Guild Wars 2

So on my second or third character completing exploration here, I noticed some oddities…

a) There are NPCs my (charr) character is apparently familiar with. I forget the names now and I don’t think I’ve actually had anything to do with them, especially on this character. One was a thief/pickpocket in a temple, which made me think maybe it’s a profession thing (character is a thief), but idk. The others weren’t as far as I could tell.

Is this normal/intended? Outside of a select few from the storyline and some I met in quests my characters don’t seem to (mutually) know anyone. Maybe those NPCs just know you no matter what?

b) http://i.imgur.com/eUmapnk.jpg

I never really paid attention before, but it’s interesting/weird that the ‘missing, maybe dead’ shrines have ghost heads on them, compared to the ‘certainly dead’ owl spirit having a statue. I’m not even sure what to make of that. If it were a hint, it’s… less subtle than I’d expect. Like, surely people would notice. But what does that leave? Norn hologram? The spiritual equivalent of a deer’s head on a wall?

…I don’t get it.

I do remember it being awkward that I walked into Stigfast’s home and the norn woman standing next to him knew me by name. Apparently we had a running joke about human pick-up lines, even though my sylvari had just recently awoke and this was my first trip there.

Yeah that was one of the others, I think the second one I came across, by which time it was getting a bit weird. It was implied my character had been there previously and left for a time… though, at least with a charr, that’s actually plausible.

What’s odd is that even if I had just made a norn character… I’m not sure why I’d know what they were talking about. It was like my character had suffered amnesia or something and I was going back and putting its life story together. o__o

On 1) It seems to be a bit of an oversight, as there are at least 2 NPCs (the one Narcemus mentioned, and one at the Beergarden) which treat everyone as a norn. There are a few oversights like this throughout the game.

The point behind them knowing your character from before would be because while you the player don’t know them, the character has lived in Hoelbrak all/most of his life and thus know others in Hoelbrak (just as you’ll find that you know everyone in Two-Blade Pete’s gang if you’re a street rat, and you’re told that you were once a gang member but left to live a better life). It’s just meant to give your character some form of background within the game’s personal story.

On 2) All the major shrines have that kind of head in Hoelbrak (and some outside), not just those three. That head isn’t meant to be “ghostly because they’re dead” but rather “ghostly because they’re a Spirit of the Wild” I believe. I’m not really sure how they’re done, but you can probably chock it up to “light manipulating magic (you know, like mesmer illusions) that’s maintained by the shrines’ shamans.”

I’ve run into a few that treat you as the race for that city even when you’re not, like my human getting congratulated for participating in the great hunt. I guess they just don’t expect you to be talking to them if you’re not that race…

Kyban.4031:

I’ve run into a few that treat you as the race for that city even when you’re not, like my human getting congratulated for participating in the great hunt. I guess they just don’t expect you to be talking to them if you’re not that race…

I get the implication is the Norn value a good time above all, and as such have no problem including non-Norn who are capable enough. So your character COULD of participated in a great hunt.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Since absolutely nothing of Owl remains, the norn chose to convey that by sculpting Owl’s memorial from wood.

Not true! My character has one of her feathers.

MatthewMedina.5419:

So, to answer 1, there’s certainly cases where this may be an oversight, or a bug, but there’s also cases where we deliberately give NPC’s knowledge of the player – the presumption being that you’re a hero and carry a reputation with you. It’s true that this might seem odd if you have a sylvari sapling barely out of the Grove, but to cover every possible contingency in NPC conversations would have taken a tremendous amount of time so this can sometimes just be a conceit we’ve used to give the narrative a bit more of a personal connection.

This one is almost certainly an oversight, as the NPCs treat you not just as someone they know, but as a fellow Norn with history there. This was rather awkward when I was apparently making jokes about my own race from an outsider’s perspective…

MatthewMedina.5419:

RoyHarmon.5398:

MatthewMedina.5419:

Since absolutely nothing of Owl remains, the norn chose to convey that by sculpting Owl’s memorial from wood.

Not true! My character has one of her feathers.

Ah, but you can’t very well make a statue from a few feathers left behind. :-)

I see. So are the other shrines made from real Spirit?

Umm.. the Owl priestess I helped check on the sacred owls and kill Jormags crystal in front of Owl’s temple and the guy at the skill point would both beg to differ with the opinion that NOTHING of Owl remains.

I do believe that Matthew meant “nothing physical (or metaphysical, rather, since we’re talking about spirits) remained” – Owl was devoured, in full, by Jormag. And by now, probably digested too. Thus nothing remains of Owl.

Owl still has a following, and still has teachings and memories of her still exist, but except for possibly a few feathers that got plucked during the fight with Jormag, Owl is gone gone.