Guild Wars 2

I really don’t think alternate entrances really have much to do with it anyways. We know the map is small, and that there is a ton of already-made space that makes up the entire northern “half” of the Dry Top map. Space that is clearly set up to be used for something eventually (and not requiring hours of wriggling through empty cells and invisible walls like many off map locations). Making another entrance from Brisban would be nice and convenient, but they don’t really have to have one. They could have the entire map alongside Brisban and still only keep the one entrance they have. But I completely agree it would be nice to be able to move around with significantly less reliance on Zephyrite skills.

Unless it was intended for something… and was scrapped. Entirely plausible – and has already happened (ever heard of the incomplete and very large jumping puzzle in Caledon Forest’s underground?).

In all honesty, that area looks like it was intended for some major boss fight to me.

ArenaNet has already shown a preview of a “new” zone portal – through Fort Vandal – the same way they previewed the zone portal that we have going into Dry Top already. So we’re going to be getting a “new” zone portal.

The question is: “where does it lead?”

@ Konig

1) Wow his body must have disappeared quickly then o_O Still there’s something that just feels off to me about it. Though you seem to be right.

2)
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2hwia5/datamining_upcoming_features_from_the_halloween/

At the bottom at locations.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/29gwrf/the_living_soundtrack/

In the comment section. It says ….ember island which some guess is supposed to mean November or December. Chance that it was an indev-term for the location in the dat-file seems likely IMO.

3) Idk, it was kind of a guess. Abaddon’s our Mr. Secret after all. What exactly qualifies as the kind of secret no one but Abaddon would know in GW2 anymore? :P

Maybe Abaddon knows of a reliable way to find this mysterious island and that’s what we find out?

Right, I recall that now.

If it’s an actual in-house term of a location, then one must consider how in-house terms for locations are done. In regards to open world locations, it’s set up as:

<Region Term> <Zone Term>

E.g., Regrown Flame refers to Fireheart Rise; “Regrown” is the in-house term for Ascalon; Flame refers to the zone within Ascalon.

Kryta = Valley; Shiverpeaks = Alpine; Orr = Risen; Maguuma Jungle = Wetlands; Maguuma Wastes = Arid

Regarding to the first link:

Island of Trials I believe was to be a tutorial area as part of the NPE that was scrapped – I recall something along those lines when I read up on the testing Anet did for the NPE, it recieved a bad review from the players and thus was scrapped. This map is likely the Island of Trials, though it’s speculation on my part. The name was likely kept in the gw.dat.

The other four could be part of the Island of Trials, or it may be something new.

As for “…ember island” – if it is dev naming, then I doubt it’d be a month. Rather, it’d likely be a description of a new region. Given “ember” I’d guess Fire Islands – and not just for Ember Light Camp, but how embers and fire are related.

Now that we are in the northern half of Dry Top (and I have done the appropriate “I was totally right” dance :p) I’d like to know who built those ancient looking pillars and walkways. I know lots of areas in GW1 were inaccessible due to not being able to jump or scale walls, but I don’t ever remember seeing anything at all like those in any of the Maguuma areas.

Erm… we’re in the Silverwastes.

The place looks completely different from what was in the Dry Top map, which had huge mounds of sandpiles and sandfalls. No such thing in the Silverwastes as I saw.

And we go into the new and completely different from Dry Top zone via Fort Vandal.

Yes, we’re in the area that is north of Dry Top, but it isn’t “northern half of Dry Top” – it’s a new map.

If anyone would do the “I was totally right” dance, it shouldn’t be you. :P

Anyways, the forts and other structures look very similar to Prosperity, imo, so I’m betting White Mantle.

It does look completely different :/ I was wondering about that too. But it is the same area I was in (Area just above Dry Top, as my map image shows). But White Mantle makes sense. I’ll go with that until someone says something different.

No one denied that we’d be going north of then Dry Top. You said that we’d still be in Dry Top, while I said it’d be a new zone.

As the architecture goes, I’ve noticed eagle busts and stepped ziggurat patterns, both of which were commonplace in the Tarnished Coast/Central Transfer Chamber in GW1… but curiously, they only occur in a couple places, and in all other aspects the architecture is quite different.

EDIT: I made a mistake. The GW2 ruins have ziggurat patterns, whereas GW1 had the actual structures. In light of that, perhaps the Waste culture was attempting to depict/emulate the Coast culture?