#gw2 agent b

[eisbee]

Finally finished this artwork of Mesmer Agent B. Took me two months and half of my last braincell.

[conehead-carnival]

i thought this was funny so i drew it

(citron w pedipalps yoinked from @/1k2k3k4k3k7k7ake-partytime)

[mabaki]

So uh it wasn't planned but this totally happened I swear

Left to Right Oxxid @sytiart | Ithikk @the-skrool | Pirrx @bookahlogy | Jhoushi (>:3) | Meppi @ilona-art | Jaxx @floral-necromaniac | Agent B @eisbee

The bug in question

And some screenshots!

JHOUSHI WHAT ARE YOU READING

[tiredassmage]

*slaps on table* 6, 16, 18 for best agent boy Tyr

(Aaaannnd 21 for your GW2 necromancer 👀 pleaaaase)

I want you to know that every time we trade agent asks I feel like that cat slamming the like and reblog buttons while making laser eyes. xD

As always, rambling under a cut involved, lol xD

best boy best boy best boy best b-

6. Their vices (physical or emotional)

Probably impressively given everything that happens, Tyr manages to dodge any physical addictions. He's far more of a social drinker than one likely to turn to a bottle for his solutions.

But also I have been thinking so intently even before this ask set about how I really don't think Tyr recognizes his own brand of self-sacrificing. He has the potential to be incredibly self-destructive about it, but almost by my sheer spite on the matter, he hasn't. Yet. If this game gives him so much as half an excuse to act on half the shit he thinks and says about taking down the Empire swinging, I'm going to stab this man myself so he can't do it.

I don't even think he'd call it self-sacrifice. He would low-key cringe at the idea of anyone thinking him a hero. Yeah, sure, yada yada, Immortal Sith Emperor is dead, whatever. He's just a lucky bastard with a blaster. All the real work was everyone else's. And watch - he wouldn't let you call him humble about it, either. While he's not particularly forceful or upfront about it, Tyr does have some strong ideas about how, exactly, people should remember him. There's still a part of him that is like (softly) "don't." This wasn't part of his briefing when he agreed to join Intelligence, damn it.

But, yeah, I'd say his biggest vice is that almost resignation to what he was/is as Cipher Nine, double agent to the Republic. He's not going to be ridiculously reckless and take unnecessary risks, but if you handed him a critical mission with a slim chance of a working exit strategy that would put a huge dent in the Empire?

Equally part of his problem is that he recognizes wars of attrition are not sustainable nor have they resulted in lasting peace, but find someone who gives a damn. If he could use a blaster against the Immortal damn Emperor, what is stopping him from taking on the rest of the Sith Empire? (Logic. Logic is what. He's not an idiot. He's just. Opinionated.)

He wouldn't tell Theron. Theron would try to stop him. Theron can know like. Right before he leaves. Maybe. That's maybe not the kind of message he'd like to leave with Jonas alone, after all. (Yes, Tyr and I have thought about this too much. It's such a problem. That's why he's not allowed to do this shit!!!!! Tyr!!!! PLeaSE!!!)

16. Dark Secrets/Skeletons in the Closet.

Hmmm.... hmm, hmm, hmmm.... Ohhh, the things spies don't tell other people. This one's tough. There's plenty of things he won't tell someone. Bastard still hasn't exactly clarified what his relationship with Shara was to Theron, for one. Half of his Intelligence career is still 'whatever you found in the records or think you know probably wasn't the half of it.'

Okay, so, his biggest one he won't probably ever been keen to spell out is that he probably wouldn't even bat an eye at a scenario like our theoretical occasion from the last question. At the end of the day, Tyr is still willing to push his own limits and cross some of his own boundaries to achieve an objective. And he knows there's shit like that that Theron would never agree to. And he would, knowing this, choose to omit details, if it came to this.

Throws my papers up in the air. And Theron was all in knots after Nathema, and Tyr is still willing to pull this shit. What am I gonna do with these two????

Anyway. I think also, in a way, there is a very, very tiny part of him that might, might accuse him of being a coward if it ever managed to wriggle out of the recesses of his mind because I do not believe Tyr would have ever asked Shara to leave the Empire. Part of it would be not thinking, even before he knew about her own programming, that it's what she wanted - and a backhanded accusation at himself from that would be that's not for him to determine to begin with. But I also think part of it is that he loved her, he trusted her to guide him as Cipher Nine, yes - all of that is true.

But I don't think he trusted anyone to understand why he would defect. That's one thing I don't think he would have trusted to her, given an opportunity.

Of course, none of this exactly strikes him as problems to deal with because they're not causing problems right now. He can't change the past and he certainly can't predict the future. So he'll just have to make do with what he's got and what comes at him whenever it gets here.

Oh, I got ahead of myself, didn't I, considering 18...

18. Things they'll never admit.

Okay, well, the last part of the last question is probably his biggest one. He's going to take that with him to the grave. One day he might explain a bit more of who Shara was to him to Theron, but will he ever admit that particular nuance? Absolutely not. Not relevant, unchangeable, nope. Nope nope nope.

There's probably a part of Tyr that could really benefit or feel something from someone giving him a pat on the shoulder and telling him, "you did alright, kid." (A), He, once again, doesn't actively realize this and, (B), BioWare where is Ardun Kothe? I increasingly need to know because I am increasingly having thoughts about him unexpectedly showing up on the Alliance base and it just being a Quiet Thing they acknowledge in private that Tyr would be... so relieved to see that man again. Bastard. He cares about you. They never officially call adoption, but like, Tyr was adopted. (This is even more hilarious to read back knowing like yEAH you're not wrong, but like, different context alkfnsaldkfd). Anyway, bold of anyone to assume Tyr actually had the courage to ask anyone. Did he look into this himself for answers? Who can say????? He sure won't.

I also think for like. At least half a hot minute Tyr kinda crushed on Vector. I've been slowly rotating this in the back of the mind since Tyr met Vector and was like "oh I like them" like, so fast. Tyr trusts him so fast - maybe too fast for being a Cipher, honestly. But also like, the whole complicated thing with feelings for Shara, later he falls absolutely in love with Theron, so... yeah, they ended up just being friends and Tyr never acted on this and, to this day, this is unacknowledged by both parties. And Tyr is, of course, happily married to Theron now.

Okay!!! Guild Wars mY WIFE time!!!! I'm love her...

21. Turning points in their life.

Okay, Letallia is still sort of coming together because I haven't finished everything yet, but what I do know came together surprisingly quickly! So, most of these events are primarily related to the first 30ish levels of personal quests.

Letallia is the oldest of twin siblings adopted by nobility and raised in Divinity's Reach; her and her brother never knew much about their birth parents and, of the two of them, Letallia was more okay with that. Her brother always wanted to unveil the mystery and find them, if they could, and this was something she never exactly discouraged, but she felt more close to the lives they were currently leaving and was relatively content to let the past be the past.

So, while they had their differences, they were overall thick as thieves (badumtss here bc her brother I have on theif, lol). Letallia primarily focused on the public appearances of the family - high society gatherings and dealings with the fellow nobility while her brother focused more on the common folk that served them, often to be found helping them with loose odds and ends.

So far, their two main galvanizing events have been discovering the history of their parents & joining the Orders of Tyria. Letallia chose the Vigil while her brother, always favoring the cloak and dagger type, joined the Order of Whispers. While they've had individual focuses before, separating paths to join the Orders is probably their first long-term departure from each others' sides. Letallia still collaborated with him where she could, though they each respected their allegiance to their Order and their secrets.

But! Igniting them onto such a path was the discovery that their parents spied for Queen Jennah's father. For Letallia, this reforged her desire to see, explore, and protect Tyria as a whole. She wishes to honor that legacy by striving for the unity she believes her parents fought and died for. Her brother took their deaths a bit harder, driven to stronger loyalty first and foremost to Kryta and their Queen. Ultimately, their motives may differ, but they strive for the same ultimate goal, which makes her relationship to her brother quite important to her.

This legacy also sort of solidifies her relationship with being a necromancer. The art can be unsettling, especially with the Risen so close at hand, but understanding is power and she believes all must live and serve in their own way. Meeting and befriending Trahearne also proves quite beneficial to this confidence. She quite enjoys working with him!

(Bonus fun fact, my google doc with all of this, inspired by that first post I think I did is called 'please don't store ur gw2 lore in tumblr tags' since it grew to be... more than I had anticipated when I started, lol)

[ascalonianlightbringer]

Despite my occasional gripes, here are a bunch of things I love about GW2:

1- No subscription! I was given the core game and expansions as gifts, so I've never spent anything except periodic stuff in the gem store that still costs less than a ten-year subscription would.

2- Character creation! It's my favorite part of games, really, and I love how GW2's character creation makes every feature customizable.

3- As someone who nearly always plays humans, I enjoy the original personal story arcs fairly well (especially “Missing Sister”), and I’ve always liked the way that you get various options in the personal story that have actual effects, while still ending up where you need to be for the main plot.

4- I enjoy playing an MMO that supplies messy political situations for my imagination to latch onto, even if I have complaints about some of the particulars. It’s one of the things that’s made me super invested in Tyria from the get-go.

5- As a GW1 player, I was initially ambivalent about having fewer skills, with more restrictions about which ones you can carry at one time via the weapons skills system. But I remember spending so much time on builds in GW1 because there were so many gazillions of skills, and I actually think the weapon-skills system is a very solid solution to that.

6- Also as a GW1 player, I really appreciate that a) there are so many dye options and b) you don’t lose your dye once you use it. I honestly love collecting dyes, even ones I’ll never use.

7- I like a lot of the outfits and the mix-and-match possibilities with the pieces, which is a major concern for me in RPGs, and I appreciate that transmutation charges are plentiful enough that I can change my costume pretty much whenever I feel like it.

8- I love Divinity’s Reach. The mixture of greenery and metropolis gives me strong Portland feelings, with a fun fantasy flair (Portland OR is my favorite RL place; I did my undergrad there and lived in the suburbs for about eight years).

9- These are small things in today’s world, but running? jumping? gliding? riding mounts?? YES, THANK YOU. I had to walk Tyria along prescribed paths for the entirety of GW1 and every time I load GW2, it’s like HAHAHA JUMPING

10- I like that you get XP for everything: exploration, combat, crafting, helping other players, everything. I think it fosters a much more pleasant atmosphere (at least in PvE) than in kill-focused games.

11- That said, I like how combat plays out in general!

12- Speaking of the pleasant atmosphere, I enjoy that while some events basically require cooperation with other players, you don’t have to team up or talk to them or anything, and because of the XP system, you don’t have to do those events in the first place, anyway.

13- In some ways I wish for a more static world, but I do respect that the world does evolve over time.

14- It’s a little thing, but I usually play as a member of the Order of Whispers, and I like how there are Whispers agents spread around the world who will give you secret information if you’re part of the Order.

15- I deeply love the aesthetic in general.

16- I know it's to be expected, but I'm so fond of the music. I never listen to anything else while I play.

[gears2gnomes]

"Intruder detected."

Agent B's mission gets a lot more difficult now.

[anghraine]

I’ve been complaining about Guild Wars 2, so here are some things I actually like about it that keep me going back:

1) As I mentioned before, no subscription! I was given GW2 + expansions as gifts, so I’ve only spent something like $35 on it (for a few gem store purchases) over the last nine years.

2) Okay, my favourite part of nearly any RPG (MMOs, D&D, whatever) is character creation, and I love how customizable every single feature is in GW2′s character creation.

3) As someone who always plays humans, I enjoy the original personal story arcs fairly well (esp “Missing Sister”), and I’ve always liked the way that you get various options in the personal story that have actual effects, while still ending up where you need to be for the main plot.

4) I’ve complained about how they handle politics, but I do enjoy playing an MMO that supplies messy political situations for my imagination to latch onto. It’s one of the things that’s made me super invested in Tyria from the get-go.

5) As a GW1 player, I was initially ambivalent about having fewer skills, which you can’t arrange one-by-one. But I remember spending so much time on builds in GW1 because there were so many gazillions of skills, and I think the weapon-skills system is a very solid solution to that.

6) Also as a GW1 player, I really appreciate that a) there are so many dye options and b) you don’t lose your dye once you use it. I honestly love collecting dyes, even ones I’ll never use.

7) I like a lot of the outfits and the mix-and-match possibilities with the pieces, which is a major concern for me in RPGs, and I appreciate that transmutation charges are plentiful enough that I can change my costume pretty much whenever I feel like it.

8) I love Divinity’s Reach. The mixture of greenery and metropolis gives me strong Portland feelings :’)

9) These are small things in today’s world, but running? jumping? gliding? riding mounts?? YES, THANK YOU. I had to walk Tyria along prescribed paths for the entirety of GW1 and every time I load GW2, it’s like HAHAHA JUMPING

10) I like that you get XP for everything: exploration, combat, crafting, helping other players, everything. I think it fosters a much more pleasant atmosphere than in kill-focused games.

11) That said, I like how combat plays out in general!

12) Speaking of the pleasant atmosphere, I enjoy that while some events basically require cooperation with other players, you don’t have to team up or talk to them or anything, and because of the XP system, you don’t have to do those events in the first place, anyway.

13) In some ways I wish for a more static world, but I do respect that the world does evolve over time.

14) It’s a little thing, but I usually play the Order of Whispers, and I like how there are Whispers agents spread around who will give you secret information if you’re part of the Order.

15) I deeply love the aesthetic in general.

16) I know it’s Jeremy Soule and to be expected, but the music is great. <3

[writingonjorvik]

Can We Discuss MMO Narratives?

I wanted to talk about SSO’s story in an abstract way and its weaknesses as an MMO narrative. I don’t think the story is bad, but there are some things I think it could do to make it significantly stronger, and the ways I’ve been experimenting with changing it.

To start, I wanted to talk about what I mean. See, MMOs have to balance something very carefully in their narratives. They have to make the player feel like they have agency in their stories while also playing into the massively multiplayer aspect of their settings. This means that players can solo the narrative purely as the canon, but there’s also some ambiguity in adding in their party into the narrative. There are a lot of examples of this:

Guild Wars 2 uses “The Commander,” a rank in the Pact, as well as Dragon’s Watch as a guild with an ambiguous number of members.

Final Fantasy XIV has the “Warriors of Light,” which were the armies of players from before the game was reset, but also the new players.

World of Warcraft has a “party of adventurers” who succeed in certain events throughout the story.

The commonality in all of these narratives is that in an instance there can be a singular hero, but there’s also a narrative party of heroes who are doing things. You can make the player feel like a hero and part of a team. Often these narratives are to, for people who want to, encourage playing the story in groups over soloing content (out of the three listed, only GW2′s story can be soloed for that matter).

Now, SSO’s story has almost none of this. The player is supposed to feel like a hero (though I’ve talked about this both and the player’s agency), but there’s no room, in the regular canon, for their friends to also be part of those heroics. There is one chosen one and four established Soul Riders. It’s why I thought that the Flying Foxes becoming Soul Riders would be way more emotionally invested over the singular chosen one, as it also opens the opportunity to include other players.

I know a lot of people, particularly in this community, don’t want to play with other people. It’s among the most requested features in my “Highly Requested Features” poll to hide everyone else. However, SSO is still an MMO and a lot of people would like the option, not the requirement, to bring their friends into their narrative with more openings in the canon. I’m not arguing, and have never argued, for forcing people to be social. But as long as SSO is an MMO and marketing to be, then there should be some effort to make actual options for people who want to take advantage of the multiplayer aspects (chiefly in having them). That is all this is arguing for the narrative. Not that you to have to play with others, but to have a story that supports being able to do so if you wish.

With that blurb out of the way, I want to talk about the two major weaknesses in SSO’s story as is for achieving that ambiguous hero story. The first is one I’ve already gone over in this post; that there is a set hero group. It’s rigid and it forces, as I said in the Flying Foxes post, the player to have a friendship that they may not even want to have. That aside, there aren’t really any other chosen ones outside of a highly select group of leaders in the druids. Other magic users are limited, and often villains (Dark Riders, Ydris, Evergray is morally gray, Pi, so on). There are some efforts to change that, but there’s this pedestal of the Soul Riders holding the Keepers together, which creates its own plot holes. How can four members of an order, members that are not always appointed, fight off Dark Core? How can this group get anything done? It’s not feasible to look at the Keepers as a competent order if they are only capable of defeating their enemy every other decade.

This was the big challenge I tried to tackle in The B Team. The idea was that there are more Soul Riders, there are more magic users, and there are still more druids outside of those units of power, something being established now in The Lucky Six. The idea of the Keepers being a capable order becomes a lot more understandable when you put some other active agents into the field. The players may not be the Soul Riders (who are mechanically in the campaign are always going to be about four levels higher to represent their divine gifts), but they are capable of fighting off and duping Dark Core agents. And I think if SSO wants to have a more flexible narrative for their players, they need to open the idea that maybe the Soul Riders are less of a chosen one and more of a position or title. It would certainly open more customization to the narrative for people who wanted to bring their friends, but still allow some NPC options for people who wanted to solo.

The second big short coming in the narrative is the lack of its longevity, and we’ve seen a huge part of the story suffer because of this. The end of SSO’s story, as we know it now, is defeating Garnok. And then what? Does SSO end? That’s a rather short game. The solution so far seems to be to pad the story. Think how long, how many tries, it took just to rescue Anne. Hell, to rescue Lisa! The solution right now seems to be to drag the story out, and that suffers both in a padded filler heavy story, as well as incredibly long waits. There is no endgame right now for SSO, no follow up hook so that the game can keep going. And while I’m sure SSO would keep this close to their chest, some hints about where we’ll go after should be seeded in now and it should be something on the devs’ minds.

This is also something I have in mind for The Lucky Six, particularly as a continuation of The B Team.There’s obviously only so much I can go into it because we’re not there yet, and I’m going to try to stick with canon, so it’s a little up in the air, but I can say confidently that Garnok is not the final boss of the campaign. He’s not even the halfway point of it. And it’s that kind of planning, of the what is going to come after, that is important in the narrative of any story, particularly MMOs. There will one day be an end, but Garnok doesn’t have to be that end. I know where my players are going. I would hope SSO is thinking the same so we can cut the filler and carry on the adventure.

[leidensygdom]

Tag thing

Tagged by @superpaulina10​

I’m tagging: Uhhh if anyone wants to do it tell me and I’ll edit, I don’t enjoy putting homework to people!

Name: Leiden Sygdom, of course! Why would it be anything else

Nickname: Sygdom for most. Been called after my RP ocs, from Reku, to Leiden, to Vor, Ail, even A2.2... Oh, and Gengalery

Height: 1.62m (I think 5,3f- IM A SMALL POTATO)

Orientation: Lesbian af

Nationality: Spanish

Favorite Fruit: Watermelons, pomegranates, kakies (but they make my skin itch D:<)

Favorite Season: Winter! And autumn because it has the best fruits <3

Favorite Flowers: i have never thought of that

Favorite Animal: B I R B S tbh I love any corvid, I’d die over meeting a blue jay. Also bearded vultures and touccs, I blame Salo

Favorite Color: Maroon

Favorite Scent: Coffee... And cinnamon!

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate: C O F F E E

Dog or Cat Person: Cat, 100%

Number of Blankets You Sleep With: Summer = -1. Winter = 2. Sometimes I hug blankets.

Favorite Fictional Character: ... HONESTLY my friends ocs. That’s it. I’m in love with Mister Artist’s Rylde and Kr (and many other bois but I love those two specially), Agent’s Bhindrin and Orenthal, Das-the-drop-bear’s Salix (and Rylas is a cutie!), Salo’s Aimee and Nehemias, Luu’s smol baby Baedrin who I need more of-... 

If I have to mention a non-OC, I have to say I’m getting attached to Trahearne in GW2 xD Vivi from FFIX is a huge cinnamon roll too. Geno from SMRPG was my childhood fave

Dream Trip: Tbh just go and visit the squad someday around the world

Blog Created: ... many years ago. I just checked and I created it on APRIL 2014 what the

Number of Followers: Nearing 700 now! (Y’all my children)

Random Fact: I have to walk the doggo and I’m being lazy over it...

[eisbee]

This picture is a collection of all birthday gifts I created for every main Agent of our Krewe improvetimized strategy.

It came all well together for a group picture that I planned back in January ✨

Showcasing in the backrow (from left to right)

Agent A, L, X, Z

Frontrow

Agent Y, J, H, B and Q

(And on the table Agent N)

[luridel]

Estel =D

Let’s go with GW2-edition Estel here.

B A S I C S

full name: Estel Kuroda

gender: Female

sexuality: Demisexual

pronouns: she/her

O T H E R S

family: Her ‘sister’, Wisteria, isn’t family by birth but by choice. Her husband, Shun.

birthplace: Somewhere in Kryta. Likely Divinity’s Reach.

job: Courier. Agent of the Order of Whispers. Assassin, sometimes.

phobias: Memory loss? That one’s pretty bad.

guilty pleasures: Sleeping in late.

M O R A L S

morality alignment?: Chaotic Good, leaning Chaotic Neutral at times.

sins - lust/greed/gluttony/sloth/pride/envy/wrath

virtues - chastity/charity/diligence/humility/kindness/patience/justice

T H I S - O R - T H A T

introvert/extrovert: extrovert, definitely

organized/disorganized: disorganized

close minded/open-minded: open-minded

calm/anxious: somewhere in the middle?

disagreeable/agreeable: agreeable, usually

cautious/reckless: less reckless these days, but still reckless

patient/impatient: impatient, but it depends

outspoken/reserved: outspoken

leader/follower: she would prefer to be a follower, but she makes a very charismatic leader. she just doesn’t like being expected to make smart decisions.

empathetic/unemphatic: empathetic

optimistic/pessimistic: O P T I M I S T I C

traditional/modern: I’d say a lot of her outlook is modern, particularly towards charr

hard-working/lazy: lazy for sure

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp: she’s got Shun. she got really lucky there.

ot3: Estel/Shun/Lylla might have had a chance at some point? definitely off the table now, though.

brotp: Estel and Sanna are healer buddies! Estel and Cerion are SWORD SISTERS!

notp: uuuuhm. Estel/Wisteria would Not Work.

[mabaki]

Agent B and her starshaped cookies ✨ for @eisbee

He eats it w/out question lol

[eisbee]

Inquest Agent B ❤️

[eisbee]

Agent B was not the only character I created back then with her typical giant black eyes. I have many more of them. Even a Bookah. :-)

[eisbee]

She is poison. ...Literally. Nightshade and Glaze for thieves like Agent B!

[eisbee]

Mooore Mesmer Agent B 💥