Guild Wars 2

Hi everybody!

There’s one thing I noticed since the recent patch. As we have seen, all the Asura gates including those to the Mists have been temporarily moved to Vigil Keep. Engine-wise, this makes sense, since they have to keep some sort of entrance to the Mist War, or WvW would have to be shut down.

But we know for sure that lore-wise, the only currently accessible, permanent portal to the Mists is in Lion’s Arch. According to the Movement of the World scriptures, it was opened by Balthazar over two hundred years ago as one of the last gifts to the mortal world.
And according to Sheriff Siriam in pre-Scarlet Lion’s Arch, the portal was only discovered after the waters receded from Lion’s Arch after the rise of Orr. She also states that it took the asura colleges many years only in order to find out that it was a connection to the Mists.

So what’s this now? Is there any explanation how such a thing could be simply moved in such a short amount of time?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Beneath_Lion's_Arch

First off all, trying to explain mechanics with lore is always terrible difficult. For example, we have a way to get into the myst from anywhere in the world.

The reason I gave this link, is cause it holds a possible explaination.
We don’t really use a portal to the mists, we use asura gates.

The real functioning of asura gates is unknown. But looking at what is available in Lore, they function a bit like wurmholes. the asura gates that lead through the mist are wurmholes that go through the actual portal beneath Lion’s Arch.

The actual portal can very well be in those tunnels and they can be unharmed by the attacks.

The “portal opened by Balthazar” was changed sometime during development. Siriam and the Mist Warriors are the only in-game sources for the portal existing. A lot of things in the Movement got changed during development (death of Ventari, rise of Jormag and Zhaitan got switched, etc. – mostly dates, this is one of the few non-dates that got changed).

Vonbrig Kemp is the only in-game lore explaining the asura gates to the Mists.

So no, it isn’t “broken lore” but rather “altered during development” (thus it isn’t a retcon either, technically speaking).

@mercury ranique: I do not understand what point you’re trying to make, at all. Because the asura gates in LA do not go through the one that was beneath Lion’s Arch (nothing says it is still there, let alone functional given that it was powered by Primordus).

@mercury:
Not quite. The asura gates themselves only serve to make the portal accessible, but the portal itself doesn’t come from the asura. Moving the gates does not move the portal. And I don’t see what the old area beneath Lion’s Arch has to do with it, that gate didn’t have anything to do with the Mists.

@Koning:
Where’s the proof that it was changed? Neither Siriam nor Vonbrig contradict the Movement of the World, and there has been no other explanation given except Balthazar.

The fact that the portal “of a bluish hue” is never seen in-game. The Mist Warriors state that it’s on a hill, but there is no portal – let alone one of a blue hue the destination of which fluctuate – seen in the game.

This isn’t the only bit of dialogue that got overlooked during development. There’s a charr Whispers NPC that claims an Ascalonian hero was buried in Provernic Crypt; there’s Whispers NPCs in LA that call Trader’s Forum the original beta name (The Agora); there’s NPCs that refer to a Canthan district, as if it were still around, in Divinity’s Reach. Etc. Etc.

A good deal of things have changed between the earlier designs of GW2 and the released version, and The Movement of the World was amongst the earliest designs of GW2’s story. And there’s a handful of NPC dialogues that got overlooked in updating.

Logic demands that this is one, otherwise we’d be seeing a blue portal on a hill somewhere (not underground or whatever).

The gates transport you to a location. The new gate could simply transport you directly into the portal (i.e. it is a two stage process in which you are transported from Vigil Keep into the portal in Lion’s Arch, which then transports you into the Mists).

See, lore intact!

@Koning:
Yes, we do not have a portal on a hill. That means, currently we have nothing, but looking at pre-Scarlet Lion’s Arch: Of course there are several portals there, because engine-wise we simply need an entrance to every single map. Still though, NPCs mostly state that where you end up in the Mists is normally pretty random, however this can of course not be included into regular gameplay.

It’s not that clear that there was anything retconned, imo. The whole part from the Movement of the World doesn’t contradict the current state of affairs, eventhough no NPC mentions it ingame. And Siriam’s dialogue was, in the end, put into the game the same way Vonbrig’s diaolgue was, and his was also proven to be questionable during the Edge of the Mists patch, where Canach still stated that most prisoners are billeted in the arena, which is impossible if – according to Vonbrig – there is no arena anymore.

mtpelion.4562:

The gates transport you to a location. The new gate could simply transport you directly into the portal (i.e. it is a two stage process in which you are transported from Vigil Keep into the portal in Lion’s Arch, which then transports you into the Mists).

See, lore intact!

I’m not sure if it works that way. Actually, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. An asura gate can only transport you to a different place when there is another asura gate at that spot. Currently, the gates in Fort Marriner are destroyed, which makes that impossible.

Thus, no matter how you interpret the origin of the portal, it is still located in Lion’s Arch and currently unaccessible.