Guild Wars 2

When I logged into the game today, I was horrified to find out that the shrine of Balthazar had just been deleted from the engine to be replaced with the Royal Terrace.

As an RP player, I am just shocked by the complete lack of explanation for this, lore-wise. The shrine has been an important hot-spot for roleplay on Drakkar Lake, and I think on the other inofficial RP-servers as well.

I know that RPers only form a very minor part of the community and that we are not lucrative. But I just don’t understand the reasons for this change, and I hope that some devs can explain the following things to me:

- why has the Royal Terrace been put in this place and not on the other side of the former Great Collapse? There’s literally nothing there, except for a vista at the side.
- what is the explanation for a queen wiping a sacred place from a city called Divinity’s Reach? That could be considered blasphemy.
- what do the priests of Balthazar and the practising soldiers say to this, lore-wise? The Crown Pavillon is an arena, and Balthazar is the god of fighting, but there is not a single connection to him in this new patch, so it’s no replacement for the shrine.
- will the shrine come back or will it be permanently gone?

I hope that there are answers for this, thanks in advance.

I agree. I’m not a role-player but I was very surprised when I noticed this as well.

I don’t know exactly how Tyrian human beliefs work on this point but it seems like it should be at least mildly controversial to remove a shrine to one of the gods to create a ‘shopping area’. And if there’s one deity in Tyria I wouldn’t want to offend it’s Balthazar.

At the very least I feel like they should have added an NPC to comment on it or something. At least acknowledge that it’s gone. But really leaving it in place would have made sense with the giant fighting arena added just next to it.

This is an outrage.

I blame Kiel.

I am so sad I did not get to see all of DR before the changes. I was afraid of physical changes to the city, I just hoped it wasn’t going to be too bad but it was. x.x

Never got to see this temple or the hole. :[

The shrine has been an important hot-spot for roleplay on Drakkar Lake, and I think on the other inofficial RP-servers as well.

Wait. They did what now?

Meriem.3504:

I am so sad I did not get to see all of DR before the changes. I was afraid of physical changes to the city, I just hoped it wasn’t going to be too bad but it was. x.x

Never got to see this temple or the hole. :[

Its not a temple. Its more of a statue with a training circle in front of it and then ramps leading up to a platform with more training area behind the statue.

The great collapse was cool to see, but we had to expect it’d be gone eventually. It was a giant hole in the ground. It’d have to be fixed. But the removal of that shrine? The heck?

And its doubly silly to remove BALTHAZAR’s shrine from next to an arena.

Devs, is this working as intended? Was this an oversight? Please fix it, if it was.

Alleluia.1320:

Its not a temple. Its more of a statue with a training circle in front of it and then ramps leading up to a platform with more training area behind the statue.

Not quite.

It was a shrine, which makes it a clerical place that is being looked after by priests. It’s not as huge a temple as the shrine of the Six in the centre of the city, but a shrine nevertheless.

There was an NPC priestess of Balthazar watching over the practising just as in the old times of the Zaishen, and there were Seraph coming to pay their respect und salutes to the glowing statue und the priests, just as they do in the big temple at the side of the palace.

And there’s just no logic in tearing such a thing down and not even replacing it – the new arena has barely got any connection to Balthazar’s mentality.

Agroman.7190:

Alleluia.1320:

Its not a temple. Its more of a statue with a training circle in front of it and then ramps leading up to a platform with more training area behind the statue.

Not quite.

It was a shrine, which makes it a clerical place that is being looked after by priests. It’s not as huge a temple as the shrine of the Six in the centre of the city, but a shrine nevertheless.

There was an NPC priestess of Balthazar watching over the practising just as in the old times of the Zaishen, and there were Seraph coming to pay their respect und salutes to the glowing statue und the priests, just as they do in the big temple at the side of the palace.

And there’s just no logic in tearing such a thing down and not even replacing it – the new arena has barely got any connection to Balthazar’s mentality.

I wasn’t arguing it wasn’t a shrine, just that it wasn’t a temple. A temple requires a building or a canopy, something with a roof. A shrine just requires a statue, which is what this area was.

And yeah, more war god in the ceremonial combat district, please. Or at least the old amount of war god that used to be there…

Maybe the next part of the storyline is Balthazar getting kitten ed and raining down hell upon the Queen for kicking his statue out of the way.

The arena has lots of space for a few Balthazar props… just sayig.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The actual shrine to Balthazar is near the Balthazar waypoint. Yes his statue used to be down there but I’m fairly certain the human god of warfare doesn’t mind having a secondary shrine replaced by an arena.

It wasn’t an oversight. There wasn’t any need for the second, smaller shrine down there.

Except that it was cool and an rp hotspot (at least for Tarnished Coast and, apparently, Drakkar Lake).

Is there a chance we’ll get it back and the Royal Terrace moved to some other spot? Or, if it absolutely has to be, the shrine moved to another spot?

(EDIT: Forgot to say, thanks for the response. I know this isn’t a huge issue like the fight over the Gauntlet being permanent or not so I appreciate it.)

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The actual shrine to Balthazar is near the Balthazar waypoint. Yes his statue used to be down there but I’m fairly certain the human god of warfare doesn’t mind having a secondary shrine replaced by an arena.

It wasn’t an oversight. There wasn’t any need for the second, smaller shrine down there.

Was there an warning or anything in terms of changes to the the great collaspe were going to be made? I would of liked to explore that spot before it was drastically changed and I am not very far in the game like others are so I did not get to check that area out which seemed really neat from the SS I have seen. I will never get to do that Vista either QQ

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The actual shrine to Balthazar is near the Balthazar waypoint. Yes his statue used to be down there but I’m fairly certain the human god of warfare doesn’t mind having a secondary shrine replaced by an arena.

It wasn’t an oversight. There wasn’t any need for the second, smaller shrine down there.

tbh, they should have a statue of him at the HEAD of the Arena. it’s the only arena in the city, & no Balth?

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The actual shrine to Balthazar is near the Balthazar waypoint. Yes his statue used to be down there but I’m fairly certain the human god of warfare doesn’t mind having a secondary shrine replaced by an arena.

It wasn’t an oversight. There wasn’t any need for the second, smaller shrine down there.

Then why do all other shrines have smaller secondary shrines left or right of the main streets? If nothing else, this destroys the pattern.

Meriem.3504:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The actual shrine to Balthazar is near the Balthazar waypoint. Yes his statue used to be down there but I’m fairly certain the human god of warfare doesn’t mind having a secondary shrine replaced by an arena.

It wasn’t an oversight. There wasn’t any need for the second, smaller shrine down there.

Was there an warning or anything in terms of changes to the the great collaspe were going to be made? I would of liked to explore that spot before it was drastically changed and I am not very far in the game like others are so I did not get to check that area out which seemed really neat from the SS I have seen. I will never get to do that Vista either QQ

You can still do the vista. It was lowered vertically a bit, but its still accessible. You just have to climb a topiary now. lol

ASaturnus.4980:

Then why do all other shrines have smaller secondary shrines left or right of the main streets? If nothing else, this destroys the pattern.

This is a very good point. I’d honestly never noticed that pattern before, but you’re right.

DarksunG.9537:

tbh, they should have a statue of him at the HEAD of the Arena. it’s the only arena in the city, & no Balth?

Also this.

That’s the point. It wouldn’t have been THAT bad if there had at least been a thought about Balthazar when designing the arena.

How can there be such a huge arena right in Divinity’s Reach, the human capital, without even the slightest tribute to the god of war and arenas being implemented?

This is outrageous. I’m not an RPer but I do remember liking that place and shrine alot. I was definitely one of the cooler places in DR. And it gets replaced by a worthless area with vendors…? Shouldn’t humans pay respect to Balthazar wherever there’s war, battles and arenas? In GW humans had the Great Temple of Balthazar as the main hub on the battle isles. There were arenas there but alot revolved around this god. Balthazar faction, the Balthazar statue etc. It just seems weird to remove this. At least put a statue and priest in front of the arena or something. Or you can put it on the arena’s ledges where there’s currently nothing going on anyway.

Meriem.3504:

Was there an warning or anything in terms of changes to the the great collaspe were going to be made?

There were.

A lot of neat stuff goes by un-noticed by the players. There have been scaffolding and structures slowly growing in the collapse area for a while now. A definite indicator that something was progressively being built.

In Lions Arch there is an area with a little Asura that has been hard working on gates since head start began. When the game launched it was just piles of rocks and dismantled gate frames. Now they look like they are all but functional.

I’m sure there is a lot more that is actively going on and changing in the world but we don’t notice because the changes happen over time and Anet doesn’t point them out to us. Maybe at some point there will be consequence to us not noticing what NPCs are up to when they don’t have an orange circle around them. Maybe there already have been.

AcidicVision.5498:

Meriem.3504:

Was there an warning or anything in terms of changes to the the great collaspe were going to be made?

There were.

A lot of neat stuff goes by un-noticed by the players. There have been scaffolding and structures slowly growing in the collapse area for a while now. A definite indicator that something was progressively being built.

Yes there was scaffolding and construction around the great collapse, but there was never any indication the area with Balthazar’s shrine was getting a remodel. It was untouched and had constant NPC sparring sessions going like normal up till this update.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The actual shrine to Balthazar is near the Balthazar waypoint. Yes his statue used to be down there but I’m fairly certain the human god of warfare doesn’t mind having a secondary shrine replaced by an arena.

It wasn’t an oversight. There wasn’t any need for the second, smaller shrine down there.

Zhaitan devoured the human gods. He told me through the overpowered, champion gorilla spawning risen priestess of Lyssa. So he cannot have an opinion now.

World design and narrative takes a back seat to a cash shop trinket…

The Royal Terrace itself, with the merchants/stations within, isn’t even laid out in a believable way. I would rather use the crafting stations from release. At least they look cool and fit in the world, even the smaller ones out in the starting zones.

AcidicVision.5498:

Meriem.3504:

Was there an warning or anything in terms of changes to the the great collaspe were going to be made?

There were.

A lot of neat stuff goes by un-noticed by the players. There have been scaffolding and structures slowly growing in the collapse area for a while now. A definite indicator that something was progressively being built.

In Lions Arch there is an area with a little Asura that has been hard working on gates since head start began. When the game launched it was just piles of rocks and dismantled gate frames. Now they look like they are all but functional.

I’m sure there is a lot more that is actively going on and changing in the world but we don’t notice because the changes happen over time and Anet doesn’t point them out to us. Maybe at some point there will be consequence to us not noticing what NPCs are up to when they don’t have an orange circle around them. Maybe there already have been.

No I meant an announcement x.x I never ever stepped foot in the area cause I waiting to reach it with my RP. I wonder how big and deep the hole was in comparison with what is going on now! : s

Balthazzar approves of having a statue of him replaced with a combat arena. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

Lucky.9421:

World design and narrative takes a back seat to a cash shop trinket…

The Royal Terrace itself, with the merchants/stations within, isn’t even laid out in a believable way. I would rather use the crafting stations from release. At least they look cool and fit in the world, even the smaller ones out in the starting zones.

The Royal Terrace has a very nice looking design and is laid out believably. The only problem I have with it is that it replaced Balthazar’s shrine.

Please, devs, is it possible to put his shrine back? Or at least put his shrine in another spot?

There’s an area on the other side of the shrine that just has a bare wooden stage. I’m not sure if it’s used by RPers or NPCs but if not that could be a good site to put the statue.

Why not just construct a statue of Balthazar INSIDE the Arena?

Afterall, since he’s the Tyrian god of War, it would make sense if he was inside the Queens Pavilion center square.

Alleluia.1320:

The Royal Terrace has a very nice looking design and is laid out believably.

An armorsmithing station that is just an anvil on a table? <.<

As opposed to the complete forges elsewhere with all the tools and everything set out.

Lucky.9421:

Alleluia.1320:

The Royal Terrace has a very nice looking design and is laid out believably.

An armorsmithing station that is just an anvil on a table? <.<

As opposed to the complete forges elsewhere with all the tools and everything set out.

Ok, you have a point there. But the overall design of the place still does look nice.

Kain Francois.4328:

Why not just construct a statue of Balthazar INSIDE the Arena?

Afterall, since he’s the Tyrian god of War, it would make sense if he was inside the Queens Pavilion center square.

That’d be good, too, but the arena will be closed when not in use for an event, so having a shrine outside to replace the one that was replaced is most important here, imo.

Should have just had a giant Balthazar instead of a big hawk :p

I absolutely agree that there could have been more Balthazar-themed surroundings in the arena. Perhaps it is possible to implement something like that after the celebrations are over?

Danikat.8537:

There’s an area on the other side of the shrine that just has a bare wooden stage. I’m not sure if it’s used by RPers or NPCs but if not that could be a good site to put the statue.

I doubt that this is a good choice since it’s right next to a big tavern.

Barabbas.8715:

Balthazzar approves of having a statue of him replaced with a combat arena. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

You are confusing him with the Charr!

Meriem.3504:

AcidicVision.5498:

Meriem.3504:

Was there an warning or anything in terms of changes to the the great collaspe were going to be made?

There were.

A lot of neat stuff goes by un-noticed by the players. There have been scaffolding and structures slowly growing in the collapse area for a while now. A definite indicator that something was progressively being built.

In Lions Arch there is an area with a little Asura that has been hard working on gates since head start began. When the game launched it was just piles of rocks and dismantled gate frames. Now they look like they are all but functional.

I’m sure there is a lot more that is actively going on and changing in the world but we don’t notice because the changes happen over time and Anet doesn’t point them out to us. Maybe at some point there will be consequence to us not noticing what NPCs are up to when they don’t have an orange circle around them. Maybe there already have been.

No I meant an announcement x.x I never ever stepped foot in the area cause I waiting to reach it with my RP. I wonder how big and deep the hole was in comparison with what is going on now! : s

You’re RPing… You should expect the world to change without you. Unless you’re RPing a time lord.

Agroman.7190:

I absolutely agree that there could have been more Balthazar-themed surroundings in the arena. Perhaps it is possible to implement something like that after the celebrations are over?

This would be good. Implementing a new statue in the arena itself or maybe a new training grounds/shrine thing somewhere else in the district, since I believe they’ve said the pavilion will not be accessible when there aren’t events happening.. They could also replace the white tents on the hill directly opposite the royal terrace, on the other corner of the Balthazar Low road, and put it there. It would give them time to implement if they waited till the festivities were over.

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

No I meant an announcement x.x I never ever stepped foot in the area cause I waiting to reach it with my RP. I wonder how big and deep the hole was in comparison with what is going on now! : s

You’re RPing… You should expect the world to change without you. Unless you’re RPing a time lord.[/quote]

Still doesn’t change the fact there was no warning about the shrine changing. Not like the giant tent and scaffolding over the hole.

I see this as all sorts of failure.

First up the issue of the temple.

The actual shrine to Balthazar is near the Balthazar waypoint. Yes his statue used to be down there but I’m fairly certain the human god of warfare doesn’t mind having a secondary shrine replaced by an arena.

It wasn’t an oversight. There wasn’t any need for the second, smaller shrine down there.

I took a look today to find this “shrine” you speak of, and to the best of me I can’t find it. The only thing that is near that way-point is a lone statue. The other god’s (minus Dwayna because the never ending circus is in town) have temples along with the statue. (see attached picture) Lyssa even has two! This means Balthazar, one of the major gods in the first game has nothing but a statue in divinity’s reach.

Simply put, to remove it was a major mistake.

Additionally the decision on placement had to be a horrible failure. If someone where to tear down a church to build a subscription only shopping district in real life, there would be massive outrage. If Balthazar would see this I’m sure he would level the entire area with fire. (New living story :o ??)

The thing that has got me upset the most is I can think of tons of better locations than this!

-Opposite side of the pavilion where there is nothing but shrubs and filler. This would be the best “fix” location as it would only require to mirror the Royal Terrance then move it over.
-On the lower floors of the pavilion that are currently reachable via teleport door but have no use.
-In the upper city. There’s plenty of open space in there.
-create a balcony on the inner or outer wall. you already use a teleport field to block people from entering.
-Hovering under the eagle, above the pit. That would look like an epic era if your looking for exclusivity.

I can’t see why you would have chosen this location for a premium area. When choosing a premium location you want a place that people would want to enter. Not just for convenience but for the fact they can be there. I would explain more but it would double this post

I hope you can see the issues with this choice and move the royal Terrance to a less controversial location where everyone can be happy with it.

I couldn’t agree more, zerorogue.

The Royal Terrace just destroys the whole symetry of shrines / consecrated places in Divinity’s Reach.

If the official statement is really pointing towards the statues on the High Roads being the ‘true shrines’, we have to accept that, but still, this is not at all a reason to say that the secondary shrines were unnecessary.

Most of them have a practical use, the Balthazar one definitely had, and at the moment the Crown Pavillon doesn’t really replace it at all – there’s no military practice yard there, not even a single statue paying respect to Balthazar.

I think that it wouldn’t be much of a problem to implement something like that for the sake of consequent lore, if the Royal Terrace is really gonna stay.

I took a picture of the shrine literally days ago as a part of a personal tour of DR… Man, that place was awesome, and it got replaced by a pay-to-enter, mini Lion’s Arch. How lame.

I agree, why would you remove that sparring arena that the seraph were using to train? I can’t believe it’s gone now

I didn’t really have an opinion on this until people started getting up in arms about it. Reminds me distastefully of real-life religious zealotry. Guess what, human culture is not, nor should be, solely about the gods. In fact, the official stance on this, as laid out by Angel Leigh McCoy in an interview (http://esprits-dorr.fr/node/261), is that the human gods are less important to the people than ever.

That being the case, I really think you can stop whining about this. You still can’t swing a dead charr in DR without hitting something or somebody referencing the Six. I look forward to the day that’s no longer the case.

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

I didn’t really have an opinion on this until people started getting up in arms about it. Reminds me distastefully of real-life religious zealotry. Guess what, human culture is not, nor should be, solely about the gods. In fact, the official stance on this, as laid out by Angel Leigh McCoy in an interview (http://esprits-dorr.fr/node/261), is that the human gods are less important to the people than ever.

Except in this case, it’s very different from real life religions. Human gods are not the creationist type of gods, they were the guys that brought humanity to Tyria (and yes, humans are aliens on Tyria) and are the ones that gave them power to compete with everyone else.

Tyrian humans would’ve been wiped out without the gods helping them. Even if the gods are now absent from Tyria, many humans can use powers granted by them (like racial skills).

They aren’t the kind of real life religion that you believe if you have faith. They are the guys that made humanity what they are today and everyone in Tyria knows that, no matter if they have faith or not on them.

The guys angry about that change aren’t religious zealots, they simply love lore and it makes very litle sense for humanity to destroy what makes them special and replace it with a premium mini Lion’s Arc.

I agree with many others that there were more available spots for that new terrace, and still can (probably should) be moved there.

In fact in the first place I can think of other places where the whole new area could’ve been without completly destroying the possibility of the Canthan district oficially returning to the lore (and there are many ingame dialogues implying the existence of a Canthan district, though they don’t say where, given how all districts from other nations are lined there, it was the likely location). Now they have “oficially” written the lore of the zone to be the old arts district (which could’ve been the Canthan district at the same time, but they negated it) and replaced by this. That the Balthazar’s shrine was there made even more sense due to the Zaishen order being related with canthans.

I guess they made it like a symbol of building something glorious in a place that was completly destroyed to prove humanity’s worth, but I still would’ve liked for them to wait a bit more until the asian architecture issues or whatever it was were solved to make a proper Canthan district.

dargosian.2704:

I took a picture of the shrine literally days ago as a part of a personal tour of DR… Man, that place was awesome, and it got replaced by a pay-to-enter, mini Lion’s Arch. How lame.

Yay! Thank you for posting a picture. I’m still sad I don’t have one of my own. Especially since Balthazar is my human’s god of choice. :/

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

I didn’t really have an opinion on this until people started getting up in arms about it. Reminds me distastefully of real-life religious zealotry.

Cool story, Bro. Still want the shrine back in some manner. (Or at least an in-game reaction to it just disappearing like this. But still infinitely prefer the return of the shrine if possible.)

Edit: Maybe they could move the royal terrace behind the stadium where this rather unfortunately proportioned set piece is? (Compare its size to both my character and the watchknight on the bottom left of the first pic. It’s way too small to be so close.) And they could have an exclusive elevator portal leading up to it or something.

Oh dear. Balthazar is angered. Perhaps he will rain fire on the upstarts who removed his shrine….

And warm his hands over Kryta’s flames!

Katz.5143:

Oh dear. Balthazar is angered. Perhaps he will rain fire on the upstarts who removed his shrine….

And warm his hands over Kryta’s flames!

So you saying Scarlet might be Balthazar’s daughter?

Or his minion. ……….

Katz.5143:

Or his minion. ……….

Either way it would make her more interesting than the ‘time travel’ and ‘scarlet=livia’ theories.