Guild Wars 2

I realize this is a GW2 forum, but I know a lot of players that are here from the original game.

Guild Wars Eye of the North had a few references to Galaxy Quest, which is a hilarious movie especially if you’re into sci-fi. Some such references are skills like “Never Give Up!”, “Never Surrender!” and “By Ural’s Hammer!”

“By Ural’s Hammer!” is a reference to “By Ghrab Thaar’s Hammer!” which is a line spoken a few times in the movie. That is not the easter egg I’m talking about however.

Ghrab Thaar’s Hammer from Galaxy Quest is an easter egg in of itself! It is a reference to the origin of the “Blessed Hammer” in Diablo II made by Blizzard Entertainment, as noted in the lore of the site noted below:

http://diablo.gamepedia.com/Blessed_Hammer_

I thought it was interesting how this winded its way back to one of Anet’s competitors and also another classic RPG. On another note, the rotating hammers from the Revenant skill “Vengeful Hammers” makes me reminisce of the hammers from the Diablo II skill “Blessed Hammer.” I highly doubt the similarities are intentional, but it lets me fondly play homage to one of the games I cut my teeth on while playing the best RPG ever created.

Well it still persisted in GW2 in the Original Lion’s Arch, near the Mystic Forge where there were two bridges. There was a Norn NPC that would regularly shout “By Ogden’s Hammer! What savings!” and i think it’s one lf the most iconic NPC lines of the game.

Galaxy Quest is one of my favorite movies of all time. Loved that they referenced it in both games. By the way, there are a tonne of references to movies, shows, books, comics, mangas and other games in both GW1 and 2.

The Asura scientist Zinn for example is a reference to Invader Zim. One of his Golems, G.O.X. had the mannerism of Zim’s robot Gir. Zim’s assistant Blimm uses dialog based on the movie Office Space (“Have you seen my staff?” = “Have you seen my stapler?”). And then there are Denn and Krayn, two Asuran lawyers based on Denny Crane (Bill Shatner) from Boston Legal. I could go on forever about the Asura alone, but I will round this up with one of my favorite references, the NF quest “Drakes on the Plain”. The title of course is already a reference, but half of this quest’s dialog is made of different movie quotes, from James Bond: Goldfinger to Monty Pythons.

I’d be willing to bet they knew it was ultimately a Diablo 2 reference, actually. ArenaNet’s founders worked on Diablo 2.

Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing years ago that the people who worked on Diablo 2 and left to create Anet did so because they did not believe in Blizzard’s philosophy of gaming/marketing. Does anyone have any information on this?

I think there is a rogue scout in Diablo 2 named after gaile grey,
Gaile

My favorite rogue scout is Divo though.

I’m pretty sure rev hammers orbiting was referenced from Diablo 2 hammerdin.