Guild Wars 2

I doubt ArenaNet would skip over integrating specializations into the lore of their game so how do you think Chronomancers, Tempests, Druids etc. will fit in?

Will we meet some confused and displaced Chronomancers not sure if it was just
breakfast they ate or yesterdays lunch a second time?
Or maybe a Druid in the Maguuma Jungle searching for a better understanding of the Pale Trees?
Or a Tempest… making small talk about the weather? ;>_>

I hope so. Concerning Chronomancers, Anet did say the following in one of the articles:

It was a unique challenge to find an interpretation of time magic that fit within the lore of Tyria while also providing engaging gameplay hooks.

So they seem to want the elite professions to fit the game lorewise. And even in Guild Wars 1 mesmers had access to the trait line Fast Casting and skills like Stolen Speed and Echo. Maybe there is some connection between Chaos and Aether on the one hand and Time on the other. If so I hope such a connection is debated.

Concerning Druids, there is a group of creatures in the guild wars universe called druids (conveniently living in the maguuma jungle):
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Druid
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Druid_%28group%29

Edit:
Something that also interested was the fact that the Nuhoch are alchemists and use hammers while the Eningeer elite specialization will be able to use a hammer.

Something cool Anet should do is make novels based on the Revant class and the specializations. Mainly how they were created. would be nice for 1 novel to be about the Revanant and the other either having a specialization for each chapter or 9 heroes that join together and eventually unlock their specialization.

Shiren.9532:

Well druids already exist in Tyria so ArenaNet likely won’t invent something new but simply expand on what already exists. The druids of Tyria were conveniently located in parts of Maguuma we are moving towards, so I would expect there to be some lore to that in the expansion.

It was a unique challenge to find an interpretation of time magic that fit within the lore of Tyria while also providing engaging gameplay hooks.

This quote makes me think chronomancers alter the perception of time as opposed to time itself. Nothing they do is a big change from what they already do, just a specialisation/expansion of it.

Why does everyone hear “chronomancer” and take some “new magic” approach to it instead of considering the mesmer’s core abilities (manipulation, illusions, inspiration) and interpreting chronomancer as an extension of that? Moving faster or recharging skills faster aren’t really focuses of time control – they are easily explained as a mesmer tapping into mind magic to inspire their allies to perform better than they would without the mesmer. They already do this, just a less powerful level.

Actual time travel or time magic doesn’t really make a lot of sense for a mesmer, altering perceptions of time makes much more sense.

I don’t think mesmers will actually have any control over time, and as such their lore will just be an expansion of what mesmers already are – inspirational, manipulators, illusionists. Everything the chronomancer was shown to do seems like a specialised progression of what’s already inside the wheel house of the mesmer.

Well said!
I suppose it would make sense for Chronomancy to be an extension of illusionary, inspirational, and manipulative magic instead of actual time travel…

HOWEVER, the recent blog post states, “When the chronomancer activates Continuum Split, they sacrifice all of their illusions to split themselves off from the normal flow of time for a duration that scales with the number of illusions shattered. When this duration is over, or when the mesmer activates the follow-up skill Continuum Shift, they revert back to the location where the skill was first activated.”

So I’d like to think they actually have a limited control over time, but it only extends to going backward or forward/skipping about timelines for a few seconds.

Mesmers appear to have developed considerably over the past 200 years. The most noticeable improvement is an increased focus on manipulating reality, via Glamours, and even time with Time Warp and Temporal Curtain.

Chronomancers appear to have focused their studies on further developing reality-warping magic.

About the druids, their existence in the southwestern parts of Brisban Wildlands is acknowledged already within hearts and escort events

The thing with GW2 and several RPGs actually is that they tend to deposit the PC fully grown (because Fable-ing it might be a bit boring and not worth the effort) already more or less in some profession (some play around with allowing specialisation after the start of the game but my point still holds).
Rarely do RPGs which allow for custom character creation (so Geralt doesn’t count) give much in the way of character background (or no more than needed to explain how and why the PC ended up in the events of the game) . This is even more so for MMO RPGs.
GW2 provides some very limited history in the character creation (but no more than you’d reasonably expect a MMO to do and probably less than most RPGs) but what is absolutely absent is any profession related details. That is we’re never given any sort of hint or idea regarding why our character chose a given profession (probably nice for RPers) or how those professions fit into the world. Can anyone just pick up a staff an in x number of years shoot firebolts? Is their a Tyrian Hogwarts? We’ve heard about the Mesmer Collective but nothing about passing references.
So little is conveyed about our characters and their profession and little is conveyed about how professions fit into the world as a whole. Thus I can only imagine that specialisations will also pretty much go unnoticed and ignored (my revenants might get a passing reference but only because of Rytlock is making an appearance).
I would have loved if we at least had some sort of ingame lore, or story explaining how the specialisations came about (if only for the sake of world building) but not likely.

Yeah there is a severe lack of in-game profession lore, which is a shame because there’s a lot of wasted potential there.

Imagine Asuran Krewes experimenting with chronomancy and causing all sorts of chaos. Or a Sylvari demonstrating necromancy to a group of fascinated newborns in the Grove. Or a human academy with lore books describing the creation of spells, kind of like: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Research_Journal

Early on, might have been during the revenant blog posts, Anet said that they regretted not adding a lore and story to the other 8 professions and intend to fix that with how we unlock the specializations and with the revenant.

By the sound of it, we have to do stuff that gives lore in order to learn these elite specializations.

As many of us know, Chronomancer was the “class that never was” of GW1. It was intended to be added, but got cut, so maybe they’ll integrate that into the lore of the GW2 Chronomancer, by setting it up as some super-rare branch of Mesmeric magic that never saw mainsteam use, due to being sealed into the Heart of Maguuma, where nobody has been for over 250 years, then the player character goes and finds it, and learns to control it, becoming a Chronomancer.

The Lagomancer _

There were actually several “classes that never were” of GW1. Chronomancer is simply the most well-known.

Factions had the Bard – concept showing them using flutes. Utopia also had the Summoner. And, I believe, there were others that were scrapped.

Mesmer magic is not only mind and illusion, but also bending reality as already said different times by devs, even before gw2 release: time warp, temporal curtain, etc. are manifestation of theis ability, now further developed by Chronomancer specialisation; if you read the tooltip of the new skills and the explanations by dev it’s evident that we don’t speak only about illusion but something more solid.
Anyway, maybe the world itself it’s an illusion….so…

Edit. From the last dev post: " The mesmer of Guild Wars 2 is just as fond of toying with reality and perception as its predecessor, but it also possesses the ability to twist the fabric of space and time in the form of skills like Time Warp and Temporal Curtain. Jon says that this made the chronomancer a natural choice for the mesmer’s first elite specialization."

Konig Des Todes.2086:

By the sound of it, we have to do stuff that gives lore in order to learn these elite specializations.

Oh I hope so very very much!
Let the other people complain (I have to do PvE to unlock specialisations QQ), but we need some more lore.

Corvus.5836:

I doubt ArenaNet would skip over integrating specializations into the lore of their game so how do you think Chronomancers, Tempests, Druids etc. will fit in?

Will we meet some confused and displaced Chronomancers not sure if it was just
breakfast they ate or yesterdays lunch a second time?
Or maybe a Druid in the Maguuma Jungle searching for a better understanding of the Pale Trees?
Or a Tempest… making small talk about the weather? ;>_>

hey Corvus

personally i think it likely that chronomancers will be most prevalent throughout the exalted cough coughmursaat*cough cough* and likely have been one of the ways they phased themselves out of reality last time the elder dragons rose.
possibly an extension of the continuum shift skill, perhaps splitting the race off to a different flow of time where they could stay safe from the elder dragons

shadowfanatik.5160:

personally i think it likely that chronomancers will be most prevalent throughout the exalted cough coughmursaat*cough cough*

IMO, chronomancer’s lore will be based on Anise mostly.

And I’d still bet more money on Margonites than Mursaats when it comes to Exalted.

Mursaat don’t affect time. Going off of stated and implied lore, their “phasing out of reality” was them going part-way into the Mists (aka Spirit Realm) much like spirits can (hence why Ascended and Weh no Su, effectively the same thing, allowed one to see mursaat and spirits respectively even when they didn’t want to be seen) – the part of the Mists experienced in the norn storyline, which overlaps with reality. This has nothing to do with time like the Chronomancer – and if any profession deals with them for their specialization, it’ll probably be revenant.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

This has nothing to do with time like the Chronomancer – and if any profession deals with them for their specialization, it’ll probably be revenant.

They probably have more magic to teach than just the “phasing” stuff and they don’t really seem like the type to interact with spirits that much. Maybe they can teach the necromancer or elementalist. The only race that I can think of that deals with anything related to time would be the Seers, since seeing is kind of time related. Still not sure why they’re called Seers though, they didn’t do much seeing, the Flameseeker prophet was Glint…

Kyban.4031:

they don’t really seem like the type to interact with spirits that much.

It’s in the name.

Kyban.4031:

Maybe they can teach the necromancer or elementalist. The only race that I can think of that deals with anything related to time would be the Seers, since seeing is kind of time related. Still not sure why they’re called Seers though, they didn’t do much seeing, the Flameseeker prophet was Glint…

Necromancers will be learning from Marjory. Seers, despite their names, are not soothsayers – or at least, have never been seen doing such.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Kyban.4031:

they don’t really seem like the type to interact with spirits that much.

It’s in the name.

lol, I meant they didn’t seem like spectral socialites. They may have spectral magic but I don’t really see them dealing with other spirits, though if there are Mursaat willing to help us, perhaps they have a different attitude about that as well.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Kyban.4031:

Maybe they can teach the necromancer or elementalist. The only race that I can think of that deals with anything related to time would be the Seers, since seeing is kind of time related. Still not sure why they’re called Seers though, they didn’t do much seeing, the Flameseeker prophet was Glint…

Necromancers will be learning from Marjory. Seers, despite their names, are not soothsayers – or at least, have never been seen doing such.

I didn’t really get the impression Marjory was really that knowledgeable about GS Necromancy, although Traherne has been doing it for a while. Any idea why we call them Seers?

The name came from old dwarvern tales, and apparently was only describing the one we encounter. We just apply the term to the race as a whole because we don’t have anything else to call them. We don’t know what exactly the Seer did to earn the name, but by the context it seemed to be used more as just a synonym for wise person than as specifically referring to prophesying or seeing the future.

Chronomancy could be a skill found/taught/invented in that one Mesmer group, the Mesmer Collective or something like that.

They seem to have powerful Mesmers in that secret society.

There seems to be some massive speculation that the elite specializations are based off of “DE 2.0”, where Marjory gets a greatsword, which coincides with the integration of necromancer greatswords. Also, some people seem to speculate even more so, that Guardians are dubbed “dragon hunters” with a bow because of the theory that Braham will find Eir’s bow in the expansion, hence seeking vengeance.
If that becomes true, then since Kasmeer is a member of the Mesmer Collective, perhaps PC Mesmers will be able to learn it through them too.

LumAnth.5124:

Also, some people seem to speculate even more so, that Guardians are dubbed “dragon hunters” with a bow because of the theory that Braham will find Eir’s bow in the expansion, hence seeking vengeance.

Man, it could get pretty dark if Eir is killed, or assumed killed, by a Sylvari and Braham goes all witch hunter on anything dragon related…

LumAnth.5124:

There seems to be some massive speculation that the elite specializations are based off of “DE 2.0”,

For myself, I do not like this idea at all. It’s much too formulaic, and it’d mean character development gets locked on to a course that may well not fit just for the sake of mechanics. Eir, for instance, (I’m assuming this theory includes the original DE as well, or else you have a whole ‘nother problem) doesn’t have anything going on that I’d expect to cause her to become a druid. Either it’d be handwaving a stereotype past us (norn revere nature, druids revere nature, therefore norn are druids) or else introducing a subplot, again, solely as justification for an artificial symmetry. Just like when the waypoints were dropped abruptly into S2, either one makes me cringe.

LumAnth.5124:

They seem to have powerful Mesmers in that secret society.

Well the thing about secret societies is that we don’t really know what goes in inside of them. So for all we know the Mesmer collective could be Kasmeer, two random Asura and Hobo-Tron.

Kyban.4031:

Man, it could get pretty dark if Eir is killed, or assumed killed, by a Sylvari and Braham goes all witch hunter on anything dragon related…

From what we’ve seen in the HoT demo Jory is pretty much anti-Sylvari (dead sister and all) so I guess it would be possible for Braham to join her on that side. I guess they’ll be countered balanced by Canach, Rox and Kasmeer (probably Taimi), or maybe it will be split down the middle 3-for Sylvari and 3-against.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

For myself, I do not like this idea at all. It’s much too formulaic, and it’d mean character development gets locked on to a course that may well not fit just for the sake of mechanics.

Not to meantion the biconics aren’t particularly representative.
Rox – Ranger
Braham – Guardian
Kasmeer – Mesmer
Marjory – Necro
Canach… thief I guess.
And maybe if we stretch it Taimi can be a engineer.
So that leaves warriors, revenants and elementalists out in the cold.

Shiren.9532:

It’s a red flag for how much Tyria revolves around a handful of “iconic” characters rather than portraying a realistic and complex world.

And therein lies a problem for the ages. How do we both portray an complex world and tell good stories? I’d love some examples of these, since I can’t recall and movies, shows, or books in which there wasn’t a character focus and by which the plot was not character centric.
I think ANet did a fairly good job of portraying a complex world in the base game. Hundreds of dynamic events each with their own characters doing something relevant to their environment and character. But it didn’t make for very good storytelling.

Shiren.9532:

I don’t think Marjory is in the position to be teaching anyone anything. She only just picked up the sword, it’s been less than a year, is she supposed to face some of Tyria’s most dangerous creatures with a weapon she is barely proficient in surrounded by allies carrying their own weight using weapons they’ve mastered over a decade or more of practice?

Agreed. This is why we need profession factions. It would make sense that within these factions they’d start developing new means of combating the Elder Dragons. This would also present opportunity for narrative and lore, explaining who, why and what. I don’t inherently disagree that the biconics and iconics could play a role in developing these specialisations but it does have the disadvantage of potentially feeling forced.

CureForLiving.5360:

LumAnth.5124:

They seem to have powerful Mesmers in that secret society.

Well the thing about secret societies is that we don’t really know what goes in inside of them. So for all we know the Mesmer collective could be Kasmeer, two random Asura and Hobo-Tron.

Well, it was stated that powerful Mesmers (includes Countess Anise) are part of the society in a blog post I think.
Here’s the wiki link and their source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mesmer_Collective

Also, yeah I agree, I don’t like that the group might be representative of the new elite specializations but I can handle it. I mean, they have already somewhat trashed most of the GW1 lore already, so I’m pretty used to some of the story writing they’ve been doing now.

CureForLiving.5360:

And therein lies a problem for the ages. How do we both portray an complex world and tell good stories? I’d love some examples of these, since I can’t recall and movies, shows, or books in which there wasn’t a character focus and by which the plot was not character centric.
I think ANet did a fairly good job of portraying a complex world in the base game. Hundreds of dynamic events each with their own characters doing something relevant to their environment and character. But it didn’t make for very good storytelling.

Actually there are books done as “braided novels,” where you keep moving from one pov to the next over a cast of dozens to see a widespread impact of a world changing event. The one that most springs to mind for me at this moment is Lucifer’s Hammer by Niven and Pournelle. Also John Brunner’s extrapolative novels based on “if this goes on” (Stand on Zanzibar for human overpopulation, The Sheep Look Up for pollution, etc) tend to hop around the globe scene to scene touching on the lives of a lot of people.

An MMO lets people hop all over the world to see events and NPC dialogues. Having a band of NPC heroes to help focus what’s going on isn’t necessarily a bad thing (as) such. But in a tale of global disaster, I feel the weight should lie in how the disaster affects the band, not how the band affects the world. We should see the various races rallying, each in their own way; we should see schisms, and epic gatherings (such as the Pact Fleet, short lived though it was), victories and defeats that involve the world. When LA burned, why were NPCs in DR still fretting that the caravan from LA was late? Why weren’t Ministers calling for installation of air defenses and a lockdown on who comes through the Asura gate? Why weren’t Norns who helped in the citizen rescue boasting of their deeds? (Ok, limited game resources for new dialogues and voice acting, yeah yeah yeah).

The biconics should be reacting to the events. Perhaps they could have reasons to be where the high level decisions are being made, and thus us with them, but they shouldn’t be the spunky gang of youths who personally save us all.

Disclaimer: I speak as someone who’s always loved playing sidekicks and subordinates, who’s always hated “monty haul” gaming, who doesn’t want to be the godlike center of attention. So having a set of “chosen ones” just feels uncomfortable to me. Those who like games like Exalted probably appreciate being on the spunky team of heroes more than I do.

Donari.5237:

An MMO lets people hop all over the world to see events and NPC dialogues. Having a band of NPC heroes to help focus what’s going on isn’t necessarily a bad thing (as) such. But in a tale of global disaster, I feel the weight should lie in how the disaster affects the band, not how the band affects the world. We should see the various races rallying, each in their own way; we should see schisms, and epic gatherings (such as the Pact Fleet, short lived though it was), victories and defeats that involve the world. When LA burned, why were NPCs in DR still fretting that the caravan from LA was late? Why weren’t Ministers calling for installation of air defenses and a lockdown on who comes through the Asura gate? Why weren’t Norns who helped in the citizen rescue boasting of their deeds? (Ok, limited game resources for new dialogues and voice acting, yeah yeah yeah).

The biconics should be reacting to the events. Perhaps they could have reasons to be where the high level decisions are being made, and thus us with them, but they shouldn’t be the spunky gang of youths who personally save us all.

Those are some nice examples and if ANet could pull it off it would be amazing. But possibly the scope might be too big, as you mentioned. There’s a lot of dialog and events in the game at present, so how much will need to be changed? Is it enough to add a few lines of dialog here or there? Or should the changes be more substantial. I can definitely see it being possible to add few lines of dialog (although looking at the example in the case of Divinity’s Reach or Hoelbrak it would probably go unnoticed by 80% of the player base).

So a bit back on topic. I was watching GuildGab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8TsAZiJFG4 and around the end they start talking about profession lore. This really really brought up just how silly ANet would be if they didn’t do profession lore in-game.

CureForLiving.5360:

And therein lies a problem for the ages. How do we both portray an complex world and tell good stories? I’d love some examples of these, since I can’t recall and movies, shows, or books in which there wasn’t a character focus and by which the plot was not character centric.

I feel like Fallout: New Vegas had a good blend of complex world and interesting characters involved in interesting stories.

meh, Arena net will take it easy. Everybody receives a letter from the wizard in that huge floating castle in Wizard’s Fief. They will go their for training but the wizard is trying to kill them, the heroes fight back, The wizard loses controll of the tower, tower goes through multile dimensions to eventually crash into the maguuma jungle. Their they will have the final fight and when the wizard dies, the castle falls apart and its magic leaks into the world. Creating dangerous situations and the players have to go and solve this to unlock more of their specialisation.