Guild Wars 2

You have a new warband now whether you like it or not (the biconics).

I actually liked my warband more than the NPCs I met later in the story (certainly more than the Living Story characters) so it’s a real shame that part of the character’s identity is just ignored in the story. Some of the other NPCs weren’t bad either (Quinn and Petra were pretty ordinary but Faren was pretty cool – too bad he has more scenes these days with Kasmeer than he does with his best friend, asuran Krewes were hit and miss imo, Malyck is incredibly interesting and most of the norn stuff was fun).

It probably requires too many resources to bring them back (there are several possible options and that’s just for charr, to do so for all races would take a lot of work) so I doubt we will ever see them again unless they play a minor role when the Personal Story continues.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

At the very least, if they must stick around, put them in Lion’s Arch’s little quaggan town and never touch them ever again because really… they feel like they’ve been tacted on as cuteness relief.

You mean like all the “awwwww” moments from Kasmeer and Marjory’s flirting? Or the “awwwww” moments from Braham and Rox’s “cute” banter about Braham’s injured pride and Rox’s supportive realisation to choose friends over her culture and cut through bother their “tough” personalities and talk about his injury? Or Taimi’s “awwwww” everything (remember when asura looked like this: http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/0/02/Oola.jpg and were generally unlike-able?)?

The story doesn’t need cuteness relief, it’s become the core of most of the scenes. It’s clear the current writing has gone for a specific style and target audience and the quaggan couple are just one element of it.

If the quaggan didn’t turn up in this last patch, we are certain to see them in the near future.

Dustfinger.9510:

You’re comparing one Living Story release to a story line that took 7 months to come out.

I’m comfortable with comparison being held against the entirety of the Living Story (and I’ve made it a few times – hence the broken record). The story of Tryia, the events going on, they seem to take a back seat to the prominence given to the biconics. When Lion’s Arch is about to be destroyed, the story was told from the perspectives of the nobody biconics instead of having the players directly interact with the Captain’s Council and really put Lion’s Arch and its people at the front of things.

I think one of the things that made the story of GW1 more satisfying for me than Living Story is that while GW1 has truly iconic characters (some people would argue the Ascalon five- Mhenlo, Devonna, Cynn, Eve and Aiden, but henchemen and protagonist NPCs like Nika, Togo, Kormir, and the heroes, were all strong story characters) they were very appropriate to the story. GW1 didn’t deliver as much fan service dialogue (we never knew where Cynn and Mhenlo lived, their sleeping arrangements etc, we know about Marjory and Kasmeer’s first kiss, house, holiday bungalow, even their curtains) but all its story NPCs were important to the plot (most of the time the biconics are only important to themselves, they aren’t iconic of Lion’s Arch). I usually knew who a character was and why I was dealing with them and not someone else. When the Ebon Vanguard turned up in Kryta, their motivations and purpose was explained. When we took on Abaddon, the Ascalon five were present but Koss, Melonni and the crew took centre stage. We still had stories about people, their history, their relationships and all that, but they had a time and place.

I think the Personal Story of GW2 tried to do this, but there were a bunch of problems with the execution. One is the unique choices. Not only does that vastly increase the work load to account for all options, it massively limits what you can do with these characters. Recently we were introduced as the leader of the biconics and I’m sure I’m not the only one who was bothered by this. Even if I wasn’t a Pact commander, I have a history before that. Charr players have their own warband! But that will never matter because while Dinky might be alive for me, he’s dead for someone who chose Eurayle. The story gave us options but it can’t make use of them outside of instances because they conflict with other players’ options. It’s also too much work to include all options in future releases, so these choices end up not mattering 10 levels down the road.

Because of the segregated nature of the Personal Story, it was jarring to go from being a charr hero to an Order recruit. The people and places you dealt with 10 levels ago didn’t matter 10 levels later. While the individual arcs of the story were interesting, the progression wasn’t smooth. Even at the end when it is all supposed to tie together, many of the NPCs “returning” were either never seen before, or forgotten (that’s when you ignore the bugs, of which there were many) – now we have the opposite problem where the biconics don’t step down even when it makes sense for them to do so. My first run through I didn’t recognise most of the characters in Orr. It takes so long to get through the story and the rewards are so bad, going through numerous times isn’t very appealing. Dividing the story details into each path was supposed to encourage repeated play throughs but all it did was make the story come across as disjointed or incomplete.

To put it simply, Zhaitan or any Elder Dragon that has no personality, not motives or any of the kinds of things that makes villains so interesting, I think that’s a weak villain.

Kalavier.1097:

Well, Shud takes a kinda main point with this last update. She’s in the new gate hub area (Anybody wonder if it was always planned to end up like this story wise at least? o_O I do sometimes :P) and mentions once the gates are up and running smoothly that she can have a vacation (Magnus said she could). But she doesn’t want it because she was forced to leave the city before, and leaving again (after gates are active) would feel like abandoning it the moment it needed a steady had the most.

So it’s a nice little added character to her at least.

Yeah I saw that and it just made me more confused. Why is Magnus giving Shud permission? I thought the Captain’s Council were equals and only Lawson Marriner had authority? I could see Magnus acting with authority over Kiel (either as a father figure or her superior in the Lionguard) but Shud is his equal. Unless the Lionguard have increased authority in the city during the recovery process (or maybe Magnus saying she “can” take a break is more of a suggestion than it is permission).

They are just friends. People just have a tendency to think any close relationship between characters of the opposite gender = romantic. We live in the era of shipping, where regardless of how unrealistic the pairing is, people will ‘ship’ it. Apparently even if that means different species.

Braham and Rox are in a bromance, not a romance. People just can’t see it because Rox is a girl. If she were a boy there would definitely be a bunch of shippers, but for the most part people would see it as a typical “close male friendship”.

Erukk.1408:

The longest one is probably Another Lesbian Relationship thread, but that’s only on the front page because someone necro’ed it for whatever reason.

That was a sad day. The longer that thread sticks around, the more motivation they give the writers to write more of the kinds of things people are protesting about.

Thobek.1730:

Disrupting the economy
Racial prejudice
Trahearne.

Well if this is true its very, very disappointing news. Two of those things are low fantasy issues that are found in real life and the third is the return of a much hated character.

My god did they not learn anything from season 1?!?? Its time for the Sylvari to take a step back and not be in the limelight for a change. I have a sylvari character and I’m sick of my race being in the thick of it. Give us a break!

Also how about some high fantasy stories?! like a search for an ancient magical artifact, or strange and wondrous creatures terrorizing the land, or some mysterious figure of power that commands a legion of undead. A bunch of traders disrupting the economy is such a lame idea, followed by a social story of racial prejudice.

BOOOooooo so boring. And why not lets bring back Trahearne to really make it terrible.

That’s the MO of the Living Story writing: subversive writing that tackles social justice issues. The high fantasy, the epic adventures, those things come second to duplicating social justice stories in Tyria.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the black market story intersect with Kasmeer’s sob story, maybe even Marjory’s history as a Ministry Guard and her run in with E. It also fits in with Consortium plots and Evon Gnashblade, he might be on top right now but that just means he can be knocked down again.

To be fair, this wiki article was written by a player just like anyone else. They have just formatted and interpreted the information we’ve all been given and thrown it onto a wiki page. It’s not even written in usual wiki style, it seems to be taking a slant and uses much more flowery language than would be normal for an article intended to document the game.

Greyhound.2058:

I was intriged by what Taimi was saying about the suspiciousness of the crates waiting to be loaded up

It would have been nice to instead see crates being loaded in a suspicious way. Instead of the bazaar acting as a background for Taimi to deliver exposition, the background (the Labyrinthine Cliffs, the denizens of the bazaar, the Zephyrites and their actions) could become alive and engage the players. It’s an MMO – let us explore the bazaar and interact with the people of the bazaar instead of have Taimi, Marjory and Kasmeer tell us about it.

Really? Why the hate on options? Some players are really happy the game gave them the option to wear a dress on their female charr. For the female charr that don’t want to wear it, you have literally every armour set in the game.

Why do you think your desire to wear only male clothing is more important than the desire for some players who would like to wear female clothing on their charr? The lion’s share of outfits for a female charr are still all male, this is like a tiny loop hole (that only uses a handful of options) that allows an audience that has different tastes from your own to have something they like.

The female charr still wear entirely male armour models, someone at the gem store decided it might be nice to give the tiniest amount of variety for some players that might not want that. You should support that. If someone decided female humans were all about “TNA” and didn’t offer you any options outside of that you wouldn’t be very happy. Options, even if we don’t have an equal amount of them, it’s nice to have them.

I don’t even know why you’re going on about TNA in a thread about the charr, is anyone seriously arguing that this outfit is trying to show off charr ‘cleavage’? I think the more likely scenario is that the outfit was designed with a human physique in mind (both male and female – charr players of either gender know that even the male armours tend to translate very poorly to the physique of a charr) and little to no effort was made to figure out how to design it for a charr. There’s nothing wrong with showing some skin, although obviously female charr have nothing to show.

From a lore stand point this argument doesn’t hold water. Clearly this outfit is not a charr outfit. It does not come from nor does it confirm to charr cultural traditions. Realistically it’s probably designed to cater to the Chinese audience but in the world of Tyria the closest culture would be Cantha, a human culture. When wearing the traditional clothing of another culture, it makes sense that a female charr would wear the female clothing. This isn’t combat gear, this isn’t supposed to be functional, it’s a costume. The idea that a charr would wear a human’s cultural clothing in the first place is no stranger than a female charr wearing a human’s clothing. They are essentially playing dress up.

I’m all for being more careful about tailoring armour and outfits for the charr. I think it’s something ArenaNet does very poorly and as people in this thread have pointed out, the male outfit’s tail dragon is a rare example of special attention being paid to the charr. While the overall design still based on a human (I dream of a day when a designer really figures out and consistently delivers designs that live up to the potential of the charr) it was an improvement. I think they could have done a better job on the female charr, especially that tail clipping. FYI the male shoes look ridiculous as well.

And can we stop shaming the people who role female norns and humans? You wouldn’t shame a real woman who dressed like that so why is it OK to shame a player for dressing their characters how they want? For all you know, it’s a female on the other end of that character (not that it matters) and you are sending the wrong message to her.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I think it has more to do with “I don’t know what to do with this character anymore, but the players love it so it must be in the game!”

I’m so glad you added that last part, reading the first part was a thorough display of lore, but really, they just throw the robot in there as fan-service now. I think Scott specifically likes o-Tron as much as many of the players.

I thought it was weird Braham telling the Ministry Guard what they can and can’t do within Divinity’s Reach. I kinda assumed if the Ministry is going after o-Tron in their own city some random norn wouldn’t make a difference. A tribunal is just a trial (sure in Divinity’s Reach it’s unlikely to be a fair one) but circumventing a trial because a norn said so (with the threat of Magnus, a guy who holds no power in Divinity’s Reach) seems silly. Then again, all of o-Tron’s appearances are silly.

Do the Seraph and Ministry Guard really hold so little power? The thread about national boundaries seems so very relevant right now. What’s the point of having a Ministry Guard if they can’t exercise their authority inside their own city? I get the whole event is to raise funds for Lion’s Arch and Braham and Rox are heralded as notable heroes (along with thousands of player characters) so arresting the three of them is something even the Ministry would be cautious of (I don’t think it’s stated Braham and Rox are in the Pavilion in any official capacity), but I think Braham has overstepped his authority here.

An interesting point about the billet:
Heal-o-Tron: Agreed. And if the local authorities do incarcerate me, I hope you will buy my billet.
Rox: I don’t think they do that here. But rest assured. If they lock you up, we’ll get you out. One way or the other.

This might indicate that the buying and selling of billets is a Lion’s Arch (read: pirate) thing and not a Krytan thing. Going back to the argument about billets as a form of slavery, this could indicate that it is somewhat distasteful in human politics, but in pirate politics it’s not so bad. I want to believe this because portraying Lion’s Arch as a pirate city with loose morals is something I really want to see more of.

Dondarrion.2748:

Shiren.9532:

I’m also curious as to why there are no tengu Zaephyrites. We’ve seen sylvari, norn, asuran and primarily human zephyrites, but no tengu? It just kinda seemed like a race that valued trade so much would have some involvement in these two trading bodies. This is one time I hope the game is just not showing us the tengu and they are actually on one of the ships we don’t see, but when the time comes, tengu do show up at the Bazaar (there’s always next time, we really need some tengu characters in this story, even if the game isn’t ready to go beyond the wall, I wouldn’t mind meeting a female tengu).

Have we? I was running through the Labyrinthine Cliffs yesterday and after a while I was noting that all Zephyrites or Strangers were all human. Sure, there’s some named NPCs of the various races aboard the Zephyr Sanctum, but I don’t think they’re Zephyrites and instead just festival attendees.

So, I was wondering if the Zephyrites are all-human? Just curious.

Konig is right, I had assumed I had seen asura Zephyrites after seeing the sylvari Zephyrite (not just Trader Aerin who was around last time but wasn’t able to join, this time he does get to board) but after glancing through the Zephyr Sanctum again (and climbing down the Bazaar) there appears to be no asura and no charr Zephyrites. There are asura and char on board the ship but none of them are Zephyrites.

Maybe it’s an ideology thing? The asura are all interested in “how it works” and the charr comment on engineering (stereotypes of both their races I guess) so maybe the Zephyrites didn’t welcome them because they don’t fit the ideology of the Zephyrites. The Zephyrites don’t seem trusting of outsiders and the people they welcome into their fold seem to be ones who are like them, not ones who wish to study them.

Interesting to note the Labyrinthine Cliffs uses several different names to indicate generic NPCs.

Zephyrite – mostly found on the Zephyr Sanctum (the big airship at the top). These guys are self explanatory.
Stranger – mostly found in the bazaar. These NPCs seems to represent characters like the players, travellers who are visiting the bazaar.
Citizen – I’m guessing these people live at the bazaar year round.
“Various” Merchants – Traders who set up stalls to sell their goods at the Bazaar. Some have names, some don’t. I think they represent Zephyrites, merchants from the lands we come from, possibly even merchants from other parts of Tyria.
Soldier – almost exclusively charr (possibly only charr).

draxynnic.3719:

You don’t need to be “evil enough”, as you put it, to get one over on the bad guys – just sneaky.

I think that’s a myth we’ve been fed by decades of “good guy wins” stories.

draxynnic.3719:

Regarding Caudecus – if sticking to GoT characters Cersei might be the closest, but I’ve always compared Caudecus to Palpatine in the prequels. It’s the same MO – manufacture crises to make the current administration look incompetent, so you can present yourself as the better alternative. And we know how THAT worked out. Someone who’s willing to sabotage their nation for their own ambition is not someone you want in power, however skilled they may be at intrigue and administration.

Agreed you probably wouldn’t want Caudecus in power if you lived in Kryta, but it would make the story a lot more interesting imo. Krytan citizens would probably be worse off but it’s not the first time Tyria has a ruler that doesn’t do the best thing for the little people. Kisu and his Ministries were never particularly good at serving their people, Adelbern ended up cursing his remaining citizens with the Foefire but Caudecus and Jennah don’t face those problems. One of the biggest sore spots with the charr today is Ebonhawk and I suspect Caudecus would sooner cut it lose and be free from its political, and resource burden (unlike Jennah who holds onto it despite it being a sore spot for the charr and a drain on Krytan resources). On that political issue, Jennah’s morality becomes a weakness that being sneaky can’t just overcome without convenient plot points favouring her.

In the real world where many modern democracies are built on two opposing sides, the tactic of obstructionism (deliberately opposing the other side and ignoring bipartisan compromises) is actually very effective and while it is very unpopular with voters when identified as such, it can contribute to the downfall of otherwise good governments and the rise of the other side. Once in power, the side in power become much more productive. It’s different from funding the enemy and getting your own people killed, but in heightened fantasy there are parallels to be made. I don’t think Caudecus would be as bad a ruler as people think, but I’ve dragged this thread off-topic enough (besides, Jennah will rule Kryta until they turn the servers off). Feel free to throw in the last word though.

Kalavier.1097:

But as others have said, it’s mostly people who never bother to think of the other side of the argument. What if Logan had stayed and Ebonhawke fallen? If Ebonhawke had fallen, the TWO known humans alive that could break the foefire would both be dead.

I think the bigger consequence would be players end up with one less dragon to fight, how much would that suck? Then again, at the speed the game is progressing, unless the “campaigns” deal with two dragons at the same time, we are approaching two years in and a second campaign against the dragons hasn’t begun. Arguably we’ve lost ground with the introduction of a new dragon.

Who are the two known humans? I’m guessing Jennah because of her royal blood (the legend says a King but how stupid would it be if the curse required a male?) and the only other person of royal blood in GW2 is Commander Samuelsson (who I guess was also in Ebonhawk when it was attacked?). The most obvious interpretation of the legend to end the curse of the Foefire would be Logan and Jennah’s son (rightful King of Ascalon implies the Ascalon royal line over the Krytan one, even if they are all descendent from Doric – http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tyrian_Royalty_family_tree), but knowing GW2 writing Jennah would be the “King” that ends the curse. For all we know the legend is nonsense and the end to the Foefire curse will be brought about by Detha, Zojja and Yorix with their ghost busting, curse lifting magitech.

If the argument comes down to Jennah’s rule vs Kralkatorrik’s death and the unity of Destiny’s Edge, I personally side with killing the Elder Dragon, saving DE and possibly even Glint. I think what we got was more interesting.

Side Note: How do Zephyrites view Logan and Jennah?

Dustfinger.9510:

I think the diffrence is that GW2 is really trying to create a whole wider world. GW1 only hinted at a wider world by focusing on the small of small groups with one single perspective. But we didn’t get any look into the wider world that those groups didn’t specifically encounter themselves. The only way we got any specifics into that world is with expansions that put a small group with a small perspective into a new area. Imagine how many expansions we would have had to have just to get the informations we’ve already gotten in GW2.

Maybe outside of the Living Story, but the Living Story is making Tyria seem so small. Look at this release.

We have the return of one of the most interesting factions in Tyria today, the Zephyrites, and how much dialogue was given to them? There is a whole (boring imo) monologue and mundane conversation between three of the biconics about stuff that has nothing to do with the Zephyrites and then Taimi told us things that, as players with access to the map, we should have been able to explore and see for ourselves. You learn more information about the Zephyrites by sitting idle next to Taimi thant you do exploring the ship.The Living Story is blowing this chance to satisfy my desire as a player to explore the world of Tyria and through my character, engage with this world. I wanted to see traders from different parts of Tyria at the bazaar. I wanted to see the Zephyrites loading up their ship and drop hints of whatever their story is themselves. Taimi and the biconics keep being used as an exposition dump when they aren’t making the story all about themselves.

Compare this to Winds of Change (I’m a broken record I know) where we have numerous “encounters” (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Winds_of_Change_encounters) that were used to deliver story and lore about Cantha and how the consequences of our actions were changing the world. We see this a little bit with the two Lionguard patrolling and one is corrupt while the other is somewhat noble, but the volume of biconic banter far outweighs the voices given to the entire rest of Tyria. Sure there are a handful of Zephyrites with new dialogue and there is some dialogue left over from the last visit (Parker Cole and the other thief) that add flavour to this part of Tyria, but by choosing to put the Biconics in this and put the focus on them I feel like once again the story is overplaying them at the expense of a chance for players to more thoroughly immerse themselves in Tyria. It constantly feels like the game is about the biconics, even when they “include” the player as a “leader”, it’s an unconvincing illusion to distract that you aren’t engaging with and exploring the world on your own, you are being herded. When we did hear from Miku (the biconic equivalent) it was because her and her family were a core part of the story, it wasn’t fan service banter.

Anyone else tired of almost exclusively hearing from Kiel, Magnus and Evon? Why have a Captain’s Council with eight members when all we are going to hear about is two of them (with the occasional detail given to the others). The finale for season one actually deals with the council making a decision the players disagree with, when there is lore that states the council is half of the decision making process, the Commodore is the other half. This never even comes up in the game, which is strange because the foolishness of that particular decision was highly criticised by many players. Do we even know how Lawson voted?

Sometimes the Living Story feels like a PoV book. It comes off with a very narrow focus on a handful of non-essential characters and seems to lose the ability to be involved in the bigger picture. I think that’s the wrong way to write an MMO story.

I also agree with the morality point. I think GW2’s stance on morality is really hurting the ability to tell fresh and interesting stories. The bad guys are bad and we never engage with them beyond that initial judgement. The good guys are good and do the good thing. We see slight departures from this with the corrupt Lionguard and very minor characters exhibiting racism, but it’s a world of difference from a show like Game of Thrones where the bad guys can be just as sympathetic as the ones that do the right thing.

I don’t get why miasma is such a problem in Tyria. If coastal winds can deal with it, wouldn’t a team of air elementalists with gas masks and aqua breathers be able to cleanse it with a little work? The writers frequently make use of mesmer mechanics (Kasmeer has the most powerful portal ever, she removes illusions, Anise and her team? use mesmer magic to power the Pavilion) in the story, why not the class that controls the elements?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There’s also the issue for those who read the book of how Jennah ended up saving Logan’s behind, making them question if Logan was even needed in the first place.

It’s been a long time since I read the book, but doesn’t that reflect more on Jennah than it does on Logan? Logan only went to aid Jennah because (iirc) Jennah “summons” him using the mental/empathic link? If Logan wasn’t truly needed, it’s irresponsible of Jennah to luxuriously use that link when she knew he was on one of Tyria’s most important missions.

Angangseh.3754:

Honestly one of the problems i have with this game is how much it seems to punch humans in the stomach. Okay the empire’s in ruins, that i can live with and it adds a lot of plot hooks. However what i can’t live with are the frothing hordes of Charr fanboys who seem to think that Charr are the best race ever and that nothing they do is wrong while blatantly ignoring how they butchered their way throught the human empire, nearly brought about the end of the world and turned Ascalon into a fire-wreathed wasteland. Really hearing how they complain about how EVIIIIL the humans are is extremely annoying as humanity actually saved the world… MULTIPLE TIMES.
_

That was a pointless rant.
_

-Angangseh

Something interesting worth considering is that before the charr “retook” Ascalon (apparently it was their land first) the human kingdoms were butchering each other. That’s literally what the Guild Wars are – fighting between the three human kingdoms of Orr, Ascalon and Kryta. It wasn’t until the charr threatened to conquer all of humanity (regardless of their kingdoms) that the humans kinda started working together. As players it’s easy to think of the humans as all one group of people (as they supposedly are in GW2) but back in the time of GW1 you could argue two different human kingdoms (lets say Ascalon and Kryta) were very similar to the two different races (charr and humans) in GW2. Ultimately humanity’s greatest enemy was itself. Orr sank because of a human, Ascalon’s Foefire was because of a human. You mention how humans save the world numerous times in GW1, the main antagonist of all three campaigns was human – Khilbron, Shiro and Varesh, so humanity is saving the world… from humanity. During the expansion (EotN) the threat wasn’t human, but the forces that took it down weren’t exclusively human either.

As far as for how important Jennah is, I think people overstate it. The charr/human treaty is heavily bolstered by two of their iconic heroes and prominent leaders (Logan and Rytlock) and their close friends. Culturally the charr are heavily invested in working with the other races via the three Orders, so working with humans isn’t a “new idea”. Both races are fighting so many fights (dragons, centaurs, ghosts, ogres, Separatists, Bandits, Flame Legion, White Mantle etc) that taking on each other when they have so many shared enemies and shared military bodies must seem unappealing. If Jennah died tomorrow I think there would be some consequences, but ultimately I think both races would deal with it fine and even the treaty would work out.

I honestly think Caudecus would make a fine leader, for all his faults he gets stuff done. He’s corrupt and immoral in his methods but so much of his sabotage is because he wants to get into power. After taking power he wouldn’t need to sabotage the war with the centaurs – he does that to make Jennah look bad, he’s not going to make himself look bad. Just like Anise using illusionary body doubles to protect the queen makes her good at her job, Caudecus’ cunning and deceit would make him very effective in a leadership role. I wouldn’t trust him as an ally but as long as his interests aligned with mine, I would work with him. I sort of see Jennah as a Ned Stark type (from Game of Thrones). She’s a moral leader, but the world is too ugly of a place for leaders like that to stay in power for long, doing things the right way is going to get you killed eventually. Eventually the underhanded and dirty fighters would be one up on her (Anise hasn’t been demonstrated to be “evil” enough to have Jennah’s back on this stuff) and the only reason Jennah stays in power is because the writers give her plot armor.

That’s all assuming he takes power, there must be someone else who could claim the royal line (Commander Samuelsson in Ebonhawke has royal Ascalonian blood).

Back to the OP and Logan though, I agree, he didn’t run away, he ran too the queen’s aid. Good luck convincing the players of that, people poke fun at things like this (similar to Trahearne and Kormir) but eventually they take on a life of their own. The joke becomes the truth.

I’m more interested in why we haven’t seen any tengu involved with the Zephyrites or the Bazaar for that matter. One of the primary identities of the tengu we have met in GW2 is that of traders. The largest number of tengu outside of the wall are there to set up a trading camp. Why wouldn’t there be one or two at the Bazaar?

I’m also curious as to why there are no tengu Zaephyrites. We’ve seen sylvari, norn, asuran and primarily human zephyrites, but no tengu? It just kinda seemed like a race that valued trade so much would have some involvement in these two trading bodies. This is one time I hope the game is just not showing us the tengu and they are actually on one of the ships we don’t see, but when the time comes, tengu do show up at the Bazaar (there’s always next time, we really need some tengu characters in this story, even if the game isn’t ready to go beyond the wall, I wouldn’t mind meeting a female tengu).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The person who mentions it is a sylvari, the person who suffers it is the sylvari’s “beloved” – but given that it’s fully possible for a sylvari to fall for another species, that doesn’t say much. But there are few cases of sylvari dating non-sylvari (though we see a case of a human having feelings for a sylvari in Cursed Shore).

I see where you’re going with this but I am leaning towards some kind of post-exposure suffering similar to what happened to nuclear blast survivors and things like agent orange. It feels more in line with the kind of story they’ve been telling (searching for a cure makes me think it’s physical and not “mental”). It’s rather strange though, Scarlet’s Rattle is a new illness but I think it’s lacking in context – I assumed Tyrians have disease etc (Shiro had the miasma and the afflicted plague, necromancers spread disease in GW1 and bandits poison the water supply in Queensdale) but I don’t really recall many references to illnesses in Tyria.

I think Scarlet’s impact on the Dream is being saved for a different plot. Maybe it’s how they intend to answer some of the questions Braham and Marjory stopped Scarlet from answering, a newly awoken sylvari has a Wyld Hunt to be the hero Scarlet couldn’t be? Mysterious threats are coming from the Maguuma Jungle and a new sylvari character is introduced with the Wyld Hunt to use the knowledge Scarlet left behind in the Dream to fight back.

Horst Hortensie.5420:

The major point was that E is more probable male and is not a good candidate for being Canach’s owner. (Sorry for the thief argument, it doesn’t belong in this thread)

Think of the writing team you’re talking about, they love writing female characters. The deep voice was so obviously meant to make you think E is male. Just like all that nonsense Marjory said last year positioning the audience into thinking Kasmeer was vulnerable in some way was a set up to make us impressed by her defiant stance on the breachmaker, the deep voice is more than likely the same thing. Honestly I think the most likely gender for E is not male.

But we’ve been down this road before, E is a waste of a discussion because we aren’t supposed to know who he/she is. There isn’t enough information to go any which way, prove or disprove any theory. E could be a one eyed one horned flying purple people eater and it would still fit everything we’ve been given.

I played since day one and I have pretty much all the limited release items that didn’t cost gold (so anything from achievement points, town clothes hats that got turned into armour, all the back items and other Living Story achievement rewards) and I strongly support their return to the game in this release and I’m disappointed they were removed in the first place. I hate temporary content and I hate temporary time limited rewards, and I say that as someone who was privileged enough to have most of them unlocked on my account before this release.

Someone else owning an item I own does not diminish the value of the item to me. I don’t measure the worth of a skin based on depriving others from having it, that’s horrible imo and it’s something I hate about MMO game design.

I encourage ArenaNet to do this more often, and for future rewards I think they should stop giving and taking every two weeks. Use the Living Story releases to introduce items that are easy to acquire for the first 2-4 weeks of the release but then make them harder to acquire (but still possible to acquire) after the release has ended. This still encourages players to play during releases but it doesn’t make these “forever gone” items later on. It also helps give “old” content a purpose once the release has ended, if the Sclerite Karka Shell was available via some kind of regional track progression in Southsun Cove players would have a reason to invest time there even today.

Past Living Story items can be used so much better than kitten boosting tools. I think the game would be a lot better if we did away with time-limited as a form of prestige and emphasised mastery of content instead.

Larynx.2453:

Autoattack AFK in a zerg is very dynamic and interesting gameplay…

When someone can literally tab out for 30-60 seconds at a time, not die, and do 90% optimal performance, you done messed up somewhere.

Agreed but ArenaNet is trying to solve a problem they’ve created and it’s not simply “auto-attack in a zerg to win”. Look at the evolution of “challenging” Open World content in GW2.

Tequatl was the first big attempt and in many ways its a good encounter but it still has that big flaw ArenaNet is trying to combat – everyone stacks in the same position to be optimally efficient. Tequatl does have a handful of other roles (ten players on turrets, a handful of people at boat/hills defending turrets) but the majority of players are sitting in the foot zerg. I think ArenaNet wanted players to use both feet (that’s why there are north and south turrets) but that proved to be unnecessary and arguably less efficient. The problem persists – too many players are stacked in the one place, this is bad for system performance and it doesn’t feel particularly challenging either.

Then we had the Marionette and the three header wurm. It’s no coincidence the wurm has three heads and the marionette has five lanes, the message from ArenaNet is clear with this release – Open World content that has the entire map in one place is not OK, we want you to split up.

Here’s why it’s an unusual problem – the gameplay experience when split up is almost identical to a single experience if the map had less people on it. All ArenaNet is doing is creating scenarios where you have an artificial cap on the number of people in a single event. A marionette lane with 20 people has very different gameplay from a marionette lane with 150 people. A Crown Pavilion sector with ten people plays very different from one with 75 people. If the maps had a smaller number of people on them, there would be no need to create scenarios which artificially limit the number of players in one space, a map with 50 people on it has the same gameplay as a map with 150 people in three locations. The only added experience with the current system is the most frustrating, tedious and unfun problem of herding 150 people into three wurm heads, five lanes, or herding 75 people into five (or six?) sectors of the Pavilion. That organisational experience is hurting the community imo because it’s something a lot of players don’t enjoy, it’s something you have little to no control over, it has that problem the WvW team talks about – never wanting you to view an extra player as a bad thing and it locks players out of content not because they are bad players, but because they didn’t level up their “organisation” skill and log into GW2 to manage other people (which is a gamble even if you leveled up your “organising players” skill to 500).

Suddenly the challenge of Open World content becomes less about the gameplay and the content itself. Learning the encounters, dodging the red rings, resing your allies, mastering the content mechanics and optimising your DPS all become less important than getting the zerg to not be a zerg (in a game that trained players to zerg) using your cat herding skills.

I think “splitting up the zerg” is a symptom of the core problem – 150 people on a map is fantastic for ensuring players can run into other adventurers when they explore the Open World, but it’s terrible when it comes to gathering players together in the same place.

Yeah clearing the map with an organised group yields a lot of Gauntlet tickets (as well as Festival Tokens) but unfortunately this content seems to have been very unpopular and finding an instance that cares to farm it is incredibly difficult.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

If you’re not good at aiming for the jump, you can also try canceling the skill right before you land. That way you can pull up short.

That becomes very problematic for people who don’t live close to the servers. The aspect movement skills are a nightmare experience for people with low latency, rubber banding, not actually being where the screen shows you where you are and all that jazz. It was my biggest complaint last year… and well it’s back again this year.

Cancelling the Lightning Pull skill at the right time with latency issues like a shot in the dark. The Sanctum Sprint complaints from last year covered this issue thoroughly and nothing has changed so I don’t think anything will be accomplished this year.

I was bothered by the biconics getting so much credit. To me it was a huge number of players that took down Scarlet.

I don’t need to personally recognised for this action, but I wish the story had given proper credit to a large collection of Tyrian heroes as opposed to five people. Scarlet was defeated by the combined forces of the players and that was how I experienced it, not the biconics and an individual player. The story should have recognised that.

Arguably this content has more rewards than anything that came before it… if you missed last year’s achievement rewards. If you have them all, then yeah, there ain’t a lot to do (I will never support “needs more achievement points” as a goal for game design).

I have every single Living Story achievement skin going back to the first Halloween and the Mad King’s Memories (which isn’t included in this event) and I strongly support bringing them back for this release.

I hate when MMOs have time exclusive stuff that you can always see but never acquire, it really sucks to be a new player, someone who took a break or someone who just missed out on something the first time around and will never be able to acquire it again.

I also find it incredibly frustrating that so many cosmetic items were added to the game but their acquisition methods were removed and no alternative was added. What a waste! I would love it if the Slickpack could be obtained in Aetherpath or the Fused Gauntlets were obtainable by doing a specific challenging achievement during the Molten Facility fractals. Make the Fervid Censor a mystic forge recipe and for crying out loud, return the Catcher skins and the Zephyr Rucksack to their respective mini-games. Guild Wars 2 needs more rewards to obtain in game, it makes no sense that so many of the incentives for participating in content gets stripped after a 2-4 week pressure grind and the content might be around, or returns, but the rewards are not.

Why one earth did they remove the Zephyr Sanctum model from the sky crystal achievement? It’s the same bloody achievement and the model is still acquirable in this release via 800 festival tokens but for some bizarre reason they decided to make the exact same thing less rewarding.

Bring back more skins, but more importantly, keep them in the game.

I don’t know why your rewards are tied to everyone else. This is one of those events that punishes people for being in less populated maps (yes, even if megaservers that’s still a problem for some reason).

Why make rewards of an event based on other people’s performance if there is no way to help other people? I saw mesmers try to portal people and it ended up removing the yak buff and forcing those people to start again.

I just don’t get why make people fail for conditions entirely out of their control.

I know Parker Cole (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Parker_Cole), Carden (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Carden) and Jess (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jess) were all around during the last time the Bazaar came to town but their characters would fit in well with a future story dealing with a Black Market in Brisban Wildlands and the Bandits. Parker Cole and Penna seem like they have more of a story to tell and I’m kind of interested in the Vigil person they are hiding from. They are probably just background characters to give some life to the Bazaar (this really is the best release for GW2 since launch) but I think they have potential.

There is a Zephyrite near Renuu on the big ship that is worried they’ve drawn too much attention this time. I think he’s worried about theives. The three of them have an ambient dialogue scene I missed parts of. I’m not sure if that’s new or not.

Renuu has changed her dialogue. During the Bazaar of the Four Winds she said “My ears are tingling. That can only mean one thing—there’s something hidden here. There’s more to these people than meets the eye.” but now she is saying “Do you ever wonder what sort of cargo these people are transporting? I get the feeling that it’s not just supplies. One of the ships is giving off an unnatural glow.” I think most people would assume that’s the ship with the closing golden door that we see during the “vista” cinematic when you reach the Sky Docks.

Taimi says she’s getting “curious readings” from some crates (she’s standing next to kite baskets?). She also claims to have talked to the dockmaster who told her the Zephyrites are “taking on more cargo” (quick opinion on this: show us don’t use Taimi to tell us) but she can’t “determine what it is”. She thinks they are “eager to get where they are going” but it will be “a long trip”.

There seem to be multiple references to a mysterious cargo and more than one thing leading us towards the glowing door of that airship. My guess is it has something to do with Glint’s children. The Zephyrites continue to be portrayed as cautious and suspicious of outsiders, maybe I’m leading myself on with the Brisban/Bandit speculation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something is stolen from the Zephyrites during this visit.

Has anyone tried hanging around for more ambient dialogue aside from the Biconics?

I’m not trying to be argumentative (I’m also refering to the other thread with that comment) but that sounds a lot like slavery to me.

From Wikipedia: Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work.

Technically whoever purchases the billet does not own Canache, they own his billet, but in practice it’s not that different. I don’t know how long his sentence is (what does someone get for attempted mass murder, terrorism, inciting riots, destruction of property etc in Tyria these days?) but it sounds like for the duration of his sentence, Canach will be a slave for whoever buys his billet.

Some slaves were given wages (and in Rome they were able to save up and buy their own freedom) and perform the roles of a normal employee (maids, cotton pickers, butlers etc). Not all slaves were mistreated either, so you can still perform those roles and still qualify as a slave. At the very least I would argue this is a form of debt bondage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage) a contemporary form of slavery.

He wasn’t “no longer a citizen” because it was conveneinet, he was no longer a citizen because his home was destroyed and was presently being occupied by a hostile enemy force. That’s why they were called refugees. A refugee in the real world who has fled their home and currently resides outside of their old home is not under the authority of their place of origin, they are under the authority of the place they currently reside in. Again I understand why Kiel wanted to conscript Evon, I’m just unclear on why she was able to do so to a person who is a refugee (not a citizen of Lion’s Arch) and was at the time located in another organisation’s territory.

Kalavier.1097:

Soundless live in the middle of Warden held land…

Then why, of all the sylvari settlements outside of the Grove in Caledon, does the Weeping Isle not have any Warden guards? I’m pretty sure it’s a plot point in Caledon Forest that the Wardens don’t actively control/protect territory a certain distance from the tree. That’s why Bay Haven (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bay_Haven) requires Lionguard protection instead of relying on the Wardens. The Warden activities further north aren’t Wardens guarding/protecting sylvari territory, those are Wardens in satellite settlements with military purposes.

Gnashblade had already left Lion’s Arch (as had almost everyone else). He was no longer in Lion’s Arch at the time and logic would reason that the Lionguard doesn’t have power over people not in Lion’s Arch (or at least the territory controlled by the Lionguard). Last time I checked, a person is allowed to do what they want with their belongings. Kiel acted as though she was entitled to someone else’s property. Why wasn’t Gnashblade allowed to move his business to the Black Citadel at that point?

As far as Kiel conscripting him, what gives her the authority to conscript a person who is neither currently inside of Lion’s Arch nor technically a citizen of Lion’s Arch? He wasn’t inside Lion’s Arch, at the time of his conscription he was inside Vigil Keep. I would be amazed if the Vigil allowed another military/police authority to have jurisdiction inside their own headquarters. Arguably Evon didn’t even live in Lion’s Arch any more because his home was likely destroyed.

I understand why Kiel went after Dessa, I don’t think “you’re a threat” qualifies someone to have jurisdiction. If Kiel is acting in official capacity in these situations and using her authority as a Lionguard, the location in which she’s acting needs to be one that recognises her authority. The Seraph can’t just waltz into the Black Citadel and try to arrest Rytlock or anyone else – that’s not their territory. Sure they can track people down in territory not belonging to anyone else, but they have no right to conscript people for their own convenience.

Since when was slavery OK in Tyria?

I think the boundaries are as lose as the writing team wants them to be. Ellen Kiel threatened to execute Evon Gnashblade despite him not being inside of Lion’s Arch but inside of Vigil Keep (one would assume Kiel has no power over someone inside of another organisation’s military fortress) and the Seraph were trying to arrest O-Tron outside of Vigil Keep. Kiel was also acting as the police on Southsun Cove, so appearently the Lionguard is in control there. Oh and Kiel ordered Dessa in for questions… from the Mists… so maybe Kiel just has jurisdiction wherever she is? Then there’s Thurma and the Lionguard acting inside of Twilight Arbor but I guess that’s close to the havens and I believe it’s outside of the Grove’s area of protection (some sylvari NPCs mention where it ends, I think it might be the Soundless, who live outside of the area protected by the Wardens).

I hope they kill off this “leader” thing real quick. As a character I’ve done a lot more important things than act as the “leader” of the biconics.

I felt like this was more of a way of recognising the player character without being able to voice out thousands of names rather than truly putting us in a group with those five (wishful thinking perhaps).

I share your stance though Traveller, I’d rather adventure with Destiny’s Edge or some of the heroes from the Personal Story (or shock! My guild and friends!) before I spend more time with those five again.

A lot of mentions from the Biconics about venturing out to search for the roar they heard. With Laranthir recognising it as a possible dragon, it would be painful as a commander in the Pact to see the story ignore the player character’s status as higher ranking members of Tyria’s greatest authority on fighting dragons and instead anchor us with the Biconics again.

Has anyone spotted or hear anything that can be hints to season 2? Priory Ella mentions wanting to join the Zephyrites on their next voyage, to a destination they won’t tell her about. Maybe she will join them and the Zephyrites will go to Cantha or Elona or something and the next time they return it will have some references to future campaigns?

I’m not sure if they were there last time, but on the deck of one of the higher ships looks like bamboo ballistas. Did the Zephyrites always have weapons on their ship? If they didn’t, it might indicate they are gearing up for a combat mission.

I glanced at the artifacts and merchant contents but nothing really stood out to me (lots of Cantha references like Rice Wine etc but I think those are old). Even things like the mini panda could lean towards Cantha references but that just fits in with the general theme of the zephyrites.

For what it’s worth, the welcome instance is different for players that never did content up till now. i expect that’s how China receives the content. Marjory and the crew are given full credit for Scarlet’s demise and for some reason Taimi is there.

Why would someone who displays the same skill now not obtain the same reward as someone who displayed skill last time? Let them get the mini, if the content is the same, the reward should be the same.

Savoy.6824:

Oh Im going to laugh so hard if they left out SPvP again. Anet’s reward team never can seem to remember they have that game mode.

Didn’t they say that new Living Story events will come with a reward track in sPvP? I don’t think this current event is technically season 2 so it may not have anything in it.

Technically Sanctum Spring and Aspect Arena are both PvP. They used to use sPvP skins and you are playing against players, not the environment.

I’ll give two examples, one a real world one and one from another work of fiction.

Australia recently announced a national budget which is aiming to reduce debt significantly and in that budget were significant cuts to welfare, pensioners and many government departments and projects were cut. One of the biggest cuts was 80 billion dollars in foreign aid (those people don’t vote). While Australia does not have a large debt at the moment (compared to other countries), its financial wealth is heavily drawn from the export of raw minerals, they call that the “mining boom”. It’s a financial force so strong it plays a big part in the economy (part of why the Financial Crisis didn’t hurt Australia so bad, China still bought Australia’s exports), unfortunately the mining boom is ending and forward planning is needed to ensure the economy is strong in the future. Even without being at war, Australia needs to look at its own spending and the best interests of it’s own people, and part of that cut meant an end to foreign aid.

The other example I will use is from A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. Stop here if you don’t want to read spoilers up to the current season of Game of Thrones. A certain kingdom is able to act as one of the most powerful in the seven kingdoms because they are known as the wealthiest. They recently won a war because the second wealthiest kingdom came to their aid. A current plot in the story is about how the wealthiest kingdom is secretly vulnerable because their mines have run dry (similar to Australia's mining boom ending). This isn't currently known by anyone else but it was foreshadowed when the wealthy kingdom's head of the family was stingy on excessive spending on a royal wedding. Another kingdom (without knowledge of mines running dry) has approached the biggest bank of the world to ask them to financially back them instead of the current kingdom.

I think the other nations have more resources to give than you credit them with. Asurans would be some of the wealthiest because of the asuran gates and WPs. I’m guessing here but sylvari would have to be some of the best at growing produce. I agree norn have no obvious (to me) way to contribute, I still think the humans are poorly portrayed as the wealthiest of nations to aid by a significant margin when so much of their prior story had me thinking otherwise.

Also compare the human nation’s involvement in world events to the charr, norn, sylvari and asuran involvement. It’s not just a case of “is it believable that they would show this level of wealth” but also consider that the other races are not showing the same things. On a world stage, the humans seem to be outspending everyone else.

So going into GW2 I was led to believe the humans were on their last legs. The once dominant race has been pushed out of Elona and Ascalon, shut off from Cantha and now struggles to hold their last remaining nation of Kryta against a threat from within, the centaurs, let alone the fragile treaty with the charr or the looming threat of the Elder Dragons.

Is that story being sold very well when last year we had one of the most extravagant displays of wealth in Tyria, the Queen’s Jubilee, takes place in their capital? Not only did it come with a lavish redesign of a massive section of their city (that’s not very frugal of the Queen) but now the Queen is once again throwing another big party to raise funds for Lion’s Arch. From a story perspective, Guild Wars 2 is still coming across as a game where the humans are still the world leaders and in no way appear to be weak or struggling at all (selling a story about war ravaged people, losing land and struggling to supply troops to the front lines is far from our minds now).

We have five major races in Tyria, the humans, the norn, the charr, the sylvari and the asura, yet the humans and Queen Jennah seem to be the movers and shakers of Tyria (it doesn’t help that so many of the Living Story recurring characters are humans in a franchise that was partly motivated to make a sequel to make it less human-centric).

Does anyone feel like the Living Story in particular is doing a poor job of portraying humanity as a race fighting for survival? At launch we had personal story that covered the dealt with how difficult the war with the centaurs was, in Ebonhawke we explore the difficulties of maintaining that location and fighting all the mobs there. In open world dialogues we see ministers and citizens debating about where the nation’s finances should be best spent, the fight with centaurs, guards within the city or send them off to Ebonhawke. In the Living Story we see Jennah constantly throwing big extravagant parties and acting as the most notable race helping to rebuild Lion’s Arch.

Where are the stories about trying to keep Ebonhawke properly funded? One of the human personal story choices was to be a street rat, so we know there is poverty in Divinity’s Reach and we also know there are displaced people and victims from the war with the centaurs, but the Crown Pavillion seems to shrug all this away.

Does anyone else feel like the Living Story is portraying humanity as one of the strongest of the five major races?

Angel’s comment about not wanting to write the cliche ending where the villain tells us their plan once we defeated them seemed a little ironic when right after Scarlet gets stomped one the biggest cliches ever (the heroes embrace for a kiss) was not only written, but animated.

I actually support avoiding tropes and agree with telling that story via other methods, my big problem with this is that these loose (I can spell!) threads are big season 1 plot points. If they chose not to give Scarlet a villain’s monologue (fair call imo) to explain things, I think the ending of season 1 would have been much better if these questions were answered somewhere else. Maybe they consider the UI text on the control panels behind Scarlet to be explanations for everything? I feel like there are so many questions about the entity, the grand plan and what’s going on in Scarlet’s mind, some of these things feel like you won’t get the full story from anyone but Scarlet or that they really belong in season one, not clean up for season two. Models and references to Scarlet’s different buildings/structures from future releases showing up in her hideout or the Tower are examples of what I think is foreshadowing done write. An entire release including a major Tyrian character which results in a loose thread (seriously, we know as much going out of TA Aether path as we did when we first found out Scarlet claimed to know something), only to be brought up again with no development and then a several month wait before it’s (maybe) touched on again after the villain dies, that’s just annoying imo. To me that’s an example of the pacing issues the story had in season one.

Side note: Does anyone think Scarlet’s mental deterioration from “whacky” to “dark” was communicated well? Did you see it as a consequence of her fight in her head? I didn’t really see much of a change in her, anything I did see I probably wrote off as tweaks from player feedback or tone changes as a result of us meddling more with her direct plans as opposed to something she did as a distraction (but no really, but kinda).

After all that negativity I should say I do like Tyria and I do like the world they’ve created. I’ve enjoyed plots and characters from season one and most releases I found something to like. I just sometimes think season one was below the standard set by the rest of Tyria.

Even if legendaries are just copies, there is no lore for their origin items.

I’m kinda glad though, the items that were given lore are poorly positioned in gameplay. Most of the ascended items have lore. They are named after GW1 NPCs and some GW2 NPCs. This sucks because these items have no gameplay dealing with their lore origins. They are just mechanically obtained via reward systems which are cynically constructed without story or lore, but the final product had an important lore name slapped onto it.

It’s one of GW2’s big weaknesses that keeps popping up, the story and the gameplay are separated. We don’t acquire Barradin’s Family Crest in Ascalon, near their estate or from a surviving relative or legacy, you buy it from a merchant conveniently located in every major city and WvW map. Even the merchants are bland when it comes to lore and flavour. Instead of being someone from the undermarket in Lion’s Arch, a trader of goods “questionably” acquired (a real weak way of explaining how a single merchant acquired some of the most powerful artifacts across Tyria) or a Zephyrite market that carefully acquired them through various trades, you have a generic NPC standing out in the open with no flavour or lore themselves.

The Scarlet/Caithe comments were obviously going to come back because for no reason at all (other than to remind us it happened) they clumsily added it to the blueprints months later in one of the final releases. It was a kind of “Remember Scarlet and Caithe crossed paths but that plot went nowhere?”. The first reference to it could be dismissed as a plot hole/loose thread, bringing it up again at the end of the story for no reason relating to the plot at the end of the story, it seemed like a reminder to pay attention again.

I was sad to hear Rox, Braham and co are going to be primary characters going forward. I kinda figured as much when that massively article praising them got so much positive attention from the writers. While I enjoyed some of their stories individually (usually just their first appearance) I think they are like an anchor weighing the other stories down. We seem to be sacrificing the big world of Tyria for a recurring cast of characters and I believe the story and experience suffers as a result.

Scott’s comments on Kasmeer being a close childhood friend of Faren really irked me. Faren is supposed to be my human noble’s good friend, Kasmeer is someone I’d just met yet she’s now really close buddies with my close friend? It’s another case of the story being written to accommodate these characters even if that means pushing aside the player character. Scott also said Kasmeer was on Southsun to get away from her family’s fall in status, at the time I thought she said she was there on business (From Welcome to Paradise: ““Please: Kasmeer. And thanks for the advice. I work for a private investigator in Divinity’s Reach, and I’m meeting a few potential clients for dinner on Pearl Islet. I don’t imagine they’ll serve us outdoors.” She smiled a warm, dazzling smile. “Not at the prices they quoted me, anyway.”).

It was an interesting listen but I guess I just didn’t like season 1 all that much and I’m not eager to see many of its problems brought forward into season 2 (so unlike many here, I am fine with lose threads and plot holes – I’d rather leave most of them be than waste more time fixing/finishing a story that had its chance). As far as I’m concerned, the majority of lose threads (especially Scarlet specific ones) should have been cleared up by the epilogue of season 1. Setting in motion events for season 2 (or beyond) is fine, but setting up a plot point (Scarlet/Caithe) without giving us anything only to pay off over 6 months later, it’s one of the things I didn’t like about season 1.

I disagree with the core concept of a core cast of new characters always being involved (I think the bonus of familiar characters is in no way worth the large expense of story-specific NPCs) and telling stories that can’t be experienced one month later let alone five years later (I love that I can see Rurik’s quest to save his people or the evolution of Gwen from innocent, young dreamer in Pre-Searing to the damaged, capable kitten from EotN today). I love that GW1 has so many stories involving so many different heroic protagonists. Even if Devonna and co were often present they were background, it’s why we were able to tell the stories of the Factions henchmen and NPCs, the Nightfall henchmen/heroes and NPCs, the EotN heroes and NPCs. Characters like Mhenlo were given greater prominence when it made sense (the Tyrian link to Cantha).

I know the comments about Scarlet and her impact on the Dream are from the original TowerTalk about her, so maybe it’s a resurgence of that discussion, or it could be an idea that caught their interest and they’ve developed it fully. If sylvari don’t send all their memories/experiences to the Dream when they die, how much of Scarlet would be retained if she purposely closed herself off from the Pale Tree? Unless us killing her in the end when she expressed a desire to tell us more resulted in her final thoughts passing over to the Dream (as in, Scarlet stopped blocking the connection with the Pale Tree) and a newborn sylvari isn’t made like her, but is born with a Wyld Hunt involving the knowledge Scarlet couldn’t share (kind of like a reincarnation via the Dream, Scarlet might be dead but another sylvari can come along and pick up a fragment of her leading to their Wyld Hunt to be the “good” hero Scarlet was unable to be).

Why would anyone recognise the Captain’s Council any more? They proved to be incompetent in the last few releases. If you were going to rebuild anything, why not start fresh and abandon the old “leadership” that proved they couldn’t do their jobs properly? The Captain’s Council seems to be a redundant legacy from a different time, Lion’s Arch doesn’t thrive off of Captain’s and ships (at least not from what I’ve see), so it’s bizarre that to have a say in Lion’s Arch politicals you need to own a ship (what a silly requirement). Trade seems to be the most important industry in Lion’s Arch these days, an alliance of traders are personally invested in protecting the city and are constantly personally accountable for the best interests of the city. Traders are aware of what puts their products at risk and are willing to do what needs to be done to protect it, if they aren’t they fail as traders. An incompetent trader doesn’t stay wealthy for long. It also makes it clearer why the city would fund the Lionguard on the roads to the city. The Consortium, the BLTC, the Tengu and a few other racial representatives could form an interesting group of leaders.

If Lion’s Arch is rebuilt, I hope one of the first steps is to abandon the Captain’s Council.

Why would LA need the Zephyrites help? It’s not like the surviving citizens have a whole lot to do these days, what else are they going to do? Lion’s Arch was also one of (if not the) largest trading capitals in Tyria so its former residents are either very resource rich or have the connection to many resources flowing throughout Tyria, it wouldn’t make sense for the rebuilding of Lion’s Arch to require resources from people like the Zephyrites when the city is supposed to have trade systems set up with many other groups across Tyria. Lion’s Arch was the only place in Tyria with an asura gate leading to all five racial cities, what could the Zephyrites offer Lion’s Arch that the city couldn’t get via rebuilding the asura gates and trading with the five major races? It’s gotta be more efficient to load up a dolyak and walk it through a gate rather than fly Zephyrite ships all around the place. What’s in it for the Zephyrites that they aren’t already getting that is worth the risk?

Outside of a lore standpoint, Zephyrite stuff turned up in the dat over the last few months so it’s very likely they are returning sooner rather than later, so it’s only natural that their return overlaps with Lion’s Arch but I’d be personally disappointed if they were heavily involved with the reconstruction (anything much beyond a supply drop). The Zephyrite lore and identity is the highlight of the Living World for me but it exists primarily outside of Lion’s Arch and deals with issues and themes outside of the city (GW1 lore with Glint, represents human diversity from GW1 and most importantly it has a link to Kralkatorrik and Glint’s children). I’d hate to see those interesting plot points be dragged down by Lion’s Arch.

Then look at the other things that made the Bazaar such a popular release – one of the only new maps Tyria received. People loved the map specifically. I’d hate to lose that map so the Zephyrites could anchor in Lion’s Arch. Sure it gives the devs the opportunity to make a fresh take on the Zephyrite landing location, but it would have to be temporary (unless the Zephyrites are staying) and it would throw away the beautiful old map as well as abandon one of the benefits of last year’s releases (several of which were already abandoned) – a framework of festivals to re-release every year allowing for a lighter work load because of reusing content. We already lost all of the Lion’s Arch festival decorations (unless Lion’s Arch is rebuilt to look the same) it would be silly to throw away Bazaar creating more work for themselves and abandoning what is arguably the best received content since the first FotM update.

I can see the Zephyrites having token involvement in the form of a supply drop, but any robust or long term involvement has too many drawbacks imo and it’s not the best use of the Zephyrites imo. We were told more than once last year that they built several festivals in an attempt to build up a library of recurring releases, they cleverly destroyed most of that with Lion’s Arch (Halloween, Wintersday, Dragonbash) why remove another piece from their library?

Is it possible that the conclusion that the Shadow of the Dragon is a representation of Zhaitan simply be a flawed conclusion from NPC PoV? That in a future story line the writers will say “lol red herring, NPCs can’t be trusted, Shadow of the Dragon is Mordremoth’s attempt to corrupt the Dream”? Note I’m not proposing the sylvari are Elder Dragon minions.

Caithe implies it’s not simply a “vision of the player’s Wyld Hunt” but rather it’s actual Nightmare manifesting within the Dream, that’s why she herself went there to face it. Caithe even says it’s poisoning the Dream (Caithe:“Something is poisoning the Dream.”) and she claims it was the result of the Nightmare Court ( Player:“Who caused this?” Caithe:“An evil group called the Nightmare Court. They wish to harm the sleepers. Trust me, sapling. All will be made clear to you very soon.”). So to me the most logical explanation is the Shadow of the Dragon was created by the Nightmare Court’s influence on the Dream and it manifests as a dragon because that’s the Wyld Hunt of the player character. That’s why you see Nightmare Hounds with it, it’s Nightmare’s influence on the Dream manifesting in the form the player character creates, not any particular dragon.

I kind of viewed the player character’s Wyld Hunt to face all the Elder Dragons, not just any one (whether it be Zhaitan or Mordremoth). The dragon is symbolic of the player sylvari’s future defending Tyria against all the dragons.

I play A LOT and I’ve only ever gotten two ascended weapon drops, no ascended armour drops and several ascended accessories drop. Ascended items are incredibly rare, if people were getting them from reward tracks at any reliable rate something would be very wrong. You are supposed to make/buy ascended items, not find them, the finding method is some bizarre commitment to RNG that ArenaNet has but it is in no way reliable or remotely common whether you PvP or PvE. The only place in the game where ascended “drops” are “common” is FotM and that’s exclusive to rings and it’s justified because rings are essential for progressing in that dungeon.

As far as the reward track general loot goes, yeah most of it is trash but then again so is most PvE loot. The dungeon tracks are actually very generous when it comes to weapons and I personally consider PvP one of the best places to farm dungeon weapons, especially if you value transmutation stones.

jefferson.8317:

I think a loss starts you on a downward spiral for some reason. The amount of times I’ve gotten to sub 50 rank only to lose 10 straight afterwards is crazy. Good matches are far and few between. Then again, I don’t care nor am I surprised since it is solo queue. I haven’t had a desire to team queue in a year but perhaps I should start if I want good matches more often.

I don’t know if it’s my rating (I’m not PvP pro) or I just don’t know how PvP works but I consistently lose matches solo queuing for TA because my team always has someone pushing far point and often they fail after mid gets wiped in a 4v3. Anyone we might kill at mid kills the far decapper on their way back to mid and then the guy on our team who went far complains that the players at mid failed to win a 3v4 all while our guy at home does his job and holds home against no-one.

Other times we will do one home four mid but after winning the mid fight two or three people run off to far like it’s a hot join, or the person on home runs off and lets the enemy decap it. So much decaping, the worst ones are fighting for mid, killing the enemy, seeing everyone else is staying for the cap while home gets hit by two or three so I leave mid to reinforce home then once it’s capped, everyone on mid leaves for far and the enemy decaps it. I’m also seeing a lot of people fighting off point, it’s worst on Temple of the Silent Storm, we will wipe the enemy at mid and then one or two people run off point to the drop down point from their spawn and they quickly get overwhelmed and die, leading to a 4v2 at mid, throwing away our good lead.

I understand pushing far if you can’t win mid, if your party composition is a bad one to hold mid or you are so far behind you need at least two points and a decap to win but so many teams seem to throw games away because they want to run circles around the map capping and can’t defend and hold when they have the advantage.

Am I misunderstanding the strategy people in sPvP are using? It seems to be there is rarely a reason to push three points when you have successfully taken two and can pay attention to home while holding mid.

I know so little about the dragons but aesthetically it would have to be Mordremoth. I really like Kralkatorrik’s link to GW1 though, Glint’s role in the Flameseeker Prophecies and the significance of the Crystal Desert, I feel like there is so much potential to Kralkatorrik. I want Elder Dragons to have a voice, to communicate. People talk about how their lack of a voice makes them somehow more intimidating but I think beings like the God Hands from Berserk can be some of the scariest villains, Zhaitan fell flat to me because he didn’t talk, I don’t need my villains to engage with me like an equal but there are things you can only learn from a character that talks.

I’d love to see Kralkatorrik talk about the last time the dragons rose, about Glint as a failed champion, about Zhaitan’s defeat or taking an interest in the player character because of their accomplishments until now. WoW didn’t do it perfectly with Deathwing appearing all through Cataclysm (at times it felt comical more than intimidating) but they portrayed that dragon a lot better than GW2 is doing with the Elder Dragons.

Kralkatorrik’s history is GW1 relevant (I don’t care as much for EotN), the Crystal Desert is an interesting place and Palawa Joko has a story to tell.

Unless Bubbles has some cool link to Cantha and GW2’s debut there, Kralkatorrik is the most interesting to me.

Nope, it’s the sylvari tutorial dragon from the Dream. I wouldn’t be surprised if they re-use the model in the near future as part of progressing the Mordremoth plot, but it’s actually a dragon people can fight within a minute or two of first playing the game.

To read more about it check this link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Dragon

Or create a sylvari character and do the tutorial.

Just be aware that Reyna’s armour’s value is heavily based on the rune inside it not the armour stats or skins. As other have said, if you want that look you are better off transmuting via wardrobe or buying one of the other armour sets with different stats (Nika’s would be optimal for PvE and it doesn’t have a valuable rune in it inflating it’s price).

Spirit rangers are still one of the best class builds in sPvP. Spirits freaking suck in PvE though, the only one of any real meta use is the Frost Spirit (“Generic 10% damage buff? Such compelling gameplay!”).

sPvP balance is holding the ranger class back. Spirits are terrible in PvE and WvW and if the class didn’t have to be balanced for the sPvP format, spirits would have a chance at becoming strong and fun tools for the format that the majority of players play. Because they were the optimal build for PvP ranger, the PvE issues may as well not exist.