Not that exploring the reactor is a bad idea or anything, it’ll probably have a neat back story and all that, but I’m just really sick of fighting the Inquest all the time.
There is so much content related to the inquest and ‘science gone bad’ gags in this game already. Not to mention Kiel annoys me. She’s so bland as a character. I miss self sacrificing guys like Rurik and even Master Togo. At least Evon has personality, like the rest of the charr from the personal storyline do.
TL;DR:
So unless this chaos + mists energy = GIANT ELDER DRAGON we’ve never seen before with his own massive continent in the clouds voiced by James Earl Jones, I’m much more inclined to vote for a battle between the Six Gods, entities we’ve only seen referenced, whose battles have only been alluded to. And for those who don’t know, Abaddon is HUGE, so I wouldn’t mind seeing some incarnation of him in GW2.
yeah sure the fall of abaddon would be cool to see and participate in. thats how i truly feel. thats also how i felt when i was told i would get to slay an undead elder dragon but when it came time to do so it was all a bunch of bland turret spamming followed by a dubious and unsatisfying victory. this isn’t a story mission once per char its a rinse and repeat fractal. i mean imagine doing the zhaitan fight over 100 times. ultra epic earth shattering events like this are too important to be a fractal, put it in a book so my mind can set the scale. how would you feel if it became the new dredge fractal? are you prepared to fear and despise it?
what does sound fun however is the untrodden territory of the thaumanova reactor. chaos magic and unlimited possibilities. maybe we fight inquest, maybe we fight steam creatures. maybe we get teleported to an entirely different place in space/time. perhaps we are get confronted by our evil counterparts from a parallel tryria. one thing i think we can expect however is a much needed update to mysterious guild wars two lore that has been taunting me since beta. we might even get some new game mechanics out of it. even if it turns out to be less than we had hoped, another reason to fear and despise the inquest for their transgressions is just fine with me.
If there’s one thing that the Reactor vs Abaddon discussion is making clear to me, it’s that the Living Story is really failing badly at taking established and compelling lore in the world and is instead treading water with boring developments. Lose threads all over Tyria, lots of really interesting stories to explore and instead the writers are creating new conflicts and factions (Molten Alliance) which aren’t half as compelling as some of the existing story threads, and then dropping them a few months later so they can fit more RNG boxes into the “story”.
One of the biggest problems with GW lore, especially in GW2, is that the writers are really bad at continuing existing plot lines and developing them further (or concluding them). There is always room for new stuff, but there needs to be a mix of old plots being developed, not just new ones being introduced. That might help with making the world feel more alive – actually advancing plot points existing in the world today so that something does change, not just bouncing things into the game and then out again when the next RNG box is ready for release.
If we’re operating strictly from ‘confirmed’ facts, then all we really have to go on is the history laid out in GW1, which does state that the gods arrived and brought humans with them. In GW1 it is not even hinted that any other races worshipped the human gods.
If we’re operating strictly from ‘confirmed’ facts, then all we really have to go on is the history laid out in GW1, which does state that the gods arrived and brought humans with them. In GW1 it is not even hinted that any other races worshipped the human gods.
The article heavily relies on Thruln the Lost’s dialogue which is outright confirmed false in a few places, leaving the rest of what he says subject to questionability – no different than the History of Tyria.
And we do have more facts – confirmed and otherwise – other than those two sources. Though overall, it is true that magic is largely unknown in lore. And even then, it’s mis-stating some of the information gleaned from those two said sources, and more or less utterly ignoring other sources, like ritualism predating the Bloodstones, or how places of magical power (the communing skill challenges) tend to relate to places of a lot of death or water, or how two places of magical potency links magic to being innate in the world (Artesian Waters and Krait Place of Power ). The article also utterly forgets the notion of life force being used to fuel magic (see Sea of Sorrows novel and The Founding Founding and even Eye of the North), as well as ignoring the mention by Oola about how We embody magic.
To say all we have laid out in terms of lore on magic is from GW1, that is a very false and dim viewed notion and belief. And if you proclaim that to be the only “confirmed facts” then you’re solely mistaken as there’s actually more confirmed observations in GW2 than in GW1 – primarily thanks to the communing skill challenges.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
I think a Thaumanova Reactor could be awesome. Anyone here old enough to have played the original Halflife? A kind of creepy nightmarish lab where reality is warping around you could be so awesome. Add some flickering lights and creepy sounds and you could have an awesome horrory style fractal. Particularly if we find out the reactor was purposely blown up by the asura inside to stop something escaping….. something unnatural…
Yeah, Ive got no basis for this but you have to admit it would be awesome.
I think a Thaumanova Reactor could be awesome. Anyone here old enough to have played the original Halflife? A kind of creepy nightmarish lab where reality is warping around you could be so awesome. Add some flickering lights and creepy sounds and you could have an awesome horrory style fractal. Particularly if we find out the reactor was purposely blown up by the asura inside to stop something escaping….. something unnatural…
Yeah, Ive got no basis for this but you have to admit it would be awesome.
Oddly enough, it’s mentioned there’s a connection between the similarities between TNR and Black Mesa. The problem with giving it a creepy atmosphere, is that players need to embrace the environment to enjoy the experience. L4D can be rather tense and creepy, but that’s lost when everyone’s too busy sprinting through the levels, tunnel visioning on the zombie in front of them and the next checkpoint, and screaming meme’s and vulgarity into their headsets.
A good example of this being in-game is during the Sylvari Storyline where you can go through the mirror to rescue a fellow sylvari. You start off in the pale tree’s instance, it’s bright and colorful and the music has a cheerful tune with lots of lovely ambiance. When you go through the portal, the colors are muted as a heavy fog lays over the zone, there’s almost no music to be heard and very little ambient sounds besides the risen and the wind. However the immersion is broken if a player just LoL loer who cares! their way to the NPC and rush her quickly back through the portal.
Why does everyone keep comparing the Thaumanova Reactor to Black Mesa? I loved Half-Life, but I wont call it being like it, until I see that the Arcane Council decided to send in some Marines and Black-Ops as clean-up crew. Also you would be only allowed to play as engineer, you know, they have the crowbar. :P
You don’t win friends with salad! Sorry I just got caught up in the rhythm.
Why does everyone keep comparing the Thaumanova Reactor to Black Mesa? I loved Half-Life, but I wont call it being like it, until I see that the Arcane Council decided to send in some Marines and Black-Ops as clean-up crew. Also you would be only allowed to play as engineer, you know, they have the crowbar. :P
I believe that the Inquest that attack during the lead up to the Flame Elemental event would be the “black ops” trying to cover things up.
There is so much content related to the inquest and ‘science gone bad’ gags in this game already.
Multiple that by 10 and you’ll get the amount of Human gods stories in the GW franchise, but that somehow doesn’t bother you….
The difference is that the GW1 human lore was much richer and more mysterious than what has been revealed to us of the Asuran history. Asura lore could be much more intricate and ancient than “evil, corporate Asura with massive egos trash talk egotistical Asura with some ethics.” I’ve yet to see any inquest encounter that has been more nuanced. I get that the Asura came from under the ground and that they are scientists and tinkerers, but what else beyond that? Where did they come from? Have their beliefs changed at all in the past? I greatly enjoyed Vekk and Oola, but the Asuran lore in GW2 has been disappointing at best. They constantly go for gags and sarcasm, which for me got old very quickly.
I’m looking for something more serious and frankly, I’d rather not take another gamble on content we know nothing about, as opposed to catching a glimpse of something we already know to be EPIC in scale. I’d venture to argue for example, that the City of Arah, once home to the gods is much more grand than anything that the Asura have come up with, especially since much of their history that we know if is much more recent than the humans, who are somewhat ancient by comparison.
There is so much content related to the inquest and ‘science gone bad’ gags in this game already.
Multiple that by 10 and you’ll get the amount of Human gods stories in the GW franchise, but that somehow doesn’t bother you….
The difference is that the GW1 human lore was much richer and more mysterious than what has been revealed to us of the Asuran history. Asura lore could be much more intricate and ancient than “evil, corporate Asura with massive egos trash talk egotistical Asura with some ethics.” I’ve yet to see any inquest encounter that has been more nuanced. I get that the Asura came from under the ground and that they are scientists and tinkerers, but what else beyond that? Where did they come from? Have their beliefs changed at all in the past? I greatly enjoyed Vekk and Oola, but the Asuran lore in GW2 has been disappointing at best. They constantly go for gags and sarcasm, which for me got old very quickly.
I’m looking for something more serious and frankly, I’d rather not take another gamble on content we know nothing about, as opposed to catching a glimpse of something we already know to be EPIC in scale. I’d venture to argue for example, that the City of Arah, once home to the gods is much more grand than anything that the Asura have come up with, especially since much of their history that we know if is much more recent than the humans, who are somewhat ancient by comparison.
You’re basically arguing that current non-human lore is weak and limited, so instead of trying to improve upon it, they should add even more lore to the rich and extensive human lore.
The difference is that the GW1 human lore was much richer and more mysterious than what has been revealed to us of the Asuran history. Asura lore could be much more intricate and ancient than “evil, corporate Asura with massive egos trash talk egotistical Asura with some ethics.” I’ve yet to see any inquest encounter that has been more nuanced. I get that the Asura came from under the ground and that they are scientists and tinkerers, but what else beyond that? Where did they come from? Have their beliefs changed at all in the past? I greatly enjoyed Vekk and Oola, but the Asuran lore in GW2 has been disappointing at best. They constantly go for gags and sarcasm, which for me got old very quickly.
I’m looking for something more serious and frankly, I’d rather not take another gamble on content we know nothing about, as opposed to catching a glimpse of something we already know to be EPIC in scale. I’d venture to argue for example, that the City of Arah, once home to the gods is much more grand than anything that the Asura have come up with, especially since much of their history that we know if is much more recent than the humans, who are somewhat ancient by comparison.
But you are forgetting about the possibilities that open up with the Thaumanova Reactor. The implications that the elder dragons themselves have something to do with this reactor or at least the focus of can open up lore that can take us anywhere.
For all we know we are not going to be fighting the Asuran Inquest at all. We don’t fight the invading Charr during the searing. They were the bad guys then… remember?
For all we know we will be inquest defending our home from the elder dragon that decided we had gotten too close to discovering their secrets. Totally wishful thinking on my part yes, but the point is that we don’t know anything about this event or what the devs are planning for the fractal. I find it unlikely the devs pit “random Asuran explosion #19426” Vs “Epic god story movie of doom!” as some people seem to think.
Also no matter what account you hold true for the origin there are things that are consistent. The dragons are older, more powerful, and more dangerous than any god has ever been. The Idea of Dragon lore Vs God lore makes more sense to me and I cant help but think this is exactly what the Devs meant to show. We all know what the inquest were researching thanks to the main story. The research into the Thaumanova Reactor seems to directly point to research into the Elder dragons themselves.
The Thaumanova Reactor was the site where the Inquest enslaved and trapped Lyssa to try separating the Twins. Her chaos power wkittentered in a massive explosion, so the human gods rescued her and abandoned Tyria until she heals. How is this not obvious?
