the Dead End, Marjory’s sister expressed reservations about Kasmeer’s class.

That’s what I don’t get. Classism and racism is a thing in Kryta, but gays are fine?

Producing heirs too is obviously important in Kryta given that they have nobles, unless it is like Imperial China or Russian Empire where you can recieve an aristocratic title through military service or passing an exam.

Aedelric.1287:

We have no crazy religions in Guild Wars to dictate moral ethics and it is a fantasy world with exotic races not real life. The writers can write a Utopian society that has no gender/sexual inequality if they choose and I think it good that they did. Showing any form of unpleasant discrimination is bad as the game has an age rating of 12 and needs to be careful about what message it sends to young people.

B-b-b-but saying “crazy religions” is discrimination as well. And there are multiple faiths in GW2, some of which can be quite weird.

That, and I don’t think children will imitate everything they see on the screen. It’s not like KasJory will turn everyone gay, isn’kitten

CeruleanRevolver.6085:

Things are unusual only because we are not familiar with it. I would say it’s comparable with how pancakes look like in the east and in the west.

I would implore you to question what is normal, especially if values is not part of the factors to be considered. However I do think people are limiting themselves to too much real world opinion in a fantasy world with giant talking cats and magic eating dragons.

The question that should be asked tho, is how the heck Belinda knows about the relationship between Majory and Kasmeer, unless Marjory had been telling her about, and Marjory doesn’t come off to me as a person who would talk about a love interest to her family, or Kasmeer would’ve met them at one point throughout the year.

Yeah, there are societies where homosexuality was not unusual, which is why I stated that it would mak sense for LGBT charr or asura pairings to be free of persecution, but probably not human ones because their society based on cultures that condoned gay people.

Why do people twist my words so much?

I never said homosexuality is bad, I never said it did not exist in Renaissance Europe, I never said it did not exist before that (i.e Ancient Greece) and in fact suggested a Greek erastes/eromenos romance story, I never said was Christian-centric…

I am an agnostic, for God’s sake! I oppose my country’s “gay propaganda prohibition” laws! I myself am a minority!

What I said is that it’d be interesting to use the fact that KasJory are lesbian and make people oppose their romance; ever heard of stories of forbidden love? “Othello”, “Romeo and Juliet”, like that. This way their story would become more realistic and less idealised.

I loved Valerie’s story in V for Vendetta and it is for that reason that I’d like to include a story like this in GW2.

Carighan.6758:

Imperios.2543:

For males, yes; not for females. Lesbianism was still an unusual thing (probably not persecuted much but still) – take Sappho, for example – and in many cultures it wasn’t even considered to be a form of sexuality (like in China).

Yeah, but if you combine the lack of religious social influence we had with the gender equality Tyria enjoys, it’s easy to see why lesbian relationships would be nothing out of the ordinary.

And being a fantasy world, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were “normal” to still have male lovers around for purposes of kids. Not sure Tyrians are sold much on monogamy in the first place, tbh.

Plus, you know… I did get the feeling that Rox was a bit curious. Maybe it was supposed to hint that Charr don’t consider homosexual love weird, but she thought Humans would?

1) Lack of religious influence: Ahem… humans seem quite religious, even if their faith is mostly pagan.
2) Man for procreation: That would make a lot of sense, I guess! That’s what many RL LGBT people did before the modern era where our low child mortality rate allowed them to be less concerned about maintaining human population.
3) THAT would make even more sense. From charr’s tight-knit communal spirit, to their Greco-Roman culture, to their strong division between romance and procreation, it seems to me that homosexuality would be quite widespread among them.

Now we need a gay charr Ancient Greek-ish erastes/eromenos duo. That’d be cool

Jornophelanthas.1475:

If we continue Imperios’ argument, we get something like this:
“Why not include pedofilia, cannibalism, sexually transmitted diseases or (gasp) visible genitalia? Those all exist in the real world, so why should they not exist in Guild Wars 2?”

Unless we would want all of that in the game too, Imperios’ argument is not valid. Tyria is a fantasy world. ArenaNet has the artistic license to use or not use any elements from the real world, and to add or not add any elements that do not exist in the real world. We as players have the choice to either accept this fantasy, or to move on to a different game.

So if people don’t like Tyria for not exhibiting enough intolerance for homosexuality, this might not be the right fiction for them.

Reductio ad absurdem isn’t a legit tool in debating. Besides, it’s pedophilia and we do have cannibalism in GW2 (RISEN).

I don’t know why I asked for a darker story. Maybe it’s because my first and favourite universe was Warhammer, dunno. Or maybe I wanted a story of forbidden love because I loved Valerie in V for Vendetta. I was genuinely touched by her lesbian romance.

Actually… guys. I guess what you said kinda makes sense. I assume Kryta is a bit like Ancient Greece but with more gender equality like in Northern Europe.

GRexCarolinii.9604:

Rather than having “no reason for LGBT to be accepted”
it is far more the case of “no reason for LGBT to NOT be accepted”

Tyria is a fantasy world. Whilst it may have some resemblence to our Earth; there are many things that are different, and thus none of our norms could apply.

How is having dragons, multiple sentient races, so many different types of magic, and the mists; how are all of these more believable than the acceptance of LGBT relationships?

Our discriminations are mostly learned-and-taught. I would go as far as to say that “not being able to have children” is more a retrospective excuse for discrimination, rather than any sort of reason for it.
After all: many animals show homosexual tendencies.
whereas the human race is the only species to display homophobia…

We have racism in GW2; sexism, too. Why not homophobia?

Alice.8694:

Imperios.2543:

Why didn’t anyone in the Living Story (Marjory’s sister, the PC, D.E. 2, other chars et cetera) find it surprising or unusual?

The kingdom of Kryta is vaguely similar to late Rennaissance or early Industrial Age Europe (with elements from other cultures like China); sure, lesbians weren’t be heavily persecuted in that period but homosexuality still wasn’t completely socially acceptable either…

And the only thing Marjory’s sis cares about is that Kasmeer’s a noble? It doesn’t make sense! People cared about heirs a lot back then; women were supposed to mother children. Besides, Christianity (which generally prefers you to stay straight or at least make babies) was highly important back then, and given what we know about Krytans, GW2 humans too are quite religious.

I understand LGBT not being a problem in futuristic settings like Mass Effect when people have learned to be tolerant and have likely developed cloning technology to make the main difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality redundant. I would understand socially acceptable gay and lesbian relationships among the asura (for the same reasons), the sylvari (self-explanatory), the charr (they’re vaguely Greco-Roman, and we all know how they loved homosexuality), the norn (ditto, they are Vikings/Native Americans and neither really looked down at gays)… but the Rennaissance/Industrial, European humans? How is it possible for homosexuality to be completely normal in such a setting? Yes, GW2 is a fantasy, but it is still somewhat… jarring.

I’m not saying ANet shouldn’t have tried to add some lesbian romance between humans. What I’m trying to say is that they should not have made their relationship completely normal. Let them be persecuted, if only a bit; naturally, they wouldn’t care about what others would think of them and, ta-dah, love would triumph! Realism aside, this would make their love story way more interesting and deep.

Most homophobia in European history stems from the spread and dominance of a certain group of religions within the area. Tyria lacks this cultural history and therefore what you are suggesting would be out of place and forced.

For males, yes; not for females. Lesbianism was still an unusual thing (probably not persecuted much but still) – take Sappho, for example – and in many cultures it wasn’t even considered to be a form of sexuality (like in China).

Ponku.7925:

It’s a fantasy world, even if similar to some extent with human history. But as we can see woman in the army without any discrimination about it or being friends with other races it’s clear that this world is different (and better ) than our history. Also about religion discriminating homosexuality, it usually is because of concieving children, and given the state of magic in Tyria i dont see a reason why it can’t be induced by it.
Also about lack of LGBT in history it not exactly true. It existed for a long time (like you mentioned about Romans) even in reneisance era europe (would even say especially then), it just wasn’t considered good topic to discuss. And since in Tyria we can’t see a reason why it would be discriminated i dont think it’s so unlikely that it isn’t suprising for anyone around them.

Well, it’s a bit weird for me to see so many women in the army too, but I assume it makes sense because Tyria is a magical world. And yes, I was not saying that gays did not exist during the Rennaissance, merely that they weren’t very vocal back then and tended to be a tad persecuted. What I’d like too see is something similar to the life of Oscar Wilde.

Kasmeer writing “De Profundis”. Now that’d be interesting.

lordkrall.7241:

Just because something is similar to the real world doesn’t mean it is identical.
The fact that they allow friendship between different races for one would be a rather big difference from the real world during that period and so on.

The people in Tyria is basically not as narrow-minded and silly as the Earth counterpart.

B-b-but… their government is ran by corrupt warmongers, there is a psychotic extremist cult on loose (one that ruled Kryta, even) and the only reason racism isn’t a thing in GW2 is because speciecism is stronger (many humans in Ascalon despise the charr as far as I know). So there is some discrimination.

There has to be a reason for complete social acception of LGBT people. It would make more sense if there were ways for them to concieve children through magic and/or technology, for example… though that would be weird. The asura could pull that off, though.

Why didn’t anyone in the Living Story (Marjory’s sister, the PC, D.E. 2, other chars et cetera) find it surprising or unusual?

The kingdom of Kryta is vaguely similar to late Rennaissance or early Industrial Age Europe (with elements from other cultures like China); sure, lesbians weren’t be heavily persecuted in that period but homosexuality still wasn’t completely socially acceptable either…

And the only thing Marjory’s sis cares about is that Kasmeer’s a noble? It doesn’t make sense! People cared about heirs a lot back then; women were supposed to mother children. Besides, Christianity (which generally prefers you to stay straight or at least make babies) was highly important back then, and given what we know about Krytans, GW2 humans too are quite religious.

I understand LGBT not being a problem in futuristic settings like Mass Effect when people have learned to be tolerant and have likely developed cloning technology to make the main difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality redundant. I would understand socially acceptable gay and lesbian relationships among the asura (for the same reasons), the sylvari (self-explanatory), the charr (they’re vaguely Greco-Roman, and we all know how they loved homosexuality), the norn (ditto, they are Vikings/Native Americans and neither really looked down at gays)… but the Rennaissance/Industrial, European humans? How is it possible for homosexuality to be completely normal in such a setting? Yes, GW2 is a fantasy, but it is still somewhat… jarring.

I’m not saying ANet shouldn’t have tried to add some lesbian romance between humans. What I’m trying to say is that they should not have made their relationship completely normal. Let them be persecuted, if only a bit; naturally, they wouldn’t care about what others would think of them and, ta-dah, love would triumph! Realism aside, this would make their love story way more interesting and deep.

This.

This is an excellent idea.

ArenaNet, you ought to do this.

This.

This is an excellent idea.

ArenaNet, you ought to do this.

Even my four year old sister commented on that.

“We killed the main zombie dragon, why are there still zombies?”

Cody Crichton.7516:

Hello Mad Queen,

Not all attacks made by bosses need to be audibly telegraphed ahead of time in order for players to know they need to react to them. For instance, bosses can use instant skills and there is no telling when they may fire. Another example is the case where there is nothing visually to tie the sound to since something has to sensibly make the sound, it can’t be placed in arbitrarily just before a boss uses any of its skills.

However, bosses sometimes have a strong visual tell for their attack (such as a warmup of some kind). We agree with you, that often these types of attacks need audio tells to coincide with them—and in so many cases they do already have one.

Which boss were you fighting that didn’t have a clearly audible tell for a warmup-type attack? Unless your report is made specific, there is very little chance of audio-tell bugs getting a fix.

I shall also note that bosses also need to speak as well so that they would have actual personalities. I mean, no Toxic or Molten Alliance member has so much as a name!

Aaron Ansari.1604:

As to why the aesthetic has changed, it’s likely attributable to Kryta basically being a melting pot now, with significant populations from four very different nationalities.

Doesn’t look like a melting pot to me, more like a classica Medieval/Rennaissance city. There WAS a combination of Asian, Middle Eastern and European architecture styles in history, called orientalism and chinioiserie , not to mention the Moorish Spain which was a very organic mix of Western and Eastern cultures – and extremely advanced for its age, too. That’s what DR should have looked like it if was supposed to be a “melting pot”.

What did it look like and what culture was it based on?

Some say it was Greek or Italian, others, Indian or Arabic. And I didn’t play GW1 so I can’t really check myself. And if it was Italian or Middle Eastern… then why is DR a boring medieval castle now as opposed to something more exotic and interesting like an Al-Andalusesque fortress or perhaps a fantasy version of Venice?

SirMoogie.9263:

RedStar.4218:

Because we can very easily say that with how many children are running around, straight relationships are far from becoming rare.

Being gay is not the same as being sterile. Sorry if this seems all too obvious to state, this is a particular peeve of mine that gets thrown around too often to combat gay rights. If everyone were gay there would still be children. Gay couples have children now, they just do it through means that are different, such as having a surrogate mother.

Except that such practices only appeared recently and Tyria is largely a XIX century society.

Male homosexuality is fairly common in male-dominated societies if you think about it. I mean, look at the Ancient Greece (dude, they HATED women), medieval Japan, even the Middle East to some extent (back when they were rich and advanced i.e the Middle Ages). All these cultures loved homoeroticism. Now, what faction in GW2 is misogynistic? That’s right. Flame Legion.

Thus, in theory, we could have an (anti-)villainous… FLAMING… gay couple in the game. OR perhaps they could be ex-Flame…

Did you notice how Scarlet’s voice became cold, restrained, almost emotionless in the Hologram event?

Almost like… Trahearne.

Mordremoth? Bubbles? Hah! TRAHEARNE has been the man behind Scarlet all along, corrupting her gradually over the Living Story! He must have been in full control of Briar by the time of the last update, which is why she began sounding like him.

The dragon in the cinematic? That is Trahearne’s true form: the Elder Mary Sue Dragon.

This WON’T end well, ladies and gentlemen. We must prepare.

Olvendred.3027:

Yeah. She’s kinda not from Earth.

Not that I would find that combination at all surprising irl.

You know, now that you said it I guess I am a hypocrite :P My name is Greek, my surname is Korean and my middle name ends on “-vich”. I also sound vaguely British.

Marjory is a British name.
Delaqua is an Italian surname.
Marjory Delaqua looks Asian.
Her accent is urban American.. .esque… (not sure myself, English is not my first language)

What the kitten is she supposed to be?

Taygus.4571:

Imperios.2543:

elfycara.1572:

Heterosexuality may be mainstream and the norm in real life but who knows what sexuality is like in Tyria? Everybody could be aggressively bisexual so having a lot of homosexual relationships wouldn’t really be seen as uncommon.

->This.

Especially since Kryta is mostly based on Mediterranean countries, which were traditionally quite lax on the whole homosexuality thing.

I’m fine with LGBT romances myself – I loved the Caithe/Faolain storyline, personally. KasJory was a bit more forced and kinda felt like fanservice/affirmative action to me, but was still fairly interesting. BUT I’d like some traditional romance too… It’d be nice for a change.

That, and I asked my 4 year old sister (who is generally watching me play GW2) to look away when Kas and Jory were kissing… does that make me homophobic?

would you have asked her to look away if it was a male x female?
And if not…why did you ask her to look away at this scene?

I thought she was too young for that kind of stuff. She could ask questions about why they are kissing and that would be embarassing for me to explain. Same for my parents if they got to know, we’re, you know… Russian (okay we’re also Asians and do not oppose the LGBT community but still).

She even asked me if Marjory was a boy when Kasmeer hugged her!

Ridley.3691:

The problem with this thinking is you’re saying homosexual relationships aren’t ‘standard’, and you’re calling them ‘unusual’. They really aren’t, they’re rarer, yes, but they’re just as ‘normal’ as a heterosexual relationship.

Rare = Unusual

elfycara.1572:

Heterosexuality may be mainstream and the norm in real life but who knows what sexuality is like in Tyria? Everybody could be aggressively bisexual so having a lot of homosexual relationships wouldn’t really be seen as uncommon.

→This.

Especially since Kryta is mostly based on Mediterranean countries, which were traditionally quite lax on the whole homosexuality thing.

I’m fine with LGBT romances myself – I loved the Caithe/Faolain storyline, personally. KasJory was a bit more forced and kinda felt like fanservice/affirmative action to me, but was still fairly interesting. BUT I’d like some traditional romance too… It’d be nice for a change.

That, and I asked my 4 year old sister (who is generally watching me play GW2) to look away when Kas and Jory were kissing… does that make me homophobic?

Post expanded/updated.

Not sure if I should remove the spoiler tags and put them in the thread title.

Scarlet started her life as a cookie-cutter, annoying and one-dimensional Mary Sue that popped out of nowhere and served as nothing but a random Saturday morning villain. I hated her all through Clockwork Chaos up until the Tower of Nightmares.

However, Origins of Madness and the Lion’s Arch arc changed my mind completely. I am not sure what happened… was it her voice, that changed from obnoxious to downright threatening, or perhaps her schemes and plans which became more nuanced? Either way, she kinda grew on me. By the time I fought her one last timeand witnessed Mordremoth's awakening, I loved her.

Oh, and speaking ofMordremoth: his influence actually explained Scarlet's initial Mary Suedom, which is a good thing.

Make no mistake: Scarlet is still not without flaws. Her lieutenants deserved more spotlight, and we needed to see more of them. Seriously, most of them didn’t even get names! We also needed to know why exactly did Scarlet’s alliances join her, unlessMordremoth gave her mind control or something, of course. Still, Scarlet is, as of now, one of the best villains in GW2.

Good job, Arena Net.

Mordremoth, probably?

I am talking about ED voices, not their biological gender, which I assume they do not have.

Speaking of which. To compensate for Zhaitan’s failtastic lack of personality, the next dragon we face should have a sexy, sultry voice and attempt to sway us to its/her/his side

Since ArenaNet’s LS department likes making the most important characters female (Marjory, Kasmeer, Kiel, Mai Trin, Scarlet), could at least one of the Elder Dragons have a female voice?

Zhaitan is probably male, having an Islamic masculine name, and so is PrimordiUS. But what about Jormag (especially ironic since all its followers are male) and Mordremoth?

I am talking about LS.

I think the problem is the lack of interesting male characters, not heterosexual relationships.

4/5 of the Biconics, the main LS villain, her second-in-command, Lion’s Arch’s most important authority? ALL female.

Add a few more important males and – voila! Surely we’ll have more hetero romance.

Four characters in total would be enough, really.

A dredge general, a Flame Legion tribune, a Nightmare Court leader and a krait oratuss. Each with different motives.

What kinda strikes me as a MMORPG veteran is that Guild Wars 2’s living story (the Personal Story and dungeons are better, though) has few, if any, secondary villains with actual personalities.

The Lich King had Kel’thuzad, Sindragosa, Lord “BONESTOOOORM” Marrowgar and Anub’arak; Emperor Vitiate had Darth Baras, Lord Zash, Darth Vowrawn and the Emperor’s Hand; the Mursaat had the White Mantle; Zhaitan had Tequila and a few named zombies. All of these villains, while minor, had memorable characters and provided some depth to the enemy.

Scarlet? Mai Trin and… yeah, that’s it.

What if you added a few named Toxic, Aetherblade and Molten characters with actual personality that you could show through in-game dialogue and/or by providing them with backstories? That way, you could expand on Scarlet’s Alliance and also explain why its members follow her.

I find it disappointing that while armorsmiths, tailors and leatherworkers can create a wide array of items that have different appearances (ranging from monk robes to chainmail bikinis), weaponmaking professions are stuck with the same skins from level 1 to level 80 (Rare recipes notwithstanding).

Could we please be able to craft Glyphic, Krytan, etc. weapons as well as normal ones?

1: Dredge
2: Tengu
3: PJ’s undead

Aurora Glade seems to fail most of the time.

Damash.1074:

Heey guys,

Ive been wondering… On what culture of Earth are the Asura based off???

One cannot say that the asura are truly based on a certain Earth civilisation; they aren’t obviously Viking like the norn or British/Celtic like the sylvari. However, they have certain elements of various human cultures, such as : the Maya (advanced mathematics, pyramids, decentralised society reminiscent of Mayan city states), Ancient Egypt (alchemy – the word itself is of Egyptian origin and that’s where chemistry was first developed – and again, pyramids), Ancient Greece and, to a lesser extent, Ancient Rome (Metrica Province, Rata Sum, decentralised society reminiscent of Greek city states), and, as has been mentioned before, China or East Asia in general (my asura has an Asian-ish hairstyle).

Maybe if we had chosen Evon, the main LW villain would have been Abaddon and not Scarlet?

Alright, I know there’s an Asian nation and an African nation in GW2 and there was also a North European and Arabic nation et cetera, so that explains the variety in names and appearance for humans.

My guardian is of fairly dark complexion, but doesn’t really have any African facial features, and also has an Indian-inspired name. Where would she come from? Orr? Cantha?

MOTHER OF GOD YES.

Any large battle like Claw Island or Fort Trinity becomes a kittening chore for me. I have to do the same mission A LOT to actually finish it.

Could ANet introduce a system that would save the user’s progression in story missions somehow? That would be nice