Guild Wars 2

Sublimatio.6981:

It felt like we got Divine Fire in reward from Turai – a miserable failer, who did not ascend. We should obtain the Divine Fire from the gods themselves – in Crystal Desert. This is so bad. Even worse than setting a casual portal to Glint’s Lair for plot convenience.

And yet, the Ghostly Hero does hold some place of honor within the Mists in the past age, even if he did not Ascend . . . he is as much a steward of the process in the Crystal Desert as the Forgotten are – he simply could not attain it in life and can only hope to achieve some honor in death with the Heroes’ Ascent.

At least that’s what I recall from the PvP lore of GW1. Which was thin, very thin.

Wow, some egos in this thread need a nerf. That meltdown was a great read!!

I honestly loved the reveal. Despite some people theorizing this outcome, the ferociousness of its detractors actually helped to make this a surprise to me despite it making sense all a long. I guess I should be thanking those bullies for shutting down productive conversation.

MailMail.6534:

Wow, some egos in this thread need a nerf. That meltdown was a great read!!

I honestly loved the reveal. Despite some people theorizing this outcome, the ferociousness of its detractors actually helped to make this a surprise to me despite it making sense all a long. I guess I should be thanking those bullies for shutting down productive conversation.

People refuting arguments with actual evidence is not ‘bullying’.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

People refuting arguments with actual evidence is not ‘bullying’.

Except that none of those evidences are actually conclusive. It all comes down to working only if all dragon minions are equal and if there is only one type of minion.

What I am wondering is: What will happen to the other sylvari.

You remember that guy from one of the early Sylvari personal story right ?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

MailMail.6534:

Wow, some egos in this thread need a nerf. That meltdown was a great read!!

I honestly loved the reveal. Despite some people theorizing this outcome, the ferociousness of its detractors actually helped to make this a surprise to me despite it making sense all a long. I guess I should be thanking those bullies for shutting down productive conversation.

People refuting arguments without actual evidence is ‘bullying’.

fixed

FlamingFoxx.1305:

People refuting arguments with actual evidence is not ‘bullying’.

. . . wait, wait, which side are we talking about here? The side who claim evidence, or the side asking for evidence for the claims?

Not that it matters, in the long run, the point’s long buried. But if going “you’re going to need to prove that, chief” is bullying? Well crap, I should have someone shoot me in the back of the head for being a chronic bully.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

People refuting arguments with actual evidence is not ‘bullying’.

. . . wait, wait, which side are we talking about here? The side who claim evidence, or the side asking for evidence for the claims?

Not that it matters, in the long run, the point’s long buried. But if going “you’re going to need to prove that, chief” is bullying? Well crap, I should have someone shoot me in the back of the head for being a chronic bully.

That’s not at all what I’m saying. It was a response to someone calling people bullies for being against theories. But if someone can present evidence for their opinion/viewpoint then that’s simply all they’re doing, presenting evidence. It’s not bullying. The only situation where it would be bullying is shutting people’s theories down (emphasis on shutting down, rather than simply disagreeing which is fine) when you have no evidence to back up your own or disprove theirs.

Evidence presented by both sides were equally unfounded in actual “proof”. Some people are just angry that their evidence was wrong. There are “theories” that support that there is no moon, but that “evidence” doesn’t make that idea true. (I only put quotations to show that I think the no-moon theory is absolutely silly, but it does exist all the same). But now that the “Sylvari are not minions” theory has been irrefutably proven wrong, barring some reveal later that Wynne was lying or something, the people who presented their evidence and shut down the equally backed theory of “yes they are minions” are throwing a tantrum. It’s a little depressing. I haven’t posted in the lore forums for a while because it kind of feels like a kittening contest between a few of the established lore people, and this just confirms it.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

People refuting arguments with actual evidence is not ‘bullying’.

. . . wait, wait, which side are we talking about here? The side who claim evidence, or the side asking for evidence for the claims?

Not that it matters, in the long run, the point’s long buried. But if going “you’re going to need to prove that, chief” is bullying? Well crap, I should have someone shoot me in the back of the head for being a chronic bully.

That’s not at all what I’m saying. It was a response to someone calling people bullies for being against theories. But if someone can present evidence for their opinion/viewpoint then that’s simply all they’re doing, presenting evidence. It’s not bullying. The only situation where it would be bullying is shutting people’s theories down (emphasis on shutting down, rather than simply disagreeing which is fine) when you have no evidence to back up your own or disprove theirs.

I’m just trying to be sure what you’re saying. It’s late and I’m a little giddy at the prospect of maybe some actual tension going on next season rather than slowly pushing the story forward like we have been.

ElysianEternity.6215:

So, in other words the most cited, fanfiction-ish and unfounded theory since beta was supposedly one of anet’s story’s greatest mysteries?

I hope that isn’t something the writers are proud of.

I don’t even really know what to say. Just wow. Lame.

Little condescending there. I mean hell, the direction that information pointed in was fairly obvious. Was it really that surprising, truly?

Just because you didn’t agree with the theories doesn’t mean it was fan fiction. You were wrong. Everyone is wrong sometimes. Hell, you can even reconcile it by saying “The devs failed to present their story in a meaningful/believable way” (which I don’t think they did, but who am I to say? That’s just my opinion) But these blatant accusations that the dev team is outright lying is just childish. Looks to me like a tantrum.

ElysianEternity.6215:

Then we have that Faolain fell into Nightmare while she was with Caithe in Orr and that she was the first. Apparently that never happened now or what and she simply hung out with the NC?

Umm, wasn’t it always stated, that Cadeyrn founded NC, and Faolain just became the leader of it? Pretty sure it was, but I am far from being a salad expert…

zwierz.9012:

ElysianEternity.6215:

Then we have that Faolain fell into Nightmare while she was with Caithe in Orr and that she was the first. Apparently that never happened now or what and she simply hung out with the NC?

Umm, wasn’t it always stated, that Cadeyrn founded NC, and Faolain just became the leader of it? Pretty sure it was, but I am far from being a salad expert…

Sounds accurate. To my knowledge that is exactly what happened, through some maneuver or another Faolain gained the support to take charge.

Ronin.7381:

ElysianEternity.6215:

So, in other words the most cited, fanfiction-ish and unfounded theory since beta was supposedly one of anet’s story’s greatest mysteries?

I hope that isn’t something the writers are proud of.

I don’t even really know what to say. Just wow. Lame.

Little condescending there. I mean hell, the direction that information pointed in was fairly obvious. Was it really that surprising, truly?

Hm, maybe my disappointment could be interpreted as condescending.
I’m not disappointed in the decision sylvari = minions itself. (Nor do I feel very angry or malicious, just…yeah rather drained and sigh.)
I’m (really really really) disappointed in what the common theory entailed and how it was pushed as surprise and the writing that came with the presentation of this reveal.

Basically, pretty much every dragon minion theory boiled down to ‘the power of friendship and love of the tablet cleansed the pale tree’. Which is totally unfounded in lore, looking at what it took to free Glint. (also hence the fanction-feel)

So while the idea that sylvari are minions itself isn’t unfounded, the common form this theory took on was.

Edit: Also felt kinda bad in retrospect, so I wanna add that I’m sorry if anyone’s felt negatively impacted by my choice of words today. Didn’t wanna come across mean or something. .__.

We don’t really know what entailed getting Glint free, or if the tablets were solely responsible for freeing the tree.

Squee.7829:

We don’t really know what entailed getting Glint free, or if the tablets were solely responsible for freeing the tree.

Uhm… we know exactly what it entails, we replicated the Forgotten ritual on a smaller scale in Arah exp on lil’ Twitchy and freed it of Zhaitan’s control. :x

True tho that we don’t know what’s more to the Pale tree. Though… I think I just said, it was the common theory with it being based on mostly friendship&love!! that’s bothered me and how close the current reveal we got is to it.
Though I’ll also say that it is fine by me if the full reveal is without all the things that made this theory unfounded (and cringeworthy) aka the tablet and its power of love being the bane of EDs.

I completely forgot about the ritual :/ Sorry.

There is now a possibility of two distinctive races of Sylvari. The Sylvari of the Pale Tree who are anti-Mordremoth; and ‘pre-sylvari’ who are dragon minions. In the future with the Guildwars 2: Heart of Thorn ‘expansion’, we the player most likely will be fighting Mordremoth that would include these ‘pre-sylvari’ as dragon minions. The pale tree Sylvari would most likely fighting along side us against Mordremoth and the ‘pre-sylvari’ in general.

Edit: The parallelism would liken Glint, glint children, and agents fighting with us in GW1 against our enemy.

Squee.7829:

I completely forgot about the ritual :/ Sorry.

No worries :0 It happens.

ElysianEternity.6215:

Squee.7829:

We don’t really know what entailed getting Glint free, or if the tablets were solely responsible for freeing the tree.

Uhm… we know exactly what it entails, we replicated the Forgotten ritual on a smaller scale in Arah exp on lil’ Twitchy and freed it of Zhaitan’s control. :x

One of these days I will get to do Arah explorable and see this stuff.

True tho that we don’t know what’s more to the Pale tree. Though… I think I just said, it was the common theory with it being based on mostly friendship&love!! that’s bothered me and how close the current reveal we got is to it.
Though I’ll also say that it is fine by me if the full reveal is without all the things that made this theory unfounded (and cringeworthy) aka the tablet and its power of love being the bane of EDs.

It’s probably not the tablet and power of love directly so much as it is . . . sort of like imprinting a spirit into it, perhaps? Repeated workings or readings almost ritualized having been binding the will of Ronan and Ventari into the tablet itself and thus seeping into the Pale Tree over time?

I mean, it could be written in a way so that it isn’t just out as “the nurturing power of love triumphs over evil nature” while retaining the same essence of the thoughts.

Besides, we know what the bane of Elder Dragons is.

Cannonfire.

I am in no way near close to say if it`s logical or not.
I am not so deep into the lore that I can say if it is breaking or not.
I actually never cared about the Sylvari so much.

What I can say is, that I do not like this developement at all.
I like the possible implications. Like the civil war , unsafe allies, sleeper agents and the like.

However I am not sure if Anet is able to pull it off.
I am pretty cross in how Season 2 in general fared. It being only the set up for this twist .
I don`t trust them in that matter.

I like to be immersed. I like to be satisfied. I like to be entertained.

This twist, which could be interesting, is just a big WTF for me.
It doesn`t fit.
It is an annoyence for me, because the next storyline will be finding out who is on our side and how can we safe the situation, while we really have some better things to do.

It`s a dark turn, which is usually highly apreciated, but it happened to fast.
It was hinted, yes, but ended up still slapped into our face.

It would have been nice to have some kind of victory beforehand and then being taken down by the sleeper agents.

However the turn here just felt: “This is the end of the season, time to bring our twist.”
It sounds good on paper, but after playing it, it just felt so wrong.

As I mentioned in my long post on the second page chances are the Pale Tree and the Sylvari began as blank slates. No thoughts, memories or personalities of their own until an imprint is created. In our Sylvari’s situation that imprint is from the Avatar of the Pale Tree. For the Mordrem that would be Mordremoth as they were within its sphere of influence. For Malyck and the tree he came from I would assume that an imprint was not created yet.

Because of the Pale Trees’ distance from the sleeping dragon and therefore being outside of its sphere of influence the dragon was not able to imprint itself onto the Pale Tree. Meaning Mordremoth did not corrupt and mold it in his image…unlike the the Mordrem. So no need for a ritual to purify the Pale Tree, unlike Glint who was under the influence of her elder dragon for many years.

Simply, the Avatar of the Pale Tree used Ventari’s Tablet as an imprint for itself and the Sylvari that grow from it. Of course, that is my opinion. Though I do look forward to seeing how the origin of the Sylvari and the story turn out. Maybe the purpose of the egg is to bind the Sylvari to Glint’s child and raise it to be like Glint. Would be a way for the Sylvari to fight against Mordremoth since dragons do not seem to be able to corrupt minions of other dragons.

returns from lurking

i’ve seen someone point it out before, but no one here seems to be reaching that conclusion, but what if the seeds Ronan found were already cleansed by the same ritual the Forgotten used on glint? i mean, look where they were found. we might not have any character saying out loud “this is Ronan’s cave” (that i recall), but the game hints pretty heavily that this Forgotten cave is where the seeds were (again, no hard, conclusive evidence, but neither did the “sylvari minions” theory).

it sure makes more sense than “love and nurturing alone purified it”.

Honestly? I love this twist. It’s not a huge twist and it’s been a long-debated theory. I can see a great many ways that explanations can be worked through, but I’m absolutely behind it for a few reasons:
1 – It turns the Scarlet Briar arc into less of a kittenfest. Sorry, I hated her. She irked me to no end. Her being effectively not just possessed but.. if anything.. returning to what she should be… is actually kinda cool.
2 – It puts all sylvari into jeopardy and that’s frankly cool. Trahearne saying “fire” seemed tactically unwise.. who’s to say he was acting under his own bidding? /archbrow
I like that sort of suspicion.
3 – It makes sylvari playable for me. I’ve never been able to get into the ‘always Lawful Good unless neutral(Soundless) or Evil(NC) complete and replete with mustache-twirling insanity. Now we have an interesting reason WHY PC sylvari are such darling paladin Arthurian wet dream Polyannas: they have to be to break their inborn nature. That’s actually brilliant. It’s vastly more interesting than even the two dimensional villainy presented by the Nightmare always felt for me. With apologies for hauling the excrescence of WoW lore in, this feels like Draenei done RIGHT.
Being Lawful Good cause you’re nature’s precious baby heroes is tedious. Being Lawful Good because a ritual (I love the idea that repetition might have empowered it by the by) somehow freed your progenitor, whose mental shield wrapped you in safe Good to ward against your innate design to be plant automatons using intellect to be deadly killer minions… now THAT is much more intriguing.
The fact I’m finally playing my long-ignored sylvari character says lots to me.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

People refuting arguments with actual evidence is not ‘bullying’.

…But if going “you’re going to need to prove that, chief” is bullying? Well crap, I should have someone shoot me in the back of the head for being a chronic bully.

From my perspective, some may have seen it as bullying because of what seemed like an unfair standard. Many of the early posts I read about the Sylvari minion theory were presenting the author’s ideas for the theory and some pieces of lore they thought were consistent with their ideas.

Not everyone was claiming the theory proved, in fact many were just saying “Hey what about this: ABC because XYZ seems to suggest that this could be the direction the story is going.” Then some individuals responded with comments that essentially claimed XYZ absolutely cannot indicate ABC, because PQR suggests that XYZ did not necessary have to be interpreted in the way the author claimed. Then said responders labeled the theory as debunked or thoroughly disproven in their own heads.

I was not one who was suggesting the minion theory, but honestly I rerolled several Sylvari alts almost right away in hopes that it might be true, because I happened to think it was really cool. I don’t really understand the claims that it’s bad storytelling. I think it’s a fantastic origin story and has interesting implications for future episodes.

Those who think it’s bad/lazy, why do you think so?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I haven’t even played Episode 8, but this single spoiler makes me not want to.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Titus.4285:

Makes me very sad to see your reaction Konig. I don’t think anyone has the same amount of knowledge about the universe as you do.
Please play the episode. I am very much interested in seeing your full review. I’ve always had immense respect for you and your input.

Just wanted to second this. I’ve been a lurker on the lore forums and always respected your posts. I even read your posts on Guru way back in the day. You leaving the lore forum is like Lilith leaving the dungeon forums. You’re sort of irreplaceable. But, if you do seriously decide to move on, best of luck!

Konig, I came here specifically to see what you had to say. I’m a bit of a lurker as well, especially on the lore forums cause….most of this is over my head. However, I do respect the amount of knowledge you have and keeping logical in your arguments. Please do play the episode through.

The conversation with Wynne is very short and frankly, we are hearing her perceptions of the dream. She very well could be wrong…or misunderstanding her dream.

Aethgar.1784:

Trahearne saying “fire” seemed tactically unwise.. who’s to say he was acting under his own bidding? /archbrow
I like that sort of suspicion.

Actually, I was thinking…
What if Mordremoth didn’t actually make any conscious effort to mind control Sylvari at this point ? What if it’s the fact that it was hurt that triggered some kind of instinctive response from the Sylvari ? Pretty much as if they had some kind of “berserk button” in their mind, that could only be activated if you actually threatened directly their posible creator ?

I’d prefer this option, actually, since it would mean that we’d have to find another way to fight Mordremoth rather than just using brute force.

By the way I just want to share a fact that convinced me that sylvari are mordrem.
Listen to first few seconds of soundtrack called “Mordrem” :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhVkUCP9eMU&list=PLUJ9TtKEOLBwD8YBeN8Yo6aI3lJJA8MsI&index=4

Than compare with “The newly Awakened” which plays during first Caithe´s memory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXc8gZo4Q6U&index=14&list=PLUJ9TtKEOLBwD8YBeN8Yo6aI3lJJA8MsI

On 50+ seconds you can hear same motive between those two. But why same motive, if they shouldn´t have any connection?
Then it hit me.
Mordrem + The newly Awakened Sylvari = Mordrem Sylvari

Wow it’s starting to get kind of silly with how far people are willing to go to make a connection between morde and sylvari…
I mean REALLY stretching it.

The Shadow of the Nightmare we fought back in pre-release as sylvari suggests there’s been something up since things began.. I just rolled a new sylvari today, and fighting that same fight again with new knowledge? Whole new nuance! I love it!

BrunoBRS.5178:

returns from lurking

i’ve seen someone point it out before, but no one here seems to be reaching that conclusion, but what if the seeds Ronan found were already cleansed by the same ritual the Forgotten used on glint? i mean, look where they were found. we might not have any character saying out loud “this is Ronan’s cave” (that i recall), but the game hints pretty heavily that this Forgotten cave is where the seeds were (again, no hard, conclusive evidence, but neither did the “sylvari minions” theory).

it sure makes more sense than “love and nurturing alone purified it”.

But Ronan does make reference to there being monstrous plants or some such like in the cave that he stole the seed from. I’m not so sure that makes sense if it is the Forgotten cave? Also how would Ronan have gotten into a cave that needed either a Forgotten Seal or divine magic to open it?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

BrunoBRS.5178:

returns from lurking

i’ve seen someone point it out before, but no one here seems to be reaching that conclusion, but what if the seeds Ronan found were already cleansed by the same ritual the Forgotten used on glint? i mean, look where they were found. we might not have any character saying out loud “this is Ronan’s cave” (that i recall), but the game hints pretty heavily that this Forgotten cave is where the seeds were (again, no hard, conclusive evidence, but neither did the “sylvari minions” theory).

it sure makes more sense than “love and nurturing alone purified it”.

But Ronan does make reference to there being monstrous plants or some such like in the cave that he stole the seed from. I’m not so sure that makes sense if it is the Forgotten cave? Also how would Ronan have gotten into a cave that needed either a Forgotten Seal or divine magic to open it?

i’ll be honest, i don’t know how the plant creatures fit into it. maybe they were cleansed mordrem there to keep the other mordrem from retaking/destroying the seeds, or maybe they weren’t “guarding it” as much as they were trapped inside, or collateral damage from the purifying ritual that took place in there (see third paragraph). it seems to have affected the whole cave system, so it’s not out of question that some mordrem that were in there got affected. there are plenty of possible ifs, but nothing conclusive (if it was conclusive, it wouldn’t be a theory :P)

as for how he got inside it, well, the same way wynne and caithe did several years later, with that forgotten seal. hell, the one wynne has is probably traced back to ronan. now where ronan found it, i don’t know. maybe it was laying around. but wynne has one with her, and it has to have come from somewhere.

i do think that cave has that “repellant” effect on low-rank mordrems because a forgotten ritual took place in it. a lot of the text in the mission describes that the whole place is filled with “ancient, pure magic”. well the forgotten are an ancient race that had figured out a purifying ritual, so it stands to reason that a ritual took place in there, and it’s obviously not glint’s.

BrunoBRS.5178:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

BrunoBRS.5178:

returns from lurking

i’ve seen someone point it out before, but no one here seems to be reaching that conclusion, but what if the seeds Ronan found were already cleansed by the same ritual the Forgotten used on glint? i mean, look where they were found. we might not have any character saying out loud “this is Ronan’s cave” (that i recall), but the game hints pretty heavily that this Forgotten cave is where the seeds were (again, no hard, conclusive evidence, but neither did the “sylvari minions” theory).

it sure makes more sense than “love and nurturing alone purified it”.

But Ronan does make reference to there being monstrous plants or some such like in the cave that he stole the seed from. I’m not so sure that makes sense if it is the Forgotten cave? Also how would Ronan have gotten into a cave that needed either a Forgotten Seal or divine magic to open it?

i’ll be honest, i don’t know how the plant creatures fit into it. maybe they were there to keep mordrem from retaking/destroying the seeds. as for how he got inside it, well, the same way wynne and caithe did several years later, with that forgotten seal. hell, the one wynne has is probably traced back to ronan. now where ronan found it, i don’t know. maybe it was laying around.

i do think that cave has that “repellant” effect on low-rank mordrems because a forgotten ritual took place in it. a lot of the text in the mission describes that the whole place is filled with “ancient, pure magic”. well the forgotten are an ancient race that had figured out a purifying ritual, so it stands to reason that a ritual took place in there, and it’s obviously not glint’s.

That’s entirely possible. I personally had always assumed that the monstrous plants Ronan encountered protecting the seed were actually Sylvari (who would have cause to be alarmed at someone trying to steal a seed that would produce more of them). So perhaps the Forgotten freed some Sylvari who then tried to hide the seeds to keep them away from Mordremoth’s corruption?

I’ve also wondered if the “healing properties” of the Maguuma water could have something to do with it (water which for the most part is no longer there, or maybe the water had healing properties because Mordremoths magic was leeching into it…. Ok thought for another day perhaps :S)

I ran through episode 8 last night while waiting for someone. Had time to spare, figured why not subject myself to potential torture before having fun, right? So here’s my thoughts:

Arcana Obscura

• To be perfectly honest, the instance felt like yet another “we’re throwing in GW1 references for the sake of GW1 references.” For example:
  • Unless I misremember, the tome we get Ogden states was made by the Forgotten, and he calls it ancient (okay), but… 1) why does it have echoes of GW1 events? 2) if it has echoes of GW1 events, why does Ogden call these ancient (he is older than the events and while old people tend to mockingly call themselves old, they hardly call things younger than them old)? 3) Why was the Thirsty River comparison turned into a basic “slaughter the ghosts” rather than what it was? You had the enclaves of the library to perfectly separate boss and priest, a wasted chance.
• I did like the note about modern Vision Crystals being nothing compared to the GW1 ones. Better than them being part of lore and the same as ever before, but now oh-so-common (like bloodstone dust).
• Not lore-related, but this felt imbalanced for solo’ing. Maybe it was because I was on my thief, however.
• Does Ogden mention that divine fire may kill the PC on non-sylvari? He did on my sylvari, which is interesting consider the “big” revelation.

Pact Assaulted
* Aside from the spoiler in the title and the predictable nature of the assault – because it’s basically Battle of Fort Trinity 2.0 (even the losing-until-the-very-end bit) – it was okay. I didn’t like the sudden “call in air support to fire on the mordrem while we’re in the middle of them” bit but what can you do, nothing really big or cringing – just a little immersion breaking.

• I still don’t like how easily Braham makes up with Eir, but that’s personal preference. Feels like the side-plot was made and tossed aside – like a lot of things that feel resolved too quickly (all of them minor).

The Secret Cave

• Not lore, but I rather hated how the NPCs went on ahead without the PC in the cave. Ended up having to find my way in complete darkness… thank you Rox “I’ll light the way” Heartpick. :/
• That golden location instantly reminded me of the Metal Forest – and both locations are capable of keeping dragon minions at bay. Likely a relation.
• The cinematic for the final seed was well done, even the revelation (it was better revealed than I expected, but then again, I had supremely low expectations so that’s not saying much).
• So no egg. Again. No true conclusion. Again. Cliffhanger, leads to cliffhanger, leads to cliffhanger. The Shadow of the Dragon fight was awesome, however, except for the finisher end which was a gust of wind to blow out his lights…
• The ending cinematics were, as always, supremely well done. The teaser for Hearts of Thorn was interesting. Nice to see that Faolain would be making a proper return. Shame her personality was ruined in E7 though.

Overall
It was “eh” overall. Rather disappointed in the lack of conclusions, and felt disjointed like E5 – though not as much by far. I haven’t done open world stuff yet. This was obviously a lead in, even without the Hearts of Thorn trailer. I have to wonder if they’re killing off Zojja, despite finally being able to get her voice actor for the LW – anyone else notice that? This is the FIRST and ONLY time Zojja had voice acting in all of the Living World. Wonder if they’re actually going to kill Trahearne as well. If they do, it’ll just feel like another pandering to the vocal audience.

We haven’t even learned why the egg is important yet. But we’re spending all this time going after it. Apparently every NPC knows, but not the players. That is poor storytelling.

It would be like if we got that vision in Mass Effect, and Shepard understood it asap, but it was never explained to the players until ME3.

It’s also disappointing that the two biggest “ooo ahhh” moments (sylvari=dragon minions; Pact fleet destruction) was completely and fully predicted. About the entire episode – this entire grand reveal – was figured out from the beginning. People figured the Pact would fail since at least the World Summit; people figured the sylvari were minions from around release (I’m not sure about the comments of “pre-beta” as I do not recall the theories until folks hit CoE, and they all really started with Wooden Potatoes false translation of the binary skill point at Zone Green as “Pale Tree”).

blakdoxa.7520:

Wow it’s starting to get kind of silly with how far people are willing to go to make a connection between morde and sylvari…
I mean REALLY stretching it.

how is it stretching it when the game spells it out word for word this episode?

To those claiming I’m kitten etc. over the theory
I really am not. The fact you think I am proves that you don’t know me, and that you don’t care to know me either. And that’s fine with me. But I’ve explained why I’m upset – there were a lot of different paths they could have taken with the sylvari. And this is obviously my opinion, but I think the path they took hinders them more than benefits the possibilities.

But you shall see whether I’m right or not – those who agree and those who disagree with me. If it’s free like S2, then I will unlock it – maybe or maybe not play it. Who knows.

And to those who mentioned Angel stated that was the plan from the beginning:

Of course she said that. She’s been pulling damage control (alongside Bobby Stein) the entire Season 2 and even for the end of S1. After every update, Angel McCoy makes a comment – and if not her, like with E7, then Bobby Stein does. And all of their comments are attempts to dowse the flames of disappointment and players pointing out continuity errors on the forums.

But in saying this, am I saying she’s lying? No. Because I can’t prove it. Similarly, she can’t prove she’s telling the truth. We have to take her word for it, and the only thing that would discredit what she said is another employee (current or past) claiming this isn’t so.

But I ask you this:

If this was planned from the beginning, why was the only hint to all sylvari being dragon minions the existence of Mawdrey (and the predecessor backpacks) from Season 2? In all of the initial release, the closest anyone can support to that outcome was “Nightmare is Mordremoth’s influence/corruption”.

This reveal was completely out of left field in terms of actual evidence presented in-game, and even had apparent red herrings – something Anet’s not really known for doing, ever, except in making them red herrings via retcon.

Sylvari and the Pale Tree don’t even look like Mordrem. Yet they were intended to be dragon minions from the beginning? If this was so, wouldn’t Mordrem have looked like sylvari? Wouldn’t the Pale Tree look like a Mordrem tree? Remember: the one and only means of removing corruption does not change the physical appearance – it just gives free will.

Even Mawdrey looks like a Mordrem.

So why don’t sylvari and the Pale Tree?

@Tamias and the others that stated “if people thought about it, maybe the theory did have support”:

In all honesty, no it didn’t. People got to that theory in two ways:

1. Random ‘wild’ thought – and they presented it as such – where they then dug into lore to try to back the wild thought up. The thing is, their digging was incomplete, and their attempted support was shot down – either with absoluteness, or with unliklihood.
2. Seeing the hints that Nightmare=Mordy’s corruption (such as CoE) and suddenly jumping to “all sylvari are Mordy’s minions”. This is where you fell in, Tamias aka Santax. You saw CoE and took from that – which only linked Nightmare to Mordremoth, not the entire race.

Just because people thought it up, doesn’t mean it had support. As already said: you don’t need evidence to support a thought. (You do for a theory, however, as that’s the very definition of a theory – a thought of what may be/could happen, supported by evidence to suggest such an outcome; what everyone had was a hypothesis).

To those saying “Elder Dragons function differently, maybe Mordremoth minions aren’t like others!”
Or other variations.

The fact of the matter is that, if you actually pay in-depth attention to the details, all attributes and knowledge about both the Elder Dragons and their minions can fall into two categories:

1. Things that are common across all dragons
2. Things that are unique unto a specific dragon

And when I said that the sylvari are nothing like dragon minions, I speak of the first category. This includes things like hive mind mentality (despite common misbelieve, sylvari do not have a hive mind; to quote Killeen in Ghosts of Ascalon, page 120 (first line of chapter 10): “It isn’t mind reading,” said Killeen, “and we aren’t all connected into one big mass mind. However, before we come into the world, the sylvari are united in the Dream of Dreams.”). Another case is the lack of free will. And how about consuming magic? Sylvari eat food not magic – dragon minions do not eat food, they drain the ambient magic in the world (see Field Test ).

So yes, there are differences between all of the dragon minions. But there are also similarities. And it is these similarities that sylvari lack – completely. Even, as mentioned, appearance (but not Mawdrey!).

To those calling me a “bully”
Well, I’m sorry if you saw me that way. Any hostility I had was never directed – intentionally – to the theory makers. Except, maybe, when they made a new thread on it when 2 or 3 other threads existed on the front page of the forum (yes, this did happen… a lot), though that was more annoyance over having to repeat myself in such short order, and perhaps when they refused to accept the counter-arguments as actually hindering their hypothesis. Such as the arguments of “Subject Alpha is like stemcell splitting; can’t happen in nature” – well, do you have proof for that? Do you have proof that asura in general, let alone the Inquest, are capable of doing things not possible in nature? CoE certainly never showed or hinted at such! Their creations were a result of directly infusing dragon energy into “test subjects”.

But really, what I was doing? I never attacked or flamed the theory-maker. I never insulted or attacked any forumer except maybe two or three people, and one of them is because they continuously claimed I was presenting “headcanon” when I was linking sources – people like that, who refuse concrete, undeniable, evidence, annoy me to no end (and for the record, that person never talked about sylvari, let alone the sylvari are dragon minion theories – at least never when I interacted with him/her).

So if I was a bully, then it was via passive aggression. And while that’s no excuse – and I do humbly apologize if I ever did that to you, even to Tamias because despite how much he infuriates me I do respect his gumption – that’s the best I can offer.

To those who rarely post on the lore forums but are now insulting me for my “hurt ego”

That’s nice. I really don’t care, because like above, you clearly don’t know me – and unlike above, you never attempted to know me. So you have no right to talk about me in either positive or negative light. Because it is just as fair as me saying you’re a self-rightious pompous kitten who deserves suffering the worst tortures that man could imagine.

To end it all
My reaction here really has nothing to do with the theories – people just claim it is in their bashing of me. And fine, believe whatever you want. I’ll just take all your bashing of me as jealousy, and use that to make myself feel better. Because I won’t fall back into depression just because some faceless pixels insult me.

And hey, I enjoy slaughtering faceless pixels.

So long folks. I will not be back except out of pure boredom or in request from those who know means of contacting me. You may still see me in-game, either game, though not as frequently as I have been.

I will admit I am curious about Heart of Thorns, but I am unlikely to play it unless I hear it is really good. But given Seasons 1 and 2, I doubt it. As it stands, the continuity is going the direction of WoW and Star Wars – contradicted with every passing release.

I think it’s time to catch up on my singleplayer games.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• Does Ogden mention that divine fire may kill the PC on non-sylvari? He did on my sylvari, which is interesting consider the “big” revelation.

he does. he says “since you won’t be ascended, there’s a good chance you’ll just die from touching it”, or something like that. said that to my human. he also kept calling my gods “your benefactors” >.>

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• Does Ogden mention that divine fire may kill the PC on non-sylvari?

Yes, he does. I wonder if it has any relevance to what Gixx was saying in the start (I didn’t fully catch it, it was related to Balthazar).

• I still don’t like how easily Braham makes up with Eir, but that’s personal preference.

He had to make up with her, so that they could talk about mending things, so that you know for a fact that she is toast well before the last cinematic.

Konig, good on you for sitting down and playing through it. At least you did so you can see through it on your own. I’m working through it myself, most of what I have is via Let’s Plays or Wiki Magic.

If you’re willing to discuss matters, I can start threading through things. I’m kind of with you about how there wasn’t much concrete evidence but there’s a fair amount of “hmmm” which stands out after the revelation which seems to make it plausible enough.

If you’re just done with it, okay, I’ll just raise a glass for your time here and wish you well.

Personally, I plan on catching up on my Journal parts, and maybe in a week I’ll start doing my single-player games. I have four Dragon Quest games to work through, after all. It’s okay, though, this game so far isn’t going anywhere.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

If you’re willing to discuss matters, I can start threading through things. I’m kind of with you about how there wasn’t much concrete evidence but there’s a fair amount of “hmmm” which stands out after the revelation which seems to make it plausible enough.

Feel free to send me a PM. This goes to anyone. Though I can’t guarantee a speedy response.

Decided to stick to check to responses to my latest posts. Beyond that, I won’t venture out – in the lore forum at least.

And something I forgot to mention:

Who knows, maybe the Jan 24th announcement and Hearts of Thorn will change my mind. My love for GW is still great despite what I think of the advancement of the plot. If it turns out that they pull what I think is a miracle and makes this revelation drive the plot in a grand way, then I may just return. But I don’t expect such.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Overall
It was “eh” overall. Rather disappointed in the lack of conclusions, and felt disjointed like E5 – though not as much by far. I haven’t done open world stuff yet. This was obviously a lead in, even without the Hearts of Thorn trailer. I have to wonder if they’re killing off Zojja, despite finally being able to get her voice actor for the LW – anyone else notice that? This is the FIRST and ONLY time Zojja had voice acting in all of the Living World. Wonder if they’re actually going to kill Trahearne as well. If they do, it’ll just feel like another pandering to the vocal audience.

We haven’t even learned why the egg is important yet. But we’re spending all this time going after it. Apparently every NPC knows, but not the players. That is poor storytelling.

I don’t agree with your conclusions re; the direction of the story. I understand where you are coming from, but GW1 was riddled with inconsisties when I played it and barely made sense at times. This “twist” at least felt logical from an overarching aspect, rather than the detail – I do believe it was intended from their creation and just poor planning got the details you mentioned overlooked.

The bit I quoted however is extremely relevant as far as I’m concerned. I’m also in the category that found the whole episode disjointed and clearly tried to force feed GW1 references for absolutely no reason whatsoever other than placating the communities hunger for it. And yes, too many questions being chased for too long.

The key thing above all though for me, is that most people I speak to or read posts about, loved it and enjoyed it. Frankly I’m quite happy to be disappointed in something everyone else loved, because a bit of positivity and excitement is just what the community needed imo

“Sylvari and the Pale Tree don’t even look like Mordrem. Yet they were intended to be dragon minions from the beginning? If this was so, wouldn’t Mordrem have looked like sylvari? Wouldn’t the Pale Tree look like a Mordrem tree? Remember: the one and only means of removing corruption does not change the physical appearance – it just gives free will.”

Considering that, these are are old GW2 concept art pieces by Kekai Kotaki:

Caithe (a sylvary) before the redesign:

Mordrem/Corrupted guys (obviously servants of Mordremoth). They look like the old version of Sylvary and you can’t say they’re just corrupted because I can’t find any other race corrupted in the same way in concept art.

Another one.

Then this one , which shows an obvious Mordrem with a Mord-sylvary that’s even listed in the wiki as Sylvary concept art.

I can’t look at these and not believe it was their plan from the beginning.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Pact Assaulted
* Aside from the spoiler in the title and the predictable nature of the assault – because it’s basically Battle of Fort Trinity 2.0 (even the losing-until-the-very-end bit) – it was okay. I didn’t like the sudden “call in air support to fire on the mordrem while we’re in the middle of them” bit but what can you do, nothing really big or cringing – just a little immersion breaking.

That’s the only thing that bugged you?

What about when the gate gets overrun and the Mordrem break through? Trahearne tells us to pull back and reinforce the other remaining gates.

The writers went full kitten there.

Trahearne didn’t say to reinforce other gates to me. It was to fall back to <location>, fall back to <location> after his gate (the northern gate) was broken.

Considering how the Sylvari are Mordrem what’s to stop the Flame Legion from being Destroyers?

That would give us three sets of intelligent Dragon Minions: Frostbrood Sons of Svanir, Sylvari and Flame Legion.

The Sons of Svanir retain their minds even after becoming Frostbrood… The notion of Dragon Minions with their own minds does seem to be fact…

As far as I know the only Elder Dragon that is confirmed to have mindless minions only are Kralkatorrik.

Are Zhaitan’s minions mindless or are they intelligent?

Kralkatorrik’s mind is a hurricane of Crystal sand so he has an explanation for having only mindless minions with the exception of his Champions(the largest being his sole Lieutenant the Shatterer) at least.

Kralkatorrik seems to be an act of nature while the rest are cunning villains scheming for world domination, world destruction or the genocide of life depending on the Elder Dragon…

You’re nitpicking words now. But the gist of it is they break through, so we pull back to defend other gates. Think about it. Does that make any sense to you?

The Flame Legion are not destroyers. They’re charr. Not made of fire and stone. It’s incredibly likely that they will work for the Destroyers though, like they did in GW1. The Flame Legion kind of like powerful things to follow. And if its on fire, even better!

Odyssey.2613:

You’re nitpicking words now. But the gist of it is they break through, so we pull back to defend other gates. Think about it. Does that make any sense to you?

Yes.

I mean, not as much sense as dropping bombs on them until they thin out, or in simply retreating until we see Divinity’s Reach.