Guild Wars 2

I looked for this spot for hours one day, it should be right on the east side of Steeleye span somewhere, just on the border of the Dragonbrand. It’s not the first location they didn’t include from GW1, but on the whole I have to admit they included a heckuva lot.

Umm, who is Waha?

Unleashed

You’re right, of course, about accepting the game for what it is rather than what it isn’t. The problem is ANet never really gave us a clue it would be like this before the game arrived. A lot of us expected a spiritual heir to GW1 and this game certainly isn’t that. And while many of us loathe that fact now, we are also stuck in some half-world between both game realities where we can’t quite get ourselves to give up on it yet because of the many fond memories attached to the original game.

Tachenon is right, they shouldn’t have called it Guild Wars 2.

Tachenon.5270:

Then it should not have been called Guild Wars 2

^

This guy…deserves a medal. Spot on, Tachenon.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Obsidian.1328:

Orrrr(no pun intended)…very relevant? Coleridge would enjoy a laugh over a pint at the level of suspension of disbelief in some of these forums. The cognitive dissonance created by ANet2.0 with the lore is almost entirely a function of a different writing staff. And if one can’t bring oneself to include that variable in the equation, there’s really no point in a mature discussion.

You’re claiming that the gods didn’t know of the Elder Dragons because in writing the Elder Dragons didn’t exist yet and that’s why they never made mention of it.

And it is true that the ED didn’t exist in the writing at the time. However, that doesn’t mean the Six Gods didn’t know of them in retrospective addition to the lore.

Then just say so. Why try to painstakingly fuse incongruent old and new story-design when you could simply say something like, “…well, ANet decided to go a different direction with this part.” Thousands of new players are probably mistakenly under the assumption that this modern Tyria we have now was always an eventuality. When in reality, it’s the product of new writers with their own unique ideas superimposed on the Tyrian world.

It’s just disingenuous.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

That’s why your argument is irrelevant. You’re ignoring the retroactivity of additions to lore. And honestly, I think you’re the one preventing a mature discussion because you simply turn every lore discussion you ever enter into a case of “lol Anet sucks at lore writing” or “the two games are utterly different in lore” – but the thing is, the latter is most definitely the case (the former’s just an opinion, so there’s no point in arguing against such a thing). Because while it may be different people writing the lore now – though not entirely – it is the same lore, just being expanded in retroactivity as well. Which is typically good, otherwise you’d never go into the history of the world. If they didn’t do such, Abaddon wouldn’t exist in the lore.

But discussing this is a moot point because quite frankly, you’re perhaps more stubborn and bullheaded than I am and I’ve already explained to you how even GW1 – even Prophecies – had done the very same thing that GW2 does.

You’re right, originally Abaddon wasn’t responsible for the Searing, the Cataclysm, nor Shiro’s fall. It was a “retrospective addition” as you say. The difference between that and this is that it makes sense with GW1. It’s a good fit in almost every way.

This stuff we have now isn’t even in the same state, no, same country, as what Tyria used to be like. And not just the lore, but almost every aspect of the game has been drastically changed. So calling it “the same” just because they(ANet) do is not just a gross exaggeration of the truth, but also insulting to basic human intelligence.

Either have the guts to recognize the giant elephant in the room, or willfully keep the blinders on. If it’s the latter though, I’ll keep on trollin’ to my hearts content.

Right now I hate it. Not only is the new blue not a good blue at all(it’s some electric turquoise shade that hurts the eyes), but it is also a lot closer to green now. Looking on the zoomed out map, I have to pause to differentiate between the two.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Obsidian.1328:

The Elder Dragon’s didn’t even exist in lore until Eye of the North was written. And seeing as the Six basically went on an open-ended vacation after Nightfall, it’s hardly a surprise they never mentioned them before. Because the last time anyone had contact with them, the ED’s weren’t even in the game.

Irrelevant. Orr and Arah lore states the Six Gods didn’t know of the Elder Dragons’ location (or rather, as I said, Zhaitan’s location) and leaves it up in the air whether they knew of them at all.

Lack of statement doesn’t mean lack of knowledge, btw.

Orrrr(no pun intended)…very relevant? Coleridge would enjoy a laugh over a pint at the level of suspension of disbelief in some of these forums. The cognitive dissonance created by ANet2.0 with the lore is almost entirely a function of a different writing staff. And if one can’t bring oneself to include that variable in the equation, there’s really no point in a mature discussion.

Lack okittennowledgment(by devs) doesn’t mean lack of existence, btw.

Reality Bites

Oh for heaven’s sake…

The Elder Dragon’s didn’t even exist in lore until Eye of the North was written. And seeing as the Six basically went on an open-ended vacation after Nightfall, it’s hardly a surprise they never mentioned them before. Because the last time anyone had contact with them, the ED’s weren’t even in the game.

Given the current state of the story, I’d bet the farm the writer’s have it set up so that the dragons could go all “cookie monster” on any gods they came across.

On a bright note, Lyssa might grow to like Kralky’s style.

Sirendor.1394:

dusanyu.4057:

Unimportant NPC in the long term of gw lore many chars from gw1 are more deserving

Devona, Cynn, Mhenlo, Aiden, the GW1 PC and Eve for example

You actually managed to write Aidan & Devonna wrong :P

Nah, just Aidan. Devona has only one ‘n’.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I could land a hit with a longbow as a necromancer, if I wanted to. But the damage was insignificant. Not close to when a ranger fires the same weapon.

Well yeah…unless you chose Ranger for a 2ndary prof, in which case you could theoretically pump points into Marksmanship and do the same base damage as a primary Ranger. You didn’t see that very often though because Rangers had other support skills in other attributes which could increase bow damage, and Necros were built more for spells and hexes. That and the armor insignia’s were tied to each primary class as well.

That was the beauty of it. You could find little niche builds with any 2ndary profession, but because of the way the classes were built you could never be as all around effective as another classes’ primary role(with a few exceptions). You could only mimic them to varying degrees. Which was a good thing imo.

LOL

touche

Warrior LB skills are awesome. That fire field alone is worth the weapon.

Winds.3087:

I can’t imagine something like elementalist with pistol or rifle. Or mesmer with hammer and bow. It would look silly.

And pink butterflies exploding everywhere isn’t?

Umm…feeling upset over not getting credit for doing voluntary research is silly. Who gives a hoot about it. The important thing here is what things did/does someone(in this case WP) bring to the GW community.

Wooden Potatoes isn’t always right, we all know that, even he does. The point of his videos isn’t to be regurgitating Guild Wars lore verbatim. He’s simply telling it through the reflected lens of his point of view. So squabbling over his theories and claims is moot.

But more importantly, he’s a storyteller…and a kitten good one at that. He may not get everything right 100%, but here’s the thing: he gets Guild Wars. He understands the characters, the action, the world. He understands Tyria, in all its terrible beauty, glory, and strife. He’s a bard of sorts, and he sings the song of Tyria very well.

For that I encourage him, and others to listen to his tales. They may not all be canonical, but at least they reflect the soul of Guild Wars in a genuine way.

+1

Leuca

Eh, Crippling Throw is mostly used when trying to chase someone down, the channeled block and small kb is what it is prized for. I doubt many use it for a regular, or even semi-regular, projectile finisher.

Swoop, on the other hand, is used tons. I wouldn’t mind increasing the cd’s on both of them if it meant giving us a Blast Finisher: Swoop to 15s, and Maul to 10s. That way it guarantees only one Leap(unless traited, and even that would require good timing for 2) and 2 Blasts.

Idk…just sucks power builds can’t really use it is all.

Expiatus.4210:

Bud.5617:

Seriously, these guys can keep distance, they’ve stealth, deal tons of damage, have area denial and can soak an ungodly amount of damage.

There’s no hard counter to them and even the spirits take forever to kill.

Please reduce nerf either their damage, the spirit health, their cc or stealth.

You also left out that we can: bench press two bears at once, walk on water, shark pets dedicate a week to us, Lyssa calls us for dates, we swim after eating, Ascalon ghosts sit around fires and tell stories about us, we teach Krytan drake hounds to bark in Canthan, we talk about fight club, we grant genies 3 wishes and only a ranger has swum across the Crystal Desert.

You, sir, are magnificent.

/hats off

Yeah…it’s a no brainer for us rangers. I’d even take a recharge time increase on Maul if it meant getting the Blast. The horn is a good weapon, but most power rangers(ha!) go LB/GS for obvious reasons. I mean, what weapon would you use with it? The Sword’s rooting is an legit problem for W3, and Axe wielders are generally condi specced with SB on swap.

At least my Healing Spring and Entangle is still desired by my small-man squad lol.

draxynnic.3719:

There is, in fact, a theory that Cantha is or has been influenced by a benign Elder Dragon.

Obsidian.1328:

As such, the human gods simply could not exist in the way they had in the past, it would be counter to everything they created with this game if they had only one race with overwhelming access to divine favor. They had to quietly write them out of importance. So the Bloodstone thing(along with others) was altered slightly to take that responsibility away from the gods and put it within Tyria itself. That, along with the addition of science-tech to the the GW universe, put every race on equal footing.

Except it doesn’t. Asura and charr are clearly dominating at the moment, while the gods and to a lesser extent the Spirits of the Wild are doing nothing to counterbalance this. They did need to be reduced in importance, yes, but considering that we’ve gone to Arah itself and the human relationship with the gods has been pretty much irrelevant even there… I think they’ve grossly overcompensated.

From an aesthetic point of view, the humans and Norns are basically interchangable. So some of the affinity for humans that GW1 players have would bleed into the Norn race. I see thousands of female Norns everywhere.

The Sylvari had no precedent, so their popularity was up in the air.

Both the Charr and Asura had a history, especially the former. It makes sense for ANet to try and promote them by giving them a bigger spotlight. Although racial preference charts show humans still way in the lead, so perhaps they didn’t go far enough? /shrugs

Even without all that, every race has the same basic set-up. Every race’s home cities are the same size(vertically if not horizontally). Every race has their very own personal antagonist. Every race has their own single story hero(PS not LS). Every race contributes to the Orders in fair amounts.

For the most part, they are all 5 equal spokes of the same anti-dragon wheel, magitech and steampunk aside…

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Except that your claims usually revolve around GW2 in general… except that GW2 in general hasn’t messed up GW1’s lore. It’s the developer’s ideal for the living story’s presentation that does.

Umm…yes it has Konig.

But we’ll never agree on that methinks. Probably because you think simply making sure all your ducks are in a row is all you need to do for that. The heart and soul of a story is just as important as the facts and figures when it comes to continuity.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Erukk.1408:

BrunoBRS.5178:

GW2 magic depends on a channeling tool, and the kind of magic depends on what kind of tool it is.

so you could say the greatsword is partly responsible for the lasers, yes.

I can understand the needing of a channeling tool to cast certain spells, but lore-wise; is the type of channeling tool really necessary? I always regard how they separated the spells for casters, by weapon, as more of a gameplay mechanic. Like, does my elementalist, lore-wise, always need a dagger to cast an earthquake spell, or a staff to throw a fireball? It would just be weird if that was canon.

It would be like saying to Queen Jenna, she couldn’t cast a phantasmal berserker spell, no matter how skilled a Mesmer she is, because she isn’t wielding a great sword…

going by Sea of Sorrows, yes, the channeling tool changes the spells casted. Verahd decidely prefers staves, while a krytan elementalist later on uses a dagger to cast completely different types of spells.

Well…it certainly isn’t the first time ANet has let gameplay mechanics dictate lore. I’d get used to it if I were you.

Why introduce “diminished” magic into Tyria in the first place? What was their intention with this?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

GG Anet, kittening up the lore for non-lore reasons.

That’s been my point all along Konig. :/

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The problem I have with all this is, in GW1 it is pretty clearly established that the Gods removed all magic from Tyria, and then split the Bloodstones.

In the year 1 BE, Abaddon gave the ability to use Magic to the sentient races of Tyria. However, this gift was given too freely, resulting in immediate and bloody wars. The leader of the human kingdoms in Tyria at the time, King Doric, traveled to Arah to seek audience with the gods and begged at their feet for their compassion and to take back their gift of magic. The gods heard his plea and created the bloodstone, which limited the use of magic that the races could use, and then split it into five portions that represent the four schools of magic and a keystone to forever seal away the full power of magic and the mistake that was made by giving too much power to mortals. After the creation of the bloodstones, the gods plunged the giant stones into the largest volcano of the Ring of Fire Island Chain. Soon after, they left the world in the act known as The Exodus.

But what the interview implies, is that basically we could use magic whether the Gods removed it or not. Since magic is also possible without the bloodstones. Now we know that there was magic use before the bloodstones. But Prophecies is pretty clear on the source of human magic. You can’t just redcon all of Guild Wars 1 in one breath. Because that’s basically what such a statement is. It also diminishes the power of the human Gods, making them seem pretty insignificant.

Well…you’re right, but…

…it doesn’t really matter at this point Malafide. GW2 was produced with an entirely different agenda in mind than GW1. Much larger and broader customer appeal(the single most important change) meant an overall decrease in challenging content, an increase in game-play accessibility and cosmetics, a decrease(or in this case elimination) of any factional conflict of import…basically anything which contributes to an all-inclusive, highly player-friendly environment in which things like griefing, ganking, price-gauging, etc., are all kept to a minimum.

They did this specifically to counter the current(at the time) trend of most MMO’s in which player interaction often involved conflicting goals and actions. You can see this in many of GW2’s characteristics: no node-camping, no dueling, no open-world combat, gold sinks, etc. They wanted to make a game that would bring in as many different demographics as possible. This meant both new races to play to give customers more flavor options, as well as having those races get along with each other at all times.

As such, the human gods simply could not exist in the way they had in the past, it would be counter to everything they created with this game if they had only one race with overwhelming access to divine favor. They had to quietly write them out of importance. So the Bloodstone thing(along with others) was altered slightly to take that responsibility away from the gods and put it within Tyria itself. That, along with the addition of science-tech to the the GW universe, put every race on equal footing.

The Dragons are simply another way for GW2 to present us with a pseudo-evil antagonist archetype that everyone can agree on. Are they evil? Who knows(or cares). They are mostly just there for the players to point at as the enemy. That they consume magic makes total sense from a marketing standpoint. What better way to make some gods GTFO than introducing a being that literally eats them for breakfast.

ANet did a decent job trying to reconcile modern Tyria with it’s GW1 roots, I’ll give them that. But if you step back and look at the overall picture, there’s just too many things different about it to warrant legitimacy and continuity.

In short, they don’t really care for GW1 lore to a reasonable extent. Sucks…but it’s true. :/

Thank you Bhawb.

Idk how anyone has extra laurels. With 1 main and only 2 alts, I still only have less than half of their total trinkets as ascended.

Doesn’t help I’m only on level 2 Fractals I guess…and I’ve had the game since launch lol.

On a related note, I hate Fractals.

Noob question:

Does this skill remove 1 boon from 5 different enemies, or just 1 boon from 1 random enemy?

In China, their history books make no mention of the Tiananmen Square incident either. It never happened.

Good ’nuff for me!

/facepalm

30 deep for that in a traitline that is almost entirely used for it’s Master Tier choices. I suppose if you don’t plan on using a bow it would work. :/

silvermember.8941:

Nostalgia strikes again. Abaddon wasn’t a very interesting villain, he was far less interesting than Shiro and Shiro was dumber than a sack full of potatoes.

Rama.6439:

All I have to say is I just wanted the Abaddon fractal, if it isn’t added, PvE on this game is dead for me, the temp content in this game sucks, I only ever liked fractals and just wanted the Abaddon fractal, if I don’t get it, and skill lag issues persist in WvW, this game is its own endgame.

I think your statement will have the opposite of the intended effect.
Personally, your statement actually makes me want to vote Kiel even more.

…and yet a bonfire surrounded by sarcastic gremlins is still far less interesting than Abaddon ever was.

Seeing as our only source of stabo is on a 120s cd, a pet that has an F2 stabo buff would be super duper.

kokiman.2364:

Krispera.5087:

Before the ‘’Great Collapse’’.
I want Cantha district back !

That’s not before the great collapse.

Yeah it is.

Anywho, anyone ever get to swim down in that hole before they closed all the gaps to get in there? It was reeeeeally deep and had a juvenile Armor Fish you could tame too.

Good times.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

Either way, both fractals will be put in. One will just be put in at a later date. A company can’t just create content that is polished and works correctly and then just throw it away.

…like GW1 content?

It’s an interesting choice ANet has given us here.

On one hand, they make us choose between the two races that have, historically anyway, the biggest beef with each other. A lot of GW1 players might choose human because of that.

On the other hand, choosing a human means choosing GW2 lore over GW1 lore. Seems fairly obvious to me they want GW1 vets to make a hard choice here: Human or God Battle…can’t have both.

For new players…it doesn’t really matter much. I suspect they’d want the Reactor Fractal though…it’s fresh and a well-known new character event.

Vahkris.6847:

Obsidian.1328:

Vahkris.6847:

Obsidian.1328:

Dondarrion.2748:

notorious bob.2061:

Right now, GW2 isn’t a sequel to Guild Wars…

Yes it is, notice the 2 after the GW, and it’s the same company who made both and they say so. You may feel stuff has changed, but it’s the sequel to GW alright!

The people that made GW1 aren’t with ANet anymore.

Not entirely correct, but either way that doesn’t stop it from being a sequel.

True, but over 90% gone is a valid qualifier. Either way, it does stop it from being a spiritual sequel, however.

It’s really a brand new game with a “Guild Wars” label slapped on it.

It doesn’t change the fact it’s intended to be the next step in the storyline, same world, same lore. You may not like it or the way they’re doing things, but it’s definitely a sequel to Guild Wars.

Very true, it’s technically a sequel. But I thought we were discussing the quality of certain Living Story aspects, not just that it exists.

Caddyshack II is the sequel to Caddyshack

…yet Caddyshack II =/= Caddyshack

Vahkris.6847:

Obsidian.1328:

Dondarrion.2748:

notorious bob.2061:

Right now, GW2 isn’t a sequel to Guild Wars…

Yes it is, notice the 2 after the GW, and it’s the same company who made both and they say so. You may feel stuff has changed, but it’s the sequel to GW alright!

The people that made GW1 aren’t with ANet anymore.

Not entirely correct, but either way that doesn’t stop it from being a sequel.

True, but over 90% gone is a valid qualifier. Either way, it does stop it from being a spiritual sequel, however.

It’s really a brand new game with a “Guild Wars” label slapped on it.

Dondarrion.2748:

notorious bob.2061:

Right now, GW2 isn’t a sequel to Guild Wars…

Yes it is, notice the 2 after the GW, and it’s the same company who made both and they say so. You may feel stuff has changed, but it’s the sequel to GW alright!

The people that made GW1 aren’t with ANet anymore.

arabeth.2361:

Obsidian.1328:

Trying to derive actual story content from the whims of thousands of fickle gamers…

I think you’re conflating “story telling” with “experiences.” I probably wasn’t clear enough.

Erm…probably not then. I thought we were talking about the pro’s and con’s of the Living Story, were we not?

Explain.

arabeth.2361:

Obsidian.1328:

I would say their target audience is 30-somethings…

…It’s almost as if ANet wanted to cater to the modern, teensy, ADD crowd who can’t be bothered with focusing on one thing for longer than a few moments.

So what makes you think the game is for 30-somethings? Just the freemium nature of it? (I read somewhere that while it’s generally assumed that whales run the show, most FTP games – which GW2 basically is – actually really do make most of their money from zillions of small transactions. So I guess… plankton? Too many ocean metaphors…) Neither of us are Anet execs, so we’ll never know, but I’d still say GW2 is a game by 20-somethings, for 20-somethings. Even if it wasn’t intended, hiring 20-somethings to develop and market it naturally pushed it that way.

Obsidian.1328:

What your saying is simply providing a giant meeting room for player interaction, albeit with colorful and interesting wallpaper and toys. If good storytelling, like that of SWTOR and Skyrim(or even Guild Wars1), are seen as not only highly engaging and immersive, but intrinsic to overall player enjoyment of the game, then why not provide for it?

Good storytelling only lasts so long. Player-driven stories can go on for as long as people like your game. MMOs aren’t planning for 100-hour experiences: they’re planning for 1000-hour experiences. Or more. Not even Skyrim can provide that for millions of people.

Don’t get me wrong: they’re still stuffing a huge helping of story in there, just to provide that fancy wallpaper and whatnot. And we’re here, talking about it, right? So there’s definitely substance to it. But I think it’s a mistake to believe that developer-lead story telling is the true focus of any modern, sustainable MMO.

Obsidian.1328:

If what you’re describing above is the wave of the future, I need to find another game genre. :/

Eh, who has the time anymore anyway, right?

Edit: As I realize I’ve gotten wildly off-topic, I withdraw all questions… Nothing to see here…

30-somethings… and their kids. Don’t forget that last part. :P I could be wrong, but that’s just how it feels to me. A lot of the random RL jokes and references in the writing seem to be aimed at my generation(30’s). Although I will say that recently the references are for a slightly younger crowd, so perhaps you’re right about ANet hiring more 20-somethings.

And are you implying ANet should cater content to the individual tastes of all of us players? I thought player-driven stories was just good-ole role-playing…you know, like heading out with a few guildies and acting out some scripted scenario that may or may not have anything to do with the actual game setting. Am I wrong?

Trying to derive actual story content from the whims of thousands of fickle gamers…I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Besides, you’ll never satisfy anyone by trying to cater to everyone. Any politician can tell ya that lol. And why would you want to? They are the story-tellers, not us. Wth do we know about writing a great tale anyway?

DungeonDaughter.7391:

Tom Gore.4035:

Bovinity.8610:

We should make a form letter for people to fill out, because these posts always follow the same format.

---

Please check all that apply.

You are:

[x] Married
[x] Have Girlfriend

…

Waaait a minute! My wife didn’t hire you, did she?

No, but I hired her.

You, sir, are magnificent.

/salute

arabeth.2361:

Chadramar.8156:

You make some really good points, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. :p

Ha! Well, right back at you: we don’t have to like it, but I do wonder if this is the way the gaming world is headed.

Chadramar.8156:

Nonetheless, there is a colossal difference between communication among the player community, which is impossible to do to this extent in-game, and the devs not bothering to make information promptly and centrally available, or not bothering to write a coherent story in-game.

I think those walls are coming down, though. I think the difference between the “player-driven” narrative of participating in the game and the “developer-driven” narrative is becoming smaller. Think about this: when you play an MMO, what’s the most important part: the game’s preset story, or the “story” that develops from playing with other people? The first may as well be a single-player game; it’s also static and can only happen once (or a predetermined number of times). The second is something that can happen as many times as you have the time and effort to invest in it. And that’s really the heart of what makes an MMO a multiplayer game. I think the player-driven experience of massive online games is where those games are headed; it’s really the only sustainable long-term solution. And I think GW2 plays into this fairly well, although they straddle the line quite a bit. Sure, they gave us a semi-hack (but not insignificant) “personal story” to sucker the Baldur’s Gate crowd in, and keep posting minigame-filled “living story” updates, but the real meat – and what keeps people playing hundreds of hours instead of scores – is the experience of playing with other people, which cannot be scripted but is also capable of being more authentic. Here’s another example: I can’t name every member of Destiny’s Edge off the top of my head (I’m lucky I even got the guild’s name right). But I can tell you the names of my guild leader(s), fun people I play with online, and Dulfy without blinking. Those are powerful player-driven experiences, and those are more meaningful to me than what they’ve delivered “officially” in-game. And rather than try to control or centralize those experiences, Anet chooses to simply provide the catalyst and then get out of the way. Hence: decentralization, propagation, and instigation.

I think this is a sea change. We can choose to stand defiant in the storm or accept this brave new world.

I really disagree with this. There’s a difference between “controlling” your experience, and “elevating” it. What your saying is simply providing a giant meeting room for player interaction, albeit with colorful and interesting wallpaper and toys. If good storytelling, like that of SWTOR and Skyrim(or even Guild Wars1), are seen as not only highly engaging and immersive, but intrinsic to overall player enjoyment of the game, then why not provide for it?

Anyone can make a glorified chat room, not everyone create a story and world that compels you to lose yourself in it. If what you’re describing above is the wave of the future, I need to find another game genre. :/

arabeth.2361:

This is a really interesting point, but I believe this just isn’t the way the world works anymore, and it’s not how this game works, either. Keep in mind that both the devs and the target market for this game are pretty much all people under 30 (Did you see the dev Halloween picture? Babies! And who has the time to really play MMOs? People without as many responsibilities.). They don’t even publicize information about their game on their own website for the most part: it’s distributed between reddit, facebook, twitter, their forums, other forums, and interviews given out to a huge random bunch of sites (and probably other places). That’s because the walls between different ways to distribute and gather information don’t exist for them, partially because the walls that separate “official” or verified information from speculation and gossip are being torn down (especially online) all in the name of speed of access. For people under 30 (and especially under 22) I don’t think there is much difference between getting information online and offline, because it all flows together constantly. Take the rude retort to the original comment about “why can’t you just alt tab” – this person is probably serious about why you can’t just alt-tab. They probably honestly have no idea why that is immersion breaking because for them: it isn’t. And they can’t even imagine a perspective where it would be. Their game world exists both inside and outside the game in the same way that “being connected” happens both when you’re online and when you’re not.

I think modern games have come to accept the idea that their game does not exist solely within the game itself. Some have really played with this idea further, but even simple games still have FAQs and videos and fan sites and a huge plethora of out-of-game information which is all still a part of the whole experience of playing the game. I mean take these forums: some people come to the forums while they’re at work because they can’t play the game any other way while they’re at work. Using the forums is just another way of participating in the game. And in the end, isn’t the game actually richer because of all this? Isn’t it actually a bonus that there are so many ways to feel and participate in the game even when you’re not playing, and so many layers to what is available for you? And GW2 is one of the most modern, forward-thinking games I’ve ever participated in when it comes to having a more “distributed” view of how the world works, or how their game works, and as I said before I have to think it’s due in no small part to the fact that their team and talent are so young. That’s the new generation. The information is more spread out and harder to access but also more rich. It’s less “deeply immersive” but at the same time “more shallow immersive.” Less deep, more rich. Think about how google works: there is only one layer of information. But it has everything.

I’m sure I’ve waxed far too philosophical for most people on these boards but it’s ok: they won’t read a post this long anyway. This is really directed toward those who actually know what Baldur’s Gate is and how alt-tabbing could possibly break someone’s immersion.

I would say their target audience is 30-somethings…and their kids. It’s pretty apparent to me they want the older, casual, cash-cow crowd, along with a new younger, and impressionable, generation.

At any rate I think you have a very good point in what you say about immersion. There’s tons of stuff to see and read and learn in tons of different outlets. I don’t think that’s what people are arguing here though. It’s the richness that’s missing. On a personal note, even if I didn’t have issue with how the Guild Wars story has been morphed over the years, I still would have trouble liking it. It’s just so random and frilly and superficial. It’s almost as if ANet wanted to cater to the modern, teensy, ADD crowd who can’t be bothered with focusing on one thing for longer than a few moments. It’s depressing.

The problem is ANet suffers from a lack of genre specificity. This game pulls skins from every point on the style spectrum. As a result, there’s a lot of different styles to choose from, but each of those individual styles are generic or have minimal variety. They went for quantity over quality.

Evans.6347:

Obsidian.1328:

Play Prophecies where it’s outright apparent you can solo every mission there, even the kitten y Ascalonian npc’s can hold their own against them. The Charr were retconned dude…we’ve been over this.

That’s a pretty poor arguement. By your reasoning the fact that my Charr in GW2 can stand up to an entire separist base flooding over her means that Charr are incredibly superior to humans.

The Charr are born for battle and are naturally equiped with the killing tools. Saying they are inferior to Ascalonian soldiers because of game mechanics is silly.

GW2 Charr are physically superior to everyone else though, they could tear anyone apart. But that’s not how they used to be. :/

Evans.6347:

Obsidian.1328:

Oh and my ideas are better received by the community, just not the small crowd of GW2 lore junkies so much. Although I have gotten a few messages from others thanking me for standing up to you back when I posted a lot more. You shouldn’t bully so much Konig, it’s bad for the soul.

Oh is this a popularity contest now? An ego like that can probably stand up against at least 7 Charr.

Yes! I’m going to enter the race for LA mayor or whatever it is. No RNG for 1 month…I’m a shoe in. My fractal shall be killing Oink the Pig

Good times.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Read Sea of Sorrows or Ghosts of Ascalon where it’s outright stated that one charr is worth the fighting strength of seven humans (roughly on my memory). The charr strength wasn’t just in their numbers, but their fighting prowess too.

Play Prophecies where it’s outright apparent you can solo every mission there, even the kitten y Ascalonian npc’s can hold their own against them. The Charr were retconned dude…we’ve been over this.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You presume that Krytans would last long enough to seek the Seer’s aid, which they only got because the dwarves knew of the seer and they only got that because they were forced to flee from the White Mantle. Without Abaddon going bad, the Flameseeker prophecies would never have existed – no Searing, no charr invasion, no White Mantle, no Chosen-to-kill-mursaat. Mursaat have no need of Krytans, so they don’t need to hide in the shadows. Of course, I make the presumption that the mursaat would even care enough to face Krytans – but then again, the entire OP is a presumption as is my response to it (and as said, intentionally so).

Lol, the whole reason the Mursaat were down there was to use the Chosen’s Essences to power the batteries sealing the Door of Komalie. No Chosen, no Mursaat. Reeeeally backed yourself into a corner there.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Baka. Magic exists regardless of Abaddon, however, without Abaddon magic would be stuck in the Bloodstone. The Elder Dragons, which predate the bloodstone and the Six Gods, would exist with magic regardless. Doesn’t matter when or why they were written in.

Riiiiight. Just like it doesn’t matter why Peter Jackson made Liv Tyler(Arwen) out to be some warrior princess. Or why Anakin is portrayed like such a whiny chump in II and III. The “why” always matters Konig, if only for the fact that basic curiosity is what got us out of the stone age. Using my brain and exercising my right to ask questions seemed an easy choice compared to blindly accepting what I’m given.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Except that my post was meant to be sarcastically hypocritical. It was meant to be with scathing rhetoric. Also:

You know Obsidian, if you didn’t answer posts with such blatant ignoring of GW2 lore, your ideas might be a little better received in this community.

If it was meant to be sarcastic, you need to work on your delivery. Oh and my ideas are better received by the community, just not the small crowd of GW2 lore junkies so much. Although I have gotten a few messages from others thanking me for standing up to you back when I posted a lot more. You shouldn’t bully so much Konig, it’s bad for the soul.

Thalador.4218:

Obsidian.1328:

Thalador

They were never written as anything less than “godly”, and 3 entire games’ worth of content attests to that. If you can’t distinguish between two separate sources we have no common ground to discuss anything. Instead of arguing about what the Six are and their roles, you should be asking the better question of what ANet plans to do with them and why. Their past, along with many other things, has already been altered. What happens to them now is a lot less telling about who the gods are, and a lot more telling about what the writers want you to think about them.

After all, ANet(and NCSoft) is a business first and foremost. Their creative staff has to steer content to the direction their business model wants to go. Obviously they thought adding new cliched player races, dragons, and oodles of theme-park content and items was the way to go to attract more customers. All I ever comment on here is the past…and how it has changed since then. I don’t really care what happens now.

But seriously, if you really think both games share the same lore and spirit, I can’t argue with you. The gods, for all intensive game purposes, and even if ANet brought them back for a brief appearance, are dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

Abaddon, if imagined to be real for a moment, would have been happy he didn’t have to be around in a time when his kind didn’t matter anymore.

I don’t really see how their past have been changed or why they would be "dead. " Their history was elaborated, expanded, and hopefully it’ll continue to expand in an interesting, cohesive, and sensible way.

I cannot deny that the lore and spirit is starting to be steered in the wrong direction in an alarming number of ways, but it’s still not of a catastrophic level yet. I agree, I don’t like the direction we are heading in either, but I still have some hope left. However, if they do continue down on this trek, that trust they’ve built up with three campaigns, one expansion, the BMP, and three fascinating Beyond stories will crumble to nothingness.

Still, I disagree on your view of the gods. Their history hasn’t been altered, but expanded. They are still the most interesting part of lore in my eyes, and I feel what we’ve been teased with is actually compelling. I just hope ANet won’t let us down with failing to tell their tales the proper way… one of the reasons why I’m so much against turning the Fall of Abaddon into a fractal, and not a DLC-length BMP (with BMP cinematics and God of War visuals) about the whole War of the Gods – from the strengthening of the Bloodstone in Arah through Jadoth’s prayer and Doric’s plea to the final battle above the Temple of the Six Gods and the shores of the Crystal Sea.

Fair enough, Thalador. It’s certainly your right to stay loyal I guess.

Personally, they’ve just taken waaaay to much liberty with the editing pen for me to stay that way. So I rant about it. The giant hole in DR compels me to.

Thalador

Is “bestow” a better word? I didn’t mean to imply the gods were the creators of magic since the beginning of time in the whole universe in all of existence…lol. I’m speaking about a video game. And I don’t remember who Thadeus Lamount was, I assume the author of that History you posted. I agree with most things in there, but the majority of my opinion has a lot more to do with things you experience in the actual game, and not what someone says about it now who wasn’t there when said game-world was released.

They were never written as anything less than “godly”, and 3 entire games’ worth of content attests to that. If you can’t distinguish between two separate sources we have no common ground to discuss anything. Instead of arguing about what the Six are and their roles, you should be asking the better question of what ANet plans to do with them and why. Their past, along with many other things, has already been altered. What happens to them now is a lot less telling about who the gods are, and a lot more telling about what the writers want you to think about them.

After all, ANet(and NCSoft) is a business first and foremost. Their creative staff has to steer content to the direction their business model wants to go. Obviously they thought adding new cliched player races, dragons, and oodles of theme-park content and items was the way to go to attract more customers. All I ever comment on here is the past…and how it has changed since then. I don’t really care what happens now.

But seriously, if you really think both games share the same lore and spirit, I can’t argue with you. The gods, for all intensive game purposes, and even if ANet brought them back for a brief appearance, are dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

Abaddon, if imagined to be real for a moment, would have been happy he didn’t have to be around in a time when his kind didn’t matter anymore.

Vayne

There are some things people can agree on with “everything you love about Guild Wars 1” ya know. It’s not all entirely subjective.

Statements like that made by developers are aimed precisely at those things that a lot of people liked about the game. So what are those things? It wouldn’t be a bad idea to list them so everyone can agree/disagree on it. There’s a certain amount of democratization with what makes games good or bad, something developers should always key into. “Good things” about a game can be generally determined by a set of peers: players, critics, developers, writers, artists, etc…

Here I’ll start with a few things I think are “universally” good about GW1:

• high skill customization of player characters
• well-implemented, reasonably balanced, and competitive PvP component
• engaging and well-written lore and personal story
• visually well-designed world
• strong guild(and alliance) component
• friendly and strong community
• friendly and strong player-developer relationship
• little to no leveling grind
• cash shop was reasonable and cosmetic
• boxprice was affordable, no monthly fee
• farming was fairly profitable

Would anyone disagree with those? 0.o

Thalador…that’s a subject that’s been argued over already in other posts. The gods not creating magic, like the Elder Dragons themselves, was not part of GW1 lore until GW2 was under development. Take that however you want I suppose.

Taking your side, if magic was completely independent of the gods, there’d be no reason for them in the first place…aside from a space taxi service for the humans to bring them from…wherever it is they come from. I’m sure a writer could come up with dozens of ways to mimic the Bloodstone’s effects without having to rely on divine intervention.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Quite the speculation. Keep in mind, however, that no one would have magic – not in its current form at least. So Ascalonians would get wtfpwned because they’re just going strength vs. strength – they were able to hold back thanks to magikittenil the charr got better magic, but without being able to hold out thanks to magic, the charr would just wtfpwn them.

Mursaat would have returned regardless and slaughtered all the magicless humans with their own Spectral Agony since it wasn’t taken in the Bloodstone. Bye bye Kryta.

Zhaitan would have risen regardless, wiping out most of the humans there and devouring the gods if they remained – if not, then humans would have no means of defense and get wiped out anyways, just no tidal wave caused by a rising of the land.

Cantha – Canthans would have gotten their kitten handed to them by the tengu because they’re idiots who encroached on tengu territory and sparked a war, without the population increase caused by refugees from the Jade Wind incident, the empire’s population would be too low to build up a large enough army to do that. Luxons and Kurzicks would keep beating each other up in the meantime.

Elona – Joko never existed in the first place as a lich, and no Varesh-gone mad. So they’re the only human bastion left when the Elder Dragons rise. The Margonites still roam the Crystal Sea, and are the main human fighting force against Zhaitan and Kralkatorrik.

Not quite what you imagine, eh Gandarel?

Did you really have to create another thread on this? If folks who never played GW1 want to know about Abaddon, we have the Temple of the Forgotten God to spark interest. And the mention of the Fall of Abaddon would spark some interest to, and they’d go to the wikis and read the lore. The fractal will not be giving as much lore as you think it will. I can promise that.

Not really Konig.

1v1 Ascalonians wtfpwn Charr. Charr strength was in their numbers, not fighting prowess.

The principle defense against the Mursaat, infusion, wasn’t magic related. So no, they wouldn’t have wtfpwnd Kryta.

If there was no magic, there’d be no Elder Dragons either. They were written into GW2 lore as devourers of magic, and, by default, to eclipse the human gods as the apex beings of power in Tyria. Can’t have human gods in charge in a game with multiple races ya know.

Cantha being overrun by Tengu…odd. Tengu used magic too Konig, as did all of the at least semi-sentient races of Tyria.

Elona…you’re right about that one.

Not quite what you imagine, eh Konig?

You know Konig, if you didn’t answer posts with such scathing rhetoric, your ideas might be a little better received in this community.

just sayin…

Chasan.3521:

On behalf of the PD havoc squad thanks for all the fights tonight guys.

WTF is this Texas!?!

No sarcasm?
No insults?
No rage?

LTP Dude (on forums).