Guild Wars 2

There’s going to be ample use of cliche, that is to say, Tropes . . . it’s the shortest distance between two story points. Arenanet has rarely managed to tell a story without using or twisting Tropes to work something up.

This is, in and of itself, not bad.

The problem is, so far, the neat endings. There hasn’t been one yet where the chapter ended without things being regarded by the story as fully resolved. Southsun may be the only place where no matter what’s being done to “fix” things it only gets worse

Question: can you use a mesmer portal with the bomb not going off?

There’s a considerable amount of filler which went on. Two months where SAB took over, two months where Mad King Thorn had nothing to do with what was going on, two Wintersday breaks . . .

The pacing for trying to get the story to make sense amidst all of that was a real trouble.

Holy image-meme heavy post there. It makes it hard to focus on the text when the first post is broken up “one line, one image meme”. And it does trigger my “don’t take this post seriously” response, which I managed to get over.

The thing is, Logan Thackeray behaves erratically and unevenly because I’m half convinced one writer alone was not responsible for all the scenarios in the Personal Story. If that’s the case then you have umpteen different interpretations of his character being made canon to the story. No wonder he comes off as he does.

Overall, there are three burning questions about him:

- How old is he? If he’s young enough, then his behavior is understandable as someone too lacking in life experience to have a stable grasp. If he’s less than thirty years old, I’d say there’s a good chance he doesn’t even know his own mind on this.

- Does he really love Jennah or is he simply afraid of failing her? This is more important. His brother died protecting her, and he decided to take up his brother’s place. Is he more worried about failing to honor his brother’s memory and honor than in love with the queen?

- Does Jenna love him, or is she trying to break him off without breaking his soul? Jenna can’t be blind to how he feels. But almost always when she pushes him away, she’s appealing to his sense of duty over a personal attachment to her. It could be she’s trying to let him know she doesn’t love him, but still cares about him. Without driving him to just throw down his post and desert.

There’s one considerable hurdle as well:

No matter what the writers do to try to “fix” this character, nobody will ever let it go away. They’re not going to let Logan be anything other than “that useless NPC Guardian”. Frankly, it’s weird because in my Personal Story? He never died unless it was a total wipe. Never. I never had to scrape him off the ground as often as I did Rytlock in my charr’s storyline. How other people had different experiences to that degree I don’t know.

Risingashes.8694:

Melchior.2135:

Unfortunately, the “Pale Tree = Dragon Minion” theory has been torn to shreds by the Lore forum. At any given time, you can probably find five or six threads there taking turns digging up its corpse to kick it again.

Which is probably why you chose to post it here, where people were less likely to know.

No, the dragon minion theory has never been debunked in the lore forum.

All people do is say “this cannot be so because Sylvari are immune to dragon corruption” or something equally irrelevant and then fail to come back.

The counters to the theory are paper thin and rely on assumptions that are downright silly.

Instead of just repeating things in the hopes that it becomes true why not actually present your counters so you can be proven wrong.

All right.

It is highly unlikely the Pale Tree is, itself, a dragon minion and the sylvari fruits of dragon corruption. I say this because the Pale Tree does not behave like dragon minions, and there is no corruptive element to how sylvari behave.

They do not reshape things to serve them or their needs, save for the plants which are their houses. Given it’s not the first time we’ve seen things like that (the Maguuma Jungle has had plants of really strange forms for a long time) . . . I find it hard to follow that thread along.

The sylvari are immune to dragon corruptions, and simply die instead. It’s been noted the few dragon corruptions known cannot coexist . . . but this was the crux of some research in the Crucible of Eternity, wasn’kitten And it became realized you could in fact merge them, but it was an unstable result.

(Also, the destroyers are not corruptions, they are creations. Primordius for whatever reason does not seem to corrupt with its influence. When it needs minions with different abilities, it creates them. At least from what we have seen and experienced so far.)

There are suggestions of other trees out there, but we haven’t actually seen them. We were told they exist, but not where they are. (Though close enough for one to arrive from elsewhere.) the Nightmare Court and Soundless are both strange forms of sylvari but seem more permutations of what is possible with the unique life cycle of the sylvari than dragon corruption.

And all of this is pure conjecture and supposition because we simply don’t have information to disprove or prove either side.

Erukk.1408:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I do look forward to what Caudecus is going to do about all this but I have other suspicions for his actions. Especially considering his silent partners.

I’m personally hoping that Caudecus is going to try to discredit Jennah for her lack of foresight on the matter. She and her Shining Blades obviously knew about an external threat to the celebration and general population. Yet, they didn’t do anything to try and guarantee the safety of the people, and in their inaction; it lead to the death of countless of innocent bystanders.

Everyone knows that Scarlet was behind the hijacking of the watchknights, which is backed up by her entry and the envoys of all the major nations. So, that is a dead end for a political attack. The true dirt for a political attack is in what Jennah didn’t do. Caudecus could say, after the disaster that was the Opening Ceremony, that the Queen should have shelved the watchknights until a thorough inspection, because there was obvious tampering by a hostile third party.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…. political jargon. Long story short, Caudecus tells the public and his fellow nobles that the Queen cares more for her own safety then her people’s. Add in some senseless rabble rousing statements like, “Obviously she doesn’t think our own safety is her concern.”, and, “She’s the one to blame for the death of our loved ones.”. There you have a nice political fight on your hands.

Caudecus isn’t so . . . simple, with his attacks. He doesn’t need to step up and twirl a mustache to do his thing. What he will do is get up and do a Marc Antony . . .

(But Brutus is an honorable man.)

Y’know, I may have been watching too much Rooster Teeth to really feel this was out of line. Go figure.

Disclaimer: Our idea of “educated” and Tyrian ideas of “educated” may vary wildly. However it is basic to find people capable of simple math and reading. An average asura will have more advanced knowledge of mechanics than your average norn though, and definitely your average sylvari.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

She was never played for laughs, but she still was one-note villainous. She was not as over the top as the Lich Lord, and also nowhere near as chilling as Shiro. There was nothing to her other than “I’m the villain, I’m evil, and I am going to crush your resistance”.

We saw Varesh in various contexts, though. We saw her first when Istan and Kourna at peace, and she wasn’t the villain yet, and then things changed. We also saw Morgahn’s view of her change. There was character development there. It may have been Morgahn’s, but it had implications for Varesh. She wasn’t deep, but she was a secondary villain to Abaddon anyway, and she was still more complex than what we have now.

We didn’t see her develop. She was always the devoted follower of Abaddon since we first saw her talking with Kahyet. The only thing that changed was when she was able to get Margonites out to bolster her Kournan military. And General Morgahn didn’t object until she went after his goddess’ sanctuary.

She was not complex. She didn’t change. She always was a fanatical devotee of Abaddon willing to crush anything in her way to her goal.

Scarlet’s been the same since the beginning. She’s had no meaningful interaction with anybody. Every piece of dialogue could be switched with any other piece of dialogue.

Yes?

(I agree about Joko, though; his comic-relief depiction was a big disappointment to me).

I wasn’t disappointed with it, I was more just going “okay, well this explains how Turai managed to beat him so easily if he’s like this”. Like I said cartoonish, simple villains were all over Guild Wars 1. One more didn’t faze me.

CHIPS.6018:

Is Queen Jennah actually at fault? Nope. But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is what the mob thinks and believes.

So, pretty much you admit Queen Jennah isn’t responsible, then go on about how she is with broken analogies. Seems legit.

I do look forward to what Caudecus is going to do about all this but I have other suspicions for his actions. Especially considering his silent partners.

mesme.5028:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

mesme.5028:

If on going to town and your bf says get a movie with an action, you know i love those sort of films, and you bring back the pacifier saying it has vin diesel in it, ill bet their wee face would be tripping them and they would voice a complaint or two, we really cant fault peeps who watched the manifesto and wonder why gw2 was even called gw2 when it has almost nothing from gw1 in it.

If on going to down, your friend says “get a movie with action” and you bring back The Pacifier, you deserve to be locked out until you bring back Shoot Em Up.

Yeah i had to edit, i missed hero lol.

Point still stands I mean, you could also go wrong and pick up The Sixth Sense because it has Bruce Willis. Sure, it’s still a decent movie . . . with an “action star”, but not what your friend thought they were going to get.

It’s not as bad as telling someone “just get a comedy” and seeing them hold up Meet the Spartans. (Yes. This has happened. We are not friends anymore.)

mesme.5028:

If on going to town and your bf says get a movie with an action, you know i love those sort of films, and you bring back the pacifier saying it has vin diesel in it, ill bet their wee face would be tripping them and they would voice a complaint or two, we really cant fault peeps who watched the manifesto and wonder why gw2 was even called gw2 when it has almost nothing from gw1 in it.

If on going to down, your friend says “get a movie with action” and you bring back The Pacifier, you deserve to be locked out until you bring back Shoot Em Up.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Yes, because we never had that sort of thing before? (Palawa Joko, Varesh Ossa, Mad King Thorn)

Well, when Joko and Varesh were in the spotlight, our main focus was on Abaddon, who was not cartoonish at all. (I don’t really think Varesh could be called cartoonish either— she didn’t giggle, she didn’t dance around and try to hit us with an oversized mallet).

Oh no, she was cartoonish and well over the top as a villain. She didn’t laugh, she did dance though (as a dervish, she did her share of it).

No, see, she was a different sort of cartoon villain. If Scarlet is, oh, Rita Repulsa . . . just to use a comparison from LA chat I recall. If Scarlet is Rita Repulsa . . . Varesh was Lord Zedd. If Scarlet was the Joker, Varesh was the Riddler. If Scarlet is “the world is just my stage” then Varesh is “the world is nothing at all to me”.

She was never played for laughs, but she still was one-note villainous. She was not as over the top as the Lich Lord, and also nowhere near as chilling as Shiro. There was nothing to her other than “I’m the villain, I’m evil, and I am going to crush your resistance”.

And much the same, Palawa Joko was humorous when we came across him and he had to rebuild his power. He was a cantankerous old man in an undead body. Sure, he’s a necromantic power beyond peer but while we were passing through he behaved like some guy going “get offa my lawn, kids”. Playing the Bonus Mission Pack, or the Halloween quest fighting against him at power? Yeah, he’s a force to be reckoned with.

And just to cover the final base . . . not all cartoon villains were terrible. David Xanatos, Slade, Azula, Maleficent . . . that’s without even really digging too far.

Shiren.9532:

Then look at Rox, clearly not sexy at all – she’s a cat person.

Aaaaand I can think of five people off the top of my head who would disagree vehemently with the assessment she cannot be sexy. (And no, no I’m not going to even ask them about it.)

Both Marjory and Kasmeer as very attractive females. Then again, every human female in Tyria seems to “suffer” from this. Kasmeer wears very impractical clothing (heels, revealing dress etc), we first meet her in a bikini and to boot we find out she’s actually naked (imo that was a joke that people wanted to believe, I find it absurd anyone would truly go without armor in Tyria).

I assumed it was a jab at Marjory to tease, the more I think on it. She was probably wearing a patchy blue bathrobe under that glamour.

Cut to Marjory and her voice actor portrays her sensually. It may be an attempt to remind people of film noir, which is a very sensual genre of cinema.

Sensual =/= Sexual. Also, despite this? She doesn’t behave overtly sexual even at this point. She acts with confidence. It’s not “look at my breasts” its “yes, yes, I’m pretty, now can we get on with it?”.

I’m recyling points at this point, I have nothing left to “add” to this discussion.

Really, being a mostly heterosexual male? I never should have come within shouting distance of this conversation. Though as a writer who has his share of writing to get done . . . eventually . . . it irks me to find the sort of reaction “it’s done for the giggles/Political Correctness/agenda” being trotted out when it is “maybe that’s just how the writers saw it after writing the characters behaving together”.

Aajolea.8132:

Novelists write alone, game writers write as part of a team with editors and developers, even if one or two thought scarlet was a cool idea, there should have been many that said.. ‘wait this is B-movie/cartoony trash’

Yes, because we never had that sort of thing before? (Palawa Joko, Varesh Ossa, Mad King Thorn)

Martrim.1078:

lol@allthecarebears

See this, this right here? This is why I don’t want PvP “any time, all the time”. I had those games getting into MMOs, and I really didn’t like some of them. Meridian 59, where you could be hunted into being unable to play because someone decided they needed the lolz. Ultima Online, where you were either really good at PvP and understood the few quirks of the system . . . or you were just a lamb to the slaughter doing anything outside of town.

I do not want PvPers messing with my gametime.

I don’t want to have to click “no” or set myself to “ignore all fight requests” just so I can have piece of mind. I do not want to be harassed over refusing to fight. I do not want to have to defend myself when I’m not in WvW, and I honestly think games have gotten past this need to include an open-world PvP option.

And I really, really, have become weary of being sneered at for not wanting to partake in something I really stink at, because “it’s the only true way to play the game” or some similar sentiments.

Skan.5301:

Indeed. And almost on par with what I’ve said a few times. Even though I’m part of the group that was let down by the Manifesto, it’s written using soft wording that can easily be interpreted many different ways.

Like those who say “I’ve know what the Manifesto was saying the first time I saw it” most likely had no idea of the future much like those who say “THE MANIFESTO SAID THIS AND LIED /backstabbed”.

Different interpretations, and there’s nothing to be done. Useless arguing that leads to nowhere.

I do know what it was saying when I saw it, which wound up being a whole lot of “here’s what we want to do”. And I said to several people “now let’s see if they can do it”.

Even though I knew, really deep down, that “permanent mark on the world” remark was going to come back to bite them hard. So was the reference call to GW1, if only because there were a lot of different things people loved about that game. Can’t get them all.

Rod.6581:

spoiler alert

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No, no not really. All of them have flaws which have consequences. Logan’s got a crush on the Queen he’s supposed to be protecting.

Reading the book, i got the feeling Logan’s crush on Queen is very reason why he become Seraph and why he is protecting her right now. But, Logan is… well Logan… and there is separate thread about our great and noble hero Logan…

I don’t have the book, but I was understanding he joined up out of a sense of duty after his brother got killed.

Skan.5301:

Note: I’m not saying Tobias is right or wrong. Basically, it’s what he thinks and he’s given examples of why.

Thanks I’ve done it way too many times trying to analyze over whether there were lies, darned lies, statistics, whatever and finding all claims lacking. I took this one a little less than seriously because, well . . .

. . . why take the argument seriously when I reviewed the video twice and it uses a whole lot of soft and subjective things said in it over hard facts/promises?

Just gotta chip in here…

Crespus.7405:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

No they are not. They are dragon cultists. They directly worship Jormag. The Nightmare Court and the Inquest are independent groups who do not serve any elder dragon (that we know of).

The Sons of Svanir have their own section of Hoelbrak…I’d say they’re fairly well integrated into Norn society.

They’re allowed to have that section because the norn don’t want to just throw them out. I think I recall an NPC having something to say about them being welcome “so long as they don’t start any trouble in Hoelbrak”.

The norn do not like their presence in general.

Also the Sons of Svanir are not directly corrupted, they are merely serving those who are. The Icebrood, on the other hand, are dragon minions.

Mike O’Brien: “We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions. If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1 and puts it into a persistent world that’s got more active combat, a fully-branching, personalized storyline, a new event system to get people playing together, and still no monthly fees.”

Well, I so far haven’t seen anything worth calling out. Sure the storyline isn’t really “personalized” after the first two chapters, but the rest actually holds up.

Daniel Dociu: “The look of Guild Wars 2 is stylized. We’re going for a painterly, illustrated aesthetic. Everything in our world feels handcrafted and artisanal. We treat our environments as if they are characters themselves.”

Oh, right, this must be where I need to jump up and down . . . nah, just joking. The world’s beautiful to look at and it is definitely nicer to look at than GW1’s burned out husk of Old Ascalon. God I got tired of staring at that place, it was ugly.

Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

Well, he is wrong, I have seen combat like this. Capcom’s done it in “Monster Hunter” . . . right down to the greatswords. Man I wish I could get the gang back together and go tear up some Rajang or Fatalis. Actually, scratch that, Fatalis was boring as heck.

Ree Soesbee: “As a structure, the MMO has lost the ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you are doing. The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”

Valid points. Man I really wish the Shatterer would just stay gone rather than another one getting created by this great and powerful Dragon to send after me. Then I could only fight it once in the first three days of the game and if I missed it, never see it again.

Colin Johanson: “You’ll get quest text that tells you ’I’m being attacked by these horrible things,’ and it’s not actually happening. In the game world, these horrible centaurs are standing around in a field, and you get a quest step that says ‘Go kill ten centaurs.’ We don’t think that’s OK. You see what’s happening. You see centaurs running to the trading post, knocking the walls down, burning and killing the merchants.”

That’s total crap, I never see centaurs killing merchants. Usually they have the good sense to run before the centaurs get there. It’s the farmers of Beetletun and the residents of Nebo Terrace who die when the centaurs come knocking. Pfft, trading post. Totally full of it.

Ree Soesbee: “We do not want to build the same MMO everyone else is building, and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story. You affect things around you in a very permanent way.”

If only. I’m sure the old Lion’s Arch lighthouse is going to magically fix itself. Or that Ancient Karka doesn’t stay down. Of course, thanks to players having a lot of issue with one time events like those I guess this really is one of those lies. Since, you know, we complained and they stopped . . . totally broke their promises there with no influence from us.

Colin Johanson: “Cause and effect: A single decision made by a player cascades out in a chain of events.”

Really ill-defined and if they really don’t work on this soon I bet it’ll be a problem later. Absolutely nothing we do has ever caused anything like that. I mean, people deciding to not bother with Gendarran Fields anymore has absolutely no effect on things there.

Ree Soesbee: “You’re meeting new people whom you will then see again. You’re rescuing a village that will stay rescued, who then remember you. The most important thing in any game should be the player. We have built a game for them.”

Well, I did rescue Shaemoor and they still remember me for it. (Somehow.) So let’s mark that down as “yes”.

Shiren.9532:

Guild Wars 1 was much darker and more morally nuanced.

Darker? Yes, generally. More morally nuanced? Not really, not until much later. Winds of Change was perhaps the best showcase of watching something go terribly wrong. But there was so many tropes at work around most of the stuff in Guild Wars . . . I can’t (anymore) be sure if the nuances came from the writing or from recognizing each trope and knowing the beats the story was aiming for.

Is it truly nuanced if those nuances are not included directly but are instead implied or left to be called by the mind of the player?

His story (and Rurik’s) was a lot more compelling than helping our good Queen do more good. What difficult decisions does Jennah have to make?

The ceasefire agreement around Ebonhawke is one. How to handle her Ministers is another, though we only get to hear hints about that can of worms. I don’t doubt what she is dealing with is any less deadly than King Adelbern deciding to throw his life away trying to fight the Titans after knowing his son was never coming back.

Look at Southsun. Instead of a dirty solution with some loses, the whole plot was tied up neatly by a convenient ship explosion with no casualties.

It’s not tied up, or rather it’s not the focus of the story currently. The Consortium has put too much into that place to just roll over.

Then you have the Queen’s Jubilee which didn’t have any significant deaths (Faren, Jennah, Anise, Logan – any of them could have been killed for emotional weight). There was a missed opporunity there to really bring the emotional impact of the civilian deaths into the story. Final Fantasy X does this really well when Yuna does a kind of funeral dance to send of the spirits of the deceased. It was almost trivialised that Scarlet killed people in her attack.

The word you want is “marginalized”, not “trivialized”. The loss was not made out to be trivial, it was just not dwelled on in the mist of the rest of the events going on. Some civilians died, and almost immediately afterwards Scarlet began attacks on other parts of Tyria through her portal machines.

In the rush to try to figure out all that, and how to get in to stop her directly, the losses became less of an issue. But they were never trivialized.

Tyria seems to be full of politically correct, morally clear and clean decisions, like some kind manifestation of tumblr’s wet dream. The bad guys are truly bad, the good guys are truly good.

No, no not really. All of them have flaws which have consequences. Logan’s got a crush on the Queen he’s supposed to be protecting. Eir’s got a son she ran away from owning up to so she could be a legend. Caithe’s ex is a crazy plant lady, but she still pines away over that. Zojja can’t really, truly, forgive over what happened to her mentor Snaff. Rytlock has an ocean’s worth of pride and very little sense when to put it aside. Traherne is Traherne, and that’s punishment enough to the players. Forgal is, deep down, unsure the Vigil can prevail. Tybalt is goofy and unsuited for field work, yet craves the chance to have action. Sieran is just reckless and naive about the dangers she could face, so long as “everything works out in the end”.

In the Living Story, even the seemingly innocent Moto may or may not have done some morally questionable things to get his Box running. Ellen Kiel potentially willingly turned a blind eye to Canach’s bomb to tie things up neatly. Canach is not even close to clean, and he knows it. Captain Magnus is manipulative and shady about his attempts to get Ellen Kiel on the Captain’s Council. Tixx has a reckless disregard for whether or not his “wonderful creations” are stable enough to be sending out to people.

Even if the player has to be the truly heroic hero all the time, do the NPCs around us have to be so PC all the time? Can we have some more characters like Canach? More flawed leaders that make mistakes? Add a little colour to the story.

We do have less than perfect people alongside us all the time. They get better over time, though.

Shiren.9532:

When two characters of opposite genders were juxtaposed, the Living Story usually falls on the side of the female

Except with Eir/Braham, where norn society wouldn’t care about the relationship at all. Or Rox/Rytlock, where Rox suffers having the appearance of a fangirl. (“Can I join your warband?”) Captain Magnus vs Ellen Kiel it always appears as though Magnus has the upper hand in the relationship as a mentor and supporter who has power there. Canach was winning over Ellen until outside forces got involved. Braham and his would-be sweetheart, who decided to dump him for no seemingly relevant reason.

I could get in on Logan’s stuff but the way all the story past Human Personal Story chapters one and two really don’t wind up flattering to him at all. Though to be fair, he is descended from overly-clingy Keiran Thackeray and the nutjob hothead racist who was Gwen so it’s to be expected.

Maybe it’s a good thing this thread deviated from the original topic.

So let’s get back on topic.

No-one seemed truly interested in discussing the nuances of whether or not Marjory and Kasmeer are cynically being used for sex appeal or not. Put their relationship in context of the story and other relationships (even non-romantic ones) and explain with context or examples why you think it is or isn’t.

Of course it’s got sex appeal. At least to people who see Kasmeer or Marjory as “sexy”, and I’m not really one of those. Their relationship has been downplayed through most of the content thus far, with two notable exceptions. Kasmeer being invited along to Dragon Bash with Marjory, and not seeming to have had any impact on what happened there at all . . . and this comment after the Tower collapsed which made everyone lose their flipping minds.

Both times, Marjory was relaxed and more in her element. When she’s on task, she is fiercely on task and even cautions against getting off track when scouting the Tower’s chambers if she’s present. It makes sense she wouldn’t say anything off-task to Kasmeer until it was all over . . . and making sure it was all over except the cleanup.

mesme.5028:

Go back and watch the Manifesto, forget what you know and think you know, what actually stands up in the light of day?

Forget the, oh they meant it this way, not that way, watch it and see.

Do you really want me to do this? Because I will do this and you will not like it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

So we are now insulting the fact that the game has strong female characters? I for one find it really refreshing to be playing in a world where a guy doesn’t have to be the one who figures everything out and saves the day.

Strong, but kinky female characters who admit not wearing any clothes, and who have a thing for each other.

Serious question time. If it had been a male mesmer who had said something similar, would we be having this conversation at all? Or would it never have come close to making it into the game?

To me, most of the female characters do not generally come off as strong, except for Marjory and maybe Ellen Kiel. And when a semi-lesbian relationship gets thrown in like that… it kind of feels like fan service, it really does.

I find Eir Stegalkin as a strong character who identifies as female. I find Zojja . . .

(retching noises)

. . . to have a strong characterization to her as well. A lot of the charr female characters have strong notes, like Eurayle and Rox. Kasmeer has had a consistent and definite character since I had first seen the character in Southsun. Ellen Kiel and Marjory are not the only strong female characters in the game.

Let me rephrase that, it didn’t come across as natural. It felt forced.

Of course it does. We don’t see these two when they’re “off stage”, so we don’t see what they look like “relaxed”, except for the one cinematic during Dragon Bash with Marjory. So when she finally does relax a bit enough to let something slip, it doesn’t jive with how we know her.

Paulytnz.7619:

Would a charr not feel very hungry whenever they are around Skritt? Just saying….., they should be afraid, very afraid!

Yes, the charr should be afraid. Especially if they’re carrying shinies.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Really wondering why you think the concern on “sexy pixel lesbians” is actually a real thing and not something whipped up and flogged over and over trying to make an outrage out of it.

When you have a player that is gay saying:
“I loved that an LGBT relationship was such an important part of the main story in GW2, but by adding another lesbian relationship to the “biconics” as well as the “iconics” I’m starting to think Anet is just doing it because girl on girl is hot. The only other relationship we have really seen in a major part of the game is Logan and Queen Jenna, and even then they don’t have 10% of the flirting that the 2 lesbian pairings do. Am I alone in thinking like this?”

I’m not sure why you feel the need to stress the player is gay. It doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t necessarily mean they are infallible on the topic.

Also, Logan and Jenna don’t flirt because it’s not a relationship, it’s him as her champion and wishing there was more. But, of course, there can’t be so long as she keeps finding reasons to back off and he keeps wanting to take swings at political opponents in a physical manner.

(Seriously, he does more damage than good hanging around her when she’s trying to be political.)

I think there is some credence to it.

Their orientation does not lend them authority on the topic, as not all couples and relationships are created equal. And also worth noting you have a “deadbeat mom” plot if you choose to see it that way with Eir/Braham. (I don’t subscribe to it, but it’s been brought up.)

It seemed very much like that to me & others too. The Caith Faolain things was just there. Didn’t stand out, worked with the plot. But this is like “tee hee! lesbian smexy!” It stands out even more when, like Mortifact said, The only major strait relationship is so passionless & one sided you wonder why they choose to do what.

Really? The one time it’s done it stands out like a sore thumb? And Logan/Jenna has to be a straight relationship instead of a Bodyguard Crush thing? It has to be a relationship.

tbh it also seems weird that Marjory would act in that way. that first bit you get of her is the noir feel which is more controlled & sly. Then it’s pet names, jokey, silly alliance puns & nooooo. It just kind of degenerates her character into an RP persona.

Given the untold weeks she’s had dealing with that Tower refusing to die despite many many attempts? She lets the facade slip when she gets a chance to relax and now it’s too degenerative?

Gods forbid a character can let go of their overly serious, overly dramatic persona for a minute after what had to be slightly harrowing. If she remained serious and no-nonsense, and never cracked a joke I would consider her far worse of a character. In fact, that’s about what I consider Zojja as a character, which is why I want to assign her and all the asura to be dragon-bait.

I’m so sick of the sassy jokey talk in pretty much most of the characters now. It’s all “witty” one-liners & “fun” dialog. maybe all people want is crap about “fancy panties” but I think people who went through Nightfall & watch General Morgan see his life & loyalties fold in on themselves remember better characters & stories.

Nightfall, better characters? Isn’t that the story everyone loves to crap on over Kormir being unfit to exist? Where I find Varesh being more cartoonish than Scarlet and only terrifying because she’s ruthless instead of laughing? Where we have a paint-by-numbers love triangle in Koss/Melonni/Tahlkora? Where our characters might as well not even have existed for all we actually have impact on any of the heroes’ lives?

Where we had Norgu and Goren, two of the worst examples of cliche and buffoonish characters even including all of GW2?

Rym.1469:

PEGI 12 of Guild Wars 2 allows for something more than unicorns, rainbow, fairies and poor Scarlet plot and character.

Really looking for those fairies. I could use some of the Fair Folk (the original type stuff, not whimsical giggly stuff) around here. Also, unicorns and rainbows figure into one legendary and I figure part of that was just because it was silly.

We deserve something more about our next Living Story/Personal Story companions.

We don’t deserve it, we request it.

The main concern about them shouldn’t be if they’re sexy pixel lesbians or not. The concern should be:
Did I make a good choice? Was it the best way? What can I expect from that guy? He’s a murderer, but he wants to help. What are the consequences?

Really wondering why you think the concern on “sexy pixel lesbians” is actually a real thing and not something whipped up and flogged over and over trying to make an outrage out of it.

You have a point in there needs to be some weight to the story going on here. Your presentation of the point needs some work. Death, torment, and malaise aren’t needed. What is needed is a feeling this has an impact. Flame and Frost managed to hit that somewhat well, the next chapter worked mostly okay with the “morally ambiguous sides” thing.

We’ll see what they do with Scarlet as they pull into the final chapters. I’ll tear it apart only once it’s finished.

Lord Kuru.3685:

If the same people who wrote the previous chapters wrote the finale, there’s no chance it’ll be good.

But the real problem is that Anet actually thinks the story is great but that it hasn’t been delivered properly (and having story and game features in the same patch confuses players LOL!!).

If they can’t tell good stories from bad, there’s really no hope.

Their story did suffer because it hasn’t been delivered well. (I don’t want to use the word “properly” – it was intended to be released this way, and that turned into a disservice.)

Their story suffered more because there wasn’t enough story bits included to really telegraph or suggest any kind of continuity of world between one part and the next except for what was actually important. Southsun’s refugees stopped being a “thing” after Last Stand at Southsun, for instance. The trade negotiations with the Zephyrites still haven’t been talked about even to go “they’re still ongoing”.

At the very least the Tower of Nightmares and its associated parts seemed far better than the stuff preceding it because something was telegraphed, it was paced so people didn’t have to rush the content, and there were actually some fun/interesting things going on.

If they can put out the next run of Living Story chapters with this kind of attentiveness? I don’t think it will turn out so badly.

. . . taken on its own merits though? The writing is probably never going to make me go “awesome”. But then, very little of Guild Wars lore has . . . most of what has revolves around Pyre’s warband.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I also think maybe there’s too many people in Lion’s Arch who care about the sewer system and what’s down there. Maybe there’s some hidden scatological meaning trying to be subliminally forced upon us . . .

That’s the conclusion you come to if you don’t actually check.

Check what?

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

They equated LS to “Game of Thorns,” where the player could say, “I knew it, I beat GoT!”, but unlike GoT, any guesses, no matter how close, are no more than baseless conjecture with no means to isolate by; pure coincidence that the players fantasy should match the game’s plans, and that, is nothing to be proud of.

Ah . . . no, they didn’t equate LS to Game of Thrones (or Thorns, which would be fun if it was about Mad King Thorn and his messed up family . . . )

They compared figuring out what their twist was to figuring out something on Game of Thrones. Because much like everyone who checks Sean Bean’s filmography, everyone who plays this knows Scarlet is dying at the end of act three.

DarksunG.9537:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

So we are now insulting the fact that the game has strong female characters? I for one find it really refreshing to be playing in a world where a guy doesn’t have to be the one who figures everything out and saves the day.

So “Strong female characters” = “Women who are surrounded by inept men who they snarkily mock, insult & 1-up”? Ok.

personally, I haven’t seen what DarksunG is going on about.

Based mostly around ambient dialog.

I don’t run across that constantly enough to call it “surrounded by inept men”, unless you count the population of Lion’s Arch. Which also seems to have an inordinate amount of female characters interested in shopping, wine, and beating their husbands.

I also think maybe there’s too many people in Lion’s Arch who care about the sewer system and what’s down there. Maybe there’s some hidden scatological meaning trying to be subliminally forced upon us . . .

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Seriously? No one said storm bow?

I didn’t care for the Storm Bow, actually. More of a fan of Zodiac Longbow myself. Defaulted to the Mursaat Recurve Bow though, since I grew to like it

Bagel.4598:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Well the Golden Phoenix Blade I think . . .

Beautiful blade but so tiny.
Huge potential to make it bigger and more intricate in GW2. Good one!

I know it was tiny but I was thinking of a nice one handed sword. If two-handed swords are more your style?

- Gothic Sword
- Colossal Scimitar
- Elemental Sword
- Turai’s Sword

Try these.

Well the Golden Phoenix Blade I think . . .

Ashen.2907:

Sorry, that was a reference to leveling up to get to level gated content. I absolutely love GW2’s financial model.

Can’t attest to level gating, I’m still having Everquest flashbacks when people talk about that sort of thing.

Of course, it still has almost nothing on “omg wtf” experiences of console RPGs in that score Mmm, the first time in Dragon Warrior when I went too far north and had a Magician shove a hand down my throat and show me my pancreas.

Well . . . there’s a difference between “strong female character” and “why do they have male characters, anyway?” . . . personally, I haven’t seen what DarksunG is going on about.

Though this can be cut by 50% if we simply eliminated all asura females. Starting with Zojja.

Ashen.2907:

Behellagh.1468:

And that isn’t different than every other MMO once the new MMO smell wears off how?

It isn’t any different. That was part of my point.

Well it is different in one case, which is why I came in the first place to ANet’s games: I don’t have to pay $##/mo to play, nor get “nickel and dimed” on microtransactions to “stay in the game”.

Mmm, yeah, not touching this topic any further than this post. It should be noted as a ranger who has weighed my play and skill level, and uses PVT (Soldier) gear to avoid getting knocked around pretty harshly . . .

But, according to those in the know, I have no place in the game at all.

Mungrul.9358:

Yeah, it’s really just tongue-in-cheek commentary on gear tiers and how hypocritical they are.

Don’t see that from the short bit you posted, could you elaborate please?

We had this, it was Magic Find gear.

People didn’t like it.

Galen Grey.4709:

@Tobias Trueflight

The story isnt the problem, you can do any story with any system you choose. But take your awesome progression of events and think how it would play out using the various systems.

I have thought about it, I’m a tabletop gamer and currently a GM coming off a hiatus. I work with a lot of different methods of moving plot pieces around and pacing it.

Traditional quests:

These are incredibly easy to implement, and don’t need to actually impact anything until a major revision of an area. Usually around an expansion’s release date when you would plan the Battle of Lion’s Arch as a server-wide GM Event where a few players would take away some sweet unique loot off the leaders before there was a talk about the coronation event next weekend.

Instancing

Note, my experience with Instancing is almost entirely defined in how GW1 would handle its zones outside of the city. I did not play World of Warcraft where it was possible.

But the notes of the “shortcoming” of Salma never proceeding and the story never going anywhere? Lots of people don’t mind that, and in fact would cherish being able to take it at their own pacing. This has been said quite often.

Gw2 way you can have it play out as it should.

I would hope so since that’s how I modeled my whole little write up, how it would work within the systems we have right now.

Phasing would be akin to instancing but offers more multiplayer feel even though it would be worst then living story as it would fracture the players based on the different stage of story. If there are 15 missions in the storyline then thats 15 ways you’re going to split your players which is far from ideal.

Well until you have a major update/expansion then you could arbitrarily change things like you could in the above “Traditional Quest” method.

mesme.5028:

I’m not being funny but i struggle to see anything, take away the lore and the name, what in gw2 reminds you of gw1? what did we get?

Strip the name off and the lore, and what in this game reminds me of the previous one? How deep do we strip the lore, I mean, does me having nostalgia on visiting the ruins of Droknar’s Forge count as “lore” to be taken away?

All the classes had their functions and feel changed. Even Warrior.

Guilds remain, but the Alliance system is gone in favor of trying to make Guilds stronger than “a tag and a cape”, while integrating Guild Halls into the buffs you can call on.

The PvP I stuck my head in briefly felt like Random Arenas mixed with Codex Arena; I had no control over who I got paired with and we all get the same pool of skills to work from similar to Codex Arena. Nothing like Jade Quarry (thank the Six) or Fort Aspenwood (. . . aww), no Alliance Battles or Guild Battles.

The Trait system reminds me of the Attribute system from release (including effort needed to buyback/reset).

So if you were to rip out the lore and file off the name, it plays like a different game. I don’t consider this a complete loss as I barely touched most of the options which got lost. I understand a lot of people had a love for these things but I wasn’t one of them.

Sorry. If we want to talk about what GW1 was to me, it was this:

I can pick it up when I feel like playing and go have some fun messing around in the areas without needing to worry about farming specific drops. Without needing to worry about getting X people together to go camp a rare spawn or an experience farm. I can join in some random people doing something or I can just fool around alone. And I’m not paying $30/month to do so.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . I find it highly likely some thing will be involved in Scarlet’s last four updates.

The deep voice over during the trailer makes me think that perhaps they will give us a hint of something new at the end of it all. But so far nothing hints at any of the established baddies.

Another thing I wanted to bring up, is the new bosses. There’s not just the giant watchwork knight, but the trailer also shows us a new Wurm Boss in Bloodtide Coast. Is this wurm in any way linked to Scarlet’s activities? Did the thumpers perhaps bring this creature to the surface?

It’s not explicitly stated from ANet that is the case from what I recall, but it either said by third parties or inferred.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think at this point we have very little reason to assume the involvement of the Elder Dragons, or Abaddon (because he’s dead!), or Menzies (because he’s never mentioned), or Dhuum (whose fate is uncertain at this point), or any other outside influence. If they haven’t involved them up to this point, I find it very unlikely that they’ll suddenly be thrown into the story near the end of Scarlet’s living story arc.

. . . I find it highly likely some thing will be involved in Scarlet’s last four updates.

Morrigan.2809:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Morrigan.2809:

Just curious- why do people seem to think that something will happen to Kasmeer?

She scratched herself in the Tower and began acting a little . . . off.

meh- not a great fan of Asura’s in general but I would like it if Canach came back- I have always rather liked him

They have said there are “plans” for Canach. And I’d like him back too.

ahh thanks I missed that particular update- was off doing other things- now of course I am sorry and I like Kasmeer as the kind of perfect dumb blonde caricature, which she is not- I take it as a mask she wears :p

It’s somewhat obvious she is not nearly a dumb blonde airhead. She has hidden depths, and some cunning to her. After all, she is a mesmer.

Morrigan.2809:

Just curious- why do people seem to think that something will happen to Kasmeer?

She scratched herself in the Tower and began acting a little . . . off.

meh- not a great fan of Asura’s in general but I would like it if Canach came back- I have always rather liked him

They have said there are “plans” for Canach. And I’d like him back too.

Chuo.4238:

My suggestion to ArenaNet (if you want me and people like me back):

Make this patch big, something completely special, and overhaul this annoying, grindy, OCD game. And then SELL it. And I don’t mean something like that pie-in-the-sky Manifesto that’s vague and misleading.

You know it’s very likely this next patch is all done and just being bug-fixed? What you want to hold out for as being “big and completely special” is stuff one or two down the line. Stuff which there’s time to tweak and alter.

Your PR is terrible. Fix THAT, and regain the trust of your former customers, if you can.

I don’t know if there’s “fixing that” since it’s not their PR which is terrible. It’s there’s more people actively working to cast everything they do as sinister and money-grubbing while Anet just goes “. . . really?” and ignores it.

I don’t want the message to be “shut up, we don’t want you” or “we’re going to ignore you til you go away”.

I want the message to be “then help us try to get to where you think the game should be”.

Galen Grey.4709:

That was the advantage of having the game instanced. You have two types of MMOs those who really change as the story flows and those who just tell you that things have changed but nothing actually does. Gw and Gw2 were of the first kind. There are different ways how you can make that change happen, By actually reflecting the change in the world or by phasing it. Imagine if the original Gw was really open world how could say war on kryta worked? They couldnt make it as impact on the world the same way they could with an instance. or by taking the Gw2 approach.

Here’s the thing. It would have been entirely possible if there had been teams slowly working an evolving War in Kryta through all the years of other releases. Factions released and there would be rising tensions with the Shining Blade. Evennia is seen leaving as well as a mysterious necromancer we hadn’t met before.

Nightfall comes out, and after fighting off the incursion into the real workd in Kryta there’s talk of the White Mantle’s grip faltering more and more with these attacks. The Shining Blade are planning on fully seizing Lion’s Arch at last with the support of the Lionguard so they can present Princess Salma to the people and prepare for coronation.

Eye of the North, the earthquakes open into the Depths and the Shining Blade get to work defending the city from destroyers occasionally boiling out of the depths. The White Mantle spend their time gathering their forces, having eerily gone silent. (Little is it known they also have their hands full.) After the Ebon Vanguard is rescued, Evennia arrives pleading for help, but once seeing the threat of the destroyers offers to stay and help if Captain Langmar helps her get an audience with King Adelbern.

After the Great Destroyer is ended, Captain Langmar leaves Gwen in charge as she goes south to Ascalon. Keiran takes the Ebon Falcons south to Kryta as a “scouting party” and gets involved a little too deep. The White Mantle sees the city as weakened and ripe following the destroyer’s end and now employs mercenary “Peacekeepers” to start cowing villages into submission with steady pushes towards Lion’s Arch.

Battle lines start to get drawn and defense preparations are made. Livia comes with Gadd’s research and Zinn in tow to forge some sort of wide-area defense against the mursaat’s Spectral Agony. The Ebon Falcons lose track of Keiran in a rush to secure siege defenses and rally the Ascalonian Settlement defenders on the strength of a promise from Princess Salma to legitimize them as Krytan citizens able to claim all rights and services the crown offers . . . if they stand defending Lion’s Arch in its time of need.

All this culminates in a siege and push into the city where the leadership of the White Mantle throws themselves into the fray and does incredible damage . . . and yet fails, the mercenaries surrendering to beg for mercy as the White Mantle flees west into the jungle swearing vengeance. In the aftermath, bittersweet news as nobody can locate Keiran, Captain Langmar, or Evennia . . . even as the coronation of Queen Salma is now set to happen and order is restored to Kryta to signal an end to an era of intense chaos.