Guild Wars 2

So I heard earlier that waypoints might actually be a canon thing? Is this true?

Yeah, I think the first scout in Metrica Province (and possibly all other first scouts) say that Waypoints are Asuran made devices to facilitate travel

during one of the asura personal stories, a big deal is made about teleportation without the need of a waypoint or gate.

these things are also supposed to be fairly expensive too, for tourists and merchants

Yes, these are confirmed lore. It has been stated in a dev interview, and you also see them being used in game. See above for examples, along with Orr and how the golems use them.

And of course about half the escort and protect and rescue missions in events and Personal story doesnt make any sense whatsoever because of that. So i guess its free to choose.

For roleplay purposes, most people dont take their existence as seriously. Its more of a gameplay convenience with some forced lore slapped on it. Guild Wars 1 had map travel with certain NPCs talking about it like its a common thing for everyone. You dont want to get into the implications how the free for all map travel transformed into magitech asura technology with a fee.

why don’t the escort events make sense? we know that waypoints are for personal transportation only, you can’t teleport a caravan with them, that’s what gates are for. asura need to make money somehow

Merchant caravans are the few exceptions that might make sense not to use the WPs, even though im sure it could be argued.

Personal transportation happens with everything in the users inventory. I’d say a common caravan animal carries about 6-10 times of what a human can carry (Actually its the same amount, if you take into consideration how WvW dolyaks carry the same amount as your unleveled character can). Even fewer of what a norn can carry. Thats 6-10 times the cost of using a WP to get from convenient point A to convenient point B. WP prices are lower for low level characters. Im pretty sure that the merchant is not on the same level as your character is. Even so if they are, WP costs are reduced the closer WP you want to transport to. Thats usually a 1s60c price for lvl80. Escort events are usually between two close points, rarely do they go further than the distance between 2 or 3 WPs.

Consider then the price of the things these merchants deal with. They could afford it. The amount of money they spend on protection from boasting drunken norn mercs and the amount of goods they risk by traveling on foot with a slow moving cow instead of paying the WP fee for several personal trips with heavy bags evens out eventually. One is just less deadly. And they wouldnt have to be scraped up from the floor with a spatula by a bypassing adventurer when they are stomped into the ground by skritt that the boasting drunken norn merc couldnt handle.

Of course we the players as the bypassing adventurers would find ourselves less to do if they were to use WPs. But that is no longer a Lore discussion, but a gameplay convenience discussion. The type of discussion Waypoints should have remained as.

And we havent even touched upon the dead-rising attributes of WPs that appearently no NPC can use.

from what i understood, WPs cannot transfer large items/creatures, they are only meant for personal transportation. for anything bigger than a norn, you get the asura gates.

and we never really die in the game, we are simply knocked out. you can argue that as adventurers of some special status, we get a failsafe locking us to the nearest waypoint (or whichever we choose)

And thats where suspension of disbelief is thrown out the window at least for me. Asura waypoints are supposed to do all these:
- Transport individuals, even in great numbers from any point of the world by their will to a specific location, yet they cannot do it if the individual is in combat/stressed.
- But if the individual is defeated, knocked out, unconscious, they can still transport them to a WP of their choosing (how do you make a choice when you are unconscious?)
- Revive a fallen individual instantly while the same takes a good measure of time even in game, im not even counting the roleplay kittenstorm it would make if you just revive from a failed assault without a scratch or a measly dent on your armor.
- Measure up the individuals level of power or prowess. Somehow know if the individual is an adventurer. Why peacemakers and seraph and lionguard and the other policing organisations cannot take this opportunity is beyond idiotic.
- Scan the individual for its coinpurse that happens to be shared with 5+ other characters of the same account.
- Take the exact amount of money, the material coins from the purse or wallet or whatever and transfer those to a big vault in Rata Sum automaticly.

I dont mind the existence of WPs in the game, they are convenient for us, but trying to slap some hastily, barely thought trough lore explanation onto them was a mistake. Once something is lore, it must apply to every single part and character of the entire world, or they as the developers of that world must take their time and explain specificly why it does not apply to some while it does to others. (EDIT:) IN THE GAME not in a forum post or a lore interview that i cant take seriously when such a question gets this kind of answer.

They say that the Asurans built them and that they’re real features of the world but I prefer to think of them as just there for gameplay convenience. It removes questions about why the Pact doesn’t just waypoint straight from their headquarters to an uncontested waypoint in the Cursed Shore (Like the one outside Arah for instance).

I made a way for waypoints to make sense, having what we have in game and knowing what we know from interviews. Please note this is completely fandom, whereas I’ve gone to lengths to try and make it make sense, it is not confirmed by ArenaNet.

http://guildwars2roleplayers.com/forum/m/2737230/viewthread/7893443-waypoints/post/44890581#p44890581

The thread can be viewed there.

Tyrannus Blade.3408:

They say that the Asurans built them and that they’re real features of the world but I prefer to think of them as just there for gameplay convenience. It removes questions about why the Pact doesn’t just waypoint straight from their headquarters to an uncontested waypoint in the Cursed Shore (Like the one outside Arah for instance).

the Pact doesn’t waypoint outside of Arah because, as others have explained in other threads, the maps are slices of time as well as space. whenever you get to that waypoint, is when it is available, not before.