Guild Wars 2

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Caladbolg? There’s a good case for it not being a weapon so much as a vehicle for energy to purify the Artesian Waters.

That’s even worse! the Sylvari can cleans Dragon corruption with a weapon they made? Also it’s an extremely powerful weapon.

I’m not entirely sure the sylvari made it as much as it was grown from the Pale Tree for one purpose and one alone: to be taken into Orr to purify it, and then its power is spent.

I wasn’t that impressed with it. Elementalists summon more impressive greatswords, repeatedly.

Them being the moral paragons…

Except a lot of that doesn’t hold up as a racial ability and is pretty much attached to only one sylvari or two at most.

- Moral paragons started way back with Ventari the pacifist centaur, but even so most of what the tablet is said to have imprinted is comparable to some things said by Dwayna.

- The sylvari are not unique in the connections to the mists, as the norn have Havrouns who walk into it and can do much more than the Dream can.

- We’re not sure about “demigod” exactly, but not alone in that either since there was Baelfire’s lil trick too. As for “seeing the future”, that’s a known function of the Mists – the trick to that is, it’s not always the future but merely a possible future.

- We witnessed them fight back the corruption from claiming the Artesian Waters, but Orr is still tainted and “it will be a while before we can see real progress”. I suspect that sort of reversal is possible since the Forgotten are known to have some means of doing . . . something . . . to turn a dragon champion into a neutral party.

- All races have the potential for being attuned to magic, but in all seriousness it seems humanity has the strongest power of it when the Six Gods are active. Following that, asura can make mechanisms which can do almost anything with enough technobabble to make Voyager writers stare in awe.

- They are the only race where some are born with a destiny, but they also have the choice to not do it. Every other race also lacks the compulsion to do such things and as such . . . free will rather than preordained destiny. At least, that’s what you’re supposed to believe.

- The Priory Magister Sieran is not nearly as kittenhe appears to be, which is what my inductee started realizing right after they went to work. She’s learned (none who are in the Priory at Magister rank aren’t, it should be said) but she really doesn’t put things together quickly.

- As for “they only use it for ambient NPCs”. . . . that’s why they’re ambient NPCs instead of heroes to follow. Major NPCs are the ones who overcome the shortcomings or fall so deep into them it defines them. That’s what makes them important enough to include.

I’m sorry, it’s just not the same to say: Yeah but Asura are used as a plot device when they need an answer. It’s more just a device. & devices just come from convenient places. You could have the anti-corruption magic of the Sylvari take place of any/most important devices.

And you could, if they wanted to, use the Six Gods . . . oh wait, we had Grenth’s avatar actually spell out for us where we needed to go with Caladbolg for it to actually work. So, yeah, even the human’s special things made a difference.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You cannot write out asura, because they control the gate network, and produce the most effective anti-dragon weapons.

they only made that with Sylvari Anti-Corruption magic.

That’s not what it was made from, it was made presuming all dragon energy shares particular signatures and a weapon could be designed to counter it. This was almost entirely what Zojja was working on after the Crucible of Eternity showed her it was possible to carefully mix dragon energies for multiple states of corruption. This line of research belongs entirely to the asura.

I dunno in GW1 we could hop around without gates. I don’t know how much of a difference the gates make outside of fractals & such. It’s a mish mash of lore & mechinics

They never explained map travel lore-wise in the first game, and now they did through the waypoint network. But the significant difference is the ability of a gate to allow something large to be moved through it rather than what one person can carry through a waypoint travel.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I actually think the idea of “what makes this universe cool” is what made Scarlet happen in the first place. Wrong move entirely, even if she’d been human.

This may be a matter of bad communication, but I think we’re sorta thinking the same thing but with diff labels. I think Scarlet was more of a “I think this is cool & awesome & I’m gonna make her great” with disregard to the rest of the universe.

Less “I” and more “we” in that, and we probably will agree a bit.

Nah.. I started noticing this a year ago when I started seeing lots of the ambient dialog between men & women always have some bizzarre 1-upmanship, insulting, mockery or the like.

Let’s be fair – it’s the only way they can do it and not get called on it. Do it to males? Heh, funny. Do it to women? Misogynistic pigs writing the game.

I actually blame more society for that double-standard than the writers. Political correctness is currently way overboard everywhere.

In terms of LS I think there is strong evidence that there a feminist slant.. I don’t know how you could even give a ounce of proof otherwise. the only male in the group is dumped by his girlfriend, living under the shadow of his mom, whines more than a Norn generally does, plays 2nd to Rox & get ribbed & by her for being dumped. It’s just too much in 1 direction. He’s not horrible but there is a theme. I’m sorry, but there are too many “coincidences” to say it’s not a theme of some sort. Especially when I found that Anita had actually visited Anet.

Oh boy do we have to untangle this knot here.

- He’s not living under the shadow of his mother, except maybe in our heads. All norn have to prove their own legends, I’m relatively sure it’s been said. They don’t care who’s your father/mother in terms of whether that makes you anything . . . you need to do something to get noticed. I know I ran across this before, and I definitely know I saw the start of that over in GW1 with “Bear Club For Men” and the line following that.

- Braham got dumped but that was also the catalyst to get him to decide “heck with this, I’m going to go out into the world”. Which is important for the character to grow at all. If he hadn’t been dumped, he would have had to dump her instead.

- He’s young. Everyone whines at that age. But if you’re talking about the sulking over Rox’s potential to leave for the Stone Warband? His best friend just said they were leaving and would come back “when they could”, but he’s somewhat aware there’s an unlikely chance she will. Yes, he’s bitter about it.

- He doesn’t play second fiddle to Rox until his leg gets broken. Which was his own darn fault for basically hurrying to take out Scarlet and not thinking she still had an ace. (Honestly, everyone thinking she didn’t have something was really dropping the ball.) He’s generally fairly good at holding his own until then.

Really, what you have here is a young buck who thinks he can make a name for himself just by trying and learning it’s not that simple. You can see it as picking on him, I see it as learning through the lumps that becoming a legend isn’t easy.

I mean, unless you’re Gwen the Goremonger.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You did turn any character into cliche by writing the way I did, when describing the “B Iconic” group. You did it blatantly, and knowingly, and I did that to prove it doesn’t mean anything.

No I said that everything is cliche. It’s just that I think the problems with GW2 characters are more egregious.

I disagree there’s one set of characters worse off than the other. Both have incredible problems with either get overlooked or dwelled on.

Yeah I played War in Kryta, but to be fair I didn’t pay much attention, though I’d hardly call that an impressive feat. The only reason they needed it was that they couldn’t get help from Ascalon at the time. EotN they were more important.

Yes, except help from Ascalon was never coming. Never coming.

DarksunG.9537:

Sytherek.7689:

Do your rose-colored glasses let you see someone called “Mhenlo”, or someone named “Kormir?”

How are they even remotely as out of place as Scarlet?

Do . . . do you really want to do that dance? Ohkay . . .

We have the utterly uncharismatic Mhenlo attracting not only Cynn but the attention of other female NPCs along the way, to the point our lovely pyromaniac elementalist is jealous and ready to set people on fire.

We also have Kormir, who everyone loves to point to as “Trahearne the Beta Version”. Personally, I don’t see it, but I’ll gladly step aside and let the people who want to explain how terrible she is so you get the idea this song and dance existed before.

While I’m at it, could find the people who absolutely loathed Gwen and groaned at her returning in Eye of the North. But nah, no point there.

Sytherek.7689:

GW1 was filled with NPCs who were more important than the player characters.

Um.. how does that me them out of place? in fact, that probably makes them more integral & consistent than anything. I don’t care about not being the main character. It makes more sense that way. you can’t have 3million main characters.

Because if the player character is superfluous then there’s no point to them being along anyway. This was the biggest concern I had over the story of Factions, by the way – the player character took way too much of a backseat to everyone else and was basically hired help. I didn’t care so much since I was an Ascalonian native in Cantha and had no idea of the political landscape . . . but it was still there.

To me the biggest failures were:

Retconning lore: it’s saying “what happened before isn’t as important as what I have to say, so i’m going to change it to fit my story” It’s insulting to old lore & to people who liked it.

I haven’t seen any retcons which were incredibly damaging to the lore which wouldn’t be expected from even the best of sequels. (i.e. Lord of the Rings retconned The Hobbit something awful.)

Scarlet: She’s the ultimate Villain Sue, which tends to be a reflection of the writers personal desires.

On the first, I’d argue the point if I hadn’t given up on it long ago due to deciding it was just an interpretation difference. On the second, that requires actual citations before you keep saying that.

Personal rather than Universe driven story: I’m sorry, there are way to many consistent “socially-relevant” themes that permeate the LS characters. For a while I thought it was just me then I started seeing threads with people going “hey you notice this?” even players who fit into those groups. It could be that it’s just “bad” but it’s bad in a pretty thematic way. Maybe they are doing it because “socially-relevant” characters get a easy pass. Some people will love it because they like being continually patted on the back for being a progressive hero, but to me it’s distracting & out of place. I’m a minority myself, and I find it annoying to listen to “affirmative action” in my entertainment.

I find it annoying to listen to terrible voice acting, but five minutes into a Team Four Star effort I got over it.

Also, you really need to prove this was a personal agenda instead of just asserting it with no proof.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

(Seriously, who did not spend five minutes watching Vizier Khilbron and hearing his dialogue without going “villain”?)

eh.. that was more voice acting than anything. just like Togo.

It didn’t come through in the voice acting, it came through during the run from the Mantle on Sanctum Cay and how he kept presenting following his guidance as the only option. It was a big red warning sign when it came to the Abaddon’s Mouth mission.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Norn need to have good stories to tell, epic adventure, so why is there no bards, no skalds, why are there no songwriters, or lesser heroes for Norn?, Equally, those adventures require just that, epic adventures, and adventurers, with interesting diversity and awareness that has come from venturing far away from home.

Norn need to push north and go claim their ancestral homelands back from Jormag. Then we’ll see them get their turn in the spotlight.

The charr would need much more effort to shine without people complaining “the writers are beating the anti-human drum again”.

DarksunG.9537:

Scarlet is more of an example of “self gratification”, but Social-relevance over game-universe-relevance? Yes that’s the writer focusing more on the writer than the story. Because it’s saying “what do I like in the life” over “what makes this universe cool”.

It shouldn’t be about making the universe cool, it should be about making us buy into the reality of it. To actually exercise suspension of disbelief instead of going "hang on a second . . . "

I actually think the idea of “what makes this universe cool” is what made Scarlet happen in the first place. Wrong move entirely, even if she’d been human.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I . . . I don’t even know where to begin with this. Aside from it making way too many presumptions of a social agenda and by-the-numbers writing. This comes off more as a personal attack than anything.

Here we go. “I can’t actually admit there is theme in the characters, you’re just a bad person making personal attacks” Instant moral high ground. gg.

You are, though, you’re really trying to paint them as solely feminist-oriented and part of a social agenda. And you’re really reaching on most of them, considering Braham is . . . what, sixteen? . . . and at that age it’s incredibly easy to be emasculated by overreaching your capabilities.

But, then, thinking about that would get in the way of your argument.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . yeah, their personalities weren’t all that impressive either when you take a step back.

You keep try to make the sound as bad as GW2 characters by saying things like “they don’t sound too impressive now” I can turn any character into a cliche by writing the way you did. The point is the GW2 are worse.

You did turn any character into cliche by writing the way I did, when describing the “B Iconic” group. You did it blatantly, and knowingly, and I did that to prove it doesn’t mean anything.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . think, really hard, how did the defenders even stand against the mursaat and jade constructs when they arrived?

Huh? what are you talking about?

Actually, now I have to ask. Did you play the War in Kryta arc?

The only hope for the defenders was to have an asuran machine mimicing the effects of infusion to counter the Spectral Agony of the mursaat and their constructs. Even temporarily, it was required in order to have a chance of actually being able to beat back the tide.

So, yes, asuran tech saving the day before the sylvari ever entered the world.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Humans had their time to be integral two hundred years ago, and they did plenty..

yes, bu there was so much more restraint & balance with humans.

Not that I remember seeing. I remember seeing humanity pretty much being the top dog when all was said and done. Better than the norn, asura, charr, centaurs, and dwarves.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They are the best crafters, the sylvari just charge less for work which is of serviceable quality.

The most powerful forged weapon in the game is Sylvari made.

Caladbolg? There’s a good case for it not being a weapon so much as a vehicle for energy to purify the Artesian Waters.

Besides, the most powerful weapon in the game is . . . depending on your interpretation:

- Asuran golems. (See: “Air Drop” personal story)
- A Searing Cauldron
- Arrow Carts
- Whatever key you bind “Skill 2” with.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

AAaaand you drop more things here than I care to unravel and argue against, just as you accused me of doing before. .

You’re making assertions that have major conflicting evidence in game.

Start citing, or start rebutting since all you do is keep saying my assertions are unfounded while you haven’t done any explaining of yours other than “it’s so obvious I don’t have to”.

50 gold says you can’t properly make the case without relying entirely on Scarlet’s existence as an aberration rather than the race as presented before her.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- Every race is key to the story right now.

Norn serve no major role that cannot be easily filled by another race.

Neither do charr, but given three days any race can be written out of the story so they’re irrelevant, or alternatively are completely central to the plot. Right now there are two races which are king of the hill: asura and sylvari, and one of them can actually be written out without there being a problem (sylvari).

You cannot write out asura, because they control the gate network, and produce the most effective anti-dragon weapons.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

But the point I’m working at here? GW1 wasn’t really better than GW2. You just have fonder memories of it.

I just think it’s better. I loved the Norn starting stories, the pact PS was kinda bland, the LS just feels like someones personal “me” project.

I just think they’re about the same when taken as a whole. GW1 had way too many weak points and part where the plot moved a certain way “because I said so” (forced to do stupid things for the sake of the story) in comparison to GW2, even including the Living Story.

(Seriously, who did not spend five minutes watching Vizier Khilbron and hearing his dialogue without going “villain”?)

Kalavier.1097:

I ask this mainly because recently while in Orr, I came across a Vigil npc named “Crusader Keane” a human, in Caer Shadowfain (Right next to the repair merchant there).

I was wondering if there is a confirmed connection between the two npcs, or if they are the same person.

Probably, there’s Crusader Deborah who is supposedly my long lost sister, but she doesn’t know who I am.

panzer.6034:

It’s of sort amazing to see someone actually dispute that modern elves and dwarves are directly drawn from Tolkein by way of Dungeons and Dragons. D&D clearly copped off of LotR, changed a few things, and provided the blueprint for every elves/dwarves fantasy franchise since.

Really, most of the stuff about elves and dwarfs which fall into stereotype weren’t Tolkein’s work at all. And luckily, D&D has had the good sense to try to reinvent its races to get more away from that and towards something all its own.

But D&D copied a lot of things off Tolkein and filed off the serial numbers in the younger days, and as it hit 2nd edition and the huge glut of different fantasy takes on elves or dwarfs? That’s what people remember more.

The part that gets me a little sad is noticing some places where the common tropes were being played with by TSR’s writing staff and people forget about it. I seriously think Ravenloft and Athas were their attempts to go “you think you know our races? nope”.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Saying them doesn’t necessarily make them true, but it calls attention to them rather than giving it a pass for no reason.

No, it’s just making assertions.

I also never mentioned SWTOR because I never played it directly for more than a day and only saw some deconstructions of it in depth. Similar to World of Warcraft – I don’t play it, I have people who do that and then complain about it.

The point is back then it was the best.

I hereby assert your opinion on what is best doesn’t make it true, any more than my assertions it wasn’t the best makes that true.

I mean, if you want to play with semantics and logic constructions, that’s where we’re headed.

Of course I’m not going to compare MUDS to a commercial MMOs. that’s ridiculous. I didn’t compare it to PnP RPGs either, that’s stupid. & if you compare it to MUDS, you have to compare it to ever single instance of a MUD ever played. & I can guarantee that most stories made by the GM’s suck reallllyy bad.

And I can guarantee the ones which really are good? Beat the stuffing out of GW1 and make it beg for mercy.

Hah, no, the Crystal Desert was actually some of the coolest game experience in GW. Were those 3 missions combat based? Yeah. So? That doesn’t inherently make a story bad or even not good. Especially when you read the dried bones stuff, learning about the Forgotten, the Margonites, Ghostly Hero, & finally meeting Glint. The way the environment was set up was an excellent example of creating an atmosphere with art. Often times that’s better than all the wording a MUD can conjure. The point of all of this is that even though they are try to "focus"on story, the characters & plots are stupid. “focus” =/= quality. & GW story & characters> GW2 story & characters. It’s no Lord of the Rings, but it’s better.

The Margonites didn’t exist until Nightfall so stop right there about what happened. And I point out the story was written around the mechanics of the three missions rather than the missions springing from the story (like happened later). You side-stepped that entire bit by talking about how wonderful you found the Crystal Desert as a whole.

That’s nice. I mean, it was my least favorite region to fight in, and only just edges out Maguuma because I really hate Jade Scarabs.

But the point I’m working at here? GW1 wasn’t really better than GW2. You just have fonder memories of it. That’s cool, because I have a fonder attachment to FF12 than most people I actually talk to, and still contend FF10 wasn’t as horrible as people say it was.

(Most of all, as horrible as some semi-famous internet critic made it out to be.)

GW1 didn’t start being decent until they gave up a primary focus on PvP and put some actual effort into their PvE.

GW2 won’t get any better until they sit down and tighten the underlying game before trying to mess with plot or more neat things to throw in on top.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . then there was the asura, which I never liked as a whole. Vekk I liked, Oola I did to a lesser extent.

That’s fine.I like Vekk, Oola & Gadd way way waaaay more than Zojja. & I think the main problem with the Asura is that they’ve taken away all of the mystery of the GW. they’ve reduced magic into science & it instantly becomes boring & non-mysterious. It will all be figured out in time. I like when magic is about feelings & ritual. It’s all relative & unquantifiable. The shift to science ruins all that. But story-wise they are just mechanical. A means to an end.

Yet they’re almost always the means to get to the end beyond the local issues. There’s always an asura who can solve the problem – and this was true way back during the Krytan Civil War . . . think, really hard, how did the defenders even stand against the mursaat and jade constructs when they arrived?

The Sylvari are more often the key characters, just because they inherently are important. Scarlet(the most powerful/smart mortal ever), Canach, Trahearne, the Pale Tree, planetary self-defense mechanism, dragon minions… even the humans who had GODS are not that integral.

Humans had their time to be integral two hundred years ago, and they did plenty. Also, you’re assuming and stuffing fan-lore about the Pale Tree in here so . . . don’t do that. Cite your lore references or don’t do that.

They were originally supposed to be the strongest & best crafters, now the Sylvari are the best crafters & Norn walk around saying: “you see the arm on that little sylvari!” It’s like Worf where he’s nothing more than a barometer to show how much more powerful other people are.

They are the best crafters, the sylvari just charge less for work which is of serviceable quality. Keep in mind, the norn crafters treat it as an art and I don’t think they do mass production as much as other races do. (Definitely not as much as the charr.)

So, if you were to claim the sylvari give the best value for quality? Sure I’d not argue that. But then it’s relatively easy to cheat them and more likely norn wouldn’t sell you anything unless you proved yourself.

Asura fail more than succeed. That’s how science works. It’s that the Sylvari are so key to the STORY & that the smartest, most accomplished, most talented, dimension-hopping, comprehended the Eternal Alchemy without her head exploding, completely hip-insane yet perfectly convincing to all armies, master of engineering mortal is a Sylvari. Even Abbadon’s character show more restraint. & it looks like the next Dragon story will be centered around them… uugghhhhh….

AAaaand you drop more things here than I care to unravel and argue against, just as you accused me of doing before.

- Every race is key to the story right now. Except maybe the lesser ones like skritt, grawl, ogres, kodan, and quaggan. Despite all attempts to make us love quaggans.

- The sylvari aren’t the most of anything as a whole, and if you want to talk about Ceara/Scarlet than remember she cut herself off from the sylvari thinking she didn’t need anything from them.

- Scarlet never claimed she comprehended the Eternal Alchemy, that’s just supposition from other NPCs based on what Omadd’s notes inferred. What we do know is she “saw something” in there, and we can infer a lot out of it. But . . . Eternal Alchemy? Please. Pull the other one, it’s got bells.

- You continue ranting about Scarlet and making her stand in for all sylvari when this really shouldn’t be the case any more than saying all humans are like Logan – irrational and prone to failure. Or all charr behave like either Rox or Rytlock, or Gaheron Baelfire.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

That’s what I said about cliche and predictability. Neither story deserves to be held on a pedestal, for all there were good times and really impressive work.

I think GW1 was impressive in terms of the MMO space at the time. but it’s still better than GW2’s story.

Eh, I think it wasn’t nearly as impressive as Dungeons and Dragons Online for having options to work with . And I have been told City of Heroes was miles ahead for narrative so long as you could stomach the comic-book logic going through it.

And of course, the perennial reference to the emergent gameplay sandbox which is EvE Online (no, I didn’t play it, I can’t stand it, and I refuse to pay to play it).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also, I don ‘t think “writer self-satisfying” is what you’re thinking of. If you’re thinking of times where the writing comes off as the writer going “aren’t I just clever” then this isn’t remotely as awful as Kieran Thackeray’s courtship of Gwen.

No, it’s definitely “writer self-satisfying”. The annoying social-relevance is out of place & stark

. . . really? Social-relevance? That’s what threw this into “self gratification”? Yeah I don’t even see how to argue against that point since it’s ludicrous in the face of other self-indulgent (that’s what you meant by the way) writing I’ve seen in the past.

Or even exercised . . .

The new heroes are the shoe-horned modern family of MMOs. Needs to be mostly women because Anita Sarkeesian, Lesbians because current social landscape, cute-voice crippled child because pity, emasculated male in the background so it’s not too obvious & masculine anime cat girl because it’s the only way we could understand “different”.

I . . . I don’t even know where to begin with this. Aside from it making way too many presumptions of a social agenda and by-the-numbers writing. This comes off more as a personal attack than anything.

Also, it’s really easy to beat on this because you don’t like it. But Harry Potter pulled almost the same sort of strings and numbers by book six and it doesn’t get half the flak for it.

I’d rather have a mildly boring characters who’s personality is based on the game world like General Morgan or Margrid the Sly

Bear in mind the same crop of heroes also had:
- Goren (I hit things with my hammer and that’s it)
- Norgu (I am awesome and critics just don’t get it)
- Tahlkora (Princess Jasmine with the serial numbers filed off)
- Koss (big dark-skinned guy who is over the top)
- Melonni (woman closer to earth than the man she’s paired with because female)
- Zhed (because racism is cool when it’s against humans)
- Master of Whispers (I know everything because I read the script)
- Acolyte Sousuke (walking obvious Naruto reference)
- Acolyte Jin (because we can’t use Zho, just copy her)
- Olias (resident creepy necromancer)
- Dunkoro (cool old dude whose advice is always going to work)
- Zenmai (because we need an assassin hero)

. . . yeah, their personalities weren’t all that impressive either when you take a step back.

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

In the real world countries with a real and strong cultural/racial link with Europe (and along the way the rest of the world as well) like America were able to benefit since immigrants bring this fire with them to their new homeland. It was the promise of the ’American Dream" that inspired so many to make the crossing. To start a new life in what many saw America as: “The Promise Land”.

The mix of the drive and different but complimentary ideas but with a shared sense of the “American Dream” is what forged modern America. And has done so since the beginning.

The has been almost countless examples of this shared experience.

In the case of the Charr there is to my knowledge no example of this transformation spark and drive to change their nation to the way they are now in the current game.

There are potentials:

- Pyre’s revolution. The focus moving away from following the shaman caste at that time and instead dropping the idea of “gods” being the way to power for the charr. I would present the opinion that trusting in their own strength rather than needing gods to define the strength of the charr was a step forward to organizing in a different manner.

- Recovery of Black Powder. Dwarven black powder, gunpowder, more than likely changed everything when it was looked at closer. We know there were demolition charges back in the time of the Great Destroyer, but it’s implied the dwarves no longer had a monopoly on it after turning to stone. Hence, this is where the firearms came from.

- The Sacking of Ascalon City. Say what you will, the charr were going to win an invasion when it was focused solely on the one target and not fragmented. If the path of the Searing stopped in Ascalon and didn’t just keep rolling it wouldn’t have been so easy to resist the charr occupation. Even saying that, it wasn’t easy at all and there was a very near loss which barely pulled through. Twice.
But the ending of their enemy nation to where it couldn’t actually become stronger anymore, and being able to hold that territory in the face of the Foefire effects? I’d call that a spark which tells the charr they most certainly are in the right path and it should be developed. Hence the unification and organization we see today.

Of course, this isn’t without problems. The charr system doesn’t really work unless they’re at war with someone, since they glorify battle and warriors so much and look down on others. If they were given a period of actual peace I think the current state of charr culture would collapse and need to become something . . . else.

DarksunG.9537:

Again, I don’t know how you somehow feel like just saying things makes them true. When GW1 came out it was the most Story-focused MMO made. FF11 was a close 2nd with worse cutscenes. My friend’s first MMO was FF11 & she absolutely loved it. When I had her play GW1 she admitted it was a better presented, more fleshed out story. Again, you’re making an assertion with conflicting evidence. If you compare it to SWtOR, well yeah it’s not as well put together. But when it came out, it was the best Story MMO you could play.

Saying them doesn’t necessarily make them true, but it calls attention to them rather than giving it a pass for no reason. I also never mentioned SWTOR because I never played it directly for more than a day and only saw some deconstructions of it in depth. Similar to World of Warcraft – I don’t play it, I have people who do that and then complain about it.

But in any rate. Back to the quoted paragraph.

MUDs were the best story-rich MMO you could get your hands into. If you could handle not having graphics, there were some pretty decent ones out there even 10 years ago.

Even if you discount the above by claiming they’re not “MMOs” by virtue of some criteria you pull directly from behind your belt, GW1 wasn’t story-focused as much as it was play balance focused. The story, at least for Prophecies, took a back seat to the gameplay. The story existed to get the players through the realms from the burned-out husk of Ascalon to the burned-rock landscape of the Ring of Fire.

And if you’re going to try to claim the story didn’t, then please look at the Crystal Desert trilogy of missions (Dunes of Despair, Thirsty River, Elona Reach) and tell me story didn’t take a back seat to showcasing PvP modes and mechanics?

naemyis.8731:

In what way does Heinlein’s love letter to militant facism have anything to do with japanese gundams, starcraft, warhammer 40k, or halo?

Well, first, that’s not a love letter to militant facism any more than “Time Enough For Love” was a treatise on how incest was completely acceptable. Or “The Scourging of the Shire” is about The Battle of London.

(It’s not.)

Secondly, the advent of science fiction began with much harder science-fiction under Asimov, Clarke, and many others. Gods know I don’t think anyone seriously forgets that who goes into actually reading things. It’s not really easy to pin down what it’s about other than “speculating on the future and where science will develop humanity towards”. Some take optimistic ideas, some take realistic ones, some do pessimistic interpretations . . . sometimes humanity is alone, sometimes they’re not . . . there’s so many flavors of science fiction it’s impossible to take something other than “science is center to the plot” as the basis of a science fiction tale.

Fantasy fiction doesn’t have an advent or a starting point because myth has been going on since long before there was writing. We do owe a lot of interpretations of things to Tolkein (and then through Dungeons and Dragons’ lens . . .) but there’s been a plentiful amount of fantasy fiction which has not relied on Tolkein. Start with Harry Potter, move right on to Discworld, and if you keep going you might find the realms of Xanth, Athas, Ivalice, Osten Ard, Westeros/Essos, Tamriel . . . none of which definitively follow the same “blueprint”.

(And oh lords above and below, Xanth follows no known blueprint at all.)

If anything, I’d trace both main lines of modern sci-fi and fantasy depiction to Warhammer, hands down.

Keep trying to link it all back to Warhammer, you’ll have a hard time convincing me of it when there’s piles of stuff which is completely unrelated in the last ten years. You want to know what really they can be traced to?

Which movies hit the box office recently and need to be copied for success, or which remake can we wring a little more money out of than the other.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

SilverShadow.3021:

+1
Seems like Anet has replaced most of its story writers, because in GW1 story was quite good whereas in GW2’s Living Story it’s (imo) horrible.

They both had good moments but as a whole?

Eh, not really. All six versions of story (four for GW1 and two for GW2) were serviceable but not awesome. Riddled with cliches, predictable, and just strong enough to tie things together. Especially Prophecies and Factions.

GW1 was way less annoying & writer-self-satisfying than GW2. GW1 wasn’t GREAT. But the lore was better, more consistent, less dismissive of previous events & the dialog wasn’t modernized & hip. " cliches & predictable" Is almost meaningless. There are just as many in GW2. Especially the LS is just bad, they just pic currently socially popular cliches. There is no such thing as an original story.

That’s what I said about cliche and predictability. Neither story deserves to be held on a pedestal, for all there were good times and really impressive work.

Also, I don ‘t think “writer self-satisfying” is what you’re thinking of. If you’re thinking of times where the writing comes off as the writer going “aren’t I just clever” then this isn’t remotely as awful as Kieran Thackeray’s courtship of Gwen. As much as I liked watching it, it really came off as trying to backfill from announcing the existence of Logan.

. . . then there was the asura, which I never liked as a whole. Vekk I liked, Oola I did to a lesser extent.

Seriously, I kind of know what you’re aiming at – the sylvari. Like everyone else. Except they’re just not as awesome even in-story as people want to claim keeps getting told. They fail much more than they succeed at anything. Again, if any race is held up it’s the asura because their failures . . . well, their failures or success shape the world which is Guild Wars 2 more than any of the other races.

And yes, Scarlet is getting laid as their failure thanks to Omadd.

Oulov.7913:

Maaan… when I look at those gods…. Gw1 was so great, so dark and gloomy, so mature. Fighting Dhuum in the Underworld and the Shadow army, going through the Realm of Torment, Ravenheart Gloom and fighting demons. Even battling the 3 meters high Destroyers was awesome. Gw1 was not for everybody, not for 10-year-old kids like Gw2.
Gw2 with its pitifully looking dragons and destroyers the size of a man should be given Pegi 7.

And yet, we had Mad King Thorn, “Drakes on a Plain”, the goofy antics of Norgu’s stage plays, Goren (best summed up as “durr?”), the gloriously incompetent Ministry in Cantha, and the Norn Fighting Tournament with it’s incredible amount of shout-outs to fighting games.

Also Kilroy Stonekin.

Kalavier.1097:

Zomaarwat.3912:

What Captain Hao Luen and I would like to know is where the other cities were during all of this.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Captain_Hao_Luen

A: The battle lasted most likely around a week from first strike to “Cleanup graveyard and message boards set up.”
B: Said time was unlikely to be enough to mount a proper response/reinforcement mission due to mobilization times.
C: If the battle literally was “Day one, attack and miasma.” “Day two, wait for Miasma to clear.” and “Day three, attack city, get onto breachmaker, kill scarlet.”

There would be almost no time to respond.

Also, Divinity’s Reach and the kingdom of Kryta do not have control or authority over Lion’s Arch . . . therefore no responsibility to aid them unless they choose to. Other races’ cities? Even less reason to stick their hands in there.

SilverShadow.3021:

+1
Seems like Anet has replaced most of its story writers, because in GW1 story was quite good whereas in GW2’s Living Story it’s (imo) horrible.

They both had good moments but as a whole?

Eh, not really. All six versions of story (four for GW1 and two for GW2) were serviceable but not awesome. Riddled with cliches, predictable, and just strong enough to tie things together. Especially Prophecies and Factions.

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

So where is evidence of this transformational spark that changed a tribal/semi-nomadic/warrior culture to an advance highly urbanised/ industrial/ militaristic culture? How was the change even possible over the course of the 250 years leading to the present day?

Where is the evidence the United States of America could exist in some semblance of stability for 200 years before it did? For that matter, where is the evidence the Industrial Revolution could have possibly happened before it became possible? The Information Age?

We live in a world where I can, in the palm of my hand, call forth access to the Internet and any bit of information which is stored on it. This is less than the time it took the charr to form this society they have now.

. . . seriously, this is something you want to call unrealistic? Candlelight to nuclear power in 200 years is reality, but a culture solidifying from a revolution against religious oppression is totally out of the question?

People have strange opinions of what’s “realistic”.

Celestina.2894:

Quite honestly, everything is a cliche at this point.

I haven’t seen a truly original story in years.

Even GW1 was hardly original.

GW1 wasn’t any better about handling its cliches and tropes. GW2 just stopped pretending to hide it, I guess.

Okay, get this, you had to click through a few prompts and if you weren’t paying attention then how is one more confirmation box going to stop a mistake like that? I mean, if you really misclicked and thought it was silver instead of gold . . . why would yet another confirmation screen stop you?

It’s like the people I used to get while doing Tech Support: “I accidentally formatted my drive.” Yes. These people exist, and it does give a confirmation window/prompt every time. They don’t notice, or they start it before they realize the mistake, and it’s done.

There is no cure for someone not paying attention and making that sort of error, let alone with more confirmation windows.

Lexx.5780:

And to conclude, what is real is defined by your sensations, by your reason and acts of any kind, fiction or non-fiction create real responses in your real consciousness, and though you identify it as something that’s not in your morality spectrum, your reason, it’s still there – real.

Well, here’s the thing . . . and I apologize because your incredible amount of technical terminology is sort of daunting to slog through . . .

People usually can tell the difference between real and not. They can usually apply morals of their own. Whether those morals include “I can do this and get away with it, so why not?” is what you’re hitting on, which is the thing games let you do. It doesn’t matter if you haul off and kill some vulnerable NPC in Elder Scrolls because you didn’t like their sass, nor does it really matter if you go harvesting Little Sisters in Bioshock.

What matters is, well, whether the person behind the keyboard leaves the game space with that idea closely held of “I could do this terrible thing and get away with it, and nobody would know” . . . then follows through. That’s the critical piece – do they follow through?

Having angry, irrational, aggressive thoughts is not a crime and is not the semblance of an unhealthy mind. The self-control to not do those things when they come to mind? That’s what matters.

That said, without games, these emotions wouldn’t ever come to your mind, because they wouldn’t have to (or well, would, if it ever came to lawless »bellum omnium contra omnes«)

Wrong.

Without games they do come to mind, because I can definitely assure you there are people who work in retail, in fast food, or elsewhere who entertain just the same fantasies of getting back at people who annoy them. From the minor ways (slipping cayenne into food) to major (eyedrops in a drink) to downright sadistic (screwing up someone’s credit score or criminal record irreparably because nobody can prove it was not a database error).

Hope I had triggered just a bit of doubt in your belief if not, I respect your opinion, which, what all this I wrote as well, is.

Thanksies, Lexxypooh

I try to doubt everything which cannot be concrete to my senses. Especially my self-awareness. But in this context, there’s a security of opinion in what I stated before:

It is not unhealthy to ever have aggressive thoughts cross your mind, nor to even consider them realistically. It is, however, unhealthy to cross the line of making that fantasy real.

I’m sure you understand.

hannah mee.7925:

No, the real me doesn’t have any desire to kill anyone. In fact, I’m sure that everyone who plays Guild Wars 2 has no inclination to kill people. Sure, maybe a few people get tired of catering to idiot customers and stocking shelves for $8/h but there’s a vast majority of moral people who have absolutely no problem killing things or making fun of killing things in a game. Why? Because it’s fiction. People can distinguish it as not being a real act of violence and not imposing on somebody else’s life or happiness (well, I guess it could inhibit happiness depending on how immature some players are).

I might express, in a bit of temper, wanting to hurt someone else. Maybe even permanently injure them. I have expressed a desire to “take this table and break it on your stupid face” once when playing Settlers of Catan and someone dropped me into a corner and left me unable to win.

Would I actually? Probably not, unless I was . . . VERY inebriated.

People who cannot distinguish between video games and actual reality need help, and I almost think the people who claim others can’t distinguish the two or separate fiction and reality need help too.

M Steel.2574:

Scarlet’s part in the Living Story doesn’t have to end just because she’s gone.

No, but it probably should. Thematically, anything from this point forward springs forth from her actions so her part is done but will always be impacting the future. There’s no more than that which needs to be left here, we need to get past her for the betterment of the story.

And to keep people from dwelling on the fact she existed at all.

DarksunG.9537:

Nah. Asura do have WAY too much insight into magic & the world, but they aren’t (potentially) connected to the dragons and/or the planet’s special defense mechanism. They are intelligent, but aren’t ALSO master crafters, the moral blueprint of the game, the the main overpowered villain of the LS, the leader of the worlds army, the writer’s favorite race, have a future-telling demigod that knows the nature of the eternal alchemy..

You can’t say, legitimately, they’re the writer’s favorite race without citation. Also, Ventari was sort of a strong-moral character who showed up in Prophecies and his followers existed then too.

Yeah, I agree that the Asura are an excuse to make magical devices that can do anything for plot, but they are more of a mechanical device than like the Sylvari. The LA conversation:
“I want high quality, low prices, and a minimum of egotistical blather.”
“In that case, you definitely want sylvari.”
That’s Sylvari, they are just awesome at everything.

No. You’re missing the second inferred detail: You can hoodwink a sylvari on prices because they mostly don’t know better. They are, for the most part, incredibly naive and almost childlike . . . want proof? Start and end with Sieran.

GW1 doesn’t have out of place, pet characters like GW2.

You almost had me taking this seriously until you said this.

Gwen. Lieutenant Thackeray. Mad King Thorn. Master Togo. Mhenlo, Cynn, Devona, and Aidan. Kilroy Stonekin.

I could keep going.

It’s more concerned with the world & story then what the writer likes in their personal life. The problem is not single aspects (even though saying the clunky, over-emphasized “love” story is a tiny little nit-pick is laughable. The Koss/Melonni story is about 1/20th the size & focus, didn’t shoehorn in the “kiss moment” & is far more believable), it’s about an entire story that is build around the personal desires of the writer.

Eh, no. Prophecies was an Excuse Plot to get the characters from one side of the world to the other and give them a moderate amount of practice with their professions in a group setting so they could then jump into PvP. This isn’t something you can deny, it was known way back when.

The way the characters are written, the characters they chose to create, the way they interact, which characters they push into the background, which they bring forward, which ones they make look like idiots, which ones they make “soe awsum!”. It’s a blueprint of very specific personal tastes that doesn’t actually care as much about the GW universe as they do their personal RP fetishes. Saying that criticism of the LS is nit-picking that applies to every game is ludicrous.

Who said anything about the LS? I said, continue to say, and will always say the story of both games isn’t very strong. Romanticizing and fawning nostalgic over the first game doesn’t hold water because it made many more egregious errors in the writing over time. Every one of the campaigns had at least one, if not more. (In the case of Prophecies, it’s held together solely by the excuse of never letting the player characters discover anything until it’s too late.)

As for the last bit about “personal RP fetishes” . . . GW1 was developed from the ground up as PvP first in focus, PvE secondary. So if you want to play that card, be fair about it and knock points off GW1 for being a terrible example of PvE focus.

achensherd.2735:

The whole Dark Knights thing really should be its own topic/thread since it pretty much has little/nothing to do with the Pact at this point.

Just saying, they’d make a heck of an antagonist to have to deal with. So long as they don’t turn out like Cerberus and produce a Kai Leng, we’ll be good.

DarksunG.9537:

I am extremely happy to not have the game revolve around garbage characters & implausible story. The thing I worry about is that it will continue with having the world revolve around the next time we can add a lesbian kiss & making sure Sylvari are the most important race. LS is a pet project story, it’s awful.

The same could be said of just about every game ever, from a certain point of view. I haven’t found a game where one or the other doesn’t sink it once you stop and think about things. Or where someone can yank up one thing and make a case for it being sensationalized for the sake of the audience.

By the way, sylvari aren’t the most important race to Tyria right now. Asura are.

Zaxares.5419:

Obsidian.1328:

One man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot. The English did all sorts of atrocious things to the Irish for hundreds of years, and the Irish(when given the opportunity) did equally atrocious things back to them in return. Who’s more “right”. Truth is subjective. It depends on your point of view, like Dust said. ANet wants them to be viewed as terrorists by having them be reckless with bystanders because it reinforces their own agenda; i.e. unity amongst the playable races. Obviously this wouldn’t matter much if GW1 didn’t exist, but it does.

You realise that also applies to the Charr back in GW1, right?

It also doesn’t matter much anyway – he’s gone to meta-game arguments. Again.

Garah: “I don’t care about Scarlet, she’s dead and gone now. What I care about is nailing that coward Evon’s hide to a wall.”

Obsidian.1328:

Dustfinger.9510:

bullyrook.2165:

I have a question: does that mean when our hero’s fought for Ascalon in GW1, we were actually the bad guys?

Not so! It means that when a member of each race fights for what’s best for their race/home/family/city/etc, they don’t have to be inherently bad or good.

But ANet wants you to think the Separatists(and Renegades for that matter) are bad. That wanting to continue fighting for your home, in this case, is inherently a bad thing.

How does that fit in to your premise?

That’s not the bad thing about the Separatists. The bad thing is how they don’t care who gets hurt alongside their enemies, at best, or at worst claim anyone working for peace is a traitor to their race and thus an enemy.

They’re bad because they turn the market in Ebonhawke into a fiery blaze now and then to make a point.

They’re bad because even if you have no stake in the fight (being norn, sylvari, or asura) you’ll still be attacked.

They’re bad because they are terrible at distinguishing between targets in line with their philosophy (or at least what people keep trying to tell me it is), and bystanders or innocents.

That’s why they are classified as “terrorists” more than “patriots”. There is precedent, by the way, but I won’t bore you with actual history less than thirty years old.

draxynnic.3719:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Rukh.9287:

What I’m saying is its the Mass Effect story.

Mass Effect doesn’t have a monopoly on that. Xenosaga did it also, now that I think about it. But other fictions have dipped their toes into it too.

Semi-recently? “All this has happened before and it will happen again.” I’m sure there are others too.

Though I suspect it’s less that.

It’s a disavowed sequel for many, but Star Control 3 was also based on a similar premise back in the mid-90s.

There was no Star Control 3.

There also was never any other Highlander movies other than the first, and it was a shame they never made sequels to “The Matrix”.

IncognitoP.1648:

Charming Rogue.8071:

Hmmm… this look photoshopped. I have seen a great number of poorly Photoshopped images in my time as a photographer and I can tell by the pixels that it is a fake.

Pfft. What is this guy saying? Using your “experience” and “facts” to back up your arguments… How naive!

Relevant: XKCD

“You need to spend some time in the Mist War, Miss Delacqua, then you’d understand it doesn’t really feel like anything other than the last thing you need to do.”

Hear me out.

Scarlet Briar doesn’t deserve a shot at redemption any more than Miyo Miyazaki did.

Redemption arcs aren’t for everyone, and sometimes it’s much better to have a villain/antagonist who is beyond that rather than to try to redeem/humanize them (for lack of a better term).

Besides, Scarlet needed a different type of redemption – creative redemption. She really needed to be handled better, and she could have been real good.

Fiontar.4695:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You don’t need a big imposing villain like that, which is where a lot of bad stories go wrong. You really don’t need to hang a big sign on someone going “We’ve got a bad—- here!” in the first five minutes. Identifying the villain? Sure enough, even Game of Thrones did that in ten pages or less.

(Heck, it gave you, what, three of them real fast?)

What’s needed is to show them being effective and believable instead of just “awesome”. That’s where Scarlet went wrong.

I’m glad you put “awesome” in quotes. I’m sure some of the developers thought Scarlet was “Awesome” and to a degree that would make up for all the other absolute failings of the character and the story. However, “Awesome” is not how I would describe Scarlet or her story. In many ways, Scarlet and her storyline are an over the top example of how NOT to design a villain and a believable story. An example so absurd that you would be able to laugh at it and know that no one would be so bad as to actually write such a thing!

I could have made Scarlet work, though, if I’d done things only slightly differently. She had the right components, but they weren’t really handled quite correctly. But change things a little, give things a little spin differently, and it wouldn’t have been so bad as people reacted to it.

But don’t get hung up on how Scarlet wasn’t “awesome” enough, that’s not the point. The point is seeing time and time again, MMOs trying to make their villains memorable by trying too hard to sell us on how great and powerful they are. You don’t need to have world-threatening powers to be effective as a villain. You want proof?

I’ll go for an easy one: “Lord Petyr Baelish”. Almost no threatening physique, no overblown appearance, but his personality and connections make him a daunting obstacle. And he will smile as he waits for an opening to slide in the knife.

Dig hard enough and you’ll find some other villains, or at least antagonists, who hold the role and are effective (and efficient) without falling into the trap of needing to be personally powerful in the way some writers push their villains. Heck, even in GW2 we have Minister Caudecus.

I think the best advice for ANet, as a whole, is to stop trying so hard to convince people that the studio staff has been replaced by pod people with about as much understanding of human thought and culture as the Coneheads.

Nah, I’d rather they play that up so complaints like this actually feel real instead of hyperbole.

Kurrilino.2706:

Guys…..

The actual point is that the feature pack delivers dyes and armor skins
when game contend or mechanics are wanted by thousands of players.

When has something not delivered dyes and armor skins even if only one or two? Also, there are mechanics being added. Content is on hold because they wanted to devote time to just feature work, so I understand.

As for the delivery of dyes and armor skins, really the Wardrobe is something more than a few people half-suggested in the “Horizontal Progression” CDI. It follows some lines of things and now we got it. So they are listening to players and trying to fit things in.

I don’t see a need to antagonize them over trying to balance it out so some people get things one update and others get theirs later.

Of course you guys are coming in and try to explain me why dyes and dieing servers are something wonderful and if i don’t accept a new dye as something world changing i have to play another game.

I never said that and I’m offended you think I did. Especially dying servers, which while I think isn’t exactly “good”, maybe merging lower-populations servers together is needed. But then, this “megaserver” idea they’re working on? Might kind of solve things about low population.

But all that has nothing to do with the is lacking contend, new mechanics and story building…

I don’t have a high demand for new mechanics since that’s always a dice roll if it works or not. Content should come when it’s polished and not just shoveled out for us to munch up and then demand more. When it is polished and not a week before.

I am just afraid that “other forces” within the whole thing have something else in mind than delivering a world changing epic game because it’s easier to deliver the regular crap and leech out some dollars as long as you can before move to the next project

Do say what you mean and stop beating around the bush. Because if it’s the same conspiracy I keep hearing about over and over, that’s getting a little old.

You don’t need a big imposing villain like that, which is where a lot of bad stories go wrong. You really don’t need to hang a big sign on someone going “We’ve got a bad—- here!” in the first five minutes. Identifying the villain? Sure enough, even Game of Thrones did that in ten pages or less.

(Heck, it gave you, what, three of them real fast?)

What’s needed is to show them being effective and believable instead of just “awesome”. That’s where Scarlet went wrong.

Rukh.9287:

What I’m saying is its the Mass Effect story.

Mass Effect doesn’t have a monopoly on that. Xenosaga did it also, now that I think about it. But other fictions have dipped their toes into it too.

Semi-recently? “All this has happened before and it will happen again.” I’m sure there are others too.

Though I suspect it’s less that.

Keyce.8137:

We really do. He’s the best.

It could be amazing. Though we probably would wind up getting Kate Beckett and Richard Castle instead. Though I’d even settle for Briscoe, Munch, and Logan.

Not Columbo though.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Mine was attacking a chicken in Ebonhawke.

. . . that darn poultry. Even Link didn’t need to put up with that much.

My biggest mistake? Rolling an asura. I swear the attitudes of that whole race make the first part of the Personal Story so unbearable to me I just want to get on my norn and punt some to see if they can reach the Ring of Fire.

Kurrilino.2706:

It is just the concern that drives me crazy that A-Net get’s that, we are already a little bit better then the other guys, attitude.

I would compare to music or movie industry, just because you are the best of these industries doesn’t matter you are not crappy.

Well they are better than the other guys at making a free MMO which doesn’t rely on people buying premium currency just to get to do anything high-tier or difficult. There’s no need to buy Gems to go do stuff, there’s no need to use Gems to finance gear acquisition (though it helps), and there’s no gates set down you need Gems to get through.

From my experience thus far? Every other free MMO I played where it’s “sign up with email and get started” there’s a place where the game stops being remotely fun to progress in unless you grease the wheels with some premium currency. Maybe it’s to bypass timers, maybe it’s to enable some boosts, maybe it’s because the premium currency purchases equipment making it basically “tutorial simple” to beat stuff.

(Except maybe D&D Online, but that had a host of other issues. relative to the game it used as a core. So much grind.)

Anyway, if ANet has swagger it’s because . . . even now, you can put down the game and walk away for two months to come back and pick up mostly where you left off and not need to go chase the hot new gear or raids. Heck, you could get lost for ten months (all of Living Story season 1) and really not be in a bad position like you might be for other MMOs.

This reason, above all others, is why I still log in and mess around instead of kicking it to the curb faster than a Final Fantasy game after the last bonus boss gets killed by insane amounts of overkill.

Kalavier.1097:

While true, I recall it was noted to be a basically forgotton thing that next to NOBODY did anymore. And it was only the fact The main minister was a history buff the guy knew about it.

. . . and again, still counts

Though, also seriously, Divinity’s Reach needs a Patrick Jane . . .

Kalavier.1097:

Um, the Trial by combat is actually described as an ancient thing, and not really used in the ‘modern’ courts.

In the Noble storyline the minister uses it to escape the trial and the resulting problems it’d slap on himself and Cauducas.

Yes. But it still was honored, which is the point.

Kurrilino.2706:

Weindrasi.3805:

Well, you can’t please everyone.
Instead of wasting forum space with your whining, go find a game you like.

yeah yeah yeah….
the usual go and play something else argument….

Of course that got dragged out again, because you seem compelled to say how much you don’t like any of this. Most of what you’re complaining about seems to be an incredible amount of distaste for what MMOs . . . by design of being that game type . . . do out of necessity.

There’s no argument they overpromised a few things, but those things are still ahead of what other MMOs have been doing “as normal” for ages. Instead of Dynamic Events (in name only, yes) which repeat and recycle on a clock? Static quests which when done don’t leave too much of a mark on the world. At least DEs change a zone in some aspects . . . for everyone, not just for those who participated in the quest. (Via the previous new hot thing – “Phasing”)

“They made it impossible to be a hero, they took any tanking ability or game plan even tactics out of the game. "

Well, heh, you must be either new to MMOs or willfully deciding to just slam things. Every MMO, there’s no “hero” but instead “player characters” whose heroic impact varies from game to game. Usually this is limited to minor hero status while the ones who get to actually do things are NPCs or GM characters so the lore can stay nice and neat. (When they actually care about it.)

And in video games in general, tactical thinking takes a backseat to “just throw overwhelming force at it”. Which is why in RPGs so many people level-grind until it’s unfeasible to keep going and only then move on to the next challenge. Or in MMOs where open amounts of people are possible to throw at things, just throw as many people at it as server hardware can manage (see “EQ players beat the unbeatable Sleeper by res-rush zerging”).

So when people suggested you try other games . . . it’s really because what you seem to want out of this MMO is not what MMOs are designed to be able to do. By default.

Really what you want is a D&D shared world campaign. You know, a network of groups in the same world, but not often directly interacting, yet still having an impact on how things develop.

Akbaroth.2861:

as many others have said, mesmer would be great because of the whole mind reading schtick, but i have a sneaking suspition the kyrtan ministry and the arcane council have banned the use of mesmerism or classical necromancy (in real life -mancy refers to divination and ‘necro-mancers’ would seek answers by communing with the dead, ‘pyro-mancers’ would look for symbols in flame, etc.) because there would be no way to know if the spellcaster was telling the truth (read as: because it would be easier to convict them of whatever they are up to).

on the other hand it may be legal to use such spells in order to FIND evidence rather than AS evidence, i.e. reading a suspect’s mind to find the murder weapon or victim’s body.

however i’ve read about plenty of cases where 100% solid evidence had to be thrown out because the investigators did something illegal to get it, so the arcane council/ ministry would ban ALL magical methods of investigation so even if a mesmer did find proof it would be useless in court.

in that case just BEING a mesmer might make it hard to provide evidence because the accused could just say ‘how can you prove you didn’t find this information via illegal use of mesmerism?’ thus dragging out the case.

This isn’t the modern world and the court systems in Kryta have the lovely “trial by combat” thing the accused can take part in. Asura courts . . . weeeeeeeellllll . . . they’re not fair, balanced, or equal in any sense.

You know why I said mesmer, in an honest manner? Patrick Jane.

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

How is this possible in 250 years? How was this social transformation achieved? What caused this profound change in a very warlike tribal society where ones worth is determined by conquest?

How did they develop the weapons? Through Deldrimor dwarven black powder. How did their society change? The Fierce Warband’s revolution and the move to a refusal of any god/deity.

Tarreth.8914:

Never the less, back there, Charr relied on magic, on rage of fire. Now they are soldiers. Master engineers, true weapons of their own. If magic would be better, Flame Legion would reclaim everything, yet the Legions stand all cool with their cannons, engines , guns and soldier’s discipline.

And yet, they still can’t break Ebonhawke.

Mesmer.

Mental manipulation to get parties to confess to crimes they remember committing, and illusions to fabricate the evidence.

. . . what?

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They earned their fall.

That’s like saying america deserves to fall because they took North America from the indians. And the indians were, just like the charr back then, tribals living in tents. It wasn’t even a nation back then.

That’s not why they earned their fall, which shows I either wasn’t clear enough or you weren’t paying attention. Tyrian humans earned their fall through a combination of hubris and infighting. The Guild Wars set them up to get weaker and get picked off.

Obsidian.1328:

Humans are by no means innocent, but to say they are the bad guys of Tyria is more than a little misguided.

Agreed.

So why exactly is letting them get rocked by a sucker punch and sent back to defending on the ropes something they didn’t earn through their expansion through “nothing is stopping us”. The Six slowly went quiet after Abaddon was destroyed, due to their role being over. (Something the avatars even say to Kormir directly.)

Humanity was getting left to stand on their own merits, and that wasn’t good enough to keep everything they had.

They earned their fall.