Guild Wars 2

killcannon.2576:

And without people logging in, grinding, going after the carrot…you don’t have a MMO.

Where do players like you come from?

I’m serious, I really want to know.

killcannon.2576:

And pve is dictated by progression.

LOL

Thanks for that, I needed a good laugh today.

The tital wave from rising Orr is a wonderful plot device for ANet. Anything on the coast they could theoretically explain away with it.

Don’t want the Battle Isles in GW2? Zhaitan.
Want to remake LA into a multicultural city? Zhaitan.
Want to cut off Tyria from Cantha and Elona because we might not ever go there? Zhaitan.

Maybe Zhaitan’s tidal wave somehow reached Janthir and that’s why there are no Mursaat around. :/

lordkrall.7241:

I think it has more to do with the fact that less and less optimistic people uses these forums, because they get tired of all the hate going on.
The amount of hate have most likely not really increased, but it would seem like it due to lack of positive content.

Yeah…that’s probably it.

I like how your post is worded in such a way that arguing against it makes it look like you are actually validating it. Bravo, good sir!

/rollseyes

Umm…because Cantha and Elona were not really a factor with the ED’s? I mean, it’s obvious the game and lore were designed to work entirely within Tyria. As a dev, why bother with incorporating the lore into other lands when you don’t even know if the game will ever go there?

Meh, ties were being severed as far back as EotN.

To be honest, the last nail in the coffin for old LA was the Karka invasion and the destruction of the only remaining structure from GW1: the Lighthouse.

Foxx

You give them waaaaaay too much credit.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

“We have a couple of really big Guild Wars projects cooking in the background,” Johanson told me.

Later, he added: "Some of our players believe that because we are doing this Living World seasons, and these features or these big feature-builds, that it means that the features you would traditionally get in an expansion, or the content you would traditionally get in an expansion, is not something that will get added to Guild Wars 2. And that is not true at all.

“Not only are we doing those things, new features and content you would traditionally get from a boxed expansion are also things that will be added to Guild Wars 2.

“The thing that we haven’t decided yet,” he went on, "is what form that type of content will take. Is it right for Guild Wars 2 for that kind of boxed expansion? Is it right for that to be something we add, live, through storylines in the game? Is that something we want to sell through our in-game store? There are a lot of different options available to us.

“… but we absolutely are going to do sweeping new features that you would traditionally only get in expansions – large regions, content and progression additions to your characters in the form of growth and professions and races. Those are all things that you will see in the lifespan of Guild Wars 2.”

Mike Zadorojny, clarifying his comments from last year – which suggested there wouldn’t be an expansion any time soon – said: “The answer I gave you [in 2013] was that nothing was off the table.”

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

No where in that quote are they saying they are working on an expansion. It says they will implement stuff that you would normally get from a traditional expansion. Most likely doled out in tiny increments connected to the LS like they do now.

For instance, ANet once said(before rescinding on the remark after players got all ragey) that the Flame and Frost storyline was an “expansions worth” of content. ANet’s idea of the size of expansions and everyone else’s idea of that must be different I suppose…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

Never said that. /sigh

I didn’t say you did, most of that was not directly at you as a response after the point preceding that. I’m just bowing out about now. I’ve said everything I could, and I’d rather just leave this topic discussion and get back to brushing up my campaign notes elsewhere.

Fair enough.

I didn’t mean he would take Kormir’s place in the story from the beginning, you met him in DoA or something. Anyway, that wasn’t the point.

Well yeah, we vaguely know that they brought humanity to Tyria…other than that not much. We don’t even know if they all are, or were, human(minus Kormir).

I just thought of one possible route they could have done that follows along my line of reasoning, but it would have had to have been implemented in Nightfall. And this is just an off-the-cuff example. Remember Scorch Emberspire? Had they known GW2 was a future project back then, this guy would have been a decent possibility for a way to both keep the gods around, and introduce new playable races.

Have him, instead of Kormir, be the one to take Abaddon’s power. Granted it would have required some reworking of the Nightfall narrative, and his character would have had to have been a lot more fleshed out. But if a Charr could become a god, then any race could. And therefore, the gods wouldn’t be thought of as this “human-centric” dynamic. But rather, merely the one’s who happen to have control over the various aspects of Tyrian magic at that time. That they just hold the power of godhood, and not that it is intrinsic to humanity but rather to Tyria.

The old lore still holds up, and there’s no human favoritism to godhood.

Win-win.

Kalavier.1097:

Calling GW1 lore “human biased” (IMO) isn’t really true. No more then saying “Star Trek lore is federation biased!”

You’re right on that, I would say “human point-of-view” is more accurate. I should have used that phrase instead.

When I say that, I don’t mean “Oh, they can suddenly have humans dancing across rainbows and playing with unicorns!” I mean, In the first story we mainly saw the HUMANs. This time we are seeing other races. It’s expanding the lore. It’s allowing us to see more of the world, more of the other cultures. Seriously, in GW1 you didn’t really learn much about the Dwarves, Centaurs, Tengu, etc. Learned a little, but it was focused on the humans. The heroes were focused on getting to their next goal. GW2 lets us see those other cultures (EOTN really was the start) and showing how they are just as widespread as humanity is, just as capable as humans are (If not better in certain areas).

Are you implying I’m pro-human? That’s not what I’m saying at all. Every playable race should have the potential capabilities humans did in Tyria, as long as it stays true to the core narrative.

Why is it a cop-out to accept the lore expanding? The story being purely humans would be very dull. Human centered lore and everything even with how humans have been weakened (which is reasonable, not outrageous about them not being as awesome. Think Gondor in it’s glory days vs lord of the rings trilogy days) would just appear stupid. Magic has changed, how it’s applied, how it’s used. Saying that magic comes from the human gods makes you go “Wait, how? Charr used monk skills in GW1. A lot of other sentient races used magic. How was it truly limited by the human gods?” The practices change. Beliefs change. Knowledge grows.

The Rings trilogy is perfectly acceptable as portraying humans on the decline. It completely fits in to the entirety of the story…all the way back to Feanor and the Silmarils.

For instance, take the old version in which the gods created magic and sealed it in the Bloodstones instead of the current lore that innate Tyrian magic was sealed by the Seers in the Bloodstones:

According to the old GW1 history, every semi-sentient race and up was given magic by them, not just to humans. It makes sense both as a gameplay mechanic, and as an explanation as to why it’s there in the first place. Why couldn’t human gods give magic to everyone? Just because the Charr hated humans with a passion doesn’t mean they were denied magic from the gods. There seems to be this idea(somewhat inflamed by GW2) that the human gods only concerned themselves with humans. They all used magic equally. In this sense, the gods, as purveyors of magic, were the gods of all races, not just humans.

Why did this have to change? The gods certainly didn’t intervene when the Charr were using their magic trying to wipe out human Tyria, there’s no reason to think they would intervene in the future either. Magic was everyone’s gift…at least that’s how it was portrayed. When ANet was creating the new playable races, they took a long look at magic and decided it wouldn’t be prudent to have human gods responsible for Tyrian magic. It would look like human favoritism to players of other races. So they simply rewrote the history of magic, putting its origins in the hands of neutral entities: the Seers and Tyria itself.

It was a simple marketing decision designed to placate a wider audience. They could have kept the old history intact by simply taking the time to do so though. Maybe the gods only looked human to humans, and looked like Charr to Charr or looked like Tengu to Tengu. Or maybe, as foreigners to Tyria, they knew they shouldn’t favor only humans because that’s why they had to flee their last world. Or maybe Tyrian soil allowed them to use magic like Superman uses his powers with our Sun. There could have been any number of ways to play that out while staying true to the GW1 narrative.

But they didn’t do that for two reasons. One I just mentioned, and the other is most likely a desire by the GW2 devs to introduce their own personal creativity and ideas into this game. Norn Spirits of the Wild, Sylvari Dream, Asuran Eternal Alchemy, etc. These are all constructs of new GW2 devs. They saw the insubstantial nature of GW1 human history, were given the opportunity to remake this aspect of the narrative in ways they wanted to, and they ran with it.

That’s my real issue. The used the holes in the lore not to fill in with ideas congruent to what had been already laid down, but to fill it in with their own outside ideas and then cleverly splice them together so that it would all add up.

Does that make more sense?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

Personally, I think that reasoning is one of the biggest cop-outs I’ve seen in a long time.

Really? Really? . . .

I’ve seen worse just thinking of my time keeping track of Forgotten Realms every time a D&D edition changed majorly and they had to produce some reasons why. The Spellplague seems extraordinarily crazy from what I’ve seen.

More astonishing is every time I come across players who think any company owes control of its lore to people who don’t actually own the IP.

Uhh…yes really. Who cares about Forgotten realms? This is about Tyria. Besides, I’m not arguing about the degree of change, but rather the nature of the change.

Why do you think this is about me? They owe it to the story itself, and indirectly to those who wrote that story. I’m merely calling them out on it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s their lore. It’s always theirs to take in whatever direction they want. They don’t need permission.

Legally it is yes.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

Do you really think, when they wrote Proph, Factions, and NF that they all had in the back of their minds:
I wonder how all those future GW writers are going to explain that all of this human bias we are writing is bogus…should be interesting, huh?

Yes.

Wow.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

…we the players do not have the right to dictate lore continuity to the people who own the game.

Never said that. /sigh

Quarktastic.1027:

Dee Jay.2460:

Well apparently Fear is a condition too, despite losing control of your character.

The difference between fear and immobilize is: Fear can be broken by a stun breaker. Immobilize cannot be broken by a stun breaker. I think that’s where the issue is.

Bingo.

Which makes immobilize(unless you are near a cliff lol), a much better option than fear. I haven’t used it much in a while, does immobilize still stack brutally?

Kalavier.1097:

Well, the whole “Lore going from human centered” Could just as easily be explained as “Now we are looking at heroes from all races, not just humanity”…

Personally, I think that reasoning is one of the biggest cop-outs I’ve seen in a long time. It literally gives ANet a free hand to take the lore in any direction they please. Quite frankly, I’m surprised so many players bought that line so readily.

Do you really think, when they wrote Proph, Factions, and NF that they all had in the back of their minds:
I wonder how all those future GW writers are going to explain that all of this human bias we are writing is bogus…should be interesting, huh?

If it wasn’t meant to be bull kitten, then it isn’t.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

What did Glint tell me?

You’ll need to be more specific about when. At the first meeting, when speaking to her vision, or later?

Ehh…you brought it up, I didn’t know where you were going with it. So you tell me.

Er, no . . . no I didn’t. That was FlamingFoxx.

Oh lol…I sorry. My mistake.

Foxx you there?

Kalavier.1097:

I completely fail to see how GW2 disregards GW1 at all. Or how it retcons “Entire sections of the lore”.

Well, it certainly “disregards” quite a bit of it. But it did not “retcon entire sections of the lore”. Those two are very different things. I’ll use Tobias’ words: you’ll have to be more specific.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

What did Glint tell me?

You’ll need to be more specific about when. At the first meeting, when speaking to her vision, or later?

Ehh…you brought it up, I didn’t know where you were going with it. So you tell me.

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the amount of unrest in the GW2 community over upcoming, desired, and unwanted changes that have been happening with the game, and that have happened in the past. At this point I don’t think it is a stretch to say everyone has something in mind that they’d like to see added or improved, and I find myself wondering what the community as a whole thinks. This is in no way a complaint or flame thread, or even a suggestion thread, but rather I’d like it to be a place where we could come together, outside the mandated topics of the CDI threads, and voice our opinions on those things we care the most about.

That’s right; this isn’t a place for wish lists or bullet points. This is a place for each of us to call attention to that one thing, whatever it may be; the most important thing to each of us. It could be anything you feel the most strongly about, no matter how major or minor, off the wall or standard. I’d just like to see what we each value most, miss the most, or desire the most. I’ll take the liberty of starting us off.

After a lot of personal debate and soul searching what I’d like to see the most is depth in the skill system. I miss the days in the original Guild Wars when I could spend hours staring at the UI and arranging skills and attribute, find the absolute perfect build for what I wanted to do or just how I wanted to play that day. There are lots of way that could be brought back to us, and Arena Net has already taken the first steps there, but I have a specific first step I’d really love to see happen: Weapon skills.

I’m not saying we should ditch the current weapon system; it was designed with noble intentions and it works. But rather we should build on it and use it as a starting point. If I had my way we would unlock new weapon skills in a tiered system like we do utility skills. With the first 1-5 skills for a given weapon unlocked naturally as you use the weapon, and upon unlocking them all you gain the ability to buy new “tier two” skills in any order for a few skill points. These new skills could be slotted in however the player wanted, with the stipulation that they needed to have at least one “first slot” (auto attack) skill on their bar for the main-hand weapon. Of course these skills would still fit within each weapon’s theme (ranger shortbow skills being rapid fire condition skills, guardian staff skills being support focused, and so on) but would give players more options for exactly how they want to work within those themes.

Oh there is a lot more I could suggest, from changes to crafting to a new Dragon Age: Inquisition inspired armor system to the return of damage types like fire or chaos, but this is about the most important thing. And to me personalization, customization, and depth are that most important thing.

Now it’s your turn. What matters most to you?

Well I could find loads of redux’s that are general considered failures if you want. The medium doesn’t really matter all that much, art is art.

What did Glint tell me?

CETheLucid.3964:

Canon is as canon does. It’s established as such and so it is.

That’s an irresponsible stance to take.

By that rationale the George Clooney Batman movies, in all their rampant silliness and shallowness, are canon simply because they came after the Keaton Batman. They both have basically the same characters and setting, but are vastly different in style and tone. It’s even the same company, Warner Bros., just like ANet is. But you’d have to be either ignorant, or have severely bad taste, to claim Clooney’s Batman is the one that best reflects the caped crusader.

Granted that Keaton’s Batman was not original, and based off the comics series. But in the case of Tyria, Guild Wars 1 should be considered a primary source, in fact the primary source. Everything done to add on to that story should be genuine to its core narrative, or else it doesn’t deserve to be called a valid addition. Treating it the way ANet does, which is to say treating it like a giant nomenclature grab-bag, is just plain wrong.

Foxx

Ash meaning things that are dead and gone? Sounds pretty necro-ish to me. Here’s a chart of all the Charr mobs you come across, every one of their adjectives describes the profession in some way. Charr Mender = mo/para, Charr Shadow = rit/sin. Not to mention there’s also Ash Caller, Ash Storm, Ashen Claw, Ashen Lord, and Ash Thief…all necros. The “Ash” stood for necro dude.

The artistry got carried over from Utopia, not much else. Didn’t want to waste all those stellar drawings from Dociu or Kotaku(sp?) I guess.

They stretched a lot of it to be sure, but I won’t get into that here. Even I’m tired of it.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

The basis for the legions has always been there since GW1. Look at the presence of Ash walkers in prophecies.

Erm…no. The “ash” part of Charr Ash Walkers was meant to infer it was a necro. Just like Charr Wardens were rangers, Charr Chaots were mezmers, and Charr Shamans were monks. The “Ash Legion” is a GW2 construct, perhaps they merely borrowed the terminology, I don’t know.

Regardless, the legions were introduced in eye of the north. To say that it was due to gw2 development is an overshot because at that point in time they were in the very early stages of development. Eye of the north is still Gw1 and it’s getting annoying watching people try to discount it’s lore just because Gw2 was announced at the same time.

It’s not an overshot though, Aside from the gameplay mechanics, EotN is essentially an intro to GW2. It’s sole purpose is to bridge the gap between the two games and to get players on the same page as the devs in terms of lore and story. It has very little in common with the 3 stand-alone campaigns aside from the gameplay.

CETheLucid.3964:

Obsidian.1328:

CETheLucid.3964:

Obsidian.1328:

You realize they literally just changed that a few months ago right?

Nah, that’s been established in the game since launch.

Rytlock Brimstone goes into the short version of it in the AC dungeon. That’s just a case of the print catching up to the reality.

Uhh…no? Rytlock’s speech was simply, “this land used to be ours, then Humans came and built Ascalon on top of it.” Everyone already knew that since GW1 Proph, that was nothing new. What is new is the contention Ascalon is their homeland. There’s a giant area on the map northeast of Ascalon in GW1 that says in big, bright letters “Charr Homelands.”

And now we know that particular area is the Blood Legion’s homeland. Not the charr’s homeland as a whole.

Iron Legion’s homeland was always what used to be the human kingdom of Ascalon.

Ash Legion’s homeland borders the Crystal Desert to the extreme south of Ascalon somewhere around Ebonhawke in the Fields of Ruin.

Who knows if the Flame Legion even has a homeland anymore? Where you see the Flame Legion’s main base of operations is in Fireheart Rise.

That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s their homeland though.

Eh, all the different Legions were given an area to be called their “homeland” with GW2, it wasn’t a historical thing. The very separation of the Charr into Legions came about because of GW2 development. But that’s a tired argument on my part though.

Dust

Yeah, that was icing on the cake. :P

Ranged attacks are inefficient across the board in GW2, not just for rangers. The game is slanted in favor of melee. I’d imagine ANet doesn’t want this in the game partly for that reason, and partly because range limits are a tightly controlled mechanic and increased range is something that they are not willing to expand upon.

Dust

Eehhhh….

I agree with your take on “flavor,” although I’m not sure about your take on engineers. Engineers(and techy stuff like that) are in the game simply because players like guns and things that blow up. The lore was written to support that, not the other way around.

I know right, they 1-upped humans by making it “ancestral”…sly move ANet, sly move.

If they wanted to avoid a Palestine/Israeli analogue, they shouldn’t have written the Charr to take over Ascalon in the first place. That analogue already existed, and they just made it a lot worse with that, it’s their own fault.

You change the lore in your table-top games if it doesn’t suit you? Yikes. That’s low man…that’s low.

Litterbox…I have to admit that was funny on so many levels.

CETheLucid.3964:

Obsidian.1328:

You realize they literally just changed that a few months ago right?

Nah, that’s been established in the game since launch.

Rytlock Brimstone goes into the short version of it in the AC dungeon. That’s just a case of the print catching up to the reality.

Uhh…no? Rytlock’s speech was simply, “this land used to be ours, then Humans came and built Ascalon on top of it.” Everyone already knew that since GW1 Proph, that was nothing new. What is new is the contention Ascalon is their homeland. There’s a giant area on the map northeast of Ascalon in GW1 that says in big, bright letters “Charr Homelands.”

It’s important because of cultural identity. Ascalon as the those human’s homeland and not the Charr’s is a huge difference between both claiming it as such. Because it gives the humans a much more legitimate claim to the land. ANet basically went out of its way to retcon that part of the lore to make the Charr seem justified in being there. Why? Probably because they are tired of players kittening and moaning over it and want to move on already. It’s lazy and backhanded writing.

Does it matter? Not to most players, no. But it just goes to show how little they care for established paradigms and historic precedents when writing the lore. I’m betting they get frustrated with GW1 lore at times and wish they didn’t have to deal with it at all, it gets in the way of their modern zeitgeist of Tyria, as Dustfinger likes to put it.

Last thing: if Ascalon is the “ancestral homeland” of the Charr, what did they used to call it then?

Oops, I meant the GW2.com Charr race page, not the wiki. It’s on there right now if you go look at it. No idea when they added it but it had to be not very long ago. The debate with Dust and I is actually in this thread, page 3. Kind of funny how he dropped that bomb on me lol.

I think it’s possible it could be done, but I highly doubt they do. For many of the reasons Foxx pointed out and more. It would mess up too many things methinks.

Calling Ascalon the Charr “ancestral homeland” is what I meant there. It was part of an info bio on the Charr on the wiki homepage a little while ago. Dustfinger saw it and linked it in one of our debates. There was never any mention of that before.

It’s Kormir. Her and Scarlet get into a fierce mud-wrestling fight at the center of the Mists and end up destroying each other.

Happy days.

ProtoGunner

See, a lot of people don’t associate numerical progression as something inherent in gaming though. RPG’ers tend to…a lot. Not sure why that is, maybe it comes from the D&Der inside many of us, who knows. I think GW2 was made with someone exactly like you in mind, someone that craves the gradual leveling process and being rewarded for it.

But there are lots of players who don’t play to “progress” really. There are legions of PvPers who only like to kill each other endlessly and could care less for levels. It just depends on the kind of player you are.

Myself, I only play games for a few reasons: mass PvP, exploration, escapism, good story(not in this game lol), and hanging out with friends/guildies. I could care less for the levels.

CETheLucid.3964:

They won, they have their ancestral home back. Greater Ascalon is theirs.

You realize they literally just changed that a few months ago right?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

Tobius

Alright, one big factor though. RL historians are trying to find a truth outside themselves. Meaning, the truth exists whether or not they write about it or not. That’s not the same with a game-world. The “truth” of the story is whatever is in the original authors mind. Period. Because without that original thought, it wouldn’t exist at all. The truth is completely subjective to whoever created it.

Well if the “truth” is so completely mutable, it doesn’t really matter what was said at any time, ever . . .

Well I always assumed the validity of fictional “truth” relies on the original author and not really any author following, simply because it was his/her idea to begin with and not anyone else’s. Is that wrong? :/

Authorship is 9/10ths of the lore! =D

If that’s really the case, why are we even discussing the lore at all? Ascalon was always doomed, and will always have been doomed until a lore writer decides otherwise.

That pretty much sums up my beef with Anet right there. :P

Where did Nik go?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Obsidian.1328:

• those “Titan missions” given by Glint were not in the original campaign, they were added much later around the time of Nightfall and EotN. So… lots of GW2 minds at work here with that.

Uhhh I was pretty sure that the Vision of Glint was there before the release of Nightfall, granted my memory is not the best – but still, it was put in the game one year after release (it was most definitely there before the release of EoTN), that’s a lot closer to the original lore of prophecies than the lore of GW2 which would have gone through a lot of iterations during the development process, especially that early on in the development process.

You’re absolutely right, I concede that. Mixed up my thoughts, I was thinking WiK stuff for some reason. Just found a link that puts it at summer of ’05.

Tobius

Alright, one big factor though. RL historians are trying to find a truth outside themselves. Meaning, the truth exists whether or not they write about it or not. That’s not the same with a game-world. The “truth” of the story is whatever is in the original authors mind. Period. Because without that original thought, it wouldn’t exist at all. The truth is completely subjective to whoever created it.

Zax

Hey Zax! Now we just need Dust or Drax to show up. =D

One very, very important question though…

If Charr eat spices, can they eat a teaspoon of cinnamon and not spit it out? o.0

CETheLucid.3964:

Well at the rate they’re poppin’ em’ out, it’s a very big army obviously!

I lol’d at that. :P

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Obsidian.1328:

Tobius

So just to be clear, Empire Divided, including this…

This text is not a work of fiction, but is based on historical fact as interpreted by the author. Historical facts have been revised based upon new information acquired by the author between 1022 AE and 1072 AE.

…is not to be taken as fact, but as a fallible opinion piece within the story?

Just trying to be clear here.

“based on historical fact as interpreted by the author”
That is the key piece of information there.

We can look at information given by Glint at the end of prophecies e.g.
“Ascalon’s great walls and soldiers have withered in Rurik’s absence. An old king dons his armor, heavy with time, to fight a battle he cannot win. It is his will alone that keeps Ascalon alive.”
We can look at what Adelbern himself says:
“All that I have left is this antiquated set of armor and the remains of this tattered kingdom.”

Also can I just point out that Ermenred’s dialogue in Lions Arch makes him out to be quite senile… And you want to take HIS word as fact xD?

Not to mention that while he is writing around Ascalon he is IN Cantha… Not a short journey considering Ascalon is landlocked and Cantha lies across the ocean – we have no idea when he was last in Ascalon and we have no idea who he got his information from and how reliable it was. Not to mention that he is writing in 1072, which is the year Prophecies takes place in – so it is entirely possible that he is writing before the attack by Bonfazz Burntfur on the Great Northern Wall.

Good points, but two things:

• those “Titan missions” given by Glint were not in the original campaign, they were added much later around the time of Nightfall and EotN. So… lots of GW2 minds at work here with that.

• If you keep reading on in Empire Divided, he mentions that Togo is waiting for the hero of the Flameseeker Prophecies(you) to arrive to help him…so all those Proph events are over by this time.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

Foxx

I’ll grant you that, they were supposed to infighting up until then.

The reason the PC went with Rurik to Kryta was to progress the campaign over there. Ever read Rurik’s dialogue? Every other word is about how he won’t rest until all the Charr are dead in Ascalon. ANet needed a gameplay mechanism to get the PC over there and keep the campaign story going. So they wrote up a fight with his dad, got him excommunicated, and voila…you leave Ascalon behind with for a legit reason.

All of those campaign zones on the map were originally designed with an open-world GvG in mind. They switched it to strict PvE late in development, brought in a single writer(Jess Lebow) to write the entirety of the PvE story, and filled in the map with campaign missions. Keep in mind they had like 2 dozen peeps working on this at the time.

Yeah, Prophecies really was the worst as far as the story goes. It’s why I sigh when people go “Guild Wars 1 had a far superior story”, because they must not be meaning Prophecies. The story parts are barely connected until about halfway through, after “The Wilds”. Even then there’s just a lot of real thin threads connecting things.

. . . and the next person complaining about the Living Story dialogue needs to sit through the third and fourth missions in Ascalon to hear/read Rurik’s speeches.

(Want one other weird head-scratching lore nugget? So the Fiery Dragon Sword of Adelbern and Rurik are supposedly a pair of powerful blades linked together . . . where did the one the Captain Osric have show up from?)

Holy crap…I think I agree with your whole post. 0.0

I thought I saw that skin around more than just those 3 though, I could be wrong.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

Tobius

So just to be clear, Empire Divided, including this…

This text is not a work of fiction, but is based on historical fact as interpreted by the author. Historical facts have been revised based upon new information acquired by the author between 1022 AE and 1072 AE.

…is not to be taken as fact, but as a fallible opinion piece within the story?

Just trying to be clear here.

Again, they’ve been rather consistent with this. Anything which is written by, or talked about by NPCs and not developers is told from the perspective of the NPC and is likely to contain things either not 100% factual or possibly lacking crucial information which would change the conclusions.

This was covered a while ago, mostly as a way of band-aiding lore differentials between “what we initially released” and “what we expanded into”. Notably, Lieutenant Langmar didn’t exist at all until the Vanguard Quests were implemented, despite it being obvious she should be somewhere. Also recall how there was always reference to Five Gods instead of six until Nightfall was over. Then there’s the cleansing of records of one bratty little prince so it was never known for sure he existed at all . . . the expanded talk of Dhuum’s existence . . .

First of all, if you don’t see your first quote as one humongus excuse on the devs part to basically give them a free hand with whatever they want, then I feel sorry for you. Really? You bought into that whole hog huh. The reason they said that was precisely so they could do whatever they want with the story and lore. And have.

And yes, there were only five gods until Nightfall…or at the very earliest late Factions. Kinda throws a wrench into the whole “Abaddon was controlling the Charr…that’s why they went after Orr and Kryta too” argument. I find it amazing that later additions and editions to the writing is taken as retroactive fact by peeps…sheesh. Frankly, I’m embarrassed as an historian.

Foxx

I’ll grant you that, they were supposed to infighting up until then.

The reason the PC went with Rurik to Kryta was to progress the campaign over there. Ever read Rurik’s dialogue? Every other word is about how he won’t rest until all the Charr are dead in Ascalon. ANet needed a gameplay mechanism to get the PC over there and keep the campaign story going. So they wrote up a fight with his dad, got him excommunicated, and voila…you leave Ascalon behind with for a legit reason.

All of those campaign zones on the map were originally designed with an open-world GvG in mind. They switched it to strict PvE late in development, brought in a single writer(Jess Lebow) to write the entirety of the PvE story, and filled in the map with campaign missions. Keep in mind they had like 2 dozen peeps working on this at the time.

Tobius

So just to be clear, Empire Divided, including this…

This text is not a work of fiction, but is based on historical fact as interpreted by the author. Historical facts have been revised based upon new information acquired by the author between 1022 AE and 1072 AE.

…is not to be taken as fact, but as a fallible opinion piece within the story?

Just trying to be clear here.

CETheLucid.3964:

King Adelbern lived long enough to see himself become the villain.

I see what you did there!

CETheLucid.3964:

Charr breed like rabbits. Problem solved. ;3

Perhaps, but if that’s true…why did it take them 900 years to raise an army?

Tobias

/sigh

• Yes, humans are made of meat. So are Charr btw, and apparently make great coats. You think humans are above eating Charr? Regardless, there was still inter-continental trade and communication going on after the Searing, as alluded to in An Empire Divided.

• Yes, there were more Charr around the zones than humans…they were a mob. There were also more Devourers and Grawl around. It would kind of suck for gameplay if the friendly npc’s outnumbered the mobs. Don’t confuse game mechanics with rpg mechanics.

• As for the census, yes, you’re not supposed to take everything you see in the game as fact. ANet assumes a level of intelligence for its playerbase…perhaps too low here? For instance, there are 3 measly humans in the entire zone of Stingray Strand. Do you really think that’s supposed to be thought of as the actual population of that area? If you do, I can’t help you.

The point is, Ascalon was never supposed to have assumed to have lost the war until GW2 production begun. Why? Because it was over. ANet saw an opportunity to convert a beat-up human kingdom to a new playable race and they ran with it, nothing more. If not, then why did ANet bother writing this:
“And so we reach the present day[1072AE]. At the time of this writing, the kingdom of Ascalon is recovering from the conflict with the Charr and is establishing new treaties with the Krytans and Elonians.”

Lol, carnivores is your reason? I say, good sir, you simply must come up with something better. You’re gettin a lot of points for originality and creativity though. At any rate, Ascalon doesn’t exist in a vacuum, there’s still trade going on. Probably much to your disbelief, because of some of your answers here, the Ascalonians didn’t just lay down and wait to die after the Searing.

If you really think that census truly reflects the actual, intended population of GW Ascalon you need a realsies check. Very little of what you see in that game, or this one, or 95% of any mmo for that matter, is supposed to be a realistic expression. Too bad all those houses in Kaineng City are all walled off and no one can get to them…everyone has to sleep on the streets! The nerve of that Emperor!! Suspension of disbelief…learn it.

Your last part is sarcasm.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

It was burned, not gone. Where did it go? If the Charr wanted it so bad and didn’t mind living there, the humans certainly could too. You’re reaching.

But . . . the charr weren’t living there, they were living in the north and fighting in Ascalon. And even getting beaten into a standstill once, there was still a disparity in strength between humans of Ascalon and the charr war machine.

Aaaaand the Charr settled there right after the Foefire. Nice argument.

Also, you’re assuming there are endless Charr reinforcements, so I guess I get to do the same thing and claim there are thousands of Ascalons somewhere off the map ready to fight. /rollseyes

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

But honestly, your post seems to suggest one thing: if you think you might lose, it’s ok to turn tail and run. Let me know what State you live in so I’ll know which one surrenders first if we ever get invaded.

Good luck with that.

But you’re really mistaking “turning tail and running” for “realizing you’ve brought fists to a knife fight, and have gone home to get your gun”.

I’d still stay with my fists, as should anyone who’s defending their home. Really dude? You need to go drink some deer blood.

It was burned, not gone. Where did it go? If the Charr wanted it so bad and didn’t mind living there, the humans certainly could too. You’re reaching.

But honestly, your post seems to suggest one thing: if you think you might lose, it’s ok to turn tail and run. Let me know what State you live in so I’ll know which one surrenders first if we ever get invaded.

Sure a Krytan invasion is a possibility. Alternately, a revitalized, Mantle-free Kryta could have done the reverse and taken over Ascalon. Tons of things are possible if ANet gave us an editing pen. Neither makes sense given GW1 story though.

It wasn’t his hatred for Charr or Kryta that drove him. It was his unwillingness to give up his people’s kingdom to Charr, Krytan, or anybody else. That’s an important distinction to make. And they did actually win against the Charr and stop the invasion, not sure why you think there was no chance of it.

So…you wouldn’t have stayed to fight at Thunderhead Keep, Battle for LA, or Dzagonur Bastion? How are those any different?