Regarding his move from leather to plate, it’s the same thing Kieran did (I believe Kieran’s swap was intended to honour Logan’s position as guardian, I do think it’s strange they repeated it in Edge of Destiny).
Logan is too defined by Destiny’s Edge and Queen Jennah. They keep writing him like he’s terrible at his job and he’s annoying and weak when he’s around the Queen. Solution? Give him his autonomy back. Send him to Ebonhawke. Increasing hostility with the rebels and instability in Ebonhawke threatens the peace between humans and charr. Logan goes to deal with it, gets in touch with his ancestry and his legacy and decides to quit the Seraph, ditch the Queen and join “his” people.
Logan’s ancestry is very prominent. Two Ascalonian heroes who founded Ebonhawke. Ebonhawke and it’s relevant figures are someone under-represented in the story given how prominent this part of the world is to GW1 players (and it also plays into the charr story). I’d like to see a story where Logan leaves Kryta, leaves the Seraph and leaves the Queen. He takes on the mantle of the leader of Ebonhawke in honour of his lineage.
Use the Living Story to remove him from Kryta, kill the inane love story. Set up Samuelsson as Jennah’s political match (Krytan and Ascalonian royal lines merged, although I heard it’s happened before) and set Logan up in Ebonhawke as a soldier/leader. Ebonhawke would believably rally under the ancestor of Kieran and Gwen. Have him work on the treaty with the charr – something I’d like to see the Living Story deal with anyway and as a Krytan Jennah isn’t as credible when it comes to Ebonhawke (spend some time there, the conflict is very personal). This allows him to repair his relationship with Rytlock at the same time. Once that’s done, the story is set up to move into the Crystal Desert expansion and Logan’s true redemption, Kralkatorrik. Fighting behind enemy lines is what the Ebon Vanguard are known for, under Logan’s leadership there could be some nice parallels with GW1 in the Crystal Desert.
The biggest problem with Logan is his relationship with Jennah. She undermines him as a character, his decisions are about her, his actions betray other priorities for her (at her bequest, she called for his help) and keeping him around her in Kryta is stopping him from growing as a character. Give Jennah the political pairing she wants and give Logan the freedom to be a hero of Tyria befitting of his legacy.
I was specifically talking about Living Story as opposed to Personal Story when it comes to gender portrayal. It seems to me a different writer is calling the shots for the Living Story which has caused it to take on a certain slant..
As far as Kasmeer and Marjory being sexy, look at the other two people in the new group. Braham and Rox. Aesthetically Braham might be considered sexy, but most of is dialogue is suggesting a friendship or “bromance” with Rox (to be fair, it’s less likely they will be viewed any other way because of their races). Then look at Rox, clearly not sexy at all – she’s a cat person.
Both Marjory and Kasmeer as very attractive females. Then again, every human female in Tyria seems to “suffer” from this. Kasmeer wears very impractical clothing (heels, revealing dress etc), we first meet her in a bikini and to boot we find out she’s actually naked (imo that was a joke that people wanted to believe, I find it absurd anyone would truly go without armor in Tyria). Cut to Marjory and her voice actor portrays her sensually. It may be an attempt to remind people of film noir, which is a very sensual genre of cinema.
Honestly I don’t think the writers are exploiting this pairing because lesbians are sexy. I don’t think they’ve officially confirmed they are a pairing (beyond being partners and friends) and everything has been ambiguous subtext like what happened with Xena and Gabriel in their TV show (few people would argue that those two weren’t a romantic pairing by the end of the show but it was never officially confirmed on-air). I think the sex appeal of Kasmeer is a part of her character (Tyrian socialite apparently) and Marjory’s is a consequence of the genre of film she is a nod to. I personally don’t have a problem with “sex appeal” or sensual characters in the game (you don’t have to find the characters attractive to enjoy the cheekiness of it), I think they are good things to have provided the characters are treated with respect (which Marjory and Kasmeer certainly are imo, they are given important roles in events and don’t exist simply for fan service). I think you’d have to be more cynical than me to think the writers sat in a room and said “let’s write two sexy lesbians because our audience will enjoy that”. I believe they have more respect than that (for lesbians, their audience, their story and themselves) and I believe it shows in the treatment Marjory and Kasmeer have been given in the story (in a previous post I mentioned how their closeness is similar to Rox and Braham, it’s character development to get us to like them and see them as a team – and it’s working given there are people who care about what happens to them). Maybe the line about nakedness was put in there for people to get excited about (maybe a writer was trying to write playful dialogue and that line made them smile the most – it was cheeky and funny and captures Kasmeer’s personality regardless of whether you find it sexy), but for the most part I’d say any reception one way or another reflects more on the audience than it does on the writers.
On the topic of bias, writers are going to write what they want to write. If you wrote a story, why would you write characters you didn’t like? Why would you write events you didn’t want to happen? That’s the author’s privilege.
I’m recyling points at this point, I have nothing left to “add” to this discussion.
One of the interviews revealed that a male asura will make his first appearance in the next update.
I doubt it’s E. It wouldn’t make sense to announce a character that’s supposed to be a mystery like that, even if they didn’t say who he will be.
When talking about it, they said Canach is a minor character (as is Kiel) while the new team are major characters. This implies that Canach won’t join the team. There is a male asura in the coming update who could be a new member, and we still haven’t met E yet. It’s possible that E is a sylvari (even an asura, although that’s a stretch).
I was really concerned by that interview as well. It made me realise they must have a very diverse range of community feedback (like role play forums, foreign language forums or person to person) because I couldn’t see their conclusions reflected in the discussions I had seen over the last year.
I expect they will get us to care about the conclusion of the story not because we cared about the story, but because we cared about the consequences. If an Elder Dragon wakes up, it doesn’t matter how, you care about that. If new lands open up, you care. It’s like the Karka Queen – people didn’t care as much about their lag filled fight because they got their precursor chest at the end of it.
Guild Wars 1 was much darker and more morally nuanced. Compare Queen Jennah to King Adelbern. She’s flawless and he’s horribly flawed. His story (and Rurik’s) was a lot more compelling than helping our good Queen do more good. What difficult decisions does Jennah have to make? Distance herself from Logan? Adelbern lost his kingdom, he disowned his son and sacrificed his own people for vengeance. Jennah got magical mesmer powers that saved the day and at the same time paved the way for peace between the humans and charr. Look at Southsun. Instead of a dirty solution with some loses, the whole plot was tied up neatly by a convenient ship explosion with no casualties. Then you have the Queen’s Jubilee which didn’t have any significant deaths (Faren, Jennah, Anise, Logan – any of them could have been killed for emotional weight). There was a missed opporunity there to really bring the emotional impact of the civilian deaths into the story. Final Fantasy X does this really well when Yuna does a kind of funeral dance to send of the spirits of the deceased. It was almost trivialised that Scarlet killed people in her attack.
Tyria seems to be full of politically correct, morally clear and clean decisions, like some kind manifestation of tumblr’s wet dream. The bad guys are truly bad, he good guys are truly good. I really miss stories with good guys who aren’t perfect and bad guys who aren’t all bad (which is why I think so many people liked Canach – he was one of the few grey villains so far). I liked a lot of the questions that Caedyrn was asking about the Dream, I was really disappointed when they decided to cross the line from “why are second born less important than firstborn?” to “we must corrupt all and literally torture puppies”.
Even if the player has to be the truly heroic hero all the time, do the NPCs around us have to be so PC all the time? Can we have some more characters like Canach? More flawed leaders that make mistakes? Add a little colour to the story.
Well . . . there’s a difference between “strong female character” and “why do they have male characters, anyway?” . . . personally, I haven’t seen what DarksunG is going on about.
Well I don’t think this thread needs to go down that road given how it deviates from the topic but off the top of my head I would point out Ellen Kiel’s flawless handling of the Southsun debacle using her intelligence and magical self piloting ship compared to Canach’s… whatever his plan was, it was bad, so not only did Kiel figure out a perfect solution, she foiled Canach at the same time. Then we had the Queen’s Speech where Anise was juxtaposed with Logan in a story that perfectly positioned Anise to outsmart Tyria’s unbelievably smart villain because Anise is very professional and good at her job while Logan is very unprofessional and bad at his job. Not only did he get outsmarted by both Anise and Scarlet, Anise was taunting him throughout the whole thing (during the opening ceremony with the Rytlock illusion and then telling him off like a child when he protested about him being left out of her plan potentially endangering the Queen’s life). There might be more but honestly between Marjory, Kasmeer, Kiel and Rox the story hasn’t had much time for males. Braham’s presence pales in comparison to Kasmeer and Marjory’s, even Rox is more notable than him. Who are we left with? Lord Faren and Evon? Kiel gets the squeaky clean political image while Evon was handed scumbag corrupt politician. When two characters of opposite genders were juxtaposed, the Living Story usually falls on the side of the female.
Maybe it’s a good thing this thread deviated from the original topic. No-one seemed truly interested in discussing the nuances of whether or not Marjory and Kasmeer are cynically being used for sex appeal or not. Put their relationship in context of the story and other relationships (even non-romantic ones) and explain with context or examples why you think it is or isn’t.
@FlamingFoxx I live in a part of the world where your life doesn’t even seem realistic. Even if you don’t experience personal discrimination, you see institutional discrimination on the news most days (gay marriage). A world without discrimination of that kind simply doesn’t exist yet from what I’ve seen.
@JohnLShannonhouse Braham’s relationship was resolved. She dumped him after he rescued her.
This is the most interesting plot thread left open by the vanilla game imo. I am really excited to see what the sylvari culture of another tree turned out to be without the teachings of Ventari. I’d love to see how they react to the sylvari that we know and how they perceive their role in the world (Ventari’s sylvari seek to fight the dragons, do the others seeks to avoid it?).
It would be really interesting to see a second group of sylvari who are more isolationist, colder and harsher. It would be really interesting to see if sylvari become more primal and ruthless like nature, without the guidance of Ventari (like a middle ground between the Dreamers and the Nightmare Court). Do his people know what happened to him?
If there was another tree, would it be younger or older? My guess is younger (because Ronin kind of kick started the Pale Tree, without his help the other seeds may have taken longer to germinate).
Where would it be located? The Pale Tree itself is huge and be seen from a long way away. My guess is it would need to be located far away from any explored lands otherwise someone in Tyria would have discovered it. Is it possible to trace the location of Malyck’s pod to indicate a point of origin? For all we know he may have floated across the ocean.
I always expected if this plot ever gets picked up, it would only happen when new maps were opened up (maybe the Maguuma Wastes) simply because the other tree would be involved. There’s always the off chance that this plot could be woven into Scarlet’s, but it seems her goal is bigger than a tree, but my money’s on it being part of an expansion.
To be fair that is because a large amount of high fantasy is written by straight white male authors with a straight white male audience in mind. Lesbian relationships are a lot less controversial than gay relationships. Also I don’t get how it could be about the writers writing it convincingly. A gay relationship is identical to a hetero relationship, the only difference is that both people are of the same gender.
I’m going to have to take issue with this (despite saying something along the same lines earlier, I was making a lot of points in a massive post). I don’t think you write these stories the same as hetero relationships (maybe in Tyria – depends on how much Tyria wants to reflect the truth of our world), but not in a story portraying the real world. As individuals they might be in a relationship and have the same problems and joys as a hetero couple, but as a couple they are likely to face discrimination (in the real world) and how that would impact the way they relate to each other whether it be hiding public displays of affection, hiding their sexuality from their parents and friends, marrying a woman or man as a cover to their sexuality or even including hate crimes committed against them (many of these things are covered in Brokeback Mountain, a movie which portrays two men in a homosexual relationship and the challenges they face that are unlikely to be experienced by a hetero couple). Writing it the same as a hetero relationship doesn’t respect the challenges and difficulties that homosexual couples go through (even if you don’t include scenarios, the subconscious weight of these realities impacts on decisions these people make). Does every story have to define these people as their sexuality, as victims, or centre on their struggles and makes them different from heterosexual people? No. But I think it’s important to recognise that while they may love the same as anyone else (they just happen to love the same gender) their experience will likely be different in many ways due to external pressures and it’s fair to include that in writing. If Kasmeer and Marjory were in an official relationship and Tyria has no discrimination, I suspect they would be easier for hetero couples to relate to (ironically) than they would be for homosexual couples.
As far as “straight white male authors with a straight white male audience in mind” goes, that’s capitalism. People pay for what they want and people who want money offer a product people will pay for. Authors who aren’t “straight white male authors with a straight white male audience in mind” are free to write fiction for diverse audiences just like consumers who aren’t “straight white males” are free to support them (but expecting someone who writes for a certain audience to change their product to suit your interests just because you like some parts but not all parts, that’s not really fair to the people who like the product as it is an still represent the majority).
To stay on topic though, I don’t think their relationship is official (it’s not official until it’s defined in game imo, some dev’s comment on a livestream is his personal view imo) and while I think they are definitely sensual characters (both are aesthetically appealing, Kasmeer especially, Marjory’s voice is very sensual/seductive imo) I don’t think it’s an attempt to exploit their sexuality (your opinion might differ). I think their popularity is in large part because of their sensual portrayals (including their sexuality), but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that (this is entertainment, people are free to like what they like). Overall the story treats their characters with respect and similar care that Rox and Braham get.
(s)There is a new asura character joining the Living Story cast in the coming update. He might be Mr. E.(/s) I misread the article. The writer wrote “he” and then in brackets “or she” and I missed that part as I was in a rush to read all the news released at the time. Turns out to be another female (at this point I expect Mr E to be female as well and the deep voice comment was intended to be deliberately misleading).
Johanson also confirmed that players will meet up with popular recurring characters Rox, Braham, Marjory, and Kasmeer in this update. A new character will also be joining them, and although his (or her) identity is still under wraps, we were told that the character is an Asura, has never appeared before in the story, and is a “very different sort of person.” This will be welcome news for Asura fans who have missed their presence as major characters, so let imaginations run wild!
As far as people hoping the Living Story cast aren’t going to be a new DE, there was a livestream last week(?) where they basically confirm that Kasmeer, Marjory, Rox and Braham are intended to be the Living Story replacements for Destiny’s Edge. The story team internally call Destiny’s Edge the “Iconics” and the Living Story cast the “Biconics” (not sure where the bi comes from, I suspect it’s because they are the second iconics?). It’s still possible Kasmeer will die (they would intentionally lead us to believe she’s a main cast member to avoid spoiling her death) but I doubt it will happen. Canach is unlikely to be a new member (imo) because they specifically stated he is a secondary character (along with Ellen Kiel) but he will be returning in a future release.
(edited by Shiren.9532)
Colin recently touched on this topic in an interview with Massively.
Johanson said that the living world is new territory; ArenaNet has been steadily learning what works —as well as what doesn’t -- and smoothing out the implementation. He reiterated that the living world and expansion-style content are not mutually exclusive, and that although players may perceive the studio as concentrating on living world content in lieu of expansion content, there are teams working behind the scenes on other projects.
He doesn’t explicitly say they are making an expansion but it’s implied they are working on what would normally be considered expansion content.
@ lordkrall an expansion is a totally different beast to Living World.
It’s always interesting to me when people and websites talk about the Living World releases and bi-weekly updates, but rarely do they comment on the general quality or substance of the updates. They could be nothing but achievement grinds (which a large portion of the updates are) and the bi-weekly statement stands true.
Living World is really hit or miss. Sometimes the content is something refreshing and new with enough meat on it to make me want to spend more than an hour in it (Nightmare Tower and Bazaar of the Four Winds are examples of this) and other times the content is veiled grind (pretty much every meta achievement seems to be a cynical excuse to keep you in the game) or repetition/slight alteration of the same things that already exist in Tyria (the Kessex Hills zone events).
Colin recently touched on this topic in an interview with Massively.
Johanson said that the living world is new territory; ArenaNet has been steadily learning what works —as well as what doesn’t -- and smoothing out the implementation. He reiterated that the living world and expansion-style content are not mutually exclusive, and that although players may perceive the studio as concentrating on living world content in lieu of expansion content, there are teams working behind the scenes on other projects.
We know definitively that the content that would be found in an expansion is being worked on by ArenaNet (and from the sounds of it, it’s got nothing to do with the Living Story content). We don’t know how ArenaNet intends to release it – whether it’s going to be a traditional expansion or whether they want to hook it into the two week release schedule somehow.
Personally I like that this MMO has new content added between large releases. I would personally prefer they release less frequently and put out superior quality content (we’ve seen several examples over the last few months where devs comment that things didn’t make it into the game because of the release schedule and priorities – Kiel’s victory speech is an example). I find something to like in every release but a lot of them are underwhelming or feel like they could have been a lot better if they had taken more time on them. I don’t work at ArenaNet so I don’t know how their dev cycle looks on a day to day basis though.
I’m glad we have Living World but I could do with:
- Substantial monthly updates instead of bi-weekly ones.
- No more cynical achievement grinds to pad the updates for content.
- No more time limited pressure gates intended to pressure you into playing now instead of when you want to. I want my motivation to play to be because it’s fun, not the pressure of missing out. No temporary content (unless its necessary) and forget these temporary meta achievements.
Overall I agree it doesn’t replace an expansion, but I believe ArenaNet thinks the same thing. That’s why they have people working on “expansion” content parallel to Living World teams.
From what I’ve heard, the next patch will largely be a recap of the story so far. Don’t expect too much excitement, I think that will come in the three patches after it.
I don’t think they are doing it because it’s hot (although I won’t deny Kasmeer is sold as the very sexual side kick to Marjory, had Marjory been male that would likely have been a major drama, then again, Marjory’s voice actor comes off as sensual/seductive in that noir style) but because one of the writers has a bias towards writing those characters. This particular gender pairing might be underrepresented in general fiction, to see it not only equally represented (when in reality it is far less) and arguable more represented when you consider prominence (it’s like arguing that 50% of a company’s employees are female and thus there is no gender discrimination but conveniently ignoring that only one of their ten board members is female – context matters), that’s a writer’s bias in story choices imo.
I thought Caithe and Faolain were a good way to explore love and the concept of a life partner as it is perceived by the sylvari (Destiny’s Edge are iconic – almost caricatures – of their respective races and are used to define the races). I still don’t know if it traditionally falls into the definition of a lesbian relationship, but it’s certainly the same territory.
Jennah and Logan’s relationship is relevant to explore in Tyria because they are both prominent public figures, their relationship has had demonstrated consequences for Desinty’s Edge and possible consequences as far as the royal line goes. When the story spends time with them, I don’t mind because it’s not some writer’s Mary Sue romance going on or a token attempt to represent a minority in a story, it’s another dimension to Tyrian politics.
Marjory and Kasmeer? I am wary of why this relationship is so prominent in the Living Story. It’s more prominent than Mhenlo and Cynn ever were (that was primarily a side joke, used sparingly for comic effect) but probably less prominent than Gwen and Thackeray (I personally consider their relationship one of the lowest points for GW:Beyond, it was painful and boring to play through and took Gwen from being a great character to being an annoying one).
I don’t think the gender of their coupling matters in this relationship beyond the cynicism that a writer has a bias and will selectively tell this story above others. I do think it matters that this particular relationship doesn’t expand on the story being told. One of the devs commented on the recent live stream, in response to a question about sylvari bias, that they make choices that fit well in the story they are trying to tell. I can buy that as an explanation for why Scarlet and Canach are both sylvari and the primary villains so far (ignoring Mai Trinn) but I don’t believe they follow that rule when it comes to the Living Story cast.
@lordkrall you have a talent for missing the context and reconstructing what was said to conveniently frame the argument as a straw man with a politically correct template to condemn it with. Mortifact identifies as a gay person (a pre-emptive truthful defense to being accused of homophobia I suspect, shouldn’t be necessary to make this point) and frames his/her position as believing that the writers are exploiting this gender pairing for its sex appeal and not because it was a story choice with its own integrity (I don’t believe this is the intention of the writer but I do genuinely believe this was a strong part of its popularity after the “naked Kasmeer” posts started popping up, most people didn’t care about curtains or affectionate dialogue, people loved the naked mesmer and receptive necromancer).
I think their relationship has been given too much prominence in the story so far, but compare it to the “bromance” between Rox and Braham. Their relationship is not romantic but it is given similar prominence as a way of getting to know these characters. I enjoy that as an attempt to add depth to those two characters and can view the romance between Marjory and Kasmeer as a similar attempt (they said the Living Story is supposed to model a TV show, romance is usually a part of that).
@NinjaChris my understanding of how to write a pairing of any orientation is that you write them all the same. They are characters before they are a pairing (something that Marjory and Kasmeer are in danger of becoming).
tl:dr I think they definitely come off as sexualised individuals but I think their pairing is incidental (from that perspective, I don’t think it’s a coincidence they are lesbians). I’m fine with them being in the story but as an individual I dislike romance in general, it’s either relevant to the plot or it shouldn’t be in the story at all, especially in an MMO about slaying dragons.
That was a good video, it’s nice to have some answers or explanations of the story so far. It was also nice to see the passion and excitement from the developers behind the content. It’s easy to forget (or not even realise) that people who made the content are excited and passionate about the story that’s been released so far (it’s even easier to forget when giving criticism). I’d like to join the chorus of people thanking Angel the team for giving these interviews (and responding to questions on reddit and other forums). I’d also like to say I liked the short stories as well. They are usually very well written and some of my favourite character developments happen in them (I usually don’t like Kiel in game but I liked and understood her more after reading her story about Magus), this is a double edged sword though, because these stories should be told in game (especially “What Scarlet Saw”).
One thing I noticed with one of Angel’s responses (and similair comments made elsewhere by other devs about Living Story in general) was about how they perceive the story which I compared to how I perceive the story. Angel was commenting on Kasmeer and how her initial introduction was like the Paris Hilton of Tyria, something I didn’t conclude. Kasmeer was a noble so I always perceived her that way, but making a transition to working class (or something in that area). She was initially juxtaposed next to Faren at Southsun which would make almost anyone look serious and smart by comparison. In the short story about getting off the boat and meeting Kiel she seemed like she was on business, so again it didn’t come across as someone to take lightly. The only times I see Kasmeer as out of the ordinary or dumb are when Marjory feels the need to remind me that she’s not (ironically the person who’s supposed to see Kasmeer for who she truly is is the one reinforcing the idea that’s she less than that). Other times, like the Wintersday bar scene she demonstrates a lack of familiarity/experience with the world and social tact, but all four of them fall into this across their different meet ups. I can see the plot developing towards Kasmeer proving she’s not dumb but I don’t think she has established herself as dumb (because she isn’t). The pay off won’t be there for me because the lead up doesn’t feed into it.
I see similar things with Flame and Frost and the Toxic Alliance. I feel like suspension of disbelief or (god forbid) my imagination is needed to perceive these Alliances as actually threatening (to the extent that the story wants us to believe). Aside from Southsun Cove getting a few new residents and a toppled tower in Kessex, Tyria didn’t really react or change with these alliances (more so the Molten Alliance, Toxic Alliance had more oomph but didn’t quite get there imo). I find it hard to perceive them as threats when they were fairly static in the game world. Sure there were Molten Alliance NPCs standing around in maps, and in a few isolated cases they “possessed” territory like villages near the Black Citadel or Craigstead, but they never seemed very different from the usual threats of Tyria (there are Flame Legion events that can “capture” outposts right outside Black Citadel, we’re talking a three minute walk from the Black Citadel). Aside from new gameplay mechanics (jump the shock wave to avoid attack, knock out of the ring to do damage) the Molten Technology wasn’t established as truly threatening. The Toxic Alliance barely left the lake and the surrounding settlements barely recognised its existence. Events and threats of this scale should get the attention of more than the Biconics.
tl:dr I think there is sometimes a break down of the story between how the writers imagine the story and how it is expressed in the game. Listening to interviews like this one and the Wartower ones is sometimes like a crutch to communicate things in a way I don’t think the game did well on its own.
PS: If Marjory is truly of Canthan ancestry (?), can we please see more of Canthan heritage in the Living Story? Her first name could be Greek tieing in with Luxon ancestry, but her second name sounds distinctly not Canthan.
As far as SAB returning, I’ve said in the past I personally don’t like it as much as the rest of GW2 and if I had a choice I’d rather any of the other content updates over new SAB content (I understand the designers behind SAB are very passionate and there is definitely an audience for that content in GW2 as the OP demonstrates).
Having said that, the most interesting part of SAB to me last release was that there was an actual story to it. I liked the asura krewe working on Moto’s work and the conflict that was established between the two. Honestly I found it more interesting than Scarlet. I did initially think there may have been a link between Scarlet’s Eternal Alchemy seeing device and the SAB research but I now think SAB is its own contained story which kinda disappoints me because a virtual reality game in Tyria isn’t that interesting on its own imo.
I expect SAB to return in April because it was popular and there is passion behind creating it but for me personally it’s a couple weeks off from the Living Story treadmill. I’ll probably check it out (especially if there is story involved) but it doesn’t hold my attention. As others have said, it was a fun novelty and a bit of a surprise but if I want to play a platformer I have options outside of GW2.
the speculations on this are going to be good. the first poem had a pocket watch and now a metronome. The common denominator is they both keep time and I lost where i was going with this lol. But bump anyways cause im intrigued to see what others come up with.
Scarlet’s an engineer. When picking novelty items to promote their patches they pick clockwork/steam punk themed items because Scarlet is an engineer. Remember how this ended last time? People got excited about the watch that was sent out and we ended up with Scarlet and months of Scarlet hate.
I’d like this to be about an Elder Dragon, whatever Scarlet does begins the next dragon’s attack on Tyria (Primordious fits well because he doesn’t need new open world maps, he is under Tyria) but I seriously doubt the last year was an elaborate way to wake a dragon. Doesn’t that seem kind of pointless? A whole year of her nonsense and the end result isn’t even about her?
Scarlet’s plan is separate from an elder dragon, why did she experiment with the Toxic Alliance if she just wanted to thump a dragon to the surface? I seriously doubt the next four weeks will be about an Elder Dragon.
@ timyf I think we need to be careful about tieing gameplay to Order choices. If they do go down the path of Order missions I don’t think players should be excluded based on a personal story choice they may have made over a year ago. I already don’t like that members of the Order of Whispers have unique NPC interactions making them feel like the superior choice for lore hounds.
I like the idea of title progression unlocking merchant options (this was used well in WoW with factions and EotN even used this with racial armour/weapons/consumables). I don’t like the idea of title progression being tied to skill effectiveness. We saw this with Ursan Blessing in GW1 where players were excluded from groups if they didn’t have rank x or higher, the grind didn’t feel like a choice, you had to do it if you want maximum efficiency. Power level items (skills and traits) should be low hanging fruit while the cosmetic and convenience items can be the long term goals (titles, cosmetic items, convenience items, consumables etc).
I thought Belcher’s Bluff had an interesting skill acquisition method – defeat the skill to earn the skill. It would be interesting to see that expanded on in GW2 for new utility skills. Skill points were neat but usually boiled down to channelling or auto-attacking an NPC and the end result was a generic skill point. Would it be too much to have skill specific challenges throughout the world? I remember reading prior to launch that the game had a skill/trait acquisition method similair to that. Why didn’t that make it into the game?
I had an idea about class progression unlocking based off of something from GW1. You had something in Factions called the Insignia quest (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Insignia_quest). It was a meta quest with a series of sub quests with challanges that tailored towards the new skills. A similair but more robust thing could be done in GW2.
Zaishen Dojos
The Zephyrites have returned and brought with them (racially diverse?) members of the Zaishen Order to construct training dojos designed to challenge Tyria’s heroes and maybe teach them a thing or two.
The dojo itself has an instanced staging area (similar to SAB) but there would also be a variety (say five per dojo?) of instanced challenges designed to favour certain strategies and skills and promote different kinds of gameplay.
- Defend an NPC with several choke points leading to it that enemies travel through. NPC allies damage mobs as they pass through the chokes. Favours control skills.
- Race through an obstacle course. Favours swiftness, stability, stun breakers and condition removal.
- Defeat opponents with powerful charge/telegraphed attacks. Favours disruption or blocks.
- Reach the end of a combat scenario using the new skill bar, fighting opponents that use builds and techniques designed to test it.
- Dual an NPC hero. This would be similair to the Queen’s Gauntlet except only one hero is present at the dojo and the hero can rotate out weekly to showcase different characters from across Tyria (similair to Magni Bison’s arena in EotN).
- Escort a group of blast finisher spamming Zaishen through a scenario. Combo fields recommended. Escort a group of combo field spamming Zaishen. Finishers recommended.
- Throw in something similair to fractal instabilities that mimic the situations skills are designed to counter.
* If you complete the skill’s requirement a certain number of times in that challenge with the new skill(break a stun, evade an attack, cure a condition, heal an ally, grant a boon to an ally, interrupt an attack etc), you can purchase that skill from the trainer for a certain amount of skill points. - A primary goal of dojo challenges should be to have diverse types of content so that one single build or strategy doesn’t suit every encounter and the experience is fresh with something for everyone.
The dojo is a lot of content to simply accommodate new skills, so replay ability and other forms of class specific progression could be added to them:
- The first pass through the challenges would give players a set bar with new skills to use and unlock (for example, the new skill might be Spirit of Water and thus the player would temporarily use a spirit build), this ensures players are learning how to use the new skills as they acquire them.
- After completing the challenges, a harder, scaling (for party members) version of the challenges becomes available. Players can use any build to attempt to complete the new difficulties allowing for experimentation (similair to Candidate Trials).
- You could introduce gambits similar to the Queen’s Gauntlet or just have a set number of levels similar to Candidate Trials.
- Different challenges can be exclusively: solo (duels), with a party or scale for both.
- Titles can be awarded for players completing all the challenges to a certain standard on a specific profession(similair to sPvP achievement tracks). This would be a way of recognising a player’s mastery over their profession (so if the content is easier on a mesmer than it is a thief, the thief has unique recognition).
- Scroll’s of Knowledge are awarded for completing challenges to help players purchase the skills. Completing a set of unique challenges will complete a repeatable achievement (similair to the mini game ones tied to festivals) that awards a rare scroll of knowledge.
To counter the influx of skill points, scrolls of knowledge (or just skill points?) are used as currency. Class specific vendors only sell to players that have unlocked appropriate achievement titles on their respective classes:
- Unlocked all skills and completed easy version of challenges – a back banner with class insignia on it. Five scrolls of knowledge.
- Completed level two of all challenges on a specific class – class specific item (ranger quiver, elementalist back book, thief hood etc). 100 scrolls of knowledge.
- Completed level three of all challenges on a specific class – forgeable ascension item to ascend the class specific item (adds green glow and falling leaves to ranger quiver, rotating particle effects for each element on the elementalist book, shadowy particle effects on the thief hood etc). 20 rare scrolls of knowledge.
- Maybe a weapon set or other items (like recipes, consumables, mini pets) can be purchased with skill points from the vendors.
I can think of a bunch of problems with this proposal but I only have so much body length for this post.
(edited by Shiren.9532)
I doubt the Kasmeer angle with go anywhere. When it was first mentioned I thought it might but the Tower has come and gone and Kasmeer hasn’t changed at all. I think the Kasmeer point was another attempt to make us aware Kasmeer is out of her element. She’s a noble not used to the adventuring life and things that wouldn’t even register on my norn warrior’s radar cause her discomfort enough to vocalise it.
I was watching an old episode of Xena today where Gabriel gets poisoned and Xena takes care of her, forcing Xena to confront how important Gabriel was in Xena’s transformation as a person when faced with losing her to the poison. It would be interesting to see essentially the same plot play out for Kasmeer and Marjory (they even have the same hair colour).
Having said all of that, there is limited story telling time. I don’t want to spend it focusing on minor characters when Scarlet is supposed to be threatening the world. Seeing asura gates blow up in Lion’s Arch and Aetherblades invading the Grove (or some other earth shattering plot), it would be kind of lame to spend time with Marjory and Kasmeer deal with a poison.
As far as character’s dieing, Tyria is a world of conflict. Characters should die often, it reinforces the idea that the world is dangerous and our actions have meaning. It makes villains more threatening and victories more important.
I’m less concerned about what the next story is as I am about how they go about telling it. Ideally I’d like a paid expansion, but if we get more Living Story I’d like to see a few things.
I want a story that:
- Utilises existing plots and lore in Tyria. The power vacuum in the Flame Legion and the potential successors – how that impacts on the charr, Faolain and the Nightmare Court – what’s happening with Malyck?, the treaty between the humans and the charr, Caudecus and his allies VS the Queen, the Wizard’s Tower etc. Even without touching on old lore, GW2 has a lot of conflicts around the world for heroes to get involved in.
- It has protagonists that make sense in the story instead of steal focus away from it. Rox and Braham were most interesting during Flame and Frost when they were directly linked to the story (they helped expand it from an ally perspective and give faces to the armies and victims of the conflict), Marjory and Kasmeer were a lot more interesting when I thought we might be tracking down the people behind Wendel’s murder or looking into Kasmeer’s father instead of just being present and saying cute/funny things or for exposition. The core henchmen from GW1 (Devona’s group) worked well because they were almost never the focus of the story (when Mhenlo was, it made sense, he was our link to Cantha), Koss and the other heroes (or Zei Ri from Winds of Change) were much better characters for telling the story of Nightfall because they were a part of the story. The Living Story cast don’t make the story better, they distract from it. It’d be like walking around Elona and never talking to Dunkoro or Tahlkora and instead hearing Cynn and Eve – they might be entertaining but they aren’t a prominent member of Istan or a princess from Vabbi.
- Focuses on the events and factions instead of a hidden big picture. The factions of Tyria matter, most of Scarlet’s story made it feel like they didn’t matter, like events would fall into place simply because Scarlet needed another piece of tech for her end game machine. If your going to include the centaurs, really include them. Their actions in the world should show them advancing their existing interests, they should have named characters that give a face to their new identity and sudden relevance. If humanity is going to showcase their Watchwork golem army, show us how they were built to explain how they appeared overnight, who was the creative mind behind their creation? Where did the Aetherblades come from and why haven’t we heard of them before? It would have been cool to see flyers around Lion’s Arch or rumours of someone offering big rewards to pirates to join them and maybe some DEs or open world changes in heavy pirate areas of Tyria to explain the sudden influx of Aetherblades in Scarlet’s army (maybe even have an ally NPC who joins them after an unfortunate series of events that we participate in). I don’t think the Molten Alliance was believable, the Toxic Alliance didn’t seem to be focused on accomplishing much (nor did the Nightmare Court have much of reason to be involved, the krait motive was too convenient). I think the factions of Tyria were the most underwritten characters over this last year and the story suffered because of this. I’d like to see the next chapter do this better.
- That isn’t bound by the chains of the Personal Story pardox issue. We’re well into the second year of the game. It’s time to move forward imo. Maybe part of the reason why the alliances were unable to be threatening is because they can’t truly change the world or impact on existing plot points. This is too much of a hindrance.
I don’t need a villain or a core cast of characters to keep coming back each month. If every four weeks they tell stand alone stories with new or returning protagonist characters relevant to the story and give proper prominence and development to the villains of the story, that’s more than enough for me. I don’t need a year long master plan – it becomes confusing when so much is temporary and you can’t check back on it, it excludes people who miss out on past content and world spanning events need to be linked under a single purpose which weakens the story.
If nothing else, I think we can all agree no story would be better than Trahearne returning as the primary protagonist.
My number one would be “Zone Progression” / “Order Progression”
Something that gives players a purpose to explore the zones.
- A lot of people miss quests, my main guess why this is the case is: they miss stories. Dynamic Events are cyclical in nature, so those stories have no real end – climax if you want. Time to give your writers something more to do and let them design unique events.
- even the most simple idea could make people exited. Today I leveled in Kessex Hills when I saw a bear walking alongside a skritt. Awesome I thought… until I found out that I can’t interact with that npc at all; it’s just a guild mission boss. Why not spawn such rare characters (dozen of them, but rare spawns) in the open world, give them a loottable and a few interesting dialogue-options or even a small event associated.
Fill the existing maps with tons of things to do. I mean: tons and tons of things. And may these be just little things… the world has to feel more alive.
…and then combine this with progression. The more people find, the more they unlock. And the more they can unlock for others (in the sense of triggering new events).
summary: progression in specific zones via a huge variety of things to do (something for everyone – fighters, explorers, collectors, lore-lovers, treasure hunters,…………
People should have some goals for each of the zones. Not for the world in general (Legendary – mats from everywhere). Zelda reference: the Master Sword is in the Lost Woods, not everywhere in Hyrule.
I like this idea and I wish the core game had launched like this over a year ago, a lot of the open world stuff feels inconsiquential as far as progression because it’s not efficient for making money and only specific content is rewarding.
A problem I have with retroactively adding this idea to the core game is something I noticed with the Nightmare is Over. Before the game launched I watched youtube videos of people playing in Kessex Hills. During the BWEs I played in Kessex Hills every time I levelled up a new character. At launch I completed the map and did so several times afterwards on other characters. I’ve since spent several months to return there to do tower related content and the whole time I’ve been bored by the area simply because I’ve done it before. Even with all the new events (phase 1 while the tower was up) it couldn’t compare to exploring a part of the world I haven’t been to before. Then it repeated (phase 2 after the fall of the tower with “new” events and achievements) and I was really done with Kessex. This same thing happens with ascended crafting materials and methods of acquisition (it all begins to remind me of that episode of the Simpsons where Marge buys a Chanel suit to fit in at a country club, unable to afford another one she alters it each week).
Any additions to the open world would also need to look at the rewards. The open world content is only rewarding in specific areas. At launch champions weren’t worth killing, now it’s only worth killing them and world events. Normal events, event chains, exploration and out of the way parts of the world are epic journeys to blue loot. I love the idea of treasure hunting in Tyria. Of exploring caverns and out of the way places, of helping people and being a hero, but once you hit 80 it becomes clear that material progression is primarily done via dungeons and world events. I don’t think open world progression is going to mean much to players unless there is a robust rewards component tied to it (sadly?).
tl:dr The game is well into its second year, I don’t want to explore the same areas again to spot minor differences. Sure I will be entertained if I can start an event in Caledon forest because I did the Malyck plot in personal story and I have unique reactions, but that experience will be weighed down because I’m still in Caledon forest. Like the world completion title states, Been there, done that.
I do love the idea of loot being more specific to content instead of having generic rewards across the entire game. It helps reinforce a story behind loot (it’s sad so many ascended items refer to lore events but are so generic in their acquisition) and gives more meaning to the world and the player experience.
I’m surprised this tweet got more attention than the one from the ArenaNet dev who mentioned he felt like writing February’s content was like writing an invasion of another country, that he wrote Marjory so much he started misspelling similar words and another mention of Thaumanova. We also know this is the end of the Scarlet arc.
Putting it together it seems like Do Not Touch is related to Thaumanova, that Scarlet’s final plans are like an invasion and the Living Story cast is heavily involved.
People already figured out the Thaumanova link (there was speculation on it before we even saw Scarlet inside the fractal), Scarlet’s end only made sense to involve a mass scale fight (she’s already had Molten Alliance, Clockwork Horror, Aetherblade and Toxic Alliance invasions – it wouldn’t make sense for her final appearance not to involve another large scale fight, hopefully more impactful than Queen’s Jubilee) and the Living Story cast.
I hope the tweets from those fansites are something to do with the features update. Depending on what it is, it could be something to get excited about.
She does seem to somehow have access to a ton of stuff, without anyone noticing.
I mean, irl you can’t become a half-decent hacker without ending up on a bunch of intelligence lists. Or develop WMDs without someone blowing you up. That’s the equivalent of what Scarlet is doing.
The same kind of conveniences are happening for the protagonists as well. Kiel has the magical solution to the contracts issue (a self piloting ship she blows up, how convenient no-one was sailing it), Kasmeer is revealed to be a formidable mesmer the moment a giant illusionary veil needs to be torn down and her partner is conveniently a master of toxic poisons that can create an anti-toxin to deal with what was being hidden by the veil.
It’s a symptom of the writing and it’s not exclusive to Scarlet. The world warps to fit the character’s into the story. Hopefully the final four releases are better and phase two of the Living Story isn’t burdened by these problems.
I personally don’t enjoy the mechanics. The cut scenes are also an issue (this is something I run into with the new fractals and it makes ones like the Molten Facility much more annoying than they need to be).
Having said that the reward model they went with for the Aetherised weapons is the wrong one imo. The drop rate is incredibly low so I expect not to get one. At that point I look at the dungeon and I think, "I could spend a longer time in Aether path for the same token reward or I could do F or U paths instead). I don’t really factor in the new weapons as a reason to do the dungeon because I honestly don’t expect to get one. So why bother worker harder, in content I enjoy less, that takes longer all for the same reward?
I’m just sad we lost the Vevina fight from the game to get this mess of a dungeon.
My biggest issue with taking sub-80 people in a party is how difficult it is to fill. If you have an “only 80s” party, it will fill quickly and you can be on your way. If you take sub 80s, most people joining you will leave the party and your party slots will go up and down like a yoyo. The honest truth is I’ve had plenty low level parties that are far superior to high level ones.
I suspect we will see more polish done to the core game rather than truly new features.
- The next/final phase of sPvP rewards revamp, possibly some kind of skin locker thing tied to it (although I suspect the locker will strongly favour the cash shop).
- Precursor crafting/new legendary weapons and/or trinkets.
- If it hasn’t been released by then, Edge of the Mists (and possibly the new sPvP maps and/or WvW masteries).
Brainstorming random things they could add:
- Mini pet locker. Inventory slot for an active mini pet.
- Pet battles.
- New utility skills or elites.
I’d like to see something unexpected and out of the blue, like fishing. That would be a new feature with some meat to it, something totally new offering new gameplay and not just a tweak to existing gameplay. There’s only so much they can polish the older content before you get tired of running it, regardless of how many tweaks they make to the encounters or the rewards.
I can see the logic in steath perception from a creature that can’t be blinded but my understanding of stealth is that it’s more than just visual. The thief cloaks itself in some kind of magic and a combination of skill which prevents them from being identified. Whatever technique the dredge use to identify someone, it doesn’t work on stealth.
As far as racial bonuses go, I was previously against the idea of even racial skills but seeing them implement them so poorly (they exist but are so bad you would almost never use them) I wouldn’t mind seeing them expanded or buffed. If they remain in their current state they may as well be removed. As far as immunities, I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t want to feel pressured to play one race over others because of its skills.
Destiny’s Edge doesn’t need to be replaced and the four characters mentioned in that article don’t need to be constantly appearing in the Living Story. If Destiny’s Edge was actually brought forward in the story (instead of sitting in timeline limbo) they could continue to develop them into strong and enjoyable characters for future stories. Tyria as a world is so much bigger than just Kasmeer, Marjory, Rox and Braham. Making everything about them will have similair issues to making everything about Scarlet.
I think in some ways she is like the sylvari themselves. Kasmeer appears to have lived a comfortable and privileged life of nobility. Recent events have put her into a position where she has to get out of her comfort zone and as part of that she’s exposing herself to places, people and situations that she never would have come across in her comfortable noble life, despite being a fully grown adult (not unlike a sylvari themselves). In many ways Kasmeer is still learning about the world like a newborn sylvari (both are adult-like beings that have so little life experience) but unlike many sylvari Kasmeer has been around long enough to think she knows what’s going on.
She comes off as judgemental but I think as she learns more and her character develops she will show that when armed with some experience and more understanding, her current views are just misconceptions. Then again, the writers keep writing Destiny’s Edge with no character growth(Logan is a broken record when it comes to the Queen and his loyalty to his former guild etc), I wouldn’t be surprised if Kasmeer stayed the same. It is getting tiresome seeing Marjory constantly tell us (or Kasmeer) that she’s smarter than she comes across as if it’s some big secret they are going to unveil later.
You don’t need to use Destiny’s Edge. Think of how well Rox and Braham worked in Flame and Frost. Not only did they make sense as characters in that update, they actually deepened the plot. Their presence added a face to the story being told at the time. Rox shows first hand how the charr responded to the threat, she reinforces charr lore with her warband and her interactions with the hatchery “humanise” the conflict, Braham is the same – explores the reasons why the norn weren’t involved in a rescue attempt but he also helps the player to care more about the people of Craigstead. What does their presence at the Queen’s Jubilee do? Rox is just a name to a delegate, Braham added nothing. They didn’t develop the tower story either, they were just present like the player and the other Living Story cast.
Think how much better Tequatl Rising would have been if a Hylek or Sylvari NPC had been used in place of Rox. The Living Story doesn’t need a core cast of characters, it needs characters that strengthen the story, not ones that are a sideshow to it (a lot of positive feedback about the camp dialogue but almost none of it has anything to do with the actual story, it could be given to anyone anywhere in Tyria and it would mean as much).
Ellen Kiel is about the only Living Story cast member who seems to consistently make sense to be in the story (despite all my issues with her). Her position in the Lionguard made sense with her involvement at Southsun, it was a bit convenient during Dragonbash but not a leap. The election was the same and now she’s popping up to interrogate Dessa because of her link to the Consortium. She might be a boring, overused, credit stealing character (imo) but Kiel makes more sense in the story than the other four.
Part of the reason why the Living Story is so weak is the core cast serve as a distraction from the actual story as opposed to helping to develop the plot and the situations occurring each month. The world is full of heroes who have no story driven reasons to be in every event that pops up – the player character. The story characters should exist to serve the story, let the players be the heroes and the story characters can be for exposition and “quest giving”.
Ah, another “we’re annoyed Kiel won, so we’re going to make a thread about how she’s a big meanie” thread. What’s next? Asking for her long form birth certificate?
You don’t like what other people are saying so you’re going to dismiss it and attack the motives of the people posting? Classy.
Do people feel it’s impossible to test new builds using only Exotic gear?
A higher gear ceiling is unfriendly to experimentation/evolution and build diversity, it hurts the player’s freedom to experience diverse build choices or classes.I’m not concerned about testing new builds (if it’s for WvW I can do that in sPvP, if it’s in PvE chances are it will involve berserkers/knights gear and ruby orbs or one of the other optimal DPS upgrades). I’m concerned about meta changes and changing builds. In PvE most characters will want some kind of DPS set. In WvW for a lot of players that is not optimal. The meta changes a lot, what I wanted three month ago isn’t what I want now. As the game and player skill evolves, gear demands evolve but acquired items don’t. This is a problem given how steep the investment is.
One set of gear does not fit all situations and the diversity of builds and play styles you can experience really helps keep the game fresh and players engaged. Ascended competes with this freedom because it encourages and rewards you for building one way and not experimenting outside of that. The cost of exotics is not to be dismissed and experimentation or just committing, for a time, to a build becomes less appealing when the wind could be blowing in another direction after the next balance patch, or you might just decide you want a change.
Unlocking multiple build choices on the same item is good progression.I like the idea of unlocking stat combinations on a piece of equipment. Maybe it doesn’t have all the stats to begin with, but for a decreased cost (not as much as an ascended item from scratch) I can add a new stat combination to that item that I can swap between. This would help to decrease inventory bloat and would ease the pain of swapping builds when an old one goes out of favour. It would also be a nice way to feel like my equipment is progressing without making me more powerful. An item that can swap between berserker, knight or rabid stats would be pretty cool and would make it feel like I’m constantly improving my character. Tie it to something like skill points an account bound currencies, maybe an NPC that sells stat specific components of a mystic forge recipe that can be purchased with ascended mats (bloodstone dust etc).
Add new methods of acquisition. I still don’t like current ascended acquisition methods(too grindy, too much gold required, little freedom in content). I don’t like that crafting is required (I personally hate crafting) and I feel like the biggest barrier for me is the gold required to push through crafting (or even assemble the purchasable components/materials to craft the item itself). I’d like to see a turn to multiple ways to access ascended items similair to exotics. Use more of the account bound currencies (karma, badges of honour, dungeon tokens, skill points) and possibly even the mystic forge. Unlike crafting, the Mystic Forge is relatively simple to use(only four items needed, no unnecessary time wasters like soles or boot linings). I think the emphasis on ascended acquisition is too heavy on gold, trading post economics and crafting. It just feels like a lot of stuff and not a lot of gameplay. I’m fine with dragonite/empyrial/bloodstone components (although I think their areas of acquisition and numbers need to be better balanced) but the other components I’d like to see replaced with other items (either drops or purchasable with account bound currencies).
Don’t involve gold or the Trading Post. One of the stated reasons for ascended was to give players another thing to progress towards on their way to legendaries. The heavy involvement of the economy and gold in ascended acquisition can be a huge speed bump on the legendary journey. Suddenly the money I was saving up to buy the Legend with now has to go towards levelling my crafting profession or buying bulk raw materials. Any tweaks to the ascended acquisition methods would best involve account bound currencies to avoid more bloat on the need for gold in this game and return the focus to playing the game to acquire items as opposed to playing the TP. Outright selling ascended items has this exact problem – you further increase the power of gold adding more pressure to the already bloated list of things players are best grinding gold to acquire.
This happened to me too. I did fractals almost every day during the event (sometimes twice a day) and that’s a long time in fractals. I didn’t get the Molten Facility once. I was lucky that the achievement stuck around after the event ended and the very first fractal run I did after the event had Molten Facility (which strangely counted for the achievement despite the time expiring).
Personally I’d prefer it if RNG things like this (which can be very time intense – it wasn’t uncommon to spend 2+ hours in a single FotM run with the quality of players at the time and now you can’t reset to choose the fractal seeing as they are tiered) not be part of Living Story achievements. I can understand it as a long term achievement, but a two week window is too much.
I was one of the people asking for more of this stuff (especially relating to Scarlet) and tbh I haven’t seen a good chunk of these things. I saw all the conversations at the Kessex Hills camp (the quaggan, Marjory, Kasmeer, Rox, Braham, the friends of Scarlet’s mentor) but I’ve not bothered to find the asura that mentions Scarlet in Lion’s Arch(?) mentioned last month nor did I bother to go to Caledon Forest to talk to the Consortium NPC despite being interested in the possible implications of that plot resurfacing. The ones in Kessex Hills were easy to come across, the others strengthen the story’s tie to the world imo but you will only see them by small chance (out of the way areas to the current Living Story and I expect most players don’t explore Caledon Forest every other week) or if you deliberately go looking for them. Is this a bad thing? For now, I don’t think so. As much as it sucks that most players won’t see this stuff, I think a “Living World” needs to have current events reflected in idle chatter. It’s nice that current events are reflected in areas outside the immediate sphere of the content’s influence – that’s what a real world would do.
Why would someone who claims to want this kind of stuff not be exploring it? I guess part of the reason is I’ve already cleared these zones. I have eight level 80s, I’ve completed Caledon about six or seven times, Kessex probably about five. When I read on the forums that these things pop up, I usually visit them myself if they are interesting enough. Even if I’m unlikely to come across them naturally in the game, I’m glad they are there.
As far as the overall release goes (not Wintersday, the other content) I have found it the hardest to get involved with. I just don’t care about the toxic alliance or Kessex Hills any more. The novelty wore off and the thought of doing more toxic stuff makes me want to exit the game. I did the instance but I am putting off the other achievements (I wouldn’t even know where to look at first glance).
Dessa isn’t a fan of the Consortium either. She herself warns the player about them. Why does it matter what Kiel’s views on the Consortium are? If anything, Dessa is another one of their victims.
I think the Living World would be better off without a protagonist cast. What do the recurring characters add that isn’t better done by an NPC specific to each month’s conflict or existing prominent characters in Tyria? Rox and Braham had a solid connection to Flame and Frost, Marjory was a glorified quest giver in Dragonbash, but since then they are holding the story back (that was hard to say given the quality of the story). Rox was at Tequatl but why? To wedge her into the story. A hylek or sylvari NPC specific to that conflict would have fleshed out more of a story there. The Living Story cast are taking the attention away from the player (Ellen Kiel in everything she did prior to Cutthroat Politics, now Kasmeer is taking shots at Rox and Braham for letting Scarlet slip away when the player themselves were present but forgotten). The characters they’ve created don’t make sense outside of their little niches and the story misses out because of this. They are like Scarlet, popping up everywhere regardless of whether it makes sense or not – simply because they are the Living Story cast.
The Living Story cast are barely involved with the story beyond banter and the player isn’t either. I really miss the story telling from GW1 and WoW. When characters were involved, it was usually because they were important or relevant. In Guild Wars 2 it’s like watching someone’s fanfic play out.
Make a recipe to allow infusions that requires Mists Essence. Requires fractals? Check. Back on topic.
I suspect that lawyers and judicial process are not very well respected in pirate haven, Lion’s Arch.
Through the asura gate is a fractal itself. Kiel’s not in Lion’s Arch any more and she has no authority there. I think Dessa only tried to follow her because she was intimidated by Kiel’s bullying demeanour (as far as I can tell, Dessa seems harmless yet Kiel treats her like a criminal) or simply wanted her research to continue uninterrupted and considered co-operating with Kiel’s overreaching demands the smoothest path to that. Dessa has no love for the Consortium.
As far as lawyers and judicial process goes, Kiel seems to be a bit two-faced. During Sky Pirates when she was trying to get elected, Kiel was by the book goody-two-shoes white knight of the people, refusing to take advantage of the Aetherblade plundered loot and spouting a moral diatribe about returning it to the people it belonged to. She wanted people to see her as all that is good. Prior to that she illegally destroyed Consortium records and post election she is behaving how she likes when dealing with Dessa. She’s a politician now. The face she shows is the one she wants you to see at the time.
For me, Kasmeer being a mesmer was a confirmation, not a surprise. Her outfit and general demeanour in previous appearances has been in-line with the way human mesmer NPCs have typically looked and behaved in the past (Gwen excepted). I can’t point to anything specific off the top of my head, but whether Kasmeer was made specifically to break the illusion on the Tower of Nightmares or not, it seems clear to me that she was planned as a mesmer from her first appearance.
Maybe it’s coincidental that she turns out to be a powerful enough mesmer to break the illusion, but what else could they do? Had her carry around a sign that reads “Powerful Mesmer” around on her previous appearances? While she has the personality to be a mesmer, she doesn’t seem the type to go around boasting of it. I guess they could have put her in combat previously to give us confirmation that she’s a mesmer, but even that wouldn’t establish her as being anything special when it comes to mesmerism.
For that matter, it’s also possible that what she did was nothing that our own mesmer characters couldn’t have done, had they had the time to spend studying the barrier that Kasmeer did. Having an NPC mesmer to do the honours, though, means that the sequence works regardless of whether there is a PC mesmer present or not.
My issue isn’t that she’s a mesmer or that she wasn’t known to be a mesmer until now. It’s that as soon as the story needs a powerful mesmer, out of nowhere she is established as one. The noble fallen on hard times, who didn’t show any battle prowess or mesmer-like abilities (that I can recall), who seemed to stand out all the time as someone who didn’t belong outside of a beach resort or noble gathering, all of a sudden a powerful mesmer is needed and the “Great and Gorgeous Mesmer Collective” (for all I know this is Kasmeer’s friend and her “talking” cat but the implication is they have some credibility) send for her. Not someone who has a demonstrated ability (to the player) in mesmer magic, Kasmeer. To me it looks like an artificial development to shoehorn Kasmeer (and Marjory) into this plot, especially considering existing options (Anise, Jennah, the mesmers behind Watchwork Knight illusions or someone from one of the orders – or any other mesmer) made more sense. It’s similair to what was done with Scarlet with her hefty resume dropped as soon as she appeared, yet no-one in Tyria mentioned her before that day. By including Kasmeer here they’ve cheapened her character with unearned abilities to suit the plot, similair to what is constantly done with Scarlet, and they’ve damaged the scope of the story and the credibility of the more believable factions that should have done the job before Kasmeer (Seraph, Shining Blade, Vigil, Order of Whispers, Durmand Priory etc). Right now all the of the relevant factions in Tyria look bad at their jobs for letting some unknown but notable mesmer investigate what they themselves should have been looking into, and Scarlet (and the tower – originally it wasn’t known Scarlet was behind it) is less threatening because it appears as though the big wigs don’t deem her important enough to take seriously.
This has all moved into me talking about Kasmeer’s “problems” but I only brought it up as I don’t think “Scarlet’s problems” are just her own – they are replicated for other characters in the Living Story, Scarlet just carries more of them simply because she’s involved in almost every release.
From Wikipaedia – A quotation by Bertrand Russell gives his interpretation of megalomania: “The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.”
Sound like Scarlet to you?
It would if Scarlet wasn’t “silver tongued” and able to manipulate very difficult and diverse faction in Tyria into forming alliances and serving her. The pieces of Scarlet don’t add up, she’s an unbalanced equation.
I think it’s simply a case of Living World content crossing over to WvW in a token fashion to give a little taste. Most of the generic open world elements of the Living Story are also present in WvW, balloons from Bazaar, presents from Wintersday, the toxic plants etc. I think it’s just another case of token WvW participation in Living Story and not really representative of the direction of the story.
I think you’re reading too much into this simply because the test server for WvW previewed something before a PvE equivalent had the chance to.
To begin with, I don’t believe it’s good faith to begin this discussion mere days after the final introduction of ascended. It doesn’t look good to ask for input on vertical progression when you’ve just released the final stage of vertical progression. That’s like asking someone what they want for dinner as you’re serving it up on the table, it’s too late – you already cooked dinner. This discussion should have come before ascended armour was introduced at the very least, doing it this way shows ArenaNet had no intention of being flexible and placed little priority on player feedback.
I have lots of problems with ascended but you guys shrugged off all the negative feedback so now we have to deal with it. I feel it’s important to state (despite it being unable to be removed) that I still don’t approve of ascended progression. Participation in this discussion isn’t an endorsement of ascended, it’s an unhappy reality.
With that out of the way.
- Areas of Acquisition: One of the good things about exotics compared with many other games was the many paths to acquisition. Run dungeons? Exotics. Like crafting? Exotics. Want to farm gold? Exotics. Like to WvW? Exotics. Exotic acquisition was designed to be inclusive of multiple play styles and didn’t force content on people. This is in stark contrast to ascended. You are forced to do certain content (including crafting, which many people loathe and which is nothing more than a gold sink with no redeeming game enjoyment for us, watching a progress bar fill and reset as we file through spread sheets and blow our gold to pointlessly level something we wanted nothing to do with). Why doesn’t ascended follow a similair formula to the original exotic implementation? No content required, all content rewarded. Why do we have to craft?
- Time gate and resources locking you to choices: Why does everything have to be an account bound time gate? I feel immense pressure (to the point where I gave up) because of ascended. I have 8 level 80s, I have played many hours and I still haven’t experienced everything in the game. I struggle to outfit my characters in exotic sets, I certainly can’t afford to do it for ascended sets. I also have great difficulty building alternate gear sets for the game. There is a build I’d like to play in WvW with my guild but I can’t afford another exotic set. Sometimes I think I might like to gain an ascended set but what if my build gets nerfed? What if a better one comes out? What if I want to play something different? Ascended is flawed from a really obvious problem – it locks you into a character and a build that is chosen for it. Similair to WvW ranks, you are choosing to make progress on a single character with a single build choice. The resource and time cost for ascended is too high and it hinders players’ abilities to experience a variety of classes and builds. It’s a soft limitation (technically you can just use exotics or choose to play less classes/builds) but ascended acquisition would feel really pointless if you don’t end up using the ascended items and it feels bad to use an exotic rabid set when you have an ascended berserker set. Your vertical progression systems (WvW, Ascended etc) seem to consistently herd players away from build or class diversity and into specialised roles. It’s not flexible for experimentation, which is a great freedom lost from GW1 and something I believe harms to game far more than any benefits of ascended.
You introduced ascended rings as fractal exclusives. You had huge backlash over the area of acquisition (much of it was from WvW players complaining about the need to PvE but also from people who didn’t want to run FotM). You said you learned from this mistake and future roll outs would be better. Cut to today where ascended requires crafting (RNG drops don’t cut it). You had over a year to get it right and you repeated the same mistake (players who don’t like crafting have to do it to acquire ascended).
I would like ascended to be fixed. Multiple methods to acquire it similair to exotics. I would like to see something done about how negatively it impacts on build and class diversity. In all future forms of progression I would like to see you reign in the account bound character specific forms of progression. Please stop adding progression which ends up feeling like I’m locked to a specific character or build. Horizontal progression does this much better than vertical (although skills and traits were fine). I’d like to see less reliance on time gates. I believe it’s an arbitrary tool and it’s condescending to the player, if doing a one hour fractal run is worth a pristine relic once, why not twice in the same day? Or on a different character. IMO you need to fix the stuff you’ve added over the last year before it’s time to move onto new things.
To give the illusion of player impact on the world.
I’m really glad the Massively article touched on the handwaving that goes on in the Living Story. … Why is Kasmeer investigating the tower? She conveniently a mesmer of notability (despite that not being noted prior to the tower) with an illusion to dispel.
I would just like to point out that Marjory & Kasmeer’s involvement in the tower is very well explained. They’re private investigators. Before the Tower of Nightmares update they stated (in game) that they were hired by an asura (who was already captured by the Toxic Alliance by the time we arrived) to investigate the disturbances in Kessex Hills.
As for why we didn’t know Kasmeer was a mesmer before, well we also didn’t know Marjory was a necromancer. We saw neither of them in combat before this update so their profession was irrelevant at the time.
Scarlet’s supposed to be a huge threat to Tyria. The Tower of Nightmares is a giant bioweapon that is built in humanity’s backyard, the amount of logging and suspicious krait activity involved in that would have to set off red flags, if not for the order of whispers, at least for the Queen and her people (this area is heavy with centaur activity, there isn’t a shortage of Seraph soldiers running around). A forest was cut down, a village was demolished and a giant force field appeared in the middle of the lake. I find it hard to believe the tower could be built without raising alarm bells and a simple asura was the one to bring those two to the location (something I don’t think is supported by what Marjory says during Blood and Madness)? That’s like the US government hiring a private investigator to look into a terrorist operation in Ohio because Jennah, Caithe, Anise and Logan were too busy watching Dancing With the Stars.
From “Blood and Madness”:
Player: Why are you here?
Marjory: The Great and Gorgeous Mesmer Collective, or whatever they call themselves, contacted Kasmeer to come down and take a look. Seems they admire her for more than her looks.
The Living Story cast have the same handwaving writing problems as Scarlet. They are shoehorned into the story when they shouldn’t be (simply because they are the Living Story cast but their positions in Tyria don’t justify their involvement unlike Destiny’s Edge) and it dumbs down the overall plot and damages the scope and threat of the story (it’s hard to take Scarlet seriously when the power people in Tyria are constantly ignoring her). Their only redeeming value is their banter because their story involvement is so flimsy. It doesn’t matter to me whether Marjory was a known necromancer prior to this or not, she’s not the one being summoned by the Great Mesmer Collective to deal with some serious mesmer magic when it makes much more sense for known qualified and relevant mesmers should have been involved instead. I don’t care that we found out Kasmeer is a mesmer, I care that she’s suddenly a mesmer of notability. Being a mesmer is one thing, being a mesmer notable enough that the Mesmer Collective summons to investigate a terrorist threat should have been established prior to being summoned.
The Living Story and I don’t get along well but I am absolutely thrilled to see them spending more time on the releases. I am also very happy to see that one of the patches will be devoted to nothing but ‘features’.
I do hope they, at the very least, add the ability to move and resize the GUI elements, as in the first game.
I don’t think they are spending more time, I think they are taking a holiday. ArenaNet usually has less people working around Christmas/New Year.
what he says if you talk to him.
“I know she got special dispensation to study at all three Rata Sum colleges.”
here is a link to his entire conversation.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Closing_Ceremony
next time you post please don’t biasedly just cut what only suites you out of part of a conversation. Yes she did finish the courses in record time but they were only special courses the colleges agreed to teach her. so…
“so yeah Hmmmmm try again.”
EDIT; As a final note I would like to add that all though some of the information in the article is inaccurate and the fact he does not realize why she was chosen to be a Sylvari, it is very well written and soundly hits on the core of the problems with the LS as it is now and many aspects that need to be improved going forward. Overall solid article with a sound an unbiased opinion.
I think you are misunderstandng the quote.
“I know she got special dispensation to study at all three Rata Sum colleges.”
It was to study, not to just do whatever she wanted. As far as I know it’s not normal for a non-asura to study at their colleges, that’s what the special dispensation was for, not to make up her own course work and ignore the structure everyone else follows.
“Of course. I know of this Scarlet. She earned advanced engineering degrees at each of Rata Sum’s colleges in record time.”
She earned degrees, not just course credits. She didn’t partially complete studies, she completed advanced engineering degrees. You don’t get a degree for doing your own pet projects. I think you are confusing her studies with the different masters, and leaving before she completed, and her studies at the asuran colleges.
Of course the writers could just do another retcon (ala GW1, human Gods, blood stones and the gift of magic) and say that Scarlet’s achievements according to Vorrp are just his misinformed perspective and he was just wrong, continuing Guild Wars 2’s trend of hand waving away inconvenient lore from the past establishing Tyrians as poorly informed about their own world and established lore is fragile at best.
According to one of the Wartower interviews Scarlet’s motive for attacking the Queen’s Jubilee was simply that she felt challenged by the Queen’s boasting. Why was the Queen boasting? Because the story needed an event for Scarlet to disrupt (and probably because some concept artist came up with watchwork horrors). Mostly I think they wanted a big flashy event for Scarlet to make an appearance.
I’m really glad the Massively article touched on the handwaving that goes on in the Living Story. Why did the Molten Alliance form? Scarlet’s “silver tongue” diplomatic skills (that are never shown and inconsistent with her visible persona) overcome all of the improbabilities of such an alliance. Where do the Aetherblades come from in such large numbers? Scarlet needs the krait? Conveniently she has a magic rock they want, don’t dig deeper, that’s the bottom of that story. Why is Kasmeer investigating the tower? She conveniently a mesmer of notability (despite that not being noted prior to the tower) with an illusion to dispel. Why are any of Scarlet’s alliances still working for her (they still invade despite her not treating them very well and the post Flame and Frost dialogue indicates the Molten Alliance are close to imploding)? The writers had a check list of things to achieve (she needs engineering skills, smithing skills, asuran college knowledge, poisons knowledge, molten tech, inquest tech, toxic tech) and the story comes off as just that – a check list. The implementation feels like a transparent shopping list and not something that actually tells a story or respects the individual moments involved.
Actually, there are some indications as to why Scarlet has to be sylvari: Her background indicates that what she’s doing is a backlash against the perceived predetermination of the Dream and, to a lesser extent, a kind of teenage rebellion against the authority of the Pale Tree. That makes me think she’s building up to some kind of showdown with the Pale Tree.
I’m glad you said “perceived” because I’ve never seen that. It seemed to me like Scarlet’s story was built on a fallacy that sylvari live predetermined lives. Maybe I misunderstood the lore but playing a sylvari and talking to sylvari NPCs I never thought they live their lives on a set path. In that sense I have trouble understanding why Scarlet would think that way.
Charged crystals in gifts => people complain. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/wintersday2013/Charged-Quartz-in-Presents-Disappointed
Crystals in gifts => people complain (this thread).What is going wrong with you people?
It’s almost as if different people have different opinions. Mind blowing!
There was nothing exclusive about the old skins. Most of them sold on the TP for less than 1 silver.