What's GW2's biggest lore mistake according to you?

[Aodlop.1907]

I feel like rushing IBS and Jormag's demise are a little to obvious as an answer, so maybe we'll say "besides this one".

[Diovid.9506]

The lack of interesting Norn story and respect for Norn culture maybe? All races other than Humans suffer from that to some extent but none as much as the Norn. And I say that as a non-Norn main.

 

But that also ties into your remark about IBS. Jormag was the Norn dragon but the story dealt more with the Charr than anything else. The whole tooth prophecy didn't seem to matter much either. 

[Kalavier.1097]

8 hours ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

I feel like rushing IBS and Jormag's demise are a little to obvious as an answer, so maybe we'll say "besides this one".

As much as people have bashing IBS, I feel that subject is an atomized horse and I just roll my eyes at it because it ends up in a circular scream fest. It sucked what happened, but most of the team got yanked to work on EoD, blame upper management.

Honestly, "biggest lore mistake" I'd feel maybe is making it so all the Seers and Forgotten are dead. Rare as hell is fine. But have the Forgotten still be around in the god realms/Kormirs library or even just secluded deep in the desert.

I get both, and don't mind it that much but it's the thing that comes to mind off the top of my head.

Or possibly making it so Koss doesn't join us in dragon's watch to adventure!

[anninke.7469]

"Characters over worldbuilding".

Because as I see it, character preferences are too different across the playerbase while the world is what brings (and keeps) us here together.

Sorry for the somewhat clumsy wording.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Going with Gleam in PoF instead of Shiny. 

 

[Goettel.4389]

Not killing Braham the first time he opens his mouth.

[Dami.5046]

The fact they made charr and Humans 'friends'

The fact they made TOA an underwater MP instead of another dungeon or area to visit.

The ministry of Purity.

The fact there is no 'ascension', so we have no idea why we get rez but other folk can't.

 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Dami.5046

[Kalavier.1097]

34 minutes ago, Dami.5046 said:

The fact they made charr and Humans 'friends'

The fact they made TOA an underwater MP instead of another dungeon or area to visit.

The ministry of Purity.

The fact there is no 'ascension', so we have no idea why we get rez but other folk can't.

1: They wanted to move the world forward, and not have the issues of WoW were you have competing factions and nothing changes lol.

2: Eh, I don't see how it'd be a dungeon, but somewhat agree that it could've been a rebuilt temple. Either way, it would not be like GW1 had it.

3: Ministry of Purity was a GW1 thing, not GW2. And what we saw in Cantha aligns perfectly with how we left it and movement of the world lol.

4: This detail is actually moot because there is no resurrection. The things we needed to ascend for aren't in play so it's not as big a deal, and in terms of death, you don't just pop up at the local res shrine. To use waypoints you gotta be under them, so the whole "res after dying" is purely a gameplay mechanic. NPCS you can revive are knocked out and wounded, npcs you can't revive are dead.

1 hour ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Going with Gleam in PoF instead of Shiny.

I do want to see Shiny again, but I don't think it would've fit within PoF's narrative.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Kalavier.1097

[DanAlcedo.3281]

10 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

1: They wanted to move the world forward, and not have the issues of WoW were you have competing factions and nothing changes lol.

2: Eh, I don't see how it'd be a dungeon, but somewhat agree that it could've been a rebuilt temple. Either way, it would not be like GW1 had it.

3: Ministry of Purity was a GW1 thing, not GW2. And what we saw in Cantha aligns perfectly with how we left it and movement of the world lol.

4: This detail is actually moot because there is no resurrection. The things we needed to ascend for aren't in play so it's not as big a deal, and in terms of death, you don't just pop up at the local res shrine. To use waypoints you gotta be under them, so the whole "res after dying" is purely a gameplay mechanic. NPCS you can revive are knocked out and wounded, npcs you can't revive are dead.

I do want to see Shiny again, but I don't think it would've fit within PoF's narrative.

Shiny is relatively equivalent to Aurene in a way. 

Hatched by a Human. Goren. 

Grow up under powerful magical beings. Djinn. 

If we didn't go the "Aurene is special" route, shiny would have been a perfect candidate for replacing an elder Dragon like Aurene. 

Imagine a World where the Pale Tree took over Mordys sphere. 

Aurene takes Kralks. 

And Shiny takes Soo-Wons.

Just make Shiny an Egg from Kuunavang and make Kuunavang the champion of Soo-Won. 

 

But maybe that would make the story to long. 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Kalavier.1097]

3 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Shiny is relatively equivalent to Aurene in a way. 

Hatched by a Human. Goren. 

Grow up under powerful magical beings. Djinn. 

If we didn't go the "Aurene is special" route, shiny would have been a perfect candidate for replacing an elder Dragon like Aurene. 

Imagine a World where the Pale Tree took over Mordys sphere. 

Aurene takes Kralks. 

And Shiny takes Soo-Wons.

Just make Shiny an Egg from Kuunavang and make Kuunavang the champion of Soo-Won. 

 

But maybe that would make the story to long. 

 

At the time, Saltspray dragons were just dragons, unrelated to the elders.

It'd also cause well, the hole of "Where is Gleam/Vlast?"

[Bizgurk.5639]

The sudden appearance of Stone Summit Dwarfs and Deldrimor Dwarfs during Forging Steel and Champions. I thought they were extinct and all of a sudden they are here with no further explanation or background. No questions were asked either.

And now they don't even have a role anymore

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1 minute ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

At the time, Saltspray dragons were just dragons, unrelated to the elders.

It'd also cause well, the hole of "Where is Gleam/Vlast?"

Anet could always just retcon it to make Salt Spray dragons minions of Soo Won. 

Kunna the equivalent of Glint. 

And shiny the equivalent of Aurene. 

Vlast could still be in the story. I just thought it was wierd that shiny was not there anymore. 

[Kalavier.1097]

Just now, Bizgurk.5639 said:

The sudden appearance of Stone Summit Dwarfs and Deldrimor Dwarfs during Forging Steel and Champions. I thought they were extinct and all of a sudden they are here with no further explanation or background. No questions were asked either.

And now they don't even have a role anymore

Stone summit was out there for sure, though being fair back in S3 we had evidence the dwarves were still active in some manner fighting destroyers when we found the one in Ring of Fire. Upsurge of the destroyers leading to the dwarves appearing makes sense. It was never said they were wiped out, just that they weren't on the surface or close to surface caves.

[Dami.5046]

44 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

1: They wanted to move the world forward, and not have the issues of WoW were you have competing factions and nothing changes lol.

2: Eh, I don't see how it'd be a dungeon, but somewhat agree that it could've been a rebuilt temple. Either way, it would not be like GW1 had it.

3: Ministry of Purity was a GW1 thing, not GW2. And what we saw in Cantha aligns perfectly with how we left it and movement of the world lol.

4: This detail is actually moot because there is no resurrection. The things we needed to ascend for aren't in play so it's not as big a deal, and in terms of death, you don't just pop up at the local res shrine. To use waypoints you gotta be under them, so the whole "res after dying" is purely a gameplay mechanic. NPCS you can revive are knocked out and wounded, npcs you can't revive are dead.

I do want to see Shiny again, but I don't think it would've fit within PoF's narrative.

 1. I disagree. Same goes with maybe the sylvari  and Asura fighting over their lands. The Charr destroy Ascalon but 250 years later thats ok, let's be friends? No i don't buy it. So much wasted opportunities, especially in big scale pvp would of been a totally different game.

2. OK you took my wording literally. I'm just saying there was a place for that kind of content and they overlooked it.

3. The MoP is there to give reasons why the GW2 shouldn't or couldn't go to cantha.  They trashed it.

4. It's not moot. I die someone rezs me, i get up and fight again and yet there are graveyards all around tryia. So why can i do that and not those poor folk who now lay pushing up daisies?   The first game explained it and other games such as AION explain it.  Another thing overlooked.  

Edited May 12, 2022 by Dami.5046

[Dadnir.5038]

Druids... Druids (as the ranger's e-spec) are for me the biggest lore mistake of GW2.

If they were going to make them so different from what GW's druid were supposed to be then they should have called them differently. From my point of view GW2 druids are closer to the concept of "Oracle" that we find in GW: Faction.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

"Biggest lore mistake" is a really broad question. And horribly subjective. What do you mean by "lore mistake"? Writing philosophy? Story direction? (Unnecessary) retcons, be it soft or hard? Something else?

It's easy to chose the biggest issue you have between each thing, but choosing one overall "biggest mistake" is a bit difficult - at least for me. So I'll pick one from each of the above:

 

Writing Philosophy

Or design philosophy as it would be. While I do agree with anninke.7469 that the move of "characters over story and lore", or soft worldbuilding, was a bad choice (focusing on characters is fine, but ignoring or not bothering to do basic read up on the lore is a bad move for a setting established for 10 years already settled in hard worldbuilding philosophy that focused on lore over story and characters), what I consider the worst choice here is actually the Living World. Season 1 was by far the worst interpretation but, in all honesty, I feel like the constant focus of living world has lend to a drop of quality and, more importantly, consistency. There are both game mechanics and story points presented in one episode that gets forgotten and ignored in the later episodes. Season 3 is the worst offender, particularly through masteries, though Season 4 is almost as bad.

For a story example of what I mean: Season 4 Episode 1 has Kralkatorrik's lieutenants raising dead Elonians into Death-Branded. Later episodes has zero raised corpses, and instead the only Death-Branded we see are either Branded Awakened or 'resurrected' Branded corpses. It was even a big plot point that Kralkatorrik began focusing on corpses in that first instance. Similarly, Episode 5 brought in Branded Dredge whom are MIA during Episode 6 entirely.

Or a smaller example: in Season 3 Episode 5, there's a note talking about a dagger that is of great importance to Balthazar that he lost and the mercenaries - whom I need remind never show up again outside of one tiny portion in Siren's Landing - tried to create a replica to please Balthy. This is never brought up in any form again.

And that's got nothing on the sudden revelations out of nowhere like Kerida suddenly being a thing. Or how Tom Abernathy admitted they never wrote out how Aurene would resurrect in S4E6 until they began writing that episode and just "happened to have the perfect explanation" for it.

 

Story Direction

Honestly, the story direction I feel most disappointed about here would be Soo-Won. From 2012 to 2019, the deep sea dragon was very much an equal to the other Elder Dragons. Arguably more boring than what we got, but what we got just... doesn't mesh IMO. She's presented as the creator of the world, the mother of Elder Dragons, and has absorbed the powers of the five dead Elder Dragons. She should be the biggest, most primordial, and powerful thing in Thyria.

But she's this tiny kitten weak shrimp noodle.

She doesn't feel like the character we're presented. Her voice, her words, her appearance. Soo-Won felt more like how Glint or Kuunavang were presented in GW1. Old and knowledgeable for sure, but not primordial. Kralkatorrik, Jormag, and Primordus had these feelings down perfectly to me. (Meanwhile GW2 Kuunavang feels more Aurene or Vlast-aged in GW2, like she lost several hundred years of wisdom and experience inexplicably.)

Worse yet is how the story is constantly making it like we should care about her. As great as the ending song A World Without You is, it held zero weight to me because... why should I care? We just met Soo-Won. She was on screen for all of 3 minutes before going rogue. There was no reason for the Commander to care except through osmosis of Aurene caring (which actually leads me to a theory that the Commander's personality is being warped by their bond to Aurene). But the thing is: why should Aurene care? Other than "oh I'm so lonely", but why is she when she's constantly surrounded by Caithe, Commander, and other friends? Because she's the only dragon? She now has Kuunavang! And Albax! And maybe we can finally find Shiny.

 

A World Without You song would have had 10000000x more impact if it was about the loss of Aurene. Just imagine if this song was first played at the end of All or Nothing. Just change out the one line of "There's never been a world without you" in it and it fits perfectly with a hopeless battle that we must continue to fight. Without really getting to know Soo-Won or care about her... the song is great but holds almost no impact to me.

 

Soft Retcon

Before first stating what I think is the worst soft retcon, I should first state the difference I mean when saying "soft retcon" versus "hard retcon". A soft retcon is when the writers take some second-hand information we thought was truth, and reveal that the person who told us was either wrong or lying to us. This is actually not a bad thing... when done in moderation. It's bad when it's done frequently and, quite honestly, I feel it was rather frequently done during the "character over lore and story" phase of GW2 that began with Season 4. I'd have to scrutinize over the lore and do a number count to be sure, so at the moment it's just a feeling I have.

That said, IMO, the worst "soft retcon" done would be Aurene. Or rather, the whole "The One Elder Dragon" bit. Season 3 and Path of Fire firmly set us up that we needed multiple replacements to solve The All's imbalance issue that is created from killing the Elder Dragons. This got retconned into a "oh, the Forgotten, Glint, and Six Gods and by extension the Exalted, Taimi, and us were all wrong about the matter" and Aurene became the only thing we ever actually needed. Why was this done? Well, ArenaNet seemingly wrote themselves into a corner by killing Vlast off. Ironically, they killed Vlast to prevent him from being inactive as such wouldn't fit the personality they wrote for him in that very same story (so just change his personality or create a reason why he couldn't play an active role until the end? I mean, having Vlast helping us save Aurene while fighting Balthazar and Kralkatorrik would have been pretty kitten epic IMO). This is ironic because they then do this to Aurene. Twice. Aurene, who had been proactive and directly confronting things throughout Season 4, became a "Oh I shouldn't act" sit at home dragon in IBS, and after overcoming that and acting in EoD, became injured and had to become a sit at home dragon in EoD Act 1-2...

That's a bit of a tangent, but by killing Vlast, they wrote themselves into a corner where they wouldn't have held enough replacements - unless you count the Pale Tree, Shiny, and Kuunavang. Given the lore already established that Kuunavang was akin to Glint (and so is the Pale Tree), they had ample way to turn all three into Elder Dragon replacements...

 

Instead, they soft retconned that need of replacements into need of replacement, and has now given us a singular point that can fail and cause the end of the world with zero way to save it. GG Commander.

 

And yes, I realize this is both soft retcon and story direction. But it's the worst soft retcon because of the story direction that isn't the worst story direction. Incidentally, I feel Soo-Won's story was the worst story direction because of the soft retcon of who the DSD was.

 

Hard Retcon

Surprisingly enough, GW2 has a very low amount of hard retcons. I'd say at least 85% of retcons in Guild Wars - both games - fall under soft retcons. The most obvious hard retcon to exist would be Ottilia's personality and history with Braham being changed in the Flame and Frost return.

I bet people who know me and my posts on here or other lore chats would expect me to say "Balthazar" is the worst hard retcon. But actually nah, there's still room to make his change a soft retcon or even subvert the belief that his GW1-era persona was retconned into a red herring by turning Kormir into an antagonist. Having the Commander openly antagonize Balthazar for identity theft (a crime the Commander has done - and will do again - several times) is up in the top five worst story directions though - and to clarify, this is just the act of why the Commander forcibly stripped Balthazar of his disguise rather than talking it out; there wasn't enough reason to do this in such hostile fashion and there were a hundred ways to make that initial confrontation done better.

Nah, the worst hard retcon IMO would be the Jormag x Primordus rivalry and twinning.

And yes, I do consider this a hard retcon, though I understand it's a bit of a gray area. In Icebrood Saga, Primordus "woke up because Jormag woke up" and went to immediately attack Jormag out of animalistic desire to end Jormag's life. This openly contradicts the worldbuilding for Guild Wars 2's core story, where Primordus and Jormag woke up 50 years apart, Jormag the later, and there was zero confrontation between the two in the 150 years between Jormag waking up and Icebrood Saga; in fact, Jormag went towards Primordus after just waking up (e.g., at their weakest) despite proclaiming never wanting to confront Primordus without clear advantage. And in Season 3, Primordus went away from Jormag instead of blindly attacking like the wild animal they are...

In retrospect, the actions taken by Primordus and Jormag from waking until Season 3 make zero sense with the establishment of IBS: Champions. This is ultimately an issue of the "characters over story and lore" writing philosophy because it's writing characters without consideration of their past established actions.

 

As bad as Champions was, as bad as the rushed nature and sudden death of two Elder Dragons with zero worry despite all the build-up since S3 of needing multiple replacements was, this always felt the most dissonant from the rest of the game and story in IBS.

[Infinity.2876]

The biggest lore mistake :

you being the main character 

I liked it better when trahearn was the main character and you where just a really powerful soldier and best friends with him.I

spoiler for pof content:

Spoiler

Pof you fight Balthazar, die, go into the mists come back and then defeat Balthazar just fine. What's up with that? Did I miss some thing

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

5 hours ago, Dami.5046 said:

The fact they made charr and Humans 'friends'

The fact they made TOA an underwater MP instead of another dungeon or area to visit.

The ministry of Purity.

The fact there is no 'ascension', so we have no idea why we get rez but other folk can't.

4 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

1: They wanted to move the world forward, and not have the issues of WoW were you have competing factions and nothing changes lol.

2: Eh, I don't see how it'd be a dungeon, but somewhat agree that it could've been a rebuilt temple. Either way, it would not be like GW1 had it.

3: Ministry of Purity was a GW1 thing, not GW2. And what we saw in Cantha aligns perfectly with how we left it and movement of the world lol.

4: This detail is actually moot because there is no resurrection. The things we needed to ascend for aren't in play so it's not as big a deal, and in terms of death, you don't just pop up at the local res shrine. To use waypoints you gotta be under them, so the whole "res after dying" is purely a gameplay mechanic. NPCS you can revive are knocked out and wounded, npcs you can't revive are dead.

3 hours ago, Dami.5046 said:

 1. I disagree. Same goes with maybe the sylvari  and Asura fighting over their lands. The Charr destroy Ascalon but 250 years later thats ok, let's be friends? No i don't buy it. So much wasted opportunities, especially in big scale pvp would of been a totally different game.

2. OK you took my wording literally. I'm just saying there was a place for that kind of content and they overlooked it.

3. The MoP is there to give reasons why the GW2 shouldn't or couldn't go to cantha.  They trashed it.

4. It's not moot. I die someone rezs me, i get up and fight again and yet there are graveyards all around tryia. So why can i do that and not those poor folk who now lay pushing up daisies?   The first game explained it and other games such as AION explain it.  Another thing overlooked.  

1. Honestly, the peace treaty makes sense in the way they did it. It isn't "250 years passed and we're all okay with it" (which is a fair argument in of itself - everyone who suffered from the Searing is long dead. As one line in DR says: "the Searing was centuries ago, get over it"), but rather "the world is crumbling around us, we can either be petty about our differences and die, or we can put aside the rivalries of our dead ancestors and survive". It'll be interesting to see if the peace treaty survives given the threats are now almost all gone, but given that Bangar led the most racist charr to their deaths in IBS, the ones most likely to reignite the human-charr war are unfunded Separatists.
2. I would also say ToA wouldn't really work for dungeon-like content. I think them adding the Shadow Behemoth to that spot was a good move, as it is built off of the lore that players constantly used ToA to enter the Underworld so much the veil between Tyria and the Underworld was weakened. And in 2016, they even updated it to hold Dhuum-related stuff; they merely opted to put the raid portal in the other access point to The Underworld from Prophecies than ToA, which IMO fits great.
3. I kinda agree that it's a huge disappointment that they "solved" the Ministry of Purity issue between the games. The Movement and Winds of Change were specifically set up to establish a problem we will face in GW2. However, the Purity ideology isn't gone and it's clear that the future Canthan plots will focus on it. As pathetically predictable and stereotypical as the Minister Li reveal was, there is still hope that the Ministry of Purity plot will continue into GW2. Ideally, however, ArenaNet should release a fractal or novel about the fall of the Ministry of Purity, in order to give GW1 vets the storyline they were promised - the active overthrow of the Ministry of Purity.
4. In GW2, players do not die. At zero health of the downed state, players become "defeated", which is not death but unconsciousness. This was an active design choice by the writers back in 2010-2012 because of how viable resurrection was in GW1, but plot points had NPCs die and remain dead. The only time players die is in the story step The Departing, and the means of resurrecting there is specifically unique to the situation. Resurrection is canonically a lost art - and it was also never once tied to Ascension in GW1. Resurrection was just a thing that anyone who learned it could do - it wasn't special, but there was limitations to it which seem focused around both Grenth allowing it and the state of the corpse (once rot sets in, it's too late).
   It is interesting to note that in a relatively recent update (I think 2019?) ArenaNet changed the icons for the defeated state and, with it, the text for the prompt when you approach someone defeated. Originally, when someone was either downed or defeated, the prompt would say "revive", which is specifically unrelated to resurrection. Unfortunately, ArenaNet tossed the original lore-told-through-mechanics out the window and now to help differentiate between Downed and Defeated, when you get a prompted for someone defeated, it says "Resurrect". Despite the fact they're not dead, and resurrection is a lost magical art.
   For why not every NPC can be revived: if they cannot be revived, it's because they're dead; if they can be revived, they're merely defeated and thus unconscious.
   There is even an event in Snowden Drifts that specifies that revival is a learned magical art that not everyone in Tyria knows, hence why some NPCs will help revive players/other NPCs, and some won't (aside from actual hardcoded mechanics).

4 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

At the time, Saltspray dragons were just dragons, unrelated to the elders.

It'd also cause well, the hole of "Where is Gleam/Vlast?"

Well, no. The Movement of the World specifically stated that Kuunavang and Glint were akin to each other, on the same level compared to the Elder Dragons.

Then Glint was made a champion - and later scion - to Kralkatorrik.

This gave the implication since Edge of Destiny came out that Kuunavang might be the champion of the DSD. Which ended up canonized in End of Dragons (though she became bonded to Soo-Won after GW1 thus resulting in the different visuals than Albax).

But End of Dragons could have very easily and logically canonized that all saltspray dragons come, directly or indirectly, from the deep sea dragon. The seeds for this was placed back in 2010. Similarly in the same time period, Rotscale was put on par to Glint, implying plans to make it a retroactive champion of Zhaitan brought back by the Stone Summit. This seemed to have been dropped, however - probably dropped around the same time they scrapped the map north of Brisban Wildlands. I imagine that if that map was made, it would have been a 25-35 map like Gendarran Fields, Lornar's Pass, and Fields of Ruins, and feature our lowest level dragon world boss: Rotscale, champion of Zhaitan.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

4 hours ago, Bizgurk.5639 said:

The sudden appearance of Stone Summit Dwarfs and Deldrimor Dwarfs during Forging Steel and Champions. I thought they were extinct and all of a sudden they are here with no further explanation or background. No questions were asked either.

And now they don't even have a role anymore

There is explanation and background lore for that Stone Summit group in the lore books you can find in that strike and Darkrime Delves mission. Though their presence is a bit of a soft retcon out of nowhere that seems done more for the sake of adding nostalgia than anything else.

4 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Stone summit was out there for sure, though being fair back in S3 we had evidence the dwarves were still active in some manner fighting destroyers when we found the one in Ring of Fire. Upsurge of the destroyers leading to the dwarves appearing makes sense. It was never said they were wiped out, just that they weren't on the surface or close to surface caves.

Season 2 pretty heavily implies that the dwarves were wiped out, and repeatedly states that Ogden is the last dwarf. Not the last dwarf on the surface - the last dwarf "living".

This got soft retconned in Season 3 with Rhoban and his three (now dead) others who maintained the volcano, but this could be explained by the fact they were cut off from the rest. And then got soft retconned again, but worse, with Champions.

4 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Druids... Druids (as the ranger's e-spec) are for me the biggest lore mistake of GW2.

If they were going to make them so different from what GW's druid were supposed to be then they should have called them differently. From my point of view GW2 druids are closer to the concept of "Oracle" that we find in GW: Faction.

I dunno. All we knew of the druids in GW1 beyond that they were human who got rid of their flesh, was that they healed and maintained nature.

I think the elite spec being healer focused and having a handful of nature skills fits that perfectly. While the original lore said nothing about celestial abilities, nothing says or implies otherwise either.

The Oracle of the Mists was just a title for the strongest ritualist, btw. He was the one who maintained the Envoys' connection to the world. He was in charge of the Weh no Su trials but that was the extent of any celestial relation - his powers were full on spirit binding. Which, incidentally, are what the Celestials are: human spirits.

And the druid spec does not deal with human spirits.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Randulf.7614]

Pretty much everything they did with Dragons. As destructive forces of nature in the background, they were more deadly and more fascinating to me. Giving them characters with human flaws might have made for easier writing, but took all the power out of them and in the end, we had three relatively rushly dispatched Dragons, instead of leaving them in the background and focusing on other threats as central villains.

The one that stands out is Kralkatorrik in PoF. Whilst they mishandled Balthazar, the idea was sound and Kralk was more impressive, more powerful in depiction as this huge background force destroying the lands around it whilst others fought in the foreground. With a bit more attention to Balthazar himself and more time given over to Palawa Joko’s more interesting story of twisting us as the villain, then we could have had an amazing arc. Instead Kralk descended into some poor emo character calling for his mother, whilst a baby Dragon helps annihilate him. I don’t even understand how they thought that was a good idea.

They almost proved me wrong with Jormag by making them actually quite interesting, but quickly abandoned that to get out of IBS and do something new to continue what became a rather dire and messy story of balance and Aurene, which went round in circles before they sort of got it to work at the end, even though it’s clear they never really had a plan of wher they wanted to go with it as they were telling it.

Yes leaving the Dragons as forces of nature creates a two dimensional character, but they didn’t need layered depth - something they struggled with anyway. Sometimes a monster can just be a monster and that is OK.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Randulf.7614

[Kalavier.1097]

4 hours ago, Dami.5046 said:

 1. I disagree. Same goes with maybe the sylvari  and Asura fighting over their lands. The Charr destroy Ascalon but 250 years later thats ok, let's be friends? No i don't buy it. So much wasted opportunities, especially in big scale pvp would of been a totally different game.

2. OK you took my wording literally. I'm just saying there was a place for that kind of content and they overlooked it.

3. The MoP is there to give reasons why the GW2 shouldn't or couldn't go to cantha.  They trashed it.

4. It's not moot. I die someone rezs me, i get up and fight again and yet there are graveyards all around tryia. So why can i do that and not those poor folk who now lay pushing up daisies?   The first game explained it and other games such as AION explain it.  Another thing overlooked.  

Konig goes into greater detail on thing but.

1: Much different enviroments and threats, and also completely different government/leaderships. In GW1 prophecies we mostly saw them through the lens of the Ascalonians, not the Krytans. While they were a threat, their presence in Kryta wasn't as severe. Actually reflected on ingame by the Krytans shrugging it off and the Ascalonians being much more cautious about it, though relived the siege is gone. As for PVP, all I can think of is how WoW has big faction wars between the alliance and horde, but often times nothing really happens. There is fights, victories and losses but does it actually change the landscape of the world? "We lost a major city!" "Well, so did they."

2: I was meaning more of in GW1 the temple of ages was literally just a ruined set of crumbling walls and paths with some statues. It makes sense for the place to fall into further decay into the swamp (like GW2), or be rebuilt entirely.

3: Purity losing power, and thus that is why we are lead into dealing with a new leader who is more open to trade and talk to us fits into 1. Things have changed by literally and politically in Cantha.

4: As Konig said, in straight up terms of it, the "you are dead dead." is purely a gameplay mechanic of it. Like how if you are dead you can't just "res" at a waypoint, as using a waypoint in lore requires you to be underneath it. Much like how in gameplay terms my necro can only have a single type of each minion, yet we see npcs raising up more at a time. Hostile npcs can summon 3-4+ bone minions but mine can only have two.

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

1. Honestly, the peace treaty makes sense in the way they did it. It isn't "250 years passed and we're all okay with it" (which is a fair argument in of itself - everyone who suffered from the Searing is long dead. As one line in DR says: "the Searing was centuries ago, get over it"), but rather "the world is crumbling around us, we can either be petty about our differences and die, or we can put aside the rivalries of our dead ancestors and survive". It'll be interesting to see if the peace treaty survives given the threats are now almost all gone, but given that Bangar led the most racist charr to their deaths in IBS, the ones most likely to reignite the human-charr war are unfunded Separatists.
2. I kinda agree that it's a huge disappointment that they "solved" the Ministry of Purity issue between the games. The Movement and Winds of Change were specifically set up to establish a problem we will face in GW2. However, the Purity ideology isn't gone and it's clear that the future Canthan plots will focus on it. As pathetically predictable and stereotypical as the Minister Li reveal was, there is still hope that the Ministry of Purity plot will continue into GW2. Ideally, however, ArenaNet should release a fractal or novel about the fall of the Ministry of Purity, in order to give GW1 vets the storyline they were promised - the active overthrow of the Ministry of Purity.

 

Part 1: It helps that pro peace leaders are in play for 3 out of the 4 legions, with the Iron legion Imperator's views being also, apparently pro peace as she was a major figure in getting the cease fire and treaty working.

2: While I would've loved to done a cleanup of Ministry of Purity, I think after Elona it would've felt a bit too much of a repeat storyline of toppling the government and installing/helping raise a new one. And people may have screamed about well, showing up in Cantha only to remake the government.

I do feel like having them lose power and favor in the wake of the Zhaitan disaster is a nice flip though, they rose to the top because they solved a problem the Government was taking forever to effectively deal with, and they lost it all because they got hit by a disaster they couldn't effectively contain.

I will say there is a note you can find IIRC from the White Falcon which implies Purity still has agents/people in high ranks among the various ministries, as well as the general population. But I also honestly hope this doesn't turn into "White Mantle 2.0"

[Dami.5046]

16 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Konig goes into greater detail on thing but.

1: Much different enviroments and threats, and also completely different government/leaderships. In GW1 prophecies we mostly saw them through the lens of the Ascalonians, not the Krytans. While they were a threat, their presence in Kryta wasn't as severe. Actually reflected on ingame by the Krytans shrugging it off and the Ascalonians being much more cautious about it, though relived the siege is gone. As for PVP, all I can think of is how WoW has big faction wars between the alliance and horde, but often times nothing really happens. There is fights, victories and losses but does it actually change the landscape of the world? "We lost a major city!" "Well, so did they."

2: I was meaning more of in GW1 the temple of ages was literally just a ruined set of crumbling walls and paths with some statues. It makes sense for the place to fall into further decay into the swamp (like GW2), or be rebuilt entirely.

3: Purity losing power, and thus that is why we are lead into dealing with a new leader who is more open to trade and talk to us fits into 1. Things have changed by literally and politically in Cantha.

4: As Konig said, in straight up terms of it, the "you are dead dead." is purely a gameplay mechanic of it. Like how if you are dead you can't just "res" at a waypoint, as using a waypoint in lore requires you to be underneath it. Much like how in gameplay terms my necro can only have a single type of each minion, yet we see npcs raising up more at a time. Hostile npcs can summon 3-4+ bone minions but mine can only have two.

Part 1: It helps that pro peace leaders are in play for 3 out of the 4 legions, with the Iron legion Imperator's views being also, apparently pro peace as she was a major figure in getting the cease fire and treaty working.

2: While I would've loved to done a cleanup of Ministry of Purity, I think after Elona it would've felt a bit too much of a repeat storyline of toppling the government and installing/helping raise a new one. And people may have screamed about well, showing up in Cantha only to remake the government.

I do feel like having them lose power and favor in the wake of the Zhaitan disaster is a nice flip though, they rose to the top because they solved a problem the Government was taking forever to effectively deal with, and they lost it all because they got hit by a disaster they couldn't effectively contain.

I will say there is a note you can find IIRC from the White Falcon which implies Purity still has agents/people in high ranks among the various ministries, as well as the general population. But I also honestly hope this doesn't turn into "White Mantle 2.0"

 

Only because it's the way Anet decided the story should take that turn. It didn't have too. I still believe they didn't want cantha and MoP was supposed to deal with that and i still think some small lore should of gone into why we just 'passout then' and not totally die.

 

Maybe I read the title wrong, , however it doesn't change my mind that 'making everyone friendly' was rather boring to lack a better word.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Dami.5046

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I dunno. All we knew of the druids in GW1 beyond that they were human who got rid of their flesh, was that they healed and maintained nature.

I think the elite spec being healer focused and having a handful of nature skills fits that perfectly. While the original lore said nothing about celestial abilities, nothing says or implies otherwise either.

The Oracle of the Mists was just a title for the strongest ritualist, btw. He was the one who maintained the Envoys' connection to the world. He was in charge of the Weh no Su trials but that was the extent of any celestial relation - his powers were full on spirit binding. Which, incidentally, are what the Celestials are: human spirits.

And the druid spec does not deal with human spirits.

Druids had left husk of themselves that had barely anything to do with healing. They were all about farting nature spirits and traps. There was 0 reference to stars of celestial corpse associated to the druids while the oracle do have some ties with all the celestial stuff which is why I say that I would have accepted more easily a GW2 druid as an oracle than with it's current name.

"Which, incidentally, are what the Celestials are: human spirits." That's not what the wiki say.

"Celestials are the physical embodiment of the spirits of the stars." This is what the wiki say.

Anyway, Druid being the biggest lore mistake of GW2 is my personal opinion.

[Dami.5046]

17 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Konig goes into greater detail on thing but.

1: Much different enviroments and threats, and also completely different government/leaderships. In GW1 prophecies we mostly saw them through the lens of the Ascalonians, not the Krytans. While they were a threat, their presence in Kryta wasn't as severe. Actually reflected on ingame by the Krytans shrugging it off and the Ascalonians being much more cautious about it, though relived the siege is gone. As for PVP, all I can think of is how WoW has big faction wars between the alliance and horde, but often times nothing really happens. There is fights, victories and losses but does it actually change the landscape of the world? "We lost a major city!" "Well, so did they."

2: I was meaning more of in GW1 the temple of ages was literally just a ruined set of crumbling walls and paths with some statues. It makes sense for the place to fall into further decay into the swamp (like GW2), or be rebuilt entirely.

3: Purity losing power, and thus that is why we are lead into dealing with a new leader who is more open to trade and talk to us fits into 1. Things have changed by literally and politically in Cantha.

4: As Konig said, in straight up terms of it, the "you are dead dead." is purely a gameplay mechanic of it. Like how if you are dead you can't just "res" at a waypoint, as using a waypoint in lore requires you to be underneath it. Much like how in gameplay terms my necro can only have a single type of each minion, yet we see npcs raising up more at a time. Hostile npcs can summon 3-4+ bone minions but mine can only have two.

Part 1: It helps that pro peace leaders are in play for 3 out of the 4 legions, with the Iron legion Imperator's views being also, apparently pro peace as she was a major figure in getting the cease fire and treaty working.

2: While I would've loved to done a cleanup of Ministry of Purity, I think after Elona it would've felt a bit too much of a repeat storyline of toppling the government and installing/helping raise a new one. And people may have screamed about well, showing up in Cantha only to remake the government.

I do feel like having them lose power and favor in the wake of the Zhaitan disaster is a nice flip though, they rose to the top because they solved a problem the Government was taking forever to effectively deal with, and they lost it all because they got hit by a disaster they couldn't effectively contain.

I will say there is a note you can find IIRC from the White Falcon which implies Purity still has agents/people in high ranks among the various ministries, as well as the general population. But I also honestly hope this doesn't turn into "White Mantle 2.0"

I think we are talking from different angles here, Where what you are saying is correct lore wise i am merely saying what i would of liked to have seen or felt could be different.

 

 

[Fueki.4753]

Jade tech is obviously the biggest mistake.

Other than that, it's two specific twin dragons' demise barely involving the races they tormented.

Asura should have had a bigger part in Primordus' story, rather than him being a Braham-led mcguffin to kill Jormag.

Likewise, Jormag should have been dealt with by the Norn and should not have been a mere plot tool for a bad Charr arc.