Guild Wars 2

People who played Guild Wars will remember the Mamnoon lagoon. A beautiful, secluded little zone, with a lagoon in the middle and lush jungle surrounding it. It was still on the map, before the “far Silverwastes” became explorable, and I was quite disappointed to find no trace of the lagoon anywhere.

Now, I understand the Maguuma dried up. But then, there should be a dried-out lagoon, and maybe a POI of “dried-up lagoon”. Such a wasted opportunity. It seems to me the lagoon has been completely retconned out of lore. The terrain doesn’t even vaguely resemble the way it used to look – there’s no way a lagoon could have been there only 250 years earlier… not with those massive cliffs and elevation differences.

So, what happened? How did the terrain (relief, not vegetation) change so much? Where do those cliffs come from? The Maguuma used to be quite flat in that area. Did Primordus cause seismic activity in that area?

I remember it mainly for one of the two worst places for being designed to overagro on riders… shudders

But really, while I too am disappointed, the terrain differences are nothing out of the ordinary. The topography of every zone in the game has been drastically changed, entirely for mechanical and design reasons, I suspect. Trying to find a story explanation is, in my opinion, just a fast way to a futile headache.

I agree with both disappointment in the lack of a lagoon (dried or not) as water was depicted there even after the update on the map. To me, there isn’t much lore reason why at least a puddle exists because the Mamnoon Lagoon was THE most lush and wet area of northern Maguuma in gw1. If any place was to not be dried out, the lagoon would be it.

But the only water we have is our salamander drake pool south of the lagoon.

The reason for change would no doubt be mechanics and design of the zone. Or general lack of gw1 knowledge. Afaik, ANet has few folks who were around for gw1 anymore, let alone Prophecies.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Or general lack of gw1 knowledge. Afaik, ANet has few folks who were around for gw1 anymore, let alone Prophecies.

You have no idea how sad the thought makes me. Didn’t they even bother to play the first game before making ‘2’? How is it possible the fans know the lore/game better than the people who made it?

This pretty much kills any hope I had left of them expanding on Guild Wars lore or topography…

There is no need to play GW1, the lagoon could be seen in the map. Now there are cliffs.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

~Snip~

The reason for change would no doubt be mechanics and design of the zone. Or general lack of gw1 knowledge. Afaik, ANet has few folks who were around for gw1 anymore, let alone Prophecies.

The only problem with that statement is that there are enough people still around that are still left from original campaign, and that would include Colin Johannson, Eric Flannum(asfaik), Isiah Cartwright(even though in 1 he was the skill master), and a few others. I like to think it’s more that they’ve gone into greater detail into the zones, i.e., what was one zone in Prophecies is now 2 or 3 zones in GW2. Or you could be correct and they just blew the design…or maybe it falls somewhere else on the map they’ve decided to ignore and leave out.

Zaklex.6308:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

~Snip~

The reason for change would no doubt be mechanics and design of the zone. Or general lack of gw1 knowledge. Afaik, ANet has few folks who were around for gw1 anymore, let alone Prophecies.

The only problem with that statement is that there are enough people still around that are still left from original campaign, and that would include Colin Johannson, Eric Flannum(asfaik), Isiah Cartwright(even though in 1 he was the skill master), and a few others. I like to think it’s more that they’ve gone into greater detail into the zones, i.e., what was one zone in Prophecies is now 2 or 3 zones in GW2. Or you could be correct and they just blew the design…or maybe it falls somewhere else on the map they’ve decided to ignore and leave out.

It was on the unexplored map. They knew it was there. It’s just “minor”, I know – but GW2 is full of these little “insults” to lore that altogether irk me to no end.

PeterFries.1057:

Significant upheaval and terrain shifts have altered the face of Tyria in the past two and a half centuries, in some cases making familiar locations all new.

So a lot of stuff changed over the last few hundred years. We were using old Priory maps. That’s fine. Although I’m not a GW1 alumni, so I guess that kinda makes my opinion here less weighty.

With the exception of drying out, though, the Maguuma Wastes was more or less unaffected by all known lore upheavals. So that makes it hard to believe.

Changes aren’t unexpected, obviously, due to a change in game engines and the like. But one would still expect at least the remains of a lagoon.

Though I suppose one can argue that the Far Silverwastes is just the inside of the lagoon, all dried out, and the cliffs surrounding it was where we walked in GW1.

yea i wasa gonna say what if we walked around at the hight of the cliffs in guild wars one but over 250 years it sank into the giant pit that has become the new jumping puzzle?

PeterFries.1057:

The unexplored areas of our overmap are subject to change, which is to say as our map artists build out new maps to fit our current design. We couldn’t have anticipated every decision we’ve made in the last two years at the time that the art was created to hint at unexplored areas. The art for our world map gets refined as we go.

Josh and Tami, who worked on building out the Silverwastes and Dry Top maps for Season 2, built maps for every other GW release. Even though I’m a writer now, I built maps as an environment artist on Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North, and Guild Wars 2. There are still plenty of us here from those days, including our studio’s environment art lead (who bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain Krytan legate minister).

Significant upheaval and terrain shifts have altered the face of Tyria in the past two and a half centuries, in some cases making familiar locations all new.

I assure you that no insult was intended. Sometimes we just change our minds.

Sorry if I sounded harsh. I suppose all I wanted was some kind of aknowledgement that the lagoon ever existed at all. Currently, no one even mentions it. You could have a priory scholar, or maybe a centaur from that tribe that’s lived there for centuries, speaking about it. A POI would be difficult, as the landscape doesn’t look at all like a lagoon was ever there.

Dry Quarry is about all the remnant we’ve got.

The Priory would have some reason to investigate its mysterious disappearance, though. A scholar in the Far Silverwastes sent to examine the place would likely be looking for something that disturbed the water table there. Given the caverns underneath are a likely place for water to drain to, the actual cause of Mamnoon’s drying might be considerably deeper.

Though I don’t see why there wouldn’t be a Priory scholar informing troops of the area. Think Shelter Docks in Malchor’s Leap.

PeterFries.1057:

Ben K.6238:

A scholar in the Far Silverwastes sent to examine the place would likely be looking for something that disturbed the water table there. Given the caverns underneath are a likely place for water to drain to, the actual cause of Mamnoon’s drying might be considerably deeper.

That’s an interesting idea. As I see it, most of the Priory members in the Silverwastes have their hands and paws full, preparing for the coming Pact offensive. Other than responding to various Mordrem incursions in the wastes around Camp Resolve, they probably haven’t been able to devote many resources to (re)exploring the area, never mind doing serious scholarly research on the local water tables.

Ah, but the Priory did send a team of 3 explorers to investigate the area and gather what ever information they could that would be useful: Explorer Amoxtli, Explorer Savio, and Explorer Kitabu. Perhaps the information that they’ve gathered, which apparently they have yet to send any back to the Priory(messenger birds, which they could have but don’t seem to). It would have been perfectly reasonable to have them send a report mentioning the massive changes to what was the Mamnoon Lagoon and suggesting the Priory send someone to investigate as it might be related to Mordremoth. At least it’s a plausible idea.

PeterFries.1057:

Zaklex.6308:

Ah, but the Priory did send a team of 3 explorers to investigate the area and gather what ever information they could that would be useful: Explorer Amoxtli, Explorer Savio, and Explorer Kitabu. Perhaps the information that they’ve gathered, which apparently they have yet to send any back to the Priory (messenger birds, which they could have but don’t seem to). It would have been perfectly reasonable to have them send a report mentioning the massive changes to what was the Mamnoon Lagoon and suggesting the Priory send someone to investigate as it might be related to Mordremoth. At least it’s a plausible idea.

Heh, I’m familiar with those three, but they didn’t pass north through the Silverwastes on their expedition. Their travels have taken them elsewhere.

I know, that’s why I said it was plausible, though you’re correct in stating they didn’t pass through the Silverwastes, it’s potentially possible their reports of the dramatic change in landscape would peak the interest of the Priory(of course that presumes they knew what the landscape was prior[haha]). Which would induce the Priory to send another investigative team to the Silverwastes to see what happened there, but now I’m delving into your work…so I’ll let it go.

I never played GW1 so I (nor my character) do not know that there was any lagoon there.
Now, does the priory know there was a lagoon there? When did the lagoon went dry? Was it over night or did the water gradually flow off? Because if was the later I don’t see a big research going on there.

Sorry for my bad english.

Records from Shining Blade operatives should indicate the presence of a lagoon there 250 years ago. Whether the Priory has a map of it I couldn’t say.

http://maps.gw.free.fr/images/Map%20Tyrie%20GMC100.jpg
http://i1.minus.com/i5ehlTmJSkaYv.jpg

Here are two maps, the first shows gw1 interesting points on the map gw2. The second is the mapping gw1 with lakes.

Maybe it will help you set the dismay of players.