150 replies to this topic

[draxynnic]

Sword Hammer Axe, on 12 December 2012 - 10:09 PM, said:

But we can be sure that the Charr had the lands before the humans at least.

True, but taking it off someone else means they don't have the moral high ground that they've been claiming (and that people have been claiming for them). I've seen a few people comparing the conquest of Ascalon to the Europeans (humans) conquering the Americas (the poor charr!), but it's more like the British and French fighting over North America while the natives (the grawl) get disposessed regardless.

[Sword Hammer Axe]

draxynnic, on 12 December 2012 - 11:10 PM, said:

True, but taking it off someone else means they don't have the moral high ground that they've been claiming (and that people have been claiming for them). I've seen a few people comparing the conquest of Ascalon to the Europeans (humans) conquering the Americas (the poor charr!), but it's more like the British and French fighting over North America while the natives (the grawl) get disposessed regardless.

Moral high ground in war is a hard thing to come by in war. When you've effectively taken over a piece of land and have held it for a period of time, can you then call it yours and refuse to give it back to the natives? It would seem the right thing to do, but then there's the settler's argument of nativity over time. The "sorry we/our ancestors took your land in the past, but do you really want to do the same thing to us now that we've recognised it as our home?" argument.

You could say that the Charr were doing evil for taking over Grawl territory, but notice how none of the races had helped the Charr. When the Charr then clashed with the Forgotten, the Humans entered the war themself and took over the Charr territory, meaning they didn't take it back for the Grawl, but took it over for themself in a different war. Then the Humans suddenly have the settler's argument and the Charr the native's.

Meanwhile, the Grawl are just standing cute and fuzzy on the sidelines, being pushed around by all the races. Or are they? I noticed in Guild Wars 1 that the Charr had several Grawl companions in Ascalon. Is this because the Charr actually made alliances with the Grawl? So how hostile was the Charr takeover really? On the other hand, even if the takeover wasn't hostile, it could easily have been a question of manipulation, seeing as the Grawl are known to take in anything as their deities. This is a little beside the point, but does serve to show that there can easily be a little more depth to these takeovers than just plan old racism... specicism?

Anyways, as you say, it's sort of like the French vs. the British. They both claim God and Good, but they both have skeletons in their closet as well. Moral high ground is something this sort of conflict doesn't contain much of in the long run. The moral high ground imo would be the alliances and treaties they attempt to create in GW2.

[Evans]

lmaonade, on 12 December 2012 - 10:58 PM, said:

While I don't agree that the other races are 1 dimensional and should be axed, I do agree that Anet has spread themselves too thin. GW1 weaved the lore (read: lore, not just backstory) into it's campaigns quite often and quite well, I feel as if that's totally missing in GW2 (with the exception of Arah exploration), all of it is just current events from a narrow perspective, we don't get to see what's happening with the world or the what happened with the world. Most of the historical lore you can find in GW2 is housed in the Durmand Priory, in text, instead of written into the game more interactively, that's pretty poor effort imo :\ Arenanet has spread itself too thin with all these races, and gave them (and the world for that matter) very little depth.

I disagree. The lore is there, it's just not force fed to you as it was in GW1.
You need to travel the world, find lost journals, overhear random town chatter etc. There is much and more to be learned, but it's all over the world. The most juicy bits are in Arah and the priory, I agree, but then again that's to be expected.

Halloween gave us a nice bit on the Mad King. I'm hoping Wintersday will have some intersting lore as well (preferably on Dwayna and Grenth).

[Gorwe]

CalmLittleBuddy, on 11 December 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

Elves were not even close to perfect. They shed more of their own blood than any other race over some silly stones one of them made. They routinely slaughtered dwarves and even humans in conquest during the 1st and 2nd age. They were incredibly cruel and completely indifferent to the sufferings of men at the end of the 3rd age. They sent some small force as a show, but most were creeping out the back door on boats, hell with Middle Earth, off to paradise!!!!

Why am I being a lore monger about Tolkien on a GW2 board? I have no clue. Knee jerk reflex. Sorry...

Are you talking about Noldors or about Warhammer High Elves? It sounds like the latter...

[Lordkrall]

Gorwe, on 13 December 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

Are you talking about Noldors or about Warhammer High Elves? It sounds like the latter...

Sounds like Noldor to me ^^

But then again Warhammer is quite known for stealing ideas from already existing stories (especially Lord of the Rings and Starship Troopers ^^)

[raspberry jam]

Briar, on 11 December 2012 - 06:36 PM, said:

I guess you can wait for GW3...

• The whole game will take place during the actual guild wars
  
• You will be able to visit pre-searing Ascalon and Orr before it sunk.
  
• Kryta will not be taken over by Ascalonians and as such will maintain their unique culture - facepaint and all
  
• The whole game will be a giant WvWvW with the three factions being Ascalon, Orr and Kryta
  
• Humans will be the only race allowing for in depth storytelling and a wide variety of armor skins as the devs will not have to code for other races (I mean 80% of the players rolled humans in GW2 anyway)
  
• The old skill system will be used; stapled on to GW2's action combat creating a high depth combat system
  
• Monks complete with protective spirit so that the combat itself stays organized and not zergy

/dream

I would play this game.

[CalmLittleBuddy]

Gorwe, on 13 December 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

Are you talking about Noldors or about Warhammer High Elves? It sounds like the latter...

Feanor and his brothers, mostly. Tolkien stuff was the topic.

[raspberry jam]

Feathermoore, on 11 December 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

I just want the bloodstones back...

This, basically. But not just this. It's obviously too late now, but I would want the GW2 lore to have kept building on the GW1 lore instead of just starting over (and doing everything as generic as possible). GW2 could have been about how the mursaat were coming back or how things from DoA started creeping out again or whatever... But no, instead ANet had to invent huge dragons that threaten the world. It's not that we didn't get new things every time in GW1 expansion... It's that that was ok because we travelled to a whole new continent. Also, Nightfall saw old enemies come back from the dead (though I guess they were still dead, and Shiro was dead even in Factions, and so was, of course, the lich... hmm).

Yes, there are reused parts of GW1 lore, such as the dredge and so on... But they're too unimportant, being totally dwarfed especially by the dragons. I suspect that Trahearne was put in the game partially because it would not be credible to let the players fight Zhaitan head on.

Also the charr were far more interesting when they were brute but sentient enemies, instead of being hairy catfaced humans like they are now.

[Gorwe]

Lordkrall, on 13 December 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

Sounds like Noldor to me ^^

But then again Warhammer is quite known for stealing ideas from already existing stories (especially Lord of the Rings and Starship Troopers ^^)

Well, not quite. They referenced it as an Influence and nothing is stolen. Both sides had to agree for it to be named "Influence"...

Plus, Noldor and Caledorians and Nagarytheans are ALL just big sacks of pride(which basically stems from nothing). Pride because of pride I say

[Konig Des Todes]

raspberry jam, on 13 December 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

I would want the GW2 lore to have kept building on the GW1 lore instead of just starting over (and doing everything as generic as possible).

They wanted to tell new stories, but they didn't start over - there's just a new focus.

Truth be told, I'd be bored as * of the lore if it just continued focusing on mursaat and demons. At least they're still expanding the lore behind the gods, charr, centaurs, and so forth.

And I disagree with the charr being "hair catfaced humans" - but if you want to get technical, you can say that *any* fantasy race is like a remodeled human, because these things get inspired by ancient human societies. You either have nothing on them (gw1 charr, Prophecies centaurs, Prophecies tengu, heket, etc.) or they're going to draw inspirations from old societies - and I'd prefer the later than just fighting a bunch of what's effectively wildlife while being told "they're actual societies!" Even if they don't go too in depth (yet), at least the minor races in GW2 have a culture to them.

[Bohya]

I like the new races. The only thing I dislike about them is that most of the armours only look good on norn or humans.

Oh yeah... and I'd gladly exchange asura for dwarves...

[raspberry jam]

Konig Des Todes, on 13 December 2012 - 08:23 PM, said:

They wanted to tell new stories, but they didn't start over - there's just a new focus.

Truth be told, I'd be bored as * of the lore if it just continued focusing on mursaat and demons. At least they're still expanding the lore behind the gods, charr, centaurs, and so forth.

And I disagree with the charr being "hair catfaced humans" - but if you want to get technical, you can say that *any* fantasy race is like a remodeled human, because these things get inspired by ancient human societies. You either have nothing on them (gw1 charr, Prophecies centaurs, Prophecies tengu, heket, etc.) or they're going to draw inspirations from old societies - and I'd prefer the later than just fighting a bunch of what's effectively wildlife while being told "they're actual societies!" Even if they don't go too in depth (yet), at least the minor races in GW2 have a culture to them.

They can expand on anything as much as they want, but what they shouldn't do is to throw away existing lore. Were you "bored" when Shiro appeared in Nightfall?

Correct, any fantasy race that are close enough to humans for us to identify with them are remodeled humans, or more commonly, involuntary caricatures of certain facets of humanity. That is why they either should remain as they were in GW1, or feel rather alien to us, instead of familiar.

[Tregarde]

I think part of the problem is that some people are comparing the amount of lore from the original Guild Wars, which has been around several years and had four campaigns (if you count EotN as a campaign) to build on.

GW2 has only been around a few months and as such only has one campaign.

When you take that into consideration, I would argue that GW2 has MORE lore than any single campaign from the original game. Yeah, there are gaps that could use some filling, some things that need to be developed more, but there is a wealth of lore for anyone who is interested to study. And hopefully ArenaNet will fill in those gaps and bring a little more depth to GW2 as time goes on.

[Konig Des Todes]

raspberry jam, on 14 December 2012 - 11:03 AM, said:

They can expand on anything as much as they want, but what they shouldn't do is to throw away existing lore. Were you "bored" when Shiro appeared in Nightfall?

Correct, any fantasy race that are close enough to humans for us to identify with them are remodeled humans, or more commonly, involuntary caricatures of certain facets of humanity. That is why they either should remain as they were in GW1, or feel rather alien to us, instead of familiar.

Where are they throwing away existing lore? The only thing I could see to consider such would be the history of the Bloodstone - and depending on how it turns out, the origin of the Forgotten. They've continued on Abaddon, on the mursaat, on the charr, the Searing, the Guild Wars, and so forth - sure, we haven't gotten new Margonite, Warden, naga, etc. stuff but they're from other continents so that makes sense.

No I wasn't bored when Shiro re-appeared in Nightfall because that was still part of the same storyline; the storyline ended with Nightfall, and in Nightfall Shiro wasn't the primary focus whereas that's what you're seeming to want in GW2 - for the primary focus to remain on the mursaat and demons.

And by "remain as they were in GW1" you mean "hold no depth, culture, or quality making the only uniqueness to them their appearance and name"? Because if so, no thank you.

[Dasryn]

personally i think the elder dragon focus is the best ive seen in a game.  nothing beats having a common enemy to unite against.

its the stuff of legends, where tales of camaraderie and heroism are made.

[Red J]

The focus on Elder Dragons is good, yes. Just absolutely terribly executed in game.

[Konig Des Todes]

I wouldn't say that it's "absolutely terribly executed" - not flawless by any means, but certainly not terrible. Only the end fight with Zhaitan (and just the fight with Zhaitan himself, not the before stuff in the dungeon) can hold that candle.

[raspberry jam]

Konig Des Todes, on 14 December 2012 - 06:00 PM, said:

Where are they throwing away existing lore? The only thing I could see to consider such would be the history of the Bloodstone - and depending on how it turns out, the origin of the Forgotten. They've continued on Abaddon, on the mursaat, on the charr, the Searing, the Guild Wars, and so forth - sure, we haven't gotten new Margonite, Warden, naga, etc. stuff but they're from other continents so that makes sense.

No I wasn't bored when Shiro re-appeared in Nightfall because that was still part of the same storyline; the storyline ended with Nightfall, and in Nightfall Shiro wasn't the primary focus whereas that's what you're seeming to want in GW2 - for the primary focus to remain on the mursaat and demons.

And by "remain as they were in GW1" you mean "hold no depth, culture, or quality making the only uniqueness to them their appearance and name"? Because if so, no thank you.

Thank you for naming two direct examples of where they are throwing away lore... Not to mention, of course, that the appearance of so much new lore dwarfs the importance of existing such. It's the same thing that happens when you oversaturate any setting.

Anyway, why would Shiro be part of the Nightfall storyline but not the GW2 one? Shiro lived long before the Factions story took place and is probably still "alive" somewhere. No, by the way, not too keen on demons and stuff, but replace the dragons with the mursaat and we're talking. Or hey, why not let the mursaat be on our side, fighting those Cthulian "creatures of malice and shade" - oh wait, I forgot, they reused their name for a *ing shield. And speaking of mursaat, how come spectral agony isn't their thing anymore? Oh wait, my mistake, it's just "agony" nowadays, nevermind that it's still fought using infusions.

No they are absolutely not *ing up the lore. Not until the Cantha expansion, when instead of letting us play ritualists, they'll have a spaceship (bearing one of the two new races, the other one being Canthan goblins - didn't you know that Cantha has goblins?) crash in mother*ing Ferndale. Because that worked out for the competitor.

The charr (for example) could have culture, but if so, make it alien to ours. If that isn't possible (due to writer incompetence or similar), then yes, let them remain the unknown enemy. Because anything else is bad writing.

[BuddhaKeks]

raspberry jam, on 17 December 2012 - 10:22 AM, said:

Thank you for naming two direct examples of where they are throwing away lore... Not to mention, of course, that the appearance of so much new lore dwarfs the importance of existing such. It's the same thing that happens when you oversaturate any setting.

Anyway, why would Shiro be part of the Nightfall storyline but not the GW2 one? Shiro lived long before the Factions story took place and is probably still "alive" somewhere. No, by the way, not too keen on demons and stuff, but replace the dragons with the mursaat and we're talking. Or hey, why not let the mursaat be on our side, fighting those Cthulian "creatures of malice and shade" - oh wait, I forgot, they reused their name for a *ing shield. And speaking of mursaat, how come spectral agony isn't their thing anymore? Oh wait, my mistake, it's just "agony" nowadays, nevermind that it's still fought using infusions.

No they are absolutely not *ing up the lore. Not until the Cantha expansion, when instead of letting us play ritualists, they'll have a spaceship (bearing one of the two new races, the other one being Canthan goblins - didn't you know that Cantha has goblins?) crash in mother*ing Ferndale. Because that worked out for the competitor.

The charr (for example) could have culture, but if so, make it alien to ours. If that isn't possible (due to writer incompetence or similar), then yes, let them remain the unknown enemy. Because anything else is bad writing.

I doubt Shiro can come back in any form, in NF we pretty much destroyed his soul. The same applies to the Lich, they can't come back, besides it would be very lame having to fight the same villians again. Making references to them? Yes please! Have them show up again? No!

And why don't you just wait? GW1's lore content wasn't complete when the game was released, it slowly build up to the point there we are now. Give GW2 some time to do the same. Besides we already have continuation of GW1 lore with the Arah explorer paths, Halloween and the human story line (spoilers: The White Mantle is still around and you can fight them), to give you a few examples. If you didn't take the time to experience those, it's not the game's fault.

The Charr in GW1 were just a mix of generic "barbarian" races. So infact they were based on human cultures too. Now they are more fleshed out and based on different cultures, like Mongols, Romans, Spartans and Industrial Age England and Germany and a little bit communism is mixed in as well (the hate for deity's and the way they determine an individuals place in society). I fail to see how this is worse than before. They even have a little bit of cultural diversity now with the different high legions, before they were pretty much all the same.

[raspberry jam]

BuddhaKeks, on 17 December 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

I doubt Shiro can come back in any form, in NF we pretty much destroyed his soul. The same applies to the Lich, they can't come back, besides it would be very lame having to fight the same villians again. Making references to them? Yes please! Have them show up again? No!

And why don't you just wait? GW1's lore content wasn't complete when the game was released, it slowly build up to the point there we are now. Give GW2 some time to do the same. Besides we already have continuation of GW1 lore with the Arah explorer paths, Halloween and the human story line (spoilers: The White Mantle is still around and you can fight them), to give you a few examples. If you didn't take the time to experience those, it's not the game's fault.

The Charr in GW1 were just a mix of generic "barbarian" races. So infact they were based on human cultures too. Now they are more fleshed out and based on different cultures, like Mongols, Romans, Spartans and Industrial Age England and Germany and a little bit communism is mixed in as well (the hate for deity's and the way they determine an individuals place in society). I fail to see how this is worse than before. They even have a little bit of cultural diversity now with the different high legions, before they were pretty much all the same.

How do you know how souls in the GW universe is destroyed or not? Or even if the RoT is a landscape of souls, or if it actually is a physical place, with physical inhabitants? And I don't think it would be lame at all.

• Hurr Starcraft 2 is lame because zerg exists
  
• Mass Effect 2 is lame because reapers

Yeah no. I'm not saying that Shiro should show up again (the mursaat, though, yes).

Why don't I wait? Because I have seen so many game settings spiral out of control because new things are added while old things are thrown away. In particular, so many loose threads are never tied up, never spun further on. It's sad.

The GW1 charr were not a mix of generic barbarian races (there is no "generic" barbarian race; originally, the word was used for the Persian empire, but ancient Persians have quite little in common with the charr). You mean that they represented a generic enemy on the borders, which they did, but nothing says that that enemy needs to be human. When you let subpar writers give human values to every single charr character, make them make typically human jokes, and so on, that's when they become human.
Hating deities has nothing to do with communism (communism embraces materialist atheism, but says nothing about hating the deities that it doesn't even encourage belief in, and would certainly not say anything about such hate in Tyria, where the deities there provably exist), it's there so that the charr will appeal to edgy teenagers.

Anyway, none of that matters: you say that you fail to see how this is worse than before. It is worse because they are cat faced, furry humans, instead of being an unique species. Note that I'm not saying "race", because who the * call a species a race anyway. Can they mate with other "races" like humans or asura? No (I hope, for sanity's sake). Thus they are a species. They should be as alien to us as a cat is to a monkey. And for quite some time in GW1, they were.

[Konig Des Todes]

Why would Shiro be in GW2? He's not related to Tyria, nor is he related to the plot of GW2 (main or side), and he's in the afterlife and we don't go to the Realm of Torment (assuming that souls survive death, which all indications of the Underworld quests show that's not the case - souls only survive death if they're killed outside the afterlife by all indications). All I'm seeing from you at this point is complaints about "why do they have to continue the story? I don't want them to continue the story!" And your complaints about the mursaat are unfounded given: 1) they'll likely return in the future given all the hints to them, and 2) "Agony" != "Spectral Agony"

What I'm seeing from your post can be restated back in 2006 with "why did they go to a new content and completely ignore the mursaat and white mantle and charr? Why did they throw away that lore!?" Same damn argument, same damn pointlessness. No lore is thrown away - it's all still there, and they can return to focus on the White Mantle/Mursaat in the future like you oh so dearly want. In fact, if you actually paid attention to the lore, you'd see that it's damn highly likely given how intricately woven the bandits' lore is. If you actually pay attention, you'll see that your complaints are all pointless.

[draxynnic]

In fact, I would venture so far as to say that focusing back on the mursaat right away would be more of a slap in the face to old fans. Ascalon falling to the charr despite all our efforts to protect it was bad enough, but having the first thing we do in GW2 being facing the mursaat again in full strength, when the initial GW1 release was defeating the mursaat and the last update in Tyria was about mopping up the remnants would be saying even more that everything we did in GW1 was pointless.

Instead, what they seem to be doing is laying the groundwork so that the mursaat can come back as more than just Lazarus without invalidating what we did in Prophecies and War in Kryta. We've got the indication that the mursaat had been hiding out in another phase of reality for a long period of time - that opens up the possibility that not all their population returned to Tyria, and that there may be some remaining 'out of phase' to play a role later for good (those remaining may not be as militant as those we fought in Prophecies) or ill. Of course, they technically could have thrown that at us right away, but without having first-hand knowledge of the threats that forced them to go out of phase in the first place, and without having the foreshadowing in general, it would have appeared rather contrived.

[BuddhaKeks]

raspberry jam, on 17 December 2012 - 06:05 PM, said:

How do you know how souls in the GW universe is destroyed or not? Or even if the RoT is a landscape of souls, or if it actually is a physical place, with physical inhabitants? And I don't think it would be lame at all.

• Hurr Starcraft 2 is lame because zerg exists
  
• Mass Effect 2 is lame because reapers

Yeah no. I'm not saying that Shiro should show up again (the mursaat, though, yes).

Why don't I wait? Because I have seen so many game settings spiral out of control because new things are added while old things are thrown away. In particular, so many loose threads are never tied up, never spun further on. It's sad.

The GW1 charr were not a mix of generic barbarian races (there is no "generic" barbarian race; originally, the word was used for the Persian empire, but ancient Persians have quite little in common with the charr). You mean that they represented a generic enemy on the borders, which they did, but nothing says that that enemy needs to be human. When you let subpar writers give human values to every single charr character, make them make typically human jokes, and so on, that's when they become human.
Hating deities has nothing to do with communism (communism embraces materialist atheism, but says nothing about hating the deities that it doesn't even encourage belief in, and would certainly not say anything about such hate in Tyria, where the deities there provably exist), it's there so that the charr will appeal to edgy teenagers.

Anyway, none of that matters: you say that you fail to see how this is worse than before. It is worse because they are cat faced, furry humans, instead of being an unique species. Note that I'm not saying "race", because who the * call a species a race anyway. Can they mate with other "races" like humans or asura? No (I hope, for sanity's sake). Thus they are a species. They should be as alien to us as a cat is to a monkey. And for quite some time in GW1, they were.

As Konig mentioned, it is stated that souls which die in the afterlife are destroyed. So yes, he is pretty much done for. The difference between Zerg, Reapers and Shiro is that there are whole bunch of Zerg/Reapers but only one Shiro. Having to fight the exact same guy over and over again is pretty lame in my eyes. It means that my efforts of killing him are meaningless since he can come back when ever he wants.

I'm not against using Mursaat again, I liked them as villians and was actually disappointed that Prophecies threw them away at last minute in favor of the titans. (Showing you that besides nostalgia filter the game was not perfect) But as the main enemy? Drax already said it better than I could, everything we did in GW1 would be kinda pointless if they just could return with full strength.

Prophecies had an awful lot of loose ends. Much more than GW2 has right now, but many of them got a conclusion with later expansions, some however are still left as they are. Give the game time to deliver it's content and you will see that many of these loose ends will be tied up. And again, a lot of references to GW1 are already in the game, you just have to take the time to look for them.

I'm aware that there is not the babarian race, hence the " ". I am also aware of the roots, it describes people who can't speak greek, therefore you only understand "bar bar" (the noise a sheep makes) when they talk. As I said I actually think they are more generic and human in GW1 than in 2, where they are actually a mix of many different cultures. I'm also aware that communism isn't about hating gods, it's still the closest allusion. But in fact that prooves my point even more, which human culture actually had a war on gods?

I'm all for uniqueness and different species being actually different, but you can only alienate them so much before you are alienating the players. You could make a culture (warning: sarcastig exaggeration ahead) were forced copulation (I hope that is pg enough) and murder are a-okay and they like to greet each other by trying to claw the others eyes out but would you like that as a human with human morals? It's possible to make alien species relatable but if you look closley, those traits that make them relatable to us humans, are always humanoid traits. I say it's pretty much impossible for a human to make a race 100% unhuman. You will always have to settle for something that is close enough. In GW2's case that may be the Sylvari. See if you like them. If they aren't alien enough for you, write anet a mail, maybe they'll think you are onto something. Good luck with that if you try.

I for one stop having this argument with you, as I think you already have made up your mind and nothing I say could convince you of my point and pretty much nothing you say could convince me of yours. Have a nice day.

[Kid]

This is one thing I absolutely despise about prequels in any shapes or forms. Something or someone are "doomed by canon". No matter what you do, in the end, it means absolutely nothing. Human glorious(?) civilization(s) has(ve) almost been undone by this point of the game (It may survives into a community blended with several species, but that does not mean a bad thing). Just lay the ghost to rest, I would say.

At the very least the story that moves towards future is somewhat mutable, not that perfect but it will give us a chance that we can be part of those who shape it. Still, the way "our" story goes in this game is not so much of showing how much we can influence the future  when it is so full of designated Mary Sue (sorry, just ONE is already too much for me) and unnecessary glory hounds that took the credit while they did almost nothing if we really look into it (which we already saw them several times before when it was about human only (Rurik, Adelbern, Mhenlo, Kormir, Gwen. just to state the most obvious)).

Edited by Kid, 18 December 2012 - 04:30 AM.

[Miragee]

While I'm not feeling they could remove the dragons from the lore anymore until now I find them quiet boring. But that's mostly because of the extremly dumbed done story line. Let's be real. The story line isn't a line. It's a bunch of cracked story pieces that also contain 90% filling elements. How is that a good story? I hope they will get rid of the "branching" and write one amazing story like in gw1. I played each chapter of guild wars 1 mutiple times (factions alone more than 20 times) and enjoyed it every time I did, because the story was very well written. In GW2 it's just, go there, blabla, kill xx undead's, go there, help the ogers by killing 10 goars (warhounds in fact...), thats filling material, standard mmo grind quests... Not story. Please anet, please go back to gw1 style story in the future since I can't even motivate myself to play the story a third time.

On another note: I saw Stormcaller a few weeks ago by wandering around in the black citadel and it's...tiny? Did you remind how big it was in gw1? How to the hell did it change it's size so hard?

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

On the contrary, I don't think Raspberry Jam (and other's complaints) are at all pointless. If anything, it highlights a particularly pertinent point that in my opinion IS valid criticism. These cultures that are introduced in GW2, in their current form, gives the player an impression that they're playing nothing but caricatures of archetypes at best, and different sized humans at worst. Whether or not the person reading this comment agrees with it, the fact that enough people have commented on this issue in one form or another suggests that they really didn't do as good of a job as some would have liked.

No one complained about the pop-up text bubbles in GW1. Someone over on 2ch did a data-mining of all the text available in GW2 and determined that it was something like 1/8th of what was available in Prophecies alone (that is, not counting in EOTN). Even if you don't believe this, the fact that most of GW2 lore is diffuse and given in very, very small tidbits doesn't really deliver as coherent of a story as what they could have done. The lack of proper development, in addition to the format of the presentation, makes the complaints here very legitimate in my opinion, and while I don't think my (and those of the others here) opinion necessarily has to be the right one, it certainly shouldn't be called wrong.

Though, honestly? I think they have bigger things to worry about than lore at the moment. Considering how increasingly their targeted demographic wants "fun", I think lore's only the first thing on the chopping block. The best example of this actually comes from League of Legends - their journal of justice haven't had an update in six months, and most new characters introduced have had their backstory stripped to a minimum. Personally, I see GW2 going the same way, though a little part of me still remember fondly the Anet who made the Tattered Girl's Cape and the tapestry shards relevant.

Edited by Steadfast Gao Shun, 18 December 2012 - 10:41 PM.

[Kurr]

Honestly I 100% agree that lore in Guild Wars is VASTLY superior to the one in Guild Wars 2.

Gone are the days of wondering just exactly what Glint is, what those giant statues in the Crystal Desert are, what the other god's realms look like, etc.

Don't get me wrong, Guild Wars 2 is a ton of fun. But as far as atmosphere and lore, it's not even comparable to Guild Wars.

[Lordkrall]

Kurr, on 18 December 2012 - 10:44 PM, said:

Honestly I 100% agree that lore in Guild Wars is VASTLY superior to the one in Guild Wars 2.

Gone are the days of wondering just exactly what Glint is, what those giant statues in the Crystal Desert are, what the other god's realms look like, etc.

Don't get me wrong, Guild Wars 2 is a ton of fun. But as far as atmosphere and lore, it's not even comparable to Guild Wars.

Oh, so you already know exactly what the Steam Creatures are?
What the Elder Dragons ACTUALLY are and why they are here, if they have a leader and so on?

There are just as much if not more "mysteries" in GW2 than it was in all GW1 games combined.

[BuddhaKeks]

Steadfast Gao Shun, on 18 December 2012 - 10:39 PM, said:

On the contrary, I don't think Raspberry Jam (and other's complaints) are at all pointless. If anything, it highlights a particularly pertinent point that in my opinion IS valid criticism. These cultures that are introduced in GW2, in their current form, gives the player an impression that they're playing nothing but caricatures of archetypes at best, and different sized humans at worst. Whether or not the person reading this comment agrees with it, the fact that enough people have commented on this issue in one form or another suggests that they really didn't do as good of a job as some would have liked.

No one complained about the pop-up text bubbles in GW1. Someone over on 2ch did a data-mining of all the text available in GW2 and determined that it was something like 1/8th of what was available in Prophecies alone (that is, not counting in EOTN). Even if you don't believe this, the fact that most of GW2 lore is diffuse and given in very, very small tidbits doesn't really deliver as coherent of a story as what they could have done. The lack of proper development, in addition to the format of the presentation, makes the complaints here very legitimate in my opinion, and while I don't think my (and those of the others here) opinion necessarily has to be the right one, it certainly shouldn't be called wrong.

Though, honestly? I think they have bigger things to worry about than lore at the moment. Considering how increasingly their targeted demographic wants "fun", I think lore's only the first thing on the chopping block. The best example of this actually comes from League of Legends - their journal of justice haven't had an update in six months, and most new characters introduced have had their backstory stripped to a minimum. Personally, I see GW2 going the same way, though a little part of me still remember fondly the Anet who made the Tattered Girl's Cape and the tapestry shards relevant.

Well if you only glance at the very basics then yes Norn are nothing more than big humans and Sylvari are nothing more than tree elves, Asura are long eared gnomes and Charr are orcs with fur (which they pretty much were in Prophecies imo). Again, if the player doesn't take the time to look at the lore it will appear as if there is none.

Actually a lot of my guild mates sadly had no idea how much lore there was in GW1. They blazed through the story without reading and skipping all the cut scenes. Whenever I bring lore up to them they respond at best with "What the hell are you talking about? This game has a story?" So I'm asking you what's the point of thousands of speech bubbles when at least 50% of the players don't read them at all. I believe you that GW2 has a lot less pop-up texts, but you know what it has? A truck load of voice acting. And I think this is a much better way to convey the lore to the average player.

For lore hounds there is still a lot to find and speculate about. If it's less, then for 2 reasons. 1) the game is just released for a few month with just 3 content updates released (with 1 of it being a continuation of the beloved GW1 lore). 2) It's more hidden in meta-events and caves that the average player will not find, or lines of dialog of NPCs sitting in the farthest corner of an outpost in Orr. It's still there but you have to dig for it. True GW1 had this hidden lore too, but again the game is out for years, pretty much every secret lore information has been gathered, while GW2 could still hold gems you don't even know about.

I never meant to say your opinion or anyone elses is wrong, I however do say that many here seem to judge the book by it's cover, complaining about lacking lore because it isn't all gathered in the wiki yet. The reason I stopped arguing with Jam was that he seemed to ignore some of my arguments entirely and I saw no point in having an argument anymore, since it's about to convince people of your views. I acknowledge his, but I don't share them and I tried to show him that there is more to the game than he might think. At the same time I admit that I couldn't be convinced of his views, since his arguments were kinda brought and generalized. It wasn't really pointing out a flaw in the game it was more complaining about how the game is different from the first one.

And to be honest, I don't see how Anets is showing signs of stepping away from how they handled lore in the past. It's just provided differenty, with less texts and more audio/visual presentation. In fact I would say the care now much more about the lore than at Prophecies times, were the PvE and the story were nothing more than a set up for the PvP. A lot in vanilla GW1 was very DnD-esque. It wasn't until Factions then the game really formed it's own identity. I still think a lot of people here have very nostalgic memories of GW1, which I have too, but they can tend to taint your view. What did Prophecies have besides countless vague references that were only made into something later?

[Kurr]

Lordkrall, on 18 December 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

Oh, so you already know exactly what the Steam Creatures are?
What the Elder Dragons ACTUALLY are and why they are here, if they have a leader and so on?

There are just as much if not more "mysteries" in GW2 than it was in all GW1 games combined.

I'm just not as interested in those questions.

Things like gods, the mist, and ancient races like the forgotten and mursaat are a lot more interesting for me than dragons. Every game has freaking dragons...