Guild Wars 2

I kind of feel sad that our GW1 Heroes actions in GW1 are just being discovered in the ruins of places we once knew in GW1.

So what other things do you think Anet will add into the game that will mention our GW1 Heroes as they expand the world?

So far we have seen

I haven’t seen those items yet. However, it has been somewhat disappointing to find so little history about the events of GW campaigns. After all they did know about the history of Ascalon. A lot of other historical events are mentioned in dialogs….the sinking of Orr, events around the searing and King Adelbern, Prince Rurick, even Vizier Khilbron, and yet barely any awareness of the threat Abaddon posed and the heroes that thwarted his plans. It just seems hard to believe that something that big would not have been passed down at least thru word of mouth. We saved Tyria, Cantha and Elona from Abaddon; yet no one knows about it. Surely there would have been some mention of these events thru Queen Salma. Durmand was around 250 years ago; I would think that he’d have preserved some of the important history of his times. And it couldn’t all have been destroyed since other artifacts remain. Plus the Order of Whispers existed back then .. not a single mention of Master of Whispers from Nightfall has turned up. And then here’s the big one … Ogden Stonehealer still survives and he knows what happened. But apparently he hasn’t shared this info with the Priory.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who could come up with explanations lore-wise as to why there doesn’t seem to be any clear record of those events. Maybe dungeons shed a bit more light on the heroes from GW.. I don’t know. The bottom line is ANET chose not to include them (at this time anyway).

It makes me feel sad. But hopefully they’ll add more info in future content. I don’t think anyone has discovered the remains of Eye of the North/Hall of Monuments because no mention is made of it. However, the ghost of Artificer Mullenix is still there. So maybe thru him more could be learned about the past.

Well, someone has obviously found the Eye of the North within the last 250 years the question is who. Because all of the statues and tapestries have been removed and there is a large asuran gate to give the reasoning behind being able to teleport there.

To Rosen Mist in general…

Yeah, of course the events in Elona and Cantha haven’t been mentioned. We’re not IN Elona or Cantha. We’re in TYRIA, a completely different continent. How much African or Asian history do you really know, after all? There’s also so much more lore in Tyria than in EotN because, aside from the Tarnished Coast, we haven’t been to anywhere in the EotN lands.

It also makes sense that they wouldn’t mention the Master of Whispers from Elona because the Order of Whispers is an order of spies and secrets… they wouldn’t exactly tell everyone “Oh yeah this is who our leader was 250 years ago”.

Ogden is the only thing mentioned there that could help, but remember, he and the players fought the Destroyers and the lieutenant of Primordus. Our main foe here is Zhaitan, and mostly minions of Jormag and Kralkatorik. Primordus doesn’t show up much aside from his minions here and there. When we start fighting him I’m sure Ogden will have much more to say about the events of EotN.

If you mean your toon from GW1…

from what I understand the story does not revolve around your hero specifically but around the NPC heroes Devona, Aidan, Eve, Cyn, etc and “other heroes” (this is where your toon is) this is a writers trick to not deal with which class/name/sex was the hero of GW1 since it would leave some many toons out.

BTW I found Anton’s grave and spirit (the hero assassin from EOTN) in gendarran fields. He doesn´t say much about the destroyers either.

To respond to the above:

Thank you for your replies and perspectives on the possible explanation for lack of lore on some major events in GW. I certainly have heard of people like Genghis Khan, Mahatma Ghandi, Attila the Hun, Saladin, and major pharoahs like Tutenkamen. I think the heroes like Devona, Aiden, Cynn, Mhenlo as well as our character would be remembered as having done something to transcend the ages. I don’t expect to see my character specifically named because obviously that would be impossible.

Travel between continents was happening 250 years ago. So news of what was happening on those continents should also have been known in Tyria. Mhenlo was there in Cantha and witnessed the events although he was a Prophecies character. And in Tyria they do recognize Kormir as a god. So they must have had some knowledge of the events that led up to that.

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way; but I would have expected to at least see some mention of the Lich Lord being defeated by a “group of heroes.” If such a reference exists, I haven’t seen it. I also have yet to see any reference to Devona or Cynn who were obviously major characters/heroes. The only reference I’ve seen to Mhenlo is on a bookcart in Divinity’s Reach.

I do think, however, that more will come to light through the discovery of texts, journals, letters, artifacts, etc.

250 years is a pretty short time in the history of a world, too. That’s almost like if folks in the US ran around without much of an idea about anyone involved in the establishment of the nation.

Rosen Myst.7641:

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way; but I would have expected to at least see some mention of the Lich Lord being defeated by a “group of heroes.” If such a reference exists, I haven’t seen it.

Make your way to Rurikton in the Reach and you’ll find what you seek. In the southern corner there is a pair of scholars that do sometimes mention a certain group of heroes.

People don’t seem to remember us. Should they though? How many people knew we saved the world? And by people I of course mean humans. But even if they knew, do people have any particular reason mentioning us? How often do you talk about Genghis Khan?

250 years is a pretty short time in the history of a world, too. That’s almost like if folks in the US ran around without much of an idea about anyone involved in the establishment of the nation.

Forgive my ignorance, but…don’t they? I mean I don’t know how often US history is taught in the US, but I can’t be the only one who’s been taught about her own nation’s history throughout her childhood and has still forgotten all but the bare bones of it.

I think a lot of the major events of the GW1 campaigns happened out of the public view. I mean, most Krytans (for example) probably didn’t know anything about the lich lord or the Door of Komalie or all that even when it happened. We stop threats before they get that far. Most of Cantha didn’t really know or believe that Shiro was returning. Abbadon’s incursion was more obvious and undeniable, but only in Elona.

I imagine that names like Varesh Ossa, Master Togo, Evennia… people would know who they were, vaguely. That doesn’t mean they’d know all the details of the events they were involved in, though, especially not the average person on the street.

Having said that, it would be cool to meet a Priory scholar who was obsessed with this band of mysterious heroes who seem to pop up everywhere (but everyone else in the Priory thinks he’s connecting unrelated incidents, perhaps) … :P

Thanks for taking the time to post responses. I enjoyed reading everyone’s perspectives. I hope some scholar does indeed decide to do more research on the “mysterious heroes who seem to pop up everywhere.” That could make for a fun little storyline. And Sialor, thanks for the tip about those scholars in Rurikton. I’ll have to go check that out. =)

I was doing the GW bonus mission "Rise of the White Mantle’ the other night, and I thought what fun it would be to have a few of those types of bonus missions added to GW2 with revelations of past lore.

Ya for now there is little mention of our GW1 heroes in GW2 since they are the forgotten heroes of the past who journeyed with Devona, Eve, Aidan, Cynn, and Mhenlo. Also, it is only now that actually recorded data of our GW1 Heroes are being discovered.

The Hall of Monuments has been lost for years and most likely the Asura Gate was built before it was lost to history. Our GW2 hero only have that teleport stone because he or she inherited the teleport stone some how (either through family or discovering it). (You can only guess how if you’re not a Human race)

I’m interested to see how the GW2 story will be affected now that the lost history of our GW1 hero are being discovered now and they hold very import info that may be used to help our GW2 heroes in the Future Story Acts as hinted through out Act 1.

Maybe your character isn’t referenced because saying that the lich lord was defeated by “a great hero whose name and gender were not recorded” sounds kind of dumb. And considering all the great feats your character did, you would expect that their identity was recorded. So instead of constantly referring to a “nameless hero”, the references are simply left out.

Note that this is simply the world as presented to the player. Your GW1 character is probably pretty famous in the lore, as well as Devona and company. But they can be brought up in in-game conversation because they have names and identities, while your character does not.

Tonic.9301

Maybe your character isn’t referenced because saying that the lich lord was defeated by “a great hero whose name and gender were not recorded” sounds kind of dumb.

We all know the real person who took down the lich lord was that Istani Commoner in Kamadan.

Well there is… ONE thing.

In the Plains of Ashford there’s an event where you end up killing Captain Calhann, who was in the first mission of prophecies. Just before the event starts, if you show up early enough, two random soldiers run up to him, and THEY RECREATE THE FINAL CUTSCENE OF THE MISSION. The two soldiers, one male and one female, say the lines that the Player Character said, however, word for word.

Which leaves me wondering… does this mean that our GW1 characters… never really existed?

You got to also notice that Captain Calhann is in a location very far away from where the Great Northern Wall mission happened. I have a feeling that this is just a symbol of history repeating itself because of the curse of the Foefire.

This is an issue I have with GW2. While I recognize that yes, it would be pretty much impossible to call out your GW1 character by name or gender, I really expected them to be mentioned or referenced at least ONCE in a while. Mostly because 250 years is really not that long ago, and also because you have groups like the Priory and the Order of Whispers around. The Priory is engaged in finding everything about the dragons that they can- it would make sense if they looked into the gw1 hero’s story for helpful information. As for the Order of Whispers, they were THERE when your hero was running around doing all these things, and I have a hard time believing they would have not saved any record of this, particularly since their own leader was involved in the gw1 hero’s story.
I just find it really hard to believe that 250 years ago, a hero killed saved each continent, killed a god, faced the Great Destroyer, fought in Kryta’s revolution, helped Cantha with their afflicted/Ministry of Purity problems, and then subsequently disappeared from all records of history. I know who George Washington was, I know who Genghis Khan was, and if I wanted to I could read the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written over 2,000 years ago by the ancient Sumerians. Why are the Tyrians so inept at recording history? It feels like there is this giant gap missing in the lore that nobody wants to talk about.

If Arenanet decides that your character never actually existed and it was the work of Mhenlo, Devona, etc., who saved the world I will be really sad. Though I love Mhenlo and everyone, it would make me feel like everything I did in gw1 didn’t actually matter.

I personally would have enjoyed if it could be tied to your personal story, and you could link youself to a specific character that you really enjoyed back in GW 1. Whether your human claimed to be an ancestor, or the sylvari chose them as a personal hero, or even if the charr chose that individual as a person they despised, only to learn what good they did for the world and grow to admire their courage. And perhaps if you didn’t have a linked account to could be explained to you thru Mhenlo or one of the others.

Seriously, how hard is it, once you’ve linked accounts, for the game to grab one of your GW1 character’s names, likely the one with most time played, or the most titles, and use that as a reference? And for those who’ve not got GW1 on the account, use one of the NPC names instead.

Gryphon.2875:

Seriously, how hard is it, once you’ve linked accounts, for the game to grab one of your GW1 character’s names, likely the one with most time played, or the most titles, and use that as a reference? And for those who’ve not got GW1 on the account, use one of the NPC names instead.

The two games are running on completely separate system and possibly on completely separate networks. If on separate networks you might have to create some sort of gateway program for them to interact.

Assuming they DON’T need to worry about the separate network issue. They MUST still deal with situations where one system is up while the other one is down.

All this is doable and I am sure they have the know-how to implement it but it would be a significant amount of work and up for for very little benefit to the game. These things are not one time events, they must keep working. Any change to one of the game’s server could end up forcing additional testing on the other.

I think there’s a few important things that aren’t being taken into account.

Regarding any incomplete historical records: all surviving historical records from human history were present in Lion’s Arch when the city was destroyed by the flood. We know the Order of Whispers’ role in helping preserve these records by placing them in the hands of the Durmand Priory. However, as with any other catastrophic event, we can assume that at least some of these records, were lost. Additionally, not all records were present in Lion’s Arch, I would assume most of them were Tyrian historical records; canthan and elonian records would be kept in their respective nations (which are now inaccesible and would account for any shortcomings regarding availability of specific information on some subjects).

Now, regarding the other issues: Abaddon was definitely THE force of evil acting pulling the strings. However, even though he manipulated the human and charr, the other races weren’t affected by Abaddon in the same way, or at all (such as the asura, the norn, and the sylvari who didn’t even exist back then). Considering the charr perspective on the subject, it was the titans and the Flame Legion that manipulated them, and modern charr still hate both with passion.

Now, back to the humans, they know of Abaddon because they worship Kormir; the struggle against abaddon is part of how she became a godess. However, keep in mind that all this happened in Elona. Orrians were too dead to care about this, Ascalonians were probably didn’t hear much, due to their relationship with Kryta and that they were more worried about fighting for their lives.

Tyrians in general didn’t know much about it until Kormir’s ascension, save for Kormir’s journey to Lion’s Arch and the strange events that transpired in the city but did not repeat themselves (they probably forgot about it relatively soon after it was dealt with, since it was a brief event with no collateral repercussions to them.)

Also, we must take into account that human society has changed; some people don’t know exactly what to make of the gods. Go visit a human temple. I get the impression that the gods have been absent for so long, that all this has turned more into a strictly faith-based religion, and less into honest worship (almost pagan, if you will) in which the followers were absolutely convinced that there was a higher power at work, a tangible power they could see, and commune with.

We’ve got all these humans from many different places, living in a single one, all with different traditions revolving around the same gods, and they try to merge them all into a single element that encompasses all traditions, thus making it less specific to each group. It encompasses human society as a whole, but is now less connected to the essence of each human group as a result, less compelling.

Furthermore, I’m under the impression that human government – the ministry, in particular – isn’t interested in people having a broad understanding of where exactly human society stands in the world. The less people know about everything, the better. (That’s how I think of the ministry, anyway – I admit I haven’t uncovered all their is to know on this subject, and I may change this opinion).

I think the big thing to take away is that GW2 isn’t really an homage to those past events. In the grand scheme of the average life of citizens of tyria a lot of the struggles our characters had weren’t very important. We also know that Even the most fastidious of scholars (the priory) doesn’t perfectly record or understand all of history. There’s a quest in the priory storyline where you visit the tomb of a famous character, and if you played prophecies you’ll chuckle to yourself at how just slightly off the priory’s understanding is of that character and the events surrounding him.

That said, it would be nice to run across some more shout outs, even if it is just “a band of heroes” and I wouldn’t be disappointed to get some personal story content that specifically tracks down parts of the paths those heroes took.

My ultimate fantasy would just be to find the final resting place (maybe an instance) of all my account linked characters including the text from honor monument in GW1.

This could just be an instanced area, look up the HoM data, and parse it, and I would still be just really happy to find any evidence in GW2 that those characters actually lived and did things.

Maybe the devs are just waiting to implement that information in the correct way and at the proper time.

attonita.6327:

This is an issue I have with GW2. While I recognize that yes, it would be pretty much impossible to call out your GW1 character by name or gender,

Actually this would not be that hard.

You already specify an account that you are linked to, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to let you specify the ancestor character and then sub his/ her name and gender in various text through out the game.

Obviously the spoken parts would not mention your character’s name, and it might be a bit much to expect them to mention your gender in actual speech, but this would have been pretty trivial to have tombs and such reference you.

EdwinLi.1284:

I kind of feel sad that our GW1 Heroes actions in GW1 are just being discovered in the ruins of places we once knew in GW1.

So what other things do you think Anet will add into the game that will mention our GW1 Heroes as they expand the world?

So far we have seen

Show Spoiler

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a scroll about the events of Prophecies

Show Spoiler

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and the tome of the Eye of the North events which you know is the journey our GW1 hero turned in for EotN Faction points

How I figure it is that the general events are well known, but the specifics, such as what the heroes did, have been lost to time because said heroes were on the edges of civilization half the time. Just like in reality, where we know of World War II but, while some folks know of it due to it being sought out and documented, your average history class won’t talk about, for instance, a specific unit’s exploits during a war. Documentaries will mention some select individuals, but how many of the common person watches these?

I mean, no one but the heroes could have documented their time in the Crystal Desert or the Ring of Fire, but the average folks would know that there were Ascalonians who initiated the White Mantle’s downfall. There’s quite a few mentions to GW1 events and individuals that were part of the main plot, but there’s also a lot of holes just because no one else was around to write it all down. During an interview, we were even told that some GW1 events, with the heroes meeting Glint being an explicit example, being unknown to the world.

And those sources where it was written down could easily have been lost when Zhaitan rose and the Lion’s Arch library got flooded – the Durmand Priory rescued some of the works there, but its never said all were. And we know for a fact that the Durmand Priory censors the knowledge given out, to keep “harmful” knowledge out of the public’s view.

synk.6907:

250 years is a pretty short time in the history of a world, too. That’s almost like if folks in the US ran around without much of an idea about anyone involved in the establishment of the nation.

While more or less true, also keep in mind we’re able to find out more nowadays because we have greater technology and records than Tyria would have in GW2’s time, let alone GW1’s. It’d probably be more akin to comparing living in the 1700s and knowing about the 1500s’ events.

Chessrook.8643:

In the Plains of Ashford there’s an event where you end up killing Captain Calhann, who was in the first mission of prophecies. Just before the event starts, if you show up early enough, two random soldiers run up to him, and THEY RECREATE THE FINAL CUTSCENE OF THE MISSION. The two soldiers, one male and one female, say the lines that the Player Character said, however, word for word.

That entire thing makes little sense when looked at in depth.

The Foefire ghosts repeat the day they died endlessly – that is to say, the day of the Foefire is repeated. The event Calhaan’s spirit repeats happened 18 years before the Foefire.

Gryphon.2875:

Seriously, how hard is it, once you’ve linked accounts, for the game to grab one of your GW1 character’s names, likely the one with most time played, or the most titles, and use that as a reference? And for those who’ve not got GW1 on the account, use one of the NPC names instead.

And which character will be taken? What if the wrong name that the player wants is taken and it then doesn’t work as well? How will the audio of the name come about? You can’t voice record every possible name of GW1, and a vast majority of lines (read: all but dialogue boxes) have voice overs.

exelion.2369:

Maybe the devs are just waiting to implement that information in the correct way and at the proper time.

i agree,we may still hear from the caracters of GW1