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

[Kalavier.1097]

10 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I think they were kinda close to this with Mordremoth. Killing it is an "attacking on multiple fronts" kind of endeavor and there's no real one Mordremoth body. Mordremoth "is the jungle" in some sense.

And then from there it fast went downhill into "elder dragons are very very very large dragons" (and get bigger because of consuming more magic or something?). Maybe somewhere around the time they decided to humanize them with Aurene, they had to make them more of a corporeal entity so you could relate to Aurene. Idk, all I can guess as to why.

Edit: Nm, I forgot they did the "very very very large dragon" thing with Zhaitan even before Mordremoth. So I guess Mordremoth was just the exception to the rule for some reason. Although Zhaitain did at least have entities beyond it that directly related to its feeding and such.

Zhaitan and Mordremoth had aspects to them that allowed them to be weird and horrific compared to the later dragons, who were more straightforward because of their nature.

I still hold to this day that Zhaitan used lesser dragons (the type the champions are) to repair damage to himself from previous dragon-rises, and thus gained the mutated horrific look he has in GW2, where before he had a more traditional dragon look.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

1 hour ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Zhaitan and Mordremoth had aspects to them that allowed them to be weird and horrific compared to the later dragons, who were more straightforward because of their nature.

I would rather disagree with this. Jormag's and Primordus' second aspects/domains were never clear until Icebrood Saga came around (same for Kralkatorrik, even, though the Zephyrite aspects heavily implied sky-related stuff to him though that never really took form). ArenaNet could have gone full ham on making use of these.

For example, taking Fury - this wasn't really seen at all in Kralkatorrik, but had quite a bit of potential at being something quite ethereal because how does one define Fury? Madness, rage, violence - how does one depict this? How does one spread this? All we got was Kralkatorrik's Torment shouting at us, but what if it tied in more to the Furies of Greek mythology, beings who would hunt down and punish wrongdoers, turning Kralkatorrik into an indirect Elder Dragon of punishment, resulting in added displays of suffering and torment to its victims.

Or Jormag, one of the earlier theories was that the second domain was Soul or Spirit because of how heavily tied it was to the Spirits of the Wild, and how dialogue talks about Jormag corrupting the very soul of its victims - this could have been played deeply with a spiritual realm on the dragon itself, instead of mere whispers and deception (which still could have been around). You'd have your twisted psychopomp direction in this case, and the fate worse than death where not only do the victims become corrupted in life, but even in death leaving no hope for them even in the afterlife unlike the other Elder Dragons' minions.

Or Primordus; in GW2, he was being redesigned as basically Godzilla with a generic lava dragon design little different... literally any fantasy elemental dragon featuring lava. But in GW1, his features - even if heavily obscured from rock and monochrome hue of the area, had tentacles instead of limbs or wings, making Primordus potentially one of the most uniquely designed dragons as it would have been basically a squid dragon (though with huge back spikes in roughly dorsal fin placement, a squid/octopus-shark-dragon hybrid). And its second domain could have been literally anything since there was little enough interaction with his minions that they had practically free reign.

 

But instead they went with basic, direct, and simple secondary domains much like with Zhaitan who's story was done when they invented the whole secondary domain thing. In the end, that was only playing a role with Mordremoth's story alone, and could have been utterly ignored and never existed because of apparent laziness with wanting to go in-depth.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

14 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Or Primordus; in GW2, he was being redesigned as basically Godzilla with a generic lava dragon design little different... literally any fantasy elemental dragon featuring lava. But in GW1, his features - even if heavily obscured from rock and monochrome hue of the area, had tentacles instead of limbs or wings, making Primordus potentially one of the most uniquely designed dragons as it would have been basically a squid dragon (though with huge back spikes in roughly dorsal fin placement, a squid/octopus-shark-dragon hybrid). And its second domain could have been literally anything since there was little enough interaction with his minions that they had practically free reign.

I'm not sure where you saw tentacles back in GW1.

If you mean the things coming out of the side of his statue in this image

https://wiki.guildwars.com/images/5/53/Primordus.jpg

Those are the skeletal remains of the bones his wings would connect to. Its a fairly common depiction of destroyed dragon wings. Skyrim does the same with its dead dragons

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z5F5AWn4igI/maxresdefault.jpg

Difference being between Primordus and Skyrim dragons that Skyrim dragons are wyverns, whose wings are part of the arms, whereas Primordus used a more classical dragon design in GW1 with the wings being attached to the main body.

*edit*

Thinking about it more, we actually see this same thing with the Great Destroyer in GW1 as well. where it has the "bones" os its wings exposed like the Primordus statue does.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/images/5/56/The_Great_Destroyer.jpg

Edited July 7, 2022 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

11 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

I'm not sure where you saw tentacles back in GW1.

If you mean the things coming out of the side of his statue in this image

https://wiki.guildwars.com/images/5/53/Primordus.jpg

Those are the skeletal remains of the bones his wings would connect to. Its a fairly common depiction of destroyed dragon wings. Skyrim does the same with its dead dragons

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z5F5AWn4igI/maxresdefault.jpg

Difference being between Primordus and Skyrim dragons that Skyrim dragons are wyverns, whose wings are part of the arms, whereas Primordus used a more classical dragon design in GW1 with the wings being attached to the main body.

*edit*

Thinking about it more, we actually see this same thing with the Great Destroyer in GW1 as well. where it has the "bones" os its wings exposed like the Primordus statue does.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/images/5/56/The_Great_Destroyer.jpg

If they were wings (which there's no reason to think that just his wings are decayed), they're bending backwards - if they were typical wings, they would bend backwards towards the tail.

And they're too smooth, as much easier to see with the model in isolation:

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-HaFcBkseuEla5VB-OkTtXqeJi1018jl/view
• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CbG1xZ03PsFSPl3zvPaiYRGBLNtGfRYn/view
• https://drive.google.com/file/d/12OHiR6T2-kBB-r2PUXgH3T6VJPvnuRBs/view

There's also four of them, with no arms despite arms typically being in the same distance from the neck (or closer). So Primordus still doesn't use a more classical design.

 

So either:

1. Primordus had four tendrils/tentacles instead of forelimbs/wings, potentially giving him a design closer to the alien from Life (2017) movie but with more spikes, or just a biped with four+ tentacle arms.
2. Or Primordus had four backwards wings instead of wings+forelimbs of classical dragons.

Both designs are far more unique than this Godzilla copy.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

If they were wings (which there's no reason to think that just his wings are decayed), they're bending backwards - if they were typical wings, they would bend backwards towards the tail.

And they're too smooth, as much easier to see with the model in isolation:

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-HaFcBkseuEla5VB-OkTtXqeJi1018jl/view
• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CbG1xZ03PsFSPl3zvPaiYRGBLNtGfRYn/view
• https://drive.google.com/file/d/12OHiR6T2-kBB-r2PUXgH3T6VJPvnuRBs/view

There's also four of them, with no arms despite arms typically being in the same distance from the neck (or closer). So Primordus still doesn't use a more classical design.

 

So either:

1. Primordus had four tendrils/tentacles instead of forelimbs/wings, potentially giving him a design closer to the alien from Life (2017) movie but with more spikes, or just a biped with four+ tentacle arms.
2. Or Primordus had four backwards wings instead of wings+forelimbs of classical dragons.

Both designs are far more unique than this Godzilla copy.

A. Who says they're typical wings?

B. The whole "decayed" bit was just a descriptor. As we saw with the Great Destroyer, which had similar wings, they just have "decayed" looking wings in general.

C. Yeah theres 4 of them. Just like the Great Destroyer, or the Skyrim dragons, have multiple sets of bones because the skin of the wings needs to be stretched over multiple sets of bones to be effective on a beast that large. That still only means two wings, not 4.

D. Talking about them being smooth is a pretty "reaching" argument. Its a fairly low poly model the player only really glimpses in the background for a few minutes in the Great Destroyer fight. They wouldn't have put ultra detail into making it look like bones. Hell the statue barely has detail on the head which is far more visible.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

3 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

A. Who says they're typical wings?

You:

15 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Difference being between Primordus and Skyrim dragons that Skyrim dragons are wyverns, whose wings are part of the arms, whereas Primordus used a more classical dragon design in GW1 with the wings being attached to the main body.

3 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

B. The whole "decayed" bit was just a descriptor. As we saw with the Great Destroyer, which had similar wings, they just have "decayed" looking wings in general.

C. Yeah theres 4 of them. Just like the Great Destroyer, or the Skyrim dragons, have multiple sets of bones because the skin of the wings needs to be stretched over multiple sets of bones to be effective on a beast that large. That still only means two wings, not 4.

I'm referring to the humeri. Primordus has four, while the Great Destroyer, your Skyrim wyvern, and all birds and bats have two. One per wing.

A typical dragon would have four - two for the wings, two for the forelimbs. Typical depiction of large animals with wings have them with extra bones coming off after the second section of the wing bones - basically being elongated fingers when compared to the human skeleton. This is how the Great Destroyer's wings are designed - one humerus per wing, which splits into the Ulna and Radius, which then splits into the "fingers".

Primordus has four humeri, indicating four wings - four limbs. It also lacks anything resembling those "fingers" after the ulna/radius.

3 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

D. Talking about them being smooth is a pretty "reaching" argument. Its a fairly low poly model the player only really glimpses in the background for a few minutes in the Great Destroyer fight. They wouldn't have put ultra detail into making it look like bones. Hell the statue barely has detail on the head which is far more visible.

There's still clear joints in the legs of Drakkar, which is even more obscured than Primordus' model. There's no clear joints on Primordus' "wings" that are on full display. It is, admittedly, the weakest part of the argument.

[Magix Keleton.9083]

On 6/16/2022 at 12:35 AM, NeverLoseGuy.3894 said:

Basically anything that involves Balthazar.

The guy's motivation is to kill Kralkratorrik, which is cool and all, except you are not supposed to do that because it would result in the world going boom-boom (due to lack of dragons), hence why he has to be stopped.

Awakening a dead topic, but this is probably still gonna be my answer. I feel like using Balthazar to kickstart the narrative for an Elonian expansion sacrificed the "soul" of the desert in a way. It made for a novel narrative and we got some interesting god-stuff out of it, but for me it was like the setting became little more than window dressing in service of the plot. I just felt like the setting of Nightfall had so much character by comparison to Path of Fire, which had to make room for the Forged, the Awakened and the Branded as antagonists (with a guest appearance from Vlast). I feel like it lost something special by making it about 'a story that takes place in the desert', rather than 'a story about a desert conflict', where it's the setting that shines, not the narrative. Just saying, all the elements were already there.

That's probably just me though. I hear that people loved PoF and LWS4.

[Labjax.2465]

7 hours ago, Magix Keleton.9083 said:

Awakening a dead topic, but this is probably still gonna be my answer. I feel like using Balthazar to kickstart the narrative for an Elonian expansion sacrificed the "soul" of the desert in a way. It made for a novel narrative and we got some interesting god-stuff out of it, but for me it was like the setting became little more than window dressing in service of the plot. I just felt like the setting of Nightfall had so much character by comparison to Path of Fire, which had to make room for the Forged, the Awakened and the Branded as antagonists (with a guest appearance from Vlast). I feel like it lost something special by making it about 'a story that takes place in the desert', rather than 'a story about a desert conflict', where it's the setting that shines, not the narrative. Just saying, all the elements were already there.

That's probably just me though. I hear that people loved PoF and LWS4.

Pretty sure I get what you mean and I agree 100%. I didn't like that it felt like PoF's entire setting and peoples were just this backdrop for some outsiders to chase the big bad through. Similar thing happened with EoD. It just feels like using the cultures they are based on as props, instead of getting into any kind of depth. Cheap marketing gimmicks and makes the main cast feel like discount avengers.

[Magix Keleton.9083]

8 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Similar thing happened with EoD. It just feels like using the cultures they are based on as props, instead of getting into any kind of depth.

For my experience, I felt like EoD at least let me linger a bit. The revelation of how much Cantha had changed was a slap in the face, not so much as an insult but a complete shock, but since the characters we followed through the narrative were mostly from Cantha, rediscovering the modern iteration through their perspective and for myself was exciting. Cantha's character as a nation for me was reflected in my interactions with both them and the setting, so I would call it an improvement. Contrasted with the PoF campaign, and you can see why I thought it was... Lacklustre.

 

[Labjax.2465]

2 hours ago, Magix Keleton.9083 said:

For my experience, I felt like EoD at least let me linger a bit. The revelation of how much Cantha had changed was a slap in the face, not so much as an insult but a complete shock, but since the characters we followed through the narrative were mostly from Cantha, rediscovering the modern iteration through their perspective and for myself was exciting. Cantha's character as a nation for me was reflected in my interactions with both them and the setting, so I would call it an improvement. Contrasted with the PoF campaign, and you can see why I thought it was... Lacklustre.

 

I would agree EoD's use of characters from Cantha is better.

[Ashen.2907]

I can see how it would be difficult to balance telling the main story (continent spanning, begun in the core game) against the backdrop of a new culture with exploring the new setting and culture so that it isnt just a change of window dressing. I dont think that either PoF or EoD found the right balance. I would agree that the use of Canthan NPCs was better than how it was handled in PoF except for the decision to make Cantha a modern western world analogue, depriving it of any real value as a strange new land to act as an exotic setting for the next chapter of the main story.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

43 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

except for the decision to make Cantha a modern western world analogue

Except.... it isn't?

If anything its a very eastern world analogue because, for a large part of history China was considered incredibly more advanced then Europe, with Europeans rather in awe of what China had accomplished.

The isolationist history of recent Cantha mimics the extended period of isolation that Japan went though, which was only ended when Commodore Perry forced relations with Japan open after threatening them witch a large fleet of ships(much like how Cantha only reopened after the Atherblades came in and crashed a bunch of airships around)

Edited July 17, 2022 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[Kalavier.1097]

15 hours ago, Magix Keleton.9083 said:

For my experience, I felt like EoD at least let me linger a bit. The revelation of how much Cantha had changed was a slap in the face, not so much as an insult but a complete shock, but since the characters we followed through the narrative were mostly from Cantha, rediscovering the modern iteration through their perspective and for myself was exciting. Cantha's character as a nation for me was reflected in my interactions with both them and the setting, so I would call it an improvement. Contrasted with the PoF campaign, and you can see why I thought it was... Lacklustre.

 

The thing I've said in the past about Cantha being so different to people is this.

We left GW1 explicitly knowing that we would NOT be coming back to factions Cantha. Winds of Change and Movement of the World explicitly laid that out for us. Yet some people are shocked and angry that the culture is different now, that the Kurzicks or Luxons (as major nations) are gone.

me: "We knew this would be the case."

It's a brilliant case for us GW1 vets IMO. Because as I read the books, as I explored the areas, it all struck me how heavily these changes happened because of the actions of the GW1 hero. We set things in motion for this destructive turn. And even with the Ministry of Purity trying to erase the GW1 factions PC from history, destroying everything about Kurzicks and Luxons, the PC is known still. Those two cultures survived and are regrowing.

[Magix Keleton.9083]

3 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

We left GW1 explicitly knowing that we would NOT be coming back to factions Cantha. Winds of Change and Movement of the World explicitly laid that out for us.

I guess the shock that I experienced was more like... Cantha moved on without us, y'know? Movement of the World showed us that the trauma experienced by Cantha through the Jade Wind, Factions and Winds of Change was deep enough for the Ministry to not only claw their way back to prominence, but their resurgence again led to a massive systemic upheaval.
'Movement' was such an exciting doc back in the day as anet laid the groundwork for GW2 by littering the landscape with a veritable armoury's worth of chekhov's guns. The shock was that this particular one went off ages ago, and that's exciting too. In this case, I think the pay-off was worth it.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

7 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Except.... it isn't?

If anything its a very eastern world analogue because, for a large part of history China was considered incredibly more advanced then Europe, with Europeans rather in awe of what China had accomplished.

The isolationist history of recent Cantha mimics the extended period of isolation that Japan went though, which was only ended when Commodore Perry forced relations with Japan open after threatening them witch a large fleet of ships(much like how Cantha only reopened after the Atherblades came in and crashed a bunch of airships around)

They're probably complaining about the lgbt representation and the way purists are handled, which has brought out a lot of toxic people. 

[Fang.8291]

Their biggest lore mistake is rewritting what GW1 had established and generally destroying everything from the past, because the new stuff is build with duct tape and on prayers and hope and Aurene.

[Kalavier.1097]

1 hour ago, Fang.8291 said:

Their biggest lore mistake is rewritting what GW1 had established and generally destroying everything from the past, because the new stuff is build with duct tape and on prayers and hope and Aurene.

You mean, having the world change because it's 250 years later with several nations destroyed and other emerging?

Shocking news: When humans go from the dominate force of the planet to a much smaller force, things look drastically different.

TBH, yes things changed. But GW1 was not thrown out and destroyed lorewise.

[Ashen.2907]

On 7/17/2022 at 12:11 PM, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Except.... it isn't?

If anything its a very eastern world analogue because, for a large part of history China was considered incredibly more advanced then Europe, with Europeans rather in awe of what China had accomplished.

The isolationist history of recent Cantha mimics the extended period of isolation that Japan went though, which was only ended when Commodore Perry forced relations with Japan open after threatening them witch a large fleet of ships(much like how Cantha only reopened after the Atherblades came in and crashed a bunch of airships around)

I am not referring to technological or even cultural advancement. I think that, if we go by what is shown rather than what the game tells, Cantha is still a bit behind what has been established over the course of the game so far. Understandably so as the game has bordered on a full industrial tech level, post ww2 almost already. I am sure that the devs want to keep af least a semblance of, or elements of, traditional fantasy....which would be lost if the tech advanced to a post industrial age.

What I was referring to was more a matter of slang, speech patterns, attitudes, and general delivery of the setting in game. Cantha feels very much like a modern western setting with hand wavy asian window dressing. Too bad in my opinion because  the opportunity to visit an exotic culture whose peoples are different in ways other than just people's names and the color pallette of the maps is a huge draw for me. 

[Ashen.2907]

7 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

You mean, having the world change because it's 250 years later with several nations destroyed and other emerging?

Shocking news: When humans go from the dominate force of the planet to a much smaller force, things look drastically different.

TBH, yes things changed. But GW1 was not thrown out and destroyed lorewise.

To be fair, gw1 was 250 years ago and was technologically and culturally comparable to the 111th to 13th century. 250 years is not much time to go from iron swords to orbital sattelite bombardment.  

[Ashen.2907]

18 hours ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

They're probably complaining about the lgbt representation and the way purists are handled, which has brought out a lot of toxic people. 

Nope. My biggest complaint about LGBT representation in GW2 is that explored devoted same sex relationships among major named and important charactersn are restricted to the L in LGBT while there are no male same sex relationships to be found explored among major important characters. Would be nice to see hetero relationships explored among major important characters too.

The only toxicity here is you inventing attitudes and opinions for me in order to be able to throw shade.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

9 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I am not referring to technological or even cultural advancement. I think that, if we go by what is shown rather than what the game tells, Cantha is still a bit behind what has been established over the course of the game so far. Understandably so as the game has bordered on a full industrial tech level, post ww2 almost already. I am sure that the devs want to keep af least a semblance of, or elements of, traditional fantasy....which would be lost if the tech advanced to a post industrial age.

What I was referring to was more a matter of slang, speech patterns, attitudes, and general delivery of the setting in game. Cantha feels very much like a modern western setting with hand wavy asian window dressing. Too bad in my opinion because  the opportunity to visit an exotic culture whose peoples are different in ways other than just people's names and the color pallette of the maps is a huge draw for me. 

 

9 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

To be fair, gw1 was 250 years ago and was technologically and culturally comparable to the 111th to 13th century. 250 years is not much time to go from iron swords to orbital sattelite bombardment.  

 

9 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Nope. My biggest complaint about LGBT representation in GW2 is that explored devoted same sex relationships among major named and important charactersn are restricted to the L in LGBT while there are no male same sex relationships to be found explored among major important characters. Would be nice to see hetero relationships explored among major important characters too.

The only toxicity here is you inventing attitudes and opinions for me in order to be able to throw shade.

 

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

On 7/17/2022 at 5:27 PM, Kalavier.1097 said:

The thing I've said in the past about Cantha being so different to people is this.

We left GW1 explicitly knowing that we would NOT be coming back to factions Cantha. Winds of Change and Movement of the World explicitly laid that out for us. Yet some people are shocked and angry that the culture is different now, that the Kurzicks or Luxons (as major nations) are gone.

me: "We knew this would be the case."

It's a brilliant case for us GW1 vets IMO. Because as I read the books, as I explored the areas, it all struck me how heavily these changes happened because of the actions of the GW1 hero. We set things in motion for this destructive turn. And even with the Ministry of Purity trying to erase the GW1 factions PC from history, destroying everything about Kurzicks and Luxons, the PC is known still. Those two cultures survived and are regrowing.

The Kurzicks and Luxons thing we knew.

The Ministry of Purity stuff we did not. In fact, back in 2007 with the Movement of the World and back in 2011 with Winds of Change, we were explicitly promised we'd have to deal first hand with the direct fallout of Usoku and the Ministry of Purity - not the remnants after the matter was taken care of by itself.

And don't kitten with the "oh it would have just been Elona told over again" because no, not it wouldn't be. Elona was a story of small scale infiltration of an indoctrinated nation that believed everything that happens happens because their monarch who happens to be MIA at the moment was missing. They let us wander around Vabbi despite being a totalitarian government, because they believed our presence was allowed by Joko because Joko allows everything, and quite honestly this could (and imo should) have happened in the Desolation beyond that one village.

Cantha, however, was a xenophobic regime with people raised under the belief that everyone else is out to get them.

 

That is a vastly different setting; one gives us free reign because "the Commander is here under Joko's allowance, even though Joko isn't here, so the Commander is an ally", creating an infiltration setting, while the other gives us restricted reign because "the Commander is an outsider, and all outsiders are out to get us, so the Commander is heinous villain" creating an invasion setting.

 

And all those books and explorations does not, as a GW1 vet, satisfy the promise of taking down a totalitarian government we directly put in power.

17 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

TBH, yes things changed. But GW1 was not thrown out and destroyed lorewise.

Yes. Including Bloodstones, Glint, Balthazar, Lazarus, Ministry of Purity, Primordus, etc.

Totally not retconned and arguably destroyed lore.

Hell they couldn't even maintain consistency of lore within GW2 by end and beginning with the biggest story beats as seen with Soo-Won and the IBS finale.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

10 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

To be fair, gw1 was 250 years ago and was technologically and culturally comparable to the 111th to 13th century. 250 years is not much time to go from iron swords to orbital sattelite bombardment.  

Luckily, we aren't at orbital satellite bombardment because mortla-made satellites don't exist.

 

I know that there is that engi skill that says "orbital bombardment" but it isn't. It isn't. It's airship bombardment. Know how I know? Because that skill is using the same exact animations as the Aetherblades' airship bombardment during Battle for Lion's Arch arc.

Could be from the Mists I guess, or just like Skyhammer - from a distant laser gun, like that Inquest laser gun in Mount Maelstrom that attacks the Largos Master Sdias if you let it.

 

Other than that bit tho, I agree. 250 years isn't enough to go from pre-Industrial to modern. Even if the Industrial revolution began 50 years after GW1 as indicated, that 200 years is not enough time. Using IRL time progression, we should be 1930s/1940s equivalent in GW2 at latest. And that's for charr and asura. Jadetech began 20 years ago, their development should be far behind asura not 50+ years ahead.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Kalavier.1097]

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

The Kurzicks and Luxons thing we knew.

The Ministry of Purity stuff we did not. In fact, back in 2007 with the Movement of the World and back in 2011 with Winds of Change, we were explicitly promised we'd have to deal first hand with the direct fallout of Usoku and the Ministry of Purity - not the remnants after the matter was taken care of by itself.

And things change within a company. Managers, writers, directions change as things go along. I don't recall any such EXPLICIT promises, just that we left Cantha knowing it would not be the same when we returned. That we'd come back and it wouldn't be the Cantha we knew.

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

And don't kitten with the "oh it would have just been Elona told over again" because no, not it wouldn't be. Elona was a story of small scale infiltration of an indoctrinated nation that believed everything that happens happens because their monarch who happens to be MIA at the moment was missing. They let us wander around Vabbi despite being a totalitarian government, because they believed our presence was allowed by Joko because Joko allows everything, and quite honestly this could (and imo should) have happened in the Desolation beyond that one village.

 

Cantha, however, was a xenophobic regime with people raised under the belief that everyone else is out to get them.

That is a vastly different setting; one gives us free reign because "the Commander is here under Joko's allowance, even though Joko isn't here, so the Commander is an ally", creating an infiltration setting, while the other gives us restricted reign because "the Commander is an outsider, and all outsiders are out to get us, so the Commander is heinous villain" creating an invasion setting.

Forgetting that in the story, we were rushing through the area disguised as the top tier official of the Awoken military at the time, to gather up the army to fight against Balthazar. The region was also destabilized by Joko being missing and the Forged and branded running rampant.

And the commander had to be explicitly told (if you talk to the one scout) to NOT start smashing everything in sight because of how dependant the culture was on the Awoken.

We were in Elona because we chased Balthazar there, before that point Elona hadn't done anything to the wider world. Which is a detail I love because Joko reacts to the events of path of fire with "Screw it, I left the rest of the world alone and you came in and trashed my place, so I'll just take over the world."

The point is that as a result of PoF and LS4, we actively overthrew the controlling government after two hostile invasions by enemy forces before us that shattered the stability of the region. Maybe they looked at the story of Path of fire and s4, and went...

"Okay, we have this nation which went evil, was functional, but everything went to kitten because of an invasion(two) and the leadership was totally destroyed forcing chaos and splinter factions to appear."

"While we wouldn't need to do the same style of sneaking in story, how can we set up the story to return to Cantha that works? There isn't any reason to invade and topple the government of Cantha or even visit it without an external force, and Cantha would NOT by the attacking force by nature of isolation and the dead fleets."

It wouldn't be the same, sure. But it'd still be toppling a government and you'd need a REASON to be there in the first place. Having the effects of Zhaitan cause a degrading of Purity's power, and the government shifting so we arrive chasing Aetherblades but not sparking an international war is one thing. "Hey you are going back to Cantha, to conquer the nation and destroy the government!" is a hard sell from "We are trying to preserve peace and save the world." when the nation hasn't done a thing.

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

And all those books and explorations does not, as a GW1 vet, satisfy the promise of taking down a totalitarian government we directly put in power.

Yes. Including Bloodstones, Glint, Balthazar, Lazarus, Ministry of Purity, Primordus, etc.

Totally not retconned and arguably destroyed lore.

Hell they couldn't even maintain consistency of lore within GW2 by end and beginning with the biggest story beats as seen with Soo-Won and the IBS finale.

The problem is with destroying Purity is this. Why are we going to Cantha? What are we doing when we topple the government and destroy it? Who rebuilds the nation? What do we do, slaughter the masses who think we are invaders and fight to the end?

 

In your opinion. Bloodstones? You mean going from the human centric storytelling and human told histories to a wider story about what went down? Glint I don't even know what you mean besides making her a crystal dragon champion originally?

 

As a GW1 vet, no the lore isn't completely retconned and destroyed. It's changed and evolved yes, but not to the point GW1 is worthless and meaningless. Which is what some people kitten and moan about. Any and all change.

And as a GW1 vet, I don't recall any promise that we'd personally be taking down Purity. And with the time jump and the nation going isolationist, I honestly never expected to actually return to Cantha when I started playing GW2. Or Elona, for that matter.

 

1 hour ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Other than that bit tho, I agree. 250 years isn't enough to go from pre-Industrial to modern. Even if the Industrial revolution began 50 years after GW1 as indicated, that 200 years is not enough time. Using IRL time progression, we should be 1930s/1940s equivalent in GW2 at latest. And that's for charr and asura. Jadetech began 20 years ago, their development should be far behind asura not 50+ years ahead.

Jadetech is more on par with Asuratech, not 50 years ahead or anything.

It's just that Jadetech is built by cooperative and public minded individuals, not mad scientists who put 15 extra steps into everything just to prove that they are superior to their peers, actively punish anybody who isn't "smart enough" and view ALL non-Asura individuals are being too stupid to understand any of it, including blowing up any Asura tech known to fall into others hands.

Rata Sum doesn't share with the other races. Xunlai jade actively goes "Hey, here's your training guide and we'll get you caught up." to any new hires. It's why it's so interesting to see how things may go forward because Asura are caught in the lie of their own creation, that the rest of the world is too stupid to understand. But Xunlai Jade proves that wrong.

Asura krewes bicker and fight, and even within the krewe they can sabotage each other. The Inquest are famous for doing this to the point of Rata Primus outright telling people to shut up and ignore the weird noises going on as the city burnt under an Awoken invasion. Xunlai jade cooperates and builds with the public in mind. Just look at how Xunlai Jade has a section devoted to medicine and treatments, where the Asura don't even care about Taimi's condition to the point she had to learn and build her own golem just to move about effectively.

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Kalavier.1097

[The Greyhawk.9107]

6 minutes ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

~Snip~

*Awakened*