Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone,

a lot of roleplayers have a problem with waypoints.

Asura gates are out of question. They connect two specific points and you can move through it with as many mass as you want, as long as you can pay for it. Gate keepers take care of the gates.

Waypoints are more difficult there. They are all built on leylines. So technically they span across all Tyria. And it seems, that the Asura have built them. But that leaves a lot of questions:

- why can’t you just travel from one end of Tyria to the other one then?
- how much mass can you transport via the waypoint system?
- why using gates at all, when you could transport a bigger mass through them, if techncially possible?
- Asura gates function like a wormhole I would say. But how do waypoints work? Like a transporter in Star Trek, where you’re disassembled into your atoms and the transfered through the leyline to another waypoint and there you are reassembled?
- when the Asura only by accident mapped the ley lines of Tyria by placing the waypoints, how did they know at all about this kind of transportation? When living underground they, as far as I know, only had the gate system.

I hope I can find opinions we can talk about!

- why can’t you just travel from one end of Tyria to the other one then?

1. It costs money, possibly more than normal people are willing to spent.
2. All instances of large cargo or large groups are done via gate which gives the impression that waypoints are not suitable for that kind of usage.
3. NPCs do not just travel from anywhere to a waypoint, they only travel from one waypoint to another.

In other words, there are in-lore limitations to the usage of waypoints that do not hinder us as players.

- how much mass can you transport via the waypoint system?

Unknown but as I said, there seems to be a limit.

- why using gates at all, when you could transport a bigger mass through them, if techncially possible?

Explained above. There are limitations in mass and money.

- Asura gates function like a wormhole I would say. But how do waypoints work? Like a transporter in Star Trek, where you’re disassembled into your atoms and the transfered through the leyline to another waypoint and there you are reassembled?

Unkown.

- when the Asura only by accident mapped the ley lines of Tyria by placing the waypoints, how did they know at all about this kind of transportation? When living underground they, as far as I know, only had the gate system.

Asura are pretty good at trying out random things and then futher developing those things that work by accident.

Nokomis.5076:

Hey everyone,

a lot of roleplayers have a problem with waypoints.

Okay, I’ll take a shot at this. Please note, these answers are how I see things, they are not canon.

• why can’t you just travel from one end of Tyria to the other one then?*

You can, IF you’ve attuned to the waypoints you wish to use. In (nearly) all of the game, you have to reach a waypoint the old fashioned way first, and it becomes attuned to you, or you to it. Then, and only then, can you use that waypoint.

• how much mass can you transport via the waypoint system?*

Remember the movie “Terminator”, and how the time machine could only transport living materials, or things contained in a living material? Well, consider the waypoints to be attuned to a person’s aura. Only things within that aura will go with them. Now, some things, such as a ranger’s companions, have hopefully been around them long enough that the aura has bled over a bit. But a random pack animal, or a couple crates of gear? No aura, and too big to fit into the character’s aura. So, they get left behind.

• why using gates at all, when you could transport a bigger mass through them, if techncially possible?*

First, you can take gates to new areas, unlike waypoints. Second, gates don’t need to be activated by the traveler in any way. You walk through a basic gate, you get teleported. Walk by a waypoint, and … you just walk past it.

Finally, I get the impression that gates take power to keep open. And the bigger they are, the harder it is to make them stay open for very long. The ones the asura use are at the balance of power/useful size.

• Asura gates function like a wormhole I would say. But how do waypoints work? Like a transporter in Star Trek, where you’re disassembled into your atoms and the transfered through the leyline to another waypoint and there you are reassembled?*

I think the waypoints work best if you assume that, for a moment, they make Point A and Point B so similar, that it doesn’t matter which one you’re at. You start at Point A, it becomes just like Point B, and then suddenly you’re at Point B.

This is also how I think Mesmer portals work, for what that’s worth.

• when the Asura only by accident mapped the ley lines of Tyria by placing the waypoints, how did they know at all about this kind of transportation? When living underground they, as far as I know, only had the gate system.*

Let’s say that the asura build 6 labs, and 3 of them are on ley lines. They use the labs to do high energy magitech research and experiments.

Now, 3 of those labs are at an advantage that they don’t really know about. So, they get things done more often, they get the results that the other 3 labs don’t. The “good” 3 begin to attract more researchers and experiments. It’s not a surprise that someone trying to develop a new transportation system would wind up at one of those labs, right? And, when it was time to test it long range, they’d naturally put the other ends into the other labs. That’s when they’d discover that some places work for the system, and some do not. But it was developed on a ley line, so they never understood why.

You’ve gotten pretty good answers already, so I’ll just touch on the ones I can add something new to:

Nokomis.5076:

- why can’t you just travel from one end of Tyria to the other one then?

Another limitation here is that every NPC we see travel through a waypoint has to walk up to one first. The whole ‘open your map and teleport at will’ mechanic seems to be strictly gameplay, not lore. So if you can’t get to a waypoint, or don’t know where one is…
I’ve also heard some folks play it so that waypoints can only connect to a small network of others nearby. It makes a certain amount of sense- no one would be surprised if a mini-gate can’t take you as far as the full deal- and it means that to travel long distances takes multiple hops, with a separate fee for each making it prohibitively expensive to get to the other side of the continent.

- Asura gates function like a wormhole I would say. But how do waypoints work? Like a transporter in Star Trek, where you’re disassembled into your atoms and the transfered through the leyline to another waypoint and there you are reassembled?

An asura describes waypoints as “mini-gates”, so they should work on the same principle as the big ones, which, according to Killeen in Ghosts of Ascalon, work by bending reality to bring two separate points together. Instead of travelling you across a distance, they instead remove the distance altogether.

You can, IF you’ve attuned to the waypoints you wish to use. In (nearly) all of the game, you have to reach a waypoint the old fashioned way first, and it becomes attuned to you, or you to it. Then, and only then, can you use that waypoint.

Then either the waypoint needs to store some kind of signature from you or the other way around the waypoint imprints something onto your magical aura (like stated below), enabling you to synchronize with that specific waypoint.

Remember the movie “Terminator”, and how the time machine could only transport living materials, or things contained in a living material?

Then one couldn’t take his backpack or armor with him if not taking this aura into account. So I do like the idea of that.

Finally, I get the impression that gates take power to keep open. And the bigger they are, the harder it is to make them stay open for very long. The ones the asura use are at the balance of power/useful size.

As far as I know it takes more power depending on how far away the destination is. Within those gates there must exist a reasonable power source. Naquadria? ;D

I think the waypoints work best if you assume that, for a moment, they make Point A and Point B so similar, that it doesn’t matter which one you’re at. You start at Point A, it becomes just like Point B, and then suddenly you’re at Point B.

Reminds me a little bit of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement
So Asura Gates could be described as being more technical than magical while a waypoint works the other way aroud, using more magic.

Another limitation here is that every NPC we see travel through a waypoint has to walk up to one first. The whole ‘open your map and teleport at will’ mechanic seems to be strictly gameplay, not lore. So if you can’t get to a waypoint, or don’t know where one is…

Question would be: what exactly is this flying thing at the waypoint? Technical help for traveling through the waypoint system? Does it also automatically ‘steal’ your money and transfers it into Rata Sum?

“Then either the waypoint needs to store some kind of signature from you or the other way around the waypoint imprints something onto your magical aura (like stated below), enabling you to synchronize with that specific waypoint.”

This is probably why you need to discover a WP before you can travel to/from it. When you arrive, it scans that signature you’re talking about.