Guild Wars 2

I’m hoping we can get some details and clarification about how waypoints work. Right now, we know is that they are asura-created, but the finer points are kind of a mystery. Some questions are:

1) How does one use a waypoint? Is it a device that you carry on your person, or are you bound to each waypoint individually? Is there a more technical explanation? Can one person’s waypoint use be tracked by others?

2) Do you have to register with anyone to use the waypoints? Who is the money paid to? Can anyone use them, or just our heroic PCs, and why? How commonly are they used, and how many people use them/know about them? Why don’t NPCs use them to travel, or enemies to infiltrate behind the battle lines, or criminals to escape justice?

3) Are there any limitations on waypoints? Are there limits on where they can be built or used? Why can’t goods or pack animals be waypointed and are instead limited to using the gates instead? Are waypoints ever dangerous to use?

A lot of these questions have an impact on roleplay in that they impact how travel, warfare, trade, law enforcement, and so forth work in the world, so I’m hoping Ree or Jeff, or an ANet employee that just happens to know or can pass these questions on, can help fill in the blanks.

Thanks in advance!

Nope they are pure for a gameplay standpoint

That’s why the Waypoints look so out of place when you come across them it’s mainly gameplay efficiency and not Just because the Asura decided to make them sorta deal for convenience

The waypoint works the same way as the gate. if you play asura it well explain in there how its works. i just can’t remember what the peace-keeper said at the beginning of your start area. the fee goes to the asura for using their service, i think. the money is just for maintenance of the network.

While some NPCs briefly mention the waypoints, I don’t believe they’re ever talked about anywhere else in the lore (such as in the novels, etc). Personally, I just treat them as a gameplay convenience mechanic, similar to how we’re able to carry several full suits of armor, a dozen weapons, several hundred lumps of ore, wood, hides and various random monster parts, not to mention thousands of copper coins, in our backpacks.

As much as I love to roleplay, there are some things where you just have to nod and say “it’s magic”, then quickly move on. ;-)

It’s gameplay, just like the war in the mists. Only a minority mentions them, and isolated from the rest of the game.

They are an Asura invention if you watch the first scout in metrica he says something about it. there full name is “magi-matter-transportive device”

There’s also several waypoint mentions later in the game in the Orr zones. For one, there’s certain waypoint beacons that ‘speak’ the same way Golems do, very haltingly, and they’ll tell you that they’re open now or closed now due to friendlies being nearby or not, and you can click on some of them for more information.

They’re definitely in the game and in the lore, but to what extent isn’t clear. However, it’s very obvious that they’re not simply a gameplay mechanic. And on that token, neither is the Mists. They’re very clearly mentioned by quite a few NPCs.

Both things exist. We just need more information on them.

They’re problematic for other reasons, as well. The existence of waypoints as “go from anywhere to any waypoint” is a bit rough on a lot of dramatic tension. For instance, I played a story instance that involved a fort being overrun and the defenders having to fall back. Once we were out of danger, we… had to run to our escape method. Nobody just used their waypoints to get away from the enemy, we had to all go by a traditional method of travel. It was rather jarring, if you think waypoints are common in-game. And given that you can use them from your first moments as a character, it seems unlikely that guards and soldiers are barred access to them because they’re not special enough.

Technically the lore about them is they are miniture Asura Gates. Using them probably involves the use of a portable Gate. One of these is used in the Edge of Destiny so we know they exist.

Gulbrandr.9047:

They’re problematic for other reasons, as well. The existence of waypoints as “go from anywhere to any waypoint” is a bit rough on a lot of dramatic tension. For instance, I played a story instance that involved a fort being overrun and the defenders having to fall back. Once we were out of danger, we… had to run to our escape method. Nobody just used their waypoints to get away from the enemy, we had to all go by a traditional method of travel. It was rather jarring, if you think waypoints are common in-game. And given that you can use them from your first moments as a character, it seems unlikely that guards and soldiers are barred access to them because they’re not special enough.

That may be part of what we don’t know about them. Personally I think they work mostly as advertised, with the big difference that you have to actually be -at- one in order to go to another one.

That’s why I mentioned that we simply need more information on them. We know they exist and that they work. What we don’t know is how exactly they work or what their limits are.

Gulbrandr.9047:

They’re problematic for other reasons, as well. The existence of waypoints as “go from anywhere to any waypoint” is a bit rough on a lot of dramatic tension. For instance, I played a story instance that involved a fort being overrun and the defenders having to fall back. Once we were out of danger, we… had to run to our escape method. Nobody just used their waypoints to get away from the enemy, we had to all go by a traditional method of travel. It was rather jarring, if you think waypoints are common in-game. And given that you can use them from your first moments as a character, it seems unlikely that guards and soldiers are barred access to them because they’re not special enough.

Its quite likely that Waypoints lock down from locations as a security measure. After all the Asurian underground empire was overrun because the Destroyers used the Asurian gates to strike into the center of the Asurian cities. Something like a Waypoint system would have strict security as a neccessity.

There may also be power limits to how many people a mobile gate can transport in one go.

Maximus Delion.8719:

While some NPCs briefly mention the waypoints, I don’t believe they’re ever talked about anywhere else in the lore (such as in the novels, etc). Personally, I just treat them as a gameplay convenience mechanic, similar to how we’re able to carry several full suits of armor, a dozen weapons, several hundred lumps of ore, wood, hides and various random monster parts, not to mention thousands of copper coins, in our backpacks.

As much as I love to roleplay, there are some things where you just have to nod and say “it’s magic”, then quickly move on. ;-)

I loved this. You read my mind and spoke it out better than I could of.

If the devs go out of their way to place them into the world and then give them some lore background and justification on it, I’m not just going to turn my head and go “Nah”.

I’ll take them at their word for it. Since, you know. They designed the game and all.

Don’t believe what those who said “it’s a pure gameplay mechanic and is not part of the lore” are saying, they didn’t read the dialogues, talked to NPCs, or did research :p No seriously.

As some already said and explained, the waypoints and the Mists are very much part of the lore and is not just a gameplay mechanic. Even in GW, if I remember correctly, the fast-travel was explained lore-wise too.

ANet doesn’t leave things to “gameplay mechanics” type of explanations. Everybody who came from Blizzy doesn’t leave things to “ah, it’s just gameplay mechanics, ignore it, no lore there” (like in Firefall, another company who hails from Blizzy, they don’t do “there’s no lore here, just gameplay mechanics”).

The real question here is, how deep the explanation is and how much involved the waypoints are. At least for the Mists, we know how deep it’s involvement is and how it affects the world or worlds.

Gulbrandr.9047:

They’re problematic for other reasons, as well. The existence of waypoints as “go from anywhere to any waypoint” is a bit rough on a lot of dramatic tension. For instance, I played a story instance that involved a fort being overrun and the defenders having to fall back. Once we were out of danger, we… had to run to our escape method. Nobody just used their waypoints to get away from the enemy, we had to all go by a traditional method of travel. It was rather jarring, if you think waypoints are common in-game. And given that you can use them from your first moments as a character, it seems unlikely that guards and soldiers are barred access to them because they’re not special enough.

Hmm… I don’t think I’ve seen a mission where the waypoint gadget was floating and active. Yes it shows in the map, but the map is for our convenience – so we know we’ve unlocked it. But when we’re in a storyline mission, these waypoint gadgets are not working, off or something.

So by that, it means no one can just use the waypoints.

Although I’ll agree with you there that dynamic events are not using the waypoints. Well, after all, we do have to pay a fee :p

ArenaNet has always seemed to strive to give their gameplay mechanics an IC introduction, even when it didn’t really make much sense otherwise. There was something akin to waypoint travel in GW1, too, and there were quests that introduced it, but no one has ever explained the how or the why.

I guess it’s just confusing to people because there is this amazing technology but it doesn’t seem to have had any impact on the world in general. Teleportation still seems this mystical thing that even the heroes are mystified by, from Logan’s reaction during explorable Caudecus’ Manor, and NPCs in Lion’s Arch seem surprised and confused by the ability to go anywhere instantaneously via asura gates.

It’s why I asked for clarification in the first place, since the reality of it isn’t matching up with the IC way it was introduced.

Shael.4703:

Don’t believe what those who said “it’s a pure gameplay mechanic and is not part of the lore” are saying, they didn’t read the dialogues, talked to NPCs, or did research :p No seriously.

Well, the first scout you talk to in the asura starting map says this about them:

“As you gad about, you’ll encounter our magical matter-transportive devices, more commonly known as waypoints. They’re mini-gates that – for a minimal fee – transport you across great distances. They’re the second most convenient way to travel, next to our gates.”

But the first scout you talk to in Shaemoor says this:

“This is a waypoint. Waypoints appear on your compass, which is in the lower-right corner of your screen. You can also see them on the world map, which you can access by pressing “M.” Press “M” again to close the world map. To teleport to a waypoint, open your world map and click on the waypoint to which you want to travel."

The asura offer an in-character description, but don’t mention anything about the actual mechanics of how to go about using said waypoints. The only places where any sort of mechanics on waypoint usage are mentioned are very out of character.

There are also a couple places where you encounter a waypoint in the open world, but a story instance takes place in the same area and you don’t see the waypoint in the instanced version of the area.

While waypoints probably exist in some form in the lore (probably some kind of relays or signal repeaters for the above-ground asura gate network), the way we as players use them (including how frequently and easily we can do so, and how many different waypoints are available to us) is most likely greatly exaggerated for the sake of both convenient gameplay and drama (i.e. NPC guards not being able to just blip away to the nearest waypoint in an ambush).

In my humble opinion, there are some things that are better left as mysteries without going into any further details than… “it’s magic”. Otherwise you’re going to have to come up with some seriously contrived story to try to shoehorn a game mechanic into an in-character explanation. And I don’t mean that flippantly. I think we can assume the asura understand how these things actually work just as easily as you or I understand how to ride a bicycle, and as such they simply have no reason to ever talk about it. But if a human were to ask how they work, the asura would just roll his eyes and say “Look, booka. If I tried to explain it to you, your head would explode. Literally. That’s how much knowledge you’d have to try to absorb into that puny little lump of grey matter you call a brain. While it would, admittedly, be mildly amusing to watch your contorted facial expressions for the first few seconds, the whole exploding head part would be decidedly less desirable, considering I just had my lab coat dry cleaned.”

But the first scout you talk to in Shaemoor says this:
“This is a waypoint. Waypoints appear on your compass, which is in the lower-right corner of your screen. You can also see them on the world map, which you can access by pressing “M.” Press “M” again to close the world map. To teleport to a waypoint, open your world map and click on the waypoint to which you want to travel."

The Human zones were done before the other zones were, which means it’s likely that ANet decided to make them in-universe after the Human zone had been completed, and simply hasn’t gone back to fix the dialogue yet.

There’s more than a few quests in later zones that treat Waypoints extremely in-universe and even as being vital to troop movements in the area.

They’re probably just not as ubiquitous/easy to use as they are for us, as they are in-universe. But they -do- exist, and they -are- used.

Another interesting question regarding Waypoints is what is the mechanics behind our death and ability to “respawn” at any of them and not just anywhere?

Denis.5019:

Another interesting question regarding Waypoints is what is the mechanics behind our death and ability to “respawn” at any of them and not just anywhere?

It could be that they act as a sort of portable defibrillator station. Or that aspect of their function could just be game mechanics at work. I dunno.

If we accept part of it as game mechanics, then why not the whole thing, though? Where’s the line between what’s convenience and what’s lore-based? This is why we need clarification on how waypoints work so we can make informed and logical arguments about the effects of waypoints on the world and how our characters use them in roleplay.

Liraz.8062:

If we accept part of it as game mechanics, then why not the whole thing, though? Where’s the line between what’s convenience and what’s lore-based? This is why we need clarification on how waypoints work so we can make informed and logical arguments about the effects of waypoints on the world and how our characters use them in roleplay.

The whole thing isn’t game mechanics because Waypoints are referenced ingame, in universe, and used for troop movements and things. So we know at least that part of them exists inuniverse.

What we don’t know is to what extent do they work, and how.

me and my brother thought of that paying issue, and got agreement on only one solution: since its asuran magic-based technology, i wouldn’t be surprised if there was mechanic that takes money in midway of waypointing. what bugs me most is how does supposedly dead hero manage to activate waypoint and resurrect in near death-site or near destination. if someone has theory to that, i would be glad to hear it. i mean by how could this system know, where you are trying to get. it has to have some degree of ability to independent thinking, otherwise hero, traveling through Sparkfly Fen and dying would end up to The Brand into lap of The Shatterer.

Illushia.3721:

But the first scout you talk to in Shaemoor says this:
“This is a waypoint. Waypoints appear on your compass, which is in the lower-right corner of your screen. You can also see them on the world map, which you can access by pressing “M.” Press “M” again to close the world map. To teleport to a waypoint, open your world map and click on the waypoint to which you want to travel."

The Human zones were done before the other zones were, which means it’s likely that ANet decided to make them in-universe after the Human zone had been completed, and simply hasn’t gone back to fix the dialogue yet.

There’s more than a few quests in later zones that treat Waypoints extremely in-universe and even as being vital to troop movements in the area.

They’re probably just not as ubiquitous/easy to use as they are for us, as they are in-universe. But they -do- exist, and they -are- used.

Yep. There are other areas of the game wherein it’s pretty obvious (at least to me) that they forgot to go back to the finished sections of the game to update it so the new content will flow beautifully to it.

Not to de-rail the thread, but one of such is the sylvari storyline. It was created last, and at some point, it was obvious that the rest of the storyline weren’t updated to fit the sylvari storyline. Suddenly, sylvari characters are “strangers” to the Mother and other sylvaris.

It’s the same with waypoints. More likely than not, they did not bother to update that waypoint explanation from a human NPC. But that aside, waypoints are still IC or in-lore.

^_^

Actually you’re probably thinking of the “Go where life goes” story choice, where you meet a Sylvari that isn’t actually from the Pale Tree, but another tree entirely.

Which is why you’re treated as strangers.

Serpent Eyed.8365:

me and my brother thought of that paying issue, and got agreement on only one solution: since its asuran magic-based technology, i wouldn’t be surprised if there was mechanic that takes money in midway of waypointing. what bugs me most is how does supposedly dead hero manage to activate waypoint and resurrect in near death-site or near destination. if someone has theory to that, i would be glad to hear it. i mean by how could this system know, where you are trying to get. it has to have some degree of ability to independent thinking, otherwise hero, traveling through Sparkfly Fen and dying would end up to The Brand into lap of The Shatterer.

Well, it’s one thing to know how things work and another to find an explanation to everything.

If you love to watch sci-fi movies and tv series, or read books with sci-fi in it, you know that you can not explain everything satisfactorily. You either have to live with what the author has explained or find another movie/tv series/book because it bothers you that it wasn’t explained.

Even in anime. Why is it that Doraemon have a bottomless pocket where all things of all sizes can fit? There’s no official and valid explanation about it except that Doraemon is hiding something.

The same with waypoints. It works. How? We don’t know and we’ll probably not know. And it being in the universe of Guild Wars where technology and magic co-exists, I wouldn’t be surprise if waypoints are part technology and part magical. Or maybe, 100% technological and 100% magical.

For example, I can give a theory that the waypoints know you are “down” and wants to “reappear” again, that is probably the magical part of the waypoint system.

Or how can it know where do you want to go? My answer is simple: before you travel, your character actually inputted/selected a destination. We just don’t see it with our clients because it’s not something you want to code.

In other words, just take it for what it is. Not because we don’t see our characters selecting destinations from some asuran display, does it mean we did not select one.

Or if you want the magical explanation, the waypoints probably can read our character’s brains and can process it from there.

^_^

They’re mostly a game mechanic with very few direct references. What few references exist are obscure at best. Personally speaking, I’d consider them to be a handy game mechanic and little else – Logan didn’t exactly rush to use a waypoint when he needed to save Queen Jennah and then return in time to save Snaff as well.

Garenthal.1480:

They’re mostly a game mechanic with very few direct references. What few references exist are obscure at best. Personally speaking, I’d consider them to be a handy game mechanic and little else – Logan didn’t exactly rush to use a waypoint when he needed to save Queen Jennah and then return in time to save Snaff as well.

Go do the Orr zones, then read the waypoint text.

They’re very much in the game, and very much not simply game mechanics.

Some features of them likely are, but the teleportation back and forth is definitely in universe.

They’re not only game mechanics. They’re asuran technology and have to be set up and established. How contested waypoints work is explained in Orr zones (dunno why they don’t have the base everywhere, but in Orr waypoints have 2 pieces – the typical floating cube and some sort of levitating base).

Though I haven’t seen any mention on how they work on the teleporting side of things. But if you find a contested waypoint that’s not a base under attack, be sure to check out when they’re setting up that base.

As being said, its primairly function is to be a game mechanics. In this case, any existing lore is made to back up the mechanic (I am pretty sure to say that they didn’t decide to write lore bout the magical device and then think, hey thats also a great mechanic).

Having said that the world is 250 years older and even then there where magical maps players carried with them, where you could click on certain dedicated places and magical appear there. This was only possible to certain rallying points in towns anbd outposts (for those who played GW1, they would know the spawning points are not all over town) see also http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Map-Travel_Inventor for more info bout the lore behind that.

Besides that there is a second technology involved being ressurection shrines. those are visable places in the game where to you would magically teleport and be ressurected when you and the people around you die in battle.

Waypoints are basicly a combination of the two.

So to my surprise now Asura claims it to be their invention. Although the origin of the original inventions is unknown, I find it very unlikely that in GW1 it was an Asura invention. The best they did was combining two existing technologies into one device. What is more shckingly is that the population finds this invention so great they are willing to pay money for the use of this brand new (ahem) service.

It makes you wonder where all the money goes. There must be a very rich asuran somewhere around………

Resurrection Shrines are still problematic, though, as several characters die permanently throughout the course of GW1, and so far as I know they are never mentioned. Apparently Rez Shrines were explicit gifts from Grenth – things he allowed to occur. So, when he’s withdrawn, why does he still extend his power to allow us to revive at waypoints? That said, Rez Shrines are clearly not gameplay mechanics – in Factions, different groups would take control of them, and you sometimes had to bribe them if you weren’t on their team to use the shrine.

This just complicated things further.

I think the waypoints make a ton of sense in lore and aside from game mechanics. The Asura as a race have always connected their civilization by vast and intricate teleportation networks.

Unfortunately for them their first such invention (the asura gate) is hard to lock down once its out of your control, and as such the destroyers were able to use their own network against them to pretty thorough destroy the original Asura civilization. They were forced to flee and re-think their design some.

The new iteration of devices have built-in security features to prevent that happening again, and seem to be less of a hassle to set up initially, allowing for a much more rapid expansion of the race across the as-yet unconquered surface world. Just think, every way point you see is the Asura staking a claim of superiority. Sure, you think you’re using them for your own convenience... but that’s just what they want you to think.

In GW1, lore wise, resurrection shrines had to be maintained by someone – a priest – in order to work. That’s why Kurzick and Luxon priests have to be bribed if you’re not of their faction, and why there’s 2 or so resurrection shrines in pre-Searing that don’t work. This continues into the PvP side of the game as well, with periodical resurrections occurring until the Ghostly Priest was killed. This was seemingly abandoned for the primary PvE aspect though in Prophecies – considering that pre-Searing was made after post-Searing, I’d imagine it was something developed later on in development of the game.

mercury ranique.2170:

So to my surprise now Asura claims it to be their invention. Although the origin of the original inventions is unknown, I find it very unlikely that in GW1 it was an Asura invention. The best they did was combining two existing technologies into one device.

See, I may not have gotten far enough into my Asura character’s story to have a good feel for the lore (and I never played GW1), but from what I’ve seen so far it doesn’t surprise me at all that some Asura would combine a couple existing technologies into a new package and then claim credit as though they innovated the entire thing from scratch. Maybe they dressed up the design and had a slick marketing campaign to promote it to a less savvy audience unaware of the previous state of the art, telling consumers to think differently or somesuch…

On the original question, I really doubt Liraz was asking for the in-game technical details of exactly how waypoints work. We don’t need any, “the device creates a stable wormhole between superconducting rings that have been placed in fixed positions elsewhere in the galaxy.” We just want to know, from a character perspective, about the actual requirements and limitations of the waypoints.

And yes, of course the system is primarily there to make gameplay less tedious, with existing lore in place to back up that mechanic. I don’t think anyone’s denying that. But we can still be interested in more specific details about that lore, such as anything else designers might have come up with as background ideas without putting them into the game explicitly.

Absent any canonical answer, though, I for one am perfectly content to speculate wildly along with other players until such a time as we hit on some mostly consistent explanation I’m willing to work with as a character when RPing.

Hippocampus.8470:

On the original question, I really doubt Liraz was asking for the in-game technical details of exactly how waypoints work. We don’t need any, “the device creates a stable wormhole between superconducting rings that have been placed in fixed positions elsewhere in the galaxy.” We just want to know, from a character perspective, about the actual requirements and limitations of the waypoints.

Right, I’m not asking for the technical details of magi-technobabble so much as I’m asking how do they work from the user’s perspective. When my character’s using a waypoint, what exactly do they have to do, and what are they experiencing and seeing? That’s the kind of information I need.

Hippocampus.8470:

It doesn’t surprise me at all that some Asura would combine a couple existing technologies into a new package and then claim credit as though they innovated the entire thing from scratch.

I’ve gotta reiterate this point majorly, now that one of my characters has chatted with the Asura in charge of the gates in Lion’s Arch, who claims that the Asura’s first invention was innovation itself.

So yeah, they strike me as a rather clever race which has let that cleverness go to their heads, to the point where they will claim to have invented something just because they happen to understand it well enough to widely use it and improve upon it. After all, who from the other races is in a position to argue about it?

It’s possible that they’re taking credit for it, lest we forget that in GW1, map travel was possible by humans before they knew asura existed.

Illushia.3721:

Actually you’re probably thinking of the “Go where life goes” story choice, where you meet a Sylvari that isn’t actually from the Pale Tree, but another tree entirely.

Which is why you’re treated as strangers.

No, they mean later on down the Personal Storyline where your sylvari character is “reintroduced” to the Pale Tree through Trahearne.

On the main topic, speculation is good and all, but folks should try and honor the idea of Occam’s Razor: When you start trying to explain things that seem to be mostly related to game mechanics by speculating that machines read your mind and teleport money out of your pocket, and other such odd things, it becomes increasingly likely that that’s not what ArenaNet had in mind at all.

And this isn’t a thread for “explain why you think Waypoints work in lore”, it’s about finding the degree of evidence in lore (rather than game function) that determines their role therein.

Personally, I take advantage of them without acknowledging them BECAUSE they’re so nebulous in lore. They obviously exist to some minor degree in lore, but even if they work exactly how they do in-game, is your roleplaying character really as important as the Personal Story implies you are, friends to the Pact and Destiny’s Edge with access to all this technology?

There’s a lot we ignore or gloss over about the game just to put ourselves at equal footing with every other player and roleplayer. For me, the Waypoint system is one of those things.