Guild Wars 2

I’ve noticed that in some zones the sun always rises and sets in the west, while the moon always rises and sets in the east. I’ve noticed in other zones the sun and moon always rise and set in the west. For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume this isn’t just some lazy design decision made by the developers. What does this say about the nature of Tyria’s location and movement with regards to its sun and moon(s)?

1) Our original Guild Wars characters slipped on a banana peel in the Hall of Monuments and all of Guild Wars 2 is the result of some unfortunate head trauma.

2) Tyria exists within a vast bubble in a bottle of stale beer lost in the depths of the celestial refrigerator. Its inhabitants perceive the opening and closing of the celestial refrigerator door as sunrise and sunset, while the rising and setting of the ‘moon’ is actually the semi-luminescent by-product of some leftover celestial pizza gone very, very wrong.

3) Bob Newhart.

Well, we honestly don’t know exactly how Outer Space in the universe of Guild Wars works. I mean we learned in Factions that the stars are not just giant balls of gas radiating heat and light, but they are the spirits of creatures (mostly human from our knowledge). It could be that outer space is merely another form of the Mists which surrounds the world as we know it, meaning the normal laws of planetary rotations and such do not necessarily apply. This is all speculative of course, but as far as we know there is very little knowledge available to us that lays out the way the cosmos works in this universe.

I will certainly love it if Tyria turns out to be like this, or a moon of a planet of this kind

See also: Discworld.

Interesting fact: Discworld is somewhat based on the ancient Babylonian worldview of the world. If Anet used that idea it would be somewhat unoriginal(seeing as it has been used in fiction before). Based on what we have seen in GW lore, Anet likes originality…

you mean like dwarves, ogres, dragons that draw power from classic elements, armored bears, birdmen have never been used in fiction before?

ichal.9504:

you mean like dwarves, ogres, dragons that draw power from classic elements, armored bears, birdmen have never been used in fiction before?

Point taken…

I’d say Tyria exists within a part of the mists, or a universe equal to the mists. If the rotation of the moon and sun don’t follow the same mechanics as those of a round planet, a discworld would be possible. The old christian version of the discworld was surrounded by water and had a dome around it to keep the water from falling on their heads. Since we know the mists are there, I’d assume we aren’t surrounded by water but mist, hence the strange physics.

Aardwolf.6085:

ichal.9504:

you mean like dwarves, ogres, dragons that draw power from classic elements, armored bears, birdmen have never been used in fiction before?

Point taken…

I’d have to point out that having an MMORPG that is 100% original is something that’s not really remotely possible in this day and age, so when it comes back down to it I would say ArenaNet’s doing a bang up job for originality.

Bellyboomer.3048:

I’d say Tyria exists within a part of the mists, or a universe equal to the mists. […] Since we know the mists are there, I’d assume we aren’t surrounded by water but mist, hence the strange physics.

You’d be both right and wrong in this.

Everything – no exception – resides “within” the Mists. However, the Mists is protomatter and, effectively, a combination of the afterlife and building blocks of reality (the beginning and, possibly, the end of all things) – so it’s metaphysical in nature and thus Tyria, which is physical, isn’t “within” the Mists in the traditional sense of how Earth is within outer space.

Based on the norn Defend the Mists storyline, it wouldn’t be unlikely to think of the Mists as an alternate dimension where instead of outerspace you have protomatter, and gravity (and perhaps other laws of physics) is something that’s quite selective in what it applies to.

That’s how I like to think of the Mists in relation to Tyria and the multiverse on a whole (yes, it’s a multiverse) – to be specific on a whole, that the Mists is the “dimension cushion” between the various universes/alternate dimensions, which acts as the origin of life and the afterlife.

As to Tyria’s shape – we have several globes throughout GW2, so I would be more surprised than not if Tyria’s not a globe. However, I have toyed with the concept of a discworld myself – and got yelled at by my guildies for proposing such.

My basis was on the OP’s observations as well as this:

Seasonal climates seems to be solely reliant on magic/divine interferance. In GW1, Wintersday was said to be the work of Grenth’s interaction – at least in Kamadan if not elsewhere. In GW2, the only snowfall outside of the Shiverpeaks during winter(sday) that exist comes from asuran magical devices. Wintersday held no natural snow outside what was always seen. Meaning that in all of Guild Wars, we only see natural snow occurring in high altitude.

While the calendar has seasons, it’s odd that there’s no physical change to the world – as we can see – that’s not magical/artificial in nature that comes with these seasons. So I really wouldn’t doubt a discworld if not for those globes.

You remember how humanity thought the world was flat until they eventually learned it was round, well it seems that Tyrians may have gotten that in reverse, lol.

It would be interesting if wherever humanity came from before Tyria (the world that is) was a globe, so they just assumed Tyria was a globe too and it stuck with them. But it’s not a globe – nor a disc! It’s… a TRIANGLE!

Yup.

I’m just waiting for that first sailor to finally fall off the edge of the world, but I guess in the case of a Triangle they would come to the edge and “fall” on to the next plane, it would be a definitely strange experience to be certain.

even weirder: if Tyria is a moebius strip, thus make an illusion of globe when someone travels in the correct straight direction and come back at his starting point

If you want to know the makeup of the Tyrian solar system, go to Divinities Reach’s central garden and look up. It’s a giant orrery.

That’s humanity’s best guess as to what the solar system is, honestly we do not know what it’s like though.

I’d like to point out that in Divinity’s Reach, the sun doesn’t rise or fall during the day/night cycle – it stays in the exact same position (unless it’s just a bug I experience). Can’t say the Tyrian astronomers who designed that orrery had very good observation skills…

The level of technology and culture in GW2 is more in keeping with a round-world view than a flat-world view.

I noticed that myself the other day Tuomir, bright golden sun at the middle of night.

Why can’t there be a more practical reason? If they decided to make the sun rise and set faster than normal(so someone only able to play at the same time everyday could see night and day), perhaps the sun is stationary for graphical reasons. If the sun did move peeps would complain about shadows not moving. And think about all of those shadows they’d have to code to move with the sun and moon. And all of the lighting effects from torches/campfires/skills/etc would have to automatically adjust to those changing lighting conditions.

I have no idea if that’s hard to do as a programmer, just my guess though.

That’s a possibility. I highly doubt it is related to lore at all myself. I think it is just because they really don’t do much with the sky in the game. Mostly put it there, make it look pretty, and leave it be. That’s how things were in GW1 as well, and honestly most players don’t even take the time to look up, so there isn’t really a point in putting a lot of development into the sky.

Tyria makes me think of the Ravenloft setting of D&D.

FateOmega.9601:

Tyria makes me think of the Ravenloft setting of D&D.

Care to explain why for those of us unfamiliar with the setting?

So I am just gonna throw this out there. When you guys are talking about globe or discworld, did anyone look at the map we use every time we play? I mean unless mine is different from everyone else’s out there, mine says endless ocean in some parts. Does that not imply that at some point someone tried to sail away and either:
1) Never came back
2) Experienced something out there that told them the ocean was endless.

All of that said, new question presented:
Why in the hell do we (myself included) sit around and have these discussions. This is a game for crying out loud. I know I pretend to have a social life through the game, but it is still kinda sad that we are doing this.

The Unending Ocean isn’t likely literal, and it’s just the body of water between Tyria/Elona and Cantha. It likely came about for the same reason folks thought the world was flat long ago.

And did you not consider that there are globes in-game?

darkace.8925:

FateOmega.9601:

Tyria makes me think of the Ravenloft setting of D&D.

Care to explain why for those of us unfamiliar with the setting?

In brief, in that setting, the world is seperated into different domains by a mist. You can go into the mist and end up in another domain or lost forever depending whether on the mist will. New domain can appear and old domain can disappear.
The domains are actually land ripped from the other D&D settings and serve as a prison for the rulers of their respective domains.

That sounds more like The Mists than Tyria, since Tyria holds no sign or mention of such things.

I’m about to really screw with your heads! The full maps of Tyria that I’ve seen show that we haven’t seen even 1/8 of the planet and that includes all the areas from GW1. What if Tyria is a Super Earth and the sun is a lot smaller than our own? Though astronomically unlikely, it is possible that Tyria is an exoplanet from a much larger solar system that eventually broke free, drifted too close to a star smaller than it and got caught in its gravitational pull at just the right angle. If that’s the case, they would form binary rotation with the planet pulling harder on the star, thus giving it a more elliptical orbit.

In this fashion, “night” as Tyrians know it, could simply be a very quick winter as the star moves further from the planet so its light isn’t as intense but then comes close again, causing “day”. The natural heat trapped in the atmosphere would prevent the planet from getting cold enough to show a seasonal change. It would explain seasons having no drastic change too as the planet and star would maintain the same relative distance from each other all year round.

Problem is that there are still seasons and that winter is said to be colder, with spring warmer. Even in Cantha where we see no snow (magical or otherwise) outside of the mountains.

No drastic change. Plus there are areas on Earth that don’t experience seasons at all.