Please tell more Sylvari stories

[Buzzbugs.1236]

Are the Asura Anet's favorite? It seems like as far back as I can remember we're being led by the nose by Asura characters and their technology and their techno-babble. Can we take a break from Asura culture, please? Just when I thought we were done with Taimi and Gorrick, you bring back Zojja. What is it with Asura favoritism? IBS was good for Norn and Charr, at least. But Sylvari seem to be totally forgotten, apart from the odd appearance from Caithe..

Edited January 23 by Buzzbugs.1236

[Narcemus.1348]

You aren't wrong. The premise of Guild Wars to start with was that no one has the exact answers to every problem. The Vigil and Priory wanted to kill the Elder Dragons and varied in their opinions on how while the Order of Whispers wanted to put the dragons back asleep. For ease of storytelling, "Kill the Dragons" won.

Similarly the races differed based on their knowledge and resources and the whole plot was to bring them all together to create new things using all of that expertise, but since then it has been easiest to just have the asura tech their way through everything.

While every race has had the spotlight for various parts of the story, a lot of the McGuffins have been Asura in nature and it shows. 

[Kalavier.1097]

That tends to be because the Asura Characters were spending all their time in the backlines/labs and could parse through the data we were finding and make solutions while the main team was still in the field pushing forward.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Sylvari got all of HoT so there's definitely been stories focused on them. 

[Randulf.7614]

Somebody skipped LS2 and HoT...

Plus the Personal Story lead NPC was a sylvari and that caused a ton of (unjustified) whinging

Edited January 23 by Randulf.7614

[Farohna.6247]

Trahearne, Caithe, Canach?   Faolain?  By The Pale Tree, we had a lot of them in LWS2 and HoT. 

Mind you, I love the sylvari, so I always welcome more, but they kind of take turns with the races. We've had a lot of Norn and Charr focus with IBS, humans with Cantha.  Asurans are not my favorite (I do like Gorrik)  most are irritating and self important and yes, you did make the Megadestroyer bigger *sigh*.  Most of the time they're back in the lab though, and Zojja ties up loose ends.  

[LSD.4673]

Best they let sleeping dogs lie. All that's left is to resolve the Pale Tree doing a Zojja and being out of the picture all these years. But can you imagine the tosh they'd come up with if she woke up?

They wouldn't bother with the real issues -- like Malyck. It'd just be some generic "remember the past" stuff followed by some limp "now the dragons is gone we must work together again for this new threat in the next expansion".

Noty 

[Teknomancer.4895]

On 1/23/2024 at 12:19 PM, Randulf.7614 said:

Somebody skipped LS2 and HoT...

Plus the Personal Story lead NPC was a sylvari and that caused a ton of (unjustified) whinging

IDK about "unjustified," Trahearne was unceremoniously dumped on the player at Chlore Claw Island and immediately took over the player's story, with no real explanation for why we should care what this random un-potted civilian plant had to say, much less let him take charge of a joint military operation. If we hadn't made the baffling decision to follow his (at that point) highly questionable lead, maybe we could have even saved our Order mentors. And of course nobody but a self-proclaimed "expert" in ancient Orr could have possibly thought of the brilliant strategy "kill the mobs, sink the kitten ship, then kill the big monster."  🙄

Conceptually, Sylvari could have been interesting, but in actual practice they turned out to just be another boring fantasy trope: a bunch of woodland elves mouthing empty platitudes in pretentious English accents to whom everyone is supposed to defer because (mumble Pale Tree, cough, centaur, mumble) elves are better than you. Humans should especially have no reason to trust these dragon minions whose "culture" (such as it is) was based on the musings of some long-dead outcast centaur (also a race not known for its love of humanity). And then follow him up with Scarlet and Mordremoth? I'm surprised no human in a position of authority ever suggested the Tyrian equivalent of napalm; certainly Countess Anise seems hard enough to consider something like that.

"All things have a right to grow," and yet the Sylvari run through the world slaughtering everything in their path because the arbitrary Wyld Hunt overrules all other considerations? No, their morality and belief systems aren't questionable in the slightest.

[Buzzbugs.1236]

2 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

 I'm surprised no human in a position of authority ever suggested the Tyrian equivalent of napalm; certainly Countess Anise seems hard enough to consider something like that.

"All things have a right to grow," and yet the Sylvari run through the world slaughtering everything in their path because the arbitrary Wyld Hunt overrules all other considerations? No, their morality and belief systems aren't questionable in the slightest.

This is exactly the kind of story GW2 needs. I had actually expected there to be more of this after Rytlocks ramblings about the Sylvari in the HoT trailer, but we never actually got to see it develop further than that.

Instead of all the races always being friends all the time, there should have been more rivalries develop throughout GW2's lifetime. Another example is the pact between Humans and Charr. I would have liked to see it be broken and for there to be more rivalry between the main races and factions. We needed that kind of drama as it could have opened up so much opportunity for story development.

Instead we're left with the Dragons being defeated and the writers scratching their heads trying to come up with a new super villain out of thin air that we can band together to take down once again. It's tiresome.

Edited January 25 by Buzzbugs.1236

[Kalavier.1097]

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

IDK about "unjustified," Trahearne was unceremoniously dumped on the player at Chlore Claw Island and immediately took over the player's story, with no real explanation for why we should care what this random un-potted civilian plant had to say, much less let him take charge of a joint military operation. If we hadn't made the baffling decision to follow his (at that point) highly questionable lead, maybe we could have even saved our Order mentors. And of course nobody but a self-proclaimed "expert" in ancient Orr could have possibly thought of the brilliant strategy "kill the mobs, sink the kitten ship, then kill the big monster."  🙄

Man, it's almost as if the very story step literally and quite explicitly in bold letters described why you didn't become the big kitten hero leading the pact.

YOU WERE IN AN ORDER ALREADY AND THEY WOULDN'T TRUST YOU. They had to have a third party who the orders all trusted and knew so nobody felt like there was advantages being gifted. The orders at the time severely distrusted each other, even though they had shared goals. It's quite literally the whole point. He takes the leadership seat to guide them, and then appoints you as his champion on the field.

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Conceptually, Sylvari could have been interesting, but in actual practice they turned out to just be another boring fantasy trope: a bunch of woodland elves mouthing empty platitudes in pretentious English accents to whom everyone is supposed to defer because (mumble Pale Tree, cough, centaur, mumble) elves are better than you. Humans should especially have no reason to trust these dragon minions whose "culture" (such as it is) was based on the musings of some long-dead outcast centaur (also a race not known for its love of humanity). And then follow him up with Scarlet and Mordremoth? I'm surprised no human in a position of authority ever suggested the Tyrian equivalent of napalm; certainly Countess Anise seems hard enough to consider something like that.

I think you got things drastically mixed up given how Sylvari are a new development, Ventari was well known to be a pacifist who didn't fight humans, and nobody knew they were dragon minions until Mordremoth attacked the pact fleet.

You also missed how LA had to deal with severe Sylvari distrust and even violence after Scarlet and it only settled down long after she was dead.

Also, the whole thing with Mordremoth got settled in what was it, 40 days or so? And his control didn't affect the Pale tree or central Tyria that much compared to the jungle. And once he died, the call was over and sylvari regained themselves.

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

"All things have a right to grow," and yet the Sylvari run through the world slaughtering everything in their path because the arbitrary Wyld Hunt overrules all other considerations? No, their morality and belief systems aren't questionable in the slightest.

You have a pretty skewed and mistaken viewpoint of the lore, as most Sylvari don't "run through the world slaughtering everything". Don't take gameplay for lore and all the PC's.

Also, Wyld hunts are rare among the population, and we haven't seen any that go "Go murder an entire skritt hollow because."

 

[Teknomancer.4895]

I'll admit I laid it on a bit thick for emphasis, but at the risk of confusing more Sylvari mains, 😝 Humans in particular should be much more xenophobic than they are depicted:

Quote

Once the dominant species of Tyria, the humans have not fared well in the last few years. Their kingdoms, once spanning the entire continent of Central Tyria, lie in ruins, leaving only Kryta, the oppressed Elona, and the isolationist Cantha. 

...

At the end of Guild Wars, humanity was still the dominant race in the world. Spanning three continents with an extensive trade network and significant population, humanity had spread to every corner of Tyria. From these heights humanity started to falter and for the past 250 years they have been in decline.

The reception you get when first arriving in Cantha is about right, to be honest. It could have even been more hostile and unwelcoming yet still believable. Honestly even the truce with the Charr is a reach and at least it's depicted here and there as being shaky and contrived, but the Searing does have the advantage of having been Long Ago. In game time, the invasion of Claw Island was yesterday and even if LA is a semi-autonomous city-state it's still part of Kryta and thus should be at least nominally answerable to Queen Jenna.

Three private militias supplanted the official Lionguard security forces and installed a relatively unknown civilian as supreme military leader with another unknown as his second-in-command, as a reward for losing a key defensive installation, and nobody in Kryta has even the slightest problem with that? And then we come to HoT, where this (Sylvari) civilian leads the Pact into an ambush and then vanishes, while Mordremoth turns many Sylvari against their comrades and the airship armada (a huge investment of resources and personnel) was ripped out of the sky en masse. What would convince Humans to trust any Sylvari from that moment onward? How could Queen Jenna convince her people that this is a good idea? Why should the commander trust either Caithe or Trahearne, after they've shown untrustworthiness and incompetence, respectively?

Yes, it would mess up the intended storyline to play it out as such things would play out IRL, but I don't think there's much reason beyond that.

[Kalavier.1097]

11 minutes ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Three private militias supplanted the official Lionguard security forces and installed a relatively unknown civilian as supreme military leader with another unknown as his second-in-command, as a reward for losing a key defensive installation, and nobody in Kryta has even the slightest problem with that? And then we come to HoT, where this (Sylvari) civilian leads the Pact into an ambush and then vanishes, while Mordremoth turns many Sylvari against their comrades and the airship armada (a huge investment of resources and personnel) was ripped out of the sky en masse. What would convince Humans to trust any Sylvari from that moment onward? How could Queen Jenna convince her people that this is a good idea? Why should the commander trust either Caithe or Trahearne, after they've shown untrustworthiness and incompetence, respectively?

Yes, it would mess up the intended storyline to play it out as such things would play out IRL, but I don't think there's much reason beyond that.

I mean, being honest the orders all had decent relations to the various governments, and also kept their kitten to the dragons only (Which is partly why they never got involved with Scarlet in huge degrees) And trahearne wasn't responsible for Claw island falling, that was the lionguard. The commander on duty purposefully ignored warnings and cost the island.

The majority of airships were Pact owned, as they spent the years rebuilding after the Orr campaign. And honestly, after the HoT campaign the pact likely wrote up entire briefings on what happened, since the dragon was dead and the mordrem left in the jungle. Also the fact the Pact had evidence that he was captured at the start, and witnesses of that. Not like he just disappeared.

The commander was completely flip-floppy in HoT toward Caithe, and Trahearne used his advisors for major military moves. Hell, he was basically absent the final battle around Arah and others lead the charge.

Jennah/humans resources put into the pact pre-HoT wasn't a crippling amount, and afterwards it's not like the Pact was begging for donations. And then you have Logan being made Pact Marshall. 

Plus, post HoT Sylvari have not been active in huge collected numbers. The Nightmare Court has withdrawn, the Pale Tree is healing and you have regular adventurers going out.

[Infinity.2876]

Canach was so good anything after him seems pale in comparison.

[Teknomancer.4895]

@Kalavier.1097 first of all, I think I need to clarify that I'm not really espousing any of these points myself, but using them as the Devil's Advocate argument. The key part is this:

7 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Yes, it would mess up the intended storyline to play it out as such things would play out IRL, but I don't think there's much reason beyond that.

Emphasis added. An old truism of politics is that if you're explaining, you're losing. Playing the part of a rabble-rousing demagogue, everything I wrote and worse would be spreading among a shrinking population that was constantly being harried by one set of enemies while trying to balance a fragile truce with another more dangerous set of enemies that had conquered half of their former territory, and maintaining material support to breakaway separatists (viewed as squatters at best and terrorists at worst by the truce faction).

At the time not having had any good news from either Elona or Cantha, "keep the outsiders out" would very likely be a strong sentiment among the population, especially after the plant-based outsiders were widely known to have literally been created as dragon minions. Then the Queen lets one of those dragon minions* (who wasn't exactly well known to the public at large) and another nobody (the player) to take charge of a continental joint military response after a military debacle led in part by these very same nobodies?

There would be a little bit of disagreement regarding the wisdom of this arrangement, to put it mildly.

 

* Yes I'm aware this wasn't widely known at that time but that doesn't make it inaccurate, or something that couldn't easily be said anyway whether true or not, known or not.

Edited January 26 by Teknomancer.4895
note

[Kalavier.1097]

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

@Kalavier.1097 first of all, I think I need to clarify that I'm not really espousing any of these points myself, but using them as the Devil's Advocate argument. The key part is this:

Emphasis added. An old truism of politics is that if you're explaining, you're losing. Playing the part of a rabble-rousing demagogue, everything I wrote and worse would be spreading among a shrinking population that was constantly being harried by one set of enemies while trying to balance a fragile truce with another more dangerous set of enemies that had conquered half of their former territory, and maintaining material support to breakaway separatists (viewed as squatters at best and terrorists at worst by the truce faction).

At the time not having had any good news from either Elona or Cantha, "keep the outsiders out" would very likely be a strong sentiment among the population, especially after the plant-based outsiders were widely known to have literally been created as dragon minions. Then the Queen lets one of those dragon minions* (who wasn't exactly well known to the public at large) and another nobody (the player) to take charge of a continental joint military response after a military debacle led in part by these very same nobodies?

There would be a little bit of disagreement regarding the wisdom of this arrangement, to put it mildly.

 

* Yes I'm aware this wasn't widely known at that time but that doesn't make it inaccurate, or something that couldn't easily be said anyway whether true or not, known or not.

Internet is hard at times to determine if somebody is being serious or not lol!

At the very least, Kryta was entering into a more stable period during HoT. 

[Kiki.9450]

To me, it's always been one big sylvari story. ❤️ (Because that's what I play.)

More to the topic: I remember when SotO was announced, Anet had teased possible future storylines/expansion themes, and one of these teases was indeed about the sylvari, so we may get something sooner than later.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

HoT was NOT about sylvari. Yeah, some turn. And you have a little quest line with them here and there in VB. But there it stops. HoT is less about sylvari than Zhaitan is about humans. 

No, HoT was about Asura.

Irritating Taimi is of course there and of course we have to find and protect her.

Of course we find mega-awesome-asura ruins which tells us so much stuff noone else has figured out.

Of course we find a hyper-mega-awesome-lost-asuran-city. Filled with knowledge and tech noone else has figured out. 

HoT was not about Sylvari. That stopped when they ripped the nightmare story elements out. HoT was about asura-are-super-awesome.

LW3? Asura

LW4? Asura

IBS? not about asura, so it had to be butchered.

PoF? If they could, they would have stuffed asura in it. So we only had to endure the uber-genius of Taimi.

EOD? Finally a story where we are not the servant of some asura - oh wait. Taimi and Gorrick still command us around.

SoTo? Oh, it starts with useless annoyance Zojja. And she is of course WAY more important than we are.

So, yeah, we deserve more sylvari content. We deservere more norn content. We deserve more charr content.

What we do not need is more asura.

And Zojja? I wish she would have never brought back. 

[Teknomancer.4895]

3 hours ago, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

SoTo? Oh, it starts with useless annoyance Zojja. And she is of course WAY more important than we are.  . . .  And Zojja? I wish she would have never brought back. 

Agreed, she didn't really add anything to the story but "emotional vulnerability and self-doubt," both of which are things that culturally, Asura simply don't do.

Plus Felicia Day's voiceover price tag probably came at the cost of the salary for someone to do a bug-fix pass.

The entire SotO story would have stood just fine on its own without Zojja. She was completely gratuitous.

Priorities, you know.