Guild Wars 2

Here’s a really crackpot theory that disregards suspension of disbelief:

The mayans built the Hall of Monuments! Yeah, that’s right! The mayans!

If you glitch out of the Hall of Monuments you can take a better look at some of the textures used on the building. If you look really closely, you can find THE Mayan calender if you google images Mayan Calender!

Credit to Odinius.9826 for the observation and Xander.9024 for the screenshot. I edited it to show the calender ontop of the texture. They are symmetrical!

Very interesting considering Guild Wars: Utopia was actually going to be very aztec-themed.

Obviously the great writers of ANET did not decide to integrate the real life Mayans into the plot, but it’s still an interesting Easter egg to laugh at.

Mayan and Aztec culture get often mistaken for each other in fiction. Or, the ancient race of Utopia was inspired by both mesoamerican cultures.

Oh, well… that archeologic piece you’re refering to is called Piedra del Sol and it isn’t the mayan calendar, it’s the aztec calendar! Lot of people mistake that.

You should go through the Tarnished Coast in GW1. The ruins the asura settled in – remnants of Utopia – had mesoamerican aesthetics to it.

The Hyleks did it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You should go through the Tarnished Coast in GW1. The ruins the asura settled in – remnants of Utopia – had mesoamerican aesthetics to it.

+1000 for using the word mesoamerican

Oglaf.1074:

The Hyleks did it.

lol I forget about those frog folks! They do seem to be inspired by Mayan/Aztec culture.

I think Utopia was supposed to be inspired by mesoamerican culture (and maybe some of the later, Spanish influenced stuff too) in general, but a lot of people referred to it as Aztec because, as someone else said, to many people they’re all the same.

I feel the Tengu have a touch of Mayan/Aztec in them as well.

I don’t really see that anywhere in their culture shown. It is all eastern Asian to me. Their culture is obviously highly influenced by the Samurai, and their large wall… I can’t recall what it reminds me of, but one of the Eastern Asian cultures’ architecture if I remember correctly is similar.

In reality what happenned was that Uptopia was well in to production, and when it was scrapped a large number of assets had already been finished, including some armor, creature models, and environmental pieces.

The Asura took up this aesthetic (originally) simply because it would have been a poor use of resources to toss out perfectly good, finished, art assets, and because as a newer idea it was very easy to simply take that aesthetic flavor and apply it to these new squishy little geniuses from beneath the earth.

The asura are, essentially, a re-imagining of the humans native to the cut expansion. Remove the humans, removed the time travel theme, but kept the geometric architecture and big floaty machines.

GW2’s Asura, you’ll notice, kept only trace amounts of the original mesoamerican influences as their art direction, like all races was “logically modernized” The bits the team found important were the big machines and geometric themes. The Hylek got to be keepers of the mesoamerican mantle simply because as minor races were getting pinned down and “cultured” it probably looked a lot cooler against the backdrop of the jungles.

That said, fun easter egg. As to who actually built the EOTN?

Seers. The eye posesses the only known and working scrying pool pre-dating recorded history. We’ve been told we’ve seen Seer ruins but not been appraised of the significance. Also, it’s a place constructed for seeing the future (and possible other functions, like as a tomb for our GW1 characters and a fun party spot for ghosts) and… uhm… well they got the name from somewhere didn’t they?

Also, take a close look at the “casket” figure from the monument of valor. I’d say that thing looks a lot like a representation of a seer.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/b/b5/Hall_of_Monuments.jpg

http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/9/90/Ancient_Seer.jpg

But then, Seers are my answer to all unresolved lore questions… until proven otherwise.

The Priory has thusfar refused to vet my theories.

The seer structures were more likely to be in reference to the Bloodstones, since in GW2 we learn they’re of seer origin.

I don’t see a similarity with that statue and the seer model, personally.

I discovered it was Santa, look, it’s clearly a christmas tree.