Stramatus.5219

It would be cool to see them do something similar to how they were in GW1, perhaps making The Marketplace (expanded into portions of Wajjun Bazaar), and perhaps an expanded Kaineng Center city maps with most of the rest of the city being explorable. They can really work better with the verticality of the city too in GW2. Just think, the top of the tallest shanty tower to the lowest depths of The Undercity. The idea of a highly urbanized explorable region with multiple maps and cities/outposts within would be a refreshing change. Most people hated Kaineng City in GW1 because it was a pain to navigate, but I think there was a certain feel and atmosphere they evoked when you played in it and through the story and side quests and it remains one of the more memorable areas as a result, for me.

This is the kinda crappy question that led to paying for templates. To OP, you clearly don't understand the concept of what maintenance mode is. In your examples of LOTRO and EverQuest, both are still in active development. EverQuest releases an expansion annually with it's 26th expansion coming out in December. I personally quit playing around expansion 7 or 8 which would have been 2003 or 2004. But hey what do you know, they still are releasing content. LOTRO literally just released a new expansion a couple weeks ago and has had other expansions and dlcs before it. These are both actively developed. By definition, maintenance mode means there is NO active development of ANYTHING.

Eh? It's in the cinematic if you create a Charr character. Many Charr NPC's refer to it as their "homeland", as does the very first heart NPC in the Plains of Ashford.

Lol. GW and GW2 are not even remotely similar games. How do you "combine" them?

In GW1 and lore writings it was very clear that Ascalon shielded other realms in Tyria from the Charr. Perhaps a bad analogy, but reminds me of Gondor shielding much of Middle-earth from the bulk force of Mordor.

I think my problem is that as someone who mained an Ascalonian Human for as long as GW2 has now been out (2005 to 2012), I felt very little to no ties to being a Krytan in GW2. And indeed the personal story Dead Sister branch allowed me to state to Logan that my GW2 character was "Ascalonian and damn proud of it." or something like that. Yet there is really no mechanism within the human side of the story to effectively play my character as Ascalonian. I find that to be overall rather jarring. Especially since I tied my toon as a descendant of my GW1 toon (hall of monuments, linked accounts). It would stand to reason that my toon would perhaps view the conflict somewhat differently, but throughout the story acts as a Krytan. Meanwhile the Charr became a playable race and the double whammy was that not only were Ascalonians completely diminished as something the player could be, the story was then reframed around "retaking a homeland" which did frame the Ascalonians in a different light than GW1, especially to a player base that might not have played GW1 or was otherwise familiar with the lore outside what's in the game.

What does GW1 being human centric have to do with this? The human nation of Elona was not a unified one when it came to governance and all 3 provinces were separately ruled though effectively allied unless they were warring one another (like in Nightfall). The Sunspears were setup as an autonomous order that functioned as the defenders of the whole nation, but ultimately doesn't answer to any of the provinces. Whether GW1 was human centric or not, it would stand to reason that a specifically human nation's defense force is made up of said humans of the nation.

I agree

While I do agree there is some framework of "different perspectives" between the 2 games, that's used far too often as a cop out excuse to how far the differences became. I can go play GW1, I still have my Human Ascalonian character who witnessed the events. It's not just "perspective". Everything can be witnessed exactly as it was. The Charr were quite obviously intelligent enough, but within Prophecies we never witnessed them even speak that I can recall. It wasn't until GW2 was announced in 2007 and then EotN released to bridge the two games that the Charr became far more than that, presumably in order for ANET to make them a playable race, and the inverse happened to the Ascalonians who were outside of Ebonhawke and the Ascalon Settlement largely reduced to cannon fodder ghosts. That's Adelbern's doing within lore, but that's ANET's doing within the game design to make Charr a playable race. And that's what irked me as a GW1 veteran who played an Ascalonian Human. I'm all for the idea of evolution over the last 250 years, but surely you can see how a human player like me and I'm sure others feel like ANET really shafted the Ascalonians and by extension the players who selected that they were of Ascalonian ancestry within the personal story. You can say all humans are "Krytan" now, and while that's true that that remains the last human nation in Tyria, the Ascalonians are still there. Maybe not as a nation, but they still live and it's about time they stop getting kicked while they're down whether it was The Searing, the invasion, then the damn Foefire from their own king, and then the narrative direction that existed at the beginning of GW2 that painted Charr as simply "retaking a homeland" which in lore is completely wrong, but had certainly influenced the playerbase's perspective on the matter and at least back in the day, a perspective largely positive toward the Charr and negative towards the Ascalonians in past interactions I had had with folks on the subject in years past.

I could be forgetting as it's been a long time since I've played it, but I could have sworn the Bonus Mission where you play as Saul D'Allessio showed Searing cauldrons? Then again, maybe not. Like I said, I don't remember. To suggest they weren't going to use them is plausible, but they had them there (confirmed for Orr at least) regardless. It was always an option. Considering at the time that the campaign became one of human eradication, I wouldn't put it past them. As for Adelbern and the Foefire. I will agree that to the people of Ascalon it is a fate that is ultimately worse than death. Adelbern and the Foefire will get no defense from me. I'm not at all saying the humans are without fault here. It would be one thing if they settled the lands below the Great Northern Wall and left it at that, but they didn't. They expanded north well beyond the wall and forced Charr out. No one would say the humans are without their own faults in this conflict. The issue is the Charr escalated the conflict big time. Ultimately Ascalon was reduced to a smoldering heap of scorched earth, and then the outcomes of Orr and Kryta were changed forever. Edit: Another thing. What's up with those war plans on a war table in the Black Citadel that is clearly a map of Queensdale and the gate of Divinity's Reach?

No, bringing up the Searing isn't automatically racist because it's a historical event that characters in-game even go so far as to study, but if your Guildmates are, in-character as a roleplayer, are telling you to drop it because it's ancient history, it sounds to me less like offhand comments and more repeatedly using it to get some kind of pity or justification for some type of hatred. You don't just bring up the Searing out of the blue for funsies, there's usually a reason, and their guildmates reaction implies this. No, the comment about guildmates refers to them (most of who I also played with in GW1), then making Charr characters in GW2 and perpetuating the dolyaksh*t narrative of "retaking a homeland" which they know better about lore than to keep spouting. You're focusing too much on The Searing and trying to paint me as just saying "hay guise hur dur the searing!!!11!". My point about that was to point out how far the Charr were willing to go on a campaign of genocide and the fact that they were willing to take that to lands outside of Ascalon that had nothing to do with the Ascalon/Charr conflict. They've since moved away from the Shaman Caste of the Flame Legion, but they still have built up a big technological industrial war machine and as a society continue to live in a very war-centric manner. My point is that it feels like a huge disconnect to me that we as a human player character are not given the option to feel much more distrusting of the Charr considering that has been their history up until barely a few years ago in-game timeline. Everyone is "best buds" (Rytlock and Logan aside) and that doesn't feel realistic to me within the established timeline, putting aside my opinions on the Ascalon/Charr conflict. The whole history of the Charr is one of conflict within themselves or against others be it the Humans, the Ogres, The Grawl, or The Forgotton.

I like how you're trying to reduce my points to "racist". No it's just that I don't buy that there wouldn't still be great distrust and conflict between these 2 particular races that isn't portrayed well within the game and personal story unless you hunt for it. While The Searing itself would be not ancient history, but at least history from long ago like how we'd view the 1700's, the conflict itself is not.

I can't speak specifically to the new patch as I largely quit playing after PoF. I apparently have some catching up to do. I feel that the idea of "Charr victimization" was absolutely somewhat prevalent at the time of GW2 release back in 2012. I feel that part of the game design to create multiple playable races that allied with each other, including the Charr was to tone down the idea of their established nature as a race in lore and throughout GW1. What was a villainous race, hellbent on war and genocide of the humans (and other races before them) became instead a narrative of "retaking a homeland". Which in and of itself was wrong on a lore standing, but was nonetheless peddled relentlessly following the release of GW2 by players seemingly unfamiliar with the lore, or had never played GW1. Nevermind the fact that the Charr also marched on Orr and Kryta to presumably perform the same Searing upon those kingdoms as well. Am I to believe those are Charr homelands too? Meanwhile, the remaining Ascalonians were diminished in stature within lore due to the Foefire which nobody within lore or the community would likely view in a positive light. Yet I'm sure the Charr feel the Searing was completely justified. And suddenly the narrative is the mad evil king (which he was towards the end) cursing his people and the land and the Ascalonians are largely reduced to being killable mad ghosts intent on killing everyone and everything. The exceptions of course being Ebonhawke and the Ascalon Settlement in Kryta. As a more role-player type, the vibe I got from the game, the community, my guild at the time even was basically a big "eff me for being an Ascalonian", and "The Searing is ancient history, get over it." And I would have been willing to do so, but up till now (presumably), the game did not at all do a good job of portraying these geopolitical relationships between the races and especially the Humans and Charr. A cease-fire and peace-treaty is signed, but throughout the Personal Story, you would think everyone is best of buds, not "we just barely signed this treaty". I realize that's probably a limitation of game design and how much you can possibly branch a multi-racial playable story-line, but I will say the Charr of GW2 feel completely different from the Charr of GW1 to me, and Ascalonians got the short end of the stick between The Searing, invasion, a king who goes crazy, refuses help, and ultimately curses them, and then a narrative that reduces the Ascalonians to little more than fodder for those who don't know their lore. And the dialogue I say, or feelings I have as a player interested in somewhat roleplaying my main human character of Ascalonian ancestry (which is a selectable option in the Dead Sister personal story branch by the way...) never matched how I feel my character would really react. I think that character would be very distrusting of the Charr, not best of buds with them.

And this is why I feel the humans have an overall better claim to Ascalon. The propaganda of the Charr in claiming it is their homeland is just not factually supported by anything. Did they occupy it for a time? Yes, but far less than the Kingdom of Ascalon. Were they originally from Ascalon (in order to claim it as a 'homeland')? No.

I do agree with that analogy. I just go down the path that says which race did ANET retcon? That would be the Charr. Every lore indication says that Ascalon was never their original homeland. And if you look at the land area of Ascalon compared to the rest of the Charr territory north and east of it, Ascalon is a very small part of it.