What Might Each Fractal Really Contain?

What Might Each Fractal Really Contain?

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Posted by: Gmr Leon.1846

Gmr Leon.1846

With all the intense discussion here, I thought it might be fun to start a thread where we speculate upon the possibilities of what either Fractal may contain. You don’t need to follow my formatting below, as this was more for myself than anything else and to clarify my position on each of the ideas listed. That being said, what do you all really think each Fractal may hold in store for us?


The possibilities listed below are in order of my suspicion of which may be most likely. The topmost being the likeliest, the bottom being the least likely. As to the mentions of playing as something other than your primary character, the first mentioned is what I consider likeliest, the others very small but still viable possibilities.

The Fall of Abaddon may be:

  • Fighting along a coastline against the empowered human Margonites (who very likely will still resemble humans), and finally Jadoth (who we likely will not beat, as he is later found imprisoned in the Realm of Torment). This final fight may take place in one of the Margonite cities found in the Realm of Torment, if those cities were in fact the warped remains of actual cities on Tyria that fell alongside Abaddon. Players would likely play as themselves or the Forgotten in this scenario. You are unlikely to witness the gods.
  • Fighting across Margonite ships as either your normal characters or Forgotten finally facing down Jadoth. You are unlikely to witness the gods.
  • Fighting in an unknown location that may not be on Tyria, but where the gods held a fortress of some kind, in which Abaddon and his Horde of Darkness sieged the Gates of Heaven. Primary enemies would be the Horde of Darkness, which may in fact appear as transformed Margonites (i.e. what many are highly anticipating) with the end boss possibly being Abaddon or a leader of the Horde. Players may play as themselves, the Forgotten, or the gods. You may in fact see the gods.
  • Fighting in the forms of the gods with custom skills against Margonites and finally facing off against Abaddon. This could also be along a coastline leading on to the site that would later become the Elonian city of Morah. I am doubtful of this as it is an oft missed piece of lore that the descriptions of Arah have tended to refer to its divine inhabitants as primarily being Dwayna, Melandru, and Balthazar. Not to say Grenth and Lyssa did not visit, but it seems they may not have stayed there much. You would definitely see the gods.

The Thaumanova Reactor may be:

  • Fighting through Chaos Beasts to contain the impending massive destruction as a result of the reactor malfunction/sabotage and ultimately fending off a greater Chaos Beast that brings in all manner of enemies. May play as either yourselves, Inquest, Peacemakers, or Arcane Eye.
  • Fighting alongside Arcane Eye agents attempting to sabotage the experiment to prevent the Inquest from gaining some advantage against the Arcane Council to then conquer the rest of the asura. The end result causes the disaster and hasty containment before it can devastate the Tarnished Coast and/or Tyria, with players probably fighting off a greater Chaos Beast or something along those lines to successfully contain the raw destructive power.
  • Fighting through Peacemakers and/or Arcane Eye agents that think they’re quelling a problem before it starts, only to in fact be causing the Thaumanova Reactor disaster. You may play as yourselves in a weird incidental twist alliance with the Inquest here, or you may play as the Inquest.
  • Fighting demons in the Mists as a research team trying to escape to a rift opened by the Thaumanova Reactor experiment, and escaping into Thaumanova incidentally drawing a great demonic force that destabilizes the magical fields that were holding the rift open, requiring its defeat and causing the demon’s energy to merge with the magical fields or devices creating the fields, overriding them and causing the disaster.
Grydd, asuran engineer perpetually gathering materials.
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Posted by: lcpdragonslayer.7895

lcpdragonslayer.7895

Your ideas sound pretty cool, but I just have a feeling that the Thaumanova fractal will not be too different from the Harpy one, which is just meh.

And regardless of which fractal comes out, the FotM community is just going to do the same. Bully the mesmer in the party to blink and portal to avoid second harpy run, take the shortest route possible in Ascalon fractal, stand on the scaffold for Rabsovich, swap to Decorative Stunt Ranger #641 to speargun Mossman from underwater, stack on Archdiviner for last seal…

I think you get my point. The only thing we seem to be interested in is skip skip skip skip skip tokens yay game over (now we have to wait 15 seconds until the list of loot clears) leave instance gg bai bai see you never again PuGers.

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Posted by: Gmr Leon.1846

Gmr Leon.1846

Your ideas sound pretty cool, but I just have a feeling that the Thaumanova fractal will not be too different from the Harpy one, which is just meh.

And regardless of which fractal comes out, the FotM community is just going to do the same. Bully the mesmer in the party to blink and portal to avoid second harpy run, take the shortest route possible in Ascalon fractal, stand on the scaffold for Rabsovich, swap to Decorative Stunt Ranger #641 to speargun Mossman from underwater, stack on Archdiviner for last seal…

I think you get my point. The only thing we seem to be interested in is skip skip skip skip skip tokens yay game over (now we have to wait 15 seconds until the list of loot clears) leave instance gg bai bai see you never again PuGers.

Well obviously both Fractals will eventually be run like every other Fractal, but that doesn’t diminish the fun of speculating on what their contents may be.

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Posted by: Siphaed.9235

Siphaed.9235

My theory on the Thaumanova Reactor is that the Inquest were instead experimenting with Elder Dragon magic in a way of trying to use it to their advantage. In fact, the lore behind Crucible of Eternity is that they built that facility after the TR incident to try to further their research. And that research there is all about harnessing Elder Dragon magic for their own devious reasons.

The reason why this is so key…so essential to the game we’re playing now, is because we’ll get more background lore behind some of the Elder Dragons (whichever one that the Inquest was experimenting on at TR). For all we know, they could be siphoning energy leakage from Primordus through a fissure leading to his domain. This could then play into an eventual expansion into that area of the game, and even the eventual release of Dwarfs as a playable race (yay?).

I’m just putting crazy ideas out there, but I wanted to point out the major flaw in the OP’s theories related to TR: chaos was residual after-effect from the explosion that happened at the facility. So the events leading up to the event will not have chaos creatures in it, but instead have much different enemy play.

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Posted by: Gmr Leon.1846

Gmr Leon.1846

I’m just putting crazy ideas out there, but I wanted to point out the major flaw in the OP’s theories related to TR: chaos was residual after-effect from the explosion that happened at the facility. So the events leading up to the event will not have chaos creatures in it, but instead have much different enemy play.

What leads you to believe that, if we’re experiencing it as it’s going critical, we wouldn’t see those after-effects in fuller force than afterwards? That’s the gist I was thinking at, anyway.

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Posted by: Marcus Greythorne.6843

Marcus Greythorne.6843

Asura so far are all about golems. Look at the tutorial area: Norn get a huge iceworm-beast, Sylvari an earth-dragon and Asura a golem. Look at the Asura fractal: golems. Look at the Asura dungeon: more golems… I highly doubt that we’ll see an Elder Dragon in a 15-30min fractal (although I would love it).

Thaumanova was also a lot about elementals. The fire elemental is a quite bland boss compared to the Shatterer, Tequatl or the cool Modnir-bosses. As the dragons represent the elements, I’d say we see an earth-elemental/tornado, an frost-elemental/tornado, etc etc.

I’d rather learn how the gods look like, especially Abaddon with the GW2 engine. In GW1 he looked pretty epic already. :-/

http://gw2style.com/index.php – show your look and rate others – great filters!!

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Posted by: Siphaed.9235

Siphaed.9235

Asura so far are all about golems. Look at the tutorial area: Norn get a huge iceworm-beast, Sylvari an earth-dragon and Asura a golem. Look at the Asura fractal: golems. Look at the Asura dungeon: more golems… I highly doubt that we’ll see an Elder Dragon in a 15-30min fractal (although I would love it).

Thaumanova was also a lot about elementals. The fire elemental is a quite bland boss compared to the Shatterer, Tequatl or the cool Modnir-bosses. As the dragons represent the elements, I’d say we see an earth-elemental/tornado, an frost-elemental/tornado, etc etc.

I’d rather learn how the gods look like, especially Abaddon with the GW2 engine. In GW1 he looked pretty epic already. :-/

Then do the personal story. As part of it, when you first meet the Eye of Zhiatan, it’s in the lost temple of Abbadon. There is his shrine, and a statue within reflects him. Also the jumping puzzle in the Straights of Devastation has an image mural of him as well.

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Posted by: Gmr Leon.1846

Gmr Leon.1846

Asura so far are all about golems. Look at the tutorial area: Norn get a huge iceworm-beast, Sylvari an earth-dragon and Asura a golem. Look at the Asura fractal: golems. Look at the Asura dungeon: more golems… I highly doubt that we’ll see an Elder Dragon in a 15-30min fractal (although I would love it).

Thaumanova was also a lot about elementals. The fire elemental is a quite bland boss compared to the Shatterer, Tequatl or the cool Modnir-bosses. As the dragons represent the elements, I’d say we see an earth-elemental/tornado, an frost-elemental/tornado, etc etc.

I’d rather learn how the gods look like, especially Abaddon with the GW2 engine. In GW1 he looked pretty epic already. :-/

This would be all the more reason to make it a bit different then. Though who knows whether that would be the case. At any rate, I’m not entirely sure comparing the Fire Elemental to the Shatterer or Tequatl is really appropriate, considering that it’s more on par with say, the Shadow Behemoth, or other starting area bosses. It’s not really meant to be as incredible as Elder Dragon champions.

(And to be fair, after reading up on it, it appears that every other race than humanity gets shafted when it comes to interesting level 15 meta-event boss encounters. A wurm with sylvari, a ghost with charr, and a Son of Svanir with norn. I mean, really?)

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Posted by: rgrwng.4072

rgrwng.4072

if they stick to their fractal design, it would have bosses, traps, stuff to interact with and defeat. Also, since there needs to be more fractals, this new fractal introduces a new tier of fractals past lv80, possibly to 80-100.

lots of jumping puzzle elements, and possibly something like the maw, but on a pve/dragon event scale.

stick to vagueness, people. too many NEW ideas.

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Posted by: Quarktastic.1027

Quarktastic.1027

Disappointment and sadness.

Those armadillos would be a lot cooler if they looked more like real armadillos. mmm armadillos
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Posted by: Marcus Greythorne.6843

Marcus Greythorne.6843

Also, since there needs to be more fractals, this new fractal introduces a new tier of fractals past lv80, possibly to 80-100.

ehm…. I don’t get what you mean

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Posted by: Gmr Leon.1846

Gmr Leon.1846

stick to vagueness, people. too many NEW ideas.

Not that I disagree, but I haven’t seen too many radically new ideas here in particular.

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Posted by: Kal Spiro.9745

Kal Spiro.9745

Why are all the Abbadon senarios situated against Abbadon? It’s a fractal, nothing that happens actually matters or changes anything. We can fight alongside either side and we can beat anyone, there is no reason for their defeat to be interpreted as we successfully kill them.

Also, any situation in which gods are not present in some form during the event is not an appropriate representation of the fall of Abbadon. If there are no gods it’s not the fall of a god.

So, how about a situation that doesn’t actually involve any of the above. We show up somewhere while the gods have already won and are in the process of banishing Abbadon, which would be his fall, no? We don’t actually participate in it, things are just going crazy because of all this god energy. The scene culminates with the gods successfully banishing Abbadon and then potentially winking out of existence because as I understand it that is also when they decided to not stick around anymore.

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Posted by: StriderShinryu.6923

StriderShinryu.6923

Disappointment and sadness.

I’ve gotta go with this answer, sadly. Why? Because we’re talking about a fractal. We’re not talking about a large scale event or epic story that happens over a large amount of time. We’re talking about a maybe 30 minute mini dungeon with little to no actual playable story and designed for repetition via tiered challenge. I have nothing personal against ANet but, to properly tell either tale, there needs to be more than the sort of framework they’re working in.

I also still feel that the likelihood of the much vaunted Abaddon fractal being an underwater one is fairly high, which is something no one seems to be considering.

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Posted by: Quarktastic.1027

Quarktastic.1027

Disappointment and sadness.

I’ve gotta go with this answer, sadly. Why? Because we’re talking about a fractal. We’re not talking about a large scale event or epic story that happens over a large amount of time. We’re talking about a maybe 30 minute mini dungeon with little to no actual playable story and designed for repetition via tiered challenge. I have nothing personal against ANet but, to properly tell either tale, there needs to be more than the sort of framework they’re working in.

I also still feel that the likelihood of the much vaunted Abaddon fractal being an underwater one is fairly high, which is something no one seems to be considering.

People oft forget that Abaddon was a god of water, as well as secrets.

Those armadillos would be a lot cooler if they looked more like real armadillos. mmm armadillos
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