Guild Wars 2

I picked up a new piece of Living Story and went to Wayfarer Foothills to help the Norn Braham.

When I went there, I was amazed to see a brand new mini-city called Cragstead near the Dolyak Pass Waypoint.

Where did this place come from?

Braham mentioned he grew up there, so I take it to mean it has been there a long time (he said he lived there since an infant).

The problem is that I’ve spent time in Wayfarer Foothills, and know the area near Dolyak Pass Waypoint pretty well.

When I was a young adventerous Asura, I passed through there exploring the lands of the Norn.

Later, in their times of trouble, I helped Norn refugees streaming into that area, and fought off Molten Alliance invaders there as well… but never saw Cragstead.

I could understand if this was some nomadic settlement, and they set up a temporary camp there, but Cragstead looks pretty big and permanent.

So was Cragstead always supposed to have been there?

Based on lore it was always supposed to be there yes.

The veil of the spirits been lifted, perhaps?

It seemed to show up alongside the invasion portals attacking the nearby homestead, so around the second part of the story arc.

lordkrall.7241:

Based on lore it was always supposed to be there yes.

Interesting, thanks for the information.

Is this previously established lore from a book, or the original Guild Wars?

I tried googling this place, and checking the GW2 Wiki. The Wiki has no background on it besides saying it is an instance for this event.

Hope it’s not a situation like it is lore because this new guy Braham said he is from there, and since he said it, it is now lore.

digiowl.9620:

The veil of the spirits been lifted, perhaps?

It seemed to show up alongside the invasion portals attacking the nearby homestead, so around the second part of the story arc.

I like the veil of the spirits idea.

But that’s just us trying to reconcile a mini-city showing up out of nowhere.

Is there anything in the game or lore which explains where this place comes from?

Because, from a story/immersion point of view, it was really jarring to see this giant settlement pop out of nowhere.

Something that massive would take a lot of time to build (more than the amount of time we’ve been doing this event). And Braham said he was born there.

You’d need something like magical veil to help explain why the Norn refugees set up ragged camps on the road, rather than seek the safety among their brethren in fortified Cragstead (just a few steps up a hill).

Because when Braham says he was born there, like it’s been there forever, I remember giving him a weary look which comes about from thinking:

“Son, I’m the Savior of Tyria. I’ve travelled these lands many a time.

I’ve protected your people time and again from the Claw of Jormag.

I’ve tended to your injured as they fled the Molten Alliance, in camps a stone’s throw from here, and never saw this place.

I know these parts. Don’t go telling me it was always here."

I just assumed, in-character, that I hadn’t payed 100% attention when exploring the region for the first time; that it simply hadn’t been on my map.

In real life it is easy to miss something… especially in an environment that is mainly rock and snow.

Kingfisher.7213:

Interesting, thanks for the information.

Is this previously established lore from a book, or the original Guild Wars?

I tried googling this place, and checking the GW2 Wiki. The Wiki has no background on it besides saying it is an instance for this event.

Hope it’s not a situation like it is lore because this new guy Braham said he is from there, and since he said it, it is now lore.

It is lore because it didn’t magically turn up.
Gameplay != Lore.
Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it is not there.

We can’t actually see any of the Elder Dragons as of now (except Zhaitan) that does not mean the Elder Dragons do not exist.

It’s neither from the books nor GW1, it was created for this content update. I highly doubt we will get an in-universe explanation on why it suddenly appeared, you are supposed to acknowledge it like it was always there. That’s called suspension of disbelief.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

It’s neither from the books nor GW1, it was created for this content update. I highly doubt we will get an in-universe explanation on why it suddenly appeared, you are supposed to acknowledge it like it was always there. That’s called suspension of disbelief.

Thanks for the lore check, it was appreciated.

The location of Cragstead threw me, as it was a strange place to suddenly add this giant settlement, given how much we trafficked the area for this event.

Then saying it had always been there had me wondering if I had suffered from snow blindness all this time.

I can suspend disbelief.

After all, I play an Engineer, where I can throw a grenade with my arm (range = 1200) further than I can shoot a bullet from a pistol (range = 900).

Thanks again :)

Kingfisher.7213:

You’d need something like magical veil to help explain why the Norn refugees set up ragged camps on the road, rather than seek the safety among their brethren in fortified Cragstead (just a few steps up a hill).

Heh, i keep getting the feeling, while traversing the game world, that the maps should really be 1000x bigger than they are. Part of the problem of running a persistent world vs running instances i guess.

As far as the world canon goes, it was “always there” even if it obviously wasn’t from a gameplay standpoint.

The nature of MMO’s is that new content is always going to add new stuff that you’re just supposed to assume was always there. New content needs to be added, and better to flesh out existing areas than make new ones all the time.

So unless devs have amazing foresight with future events (meaning, they add buildings that currently have no use, but can be used in the future), its inevitable that stuff is going to just pop up where it never was before. And even if they did have the foresight to add stuff to use in the future, it might confuse and annoy people more than anything. Having a bunch of useless areas that suddenly get bigger and useful in a future addon would cause people to believe the devs were “holding content back”.

To be fair, Anet DID add the place as early as they probably could have. The gate / buildings were added last month (a month before the update with Braham where it was actually used). They did try to sneak it in as much as possible.

Only one word. “LOOPHOLE”.

SirDrygan.1823:

Only one word. “LOOPHOLE”.

more like wormhole, or perhaps misthole

Misthole sounds obscene. I like it.

I love the fact that they’ve added a new town, I just wish I didn’t have to keep repeating the flame and frost instance to explore it. I think we need more lore in game in general, maybe a few readable books in Hoelbrek (wolf shrine would be ideal) or the nearby lodges that explain why Cragstead is there and why it needs so many statues of wolves.

Too many even.

It suddenly appeared because not all content has been added to the game. As someone else mentioned, just because it is not playable content yet in a game, does not mean it doesn’t exist in Guild Wars lore. If this were so, nothing of this world would have existed before Guild Wars was released, however we do know that there is lots of historical lore, and Tyria was not created with the creation of the game. If you seriously are going to be fanatical about role-playing here, you need to take that into account. Limiting yourself to only what you can see and access in the game is a very narrow-viewed approach to role-playing.