thanks for putting this together! Such beautiful artwork.
Without a doubt the art and sound team of this game are incredibly talented. Its basically the main reason I was drawn to this game in the first place. no pun intended.
If you dislike the fact that there are so many female characters. Maybe you can now understand why a lot of female gamers have been getting tired of all male casts in every other game EVER. Or at least to me I find it harder to relate to a cast of predominantly male characters (Some may disagree).
That’s not what the thread is about! Its the lack of Male characters. People are not asking to remove this female character or that one because there are too many.
We are saying for balance and equality ADD in some male characters that some people enjoy identifying with. Why would this be a problem? You have quite a few female characters taking up key roles, how about some for the guys…
Personally I don’t identify with Braham, he’s a dimwitted oaf that hits first and thinks later. Faren and his fancy panties is a joke, Canach is a villian that has perhaps seen the error of his ways and currently rots in a cell, and Evon is a opportunist with questionable ethics (tbh I like Evon the most out of this sad ragtag bunch). The other two are Logan the love sick puppy who I would expect to see carrying around Jennah’s purse while she goes shopping and Rytlock who is so caught up in administration duties you barely see him anymore.
The best two real male heroes of this game were Forgal and Tybalt and they were unfortunately killed off. They had substance of character.
So ultimately I agree with the OP, there is a lack of male major characters, or should I say GOOD ones.
Now that well can put the ugly, horribly written story of Scarlet behind us. Anet have probably taken on board all that went wrong with their first ever LS arc. I have no doubt that things will only improve and it seems like we’re off to a good start.
The problem is age rating.
They are stuck behind rather strict guidelines as to what they can put in the game due to those.
What a cop out! The rating is teen. A dark atmosphere can be created in so many different ways without it actually putting on the screen.
In one of the fractals there are human ready to be sacrificed to lava – that’s pretty dark. Add in a dialogue before that of begging, then a scream and its suddenly darker even still without stepping over the regulations of the rating.
Simply entering a darkly lit room full of slaves in cages asking (crying, moaning) to be released, you can hear the thunderous footsteps of a giant the creature returning to devour them, In one corner you have a piles of bones, of children and adults (corpses of previous prisoners) – that’s a pretty dark scene.
it doesn’t have to be all gore, blood and splatter to add atmosphere.
I watched the trailer of dragon age. Even though its not an MMO and therefore probably doesn’t have the same restrictions the lighting and weather effects look good because they are more severe.
its mainly from .59-1.05
What short story? Would you please link it?
And to Anet: could you please make it so I don’t have to browse half the web just so I can get to read your own frikkin’ lore?
omg I second this! I only just found out about it because of woodenpotatoes.
Facebook, forum posts, twitter, youtube and now flickr (and I’m probably missing other ones…) This is getting a bit stupid now. It also highlights why the game needs something INGAME to hold all these stories and lore.
/Edit – I just read the story and there is nothing in there that would go against the age rating. Even Starwars – a kids movie, showed decapitation.
(edited by Thobek.1730)
I will never understand why some men have issues with the fact that women play games.
Whoa! where are you getting this from?
Where are these disgruntled males complaining about girls that play video games? Tbh I would like to see more girls play games and I’m not talking about on their phones or facebook games either.
Most girls I know find computer games to be lame and nerdy. Most of my ex-girlfriends hated the fact I enjoyed gaming. Trust me, I’m with you on this. I would rather they joined in than ridiculed it. But that’s not what we are talking about here.
If you look at gamestatistics survey roughly about 90% of the player base is male. I think it would be prudent to have a few more male characters in the game that aren’t stupid, dimwitted or there for comic relief. Its almost insulting.
I call bullkitten on that statistic, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Considering the huge number of female players I’ve encountered during my GW2 gameplay, I don’t believe I fall in to the 10% group.
No problem, you can call bullkitten on this if you like. But Gamestatistics DID do a survey and the numbers WERE “91% male – 9% female”. Of course this isn’t 100% accurate otherwise they would have to get everyone to do the survey.
It’s also the only survey I’ve seen that actually took into account the gender of the player.
If you look at gamestatistics survey roughly about 90% of the player base is male. I think it would be prudent to have a few more male characters in the game that aren’t stupid, dimwitted or there for comic relief. Its almost insulting.
I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost.
You’re not the only one. The story has been pretty poor imo. The biggest issue was they never explain anything. Why was she doing this? to awaken the dragon? to take control of the dragon, to team up with the dragon? to become his lieutenant? to drain the power from him? to awaken him to face her nightmares and destroy him herself?
Her motive could be anything and anet won’t tell us either. sigh. Now that scarlet is dead how are we supposed to find out? find some journal or diary of hers in the ruins of the drill?
Hmmm… I suspect you haven’t looked for the answers you want and just want them handed to you. The reason I say this is because the answer to the question “Why did Scarlet do this?” is explained quite clearly. You’ll see screen shots posted in this forum. I’ve seen two of them myself. So, before you continue to complain that Anet doesn’t provide the answers, I suggest you take a moment or two to actually look for them.
Ok I’m going to challenge you on this, its not clearly explained at all. You tell us why she did all this with ingame information. Put it spoiler tags if you want. No speculation either.
It was silly, what if they needed info out of scarlet to stop the drill. No because dimwit Braham doesn’t think about that does he…
So what happens next? he charges her and ends up with a broken leg.
If I could pick my group I’d leave that guy behind, he’s a liability.
How many times did you call for equality? I bet none.
But when a game has a strong female cast it’s imbalanced, LOL.
Equality? I just want characters that I can identify with. Think of like your friends. I don’t hang out with just all girls, I hang out with people that I enjoy hanging out with. If they are stupid, dimwitted or nasty then I don’t like being with them. Its hard to like any of the male characters in this game.
I find not only is there a lack of major male characters, there is a lack of GOOD male characters.
I don’t like it. As a male I would like characters that I can identify with.
- Lots of female characters taking most the major roles
- Main relationships are all female
- Main antagonist is female
- The male character are poorly represented. Faren is an idiot, Braham is a dimwit, Evon has questionable ethics, Canach was basically a bad guy.
I’m a guy and I would like to see some males characters included that aren’t jokes. Two male characters that I did like they killed them off in the personal story.
So how do we all rate the end of LS season 1
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Thobek.1730
Even though is certainly getting better that still doesn’t save it from being an overall fail.
Its the writing. It’s certainly not what I expected when I purchased GW2. I wanted a high fantasy story set in a high fantasy world. We have the high fantasy world filled with gods, dragons, magic and they deliver this nutty cabbage character with side stories of elections and trade disputes. BORING. Sure the last two chapters picked it up a bit but that final cut scene reminded me of why I dislike the writing so much. We want answers! So much of this entire story is a mystery, its just a confusing mess and I know I’m right because there are NO answers in the game, there is a lot of speculation on the forums but that’s just people desperately trying to get a grasp on how this all happened.
Hopefully the in the next story arc they will learn that constantly keeping people in the dark about the story just leads to a bunch of confused players guessing what the hell is going on. Nothing wrong with a little bit of mystery just to lead people on, but don’t make it last the entire arc, instead make us think we know everything and have plot twists. There wasn’t one plot twist in the game, maybe Mai Trin being an Aetherblade but was that really that shocking to discover? The dialogue was so transparent.
You know what is a plot twist? when you deliver the Chosen to the White Mantle thinking you’re doing good, (inc plot twist) only to find out you’re delivering them to be sacrificed upon the bloodstone.
As for the Anet sound/design/art departments – they are amazing. 100% PASS.
expansion sized patch? yeah I doubt it. More like balance tweaks etc, not a whole lot of new content.
I can’t keep up – the whole story doesn’t even make sense to me anymore and I’m totally lost.
You’re not the only one. The story has been pretty poor imo. The biggest issue was they never explain anything. Why was she doing this? to awaken the dragon? to take control of the dragon, to team up with the dragon? to become his lieutenant? to drain the power from him? to awaken him to face her nightmares and destroy him herself?
Her motive could be anything and anet won’t tell us either. sigh. Now that scarlet is dead how are we supposed to find out? find some journal or diary of hers in the ruins of the drill?
(edited by Thobek.1730)
I’m playing only FOTM and WvW.
I tried EOTM for like 15 minutes and went back to real WvW.
Too much PvE.
“Too much PvE”? If PvP is your thing then stick to WvW and maybe try sPvP.
Basically the game is really split into 3 parts. Leveling, PvE(LS) and PvP. If you bored or dislike those then you may have to face facts that this games is not designed for you. Which is totally fine.. this game isn’t for everyone.
can pets level up like your character please. It allows more depth to the game. Not only do they level by slowly scale in size as well.
It gives rangers something else to do, like level up all their pets… adds to the longevity of the toon.
Is Darkhaven a known WvW server? I belong to SoS and it can also be very quiet when a commander isn’t around, we’re no BG but I think we do ok in WvW.
Just for curiosity sake I’ve just guested to Darkhaven and the place is anything but empty.
You should’ve probably put this complaint/observation in the WvW section… because the PvE population is fine.
What a depressing view of game the OP has. The LS is great, new content every 2 weeks and recently its been some of the best stuff yet. Sure the writing has been poor but I’m sure that will improve. The Gemstore is there to support the game and I have no issues with the way they are trying to keep this game going.
Not only that you can still exchange gold for gems. So even if you are broke you can still get whatever you want IF you put the time and effort into the game.
Yes please. Seriously, give it a rest. I still see people dying on the easy part of the hologram fight. It is a bus wide stripe of violent orange and another of strongly glinting purple/blue, and still downed people all over the place.
I also find it alarming how bad a lot of the player base is at dodging stuff. I’m almost laughing during the assault knight fights when I see so many people getting dragged in. They give you about a 3 second warning.
And now you see players AFK at the back of the holo fight. Its probably too stressful for them to avoid two attacks.
Its hard enough to make a heterosexual relationships work in a computer game, let alone a bunch of lesbian relationships. Then to make things worse they are always going on about it.
They are like those annoying couples you hang out with that finish each others sentences and call each other cute names, or you’re out to dinner with a couple and they are basically draped over each other. Yeah we get it – you’re in love, you don’t need to advertise it every chance you get.
Or they could just do as every f-ing other game, and give the players a list of overflows, and the ability to pick the one to go to. No need for taxi parties or any of those over-convoluted workarounds…
Oh?
I was under the impression that more or less every kitten other game simply didn’t let you play when the server/map/whatever was full.
Cryptic for one seems to get it right in their games. And i could have sworn i have played others in the past with a drop down instance list somewhere near the minimap.
Not WoW, if the server was full enjoy the waiting in the queue.
I rarely (to the point that I don’t actually remember it happening) saw the queue when playing on a “Full” after Cataclysm launched.
I suppose it’s possible that population went up with Pandaria… But probably not much.
And, yet, once you’re in-game… You’re on your sever indefinitely. No having to deal with other servers. (Well, now they’re merging low-population servers… Similar to the “underflow” concept that has been mentioned for GW2.)
I also distinctly remember running into people almost anywhere.
Which is vastly different from GW2 where entire areas can be deserted for periods of time.
I think that’s because the numbers in wow dropped a lot over the years. And now they have there own problems of having a huge amount of servers that have only a handful of people on them. So they charge them $25 to move to one that isn’t completely dead.
Trust me WoW has a lot of problems of its own that are far worse than what we have here.
Or they could just do as every f-ing other game, and give the players a list of overflows, and the ability to pick the one to go to. No need for taxi parties or any of those over-convoluted workarounds…
Oh?
I was under the impression that more or less every kitten other game simply didn’t let you play when the server/map/whatever was full.
Cryptic for one seems to get it right in their games. And i could have sworn i have played others in the past with a drop down instance list somewhere near the minimap.
Not WoW, if the server was full enjoy the waiting in the queue.
I still don’t understand why they don’t have an additive chance system for this to avoid this kind of bad luck.
Say Anet values 1 skin at $5. So you exchange $5 in keys and begin you gambling.
The percentage for a ticket off the first key is very low say 2% next key unlocked is 4% and so forth until you reach the $5 worth of gems. By that stage the chance is 100%.
So you may get lucky and get a scrap off the first key. good for you, or you have to use all $5 worth. But the end result is 100% chance for the money.
Then people will at least not feel like they are getting robbed of money, and some of those might even quit which is not what we want.
This is event is hurting my mouse button. There should be a way to open a stack of bags at once, instead of clicking for each individual bag. Maybe a check box in the options menu so it doesn’t ask you if you want to open then all every time.
Secondly, I think it would be nice after you open all these bags to shift+click to select multiple items i.e. the first and last item of a group of 20 while holding shift and it selects all 20 items for selling. That way it cuts down on the silly repetitive stuff which I’m sure people find annoying.
I think they should use all the different platforms, dynamic events, global search, gather and return AND your typical questing as done in other games.
Your typical quest is to go visit an quest giver whether that be an NPC, creature, talking statue, etc. They give you a bit of a story and a quest to do which is yours alone. You complete it and return to the giver to hear the results of your quest and the continuation of a story, which normally means receiving another quest or to seek out someone else.
What I like about these types of quests is you can make then instanced, personal, not time gated, and more in depth than you can with the larger zerg events.
This is a great thread!
I also came from WoW and Rift and this beats them both hands down. Its such a good looking game, and the music and sound effects are top notch. And you’ve turned up at the perfect time when the writers have stopped writing crappy Living story chapters and will soon create amazing high fantasy stuff.
That’s actually 4 questions. Can’t fool me. Hehe. Konig, we devs walk a fine line between giving too much lore, thus spoiling players’ in-game discovery, and not giving enough. If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.
And when it comes to “spoiling players’ in-game discovery” – to be a bit blunt… avoiding that is pointless when we don’t get the information at a reasonable point in the game’s story. Why the krait, Flame Legion, and dredge (if not NC and Aetherblades too) continue to work for Scarlet is something that should have been explained either with the Marionette or with this update, maybe with Battle for LA. But even then it feels a bit late…
I hate Anet’s mentality of “we don’t want to spoil it” – sounds like a cop out to me for not fully thinking it through. How would knowing these things spoil it? We can’t discover these things for ourselves we can only speculate until its told to us. Unfortunately most of the time it isn’t revealed, or we can’t find the answers in-game, we have to get it from Anet through threads like this.
Give us the answers but allow us to find them in-game some how. That’s called discovery.
I can’t wait to see how many questions get answered by the end of this arc. I have the uncomfortable feeling not many and we will still be asking “why this happened” long after the story has been wrapped up.
It’s funny because the gear grind here is worse than it is in WoW.
You’re wrong.
Unlike WoW where you NEED to grind the gear to complete the next tier of content, in GW2 you don’t.
There is gear to get only if you like the look of it. Some of it gives you a very minor boost in stats but doesn’t allow you to see or play any content someone with only rares can experience.
Where's all the dark stuff in this chaos?
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Thobek.1730
This has to be the darkest chapter to date and I think its great to see Anet not afraid to make it darker than previous chapters.
Listening to Majory/Kasmeer playfully flirt with each other during the Nightmare tower chapter siege made me cringe. OR listening to Scarlet ramble on about Faren’s fancy panties was terrible. But hobotron’s lines are always gold… and I don’t mind that kind of comic relief coming from an emotionless robot.
But this chapter is dark, and the game needed that. You should feel like there is a serious threat, people are in danger. The sounds of people crying out, the father staying behind to keep the lighthouse active while his daughter escapes, the dialogue of field nurses telling others that this soldier will die soon really helps set the atmosphere.
It would be nice to see some balance in the game. At the moment it feels like Anet are on some female same sex relationship agenda.
I applauded the use of it with Caithe and Faolain. I think it really helped strengthen the whole TA story. Maj/Kas just seems so forced.
I cared a lot about the lore, right up to the absolute dismissal of GW1 lore in the McCoy interview. “they were mistaken”
Now.. not at all in this game. The LS has made a mockery of lore in too many ways.
I agree, she certainly likes to take over and control things. Its all a bit insulting to the writers of GW1 imo.
I found one thing from the first major story arc. I don’t like her writing at all.
I’m all for this idea. Other game companies have done special things for players like Christina before.
This is true. World of Warcraft did something like this for the make a wish foundation and gave a kid with terminal cancer a very rare mount. All they had to do was push a button and give it to him. It made the kid happy.
What sickened me is the toxic WoW community then complained saying we worked hard getting that mount and they just gave it away to someone. Grrrr fk that community grinds my gears – happy that I’ve left that horrible place.
Anet would get amazing press from this. I can’t see anyone complaining about it either.
+1
signed.
Lore is incredibly important. I need to know why things are happening in the game, I what to know what got us to this point, rich backgrounds, developed characters.
I really need it to enjoy the game, which is why Scarlet has made this very difficult. The next major story will be fantastic I can sense it. It will be a high fantasy adventure of epic proportions.
“We’re currently working on a system that will better direct players through Living World content. Eventually, it will also provide story context for LW and other content types. The first phase of the system should be ready before the end of the year.
I am hopeful that some of the new systems that we have in development (the LW tracking system, journal tracking, etc.) will make it easier for folks to make sense of the long-term story." -BobbyStein
Is the Atlas what Bobby was talking about back in September?
Lets hope not.
I second this. I really hope this is not what he was talking about. It should be an in-game device that has a lot more information than links to screen shots and loading screens..
Anyone else realize the problem, that we’re a week away from the finale of this LS chapter, and still don’t even have the slightest clue of Scarlet’s motives?
Sure, we know she’s digging for something. How is that any solid information at all, considering it took months to build up to that?
I thought for sure they were going to lay down some major story elements to be resolved this week in the last patch, but instead it was just a zerg-fest with a nice cutscene.
Also judging by the preview, it looks like next week is going to be another story-lacking zerg-fest.
Anyone else see the potential problem here??
I thought this was a problem months ago. I never liked they way they have told this story – Never answering questions, always leading people along in the dark with no clear understanding of what was going on.
I hope they don’t try this “wait til the very last minute before revealing everything” for the next major story.
I wouldn’t even mind if they gave us a false motive to begin with, at least it would be something. Everything seemed so random when you didn’t have an overall motive/plan tying them together, except for the hideously obnoxious antagonist. I’ll be happy to see her gone so we can have a real villain.
I wonder whether they should try some different writers, maybe some that understand high fantasy.
Nice idea.
Although I hope this isn’t the method they said they were going to do to tie in the LS chapters so people could see how the LS has progressed. It doesn’t give a chronology order. Still hoping for an in game journal.
If you follow the rescue of the dolyaks inside Lions Arch under attack, you will see how much of a jerk Evon is.
Yeah Kiel’s a bit of a jerk too, but he’s far worse, hehe
And now he’s also corrupting poor, innocent Heal-O-Tron….
I did follow the Dolyaks, I have multiple times now and have yet to see Evon. I’ve even rushed to do the first dolyak event and still he isn’t there. Can someone full screen shot it because if I don’t have proof then all it is currently is a nice photoshop job of some made up dialogue.
https://24.media.tumblr.com/e11141f3e3cff7d4f7c91b1a02414fec/tumblr_n19uedYn5J1qiywi6o1_500.jpg
your hero ladies and gentleman. not caring about other evacutees and the richest and most snobby member of the council calling him out on his bullkitten.
Lol, I’ve seen that fraudulent piece of slander before on other sites. What I asked for is a fullscreen capture actually showing him doing this. Not a bunch of text someone (Kiel Supporter) could of easily put together. I have rushed to do the very first Dolyak escort quest and countless others and Evon was never there.
When you talk to Shud outside the Vigil keep he says he shut down ALL of the portals, and mentioned nothing of Evon.
Meanwhile Kiel is forcing Evon to relinquish all of his stock or face execution by firing squad.
If you follow the rescue of the dolyaks inside Lions Arch under attack, you will see how much of a jerk Evon is.
Yeah Kiel’s a bit of a jerk too, but he’s far worse, hehe
And now he’s also corrupting poor, innocent Heal-O-Tron….
I did follow the Dolyaks, I have multiple times now and have yet to see Evon. I’ve even rushed to do the first dolyak event and still he isn’t there. Can someone full screen shot it because if I don’t have proof then all it is currently is a nice photoshop job of some made up dialogue.
This is one of the best chapters so far!
Firstly the cutscene to set the mood was nicely put together. Great start.
Secondly the whole change to LA was so well done, the visuals, the layout (you could actually move around LA without being in constant danger yet there are hot spots which if by yourself are wise to avoid). Swimming over to see the drill in action was again – so well done. Even the sound of it when you are on the surface and how it changes when you dive down. The Tengu defending their wall was nice to see.
The darkness of it all, the sounds of people crying out. I hated Scarlets comic lines from previous chapters and Majory and Kasmeer’s jokes while in middle of a climactic scene, those lines ruined it previously but they aren’t there anymore. People are dying and the atmosphere reflects that.
The dialogues of people in the camps surrounding Lions Arch are so well done. I feel like there is hundreds of mini stories all happening at once. Tyria feels alive. I went to visit one of my favourite characters Evon.G and I even like what he’s been reduced to. Hopefully after all this is done he’s not still in that position. Even walking past guards and one guard is reporting to his captain about the current situation…. its so good.
I even don’t mind there being zergs, because at times I find myself doing the events with about 6-7 people. It all scales nicely. Of course with zergs you get champ mobs which is a bonus.
Great patch! You’ve set the bar high.
omg we have been standing here for ages waiting to get in and some guy says “oh, its every hour when they let you back in again.”
Is it really that hard to put a timer in so people aren’t just standing around getting impatient.
yes I know its in the patch notes. But the 80-100 people standing at the waypoint obviously haven’t read it.
It’s cute how Kiel has a similar, albeit smaller, thread. But the truth is already known. The one who was voted onto the vacant Council seat is inefficient, and lacks the necessary skills to be a leader.
I know right! The Evon thread is already has 140 posts, and this has a mere 16… nobody cares about her. I fact I’ve already posted twice in this thread just to say how bad she is, not how good she is.
Evon Gnashblade - Scarlet's True Backer
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Thobek.1730
more anti Evon propaganda, the “Kiel – real hero of LA” failed now this. Face it – Evon is the true hero.
So far I as far as I am concerned there have not been any updates because I have no idea where this content is in game.
You know that big letter that appears and takes up 1/4 of the screen? you read it and then click on the ‘show me’ button. That tells you where to go.
(edited by Moderator)
Kiel a hero?! don’t make me laugh. She’s done nothing since becoming part of the council. Ohhhh did research into the fractal… big deal. How’s the trade agreement with the Zephyrites – haven’t seen them lately, maybe Kiel barked at them in her overbearing tone like she does to everyone else.
Maybe she can take credit for freeing the workers like she did after finally understanding what Canach had known all along, then send him to prison while soaking up the glory.
I can’t wait to see what underhanded crap she pulls when Scarlet attacks LA. Chances are she’ll changed sides to save herself. Don’t count on Kiel being a hero.
I really hope Evon steps it up in the next chapter then we’ll see who the real hero is! and it won’t be that Kiel lady.
I agree with Kurodius, those two have about as much chemistry as two drunk people hitting on each other at a bar.
They should of at least developed it better in the story, maybe one was injured and the other looked after her, but it just seemed to spawn from no where “hey you’re hot!” “so are you!” “wanna pick curtains out and move in together?” “Sure!”
ugh…
Best character they have created in ages, no cheesy relationship – her obvious attraction to braham is like a little sister/ big brother relationship and its adorable. She has an actual weakness and isn’t unbelievably all powerful. Her understandable admiration of Scarlet’s intellect as herself a child prodigy.
She’s only been around for a couple of weeks and already she’s so much better than most of the other main characters.
I really hope she is Omadd daughter but if that is the case she would probably say something about it when you ask about scarlet. After all Scarlet did brutally murder her father and she says “Do you think we’ll get to see her? Maybe meet her? I’d like that. Wouldn’t you?”
If you asked me about the murdered of my father I’d want to do more than just meet her.