Guild Wars 2

I pm’d a number of questions, but that is a busy dev who may not even see forum PMs let alone have time to respond. I posted a lot of questions in Twitch chat during the live stream but none were selected for the Q&A portion. I do not have a Reddit account, I do not tweet, so I will query here in the appropriate forum and hope to get some canon reply whilst the story is still current for our characters. The reason for my interest is the prolific amount of RP stories I am participating in based on the White Mantle attack, given a great desire to stay as close to canon as possible.

So player speculation will not in any way answer these, unless grounded on in-game dialogue and visuals that I may have missed or misinterpreted.

(As this is text and tone of voice is not included, let me clearly state I am not angry or upset at not getting replies yet. But Anatoli commented they were good questions, and BlackDragonGW2 offered to relay them in the next AMA, so I think they’re worth bringing up. The next AMA may not be until the next chapter, though, so perhaps someone could relay them sooner if also intrigued? After all, the RP will move on when the story does, so these are fairly immediate issues).

- How much damage did the city take in the initial fusillade before Jennah’s shield went up? Are we talking a few chairs knocked over or blocks turned to rubble? How much damage after — and how much does the shield cover (in the story instance it peters out at the Upper City’s edge, from Doric’s Landing it falls short of the outer walls, from New Loamhurst it encompasses the walls).

- How much loss of life has there been? I saw bodies in the Park during the first story instance. Per dev comments during the LA invasion, tens of thousands died in LA. Clearly Jennah was ready (the live stream did cover this tangentially, saying she set up defenses in advance and this is why DR hasn’t gotten the LA treatment and the death won’t be on nearly that scale). But how bad are the losses in the initial attack, and thereafter in the battling as the Seraph push back against the Mantle?

- How permeable is the shield? Does it act just like an in-game feedback bubble where only missiles are affected, or will it block people walking through it?

- Lake Doric has an area called Mantle’s Breach, though that looks more like dam wreckage than broken city walls. Has the Mantle poured into the city? Is there fighting in the streets, and if so, how contained is it? (I understand that the story of the Lake Doric Map involves the Seraph taking control and pushing the Mantle back — this question is more about the initial chaos as the attack begins).

- Is there rioting? Looting? What effect has all the propaganda had on everyday citizens? Hopefully most of the Reach is like London in the Blitz, staying calm and loyal, but I’d think there’d be an angry element the broadsides and pamphlets might have persuaded to strike against a perceived despotic Crown.

- Will there be ongoing investigations of the Ministry even during the suspension, to weed out still-unrevealed traitors? How much influence/power will the Ministers retain, even if informally? No legislation or trials, sure, but these are well-off men and women selected by the people of their regions, how hamstrung are they? (Our ongoing RP includes a villainous Minister, y’see ).

Hopefully none of this touches on story yet to come, as I’m not interested in spoilers. I do get the feeling that the arc concludes with the final instance and future story may include mop-up and some aftermath comments, but that focus will be moving rapidly away from DR. My interest lies in the immediate impact and its effects on my many characters’ lives.

Thank you to anyone that can provide canon answers, with sources if you yourself are not part of the ANet team.

To answer your questions in order based on my observations:

• Based on the cinematic, DR took no real damage. The first shots were reflected by the bubble as it was expanding and shot the dam. By the time the second round were fired, the bubble was around the whole city. So the only damage seemed to have been what we witnessed in the fight – the Upper City just burning by wide shots of the fighting between White Mantle and Seraph/Ministry Guard/Shining Blade.
• There’s no indication that there was fighting happening beyond The Upper City, so I’d say the death toll is in the dozens at most (and just to nobles/ministers and White Mantle supporters).
• The shield seems to be akin to Feedback. Not only does it share that same appearance, but we do walk in and out of the city without any problem while we see the projectiles bounce off of it in the cinematic.
• There were mesmers porting in but the wreckage was limited to just the one dam. This is why we had to kill the two mesmers who kept porting enemies in during A Meeting of Ministers. Once we killed the mesmers, the White Mantle stopped getting into the city which is how we “won the day”. The dialogue heavily implies that the fighting had stopped across the city.
• Unfortunately, the extension of effect on everyday citizens is not covered anywhere I saw. I’d imagine that only a few would act out like we see in Lakeside Bazaar. Especially with how fast things got under control in the city.
• The entire purpose of the suspension (which never actually happened best I could tell) was to flush out the White Mantle infiltrators into acting. They did, we killed them. The rest are likely deemed “loyal enough” in all honesty, now that Caudecus, Estelle, and so many nameless ministers that revolted are dead. Jennah doesn’t seemed to actually enact on her martial law since it did the job of flushing out traitors.

Solid deductions, Konig, I’d love a dev to say yea/nay to them. I do think the first fusillade struck home. While I don’t have camera shake enabled, my friends who do confirmed that the first strike shook everything like crazy, right before Jennah reacted. I saw a few random Ministers fall over at that point, which is what prompted me to ask my friends.

Interesting point on the suspension. I think the monarch decreeing it did put it in effect, but it could be fairly swiftly lifted. That’s ambiguous enough to need ANet clarification imo.

As to the mesmer slaughter ending the invasion, though, possibly the instance battle was a scaled down experience of a longer street-to-street battle? Same way the geographic areas and number of buildings in game are a scaled down representation of a larger (albeit not huge, per my Geographic thread’s discussion) terrain. I could see the great push being aimed at the Park, however, the goal being Jennah’s head.

I know I’m seeking a lot of collateral detail here. It’s one of my joys in F&SF novels, reading tales that really consider the ramifications of the setting and events that occur. SM Stirling manages it stupendously, for instance, he really pays attention to demographic, economic, and political impacts without ever detracting from the story’s action. So I’m excited to know more about this major moment in Krytan history.

I know you want real answers so that you could have more accurate RP, but part of the fun of RP in an MMO is finding those moments in between established plot moments and filling them in. As such, I’ll try and give my take on responses to help guide you a bit. I know Konig has already replied, but he and I don’t exactly share the same viewpoint.
(my answers are in italics)

- How much damage did the city take in the initial fusillade before Jennah’s shield went up?
Minimal damage, from what we see in the cut scene. The first volley definitely hit a couple things, and I think even the central dome was hit, but not enough to penetrate it before the bubble went up. If you replay A Meeting of Ministers, you can walk around quite a bit. The bubble seemed to cover only the Upper City garden, but that also seemed to be the only target of the volleys. The bubble is maintained until we can be certain the White Mantle attack has been repelled.

- How much loss of life has there been?
Again, probably minimal. If we discount the traitorous ministers, Ministry guards and White Mantle soldiers, I’d say there were only a handful of actual casualties. Again, replaying the instance shows that some loyal guards are simply passed out, not dead, and several nobles were being held hostage instead of attacked. It seems like outside of Jennah and the Commander, nobody else was being targeted. This would make for great RP fodder, that there are either no reported casualties or that nearly all the deaths were attributed to traitors.

- How permeable is the shield?
_Very permeable. As I said, you can see the edge in the instance, and nothing prevents you from walking through it (aside from being kicked from the instance)

- Lake Doric has an area called Mantle’s Breach, though that looks more like dam wreckage than broken city walls. Has the Mantle poured into the city?
I’d need to check the map again (which I can’t at the moment), but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a breach in the wall. I could be wrong as I say this, but I think “breach” can also be used to describe a gap in a mountain range. More on this at a later time.

- Is there rioting? Looting? What effect has all the propaganda had on everyday citizens?
Great RP fodder, if you ask me. You could become a rioter if you want to side with the White Mantle, or disparage at the comments of your neighbour. Honestly, though, this is something we’re more likely to learn in future patches, if at all.

- Will there be ongoing investigations of the Ministry even during the suspension, to weed out still-unrevealed traitors? How much influence/power will the Ministers retain, even if informally?
The Queen enacted a suspension of the Ministry altogether, so much of their legal recourses are suspended indefinitely. Now, as you said, these are wealthy and powerful people, who are not without resources and contacts they made while in power. Until this suspension is lifted, though, they have no legal power. Emphasis on legal, if you catch my drift.

Hopefully none of this touches on story yet to come, as I’m not interested in spoilers. I do get the feeling that the arc concludes with the final instance and future story may include mop-up and some aftermath comments, but that focus will be moving rapidly away from DR. My interest lies in the immediate impact and its effects on my many characters’ lives.

I’m pretty sure there aren’t any real spoilers in any of your questions. The traitorous ministers might have seen this as their last-ditch effort to enact their plan, and thus played all their cards in this act, but it’s possible there might still be one or two hiding, thinking this attack would fail and thus pretended to stay loyal to try again later, and be seen as above question since they did not partake in this attack. I suppose the big question is “how far into your RP did you get before the attack?” If he was caught before the attack, he could try to disassociate with White Mantle or Separatists while simultaneously refuting all evidence against him. Or perhaps she was killed during the attack, either by her trying to seize on this opportunity or as collateral/expendable. Depends on how you want this plot to play out.

My villainous minister isn’t precisely a traitor. He’s an (alternate word for donkey or for rear end), sort of a mafioso, with strong Ascalonian/Separatist sympathies, but he wasn’t in on any regicide plans. At least I think not. Thing is he’s actually a friend’s NPC that she asked me to play, and I don’t know the details on what he’s been up to vis-a-vis her story, so the build up she’s done could indicate treasonous activity; certainly my scheming nobleman has plans to frame him for treason in order to get him off everyone’s backs. I’ve been running him in side things, dancing around anything that might impact her stuff — he’s been the begrudging instructor in a “My Fair Lady” scenario that taught a street rat to act as a gentleman for reasons not germane here. Right before the WM attack, his coterie and the street rat had done a raid on an archeological dig in Ascalon and the villain returned to the Reach on the eve of the attack.

So I want to figure out just how distracted and in trouble he is, as a factor in how free the targets of his ire are to make their moves.

For all the braided stories, I likely will have to just dance around the LS lore so I don’t state anything that does not plausibly follow. I’d really settle for dev answers on amount of infrastructure and property damage and scale of casualties (including those of the Seraph, we have some characters in the Seraph in Lake Doric now), as those will most grate against other RPer’s versions later if I get them wrong.

The impression I had was that a couple of hits did strike home before shield went up. It’s possible that those hits may actually have been jade constructs being fired as artillery, similar to the golem cannons in Straits of Desolation, but that’s conjecture. Either way, it’s probably reasonable to presume that there might be some holes in the dome, but there probably aren’t ruins everywhere.

(Incidentally, the dome seems to be more of a mesmer equivalent of Shield of Absorption: there’s no evidence of projectile reflection. Either way, it seems to only stop projectiles. Since it doesn’t seem to be Jennah alone projecting it, it’s possible even that it’s a combination of mesmer and guardian magic. I think the bubble also appears to be larger when you look at it from Lake Doric than it does in the cinematic.)

Regarding Mantle’s Breach: It’s not a breach in the wall of Divinity’s Reach. It’s a breach in one of the dams that formerly prevented Lake Doric from draining out (you can see where the waters used to be from the brown areas), probably done because the White Mantle thought it would be easier to attack over a lakebed than to launch an amphibious assault on Doric’s Landing.

OK, so a minister that could be running organized crime and has Separatist leanings certainly is safe from White Mantle attacks, especially if he didn’t interact with Caudecus. (He probably did because, let’s face it, Caudecus is to blame for every ill in Kryta at the moment.) The assault would probably be a welcome distraction for him, as it means most eyes aren’t going to be on him, distracted with Lake Doric and the WM in general. As far as attitudes go, I imagine he’d be pretty smug as people probably won’t be paying attention to him. If there is some collateral damage such as damaged buildings or wounded citizens, he could be helping to repair it to further throw off investigations from him. Even if the city proper is safe, Lake Doric certainly isn’t and the citizens could use any assistance offered to them.

As I said in my previous post, he’ll have lost most of his political power with Jennah suspending the Ministry for the time being. I’d view this as prorogation, where the Ministers are dismissed but will probably be called back once the White Mantle threat is established to be properly cleansed from Divinity’s Reach. This could be a good thing for your heroes, as he is now somewhat more vulnerable.

Hopefully, that helps frame the situation in a way that will continue your RP. I’d probably talk to those involved if you want to establish a consensus on what’s going on after this chapter. Feel free to send me a PM, either on the forum or in-game, if you want more ideas on what he could be doing. I could even take over the role if people don’t mind, and the sessions line up with my own schedule.

Donari.5237:

- Is there rioting? Looting? What effect has all the propaganda had on everyday citizens? Hopefully most of the Reach is like London in the Blitz, staying calm and loyal, but I’d think there’d be an angry element the broadsides and pamphlets might have persuaded to strike against a perceived despotic Crown.

I obviously can’t give the canon answer, but if you want to do in-depth roleplaying, keep in mind that a lot of the propaganda is based on legitimate issues. The effects of the border skirmishes with the centaur and such can be experienced in game, and the difficulty of accepting the Charr treaty can be appreciated more if you play through the Searing in Guild Wars 1.

The game has seemed to try to simplify the moral ambiguity of this by having anyone openly upset about those things have some other skeleton in their closet so you don’t have to worry about killing them, but from a realistic perspective, it’s not that simple.

A citizen of Kryta wouldn’t have to agree with the White Mantle’s methods to feel that they have been left to fend for themselves against the various threats in the countryside. That’s not even getting into how some people would just take advantage of the chaos regardless of where their loyalties lie.

Jokubas.4265:

The game has seemed to try to simplify the moral ambiguity of this by having anyone openly upset about those things have some other skeleton in their closet so you don’t have to worry about killing them, but from a realistic perspective, it’s not that simple.

This isn’t really the case. Where it comes to the treaty, for instance, there are charr and humans you can meet who aren’t okay with the treaty, but they stick to grumbling and you aren’t supposed to kill them. In fact, one of the Ebonhawke hearts gives you the opportunity to talk down people who aren’t happy with the treaty.

In fact, there are a couple of times, particularly as a human, where you get insulted to your face and the only response ArenaNet gives you is some equivalent of “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

It’s when they go from grumbling to violence that you’re expected to resort to violence back.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

To answer your questions in order based on my observations:

• The entire purpose of the suspension (which never actually happened best I could tell) was to flush out the White Mantle infiltrators into acting. They did, we killed them. The rest are likely deemed “loyal enough” in all honesty, now that Caudecus, Estelle, and so many nameless ministers that revolted are dead. Jennah doesn’t seemed to actually enact on her martial law since it did the job of flushing out traitors.

I suspect that the White Mantle attack may have even resulted in the loyal nobles self-imposing martial law or as a means to demonstrate their loyalty as a means of showing consent to royal rule.