Guild Wars 2

Does anyone think we’ll get a living world story to reclaim Orr? With Zhaitan dead, and the heart of Orr purified, in theory it’s ‘just’ exterminating the remaining undead. I’d like to explore the place without getting mobbed by half a dozen undead every ten ruddy steps, and it would be nice seeing it recover properly.

For the missions; well I imagine that would carry on as normal; walk to the instance marker and be told you’re doing events that occurred in the past. Or… something.

I’m doubtful, because if you think of it…

If we remove the risen, what story will Orr have? What enemies to merit events and map completion?

And even then, what of the newer players, who have not yet beaten the personal story? Since the story of GW2 is told in three formats (dungeon, personal story, and open world), you cannot just remove what is effectively a third of the story and expect the same flow. But at the same time, ArenaNet has said no to phasing.

So don’t expect the existing Orr zones to get cleansed. Maybe new zones will open up (there’s room for 3 zones even when taking into consideration the size/space of the Arah dungeon).

Well, you also have to factor in the sheer number of ‘Risen’ dragons still around. Recently doing Arah storymode, I think 20+ dragons could be seen throughout it. And if they can spawn more risen, it means the Risen numbers do regenerate, although probably VERY slowly.

Also it’ll take a while for the cleansed water to fully flow through Orr, and after that a while for the land to heal enough to support life naturally.

I give you Southsun 2.0 :P

I´m still hoping for a rematch with Zhaitan,i mean it wouldný be pure wishfull thinking for an Elder Dragon with necromatic abilities and related to undead minions to not really have died..it would be awesome to get a REAL shot at him (not the press 2 harpoon fight) and would buy Anet more time to think their nextmove regarding Orr and the game direction in general

It’s a 500m long dragon.

We will never have a satisfying(for some. I liked the fight), personal fight against something that big. Even now current dragon world bosses are basically “CLIP HIS TOENAILS. SMASH HIS FOOT!”

Imagine something equatl to five tequatls in length!

i don´t mean to fight him toe to toe in size,only on scale,i mean an awesome final boss deserves an awesome fight,the story till there infantile in some aspects and to happy go lucky as it may be is rather fine,the boss mechanics is the desapoiting issue here,if he resurfaces with tattered wings and severed tail,with holesin his undead body and magic leaking..that would be awesome,perhaps use Pact airships to pin him and fight him pinned down,like with an arm and head free,or something similar..i was not discussion his size only the manner of his defeat

Why do people talk about hitting Tequatl’s toenails?

I aim for the eyes with my range stuff. Or go for the hamstring.

Though with Zhaitan, that wouldn’t be possible.

Anyways, I’m hoping that when they want to revisit Orr and the risen, that they add a fifth path to Arah explorable following Calogero the Elder (a scholar who’s with the four we see in Arah explorable during the PS, he focuses on dwarven lore and was excited to go into Arah too… what happened to him!?) to find Zhaitan’s corpse. And at the same time, Anet “stealthly” improves the final fight (and just that) with Arah story.

In terms of stuff going on in Orr…

Some of the… controversial… debates that have happened over what could and should happen with Orr have shown that there could be a strong political element. Most of that would probably be behind the scenes, but there may be some cases of somebody looking to use violence as a means to push forward their case – and with the Inquest at least already showing a strong interest in Orr, at least one possible storyline could be trying to get some site or artifact before the Inquest does. Pirates already have a presence there looking for valuable artifacts – in fact, this might be an opportunity to give the Aetherblades an actual background (having formed through an alliance between pirates and Inquest looking to loot Orr underneath the Pact’s nose… until Scarlet got involved. Such a backstory would explain pretty much everything except how Scarlet got in control of them.)

Another possibility is that with the dragon dead (we think) – signs of restoration could be a signal that the area will soon be prime real estate making it a target for outside invaders. Krait. Attackers across the Scavenger’s Causeway, be they minions of Kralkatorrik or Joko… or maybe the Pact builds up for an attack the other way. Human-supremacist Cantha might decide that with Orr open, they want to claim the holy city of Arah (yeah, it was never theirs to begin with, but neither was Jerusalem for the Crusaders).

There are quite a few things that could happen with Orr.

It won’t be the living story, it would be the extension of the personal story. You’d then get people complaining that they don’t like the personal story, they’ve never done the personal story on any of their characters , and they’re being ‘forced’ to do all the personal story to do new content.

There’s a certain element of “someone’s going to be annoyed either way” – keeping Orr as something that never gets touched again is going to annoy the people who do want to see some development there.

The best compromise might be to view it as a kind of sequel Personal Story, with completion of the original PS recommended but not required, and some method of bringing in characters who haven’t completed the Personal Story (which would also be a way of bringing in characters from races that aren’t currently playable into the new story). That way, people who want to skip the old Personal Story can, while those who would prefer to complete the original PS first and haven’t already won’t feel they have to rush to finish within a LS timeframe.

Alternatively, an announcement made sufficiently far in advance to the effect that they are planning to revisit Orr within six months (say) and that people should aim to complete the PS at least once by then if they want to fully appreciate the chapter in question – but with the option to just jump in – would probably work.

Either way, it would probably be possible to just jump in, just like it’s currently possible to go to Orr and ignore the PS entirely.

Or a mix ? Orr partially reclaimed. Risen, Inquest, pirates and Pact fighting for Orr.
A new WvW-like map on the south-east part of Orr (the current three don’t change).

Four fortress with their own style for each. Towers and camps (with waypoint) that could be claimed for the Pact by players. When lost or attacked, waypoint is contested. You must have the nearer places around the Pact Fortress to have the ability to reclaim farther places.

When a foe fortress is under siege, a special event can pop with a legendary commander.

A new world boss : Undead dragon, Inquest golem, Aetherblade ship, depending of the dominant foe faction.

I always liked the idea of the south eastern part of Orr Being cleansed

a mix of plants, undead ,ruins, inquest basses, pact forts and maybe branded

Or introduce a zone more in the mountains of Arah/Orr, maybe have some PoI/skill points being fallen dragon champions with the Pact having a more secure fort in the area :P.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’m doubtful, because if you think of it…

If we remove the risen, what story will Orr have? What enemies to merit events and map completion?

And even then, what of the newer players, who have not yet beaten the personal story? Since the story of GW2 is told in three formats (dungeon, personal story, and open world), you cannot just remove what is effectively a third of the story and expect the same flow. But at the same time, ArenaNet has said no to phasing.

So don’t expect the existing Orr zones to get cleansed. Maybe new zones will open up (there’s room for 3 zones even when taking into consideration the size/space of the Arah dungeon).

Point 1 A: Anet knows Orr is a mistake, they havn’t touched Orr since they ‘tried’ to fix it and failed.

Point 2 A: The Cleansed Orr would be a seperate map, which would proc after the cleanse quest, it’s not hard to do. MMO’s have been doing it for years.

To your Point 1: They haven’t even ‘tried to fix it’ let alone failed to. They haven’t touched it because of the issue of story progression.

To your Point 2: It’s been stated that ArenaNet will not do phasing of zones. They will not have an “uncleansed Orr” and a “cleansed Orr” for two reasons: 1) it separates playerbases, 2) makes the Living World concept pointless.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

To your Point 1: They haven’t even ‘tried to fix it’ let alone failed to. They haven’t touched it because of the issue of story progression.

To your Point 2: It’s been stated that ArenaNet will not do phasing of zones. They will not have an “uncleansed Orr” and a “cleansed Orr” for two reasons: 1) it separates playerbases, 2) makes the Living World concept pointless.

Not to mention I’ve heard other games which do it makes it really stupid (WoW).

I’ve heard WoW literally separates friends and parties because of the instance/area phasing, meaning you can’t just run through and help friends do it, because they are in a different phase.

It’s why adding a new zone to Orr which represents them pushing the Risen back would work best. IE, in the mountain/airship flying part of Arah or in the Mountain/Mountains north of it (I always forget if it’s one giant mountain or a lot of them in that area…).

As I said in previous post, maybe a heavily secured Pact fortress, working at forcing the risen back (Possibility of a new dungeon being the dragon champion lairs? Or if they ‘nested’ together being that…), with POI or skill points being fallen dragon champions defeated in the air, that fell into the mountains.

That is, if they do things further in Orr, which may or may not happen in the near future.

If you guys remember in the character story, we once go in Orr with the sylvaries. Sure, it was simply an interactive vision which was all blurred out and yellowish but it could be a way to go back to Orr but at the same time, It wouldn’t make alot of sense since the sylvarie race is not that old and personally, if I could choose the time when I want to go back, I’d be before the exodus but well, the sylvaries didn’t existed back then. Also, I read the lore about the time B.E. and 1: humans were not allowed to enter Arah because it was the city of the human gods and 2: Apparently, they were so bright that it would make someone who stare at them for too long blind(Read the lore about Malchor the sculptor, it’s all explained there). If we keep in mind that we can’t go in Orr after beating Zaithan, there’s not a lot of things holding us from going there in the past but then it wouldn’t be lore-wise to allow us to enter arah/see the gods and that’s primarily what I would want to do if I had the chance to go back. Nonetheless I would still like to see Orr before it was all gloomy and ugly.

The problem with Orr is basically that it is today. The temples are retaken if nobody cares (or wants the reset for loot/trait), the camps fall and the landscape is destroyed. The risen decreased in numbers, but gained power.

A lot places in the personal story placed in Orr have different enemies than the common Orr population we meet in the open world. I for myself like to know how the cauldron attack changed the temple of melandru, but it’s destroyed because it uses the actual map.

Small hint that Orr is today. Scarlet put several towers there and they are still destroyed standing around.

Hactid.6253:

If you guys remember in the character story, we once go in Orr with the sylvaries. Sure, it was simply an interactive vision which was all blurred out and yellowish but it could be a way to go back to Orr but at the same time, It wouldn’t make alot of sense since the sylvarie race is not that old and personally, if I could choose the time when I want to go back, I’d be before the exodus but well, the sylvaries didn’t existed back then. Also, I read the lore about the time B.E. and 1: humans were not allowed to enter Arah because it was the city of the human gods and 2: Apparently, they were so bright that it would make someone who stare at them for too long blind(Read the lore about Malchor the sculptor, it’s all explained there). If we keep in mind that we can’t go in Orr after beating Zaithan, there’s not a lot of things holding us from going there in the past but then it wouldn’t be lore-wise to allow us to enter arah/see the gods and that’s primarily what I would want to do if I had the chance to go back. Nonetheless I would still like to see Orr before it was all gloomy and ugly.

Believe it or not, that mission is actually a partial copy of Cursed Shore located between The Grove and Rata Sum on the world map.

Its not realistic to use this technique on a mass scale.

I’d like to know something. I fully acknowledge Zhaitans corruption of Orr after the Cataclysm that Vizier Khilbron cast on Orr to stop the invasion of the charr, but it also sunk the land.
When big Z woke, he brought back up Orr with him (somehow) and reanimated its inhabitants into the Risen.

Was the corruption so strong that it managed to turn the priests/priestesses of the gods as well? Because Orr is like THE land/city of the gods or whatever.
Could the corruption be purified or reversed to turn back the corrupted priests?

And IF there was something done to Orr so that it could be reclaimed, it should be something like a grand meta event where if you cleanse all the temples and hold them for a certain time, then piece by piece, parts of Orr would be cleansed and eventually to the point that everything is uncorrupted. I think that also, it would remain cleansed for a good amount of time before the risen forces would reassemble to take back Orr, especially the temples.

Zhaitan’s corruption did, indeed, corrupt the priests/priestesses. It corrupted the land itself as well. Corruption would be purified – as we do in both The Source of Orr and Arah forgotten path.

Holding the temples only cuts off the connection between the temples and the smaller statues of the gods. It holds no influence on the corruption of the land.

I don’t think they need to remake the story-mode zhaitan fight but they can build upon it. Like it was said before we don’t really see zhaitan’s corpse. They could make it so that he’s still alive but extremely weakened. It could be a build upon Scarlet’s Drill messing with the ley lines. One line could have sent magic bursting towards a weakened Zhaitan in which we then realize that he’s recovering so we go into a new exploreable path in Arah to finish him off once and for all. That way they didn’t really mess with the PS mode but they still delivered a better fight. They could also add an npc in the exploreable mode explaining that we defeated him but not killed him and the actions of Scarlet was helping him regain power as a side effect.

That… actually makes for an interesting idea. Avoids negating the original fight, but gives a reason for us to need to go in and finish him off and an explanation for why we didn’t feel the need to earlier.

As long as it’s a completely new explorable path, rather than killing one of the existing ones as happened with Twilight Assault. While I can kinda understand the Twilight Arbour path being expendable, each of the Arah paths are just too important to the game’s lore to be replaced.

Why not do Corrupted Orr in an instance tied to the personal story only?

Like Lion’s Arch. If I remember correctly, it was overrun by the Risen at one point and you have to exterminate them.
Also, if you play that part of Lion’s Arch, how is it presented? The renowned famous city or the crumbled and ruined city?
If the first, then it isn’t much of a deal to make Orr cleansed.

It’s the latter, sadly. The personal story presently uses the live model of the maps. So even those in Kessex were affected by the Tower of Nightmare map changes. LA PS steps were also affected by the holidays and the new karka signs being put up.

I do recall Bobby Stein saying a long time ago that they intend to improve this by having the PS using set-in-time maps – this may not have been possible due to sheer size of the different maps and all servers getting their own, but with the megaserver it might be more feasible. If it is feasible at all – given that it hasn’t happened yet may mean it isn’t.

Orr had been underneath the sea for so long the land maybe too salty for ordinary plants (and thus an ecosystem) to thrive on. That is if plants in Tyria and its sea is similar to Earth. Plus I have a hunch that Zhaitan is still alive, albeit “knocked down”. Similar to the Branding by the Crystal Elder Dragon, there might still be malevolent magic left in Orr from Zhaitan’s corruption. Going to Orr is like walking to a minefield. One does not simply walk into Orr. Think of Chernobyl. It has already been years since the nuclear catastrophe yet Chernobyl is still uninhabitable, although animals live there, there had been evidence that they have been irradiated by radioactive materials.

I think that’s part of the point of the ritual at the Artesian Waters – to cleanse the draconic corruption and also to allow what salt there is in the ground to be flushed out.

That said, my own understanding is that land that is reclaimed from the sea doesn’t actually need any great lengths to be made fertile (parts of the Low Countries, in fact, were so reclaimed). The ocean may be ‘salt water’, but being covered in salt water doesn’t seem to be as bad as the proverbial sowing of fields with salt – probably because when the saltwater is drained, it takes the salt with it. (Now, if the water is evaporated, that’s an entirely different story.)

It’ll still take time for the corruption to be fully flushed from Orr and life to grow naturally.

True, but the time it takes is basically ‘speed of plot’ – ArenaNet could have it be anything between a sudden switch in the next update to so visible change outside the Artesian Waters themselves until GW3 according to whatever suits them.

It’s probably not that hard to redirect players who have finished the PS using the mega server maps.

ANet have said they don’t want to. But then, they have been known to backtrack before.