Oh Gods! "Blade Runner" Kaineng City is real :(

[Aulis Vaara.7083]

18 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

To think societies stay the same all the time and nothing happens in 250 years is just nonsense and the real world proves you wrong. Sometimes changes are bigger like in the last 250 years but even if we take for example the end of the Middle Ages and compare it to 250 years later, a lot has happened and a lot has changed.

Japan in 1850, when it was forcibly opened up at gunpoint, was still a medieval society.

The people of the Eurasian steppes changed very little over thousands of years, until gunpowder finally gave their enemies a viable way to deal with them.

Another thing you often see in history is the formation of an empire, only to see it collapse over the next 150-350 years.Assyria, Persia, Vikings, Aztecs, ...

Industrialization only happened once (so far as we know), and when it did, it was shared with large parts of the world.

Don't get me wrong, cyberpunk Cantha is quite enticing to me, but in the real world nations in isolation tend to stay behind (see North Korea for a contemporary example), rather than rocketing ahead of everyone. Trade and the exchange of ideas are what help drive creativity.

[Malus.2184]

On 12/18/2021 at 1:52 AM, Tails.9372 said:

I don't really see what the problem is, pact technology is more advanced than Cantha. If you want to complain about "Sci-Fi" at least wait for a proper asuran themed expansion.

For what reason? The design and application of technological innovation is "show don't tell" about the culture it originated from.

Charr technology is rugged and practical as that was what was important for them and their cultural aims.

Asuran technology is incredibly advanced, however , it lacks practicality in everyday use. The Asuran technological innovations are all incredibly high concept. This shows the Asuran tendency to have their heads in the clouds.

Cantha technology is the opposite of Asuran. Most of it seems to be fairly low concepts, however, it's of immense practical value. For example, an Asuran golem would be able to lift somthing heavy and transport it around. Asuran golems seem to be limited in distribution as they're also an immense strength multiplier. Canthans just develops something that works as a forklift only and as such would be more widely available since there's little strength multiplier to it.

Cantham tech seems more advanced than Asuran tech simply due to it being more applicable to the common person. Having a device that can absorb ambient magic energy from the air and release it in a devastating blast is quite useless when all you need is just a device that can work as a lighter. And people need the latter far more often than they need the former despite the latter being less technologically advanced than the former.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Malus.2184]

On 2/22/2022 at 12:29 AM, Aulis Vaara.7083 said:

Industrialization only happened once (so far as we know), and when it did, it was shared with large parts of the world.

Don't get me wrong, cyberpunk Cantha is quite enticing to me, but in the real world nations in isolation tend to stay behind (see North Korea for a contemporary example), rather than rocketing ahead of everyone. Trade and the exchange of ideas are what help drive creativity.

The history you cite proves you wrong. China was immensely more technologically advanced than Europe up to a certain point where Europe overtook it. The reason it stagnated was, crudely said, an "end of history" approach to cultural and technological developments brought about by ideological Conservatism.

The case of the Forbidden City is evidence of this. Those who lived in the Forbidden City had no idea how much society around it had changed and thought their way of life was superior and as such had no need of improving on anything. This is ideological Conservatism.

Europe was fairly expansionistic and it was only after the plundering of the Crusades that Europe started to develop on technology and culture due to the looted information from the Middle-east regions. Before this point, the beacon of civilization was the Middle-east and Europe was the region of uneducated barbarians, The Middle-east fell behind at some point and rather than saying to themselves that they needed to try harder the Mullahs fell back on ideologiocal Conservative talking points that it was all a conspiracy by Europe to deprive the Middle-east who was objectively better.

History is a lot more complicated and nuanced than the simplicstic understanding you express in your post.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Aulis Vaara.7083]

@Malus.2184 Sounds to me like you have a political agenda and your woldview and understanding of history are completely colored by it.

[Ashantara.8731]

18 hours ago, Aulis Vaara.7083 said:

@Malus.2184 Sounds to me like you have a political agenda and your woldview and understanding of history are completely colored by it.

Malus merely cited facts.

[Gibson.4036]

On 2/26/2022 at 4:45 AM, Malus.2184 said:

The history you cite proves you wrong. China was immensely more technologically advanced than Europe up to a certain point where Europe overtook it. The reason it stagnated was, crudely said, an "end of history" approach to cultural and technological developments brought about by ideological Conservatism.

The case of the Forbidden City is evidence of this. Those who lived in the Forbidden City had no idea how much society around it had changed and thought their way of life was superior and as such had no need of improving on anything. This is ideological Conservatism.

Europe was fairly expansionistic and it was only after the plundering of the Crusades that Europe started to develop on technology and culture due to the looted information from the Middle-east regions. Before this point, the beacon of civilization was the Middle-east and Europe was the region of uneducated barbarians, The Middle-east fell behind at some point and rather than saying to themselves that they needed to try harder the Mullahs fell back on ideologiocal Conservative talking points that it was all a conspiracy by Europe to deprive the Middle-east who was objectively better.

History is a lot more complicated and nuanced than the simplicstic understanding you express in your post.

What you wrote looks like a defense, not a rebutal of the previous post. Societies choosing a conservative isolation tend to stagnate technologically.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[LSD.4673]

Hang on, cyberpunk = bad, but high tech airships and steampunk machinery = ok?

The game's choice at release to try to pander to the tiny steampunk crowd was a fail design decision. If they wanna go cyberpunk, at this point does it even matter? Asura broke the boundary between magic and tech long ago.

[piitb.7635]

The livestream just answered it

 

Old Kaineng City was destroyed when Zhaitan arose.

 

The current Kaineng City is a new city

[Faridah.8431]

3 minutes ago, piitb.7635 said:

The livestream just answered it

 

Old Kaineng City was destroyed when Zhaitan arose.

 

The current Kaineng City is a new city

Old Kaineng City encompassed the area New Kaineng City exists in on the map:

Here's where New Kaineng City appears to be on the new map, which can by extrapolated onto the Cantha map from Factions below. Clearly there was old city here before, so what really happened?

GW2 Cantha

New Kaineng City on GW1 Cantha

So I really don't get this line from the stream at 30:03. They are trying to say this was unclaimed territory, Tengu territory, and Naga swamps???:

[piitb.7635]

2 minutes ago, Faridah.8431 said:

Old Kaineng City encompassed the area New Kaineng City exists in on the map:

Here's where New Kaineng City appears to be on the new map, which can by extrapolated onto the Cantha map from Factions below. Clearly there was old city here before, so what really happened?

GW2 Cantha

New Kaineng City on GW1 Cantha

So I really don't get this line from the stream at 30:03. They are trying to say this was unclaimed territory, Tengu territory, and Naga swamps???:

 

 

 

Don't do that.

 

 

You know...the whole "OMG this is not exactly accurate to the GPS I created in my spare time",

 

Nobody cares on that level of detail

[Faridah.8431]

7 minutes ago, piitb.7635 said:

 

 

 

Don't do that.

 

 

You know...the whole "OMG this is not exactly accurate to the GPS I created in my spare time",

 

Nobody cares on that level of detail

I love how one person speaks for everybody. Lore thread on the matter disagrees with your notion "nobody cares".

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the new aesthetic, but have to go "huh?" on some of the stuff they said in that stream as someone who played Factions in 2006. The biggest being them acting like that area wasn't city already. Like they don't even have to play Factions, just look at a Cantha map.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Faridah.8431

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

What you wrote looks like a defense, not a rebutal of the previous post. Societies choosing a conservative isolation tend to stangnate technologically.

The relevant part of your quote is the word "stagnate." That should lead one to reflect on what causes stagnation. And the main  cause of stagnation is if a culture already have good stuff rather than a lack of new ideas and  believes that their stuff is the best stuff and thus needing no improvement..

By your metric of "new ideas from the outside leads to innovation," the viking culture should had been the technological innovators in Europe by far as it due to the massive coastline of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden combined had a large import of people due to their maritime ways (which included both trading and plundering).

This shows that there needs to be some people who can have those ideas. Having the ability to do something is pointless if there's no opportunity to do it.

Cantha had an inciting incident in the flood that destroyed Kainang to confront the reality that perhaps they were less superior than they believed, so they started researching to become as superior as they saw themselves as being.

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

What you wrote looks like a defense, not a rebutal of the previous post. Societies choosing a conservative isolation tend to stangnate technologically.

It was an attempt to educate you ratherthan refute anything you wrote. I've no reason to refute or provide evidence for something that objectively happened. You need to provide sources that supports your take other than "Just Trust Me" from studying at the University of Facebook.

Reality is never up for debate. You can accept it or you can live in your own with the consequences that comes from that choice.

[Gibson.4036]

47 minutes ago, piitb.7635 said:

The livestream just answered it

 

Old Kaineng City was destroyed when Zhaitan arose.

 

The current Kaineng City is a new city

That's the in-game reason. The writers chose to go that way, though.

[Dawdler.8521]

The new launcher is probably far worse than the city could ever be. It's just awful coloration.

[Gibson.4036]

2 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

 

By your metric of "new ideas from the outside leads to innovation," the viking culture should had been the technological innovators in Europe by far as it due to the massive coastline of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden combined had a large import of people due to their maritime ways (which included both trading and plundering).

 

I didn't say lack of isolation leads to innovation.

I'm saying isolation leads to a lack of innovation.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Malus.2184]

9 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I didn't say lack of isolation leads to innovation.

I'm saying isolation leads to a lack of innovation.

And even that you're wrong in. China was fairly isolated, or rather insular, even though it interacted with its neighbooring countries. All ideas for progress came from within.

The same with Ancient Greece. The word' barbarian' comes from Ancient Greece and the entymology of that word can be found in that their perception was that anyone from outside Greece sounded like they spoke "ba ba" only. That's how little they cared from outside ideas. And no one would ever argue that Ancient Greece was short on innovation.

While isolation can lead to stagnation it's never causal, it's only correlational as isolation CAN lead to a shortage of ideas, however, the cause of stagnation is a stubborness to accept new ones regardless of where they come from.

On the opposite end you have the aforementioned Viking Culture who ended up effectively destroying itself due to acceptance of outside ideas. Though the acceptance of Christianity had more to do with king Harald Bluetooth going, "hang on, this says the king is devine so my heirs would have no more insurrections? SOLD!" The Viking culture is the only culture who has ever conquered the entirety of England and Scotland, and  they were bred into the local nobility within a few generations.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

And even that you're wrong in. China was fairly isolated, or rather insular, even though it interacted with its neighbooring countries. All ideas for progress came from within.

Well, you've definitely given me something to read up on, as I don't have a detailed view of China's 2000 year history and how it's technological and social movements coincided.

I'm aware that there's definitely fuzzy areas here. How large does an empire have to get before there is enough variation across it to generate newness even if it is closed to the outside?

Is China the exception that proves the rule?

Thanks for provoking thought.