Guild Wars 2

First off: Holy moly. Anet, you left me speechless. That was honestly stunning. Both the CGI and the story, the gameplay too. Absolutely stellar.

Anyway, the last two cinematics offered a lot of food for thought. I’m a sylvari roleplayer primarily, and this both excited me to no end and terrified me :P It raises a lot of questions: When did the fleet take off? Is it widespread news that the attack failed and the sylvari appeared to turn on their allies?

Because Camp Resolve isn’t in tatters as we see it in the story, and there are even airships in the sky (!), there’s a lot of confusion as to who knows what and how fast (presumably wildfire, once they’re back) the dragon minion news is spreading.

I guess there are a few main questions that need answering;

- Is this affecting ALL sylvari? Or are there some that are affected, and some not?
- Is the dragon minion thing widespread knowledge through the Pact yet?
- Has the attack on Camp Resolve actually happened yet, given there were humongous vines burying through the fort? There’s nothing there now, no NPC changes, no evironment changes…

I guess the most important thing to know is whether sylvari characters are liable to turn on their allies/go mad/corrupt or not, even those not in the fleet. The majority of RPers (at least on PS are, I can’t speak for TC) react according and take the Living Story into account even if they aren’t directly involved, so it’d be nice to know where we stand. It’s rather blurry right now.

Thanks!

Sylvari shouldn’t be turning corrupt, no. The ones in the Pact only did because they were brought closer to Mordremoth’s base of power. Given that PC Sylvari cannot yet go there, they shouldn’t worry about going mad/being corrupted yet.

Yeah business as usual until the next update; on the other hand opens some options in the meantime.

As an RPer, I would say that the events aren’t widely known or considered for my RP use until after the weekend, at least. Give everyone a chance to play it, even those that can’t play during the week. THEN let it seep into RP.

I deleted the insane sylvari I had (key farmer, but I was considering keeping him anyway), and my other sylvari has always been a bit off the norm. So for me, it’s actually going to be business as usual, even with what happened.

I agree with Palador. We’re sort of in an event loop, and the whole Pact thing is the prelude to Heart of Thorns. Also note that Canach seemed to be himself.

Someone else posited that the Pale Tree is a Glint analog and is protecting Her children from the corruption as best She can. That gives an out to RPers who want to stay on the “good side.” Though Soundless may be in trouble …

I probably can’t try to intentionally be weird/creep puggers out in dungeon runs with my guild mates anymore for fear of being cliche now.

Donari.5237:

I agree with Palador. We’re sort of in an event loop, and the whole Pact thing is the prelude to Heart of Thorns. Also note that Canach seemed to be himself.

Someone else posited that the Pale Tree is a Glint analog and is protecting Her children from the corruption as best She can. That gives an out to RPers who want to stay on the “good side.” Though Soundless may be in trouble …

One thing I noticed in the cutsceen. You see Faolain fighting against and killing the pact troops. This means that the Nightmare Court have now officially joined Mordremoth. This tells me that it is the Sylvari who have fallen to nightmare, and thus without the protection of the pale tree, who have joined Mordremoth.

I know where I stand.

Drop Ghostfire on all of the Silverwastes from airships. It’s the only way to be sure.

(Thanks to the charr for inventing napalm, by the way.)

Yeah, I would like something a bit more solid on how this affects Sylvari RPers. I’ve got a Soundless at the moment that might be in trouble.

The paletree is the same as Glint, a dragon champion that isn’t being controlled anylonger. Sylvari were supposed to be minions however that didn’t turn out too well considering the story developement and how the paletree ended up being.

Sylvari can still be influenced by Mordy in which case we are talking about the nightmare court. Eitherway, I don’t see any changes happening as to how the race will behave. However, we will probably end up with Tyria that is agressive against the sylvari. We will possibly see discrimination against the race in the near future. We already saw doubts ‘’are the Sylvari really trustworthy?’‘. With Mordy gaining power and more corrupted Sylvari appearing, I await the race’s image to get even worse.

Has anyone talked to the Pale Tree post episode on a sylvari to see if there’s any info?

I just talked to the Tree now. Nothing overly interesting, she just rambles on a bit about dragons with a metaphor for forestfires/dragons making way for new growth.

One of my Sylvari is of the Dream (my main one), so she is pretty much safe for now.
The other, however, is soundless. I think I will ask my friends to lock her up somewhere until this is over.

I’d have to say that it probably isn’t going to affect all Sylvari, but rather the “weaker” ones.
The heroic ones, and the player characters, will be shielded somehow.
The Mother Tree is like a filter, with the Dream as a strange mental safe zone for the children.

Either way if I play this out, mine won’t go full Mordy.
In fact one of them might see it as his Wyld Hunt to purge the Mord influenced brethren. Saddened by his duty, but driven to fanaticism like a Space Marine from WH40K.

I just thought the hostile ones were:
- Nightmare courtiers
and
- the ones from the other tree(s?) (Sylvari personal story, “Where life goes, so too should you”)

Not the Pale Tree sylvaris from the Pact.

cafard.8953:

I just thought the hostile ones were:
- Nightmare courtiers
and
- the ones from the other tree(s?) (Sylvari personal story, “Where life goes, so too should you”)

Not the Pale Tree sylvaris from the Pact.

There were Pact Sylvari attacking the DE + Trahearne on the ship. I don’t know if all of them were Pact Sylvari, but some of them were. I suppose they were soundless, which made the dragon able to control them, like happened to Aerin. Mind you, there was nothing wrong with being soundless prior to Mordremoth’s awakening, and since almost nobody knows yet that the Sylvari are creations of the dragon, there was no reason for them to not be allowed in the Pact.

While I haven’t finished the LS yet, nor expect to any time soon, I watched friends completing it.

Here’s what I’ve gotten out of the experience:
- Anet isn’t exactly a creative bunch. If it can be solved poorly and inadequately then that will be the path taken.
- What I take from the above reality is that we’ll be dealing with the Sylvari issues as an instanced situation:
- i.e. Canach is going to get cornered somewhere and we’ll have to go help him out.
-Canach means Anise somehow.
- Rytlock is back by whatever time this all unfolds, so either he will magically birth himself out of the ground or the like is probable given how Anet is.
- If anything doesn’t make sense don’t talk about it and let the players make up reasons.
- We saw Eir completely unconcerned with the airship crashing, at one point falling toward sharp spikey stuff, the airship behind her, then a few seconds later standing on the airship shooting away with her bow. We can take from this that Eir has learned to teleport and is completely protected by ascended plot armor. Logain and Zojja are similarly in this way. First we see Logain and Zojja falling into open air, then we see them hanging from the bow of the ship.
- We can be fairly certain the next Anet-plothole… I mean patch… will be about rescuing people from the non-sense.
- We can also ask the question, if the vines can shoot that fast out of the earth, that large, what chance anyone has once they actually touch the earth. Unless they can crawl into a bag of holding for a week the plot has gotten pretty absurd.
- Nevertheless, we should expect to be on a rescue and preservation path for the next little while.
- Anything that happens will take place in instanced situations as evidence by the complete lack of signs of devastation in the base camp at the Silverwastes.
- Oh, but good news. Trehearne may finally be dead. We didn’t see him in any of the cutscenes post falling from the ship. More likely though, Trehearne is going to be the bait and hook for towing us back out into the wider plot arch following this rescue and preserve story arch.
- Sylvari characters are unaffected for “reasons”. Anet hasn’t decided that yet. We should all know by now Anet doesn’t think ahead or behind. This is a schizophrenic entity. It invents continuity in the course of the immediate delusion.

Out of my 3 Sylvari (2 of which I don’t actually have on my books anymore but are still relevant to my RP):

Spachiana, who is of the Dream, is currently in the Priory researching. She is safe.
Rhubey, soundless, is trying to find her connection in the dream in the Grove. Safe.
Leveillei, airheaded Dreamer, is more at risk. She could be easily turned. I’m going to have her locked up for her safety.

Fallout.1798:

Donari.5237:

I agree with Palador. We’re sort of in an event loop, and the whole Pact thing is the prelude to Heart of Thorns. Also note that Canach seemed to be himself.

Someone else posited that the Pale Tree is a Glint analog and is protecting Her children from the corruption as best She can. That gives an out to RPers who want to stay on the “good side.” Though Soundless may be in trouble …

One thing I noticed in the cutsceen. You see Faolain fighting against and killing the pact troops. This means that the Nightmare Court have now officially joined Mordremoth. This tells me that it is the Sylvari who have fallen to nightmare, and thus without the protection of the pale tree, who have joined Mordremoth.

You can also see that Foalain slays a Sylvari in that cutscence. My guess is that Sylvari who are still part of the dream are immune to the Dragon corruption, but Nightmare and Soundless are not. It is also possible that because the tree has been weakened maybe some of the Sylvari in the pact assault were corrupted because they were too close and The Pale tree was too weak to protect all of them.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens because there are many other Trees according to Lore but The Pale tree is the only one that we know of that is connected to the dream. Also it’ll be interesting to see what happened to that one Sylvari in the Sylvari PS that was from a different tree but wasn’t corrupted or part of the dream. There is so many question!

Though I am sure PCs will be safe from the corruption.

Edit:
I noticed that Canach is in the final scene of the HoT trailer, he looks uncorrupted and in the jungle, which is good news!= D

my sylvari is called harrlley quin so……no way it can make her even more mad then she is already :P

As a fellow Piken my stance on this based on what I saw is, what Caithe said at the end, spoilers included.

Caithe basically said that the truth is going to come out anyway so there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

She only delayed the inevitable revelation from hitting her species, she never stopped it happening.

What does this mean?

1.

Mordremoths influence is going to spread further into the Grove areas since the Pale Tree is unwell and weakened, thus, Sylvari will start gradually showing signs of irregular and erratic behavior (Scarlet and Aerin were not like the Nightmare Court, keep in mind that Mordremoths influence on them seems to sent them into a wild schizophrenic frenzy).

This will not happen now, but as rpers we can safely say after the first week of the event we can start exploring ideas for this for fun as individuals with friends or as community events.

2.

The Influence does not affect everyone, however, no one is safe, not even the dreamers. It is evident a good number of the Sylvari on-board the pact ships were not just all Soundless, suggesting no Sylvari is immune to the touch of Mordremoth, some are simply more resilient than others.

I’m going to put this down to willpower, the weaker willed and more frail Sylvari will fall prey over time, the strong will survive.

3.

Non-Sylvari adversely will likely hear news of the Pact fleets destruction in a bout a weeks time, after this, rumors can begin circulating about the Sylvari being responsible and who is to blame, creating some interesting RP tensions between the Sylvari and the Non-Sylvari while people await confirmation of events.

4.

Finally, a few months down the line we can start seriously exploring Mordrem threats and forming Mordrem themed groups while equally forming groups to counter them.

As a roleplayer, I take what I see, and what I see is that inevitably, this is going to impact the game’s npcs and personalities.

The disappearance of a large pact fleet that big doesn’t just “go missing” when there’s an entire army comprised of lionguard, legionaries from the charr, norn fighters, asura geniuses, human seraph soldiers and pact officers.

A big army that big does not fade off the map unnoticed, people will start asking questions, panicking, spreading rumors true or not.

Anyone rping in a Priory guild particularly will already have some prior knowledge of Aerin and Scarlets corruption and thus be immediately suspicious of most Sylvari around them if they heard further word of something. The pact is more than likely going to be the first one to react to this.

But does this mean you have to follow this manifesto?

No, its a guideline, its a way that you might react to whats happened IC and how to keep your chars engaged!

Yumi already wants to burn a few of them out of public embarrassment twice by newly “fallen from the tree” members that have no business in a human city. She gives Sylvari a wide berth already.

As a sylvari RPer where most of my characters are Nightmare courtiers…..

We’re already discussing the ramifications. Our characters are all set to accept the fact they’re dragon minions, and we’ve talked about how they’d be happy to finally have a figurehead other than the Pale Tree, as their ‘dad’. Since our characters are based on corruption and conflict anyhow, the prospect of facing IC challenges for character growth is well received.

My main courtier and character is a little apprehensive about the whole Mordremoth thing, but more for the ramifications of Mordremoth’s eventual death; does Nightmare go away when the thing that was the arbiter of it dies? How will their minds be affected by that? He knows he’s not all there in the head since being converted, but he’s almost afraid that if Mordremoth dies, he’ll be lost and without a cause any longer.

All in all, it’s great fun! Lots of character development for all sylvari, whether Dreamer, Soundless, or Nightmare.

One big question is whether the Nightmare Courtiers are willing to give up their free will to Mordremoth. Based on what we saw from Scarlet and Aerin, they still retain their intelligence and their capacity to reason, but the dragon probably dictates to them what they do. One also wonders whether Mordremoth’s influence is like a constant presence in their mind, controlling their every move, or whether they are left largely to their own devices when they do not have an immediate task to do.

You know, it’s like this for me . . . what is the difference between blindly following the Pale Tree and Ventari’s teachings . . . and blindly doing the Nightmare Court way, or being agents of Mordremoth’s will? Faolain’s little rebellious mind doesn’t seem to grasp the irony.

But I don’t have sylvari characters. I have humans and charr as my majorly played ones. One of them is going to so make a killing off this. Girl’s got debts to pay after all.

Eirdyne.9843:

While I haven’t finished the LS yet, nor expect to any time soon, I watched friends completing it.

Here’s what I’ve gotten out of the experience:
- Anet isn’t exactly a creative bunch. If it can be solved poorly and inadequately then that will be the path taken.
- What I take from the above reality is that we’ll be dealing with the Sylvari issues as an instanced situation:
- i.e. Canach is going to get cornered somewhere and we’ll have to go help him out.
-Canach means Anise somehow.
- Rytlock is back by whatever time this all unfolds, so either he will magically birth himself out of the ground or the like is probable given how Anet is.
- If anything doesn’t make sense don’t talk about it and let the players make up reasons.
- We saw Eir completely unconcerned with the airship crashing, at one point falling toward sharp spikey stuff, the airship behind her, then a few seconds later standing on the airship shooting away with her bow. We can take from this that Eir has learned to teleport and is completely protected by ascended plot armor. Logain and Zojja are similarly in this way. First we see Logain and Zojja falling into open air, then we see them hanging from the bow of the ship.
- We can be fairly certain the next Anet-plothole… I mean patch… will be about rescuing people from the non-sense.
- We can also ask the question, if the vines can shoot that fast out of the earth, that large, what chance anyone has once they actually touch the earth. Unless they can crawl into a bag of holding for a week the plot has gotten pretty absurd.
- Nevertheless, we should expect to be on a rescue and preservation path for the next little while.
- Anything that happens will take place in instanced situations as evidence by the complete lack of signs of devastation in the base camp at the Silverwastes.
- Oh, but good news. Trehearne may finally be dead. We didn’t see him in any of the cutscenes post falling from the ship. More likely though, Trehearne is going to be the bait and hook for towing us back out into the wider plot arch following this rescue and preserve story arch.
- Sylvari characters are unaffected for “reasons”. Anet hasn’t decided that yet. We should all know by now Anet doesn’t think ahead or behind. This is a schizophrenic entity. It invents continuity in the course of the immediate delusion.

What if you take that cutscene as a recollection of the events, told by one of the survivors? I mean, it’s not like your character was there when it happened, so it’s all hearsay to him/her.

Sylvari main here. Technically the Sylvari PC has been ‘at risk’ since Omadd’s machine. The only thing keeping the Sylvari PC from turning into another Scarlet Briar is that you are still connected to the dream and still have some protection from the Mother Tree in the dream. In fact it’s probably taking all of the Mother Tree’s power just to shield the rest of the Sylvari from the dragon’s influence. As the Pale Tree deteriorates many more may fall to the dragon’s influence but in the end Free Will still reigns supreme. Some may choose to help the dragon because they believe it is what the Sylvari were meant to do. The Sylvari PC will probably continue to side with the other races but there will be a significant number – like the Nightmare Court – who will side with the dragon because they think that should be their destiny. Hence, Caithe’s speech about changing Destiny.

I’d also like to point out that the Mother Tree did not WANT Caithe to have the egg and stressed the need that we take it from her. Does the Pale Tree think Caithe is vulnerable to falling to nightmare/mordremoth but the Sylvari PC is not? The Sylvari PC is probably just as vulnerable, having gone through Omadd’s machine just like Scarlet Briar did.

Most Sylvari are probably just gonna continue as is, they know they aren’t evil and that enough for them. The problems occur when other races don’t trust them.

I really just wish anet would confirm if the cut scene with the Pact’s possible defeat is canon or if it is an in-game trailer of things to come that the player knows but the character does not.

the first cutscene is the end of point of no return thus is cannon the second is a trailer for heart of thorns and a vision of whats to come
the first cutscene is the equivalent to the cutscene at the end of battle for lion’s arch

Maybe there are some Sylvari around us who are not from the Pale Tree? We know there is at least 1 Tree deeper in the jungle, and it already sprouted at least 1 Sylvari… Remember Malyck?

Thank you TheReaperTheFourthHorsemen.

Careful OP, the second cutscene was a trailer so until the next update, this knowledge is NOT well known. Doesn’t hurt to have suspicions though