Guild Wars 2

Daniel Handler.4816:

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Is the Hobbit pro halfling centered…….. No kitten sherlock. Bilbo Baggins wrote the narrative and anything in it is from his perspective. You being an actual librarian seems a dubious claim now. This is not a mistake many librarians would make.

You can make your claims if and only if the voice in prophecies was omniscient. When I spoke to Gwen in the campaign did I also get to hear what was she was thinking?

Tolkien told the story mostly through the eyes of Bilbo, but there were also parts told through plain Jane narration. And no, Bilbo did not write The Hobbit the novel. He wrote many of the excerpts from the The Red Book…which he then used, along with personal experience, to write There and Back Again. It was an amusing literary device Tolkien used to add a level of authenticity to the story that is rare these days. And it was very good fun I must say.

I didn’t say I was a librarian, I said I worked in a library.

True about Gwen. But what’s that omniscient female voice-over I hear at the beginning of Prophecies? My mother??

The voice of GW was not entirely omniscient, nor was it entirely 1st person. It alternated depending on the situation.

Hobbits wrote the Red Book of Westmarch. Tolkien used the writings as a primary and only source. Any narrative written “objectively” based on Bilbo’s narrative would be as if Bilbo himself wrote it. Tolkien is more editor than he is writer, which he himself maintains. At worst he is the works translator. To consider him writing his own subjective opinion into the story dilutes the authenticity of the writing he claims.

As for Gwen, whether the narrator’s voice is your mother or not, the fact remains the entire narrative is not written in the third person omniscient point of view. Therefore any part of the story that is written in first person that concerns lore can be subjectively evaluated.

Right…

So Tolkien objectively wrote Bilbo’s narrative…which came from Tolkien’s own imagination. Then additionally objectively edited Bilbo’s(his) narrative to give us the novel. Are you for real??

Your second point…even if that’s true, does that mean any part that is not purely 1st-person can be objectively evaluated?

Do you really want to rob him of how his works should be interpreted, especially considering your admiring of Jess Lebow. A person who translates Beowulf did not write Beowulf. Tolkien portrays it as if he did not write the works, just translated and edited them together. That is him declaring that any subjectivity would be from either errors in translation or his source material. In a second edition he publishes he even declares that errors in the first edition was from Bilbo being under the influence of the one ring, and that he found “correct” versions published by Frodo. It is in its entirety prejudicial to hobbits and the opinions of a 20th century British male. Now one could say that Bilbo tried to be objective, but without access to Bilbo’s source material we don’t know. Which is why it was so easy for Tolkien to retcon events in his later works.

I didn’t say I admired Jess, I just defend his writing.

It’s great that ole J.R.R. wants his book portrayed as if Bilbo wrote it, he’s just trying to give the reader a good sense of immersion. But actually saying, in RL, that Bilbo wrote the story is…is…

…well let’s just say that I want to get myself some of that Longbottom Leaf he’s smokin’.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Pyro.4765:

isn’t this the subforum for the game’s writing and background as opposed to mechanics?

Correction then. You can do it but it is endlessly trite. What is done is done.

Unless we’re talking about the lore…which, by your own admission, is a work in progress and never set in stone.

The lore is not the writing. Stop acting like it is. The lore is produced from objective aspects of the writing. When people argue lore they seek to either draw an objective aspect from the writing or argue an objective inference from existing lore. The more writing the more lore is produced. A retcons is when writers attempt to rewrite lore. You don’t gain objective lore from subjective interactions.

• Character who behaves like an idiot in chapter one might actually be an undercover agent in chapter three
• you don’t get to say they were actually just an idiot and this is a retcon unless you can prove without a doubt they were not pretending to be dumb in chapter one.

People complaining about writing are those who are sad about endings, but what does that do. I don’t like how X character acts in X situation. Do you seek a community of people who also don’t like Gwens personality? Do you want a retcons of your own? You can post trying to find people who like Quaggans and find enjoyment, or you can post about people who don’t like Quaggans and find collective misery. Or at least write what could change about the Quaggans to make them more tolerable.

All that stuff up there just means that whosoever controls the narrative rights, regardless of anything else, determines what is and isn’t lore. By that rationale, anyone, and I mean anyone, who is given the keys to the Star Wars ‘verse could write a book about Leia and Chewie’s secret affair, and love child-Wookie, behind Hans back, who becomes a Sith Lord called Harry, that has a fetish for Nerf burgers and hair perms. And has pink fur.

And no one could raise a finger in protest.

That’s got to be the silliest excuse for literary authority I’ve ever heard.

Is the short name for National Socialist German Worker’s Party really auto-censored here?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Pyro.4765:

isn’t this the subforum for the game’s writing and background as opposed to mechanics?

Correction then. You can do it but it is endlessly trite. What is done is done.

Unless we’re talking about the lore…which, by your own admission, is a work in progress and never set in stone.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Is the Hobbit pro halfling centered…….. No kitten sherlock. Bilbo Baggins wrote the narrative and anything in it is from his perspective. You being an actual librarian seems a dubious claim now. This is not a mistake many librarians would make.

You can make your claims if and only if the voice in prophecies was omniscient. When I spoke to Gwen in the campaign did I also get to hear what was she was thinking?

Tolkien told the story mostly through the eyes of Bilbo, but there were also parts told through plain Jane narration. And no, Bilbo did not write The Hobbit the novel. He wrote many of the excerpts from the The Red Book…which he then used, along with personal experience, to write There and Back Again. It was an amusing literary device Tolkien used to add a level of authenticity to the story that is rare these days. And it was very good fun I must say.

I didn’t say I was a librarian, I said I worked in a library.

True about Gwen. But what’s that omniscient female voice-over I hear at the beginning of Prophecies? My mother??

The voice of GW was not entirely omniscient, nor was it entirely 1st person. It alternated depending on the situation.

Hobbits wrote the Red Book of Westmarch. Tolkien used the writings as a primary and only source. Any narrative written “objectively” based on Bilbo’s narrative would be as if Bilbo himself wrote it. Tolkien is more editor than he is writer, which he himself maintains. At worst he is the works translator. To consider him writing his own subjective opinion into the story dilutes the authenticity of the writing he claims.

As for Gwen, whether the narrator’s voice is your mother or not, the fact remains the entire narrative is not written in the third person omniscient point of view. Therefore any part of the story that is written in first person that concerns lore can be subjectively evaluated.

Right…

So Tolkien objectively wrote Bilbo’s narrative…which came from Tolkien’s own imagination. Then additionally objectively edited Bilbo’s(his) narrative to give us the novel. Are you for real??

Your second point…even if that’s true, does that mean any part that is not purely 1st-person can be objectively evaluated?

Lutinz

Agree pretty much.

Another question then: Why do you(all) think ANet writers decided to simplify the various GW1 human cultures into one monoculture? As Cantha and Elona are indefinitely off the table, humanity is essentially Krytan.

Reasons? Thoughts?

Kalavier.1097:

Honestly… I think in a sense the issue comes from the human side refusing to take fault for what they’ve done. Ascalon has explicitly been stated to been taken from the Charr by force. Charr simply responded to this by invading back to reclaim their homeland. That’s what the siege of Ebonhawke is IMO… them simply trying to kick out that last pesky bit of the nation. Now there is peace forming and humanity WILL GET some of Ascalon back.

Yet that’s not enough. Most Adelbern ascalonians I see (aka most players it seems) aren’t happy at all unless the Charr just GIVE UP EVERYTHING they’ve taken back, and go back north of the wall and just throw away anything and everything they’ve worked on to ‘make it up to the humans’.

Answer me this then: Why did ANet writers decide to make Ascalon into Charr land in the first place? I mean, there are leagues and leagues of Charr territory north of the Basin, not to mention there were zero Charr ruins to be found anywhere in Ascalon. Before this game came out, just about everyone assumed, because of a plethora of in-game references, the Charr came from “north east somewhere.” Why then, was ANet so determined to kill off a human culture and claim “ancestral” ownership of the land?

Do you really believe that this was the most logical turn of events, or were there ulterior motives, non-verse related, behind it?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Is the Hobbit pro halfling centered…….. No kitten sherlock. Bilbo Baggins wrote the narrative and anything in it is from his perspective. You being an actual librarian seems a dubious claim now. This is not a mistake many librarians would make.

You can make your claims if and only if the voice in prophecies was omniscient. When I spoke to Gwen in the campaign did I also get to hear what was she was thinking?

Tolkien told the story mostly through the eyes of Bilbo, but there were also parts told through plain Jane narration. And no, Bilbo did not write The Hobbit the novel. He wrote many of the excerpts from the The Red Book…which he then used, along with personal experience, to write There and Back Again. It was an amusing literary device Tolkien used to add a level of authenticity to the story that is rare these days. And it was very good fun I must say.

I didn’t say I was a librarian, I said I worked in a library.

True about Gwen. But what’s that omniscient female voice-over I hear at the beginning of Prophecies? My mother??

The voice of GW was not entirely omniscient, nor was it entirely 1st person. It alternated depending on the situation.

By that rationale, only the most current writing matters then.

Sure glad Terminator Genysis is coming out, I hear Cameron was all /sadpanda at the obviously non-canon Rise of the Machines and Salvation. He even wants you to pretend those two never existed, even though he did not write/direct them…nor Genysis.

I’m so confuzzled!!

Derom.1205:

Obsidian.1328:

ANet was trying to change its target audience to a younger demographic by changing the mood of the writing.

It isn’t the first time someone said that. I cannot really wrap my head around that statement. I mean the statement implies that before EOTN the game was targeting an older demographic, right?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Enadiz_the_Hardheaded

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Drakes_on_the_Plain

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Banana_Scythe.jpg

wat.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Herta —-> hilarious (seriously!)

If anything (and I wouldn’t say GW1 was for an older audience ever), the shift to a less serious tone started with Nightfall and from then on it balanced funny and tragic pretty well for the most part, at least for me.
In my opinion the most mature storyline was Winds of Change. Which was the last story released.

Oh you missed a good one!: Oink

Given that a lot of the popular references in GW1 were from the 90’s or even 80’s, I’d say that GW2’s target audience was Gen X-ers and their kids. Someone should have told them X-ers and millennials are very different. :-/

Interesting how your references there are from Nightfall. That’s exactly when the new writers took over.

Kalavier.1097:

I’m not saying Flame Legion did everything (And I’ve played all of GW1), I’m saying lore provided outside of the pro human centered viewpoint of GW1, has shown that Flame Legion held the lead for a long time, during and before GW1 even.

GW1 is pro human centered? Is Star Wars pro human centered? Is The Hobbit pro halfling centered??

It’s rather easy to claim an author’s entire narrative is in-verse biased when not explicitly stated I suppose. So much for narrative voice…

But why stop there? Factions is Canthan biased, or even Luxon or Kurzick biased depending on your point of view! Since I chose Luxon, all those filthy Kurzicks are so obviously villains they should all die! What’s that? The Kurzick point of view is different than mine and equally valid?? I can’t believe ANet tricked me! Oh the humanity!!

Sariel V.7024:

That too many people are so mired in the lore of the first game that they won’t allow the lore of the second game to evolve

to be contrasted with a writing department that won’t make fixes to cover the minutiae when they forget some random fact. So, you know, this goes both ways.

Lol…well put!

Kalavier.1097:

What I hate is how people seem to avoid the idea that the leadership change means a lot.

I mean, does everybody think Germany is all evil now? No. They got new leadership and direction. The Charr overthrew their old leadership, and started a new path. Why people continue to hold ALL CHARR EVERYWHERE TODAY accountable for actions made by/ordered by FLAME LEGION LEADERSHIP is what confuses me.

Well what I hate is when GW2 players think that the whole “the Flame Legion did it” mantra even existed in Prophecies. There was zero indication of this. In fact, the Flame Legion itself wasn’t even written into the narrative until Eye of the North.

And as EotN is first and foremost a prequel to GW2, as ANet has stated, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is a little disconnect there.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

And that is supposed to be humanities best? A girl that managed to escape from the Charr (impressive, but not that heroic) and later she tagged along when a much better human being went on the altruistic journey to safe the world from a much bigger threat, yet she did nothing but cry about how bad the Charr are, while even an Ascalonian PC had no problem inviting Pyre into his party. The only somewhat heroic thing Gwen ever did was found Ebonhawke, but we never get to see that and also it’s nothing compared to almost single-handedly stopping Abaddon. That is poor writing at it’s finest!

Gwen’s ascendancy in EotN was one of the ways ANet was changing the narrative back then to prepare for GW2. This is painfully obvious in the whole Hearts of the North episode where you get to witness Kieran start to wear his big boy pants. ANet was trying to change its target audience to a younger demographic by changing the mood of the writing. I don’t see how watching two teens’ awkward and overlong courtship and marriage in a video game can be seen any other way. :-/

It’s no coincidence that Gwen, Jora, Vekk, Ogden, and Pyre are brought to center stage while at the same time Devona, Mhenlo, Cynn, Eve, and Aidan all quietly bow out. By EotN, humanity was already old news.

Daniel Handler.4816:

@Lutinz

The one major work of human ingenuity, the watch knights, turned out to be reverse engineered Sylvari technology and blew up in the Humans faces spectacularly. If your not playing a human the solution to the crisis didn’t even evolve human help unless you count Faren in his underwear.

Actually it’s reverse engineered human technology. Sylvari technology uses plant magic and very little metal.

@Obsidian

Or how they gave each race popular “gamer themes”: Norn are drunk vikings, Asura are mad scientist gnomes, Sylvari are English(no idea why) wood-elves, Charr are steam-punk orcs, and humans are…well humans are standard vanilla medieval humans. It’s like they took 5 popular fantasy themes which had nothing to do with GW2, and forcefully superimposed them into the narrative. Even GW2 Krytans don’t accurately reflect GW1 Krytans…they weren’t even white.

This comment makes me kinda sad. I work in a library, and many books have derivations of earlier stories. Example, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, has derivations from Alice in Wonderland. However that does not make the work less unique. It’s endlessly pessimistic of writing in general to assume that if someone uses a popular theme that appeals to the masses their writing has no merit. Buffy used Dracula; get over yourself.

For Buffy: “During the first year of the series, Whedon described the show as My So-Called Life meets The X-Files.”

The difference is Buffy is meant to be all sitcom-y with a small helping of high school fright. Is GW2 supposed to be a mix between LOTR and Archie Bunker?

I work in a library too. I don’t think anyone takes something like Animal Farm as the definitive treatise on the 1917 Russian Revolution. It’s political satire for juveniles or young adults. Different versions and genres of well-known stories doesn’t mean they are a continuation of the story itself, but rather a subjective reflection of it.

I’d argue GW2 was envisioned for an even younger audience than GW1.

Dante.1763:

~snip~

Actually, humans did kill the Charr Titans.

Pahawe.4865:

~snip~

In GW1, Ascalon wasn’t Charr ancestral land or legion homeland or anything like that. That was artificially injected into the narrative a few years ago…probably to further legitimize the Charr claim to it is my guess.

Also, every creature, large or small, numerous or few, basically used magic the same way in GW1. Some races might have had a better aptitude towards it perhaps, but that’s hard to prove. Every enemy and ally used the same named spells and such. I suppose you could argue they may have called a particular spell something different within their respective races, but something like Dwayna’s Kiss did the same thing whether you were a human, Charr, grawl, or Mursaat.

Your last 3 paragraphs are pretty spot on though.

Derom.1205:

It’s always weird and interesting for me to see how the whole Char-Human Ascalon conflict becomes so personal for so many people.
It makes sense for players to hate Charr after watching the Searing turning Ascalon into a Wasteland.

But what about players who started with Factions or Nightfall? They really have no connection to Ascalon at first and only see it in its ruined state.

For me personaly, my first campaign was Nightfall, so I never really cared about what happened in Ascalon (even after i played pre-searing). So when i read all the discussion about it here, it’s just weird for me.
So the whole conflict appears to me like one morally grey clusterkitten that mirrors the Israel-Palastine conflict way too much.

*Edit: I guess i would like the answers for 2 questions:

What is your opinion about the Ascalon discussion?

and

How do you think do these discussion sometimes become this bizarre almost-roleplay where people take the whole discussion to an almost real life seriousness.

You’re right about players who didn’t start with Proph having a different attitude. There are even a lot of players who did start with Proph who viewed Ascalon as a “lost cause.” It is what it is.

Personally, my biggest beef is not so much that ANet turned human Ascalon into Charr Ascalon, but rather the reasons behind it. I view the Ascalon fiasco as one of the starkest examples of a huge thematic shift in the narrative between the two games. I also view this shift was done for largely popularity reasons in gamer culture…something I find abhorrent.

For instance, I believe ANet melted all of humanity down to one culture in GW2 for “racial balance” reasons, like they wanted racial parity to make sure all players feel equal no matter which race they chose. They essentially replaced human cultural diversity with racial cultural diversity overnight.

Or how they gave each race popular “gamer themes”: Norn are drunk vikings, Asura are mad scientist gnomes, Sylvari are English(no idea why) wood-elves, Charr are steam-punk orcs, and humans are…well humans are standard vanilla medieval humans. It’s like they took 5 popular fantasy themes which had nothing to do with GW2, and forcefully superimposed them into the narrative. Even GW2 Krytans don’t accurately reflect GW1 Krytans…they weren’t even white.

Ascalon is just one of the most over-the-top thematic and narrative shifts in the game, which one major reason why it gets called out on so much. I also have a rather intense(some would say unhealthy) belief in honest continuity. Meaning, I believe if you’re going to add on to a pre-existing narrative, do so in a way that honestly reflects that narrative. GW2 ANet used every lore trick in the book to transform Tyria into an almost completely different world. And why?? Mainly for marketing reasons…they wanted to appeal to a wider audience.

I find that cheap, dishonest, and just plain wrong.

Well I didn’t exactly ask permission to name-drop him, so I don’t really feel comfortable doing it already. We had corresponded through emails several years ago. You’re free to contact him if you want, I believe he still lives in China so a face-to-face might be rather difficult. :-/

I’ve mixed up Factions and Nightfall in my posts a dozen times, and someone already called me out on this one earlier…to which I apologized and edited it correctly last week. Is that the best complaint you have?

I can’t speak on the “unfriendly” conditions that you brought up, Jeff only said he loved his time at ANet. Perhaps it was him and he was just being courteous, perhaps not. I really don’t know about that.

Drax is a good fellow, I wouldn’t mind hearing what he recalled reading.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

~snip~

Your first point…writing something because you know there will be 2 more installments is one thing. Writing something because you hope there will be is another entirely. Can you prove that they wrote Proph as part 1 of 3? I doubt it. Referring to something like “you prevented a greater evil” is so ridiculously vague. There are literally dozens and dozens of loose plot threads in Proph. Like I said, every writer does that.

Your second point…either he lied to me or yours lied to you. Both can’t be true. I’ll gladly bow out if you can prove it somehow.

Interesting huh, that these opposing claims even exist in the first place…

Daniel Handler.4816:

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

but unless you can prove ANET lost all of its writers between Gw1 and Gw2, your appeal to original authorship doesn’t work.

Not all, but one…who happened to solo write Proph, and wrote Factions as well but had some help with that one. He left after that.

Yeah I am gonna need a name.

“I spoke to a guy at ANET who said you were wrong. But I am not going to show any official crediting to prove who this guy was, or what his position at ANET was.”

…

For goodness sake dude, it’s not a secret. He’s well known here, and you can easily look him up. His name is Jess Lebow.

There’s even a little homage to him in in the Aurora Remains event in Aurora Glade in the form of Less Longbow.

sheesh

Daniel Handler.4816:

but unless you can prove ANET lost all of its writers between Gw1 and Gw2, your appeal to original authorship doesn’t work.

Not all, but one…who happened to solo write Proph, and wrote Factions as well but had some help with that one. He left after that.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

When Anet made Prophecies, they had the full intent to create subsequent campaigns every 6 months. This didn’t pan out, as Factions took a year to make, but they had the full intention of making more stories.

Furthermore, they intended to tell stories in 3-piece arcs. So when they made Prophecies, they intended to close it with Nightfall. The question was the form it would take and the story. When writing Prophecies, they only created threads – like the Ghostly Hero (aka Turai Ossa) having a one sentence passing on defeating Palawa Joko. Such threads existed for both lore on Cantha and Elona, but they were minimal – there only to present a “hey, yeah, there’s more out there”. When Nightfall was written, Anet even seeded in hints to Utopia – though since Utopia got scrapped, we can’t really be certain what said hints were.

The belief that “Prophecies was written as a completed story” is false.

Actually it’s true.

I know it’s true because I’ve actually spoken to its author. Have you? All of Proph was written by one guy, and at the time they had no idea if it would pan out. Of course he made references to things outside the scope of the Proph story arc, but every writer does that in case they need to expand on it later. That’s common sense. But that doesn’t mean he expected to, nor does it mean he intended the Proph story to be incomplete. It was written as complete, and later all of those little reference threads were used to help seed the additional story arcs.

I’m actually a little surprised you’d think so, given that you yourself have stated multiple times that the “Abaddon was behind the Searing and Shiro too” thing was retroactively inserted into the narrative when Grubb and co. wrote Nightfall.

Daniel Handler.4816:

But Gw1 and 2 and not novels. They are lore written by staff for Arena Net. This isn’t a book. And despite the eekiness of the metaphor, if God appeared before us all and said the new testament was the way to go, then that would be the way to go. No single author has control over any of the works. Nor did any single author write any single work without ANETs approval and probably editing.

Control only implies ownership, not authorship. And literature is literature, it doesn’t matter if it’s in novel form or not. What you’re basically arguing is that a company’s stamp of approval is the ultimate arbiter of truth in the stories they hired someone to write. Like the simple act of allowing something to see the light of day bestows literary authority.

You should go into the publishing business.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The problem I had with the argument was the person rejecting ANET’s revision because the idea that the entirety of the events of Gw1 were written from human perspective, didn’t fit with them.

If you can find a quote from the author that explicitly states that GW1 was meant to be taken as strictly human perspective, and therefore bias, then you’d have something there.

If not, every fiction story everywhere in the history of time can easily be changed by the colossal cop-out of “Well…that earlier stuff was all [insert race] bias and shouldn’t be taken seriously.”

Seriously?

Daniel Handler.4816:

You must understand the difference between lore in a finished story like Lord of the Rings, and lore in an evolving story like Magic the Gathering. The story is not completed yet. Who are we to argue with later chapters?

The problem with that is that Proph was written as a completed story, they had no idea if it would be successful enough to make another campaign. It was conceived, written, and presented as a complete whole. That they added on to it later is irrelevant for your point.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Obsidian, it’s typically pointless to discuss with you but I’ll say this:

Daniel was saying that all of those were canon, but that they’re canon in different universes. Parallel worlds.

However, the Tyria in GW2 is the same Tyria in GW1. No parallel universes, and no “this is canon this isn’t.” All of both games are canon – the question is which is objective truth and which is subjective truth.

If it’s outright implied that those fictions are supposed to be in parallel worlds, then yes I’d agree with you.

But if a later fiction in the same world seeks to correct an earlier fiction by implying the earlier isn’t just wrong, but also was always wrong, then that is just plain wrong….unless it’s the same author doing so. And even that is suspect. (I’m looking at you Lucas!)

Objective and subjective truths in fiction depends on who birthed the fiction in the first place. Placing the authority of objective truth on a blanket company who employs authors writing disparate fictions for over a decade is not the best way to go about finding truth.

It would be more apt to say ANet employed writers to write a sequel that would allow them to “bend”, not break, the narrative so that they could expand upon multiple thematic elements not readily found in the original narrative. And as long as they connect all their thousands of lore dots nice an neat, they can claim it a valid reflection of the foundational work.

Technically they’d be right, but I wouldn’t want to buy a used car from ANet.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Obsidian.1328:

Daniel Handler.4816:

We are bound to ANET’s writing. I won’t hear any argument that discusses retcons as they aren’t canon arguments. Absolutely nothing is silly because it was written 8 years later, @see improved medical textbooks.

You may be bound to it, I’m certainly not. I’m bound to a writer’s writing. Citing medical textbooks is silly because those textbooks are based on science and new science comes out everyday to challenge old claims. Fictional writing has nothing to do with scientific facts. Its “truth” is completely in the mind of the writer, not the company or anyone else.

Tell me, which X-men narrative is canon? The original comic series, or the latest fad movie out in theatres? Companies retcon all the time in order to make a buck, ANet is no different.

This makes no sense. Marvel operates under a multiverse concept, both are canon. But when we make claims about a Universe we only use the Universe we are talking about. Which I why I can’t claim that Havok and Cycylops are related in the MovieVerse. And just like a medical textbook new “facts” come out to challenge old claims.

You sound like the people who don’t take lore from the letters of Tolkien as canon because he didn’t put them in the books.

Also you are bound to a writers writing. And as ANET are the writers you are bound to any and all changes they make. Your comment on writers switching is a silly as a Christian saying they didn’t believe in anything that wasn’t in the book of Matthew.

Oh…so the analogy wasn’t up to snuff for ya? Is Burton’s Batman canon and Nolan’s not? Same “movie-verse” right? But…they are both based on comics so neither.

Fact is, original authorship trumps anything else in the “universe” of all fiction everywhere. Why? Because it was birthed solely in the mind of said author(s). Which means when someone other than the original author starts changing things, you simply can’t argue for validity with a straight face.

I would say Tolkien’s letters concerning Middle Earth would probably be canon, but it depends on the intention and context. I’d have to see them.

ANet is a company, not a writer. They hire writers to…you know…write stuff. If the same writer for Proph had made all these GW2 thematic departures in narrative we wouldn’t be having this discussion…because it’s still his or her baby.

But that isn’t the case, and you know that. ANet owns the intellectual property of GW lore, we can all agree on that. But ownership =/= authorship.

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

It is explained that centaurs were driven out of Kryta long before GW1. Okay, but why are they now so determined to take Kryta compared to other places? Why did the Harathi abandon Maguuma? Why did the Shiverpeak centaurs abandon Lornar’s and Wayfarer’s?

Because it’s part of ANet’s narrative explanation for why humanity crumbled down to one nation. Remember, they need racial parity for all races in GW2, so humans have to take a nose dive in order for that to happen.

Of the well-known GW1 human nations/cultures, only Orr fell before GW1 events(not counting pre-Searing here). The rest all fall off the map between games:

• Istan, Kourna, and Vabbi all fell to Joko.
• Cantha, Luxon, and Kurzick all became absolute isolationists.
• and Ascalon became Charr land.

The centaurs were just a convenient group to use for a neat-o local antagonist for Kryta. Besides, if the Charr can use a vague thousand-year-old grudge to validate land claims and a never-ending war, why can’t the Centaurs? ;-)

Daniel Handler.4816:

We are bound to ANET’s writing. I won’t hear any argument that discusses retcons as they aren’t canon arguments. Absolutely nothing is silly because it was written 8 years later, @see improved medical textbooks.

You may be bound to it, I’m certainly not. I’m bound to a writer’s writing. Citing medical textbooks is silly because those textbooks are based on science and new science comes out everyday to challenge old claims. Fictional writing has nothing to do with scientific facts. Its “truth” is completely in the mind of the writer, not the company or anyone else.

Tell me, which X-men narrative is canon? The original comic series, or the latest fad movie out in theatres? Companies retcon all the time in order to make a buck, ANet is no different.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You first paragraph makes no sense as it contributes to my argument. Forcing charr to BL would primarily be bad if they had a large population. When I said “this” I was referring to your theories. The very fact they started to push outward probably meant they were getting crowded.

Pure speculation. The Charr loved to wage war, and probably moved whole armies to engage the upstart humans trekking into their basin.

Your second paragraph was you not understanding the comparison. The louisiana purchase is the bloodland homelands, the area seized after the F&I war was not that land. The area of New France had most of its eastern land taken. There were only left with Louisiana and they were pressed on all sides by foreign kingdoms. Sound similar?

I don’t know what you’re talking about here, when were the Charr in Ascalon “pressed on all sides by foreign kingdoms”??

They were both secondary settlers, and then a tertiary settlement took place. It would be like if we invaded Canada.

…except that the Charr never settled Ascalon, they merely called it their own. They were semi-nomadic, as is typified by their inspirational RL culture: the Mongols. Like I said before, ANet didn’t declare Ascalon to be BL homeland until sometime in 2013. So it’s rather silly to claim something written 8 years after the fact should retroactively become factual.

I mean, all they’d have to do to validate it is come up with some outlandish claim that everything we see, hear, and read in GW1 was entirely human bias and unfounded.

Oh wait…

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Is that map factual?

It shows Orr connected to Elona. Is Elona really that close? If so I’m confused as to why ANet is sending us in the complete opposite direction

It’s a fan-made map, so I would say no.

But…it would be more factual to say Orr was connected to the Crystal Desert, which was adjacent to Elona.

ANet is sending us in the opposite direction because they haven’t yet figured out how to introduce the playerbase to more human lands. You see, GW2 ANet must have equilibrium between the races. That means all five races should be generally equal is size, status, and power so as to not alienate any one race for us players. If we went to Elona or Cantha, they would have to find some way to make the other 4 non-human races relevant to the whole campaign…which is a huge headache considering none of them have any history there. Why go through all that trouble when you’ve got a massive blank slate to the west? It’s a simple marketing decision made to keep current GW2 players happy, history be darned.

Incidentally, it’s the same reason ANet gave Ascalon to the Charr. They could have just have easily developed all that Charr territory north and east of the Ascalon Basin, but that would mean humans would be the only race with 2 kingdoms(with Kryta). And that just doesn’t jive with the GW2 narrative. So they kill two birds with one stone by coming up with a huge back-story to “validly” remove humans from Ascalon and replace them with Charr. Easy peasy.

Diovid.9506:

Neither group is presented as being good guys. If anything both groups are written as being morally grey and I like it that way.

Which groups??

In GW2, most Charr feel neither responsible nor sympathetic to the Searing. And most Krytan humans harbor no blame or ill-will to them. If you’re a Charr these days and want to finish off Ebonhawke you’re doing it wrong, and if you’re an Ascalonian these days and want to reclaim your homeland you’re doing it wrong. There’s zero argument about that according to ANet, they’ve made that abundantly clear through side narratives and relevant quests in the region.

How is that morally grey?

Lurinna.4306:

As I understand it, the old proph writer departed and was replaced by some of the people we have today after factions, not nightfall. Just to offer a small correction!

You’re right, I wrote the wrong campaign down. It was Factions like you said.

1. Before humanity came with their big mean gods, Ascalon wasn’t even Ascalon. It was just another nameless area the Charr called their own, they didn’t even have any settlements there. The bulk of their land was north and east of the Ascalon Basin. The humans named the land after themselves…i.e. Ascalonians.

2. Humans never “ethnically cleansed” the Charr, they simply fought them out of the basin then let them be. It was the Charr who were bent on human genocide…as evidenced by the massive assault on all 3 human nations at once. They didn’t do that to win back Ascalon, they did it because they wanted all of humanity to burn.

3. The Charr back then were just as much human-haters as the Flame Legion. This idea that the Flame Legion “forced” the other Charr to attack humans is silly. They wrote that in because the Charr are a playable race now and it would be narrative suicide to have a former apex antagonist simply become the good guys overnight. The Flame Legion became one of the fall guys for the new world order of multi-raced Tyria.

4. The Blood Legion Homelands was never in Ascalon. That was literally added in 2013 sometime by ANet. Besides, it would be rather odd given that the legions were formed after the Charr had been pushed out of Ascalon.

5. The nation of Ascalon’s historical borders reached all the way to the north of the basin rim. By the time of the Searing, the Charr had slowly been advancing on the Wall for several decades in preparation of the Searing.

Diovid To answer your first statement…

…That’s because Prophecies was never written with the Charr winning in mind. The author used them as an early antagonist to fuel the back story of Ascalon and little more. In fact, the author intended Ascalon to win the war by the time of Factions, with the Charr fading off the Tyrian stage. Due to the vague and indeterminate writings on the Charr(or lack thereof) after Proph, future writers(EotN and on) used those gaps in the writing to resurrect the Charr into something they were never supposed to be…i.e. good guys. The reason this topic always becomes personal is because of that narrative disconnect. Ascalon was the birthplace of most Guild Wars characters, which were all human and which all knew the Charr would burn you alive if you let them.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is a bit of consternation at having a new author come in and not only wipe your nation off the map with a few flicks of his pen, but also hand it to the very creatures who razed your homeland and burned alive your fellow countrymen(and women) by the thousands.

“Before there were humans or dwarves, before there were even worlds or the stars that light the night sky, there was but one thing in the universe—the Mists. The Mists touch all things. They are what binds the universe together, past, present, and future. They are the source of all good and evil, of all matter and knowledge. It is said that all forms of life, no matter how simple or complex, can trace their origins back to this one place.”

and this…

“In the middle of The Mists is a spot where time moves neither forward nor back. It is a tear in the fabric of the cosmos, the point of perfect balance between all forces of the universe. This place is known as the Rift, and there is nothing to which it does not connect, nothing that cannot be reached from inside it. Those who have the know-how to travel across the universe through the Mists must pass through the Rift on their way to all other places. It is the center of all things.”

~Guild Wars Manuscripts

I believe you’re talking about the Rift.

It’s a very different story set in a very different world. It has little to do with GW2 aside from using the same names of people and places.

You don’t need to play it to not “miss” anything.

The only prerequisite to kingship in Ascalon back then was being a descendant of Doric, it didn’t matter if you were a close relative of the current king or not. And since Doric died a millennia before Adelbern, there were probably hundreds, if not thousands, of others who could fill that roll.

In other words, it doesn’t matter is Adelbern’s specific line is dead.

Michal.4513:

Dunno if Gods fear them or they didnt know how to deal with tehm, time for some Gw lore:
“The Elder Dragons are primordial creatures dating back before the time of the Giganticus Lupicus and long before the arrival of the gods in Tyria. Their powers are said to rival those of the gods themselves,”

And second:

“. It is said that the Six Gods brought the forgotten to the world as well; however this is now questionable given their dealings with the Elder Dragons. Regardless of their origins the forgotten were tasked as being caretakers as the Six Gods built Arah and terraformed the land.”

Sure is that the Forgotten been at 1st arrival of Dragons, and after that Dragons hibernate again… so either Gods send them to repel dragons, or they chose them to Guide others.

That’s GW2 lore. In fact, anything relating to the Elder Dragons is GW2 lore, including Eye of the North.

^
Basically what Aaron said.

It should be noted that originally GW1 was conceived to have player guilds vying for control of PvE areas. Think GvG in a PvE zone. And the winning guild would supposedly gain various game bonuses for controlling said zone. Factions half-heartedly realized this concept with Lux/Kurz controlled lands, but it obviously wasn’t the same thing.

Most likely, the GW1 writer(s) was hired to incorporate meaningful guild elements into the storyline to mirror the proposed gameplay. And then later, when they changed their minds on the how PvE was going to pan out, they just left the “guild” theme intact in the story. After all, the conceptual game mechanics of GW1 were envisioned long before the story was.

Royalty can be defined several ways: a person belonging to either a royal lineage(hereditary bloodlines), royal rank(kings, dukes, etc), or royal class(elite nobility). Obviously, for the purposes of Doric’s line, they mean lineage here. Which means, like Olvedred mentioned, there could be craploads of possible heirs around.

CureForLiving.5360:

Obsidian.1328:

CureForLiving.5360:

Obsidian.1328:

Anyway, so why are the swords divine again?

They come from Orr, and everything from Orr is magic for some reason.

True.

But I meant not just magical, but divine. GW2 is the first time we hear that the swords were created by the gods.

Magical? Divine? It’s all in the eye of the beholder :P

By definition, divine means godly in nature. Magic could come from anywhere.

Granted, in GW1 almost all magic was indirectly divine. But that’s certainly not how it is in GW2…or ever was really. ;-)

I’m just wondering how something described simply as “magical Orrian weapon” back then is now suddenly on par with one of the most powerful weapons on the face of the planet: the Scepter of Orr. Is it only sharing the same place name??

Konig Des Todes.2086:

-snip-

Agree.

So…it’s just a case of “let’s pull out some old art from GW1 and make something new.”

;-)

Shiren.9532:

Guild Wars 1 takes place from a human perspective, so all the lore we learn from it favours the humans and their allies…

I laugh every time I see this.

That’s like saying The Hobbit was written in a dwarven perspective…with halfling sympathies.

GW2 ANet hooked, lined, and sinkered you bud.

So…those are supposed to be Mursaat??

Why do they look so different?

CureForLiving.5360:

Obsidian.1328:

Anyway, so why are the swords divine again?

They come from Orr, and everything from Orr is magic for some reason.

True.

But I meant not just magical, but divine. GW2 is the first time we hear that the swords were created by the gods.

draxynnic.3719:

Obsidian.1328:

draxynnic.3719:

Except that the Iron Legion still calls the land “Ascalon”, even though for all intents and purposes the kingdom of Ascalon no longer exists…

…which is wrong in so many ways. The Charr are supposed to be the “tough-guy” race of Tyria, using the human name for their own homeland does not fit that at all. If ANet was more serious about creating a historical precedent for the Charr in Ascalon, and less serious about simply trying to displace the humans, they would have had their own name for it(and the history for it as well). No matter, I’m sure they will come up with somesuch reason why they use the human name.

What probably happened there is that the humans named the land at about the same time they conquered it, and when they founded a nation there, they naturally named the nation after the land.

Why did that probably happen?

The charr seem like they either don’t bother to name their lands (simply referring to them as “Iron Legion lands”, “Blood Legion lands” and so on) or what names they have they don’t share with others. Different culture.

As for the human names – because there is no evidence of “Ascalonians” and “Krytans” having been seperate tribes within Orr before the conquest of those lands. It’s telling that in every case, the name of the people is the name of the land with a suffix, rather than the name of the land being the name of the people with a suffix (such as Scotland, being the land of the Scots, and Russia being the land of the Rus). Now, language drift being as it is, it’s possible that there were initially tribes such as the Kryts and Ascai that predominantly migrated to those lands, then the lands were named after them, and then they started being named after the nation, similar to how the “Rus” became “Russians”. However, there’s little evidence that Ascalon and Kryta were initially settled by distinct tribes in this way.

True, but almost every RL kingdom was either named after a people or a land. GW is not Earth, but given that there were no humans around before the Orrians, Krytans, and Ascalons got there, it’s fairly academic that they didn’t have any proper names for where they set up their respective kingdoms.

Koviko.3248:

Why would the Charr rename the land that they conquered? I’d think they’d take pride in what they’ve done.

Surely, if it is Iron Legion Homelands, they would have their own name for it before humans arrived.

Which is odd now that I think about it…the Legions didn’t form until after Ascalon was established. Wierdsies.

Anyway, so why are the swords divine again?

draxynnic.3719:

Except that the Iron Legion still calls the land “Ascalon”, even though for all intents and purposes the kingdom of Ascalon no longer exists…

…which is wrong in so many ways. The Charr are supposed to be the “tough-guy” race of Tyria, using the human name for their own homeland does not fit that at all. If ANet was more serious about creating a historical precedent for the Charr in Ascalon, and less serious about simply trying to displace the humans, they would have had their own name for it(and the history for it as well). No matter, I’m sure they will come up with somesuch reason why they use the human name.

What probably happened there is that the humans named the land at about the same time they conquered it, and when they founded a nation there, they naturally named the nation after the land.

Why did that probably happen?

Aethgar.1784:

Evidently there was some element of that in how Factions was portraying Asia. It was a problem, as I understand, because not only was it at times simply hamfisted and laughably bad, but other times, yeah, it was in the ‘SS’ level of touchy things.

I don’t remember any backlash about Cantha from the Asian market at that time, can you post any links or anything?

Cantha was specifically designed to not represent any one Asian culture or ethnic group. They used particular cultural elements from all over the SE Asian map(along with some Gothic of all things), mixed them with their own original ideas, and put it down on pixels.

The “issue” wasn’t that Factions reflected poorly on certain Asian cultures, but rather that one could discern the mixing of cultural ideas if they looked for it hard enough. I understand that there are cultures there(or anywhere else for that matter) that take offense to that. But:

1) It’s blatantly obvious GW didn’t have an agenda for this.

2) The mixing is an aggregate of not only RL cultural ideas, but fake ones.

3) It’s a video game.