Guild Wars 2

Hello dear GW2 community,

In the past weeks and recently we have all experienced the new Flame and Frost updates. These of course included notable things such as laurels, pvp and wvw enhancements. Also new amulets and other content related to the main event. But it is the main event that I am having trouble getting a grasp on.

I have traveled Tyria trying to help out the refugees as they appear, but I really don’t get what the point of it is. I wish I did understand what it meant, perhaps it is leading towards future content? A new dragon is creating havoc somewhere and now these poor people run to our aid? From the little I gather from Herald NPC’s which mostly regards refugees needing help… I am pretty much clueless here.

Did I miss something? I read the event information on the website and it still didn’t relate to the extent that I was expecting in the world. A little bit of help would be appreciated, thanks!

You are exactly where you are supposed to be. Check in with the heralds every so often as the story unfolds. The next major push comes on the 26th.

I keep talking to the heralds but right or wrong I was under the impression the content was coming in the future

Hot Spicy Taco & Vanilla Ice Cream

I guess it is intentionally designed to make us wonder? I mean it is a ‘prelude’ as of right now… I just don’t get the point of all these refugees popping out of nowhere. I honestly wish I could do something about it, but I guess for now I can only wait and focus on something else.

I didn’t even bother looking at it. It seems like a waste of time, they just wanted you to visit the empty maps.

Ariel Cor Leonis Inferi.2894:

I didn’t even bother looking at it. It seems like a waste of time, they just wanted you to visit the empty maps.

GW2 is all about exploration, which is something I enjoy. I just don’t see what’s thrilling about pointless exploration. They could have expanded the event to have refugees coming into LA and even talking to them. Even if nothing happened at least informing people of an upcoming ‘thing’ via the refugee npc themselves would have been something to look forward to… right? Kind of like what they did just before The Lost Shores.

Anyways, perhaps this confusion will pay off later? I’m hoping it does!

I think Flame and Frost represent the Charr and Norn respectively, but that’s just me.

We’ll find out as the story progresses. As is, something is causing the weather in both of these areas to go haywire, and fissures and Unstable Elementals to appear.

The event changes over time. I could bet those tents at the refugee locations on the maps have not been there at the beginning.
But to be honest, for now, this event is not worth anyones time (at least not more than you need to get the title…).

So do I have too check the heralds from time to time or will there be an announcement when the story progresses?

The build-up to the new content is just incredibly slow.

I too have been wondering what was in that 1.1 GB patch I downloaded.

Dee Jay.2460:

The build-up to the new content is just incredibly slow.

I too have been wondering what was in that 1.1 GB patch I downloaded.

Refugees

I don’t think you are supposed to know what is going on right now. All you know is that some sort of weather event is driving refugees into Wayfarer and Diessa. As the story unfolds you learn more.

It is taking a long time to unfold for 2 reasons:
1) To make sure everyone has a chance to participate in the prelude
2) Because it is supposed to be a living world with real time…people being driven from their homes does not happen over night and discovering what exactly is going on takes even longer.

I know the devs said there would be no dragons, but I’m pretty sure this has to do with their followers at least. For instance, the Charr refugees in Black Citadel are telling us how the Flame Legion have driven them from their posts. I haven’t checked Hoelbrak, but perhaps the refugees there are saying the same of the Sons of Svanir?

The way I feel about it is that ‘this is some really intriguing event going on, could be a development for such a larger piece of the puzzle’. Tyria still has plenty of exploration to be expanded upon, the flame and frost kind of points to the unexplored north-northeast and south volcanic lands of the Charr.

That is of course a guess, however for the curious and active player it only leaves you wondering because it is indeed different from other events, at least its slow development and lack of ‘things to do’ with respect to the past expansions.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get some dev feedback? I would be totally ok if they said ‘its a mystery’ or ‘the story will unfold’ or some actual specifics. On my part, I will go ahead and be patient and see what unfolds in the coming updates.

Dessan.9420:

Dee Jay.2460:

The build-up to the new content is just incredibly slow.

I too have been wondering what was in that 1.1 GB patch I downloaded.

Refugees

1GB of just refugees, which can be farmed for an achievement

skullmount.1758:

Dessan.9420:

Dee Jay.2460:

The build-up to the new content is just incredibly slow.

I too have been wondering what was in that 1.1 GB patch I downloaded.

Refugees

1GB of just refugees, which can be farmed for an achievement

Ye, refugees are quite fat u know, not to mention their dolyaks, and internet is just full of them. Downloading them is the humanitarian thing to do

It appears to simply be a mindless stream of refugees who give you very little information; they should be regailing you with tails of what drove them from home. Instead of the same drivel that the last guy said.

All of which seem to have spawned from the exact same family; feel free to broaden the use of models. Refugees typically are women and children who go ahead of those that stay behind to “fight” whatever circumstances is causing the turmoil. Refugees tend to travel in bands for mutual support.

Not to mention all of them are all streaming from a zone with absolutely no sign of conflict. “we were driven from our homes.” Really? because when I follow the trail of refugees you get to a point where it’s immersive breaking and nothing out of the ordinary. Feel free to give a few campsites that match the descriptions we are seeing… litter the ground with a few corpses have the occassional steam vent burn you for damage..

This first stage seems like there was little thought put into it, or at least very little attention to detail to make it even enticing.

At the moment, if you talk to specific refugees at Hoelbrak and Black Citadel, they’ll mention that the dredge might be behind the problems at Wayfearer Foothills, and the flame legion behind Diessa Plateau.
Also, there are events that popup where you need to kill elementals and plug up geysers.

At least the event has been progressing over the last few weeks, albeit at an immense crawl. I’m guessing things will heat up on the 26th.

My immersion breaks when these distraught refugees act nothing like refugees in that they don’t tell you what happened and they move single file and one at a time.

And as Khai said, there is no reason to believe anything happened at all anyways because the maps they come from are normal and nothing has happened there.

In real life, this entire event would have played out over the course of a week… and we would have known what happened in less than 2 days of what happened. That is assuming we would have to walk there (uhum waypoints). I feel like we are needlessly helping these refugees instead of solving the root problem all for the sake of the story… the slow slow slow story.

This better be one awesome surprise twist if it has this much “buildup”.

Here’s an introduction vid of the Living Story by WoodenPatato.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3JZyZGexGM

Your question is like a man reading the beginning of a mystery novel and asking “Why don’t they just explain what happened instead of leading me along?”

Think of it like a new dynamic event on a multi-zone scale.

DreamOfACure.4382:

Your question is like a man reading the beginning of a mystery novel and asking “Why don’t they just explain what happened instead of leading me along?”

Think of it like a new dynamic event on a multi-zone scale.

Except the man has the option of reading the novel to find out. This would be more like someone reading a novel to you, and having to wait a month before he reads the next paragraph. And even that’s probably a poor analogy, since the refugees are still there in real time, which means there’s no pause between readings. Instead, the guy reading it to you has decided to retell that single paragraph non-stop until next month.

Its was from a small update this month going to be bigger. Life is far better when you wait for things vs just getting things all at once.
Try to delay gratification for once in your life and find out how much more rewarding it is!

Well, I hope it will not be like “The lost shores”, an update that got “lost” and forgotten because it was really out of place and didn’t add anything beyond a map that has no reason to keep you there.

Hopefully this will not be just another “bite and run” update but something that will change our everyday gameplay.

Nayukhuut.4269:

I haven’t checked Hoelbrak, but perhaps the refugees there are saying the same of the Sons of Svanir?

No, they’re saying the dredge in Hoelbrak. However, the Sons of Svanir are trying to take advantage of the situation — there’s been events where they put up roadblocks near Hoelbrak and are demanding money from the refugees to cross, and you have to clear them out of the way.

Khai.6435:

Not to mention all of them are all streaming from a zone with absolutely no sign of conflict. “we were driven from our homes.” Really? because when I follow the trail of refugees you get to a point where it’s immersive breaking and nothing out of the ordinary. Feel free to give a few campsites that match the descriptions we are seeing… litter the ground with a few corpses have the occassional steam vent burn you for damage..

This first stage seems like there was little thought put into it, or at least very little attention to detail to make it even enticing.

They didn’t even cancel meatoberfest, how bad can this disaster really be?

I had the same problem. You follow the refugees and… nothing. They are scared of what, the event that spawns dust devils to blind you till you plug their holes with dead elementals? really? This, in a zone where right around the corner there’s an army of ghosts firing cannons at anything that moves 24/7 and they got scared of a little bad weather?

It’s incredibly disappointing to say the least. Anet could have at least slapped a destroyed town somewhere or something to at least give it some shred of credibility.

To me it reminds me of a table top game of DnD, at the very beginning, and where the players only meet every couple weeks.

So far I have learned:

There are refugees coming from the North, into Wayfarers and Diessa.
The Asuran Herald talks about marauders.
There are strange weather patterns in Wayfarers and Diessa coming from steam vents made of rock from the ground.
There are some tents and structures that have been moved from their original positions.
There is a dead merchant on a hill in Wayfarers, near a steam vent with a strange “hint” to the story.