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Is Anet treating Guild Wars 1 characters fairly?


The Night Fox.6018

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I hear a lot of complaint on the story of Joko, and I'm divided. But for characters such as Koss and Livia, I find their inclusion to be on the whole a net positive.

--SPOILER--

I was genuinely surprised at Livia's reveal. Though I knew there were plenty of open ended questions about her at the end of GW1, I had not expected that this particular shining blade npc to be her.

Koss, though upset to see the buff bull-headed character I knew from GW1 to be awakened, I think a side visit and a quick boss fight was good for his stature in the original game. Not too demanding for the gw2 only players, but a quick nod.

Tahlkora was a legit sad story... and I felt upset that she was treated so harshly by the writers, but I guess to make a villain you need to break a few eggs. I just remember how we left Joko humorously trying, and failing, to command mummies. The player character going so far as to say condescendingly that we wouldn't have to worry about him for awhile. Then BAM. Joko goes ham on Elona and mutilates Tahlkora infinitely. W/e

I don't care too much about Lazarus. Never found him interesting because all he was, literally, had been a side quest.

Ogden is cool. Mentions of others were alright like Vekk in Istan, in that book, yeah. The whole Glint thing is the main drive of our current gw2 story, and she was sort of a plan-it-all person who didnt like it when you touched her eggs in gw1. I guess that is okay because she had such a short part.

Dunkoro felt stale. Then again his character in NightFall was stale. Though I imagine his impact could have been greatly improved by the accompaniment of any other hero, like General Morghan. That was a cool dude. Had what we call an "arching character development". Maybe had him and Dunkoro sitting on the desolation sands reminiscing about how much of a crazy harpy that Varesh was.

Gwen's ghost in the raiding instance, disappearing and leaving her flower, having her music play, that was a masterpiece. Best nod to GW1 in this game yet and a legit tear-jerker. Really makes true that art can exist in some fashion in video games. Overall, I say it was appropriately tasteful.

Grumby was great in the Fire Island Chain. Small part then small part now. And his dialogue associated with his hidden achievement tugs a little on the heart strings.

Woooooooo... what else is there? I know I missed a ton, but that is probably because their reappearance never left an impact. Idk. Thoughts?

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Koss, talkhora, Ogden, Livia, i feel all got at least decent treatment some more sad than others, but even the sad ones it felt nice to know they werent exactly forgotten. Ogden has had the best treatment i think, Livia and koss next inline with Talkhora i feel got treated horribly(in so far as what happened to her) but well by the game devs for the whole story behind it. Dunkoro was just..bleh to see, much like he was in GW1.

Almost forgot about Moxx, but having him brought back and basically given to the player was awesome!

Hopefully we get to see more of the heroes we knew from GW1, brought back into the game in some memorable way too.

Lazarus and joko..im unsure, Lazarus was a side quest and never a main villian so i think he was alright, same with Joko. Though i think Joko had the best and most hilarious death ive seen in this game so far. Lazaruses death was just..dull.

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@Dante.1763 said:Koss, talkhora, Ogden, Livia, i feel all got at least decent treatment some more sad than others, but even the sad ones it felt nice to know they werent exactly forgotten. Ogden has had the best treatment i think, Livia and koss next inline with Talkhora i feel got treated horribly(in so far as what happened to her) but well by the game devs for the whole story behind it. Dunkoro was just..bleh to see, much like he was in GW1.

Almost forgot about Moxx, but having him brought back and basically given to the player was awesome!

Hopefully we get to see more of the heroes we knew from GW1, brought back into the game in some memorable way too.

Lazarus and joko..im unsure, Lazarus was a side quest and never a main villian so i think he was alright, same with Joko. Though i think Joko had the best and most hilarious death ive seen in this game so far. Lazaruses death was just..dull.

I have to agree in terms of Joko and Lazarus. Joko has always been a side villain in Gw franchise, so I see it more then suitable on the amount of story we got from him. Lazarus was even worse honestly. He had a cameo in the bonus mission pack and one a small quest line that could be skipped. I keep hearing all the outrage about his character dying too soon. It seemed fair to me, given the state of the white mantle. I liked the conclusion to that Arc.

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I wish they would develop more original (highlight) characters. For all it's worth everything surrounding Scarlet was fresh and entertaining and did not need to pay any homage to GW1, it was their own pet project of grandiose that they shot down themselves by having her be an insufferable Mary Sue. Regardless, they have created a plethora of new characters with her Alliances, and there are plenty of opportunities to be had with the Largos, Quaggans and yet other creatures they might come up with.

As it is now, whatever they do with GW1 chars is either gonna be brilliant solely out of nostalgia or simply not meet any kind of standards even for newer players. E.g the White Mantle and Mursaat got an awful treatment if you look at Lazarus and Caudecus, yet the optional raid content was amazing in its own right, but could have been amazing for a standalone character as well because the capacity for development is right there inside the raid instance itself. Let us not even get started on butchering the lore of the Gods with a complete 180 on Balthazar's motives to the point we should question why didn't he side with Abbadon upfront. I mean, even Fractals have original content that could and should be expanded upon, such as the Cliffside cult surrounding the Corrupted Hammer.

It's not that they shouldn't use GW1 lore as background (it is even required since well, the world doesn't exactly become another one after a couple hundred years), but they should develop more original characters, specially villains, to plaster them over that background, instead of keep bringing back old faces that they (as admitted by Anet themselves) can't even give proper screen time to, like Joko. What happened to dragon champions? Is Kralkatorrik so dumb even after absorbing Mordremoth's magic that he can't do anything other than Shatterers? Can't Primordus and specially Jormag have a champion that will actually try to wake them up again like Scarlet once did? What about Blish's observation that we can't keep up messing with spacetime, did we not already conjure up something? I wish they would just do anything that isn't obviously nodding to GW1 while doing it halfheartedly.

EDIT: want to also point out that, when done as a minor nod to GW1, the references are awesome. Little things like finding Koss, the whole griffon sidequest, Zinn's diaries and his journey, that one little event with Oola, Olgden and basically anything that isn't putting a GW1 character under main story spotlights were brilliant and only served to enrich the GW2 lore. I still say No, however, because the wrong things are really wrong.

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What's fair got to do with it?

If a franchise re-uses characters, then I only care about three things:

  • Integration: Is it important to the story? Would it have been equally (or more) interesting if a new character was invented to fill the role? Or is it just fan service?
  • Canon: Is it true to the original character? Or does it ignore everything we already know about them?
  • Implementation: Ignoring the above, how good a job did they do? Is the character part of the fun? Is their script moving or dull? Does the voice acting make it better still or undermine the character|story?

On that basis:

  • Joko: 3 points. Definitely important to the story, true to his character, and (on the whole) more fun than using a new villain. Super fun, too; great lines and wonderfully acted.
  • Lazarus: 0 points. Fan service, not true to what we know about it, and would have been just as interesting if Balthazar had impersonated anyone else.
  • Livia: 1 point. Fan service, but true to her personality in my opinion. The actual use of her in the story? A waste (and plus: where is she now? No credit for introducing or re-introducing important characters and then ignoring them.)
  • Koss: 3 points. Well integrated to the story; it wouldn't have been the same with someone else. Fit his personality to a T. And even though I didn't love the VA, I thought they supported a good script.
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My biggest issue is for being ~250 years ago, there's a lot of people who are still around.Koss is an awakened.Dunkoro is a ghost.Tahlkora is laying around.Ogden is still living stoneGwen is a ghost.Anton is also a ghost.Livia is immortal.M.O.X. is in our home instance.

I get you want to link the two games together, but if your going to do a time skip the least you can do is honor it and leave the characters in the past. Give us books, mementos, legends, stories. Don't just make them a ghost, undead, immortal.

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The whole story about Lazarus was BS. I could not even remember the details about him from GW1 beside his threat to humanity, so this whole affair left me with the impression of an old woman who clings to life just to kill a guy that is very far from reassembling himself and is at maximum a local power player even at full power compared to other villains in GW2. Not very heroic at all.

I hated to see the former comrades of my character from GW1 degraded and humiliated this much. Of course it also makes sense from Joko to do something like that, so this is more of a personal disgust I have for characters like Joko than a full critique.

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I like seeing them again, but I don't want it to seem like we're going down the list checking off all the GW1 characters.

The only one I'm a little annoyed about is Tahlkora. We did the legwork of rebuilding the Sunspears in mainland Elona, gathered all those griffon eggs, and even went into the mists to retrieve the sacred texts. The sunspears sure have a lot time since they didn't even follow Zaeim and the Istani sunspears to help us in Kourna, so couldn't somebody have found a chair for poor Tahlkora? Just prop her up a bit instead of just standing around disrespectfully while she's lying on the floor.

Also I think the annoyance over Lazarus is more down to the handling of the Mursaat in general. When the exalted were first shown and everyone thought they were Mursaat for a while, people got excited. Would we finally get to see the fabled golden city of the Mursaat? Nope. It's just another unrelated race of spellcasters who coincidentally have wings, golden armor, and a golden city. Still it got people thinking about them, wondering what happened to them. The Mursaat had been built up to be so mysterious and then they just threw them away in the end without revealing what people actually wanted to know. Lazarus was brought back seemingly just to slam the door on all of it. There, the last Mursaat is dead, end of story, so stop asking about it.

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@Torolan.5816 said:The whole story about Lazarus was BS. I could not even remember the details about him from GW1 beside his threat to humanity, so this whole affair left me with the impression of an old woman who clings to life just to kill a guy that is very far from reassembling himself and is at maximum a local power player even at full power compared to other villains in GW2. Not very heroic at all.

I hated to see the former comrades of my character from GW1 degraded and humiliated this much. Of course it also makes sense from Joko to do something like that, so this is more of a personal disgust I have for characters like Joko than a full critique.

An obsession will do that you, especially if you have a longer life.

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It really does vary- Gwen and Saul got great treatments, Balthazar and Livia, not so much- but if I were to make a general statement, it's that the worst treatments seem to come in the stretches where they try to fit a veritable bombardment of callbacks in, while the thin scattering between those periods tend to be handled better. ANet's had at least three periods where they include, or hint they're going to include, a panoply of old characters whose involvement winds up amounting to "Dropping in to say hi! Okay... bye!" I think that's what gets under people's skin the most, the inclusions that don't seem to be thought through, or feel like they're only included out of obligation without any clear idea of how that inclusion can be used in an interesting way. Double points when ANet takes action to hype us up and expect us to be excited about it regardless.

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@zerorogue.9410 said:My biggest issue is for being ~250 years ago, there's a lot of people who are still around.Koss is an awakened.Dunkoro is a ghost.Tahlkora is laying around.Ogden is still living stoneGwen is a ghost.Anton is also a ghost.Livia is immortal.M.O.X. is in our home instance.

I get you want to link the two games together, but if your going to do a time skip the least you can do is honor it and leave the characters in the past. Give us books, mementos, legends, stories. Don't just make them a ghost, undead, immortal.

I mean, they do that for a lot of heroes. The whole memento/book thing.

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@"The Night Fox.6018" said:I mean, they do that for a lot of heroes. The whole memento/book thing.I understand that. I want them to do tie ins for gw1. I just think they've also burned out on the whole "LOOK! ___ is back but now their (a ghost/undead/immortal/stone)!" Returning characters should have been a very special thing. Only a few where brought back and only when the story would be greatly improved for it.

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@"dusanyu.4057" said:To bre fair they have yet to touch a GW1 character yet i actually cared about. and to be fair Shiro got a nice treatment as a reinvent legend as Did King Iron hammer.

Shiro's story is so tangled and tragic, not even the Mists know what to do with him.

"So you murdered the emperor and fundamentally warped the landscape of the world... you were screwed with by a demon though, so eh... you can be a custodian.""SO... you abused your spiritual custodian powers and nearly destroyed the world again? Alright smart ass, to the Realm of Torment with you!""Sooooo... you ended up a dead god's general and got killed in the afterlife... damn it guy... you're making this really difficult to deal with. I hear the mortals are playing around with summoning powerful figures in history. Go be their problem for a while I guess."

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@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@"dusanyu.4057" said:To bre fair they have yet to touch a GW1 character yet i actually cared about. and to be fair Shiro got a nice treatment as a reinvent legend as Did King Iron hammer.

Shiro's story is so tangled and tragic, not even the Mists know what to do with him.

"So you murdered the emperor and fundamentally warped the landscape of the world... you were screwed with by a demon though, so eh... you can be a custodian.""SO... you abused your spiritual custodian powers and nearly destroyed the world again? Alright smart kitten, to the Realm of Torment with you!""Sooooo... you ended up a dead god's general and got killed in the afterlife... kitten it guy... you're making this really difficult to deal with. I hear the mortals are playing around with summoning powerful figures in history. Go be their problem for a while I guess."

Yeah, I’ll babysit Shiro and all his delicious dps power.

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I put yes, but was only thinking about the heroes rather than all characters. I felt the outcome of Devona, Tahlkora, Dunkoro, Koss, Aiden/Zho, and the Prophecies henchmen were all very proper.

But the second I clicked vote I remembered the fate given to Turai, Balthazar, Joko, and Lazarus to which I'd say hell no.

Balthazar, Joko and Lazarus are obvious enough. Frequent visitors will know my complaints about their treatment. But few people tend to look at Turai Ossa's fate and say "that's not right" simply because the rather massive retcon to his story is easily overlooked because both ends of it are rather hidden.

In GW1, Turai Ossa's spirit was no longer bound to Tyria and the Crystal Desert once we ascended. He was able to move on to the Hall of Heroes, at long last.

"Like you, I was one of the Chosen. But I passed from this world before I could rise to Ascension. The tests of Ascension can only be performed by mortals. But I can guide you through them, and when the way opens for you, it can also open for me."https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ghostly_Hero_%28PvE%29#In_The_Amnoon_Oasis

Many of the Crystal Desert ghosts were only bound and waiting until that moment - when someone Ascends - too and should have moved on. Yet in GW2, Turai is sitting on his throne, waiting ever more still, and all the ghosts who said they'd finally be able to move on once someone Ascends are now in Augury Rock's basement...

Now one can say "well, sure, just because they believed it would happen doesn't mean it would!" but we actually did once get confirmation that Turai moved on to the Hall of Heroes.

Yet he still sits in that ruined throne...

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@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@"dusanyu.4057" said:To bre fair they have yet to touch a GW1 character yet i actually cared about. and to be fair Shiro got a nice treatment as a reinvent legend as Did King Iron hammer.

Shiro's story is so tangled and tragic, not even the Mists know what to do with him.

"So you murdered the emperor and fundamentally warped the landscape of the world... you were screwed with by a demon though, so eh... you can be a custodian.""SO... you abused your spiritual custodian powers and nearly destroyed the world again? Alright smart kitten, to the Realm of Torment with you!""Sooooo... you ended up a dead god's general and got killed in the afterlife... kitten it guy... you're making this really difficult to deal with. I hear the mortals are playing around with summoning powerful figures in history. Go be their problem for a while I guess."

Technically it would be:

"So you murdered the emperor and fundamentally warped the landscape of the continent. You'll spend your afterlife in some part (untold to players) of the Underworld. The Oracle of the Mists, however, wants you to repent your sins along with these other mass murderers in guiding the souls of the newly dead. Will you accept? No? Okay, keep roaming the Underworld.""Ah, you finally accepted the role of Envoy... only to abuse it and try to (and successfully) retain your mortality, only to be killed again while attempting to unleash another Jade Wind. This time, your influence from Abaddon is clear, so to the Realm of Torment.""So once imprisoned in the Realm of Torment you were quickly freed by Abaddon's forces. Where you served as a general... but at the same time it was proven that you were tricked into your crimes by Abaddon's agents. Not sure whether it's a shame or a good thing your spirit was destroyed and you don't exist anymore! BTW, revenants are now summoning your legend from the protomatter of the Mists. Good thing that's not you!"

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@zerorogue.9410 said:My biggest issue is for being ~250 years ago, there's a lot of people who are still around.Koss is an awakened.Dunkoro is a ghost.Tahlkora is laying around.Ogden is still living stoneGwen is a ghost.Anton is also a ghost.Livia is immortal.M.O.X. is in our home instance.

I get you want to link the two games together, but if your going to do a time skip the least you can do is honor it and leave the characters in the past. Give us books, mementos, legends, stories. Don't just make them a ghost, undead, immortal.

I agree with most of this. Ogden is fine and Livia at least made sense within the story they made for her. Most of the rest felt a bit like forcing a way to get the character in.

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@"zerorogue.9410" said:My biggest issue is for being ~250 years ago, there's a lot of people who are still around.Koss is an awakened.Dunkoro is a ghost.Tahlkora is laying around.Ogden is still living stoneGwen is a ghost.Anton is also a ghost.Livia is immortal.M.O.X. is in our home instance.

I get you want to link the two games together, but if your going to do a time skip the least you can do is honor it and leave the characters in the past. Give us books, mementos, legends, stories. Don't just make them a ghost, undead, immortal.

I mean, ghosts make sense... And Gwen is in the Underworld, so you can't blame that.

But you forgot:

  • Margrid's, Goren's, and Melonni's descendants are met, but they themselves are dead and no ghost/walking corpses met.
  • Aiden and Zho are dead, no ghosts met, but their descendant (Noran) is met in Lake Doric.
  • Devona died and went to the Fissure of Woe for her afterlife, only to be enslaved by Balthazar's return as his Herald.
  • Stephan died in the Foefire and is fought as a PS boss.
  • Thom, Alesia, and Reyna died and were buried in Granite Citadel. No ghosts met.
  • Jora, Pyre, Keiran, and Vekk are dead, no ghosts/walking corpses met.
  • Herta (NF henchman) was turned into an Exalted and we now carry her head.
  • Talon Silverwing (Factions/EotN Henchman) is dead, his descendant mentioned in tengu lore.
  • Lina, Mhenlo, Eve, Cynn, Claude, and Dunham's fates (the remaining Proph henchmen) are still unstated.
  • Timera, Abasi, Kihm, Odurra, Sogolon, and Gehraz's fates (the remaining NF henchmen) are still unstated, though they all/most have weapons named after them.
  • Norgu, Jurah, Jin, Sousuke, Zhed, Morgahn, and Razah's fates are still unstated, no ghosts/walking corpses met.
  • Xandra, Hayda, Kahmu, and Olias' fates are unknown.

Out of all Prophecies, Eye of the North, and Nightfall henchmen and heroes, which accumulate to 50 figures:

  • 11 out of 50 are ghosts/undead/still "alive".
  • 13 out of 50 are dead, and we see their graves and/or descendants. No ghosts met.
  • 26 out of 50 are still unknown fates.

I don't think that 11 out of 50 henchmen/heroes being still active in some spiritual, undead, or immortal form is that bad of a number.

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@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

  • Norgu, Jurah, Jin, Sousuke, Zhed, Morgahn, and Razah's fates are still unstated, no ghosts/walking corpses met.

Still unstated directly about him specifically, but I think we are led to believe that Zhed's bones are part of Joko's Bone Palace. It is stated that Joko drove the Veldrunner pride of centaurs (Zhed's pride) to extinction and added their bones to his palace.

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Honestly, I have never had an issue with how GW1 characters are treated. I know the recent release with Joko is getting a lot of criticism, and yeah I would've loved to see more of him, but I also understand that Arenanet has time and resource restrictions. Joko was presented beautifully throughout the Path of Fire expansion and subsequent Living Story releases. I would rather have things as they are, where he met his end a bit too fast, then have the entire story of Guild Wars 2 get derailed to go after an old human-centric villain.

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