The questionable morality of the Guildwars universe and its impact on the game as a whole

[Ceit.7619]

A lot of people have a tendency to want to separate Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 in every possible way, but the lore is one of the areas where you can and should look to the previous game for help in putting things into context for the current game. I can see how a person who just picked up GW2 would perhaps question why we blindly follow the current power structures, or are immediately against certain factions, but this is as relevant as picking up a book and starting it in the middle of the book. You'd pick up on pretty quick that there is a villain, but you are missing out on the first half of the book to give it all appropriate context and weight.

Starting where I please, I'll talk about the situation in Kryta. Sure, Caudecus has some points that he is making in regards to a lot of things but that is essentially good writing rather than bad writing. If he didn't have points that made sense, then he would have no reason to have a following behind him. If the PC's storyline delved more into the grey matters of these motivations, the character would end up coming off as wishy-washy and foolish. It has been mentioned repeatedly about how they are deemed evil for going against the status quo, but that is not the message that a player who understands the storyline of GW1 would pull from the going on's if they think about it. The GW1 PC went against the Status Quo, toppling the White Mantle as the primary governing force once they found out that they were literally sacrificing citizens to their 'unseen gods'. The GW1 PC is the one who fought these battles, fought that government, and assisted in getting the current ruling monarchy set up. So for long-time players and lore followers, the current Krytan government is more trusted and seen as 'good' because WE ARE THE ONES WHO PUT IT THERE. Queen Jenna being an honorable and sensible ruler of a society that is good places value in what the players from GW1 struggled to create. It's a reinforcement that the past lore is relevant and matters. Doing it in any other way would instead feel like the writers were trampling on the accomplishments of the previous game at best, and at worst make the players feel like their efforts were a waste previously. This would decrease investment in the story, rather than increase it due to complications of moral ambiguity.

The human kingdom have the most lore attached to them on account of the PC in GW1 always being human, but the complicated relationship between the Charr and the Humans are explored in many open world events and dialogues. There is all manner of 'reason' for humans and charr to hate one another but the PC is above these issues for a single primary reason: Dragons are threatening the entire world. The Human/Charr PC has his priorities aligned correctly and isn't as worried about the leaking sink (ancient blood fued with the charr/human) when the entire house is on fire (Zhaitan is going to eat you). By all accounts, ANY faction that is not jumping on board to the defense of Tyria and is more interested in petty bloodshed is an immediate threat that can be plowed over without remorse.

The Charr, being one of the main antagonists of GW1 also have the second richest history in the game and should not be ignored when considering their perspective from the story. Someone earlier in the thread said it well: The Charr HATE being lied to. The flame legion lied to them, and are the primary perpetrators of the Searing that destroyed Ascalon. The flame legion drew the power of the Searing from their own fiery gods: The Titans. The Titans are a creation from the demonic realm of Abbandon, the god that preceded Kormir and was the primary villain of the Nightfall campaign. It was the Titans, as pretender gods, who told the Charr to invade the human kingdoms in the first place and gave them the ability to cause the Searing. The entire Charr/Human conflict is one that was perpetrated by Abbadon, but most people in lore simply blame the Charr as being 'monsters' or the humans as being 'invaders'. Their blood feud is a misconception and misunderstanding that has existed for hundreds of years and as PC's who have potentially gone through all of this history and lore, should want for peace between the races for this reason. Not just for the sake of peace or because authority says it's for the best, but because being manipulated unknowingly is the weak stance and the writers likely want us to be playing strong characters.

Abbadon's part in the current setup of the lore cannot really be understated, as he was the primary mover in all of GW1 and his defeat was the culmination of the game's entire lore. Even the player's taking down the White Mantle as a tyrannical government was a plot by Abbadon because the sacrifices that the White Mantle were performing is the only thing that kept the Titan's locked away in the Realm of Torment. The Unseen gods of the White Mantle (The Mursaat) were just one of the oldest and most knowledgeable races in existence at the time and were using the power they had to try and keep an evil god at bay who threatened to destroy Tyria. Their means were pretty horrible, but the result cannot be denied as it did result in keeping the Titans locked away in the Ring of Fire. As such, going against the institutions that survived all of this lore, and were put into place by overcoming all the adversity and evil that existed prior to GW2 being a game, is extremely relevant to the discussion.

[Felipe.1807]

Guess the only moraly questionable thing that the Commander did so far is accept those 2 asuras Inquest into the team just cause they are Taimis old friends...also let Vabbi untouched, just cause the Order of Shadows said that the citzens had no fault of being indoctrinated, when the same could be said by Flame Legion, Svanirs or any other of the evil factions....and now that we know that Caudecus was somewhat behind the whole conflict with Centaurs, i guess it kind of feel bad to had wiped them out of the face of Kryta.

[STIHL.2489]

@ThiBash.5634 said:It's not just the evil guys that are one-dimensional. It applies to some minor npcs as well.

Take Lord Faren for example. When you first meet him in the human noble storyline, he's a superficial noble and a woman chaser, but there's more to him than that. Once the npc gets him out of trouble, he instantly joins the rescue mission regardless of the danger to himself. Later on, it is hinted that he got dismissed from the Krytan Ministry due to his caring for commoners. He even goes to save (fake) Queen Jenna with great danger to himself without a second thought. He's obviously not a great hero, but his heart is in the right place.

And then the story slowly turns him into a stereotypical talk-the-talk-but-cannot-walk-the-walk hero that runs around without clothes and is completely oblivious to the things happening around him. Which is quite a shame imho because I kinda liked him in the beginning.

I loved Swordmaster Faren, I mean.. really.. he pops up in the middle of a rescue mission, wearing a loin cloth and a sword (How he survived when I can still die in full armor is beyond me). No one ever questions this.. because you know.. he's Faren.. the dimwit.. who needs the hero to play hero to save him, and then he stops off saving the day with the real hero.. and yet.. the job gets done.

Like he's playing a ditsy blond to manipulate people, but has what it takes to get though anything.

@norbes.3620 said:There is still the hypothesis of faren being E.A Person with Intel and insight comparable to the Order of whispers or shining Blade while He just play the Dandy nobel. Supported is this theory by the fact that He Shows up everywhere where is Action as an easy to dismiss trespasser

I buy that he was deep into the Order of Whispers.. or something along those lines.

@"Castigator.3470" said:

Not only that, he's the only person I know to have survived both the Maguuma Jungle and the Crystal desert with just a sword and a loincloth. I mean our character might be able to survive that, but it wouldn't be easy. In fact, there is a certain dissonance between his "clumsiness" and his ability to survive everything Tyria has thrown at him so far. Neither the Maguuma jungle, nor the Desert are the places where you'd just take off your armor and face the corrupted facet. This is the behaviour of elite guilds, who want to challenge themselves:"Let's do a naked bounty hunt!"Then there's the fact that he took an eye out of Bongo, who is considered a swordmaster.The final indicater, however, is his patron god. If you talk to Faren, he will eventually say:"May Lyssa aid you." He worships the goddess of illusion. I'm calling it: He's an expertly skilled fighter, he may be highly intelligent, but to everyone around him he's just some silly noble. I'd say he's at worst an idiot savant, whose social awkwardness may even be genuine and at best he may be E. Fare'E'n.

Yup.. it would great to see how deep things could go with him.. he's another one that could have a story that goes all way down the rabbit hole.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

@"TheWolf.1602" said:Anybody else annoyed by the PC acting exactly like balthazar during PoF? siding with terrorists(White Mantle/Sunspears) who want to get rid of the current ruler, deceiving others to gain an army, killing everything that gets in the way... but somehow the PC is the hero and Balthazar the bad guy...

well if you don't pay attention to anything at all it may seem like so.....

so firstly white mantle: enjoyed tyrranical rule over tyria while slaughtering alot of their citizen to power up some soul battieres for their mursaat overlords.

current ruler of tyria - queen jennah, for all we are given so far she is quite a decent queen, maybe not perfect but fit for the task and caring about her people.

other side of the spectrum:current "ruler" of elona - undead megalomaniac lich whom have brainwashed bigger chunk of the nation, rewrote all history in his favour and is claiming deeds he could never hope to achieve.

Sunspears: sworn protectors of elonian people whom have 'failed' their people once in the past by being defeated by palawa joko's

now for "terrorists" parts:white mantle was acting against a betterment of last big human kingdom in order to undermine the ruler to powergrab what will be left of it afterwards.

sunspears - mostly trying to lend help wherever they can while avoiding capture by joko's forces - recently in istan mounted an uprising because, Joko's administration was STARVING WHOLE ISLAND

the only point your analogy may hold some waters is deception in order to gain an army, but then if you also didn't noticed we were using this one only once, to COUNTER balthazars army and never tried it again.

as for killing those that "gets in a way" a you maybe failed to notice balthy was killing everyone who got in the way without any second thought, while so far we killed..... some forged, and some awakened, while striving to protect innocents caught up in the crossfire. ooooh right and some inquest in the last episode too, but these were established "bad guys" from even a core story and they were the big reason why hostilities even begun to escalate.

and as a cherrytop ontop of all these are grander goals - we are striving to protect sentient life on tyria from elder dragons and other demises (like recently palawa), balthazar wanted a fight against an oponent without any bit of care what happens to the whole planet during it/afterwards

yeah "somehow" he was a villain and we are the heroes, I have no idea why that could be.... >.>

[Diviner.4517]

@Ceit.7619 said:A lot of people have a tendency to want to separate Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 in every possible way, but the lore is one of the areas where you can and should look to the previous game for help in putting things into context for the current game. I can see how a person who just picked up GW2 would perhaps question why we blindly follow the current power structures, or are immediately against certain factions, but this is as relevant as picking up a book and starting it in the middle of the book. You'd pick up on pretty quick that there is a villain, but you are missing out on the first half of the book to give it all appropriate context and weight.

See, the case presented in my original post was never that there is no moral ambiguity and depth in the lore of the game. I even accepted the claim that Guildwars 1 addresses most (if not all) of the issues I find troublesome in Guildwars 2. But your claim that the lore of the first game should be used to justify the character's actions in the second game cannot be easily substantiated.

For starters, even though the historical events of Guildwars 1 are recent history, they're history nonetheless. Centuries have passed since then, the characters that instigated the events are long deceased, and their actions, even though documented (for example in Glint's Prophecies), are their own. The Commander of Guildwars 2 is not the same character who fought in Guildwars 1, and neither should he be expected to uphold the same principles.

The second issue with your claim is that all this gray area is best left understood in the background lore of the game, instead of being presented in the main storyline, in fear of undermining the actions of the Commander and him

@Ceit.7619 said:coming off as wishy-washy and foolish.

A player is not expected to have delved deeply into the background lore of the game before picking up the game and playing it. And certainly he's not expected to have played or even be aware of previous games in the franchise, unless the franchise is comprised of tightly connected sequels. A game that opts to function as stand-alone has to be self sufficient, and that includes its storyline as well. The fact that the authors do not even hint in the rich gray area presented in the background lore (which we both agree exists and is plentiful), is either a testament to their inability to present it in a way that doesn't undermine the story they want to tell, or their lack of faith in players being able to understand, appreciate and handle the moral nuances that would unavoidably surface if they did. With so many video game titles proving that the telling of such a story is possible and even strengthens the title as a product (Warcraft, Starcraft, Mass Effect, KOTOR, FF6, FF7, Chrono Trigger, Bioshock, etc), the case for Guildwars 2 is simply the case of a missed opportunity.

And I think this is the perfect point to address one of the previous posters.

@CETheLucid.3964 said:

@"Diviner.4517" said:The problem with Guildwars universe is that it has

too clearly defined borders of what good and evil is

. And this is hurting both its NPCs and its history, especially given the fact that many times it provides enough background information to suggest that nuance should exist, but it never acknowledges or does anything with it.

I would posit how absurd this remark would sound if it were made about a movie's story or about a rock band's music.

What, you didn't like the story of Transformer's 2? Take it easy it's just a movie.What, you didn't like the latest Korn album? Take it easy, it's just music.

Media is media. Whether it's in video, audio or interactive form, when it expands to cover specific artistic disciplines (such as literature and philosophy in this thread's case), it opens itself to criticism regarding said disciplines. People critique works of art for a living, and their input is essential to that art's progress and development. If we do not point the storyline flaws in a game genre that focuses on storyline (RPGs), then how do we expect it to grow as a genre and transform into something greater?

I love this game. I spent hundreds of hours and euros playing it, and I plan on keeping doing so as long as it provides meaningful entertainment to me. My constructive criticism stems precisely from this love.

[Diviner.4517]

@Elva.6372 said:All things have a right to grow. The blossom is brother to the weed.

Clearly not, such things are at the heart of strife.

I couldn't have put it better myself, my friend.

[Ceit.7619]

@Diviner.4517 said:

See, the case presented in my original post was never that there is no moral ambiguity and depth in the lore of the game. I even accepted the claim that Guildwars 1 addresses most (if not all) of the issues I find troublesome in Guildwars 2. But your claim that the lore of the first game should be used to justify the character's actions in the second game cannot be easily substantiated.

For starters, even though the historical events of Guildwars 1 are recent history, they're history nonetheless. Centuries have passed since then, the characters that instigated the events are long deceased, and their actions, even though documented (for example in Glint's Prophecies), are their own. The Commander of Guildwars 2 is not the same character who fought in Guildwars 1, and neither should he be expected to uphold the same principles.

The second issue with your claim is that all this gray area is best left understood in the background lore of the game, instead of being presented in the main storyline, in fear of undermining the actions of the Commander and him

A player is not expected to have delved deeply into the background lore of the game before picking up the game and playing it. And certainly he's not expected to have played or even be aware of previous games in the franchise, unless the franchise is comprised of tightly connected sequels. A game that opts to function as stand-alone has to be self sufficient, and that includes its storyline as well. The fact that the authors do not even hint in the rich gray area presented in the background lore (which we both agree exists and is plentiful), is either a testament to their inability to present it in a way that doesn't undermine the story they want to tell, or their lack of faith in players being able to understand, appreciate and handle the moral nuances that would unavoidably surface if they did. With so many video game titles proving that the telling of such a story is possible and even strengthens the title as a product (Warcraft, Starcraft, Mass Effect, KOTOR, FF6, FF7, Chrono Trigger, Bioshock, etc), the case for Guildwars 2 is simply the case of a missed opportunity.

While I can appreciate the idea that the current game should probably explain the lore better in order to get people up to speed, there does tend to be a lot of things that point at how things were in the past, especially more recently. The White Mantle storyline for instance has a fair amount of historical reference in the GW2 world, but a lot of the time you need to do some digging for it. The commander taking the oath was a direct point at the game, seeing as the events they are retelling are of the events that happened at Sanctum Cay from a different perspective, as the GW1 player didn't get to see what happened directly with Markus and Evenia, but instead had to rescue them post-capture and kill Markus in the escape.

Koss, Dunkoro, Talhkora, Livia, M.O.X., there have been a lot of recent callbacks to GW1 in the story lately, and so it is my thought that they are perhaps planning to continue to interconnect the GW1 lore to the GW2 story. The commander doesn't have to uphold the same principles, but the world kinda needs to in order to be consistent with itself, regardless of new player's desire to learn why it's in place and why it's better than the alternatives.

Regardless, I don't deny that the matter of everything that happened in GW1 is history and that this history does not directly inform the commander's decisions or morality, that wasn't really my original point. My point was more about the act of writing itself. From the perspective of a new player who never touched GW1, yeah the lore can seem like a mess. From the perspective of an older player though who is intimately familiar with the first game though, if GW2 trampled on institutions we helped raise, the history we made 'reality' in the game world, then there would be a huge sense of betrayal from the most dedicated core of the playerbase. As to why they don't devote more in game attention to pointing at things, I imagine it is difficult to find places to fit 4 campaigns of storyline while progressing a current storyline. I think this is part of why a lot of the enemies are seemingly evil in very obvious ways, but at the same time the lore of the old game is hidden around in a lot of nooks and crannies as well.

[Diviner.4517]

So we reach a consensus that there is a lack of venture into the gray areas of the lore in the main storyline, and that this lack results in nonsensical or simplistic apparent moral behavior on behalf of the main characters. Our difference in opinion seems to stem from you believing it's almost impossible to rectify this problem and me believing that other more complex storylines have been masterfully woven in the dialogues of more successful games (at least in story development and narrative conveyance). I believe World of Warcraft to be a testament to this, as it manages to maintain a much larger lore and at the same time also develop gray areas and moral nuances in its characters. However it's not the only game to do just that as it has been discussed in earlier posts (another example being SWTOR).

I'm very glad with how this conversation has developed so far. This is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping to kick-start when I wrote my original post.

[Ralkuth.1456]

Initially I thought we'd be going through with red herring interpretations like David Lynch's films or something, but no, you're absolutely right.

Bottomline a lot of the hard-locked morality alignments have to be tackled and subverted to make the story more meaningful.

Queen Jenna may have in 20/20 hindsight saved both races from suffering, but she had no moral ground on which to make that decision. It was utterly astonishing her decision came through without mass riots. Many humans had taken up arms and a meaningful purpose in defeating the Charr. Show the Charr how ferocious you are and maybe they'll think about a truce when you march on top of the bodies of their Legions. They are warlike, opportunistic conquerors unpunished for their atrocities and if you show weakness, they will eat you up.But Queen Jenna took all that away with the peace talks. If I were the Charr, it wouldn't have been advantageous to make the peace seeing as we've got the humans on its last legs anyway, unless we plan to use the remaining humans as training tools for their ever-present tendency to start wars.Even then, the young generation would have become purposeless, destructive and nihilistic. Kryta should have erupted in chaos, and the Charr could push in and end it once and for all. But nothing happened! Held back by the invisible, all-binding energy field of plot power/deity/fate.

I was watching an analysis of SW: KOTOR 2 and it struck me how the Sylvari/Nightmare Court are basically like Jedi and Sith. In the beginning there was servitude to the Dream (Force), and then came the reactionary freedom, mired in hatred and similarly fanatically religious. They are so locked into For and Against they can't see anything else, like a third option to abandon the Dream. Oh wait, the dependency on the Dream is actually written into the plot! I believe though that we can still salvage this if we had radical plot twists like destruction of the Dream and have the Sylvari cope with the loss of that Mother-Infant connection. Nightmare Court was simply too extreme in its conversion from Good 120% to Evil 120%, the ideological purity utterly disgusts me like Jaesa (sorry guys) in SWTOR.

Palawa Joko was a good point. It was very ad hominem of us to descredit and filter everything he is through the conviction that all liches are evil, without exception. If everything unnatural has to go, maybe we should have renounced all technology, stayed in mud huts and played a game of real Cave Wars 2?Going back to the Charr it's similar, now it's like "Ok, it's truce so we happy go go!! You promised not to hurt me so everything is fine la la la" and you even had a stint in Ebonhawke leaning on the dissidents!

In fact what I realised was this. We, the hero (or the writers), are just as full of biased zealotry as the rest of the cast. We deeply believed in a certain blueprint for Tyria. I look at it this way. The colours we use for different NPCs also suggest our view of them in relation to the faction we belong to. So, we see the Dredge, who are equally thinking, suffering, inventing and living like us, as extermination targets. Now that is Racism.

Black and White makes for an easier viewing and is less pressure on the mind than Grey. If you subscribe to a single belief it is alright to just do as it says and strike down those that do not agree. You do not have to consider that everything you do matters to the world and you have to take responsibility for your own actions. Some can get out but most likely a person would hold on to those borrowed views desperate for validation that what they did had meaning and morality behind it.

I guess my characters' true beliefs died on the day he/she had to fire into a crowd of Dredge trying to transcend their suffering and move forward as a race, or when he/she cut down the separatists in the Fields of Ruin who only wanted righteous vengeance for their lost family members in the wars.

[norbes.3620]

@"Ralkuth.1456" said:I guess my characters' true beliefs died on the day he/she had to fire into a crowd of Dredge trying to transcend their suffering and move forward as a race, or when he/she cut down the separatists in the Fields of Ruin who only wanted righteous vengeance for their lost family members in the wars.

and exactly there is the Problem. if u are too fixed on the past u cant get Forward.

and to be honest the human in ascalon only survived cuz of the Terrain where their City stands as a strategical lock off from the charr.without those mountains and their gates wich they improved over the years they would have already lost.humans dont stand a Chance against the charr in combat. so for the humans it was a necessary decision for the truce to get over this constant siege. those who cant leave the fight behind them are mad from sorrow vengeance or whatever but they are far from being realistic ebonhawk will NEVER be strong enough to Claim ascalon back.

and the charr why should they stop?. they won easy as that. they defeated the humans while the curse of foefire hindered them from completly claiming what should be theirs again. the last fortress of humans in ascalon was not much of interest anymore exept being a testing ground for siege weapons the real Focus of the charr were the ghosts, the branded and the flame Legion. there was no real threat from ebonhawk anymore and it was unlikely that divinitys reach will be able to Support a massive attack into charr territory cuz divinitys reach is busy with their own Problems.ebonhawk wer merely a Prestige Project for the charr.. nice to have but not necessary

that in mind it makes sense to accept negotioations about the truce AFTER the humans offered to return a legendary historical artifact of great importance to them: namely the claw of khan ur. because with the truce they would be able to turn their Attention away from ebonhawk completly and concentrate on the real threats out there.

in short:

• the queen made a decision in favor of human life in General and to end a lost war at least
• the charr got PAID to accept negotiations about letting those defeated sealed away humans stay alive and to stop testing siege weapons vs the gates and walls of ebonhawk.

seperatists and renegades:the charr renegades are acting out of pride (stupid) cuz they cant realise that they already won or cant accept a victory without complete Annihilation of the enemy and that pride is great enough to let them turn away from the legions (wich are their pride Family and honor.. stupid)

seperatists: they are blinded by their hatred and whatever Feelings already mentioned somewhere in this post and this hatred dont let them accept that they lost and that peace with the charr may not bring back their Familys but it will end the fighting and the struggle for survival for them and their children. at least through the charr legionsin order to achieve their vengeance for Family members they Abandon their homes become criminals and endanger the remaining Family members they left behind in their beloved fortress by threatening the peace. wich would have lead to more bloodshet more fire in that beloved fortress and more dead Family members(stupid too)

maybe ur just as blind as them but the game is showing pretty clearly why the truce is favorable for both. and i dont really see any Grey area possible here.. except maybe for the PC to help with the negotiations but making comments how he/she hates it? .. stupid as well. maybe if u would fill out an question paper with 200 questions how u are seeing the in-game politics and different dialoges to choose based on ur answeres

while i agree that there could be more Options to define ur own character more or to view good AND bad in some of the antoganists (not all.. some are just evil) ist still already pretty complicated behind the Scenes if u take the effort to think about the reasons for the decisions made from so characters ingame.

and joko .. the PC dont hate him cuz he is a lich neither do the DW members. when u arrive in amnoon and talk to the council ist pretty clearly stated that they are against him cuz he does not fit their ideals of freedom and or trustworthy leadership. ist because he is a tyran and dictator who defeated and tortured all who tried to stop him. he annihilated the centaurs in Elona and turned them into architecture and enslaved all elonian humans by defeating all of his oponents and turning them into his own army.he is acting cruel and while he do Kind of care for his army lifestock in form of humans living in Elona he dont allow People to "see the world for themselfs" cuz he changes the way of history in his favor to Keep his overhelming control wich he established the last 200 years

[Diviner.4517]

@Ralkuth.1456 said:Initially I thought we'd be going through with red herring interpretations like David Lynch's films or something, but no, you're absolutely right.

Bottomline a lot of the hard-locked morality alignments have to be tackled and subverted to make the story more meaningful.

Queen Jenna may have in 20/20 hindsight saved both races from suffering, but she had no moral ground on which to make that decision. It was utterly astonishing her decision came through without mass riots. Many humans had taken up arms and a meaningful purpose in defeating the Charr. Show the Charr how ferocious you are and maybe they'll think about a truce when you march on top of the bodies of their Legions. They are warlike, opportunistic conquerors unpunished for their atrocities and if you show weakness, they will eat you up.

This is exactly my point as well. Queen Jenna acted with absolute confidence in her decisions without having any evidence to back that confidence up. It's as if she could see the future, or rather the author's script. Any different outcome other than the dictation of the lore would have painted her at best as incompetent and at worst as a villain. And you'd think that this was simply a successful gamble on her behalf, if not for similar gambles repeating themselves constantly when it comes to the Commander's choices in the story.

I guess my characters' true beliefs died on the day he/she had to fire into a crowd of Dredge trying to transcend their suffering and move forward as a race, or when he/she cut down the separatists in the Fields of Ruin who only wanted righteous vengeance for their lost family members in the wars.

That's the gray I long for, even if it's just in the form of retrospective self-reflection. Some sort of conscience and doubt. Some human character trait to break the flawless paragon of unquestionable good that the current Commander embodies.

@norbes.3620 said:and joko .. the PC dont hate him cuz he is a lich neither do the DW members. when u arrive in amnoon and talk to the council ist pretty clearly stated that they are against him cuz he does not fit their ideals of freedom and or trustworthy leadership. ist because he is a tyran and dictator who defeated and tortured all who tried to stop him. he annihilated the centaurs in Elona and turned them into architecture and enslaved all elonian humans by defeating all of his oponents and turning them into his own army.

This is factually inacurate. The Council's stance regarding Joko is varied and Amnoon's stance is strictly neutral.

Source wiki:

Councilor Ayman: The Chief Councilor has the right idea. We should be grateful the Mordant Crescent are even considering helping us!Councilor Ayman: We should fly Joko's standard and make it clear we welcome his kingdom's support.[...]Councilor Jamhuri: Allying with either side will only lead to future conflict. Amnoon has been independent, and should remain independent.

Of the three representatives you discuss the future alliance, only one strongly objects accepting help from Joko, and it's the noble with the ties to the Sunspears.

Councilor Mayameen: We've resisted Joko for years! I'm not about to let him waltz in. And without a fight? Never. It's nonsense.Councilor Mayameen: Our only option is to align ourselves with Kormir's priesthood and the remaining Sunspears.

In fact, throughout Elona, it can be argued that there is as much support for Joko from the populace as there is opposition. Whether this is based on brain washing, propaganda or fear is besides the point. The Commander just arrived there. By the time he first encounters Joko and taunts him, he hasn't had the opportunity to form an informed opinion on Joko's rule. Of course, in the aforementioned 20/20 hindsight, we learn that Joko really is the monster we suspected him to be, but that comes much later, and is simply another case of story structure reinforcing the Commander's childish and reckless behavior. This is why, even though Joko is deserving of all the taunt he gets and much more, players feel a certain cognitive dissonance when the Commander does it; the timing is off. It feels wrong because we're missing key information.

And I guess that's the core point of all of my arguments. If you want to establish rigid morality, you need to expose all the information to the player and not just leave it in the lore (or present it out of sync). Order matters. If someone calls you an idiot before he learns that you did something idiotic, he's being biased against you. If he calls you an idiot after the fact, he's simply providing constructive criticism. This order has a lot to say about that person's character.

[norbes.3620]

U picked the council dialogues on purpose i guess .. but the dialogues of dragon watch (rytlock and kasmeer) Do exactly what I discribed earlier the council itself is divided in the 3 decisions to make sure the PC make a decision with back up from at least a Part of the People

The reaction towards joko is Not that great but He got Support too.In Form of the intimidated almost hysterical ayam

And right befor that u can witness how joko / iberu threatens zalumbur and try to kill the People in the CasinoBut if I remember right the Order of this Missions is Not fix and it's Bout ur choice if u First visit zalumbur or the council

[Diviner.4517]

Indeed, I picked the counci dialogues on purpose but only in order to stay on your topic; you specifically mentioned the council's attitude on the previous post, I had to reply to that directly.

Rytlock's and Kasmeer's stance towards Joko is irrelevant. They are not Elonans, they are just as much outsiders in these lands as the Commander. I cannot remember what they say specifically, but even if they do have a negative stance against Joko, that simply makes them equally culpable as the Commander for being biased against him without knowing anything about him. And yes, the Council is divided in the matter because as stated above Amnoon is neutral regarding Joko. Which is why it feels wrong when the Commander (and the rest of the Dragon's watch) starts antagonizing him before learning anything of substance regarding him.

The Casino instance plays out in different ways depending on whose side you took in the Council dialogue tree, but the important note is that no matter your choice, the Commander says the following at the end of the instance:

: I'm only after Balthazar, you understand? I can't be dragged down by...whatever else you've got going on.

The Commander is still neutral, even after defeating the Awakened during the Casino. The part where we learn about Joko's atrocities is long after we've left him imprisoned in the domain of the Dead. Which is far too late in the timeline to justify our actions against him before that.

[Poseidon.3852]

Before anything else, I have to say that ANet is doing a horrendous job of properly giving us the full lore in-game. In fact, for many very relevant and important bits of information one has to dig far more than what is reasonable and it sometimes completely ruins the immersion. There can't be immersion for new players if a lot of the data is not in the second installment at all, or the information only exists on the wiki, in a book, from a dev interview/comment or it actually exists in-game, but only as flair text, a random NPC conversation or inscribed as texture in the world (non-interactable).

One of the reasons for this is the lack of "traditional quests". As you already mentioned WoW, I will use it as an example, but virtually all other MMOs (including GW1) have this system and the lack of it is one of the rare negative points of GW2. In essence, a lot of the lore of WoW is presented as short bits of story given to you by quest-givers along your objective. This is entirely lacking in GW2. Yes, there are conversations about the current events going around the NPC and so on, but very rarely you have lore-texts given to you in this way, therefore limiting your access to the lore immensely. This leaves a lot of "holes" for everybody who doesn't dig and ruins immersion for those who do. Apart from that, it also throws away valuable opportunities to further some exploration of motives and morals.

This "anti-wall-of-text" philosophy is entirely unreasonable when making an MMORPG since these kind of games rely on the lore and story to provide immersion and making it easier for the player to relate to their character and the world in it. I wholeheartedly welcomed the addition of lore-books in PoF and I hope that they will add A LOT MORE, especially to core Tyria, that will cover as much as possible from GW1 and a lot of the lore that one would have to dig for otherwise. Of course, put into appropriate places across the game world, and maybe add a library to the home instance where you could store the books for further reading so that they do not consume much bag space. I also hope that they will put more books with several pages. Those were also great in WoW for everybody who was interested in the lore, and I don't see any positive sites to not have them in-game.

Yet, and this will be my last digression before I give my opinion to the examples you stated, this shows (like many, many other aspects of GW2) the lack of resources with which ANet is making and expanding GW2. I strongly believe that they are cutting as much as it is humanly possible out of the game, most likely for budget reasons. They are literally only adding the things that are good but are also not resource intensive. Very rarely they "over-extend" on content or throw in something for flair. They even removed some things deemed "useless", like Golem Chess. This is very unfortunate since it is obvious that the Devs have so many great ideas, but I sometimes feel that they are also doing this to "streamline the play experience of new players" which is about the worst thing you can do to an MMO. I hope that I am wrong and that this is only an unfortunate budget issue.

---

As for the essence of your topic, I have to disagree with you on the moral rigidness of the game. Mainly on the points, as have others said, that a lot of the moral sites (except the Nightmare Court) are already established in GW1, and putting them in question now would betray a lot what the players did in the first game. Now, I will go over some of them in no particular order.

On the topic of Caudecus:

The current "dynasty" of reign in Kryta is something that the players in GW1 helped to establish and Queen Jehnna is the "rightful" ruler by blood and tradition. She is not malevolent, therefore she can't be evil -- weakness is not inherently evil. These are already 3 very good and reasonable reasons why she is "The Goodie". Putting this too much into question would betray either the deeds done by a player in GW1, or make certain inconsistencies with the importance of the bloodline in regards to safekeeping Tyria (that thing with the bloodstones and all), or equate a perceived weakness as malevolence. None of these are very desirable to the narrative, therefore are not directly explored by the story. On the other hand, the morality of Caudecus is VERY GRAY in the beginning. Only as we learn more and more about him we see his true motives. This is not because of a tendency of ANet for abandoning "gray morality"; rather it is a giving of answers. The more information you have about a given event or person, the more precisely you can pin down it to a side. In fact, a lot of deeds in our real human history can be portrayed to be either good or evil, depending ONLY on what information you leave out. You don't have to even make things up to seemingly completely change the narrative of a situation. Therefore, as we learn more and more Caudecus, his grayness darkens more and more. We see that he was a disturbed man, longing for war and violence. He had an unhealthy obsession with Logan (I believe that the accent is on the obsession, rather than his sexuality), he killed his wife, ordered the killing of the family of a centaur to further his political agenda, and the thing with the bloodstones and so on, show us that he did not simply want the best for Kryta, but that it was a selfish Will for Power and violence driving him all along. But most of this we just don't know at the beginning at all, and we are free to question his motives and explore the possibilities. Before we find all of this out we are free to question Queen Jehnna and give Caudecus the benefit of doubt. Maybe Jehnna was wrong making peace with the Charr? Maybe Caudecus is right... and able rulers have to be more Machiavellian to succeed in their ambitions, that is no secret at all. Of course, ANet is doing a terrible job to really spur the player to think alongside those lines and the PC is not following such train of thought at all. But, ANet also does not definitely narrate a story putting somebody as the baddie from the beginning (without good reason). Essentially, we personally are free to explore gray areas until we gather more information to make more precise conclusions, while the game neither encourages nor prevents us from doing so. I personally do not think that this is bad by itself, I find it bad that a lot of information of the overall lore that would enable us to better speculate possible gray areas is not adequately presented to us in-game in an easily accessible and digestible manner.

To continue with whole Human-Charr conflict. I would say that the whole war and their truce too, is a huge and deep gray area. Especially since both races are playable. However, to truly appreciate why this is gray, that both sides did their atrocities, and both sides suffered innocent lost and both sides have their good and bad persons, we have to (again) delve deeper into the story than what is presented to us at the surface level. Now that Charr are playable, we also get to see their full side too, as opposed to GW1. We see that it is, in many cases, impossible to decide definitely who had the right in this war, and we also see that it is really a very hard question if peace truly is the best solution and that both sides have factions for and against it. ANet is exploring gray moral areas in GW2, but it is not presented to us on the forefront adequately. The player character is (mostly) entirely oblivious to all of this; the character does not infringe the "moral code" narrated, but we are free to do so ourselves. In many terms, the story of GW2 is more like reading a book than playing an interactive game. The character that we play is just another character in the story, with its own flaws and so on.

This, in my opinion, is not bad. A lot of games do it, a lot of great games do it, too. The issue with GW2 is that it was not advertised like that and the first few levels of play experience are not like that. I do believe that the dissonance stems from GW2 abandoning the personal story and any choice implications halfway through the core game because of (most likely) budget issues, is what makes this issue truly stand out more than from most other games. Combined with their inability to tell many parts of the story to the play without him having to dig too, of course.

Here I can input a little "pet theory" of mine in regards to the increasing ignorance of the player character throughout the story, culminating in the last Living World episode. I agree that the Commander seems to act increasingly careless and ignorant, but I suspect that this is deliberately done. I think that one of the coming episodes will feature a huge mistake done by our character as a consequence of that very befallen to our "hero" because of a lack of consequences to his/her actions. The difference between some very early chapters and what is going on now with the personality of our Commander goes beyond mere character development, and I think that it may foreshadow such a plot in the coming future. This will more directly show ANet capability to explore gray areas of morality in a more direct manner. Of course, this is just a theory. A game theory.

Be it as it may, I would like to continue analyzing some of the other examples you gave.

As for Palawa Jokko, it is the case that his wickedness was already established in GW1, not because he was a lich, but a power-hungry dictator. Nevertheless, even here ANet is exploring some gray areas by implying that indeed, some people have it good even under a dictator. Some truly rever it. Some think that being useful even after death is a great thing. Some love that they can see their beloved deceased, others adore the protection against everybody (besides him) and value safety over freedom. This is made clear in a lot of instances throughout the game and lets you question how entirely evil Palawa truly is. I mean, if everybody would live under his reign in peace, he wouldn't even need an army of Awakened, therefore not having to deliberately kill his people to get his military might. He doesn't seem to be an entirely malevolent dictator, and my personal opinion is that he would be better than Caudecus. The game gives you many opportunities to question his deeds and how much evil or just Machiavellian he is. Of course, again, the Commander is entirely oblivious to all of this, and PoF featured one of the most disagreeable conversational lines of the player character in the whole game, but the story as a whole is not ignorant to these problems! Yet, again, it is not in the forefront. The stage-light in GW2 is entirely taken by the continuation of events, not the moral implications of each of those events. This does not mean that they are entirely lacking from the game, but that ANet is either bad at communicated them or deliberately choose a method of narration with which we seem to disagree with

Now a short one for the Inquest.. this is also a great example of how the story of Guild Wars 2 is a huge ambiguous moral gray area! They are simply not evil in the sense of malevolent evil, or in RPG alignment terms: they are neither lawful, neutral nor chaotic evil. The Inquest oscillate around Chaotic Neutral, with some members being true neutral, while others are lawful evil. Most of the other NPCs see them like that, thus their freedom to walk freely in most cities and under further inspection, we often see that we oppose only the part of the Inquest that are an immediate threat to Tyria(ns). Flax, who is a non-Inquest Asura and a council member is also a great example of gray morality. In fact, in a way, Asura as a whole race is a huge gray mess, but it is not thrown into your face in the main story, and your character just serves as means to continue the events, not as an "investigator of morals", which is entirely left to the player. The information to make things gray is there, in the lore, but it is just not (sadly) readily accessible.

Last, but not least, the Nightmare Court. The Pale Mother is good only because she is protecting most of the Sylvari to follow Mordremoth. The Nightmare Court is bad because of their methods used, not because of their ideals of freedom... and because without the protection of the Pale Mother, they will fall INENVENTIBLY under Mordremoth. We see that there are Sylvari who can't even hear the Pale mother, yet they are not deemed as evil. This is a huge sign that is literally made to tell us that the Nightmare Court is not evil simply for rebelling against the established regime, but to tell us that the story is a little bit more complicated than that. HoT fully explores the issues both Sylvari factions have with essentially being "true Mordrem". While there is less grayness present, I think it makes very much sense and was entirely coherent with the story leading to it and it was good story-telling nonetheless.

Bonus: GW2 even went from Elder Dragons being Lawfull Evil over being a necessary evil to being something that has to be, in essence, kept in place, but changed to an entity with a more benevolent personality. There is the grayness of Aurenes brother Vlast, also. Similar to Illidan, he doesn't seem to be entirely "good" in the traditional sense, yet he sacrificed himself to save Commander. Then, the Mursaat, while not in GW2, they did most of their atrocities to keep the Titans at bay. Braham's moral dilemmas and finding his own way can be seen from different angles and should be viewed as a unique person in the world that does not serve just to trivialize or justify the deeds of the Commander.

CONCLUSION:

All in all, GW2 is full of moral ambiguity, but that nearly none of it is properly addressed by the player character or in the main story at all. The Commander is only a plot device fo complete and tie events together, a character through who we experience the story already set in stone. He is not a moral investigator, but that does not mean that moral dilemmas do not exist in GW2; in fact, they are represented in a healthy amount all through Tyria. However, often the lore to properly understand and appreciate it is "locked" behind a lot of digging, which breaks the immersion of an otherwise great game, and leaves a lot of players who do not care to dig entirely ignorant of the charm and depth of the story and lore and the game world alike.

EDIT: No energy to proofread everything, albeit I see that I made a lot of mistakes. Forgive me, I will come back to it as soon as possible. Good night for now. Quaggan now rest.

[CETheLucid.3964]

@Diviner.4517 said:I would posit how absurd this remark would sound if it were made about a movie's story or about a rock band's music.I would counter that you're taking a joke way too seriously and that your premise in general is a matter of personal taste with regards to story telling.

[lkilian.1854]

Don't be afraid to explore the gray area between Good and Evil. That's where true heroes are born.

I wish Anet did this better. Plain stories about goodies vs baddies are generally very predictable. There has been some "grey area" stuff, but it has never been really acknowledged like that and it didn't really have any consequence.

[melociraptors.9835]

This is exactly my point as well. Queen Jenna acted with absolute confidence in her decisions without having any evidence to back that confidence up. It's as if she could see the future, or rather the author's script. Any different outcome other than the dictation of the lore would have painted her at best as incompetent and at worst as a villain. And you'd think that this was simply a successful gamble on her behalf, if not for similar gambles repeating themselves constantly when it comes to the Commander's choices in the story.

Actually, Jennah had some justifiable reasons to institute the treaty that doesn't imply she knows the future or is completely gambling. In Edge of Destiny, Jennah personally fought with a group of imprisoned charr in Ebonhawke during the Ogre Revolt . The ogres that had been branded by Kralkatorrik's corruption being a common enemy of both at the time, and the charr, being at the mercy of humans that had imprisoned them, could have been obligated to fight them as a condition of the imprisonment. Nevertheless, Jennah freed the prisoners at the end of the battle on the good faith they wouldn't strike back in revenge and obviously, they didn't. So she does have positive experiences with charr that differ from that of ministers that fought in the earlier battles of the war like Caudecus, who primarily view charr as monstrous adversaries - arguably for good reason. It wasn't until years later that the events of Ghosts of Ascalon took place and Jennah made diplomatic efforts to establish a relationship with the charr outside of warfare, but she did have that first experience and knowledge of charr culture to build on as she made the decision to offer Smodur the Claw of the Khan-ur.

It's these two ways of looking at the enemy in the long term that ultimately shaped Caudecus into who he became. No he's not inherently evil, but his actions and beliefs never changed with the times and eventually his feelings against the charr turned adversarial against his queen. Jennah's not an idiot and Head of the Snake in LW3 shows us that she's well aware that people disagree with her rule because she takes these chances that threaten her people. Because of this, we can consider Jennah an ally at times, but she's certainly not wholly good.

You are correct that the moral narrative presented about Jennah and the treaty in the story serves a convenient role in the plot that can be read from beyond the 4th wall as a "black and white" way to get the charr out of the villain category by painting the ministers and Caudecus as evil. However, you can stop a war in many ways. Making "friends" out of the charr and human is as morally grey as this franchise gets, considering their races' histories with each other. I'm a charr main, and even I have spent some time pondering their morality as playable characters. Yes, all of the subtext doesn't come through in the main storylines and in the limited scope of the game's events, but at least in this one section of lore, I think ANet has played really well in the grey.