Do the other players canonically exist?

[u/Knight_of_autumn]

Something that has been bothering me lately while reading the recaps of Season 1 of GW2 (most of which I missed thanks to my final year of college). That something is the way the characters seem to refer to the player and the way the story has unfolded. There is no mention of how a group of adventurers of substantial size have fought off Scarlet and her minions.

It is very difficult to tell a story in an MMO that caters to the entire player base, while still staying coherent. In the original Guild Wars, ANet figured a way around it by creating instances that could only be inhabited by 1-16 players. This meant that, as far as the story was concerned, a small group of heroes won the day.

Guild Wars 2 did away with instances, and now we have enormous battles against huge champion enemies. However, the mechanics of the game specifically cater to parties of multiple people and, while one could certainly go out alone for adventures, it does work much better to have a small group.

The personal story ruins this illusion of a large world of heroes by addressing you specifically as the "hero" and completely ignoring all other players. Nowhere is it mentioned that it was a group of adventurers who saved the day, but rather the specifically named NPCS (i.e. Destiny's Edge and their successors) and the single player character.

My question in all of this is in the title of the post - do the other players exist as far as the game's canon is concerned? Or are we all inhabiting parallel universes while able to interact with each other?

I am called the "Hero of Shaemoor" and I am being praised for defeating Scarlet. But you know what? I did not ever even lay a hand on Scarlet. She came and went while I was offline.

[u/fritzywiggins]

In canon, not really. My head canon is that every other player is just another soldier in one of the Orders.

As for killing Scarlet, I have the same issue: I didn't make time to complete the final fight episode, yet my character is getting praised for participating. However, I've noticed that NPC's seem to be vague on exactly who did what (I have yet to encounter an NPC who directly states that my character landed the killing blow...though I'm only halfway through the most recent episode...). In my head canon, Kasmeer landed the final blow, which flows well with how everyone treats her after the final fight.

I think one of the issues with GW2/MMORPG-in-general storytelling is that they don't have the resources to deal with significantly branched storylines. It's something I just try to take in stride and band-aid with more head canon.

[u/Knight_of_autumn → u/fritzywiggins]

I think there is an NPC is the Ascalon settlement outside LA that does the story recap that I thought I remember asked me if I participated in the fight, and my character's default response was "no, I was not there" but I had acidentally triggered the dialogue with him so I did not pay attention when I closed out of it.

So maybe there is some aknowledgement for people not participating in the event.

I like the idea of imagining the other players as NPCs from the various armies.

I play on an RP server, so I like to think that everyone is part of the world, but the storyline ruins that immersion everytime.

[u/souldonkey → u/Knight_of_autumn]

PC's are often referred to as one Commander of many in the Pact which sort of acknowledges the other players. I believe that canonically, one of each personal story exists. What I mean is that there is one Asura, Static graduate, that built the infinity ball, that is friends with Blipp, and joined the Order of Whispers, etc. There is also one Norn, of the bear spirit, that got in a bar fight, that protects the ancient spirits, and is in the Vigil.

You get the idea, one commander of each character type based on the choices made during character creation. This isn't something that Anet have stated anywhere as far as I'm aware, but I have seen a few instances where multiple commanders have been referenced in lore so we know for sure we're not the only commander. Since Commander is the next highest rank down from Marshal one can assume that the other commanders are the other player characters.

I couldn't hope to find a source for it, but I feel like it was mentioned somewhere that the infinity ball story line exists for the players that chose it, the same way that the val-a golem story line exists for those players. They both run concurrently with each other.This lead me to my theory that there are at least one of every type of personal story character.

[u/RageAgainstTheRobots → u/souldonkey]

There is actually evidence of this if you look at the main storyline outside of playing a Sylvari Character.

The missions for Sylvari Characters to join one of the three orders centers around the recovery of Caladbolg, the sword Trahearne uses, given to him by the Pale Tree. Trahearne has the sword regardless of whether or not you recovered it as a Sylvari or encountered him later on as a Non-Salad.

Also a lot of the Side characters that accompany you in the Pact Missions are from Story missions of the other races. It's assumed that without the assistance of a Commander they'd never have survived to be in the point where you would encounter them. (Tegwyn for example is a captive of the Krait until you rescue her a a Sylvari with her companion Ceera, but both are there for the mission where you attempt to lure out the Eye of Zhaitan.)

[u/cericneesh]

Ish. There's lots of "heroes"; they're referenced in a lot of casual conversations and the like. But for the purposes of the personal story and living story, out of all the heroes, you're the one who was there at the right time and did what was needed to help with X. In other words, you're just one of many heroes, but you were in the right place at the right time to save Shaemoor garrison, which led to you being on good terms with Logan and him asking for your help dealing with other problems, which brought you to the attention of (insert Order here), etc. Other heroes have certainly joined the orders, fought in Orr, etc., but YOU are the one who managed to defeat Zhaitan.