Guild Wars 2

Bit of a goof up, but quite common in fiction:

Source: Wikipedia

Prevalence

Quicksand may be found inland (on riverbanks, near lakes, or in marshes), or near the coast. A quicksand is often difficult to spot. When walking in the country, beware of black stretches of ground without vegetation and bright green expanses covered with moss.

So it doesn’t appear in desert areas. You need a lot of humidity for quicksand to form.

There is a well in Prosperity, so presumably there is indeed a water table beneath Dry Top. There might be an underground river running across the map just beneath the surface.

The “Quicksand” could also be a sand trap, although it wouldn’t “flow” across the landscape the way we see it in-game.

Exactly the same wiki, aricle, scrolled to the very bottom, see also links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_quicksand

Good point, it could be dry quicksand, but then it shouldn’t be flowing like a river.

I was sort of under the impression that sand is moving around because of some other kind of movement/activity – because if you look around the map there are large piles on top of the cliffs that are slowly trickling down to form that river, which wouldn’t make any sense unless the sand had been moved recently.

The water from the facility in Brisban is being trickled into that quicksand river. I imagine to keep any prying eyes out of the Bandits’ supply hub.

Usually I’m not that guy, shrug but isn’kitten bit silly to apply real world physics to the world of Tyria?

…Oh who cares anyway.
This topic entertains me and I learned something new. So +1

Fallow the so called quicksand to the mountain (where the asura cave is). U will see a broken down pipe on the mountain which spills water in the quicksand. That if u have high graphics.

Pipe from the water station in Tangle Root (at least one pipe) ends just above the ‘quicksand river’ outside of the mining town.

and between that pipe and the Inquest mine entrance, sand is constantly falling down the cliff/wall. Together with that water, quicksand river

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Bit of a goof up, but quite common in fiction:

Source: Wikipedia

Prevalence

Quicksand may be found inland (on riverbanks, near lakes, or in marshes), or near the coast. A quicksand is often difficult to spot. When walking in the country, beware of black stretches of ground without vegetation and bright green expanses covered with moss.

So it doesn’t appear in desert areas. You need a lot of humidity for quicksand to form.

Yes let’s bring logic into a video game where magic exists.

Am I the onlyone who thinks that quicksand river might be above magic layline?

I have no evidence but that was my first thought when I saw it.

Other zones have floating mountains and wiki tells me they don’t appear in dry areas too.

So this is immersion braking, but flying ships made of bamboo and held up by sails is scientifically sound fiction…..m’kay….

yeah well dragons

Well the flying ships are magic. But the quicksand supposedly is ordinary quicksand (or dry quicksand). Tyria is a mix of magical and none-magical things. When an environmental feature occurs in a none-magical way, I think it is fair to expect real-world equivalent rules. It’s kind of like finding a cactus in the snow, or an iceberg in a desert.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Well the flying ships are magic. But the quicksand supposedly is ordinary quicksand (or dry quicksand). Tyria is a mix of magical and none-magical things. When an environmental feature occurs in a none-magical way, I think it is fair to expect real-world equivalent rules. It’s kind of like finding a cactus in the snow, or an iceberg in a desert.

Who says it doesn’t have a magic connection? Isn’t this place near a ley line? Maybe this quicksand river is an offshoot leak from that leyline forming an unnatural situation.

Ley line ex machina?

Maybe there is one of those purple-glowing vines underneath that area. Causing the sand there to act, what we would consider, abnormal. You can’t really apply real-world logic to certain parts of a fantasy world and not others…unless, of course, you were the one that created it, and made all the rules. And I mean ‘you’ in the global sense, rather than the personal sense. =)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Well the flying ships are magic. But the quicksand supposedly is ordinary quicksand (or dry quicksand). Tyria is a mix of magical and none-magical things. When an environmental feature occurs in a none-magical way, I think it is fair to expect real-world equivalent rules. It’s kind of like finding a cactus in the snow, or an iceberg in a desert.

There is the fact that a water pipe ends just above where the ‘quicksand river’ starts, and it IS slowly pouring water down onto the sand <_<.

Unsure if the quicksand in the one cave ‘flows’ or just stands still.

this reminds me of
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Pine-is-a-soft-wood/first#post3546824
^^

also there is a lot of water under Dry Top

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Ley line ex machina?

Rock floats above water in the presence of a strong magical field. That’s Tyrian physics. So it seems entirely plausible that the Quicksand in Dry Top could be an extension of that principle. An Ley Lines could actually be the source of the magical field. That would also explain why it occurs in lines.

Kalavier.1097:

There is the fact that a water pipe ends just above where the ‘quicksand river’ starts, and it IS slowly pouring water down onto the sand <_<.

Unsure if the quicksand in the one cave ‘flows’ or just stands still.

I’m pretty sure that the “quicksand” in the Inquest cave is not only flowing, it is flowing in the opposite direction from the “quicksand” outside the cave.

Which fits the theory/explanation that the flow is caused by the water from that pipe pretty well, imho.

Scarlet is obviously behind this

If it was normal wet quicksand it wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous anyway. Quicksand danger is highly exaggerated in fiction.

^ That is very true. If you are ever stuck in quicksand, just stop struggling, relax and float, and call for help. You can even free yourself from quicksand if you have a stick, pole or some other device to help break up the suction around your feet.

We are learning a lot about actual quicksand today.

Sorry Mad Queen but I have to agree with the others on this one. Before I can even discuss the physics to make a river of sand plausible, I’m stuck on the very existence of elder dragons. They are literally too big and too heavy for their bones to support them, never mind getting airborn with such small wings. Speaking of bones, Norns and Charr either have theirs made out of steel or they are at least 3 times as dense as humans. Otherwise there’s no way they could support their own weight. And then there’s Sylvari. Plants don’t have muscles so how the hell do they even move?! And don’t even get me started on Asura! While they are anatomically plausible, do you know how much energy it would take just to power ONE gate?! Here’s a hint. To pass a single atom through a wormhole (which they basically are) you would need enough energy to make Jupiter! And they have them EVERYWHERE! And if we actually followed physics, when one explodes, there should be a dust cloud where the solar system that contained the planet Tyria and several nearby stars used to be! And if draining the energy from just one dragon to power all of them only made it sleep a few more decades, there’s no hope of defeating it. There would be enough energy in it for just its roar to compress the air around it into a blackhole and a super massive one at that!

As you can see, quicksand is the least of my issues!

Erm….

Tequatl measures:
body width – 22m
wingspan – 188 m
height (when on 4 legs from ground to the top) – 35 m
length (head to tail) – 113 m

Zhaitan:
wingspan – 500 m
height – a bit unmeasureable, since he has no legs and each hand is different
lenght – 506 m

Their wings are pretty decent :P.

Also, it’s common knowledge norn muscles and bones are not even close to the same as humans. :P

What you linked is WET quicksand.

Dry quicksand is much more rare, but it happens.

The quicksand in Dry Top is dry.

MithranArkanere.8957:

What you linked is WET quicksand.

Dry quicksand is much more rare, but it happens.

The quicksand in Dry Top is dry.

Was going to post about that one, but you beat me to it.

The quicksand in drytop moves like wet quicksand. It has water pouring in to it. It’s wet quicksand formed by the runoff.

No. Wet quicksand would not cause blindness. It’ll cause weakness.

It is extremely dry, soft and thin sand from the sandstorms slowly falling through cracks across Dry Top.

It all rather reminds of one of my favour Bruce Sterling books: Involution Ocean.

Don’t think we have quite enough sand for that… yet

Kalavier.1097:

Erm….

Tequatl measures:
body width – 22m
wingspan – 188 m
height (when on 4 legs from ground to the top) – 35 m
length (head to tail) – 113 m

Zhaitan:
wingspan – 500 m
height – a bit unmeasureable, since he has no legs and each hand is different
lenght – 506 m

Their wings are pretty decent :P.

Also, it’s common knowledge norn muscles and bones are not even close to the same as humans. :P

I’ll give you norns as I know so little about them but a 500-meter wingspan would not support a 506-meter body unless elder dragons are extremely light for their size. Considering how much energy is being pulled out of Primordius to power the Asura gates, I find it highly unlikely.

Magic and weight aren’t the same.

Also the fact the bulk of Zhaitan’s body isn’t even solid, most of his length is just spines basically flowing behind him. :P

Kalavier.1097:

Magic and weight aren’t the same.

Also the fact the bulk of Zhaitan’s body isn’t even solid, most of his length is just spines basically flowing behind him. :P

Adding onto this, he also has 2 pairs of wings, one of which is only slightly smaller than the other (probably like 480 wingspan)

EDIT: ok I remembered it wrong. Zhaitan has a total of 4 pairs of wings, the second pair is a little over half the firsts wingspan and then the 3rd and 4th are the same size, which is slightly smaller than the 2nd pair.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Well the flying ships are magic. But the quicksand supposedly is ordinary quicksand (or dry quicksand).

Pretty sure ordinary quicksand doesn’t cause bodily harm and damage armor.

You know what doesn’t appear in dry windy places…..Mosquitoes yet we have them all over the new map.

The thing about the sand river that drives me nuts, is that you have to use the sun crystals to get across… If the Zephyrites just crashed there how did the people who’d been living in the area for years get back and forth?! Bah!

Eleri Tezhme.3048:

The thing about the sand river that drives me nuts, is that you have to use the sun crystals to get across… If the Zephyrites just crashed there how did the people who’d been living in the area for years get back and forth?! Bah!

Quite obviously a bridge, as the one side of the town has two wooden platforms on either end (I forget if both ends have that).

Destroyed in the crash likely by wreckage.

Kalavier.1097:

Eleri Tezhme.3048:

The thing about the sand river that drives me nuts, is that you have to use the sun crystals to get across… If the Zephyrites just crashed there how did the people who’d been living in the area for years get back and forth?! Bah!

Quite obviously a bridge, as the one side of the town has two wooden platforms on either end (I forget if both ends have that).

Destroyed in the crash likely by wreckage.

Likely hidden away, so as not to welcome outsiders that might stick their nose in a certain copper-powered “business”.

Maybe they have a secret bridge that activates with a switch, and unfolds. Or maybe they have a lever to switch the Quicksand river on and off.