Guild Wars 2

What would be the best way to learn everything about the universe of Guild Wars [1&2]?

A lot of patience reading the wiki, and then a lot of time here to see what the wiki got wrong.

On a serious note, though, I don’t think it can be done. My advice would be just get out into the game, talk to all the characters you see while you play, seek out all the weird corners, and get a feel for the world. It goes much farther than some bare-bones lecture on a forum. Of course, if you have any specific questions, either the wiki or this here lore forum ought to be able to help you out.

I would recommend going into one area of the lore that interests you, then it generally takes you to other areas of the lore. For example, I love the Charr. I love everything about their society, culture and history, but quite often, I get taken into lore about the other races, for example. The Charr have had a number of long conflicts with the Humans, so I end up catching a lot of lore about them.

and a lot of it is literally just going into the game and talking to NPCs, listening to ambient conversations, etc. Theres a lot of important lore that was discovered by speaking to singular NPCs that happen to be hidden in far-flung corners of the game.

and like Aaron said, I think its borderline impossible. The lore is so speculative, open and vast. and even just the Charr. Ive been lore hunting about the Charr since before GW2 even came out, and im still discovering chunks of information about just 1 race after all this time.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

A lot of patience reading the wiki, and then a lot of time here to see what the wiki got wrong.

Pretty much this. We can give you lists of links for what to read to begin immersing yourself into the lore, which provides the main facts of the lore, but to know the whole lore you’d have to pretty much to talk to every NPC throughout both games, read a series of interviews and lore documents released out of game, and pretty much do every quest and event and personal story – because the wiki doesn’t have it all, not even all of GW1 lore still (though it’s probably over 95%). That’s pretty much what I’ve done – every quest and mission in GW1, every event, dungeon path, and personal story step in GW2, and talked to all NPCs at each step of each of the above. As well as having read as many out-of-game stuff as I could.

And also as Aaron said, if you have a question, ask.

Yup. Read the wiki, the novels, and everything konig has ever posted, and You Should Be good.

I am a firm believer that the most of the lore comes from the game itself. There is a treasure trove of lore and information in the world. While wiki articles and the books give you the basics, the game would give you much more.

Talk to every person you see. Every persons dialogue is there for a reason: to give you little bits of lore that you gather on your own. In personal story steps talk to everyone before proceeding. Wait around in cities and towns for ambient dialogue. Wait after an event to see what they have to say. It is always very intriguing. This kind of stuff will give you an insight into the races and their culture, how kingdoms view important people, events of the past. Most of the lore in the game has not been recorded in the wiki, do don’t think that is all there is.

Plagiarised.2865:

Most of the lore in the game has not been recorded in the wiki, do don’t think that is all there is.

I cannot stress this enough, and this goes quadruply for GW2W.

When I was first getting invested in the lore, I learned a lot from this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/user/WoodenPotatoes

Go see some of his older videos first, like his ‘gw2 mysteries’. He isn’t an all-knowing wizard, but his speculations are a good starting point to explore the bits of information on the wiki and the lore-forum. One of the best things about him is that he talks about updates and keeps you in the loop lore-wise with the living world when you don’t have time to play gw2.

Bellyboomer is right about woodenpotatoes. He’s well informed and I believe he’ll help you out a lot. The way I see it, he goes around gathering the lore on certain topics and discusses it and tries to find links between different topics, even if it’s not him that gets the info. he’s still a good source of info on lore. Think of him as someone that does the searching for you and discusses the lore.

I actually disagree with that about WP. He is a good means to introduce people to lore, but just like GW2W, he is far from fully accurate and everything in his videos should be taken with a grain of salt until you find an actual source. I have on many occasions posted lengthy corrections on single videos where he got something wrong or stated a theory or hypothesis as if it were fact. And nowadays I have no doubt I can so the same for GW2W articles, as I have already to varying degrees.

He is really just an alternative to the non-verbatim wiki articles. Though his playthriugh GW1 videos are a good means of getting as much lore from GW1 without searching through each quest and mission dialogue as he goes through them himself and reads them – at least for the primary quests. Not full but far better than his speculative tends-to-miss-facts-or-mistake-speculation-for-fact GW2 videos.

Well I’m sorry if my post came out as stating that he is a source. I see him more as someone that does the searching and talks about it and links some theories together. So long a you know that what he says isn’t to be taken as 100% accurate then sure he’s a good source to listen to. Think of him more as listening to the discussions that’s usually going on in the internet more of thing.

That’s what I was getting at. To ensure folks don’t go into thinking he fact-checked himself so much that there are no errors.

Either way, WP is a good starting point. Yes he might not have the gift of ‘being-godkitten -right-all-the-freaking-time-and-schooling-the-entire-lore-forum’ like Konig, but he can keep you up to date with what’s happening in game and what the community is talking about. His video’s can also introduce new lorediggers to some old theories: What’s happening at Garrenhof might be old news to you and me, but watching the video might be a better sollution for new players than digging trough the forums for example. He also keeps digging up old theories with new patches, which helps you get a larger view of the lore.
And then you can dig for more details and evidence by browsing through the wiki, asking on the forum, getting schooled by Konig…

And yes I speak from experience, WP helped me a lot to get more invested in the lore of gw2.

No one has suggested playing GW1?

narwhalsbend.7059:

No one has suggested playing GW1?

It’s nice to get a view of how the world was back then, but to be honest… too much has changed for me to really say it’s worth the 30 bucks to learn about. I mean that both in-game (the technological and magical advancement, the changed power dynamic, and the Elder Dragons) and out-of-game (the alteration of pretty much all of the wide-scale background lore in accordance to new design principles). So much of what is learned in Guild Wars 1 is simply wrong now, and what isn’t is pretty much irrelevant- either it has no impact, or the relevant bits can just as easily, nay, more easily be picked out in GW2. They’re quite simply two different games, and while the continuity is there, it’s taken a backseat to several other things.

I would really disagree with that, Aaron. Just that a lot dealing with the old history of the world is wrong. The things we see is unchanged – cannot be changed, really – and honestly, for the stuff in-game that got changed it’s pretty much just a handful of priests’ sayings at the Temple of the Ages, possibly some explanations on the Bloodstones’ origins, and Turai Ossa’s explanation of Glint. Other things… remain the same, pretty much.

Most of what’s been changed is really what comes from the History of Tyria, which was proven mostly wrong with Prophecies and Nightfall itself.

Most if not all lore from Factions remains unchanged. Most if not all lore from Nightfall remains unchanged. Most if not all lore from Eye of the North also remains unchanged. And even then, most of the lore seen in-game in Prophecies remains unchanged. Just the ancient histories and legends. Mind you, major histories and legends, but ancient stuff even by GW1’s standards nonetheless.

And @narwhalsbend.7059: While I didn’t focus on suggesting it, I did in fact suggest to play through all quests and missions in GW1, and talk to all NPCs in that game too, as well as doing the same for GW2’s equivilants (events and personal storylines) since it isn’t all on the wikis.

Aye, I suppose I did become needlessly bitter there. Prophecies would be good for witnessing events of historical relevance to Ascalon and Kryta (and the humans and charr), and EotN depicts a good deal of important asura, norn, charr, and dwarf events, as well as the first stirring of the dragons. I’m not convinced that you’d learn anything important about them that you wouldn’t in GW2, but there is certainly a great deal to be said for witnessing things for yourself, if you have the money and time to spare.

I still hold that Factions and Nightfall have only the smallest of bearing to the current game, but if we ever end up in Cantha or Elona, I would certainly expect that to change.

That is true for Factions and Nightfall, but keep in mind that the OP asked for learning the whole lore, not the relevant lore.

There’s also the Beyond arcs, which hold good relevance throughout.

I’ll throw in an honourable mention of WoodenPotatoes again; what he’s done with all his video series to spread the word of GW lore through various let’s play or mysteries/storytime series is invaluable if you wish to get a good introduction to the universe of Guild Wars 1&2.

Of course, it’s presented with artistic freedom and dramaturgy to maybe make some assumptions here and there, but on the whole you’ll get a great foundation which you can then use to further delve into all the nitty gritty details to learn EVERYTHING or the WHOLE lore.

By ‘learning everything’, I’m not sure whether OP means to become an impenetrable lore buff/fortress or just wants to know about everything that has unfolded in Tyria but not necessarily every little minute detail.
I.e. I myself believe have a pretty good grasp on all major (and many minor) events in GW1 and GW2, background and origin for many things, but I don’t know every detail about every character, etc. ever encountered and so on. And given some answers to lore questions by Anet lore writers, I’m not always sure they do even.

WP has been an excellent resource to complement playing all aspects of both games with side stories and musings of another, really enthusiastic player, and depending on how invested OP intends to become, is a nice audio/video alternative/supplement to trudging through gigabytes with walls of text in wikis/articles/interviews.