Guild Wars 2

Erukk.1408:

Kasmeer went to go get the Queen to agree to attend the summit, but she was never send to go talk to her. She herself admitted that would probably be impossible.

Kasmeer: I think our best shot is to talk to Countess Anise. If anyone can get the queen’s ear, it’s her. I just hope she has time to hear us out.
Player: So you don’t think the queen will talk to you?
Kasmeer: Even when my family was in good standing, it was tough to get an audience with her. And now? Well…she’s very busy, you know?

And as much as players like to think being Commander of the Pact gives them special status everywhere, it still don’t allow them to instantly gain audiences and access to the leadership of every nation. They can probably request a meeting, and possibly get priority given their rank, but they have to go through the channels like everyone else.

EXACTLY!

I’m sorry, but a well known military hero in the USA can’t just march into t white house and instantly get a meeting with the President.

Why should we be able to?

edit: And as somebody else said, the Arcane Council probably only vaguely knows my human noble, Whitebear and Smolder the same way as Whitebear met my necromancer ONCE.

Jennah on the other hand, knows my character decently well because of PS and CM combined.

Likewise flipping it around, Knut Whitebear might know my guardian very well (Being a Norn), but the Arcane council wouldn’t know a thing about her. Jennah only interacting with her once if we are talking PS/dungeons as character stories

Erukk.1408:

RedStar.4218:

Yeah she only says that line to Sylvari, yet every other race also saw her at the center of the Eternal Alchemy and she isn’t protecting them.

That entire scene wasn’t too good. But the “(gasp) no !” is still priceless.

This was kinda answered in the “not Sylvari” dialogue…

Pale Tree: What dangers have you been toying with? Such things were not meant to be seen. They will crack your mind.
Player: I didn’t understand much of the vision, but you were at the center.
Pale Tree: If this was the device that Ceara used, then it must have maintained some of her touch upon it. But, I do not know what it could mean. Only you can know that.

It could be taken a number of ways, but I’m guessing it might just boil down to, “We might have seen a part of the Eternal Alchemy, but more importantly, we saw Scarlet’s version of it.”

That doesn’t make things better >.> If you’re a Sylvari “you saw me because I protect you” and if you’re a human “You saw me because…I don’t know”.

But I agree with you, the best way to get some sense out of it is “we saw what Scarlet saw, nothing more”.

RedStar.4218:

Erukk.1408:

RedStar.4218:

Yeah she only says that line to Sylvari, yet every other race also saw her at the center of the Eternal Alchemy and she isn’t protecting them.

That entire scene wasn’t too good. But the “(gasp) no !” is still priceless.

This was kinda answered in the “not Sylvari” dialogue…

Pale Tree: What dangers have you been toying with? Such things were not meant to be seen. They will crack your mind.
Player: I didn’t understand much of the vision, but you were at the center.
Pale Tree: If this was the device that Ceara used, then it must have maintained some of her touch upon it. But, I do not know what it could mean. Only you can know that.

It could be taken a number of ways, but I’m guessing it might just boil down to, “We might have seen a part of the Eternal Alchemy, but more importantly, we saw Scarlet’s version of it.”

That doesn’t make things better >.> If you’re a Sylvari “you saw me because I protect you” and if you’re a human “You saw me because…I don’t know”.

But I agree with you, the best way to get some sense out of it is “we saw what Scarlet saw, nothing more”.

I think the pale tree is just a flat out liar. The convo with her no matter what race you were was just all kinds of suspicious. She’s a liar i tells yah.

Kalavier.1097:

Erukk.1408:

Kasmeer went to go get the Queen to agree to attend the summit, but she was never send to go talk to her. She herself admitted that would probably be impossible.

Kasmeer: I think our best shot is to talk to Countess Anise. If anyone can get the queen’s ear, it’s her. I just hope she has time to hear us out.
Player: So you don’t think the queen will talk to you?
Kasmeer: Even when my family was in good standing, it was tough to get an audience with her. And now? Well…she’s very busy, you know?

And as much as players like to think being Commander of the Pact gives them special status everywhere, it still don’t allow them to instantly gain audiences and access to the leadership of every nation. They can probably request a meeting, and possibly get priority given their rank, but they have to go through the channels like everyone else.

EXACTLY!

I’m sorry, but a well known military hero in the USA can’t just march into t white house and instantly get a meeting with the President.

Why should we be able to?

edit: And as somebody else said, the Arcane Council probably only vaguely knows my human noble, Whitebear and Smolder the same way as Whitebear met my necromancer ONCE.

Jennah on the other hand, knows my character decently well because of PS and CM combined.

Likewise flipping it around, Knut Whitebear might know my guardian very well (Being a Norn), but the Arcane council wouldn’t know a thing about her. Jennah only interacting with her once if we are talking PS/dungeons as character stories

This argument kind of fails with Jennah and Knut, actually, since they openly allow people to meet with them. Talk to the people outside Jennah’s throne room, and you’d see that’s the case there as mere peasants are waiting for their appointment with the Queen. And Knut has stories about how he himself is settling disputes in Hoelbrak rather than letting Wolfborn handle it.

Smodur makes sense that we can’t meet him… except that during Flame and Frost, if you had completed Forging the Pact, you were allowed in the Defense Quorum to talk with the Tribunes and Imperator himself!

Apparently the charr hold the Commanders of the Pact in high regard.

“Waiting for their appointment” being the key term. Sure, anybody can get a meeting maybe, but in a schedule. More effective to leave a message with somebody not tied down in meetings or having a waiting list to see then trying to either wait in line OR barge past everybody else and make yourself look like a jerk :P. Also don’t those refugee farmers mention they’ve been waiting for a WHILE to get their meeting?

Course, my point was moreso about how your rep might not instantly grant you an meeting, or a 100% “Will attend” result. And why would the Arcane Council truly listen to a Norn, charr, or anybody non-asura really? I mean, Asura are egotistical by nature almost all the time, and the Arcane Council can show that to the max. The Norn or Charr yeah, I could see them listening to somebody proven, but Asura are harder to convince. Jennah for sure accepts because Kryta is much more stable now and she’s all for the alliances already :P.

It’s one thing to say “As commander of the Pact, I’d like be listened to.”, another to go “I’m commander of the Pact, I can barge into any nation leader office I want and say my piece, then walk off and they’ll agree to it because I’m RESPECTED!” :P

Kalavier.1097:

“Waiting for their appointment” being the key term. Sure, anybody can get a meeting maybe, but in a schedule. More effective to leave a message with somebody not tied down in meetings or having a waiting list to see then trying to either wait in line OR barge past everybody else and make yourself look like a jerk :P. Also don’t those refugee farmers mention they’ve been waiting for a WHILE to get their meeting?

Course, my point was moreso about how your rep might not instantly grant you an meeting, or a 100% “Will attend” result. And why would the Arcane Council truly listen to a Norn, charr, or anybody non-asura really? I mean, Asura are egotistical by nature almost all the time, and the Arcane Council can show that to the max. The Norn or Charr yeah, I could see them listening to somebody proven, but Asura are harder to convince. Jennah for sure accepts because Kryta is much more stable now and she’s all for the alliances already :P.

It’s one thing to say “As commander of the Pact, I’d like be listened to.”, another to go “I’m commander of the Pact, I can barge into any nation leader office I want and say my piece, then walk off and they’ll agree to it because I’m RESPECTED!” :P

if head of NATO send an emergency letter and ask for meeting then those leaders should be pretty stupid not to accept.
pact is like nato of tyria in charge of fighting elder dragons, now if commander of the pact (you) can not get asap meeting on very important matter. then those leaders have some issues.
the point is kasmeer who is a nobody now, and you are her boss is needed to set up meeting with queen and pale tree, what she has that you as commander of pact do not have.
same goes for rox and braham and taimi.

That analogue would work. IF the COUNTRIES were part of the Pact.
That is not the case. The Pact is made up by the ORDERS and as such they have no power in the different countries.
Which seems to be the whole point of the current summit. To gather the COUNTRIES under one banner and confront the Dragon.

lordkrall.7241:

That analogue would work. IF the COUNTRIES were part of the Pact.
That is not the case. The Pact is made up by the ORDERS and as such they have no power in the different countries.
Which seems to be the whole point of the current summit. To gather the COUNTRIES under one banner and confront the Dragon.

And that’s where things start making even less sense. The main goal of the Orders is to deal with the ED and they have no problem recruiting people.
The countries however have a ton of stuff to deal with so they leave the ED to the Orders so they can take care of non-ED related trouble.
Why bother rallying the countries when the Pact already exists.

I would assume because they figured out that the Pact is not strong enough to defeat the aggressiveness of Mordy.

I think the point that was seriously poorly explained is that the OP and Pale Tree don’t think that just the three Orders giving partial resources into the Pact (take note that one of the major points of the Orders’ involvement in Season 1 was that it wasn’t the Pact’s involvement, but the individual Orders’ showing that the Orders aren’t fully merged or supporting the Pact) will be enough to deal with Mordremoth after the losses accumulated with fighting Zhaitan – that the Pact, though it likely has regained strength by now, is not up to par to the threat of Mordremoth.

Why they think that – especially the PC – is unknown, unstated, and unhinted at beyond the vision. Apparently it gave far more than what players were able to infer.

But it seems to be a common thing that they’re skipping on some of the details and missing opportunities for a fuller, fleshier, story narrative.

Sindex.9520:

The other portions of us getting the leaders together is in the writers eye’s an excuse based on that it technically never happened during the PS. The leaders of the 5 major races of Tyria don’t seem to back the Pact, because of their own personal issues. If they do then it must be in a verily arbitrary way.

The Pale Tree obviously backs the Pact, and there are less obvious indications that Jennah and Smodur do as well (from Jennah, we have her sending Logan off and a number of other Seraph characters that show up in the Pact – usually the Vigil – later, and in Smodur’s case, look at the motivation for why the Pact is in Fireheart Rise). The Arcane Council put its head in the sand in the Personal Story, and Whitebear’s focus has always been on Hoelbrak – it’s not the norn way to send armies to deal with greater threats, the norn way is to do for yourself what’s important to do yourself and trust that other norn will go after other problems on their own accord in order to build their legend.

RedStar.4218:

lordkrall.7241:

That analogue would work. IF the COUNTRIES were part of the Pact.
That is not the case. The Pact is made up by the ORDERS and as such they have no power in the different countries.
Which seems to be the whole point of the current summit. To gather the COUNTRIES under one banner and confront the Dragon.

And that’s where things start making even less sense. The main goal of the Orders is to deal with the ED and they have no problem recruiting people.
The countries however have a ton of stuff to deal with so they leave the ED to the Orders so they can take care of non-ED related trouble.
Why bother rallying the countries when the Pact already exists.

Because the Pact was bloodied fighting Zhaitan, and with how the vines can possibly show up anywhere, it’s better to have all the races on the same page?

Also, Kryta is fairly stable right now, it doesn’t have DIRE pressing threats atm.

Basically, it’s giving the Pact a boost in manpower to better combat the jungle dragon.

Which is just what you are asuming.
As long as I see this bloodied pact, which fought Zaithan about 2 Years ago even attempting fighting the new thread, then I cannot take the escalation to Continent Alliance (Tyria Alliance) seriously.

Also:

The PC, over the course of his personal story has connection to his racial leader, the representative of Destiny Edge, the currentLeader of the Pact, who is a firstborn Sylvari (secondborn?), met the pale Tree and has connection to all order leaders.

He has prooven his worth to all of them and subsequently his word should have a lot of worth, since he is a veteran of several battles…

And yet someone being a veteran of several battles during WWII wouldn’t really have the ability to simply walk into the White House or Buckingham Palace just like that.

The PC have proven its worth to the Pact, not to the world as a whole.

No, but he has connections.
Connections to people in power and he can use them to be heard.
That is what I am talking about.

Isn’t that what we are doing though?
But instead of wasting our own time we send our new friends, which also have connections, to talk to some of the important people?

We would most likely have lost quite a bit of time if we personally had to visit and convince everyone to join the Summit.

I don`t know. How about simply writing a mail?

Jaken.6801:

I don`t know. How about simply writing a mail?

because i’m playing an RPG, not a mail-writing simulator. it’s far more interesting to go and do stuff to “earn” those alliances than it is to write letters all day. that’s what trahearne is for.

Jaken.6801:

Which is just what you are asuming.
As long as I see this bloodied pact, which fought Zaithan about 2 Years ago even attempting fighting the new thread, then I cannot take the escalation to Continent Alliance (Tyria Alliance) seriously.

Also:

The PC, over the course of his personal story has connection to his racial leader, the representative of Destiny Edge, the currentLeader of the Pact, who is a firstborn Sylvari (secondborn?), met the pale Tree and has connection to all order leaders.

He has prooven his worth to all of them and subsequently his word should have a lot of worth, since he is a veteran of several battles…

A: Bloodied then. It’s had time to rebuild it’s strength up. Even then, Trahearne’s letter mentions with the nations backing the Pact (or simply united and working alongside), they’d likely loose a lot less people then the Pact did fighting Zhaitan.

B; As said, being a war hero doesn’t just mean you can barge into high ranking officials offices whenever you please and demand stuff. Besides that fact that could make them in a sour mood (depending on person) and somewhat less likely to listen fully.

Jaken.6801:

I don`t know. How about simply writing a mail?

Then you wait for it to arrive and actually be read. Or hope it doesn’t get lost while mail is being sorted by an aide to the leader.

In the personal story the Pact isn’t formed until well after Zhaitan attacks Claw island, Lions arch and (depending which part of the story you do) laying siege to Vigil keep with abominations, liches and giant bone catapults. It’s a full on assault.

Now we see Mordremoth attacking a few outposts, and he’s an even bigger threat?

Mordremoth have already spread across a very large part of Tyria (much larger than Zhaitan) within days of waking up.
It took Zhaitan years before it made its move against Claw Island.

Zhaitan had forces in Caledon forest, Kessex hills, Gendarren fields, the Bloodtide coast Sparkfly Fen, the Timberline Falls, and Mount Maelstrom, and of course the Straits of Devastation, and still we didn’t even have the Pact.

Eight continental regions invaded, and four races leaders did nothing.

After Zhaitan attacked Lion’s Arch, only one of the five races leaders did anything.

It feels forced.

The ley lines, well, the ley lines are just an excuse for anything. Mordremoth can be all over anything because: ley lines. They are literally a mekhane used to get an actor onto the stage. It’d be hilarious pun, if only it wasn’t being used seriously.

We should be in Maguma, trying to root out Mordrem (no pun intended), and find the Master, not running around on what feels like a wild goose chase.

And there doesn’t seem to be any point to all this running around anyway, when the solution is apparently a Machina ex Prodigium, and our portentous little Asura only needs us to run errands for her.

Some parts of this story feel like we’re just being herded back to some old regions and forced to do some old DE because they thought not enough people had seen them. I liked those regions, and those DE are actually some of the most interesting in the game, but not with a Zerg all over them.

It just feels all miss-matched and cobbled together, like some parts of LS1.

I feel like the meta reward at the end of all this will be mounts, in the form of dragon drawn chariots .

Again, you seem to be missing the point of the fact those risen numbers are after… years to DECADES of slow creep.

All this stuff? Within a month of Mordremoth waking.

And GUESS WHAT, the Pact and orders kicked into gear in the PS story, which involved Risen expanding/stepping up their game. Again, it’s not a slow but steady push and nudge here or there. It’s a “WHAM, Plant enemies all over this fort instantly.”

BrunoBRS.5178:

Jaken.6801:

I don`t know. How about simply writing a mail?

because i’m playing an RPG, not a mail-writing simulator. it’s far more interesting to go and do stuff to “earn” those alliances than it is to write letters all day. that’s what trahearne is for.

We seem to get mail in the LS often enough. Why not let Traherne organise the summit and send us a letter to let us know what happened.

You are ignoring the fact that it took 106 YEARS from Zhaitans awakening until it actually attacks Claw Island.

And we don’t know how long it took for it to send to troops to the other areas, but quite likely rather long (and none of them were actually organized attacks).

Mordremoth on the other hand have in just a bunch of days sent active, organized attacks across most of the continent.

So yeah, I would say it is rather logical to see Mordy as a bigger threat than Zhaitan and the other Dragons.

Kalavier.1097:

Again, you seem to be missing the point of the fact those risen numbers are after… years to DECADES of slow creep.

All this stuff? Within a month of Mordremoth waking.

And GUESS WHAT, the Pact and orders kicked into gear in the PS story, which involved Risen expanding/stepping up their game. Again, it’s not a slow but steady push and nudge here or there. It’s a “WHAM, Plant enemies all over this fort instantly.”

And your missing the point that Mordremoth has been sprung onto stage like an actor who hadn’t even learnt his lines yet (leaving the audience to consult their program to find out who this guy is, because he wasn’t even named until just now), and everyone, even the other actors, are just scratching their heads trying to figure out how to ad-lib without looking like idiots.

I get that Mordremoth is suddenly all over the place. That’s part of the problem, plot wise. What I don’t get is that the solution seems to be a summit of leaders, instead of a summit of axes and flaming oil.

How many world leaders does it take to say “Burn it; burn it now!”

Wanderer.3248:

And your missing the point that Mordremoth has been sprung onto stage like an actor who hadn’t even learnt his lines yet (leaving the audience to consult their program to find out who this guy is, because he wasn’t even named until just now), and everyone, even the other actors, are just scratching their heads trying to figure out how to ad-lib without looking like idiots.

I get that Mordremoth is suddenly all over the place. That’s part of the problem, plot wise. What I don’t get is that the solution seems to be a summit of leaders, instead of a summit of axes and flaming oil.

How many world leaders does it take to say “Burn it; burn it now!”

That’s part of the reason why Mordremoth is just a big threat, because he wasn’t planned at all. Scarlet pulled him straight out of left field, and now he’s wondering around attacking different people left, right, and center, and they are all scrambling to come up with a plan to deal with him. After Zhaitan, we all thought we were going to be dealing with Jormag or Kralk. Now that Mordy has shown up, the Pact have to turn all their forces 180 degrees and face an unknown foe.

As for why they don’t just use fire and axes to deal with the problem, I would imagine it’s the same reason why they just don’t use fire magic and ice picks to deal with Jormag. It’s not that simple. Even if you cut down the small vines, their root, Mordremoth himself, is still very much down there, and the vines with probably just grow back like most plants do. Not to mention, cutting them away might provoke a counter response in kind, since you are disturbing it from an easy and filling food source.

Erm… When Kralkatorrik, Jormag, and Zhaitan woke they each performed a cataclysmic event.

Within four years of waking, Jormag had shattered the Shiverpeaks, pushed the norn south, scattered the kodan, and devoured Owl – then his activity lowered a bit into a slow but continuous push south, with a surge of activity in the few months prior to the Personal Story (that has remained since). And that activity showed with the planning to assault Lion’s Arch – though said assault was stopped in the preparation stages.

Kralkatorrik was stopped after making the Dragonbrand by Destiny’s Edge, but that swath of corruption still left a heavy mark for human, charr, and ogre-kind.

Zhaitan did remain a bit inactive after his initial rise that caused a tidal wave, but it was NOT 106 years before he invaded. He in fact sent multiple invasions in the past century – the first was when he destroyed Port Stalwart in 1229 AE (a victory, and 10 years after he woke up) and the second was in 1256 AE when his army assaulted Lion’s Arch and the Krytan navy (a loss, and 37 years after waking), there was another at a time we don’t know that wiped out Port Noble after 1256 AE (though Watch Commander Talon during The Battle of Claw Island claims it happened before such, Sea of Sorrows shows otherwise – likely a mere oversight, but Talon can be wrong), and then finally there was the one in the personal story in 1325 AE. And inbetween all those massive large scale navy invasions, he’s been slowly spreading his influence just like Jormag, focusing along the shorelines – going to the Fire Islands, Sparkfly Fen, Bloodtide Coast, Mount Maelstrom, Kryta, and recently Caledon Forest.

Primordus and the DSD we don’t know much of anything about their awakening, though even before awakening Primordus’ champion posed a greater threat in minion numbers and spreading threats (destroyers in Eye of the North reached from the Tarnished Coast to Kryta to the Far Shiverpeaks and the now-called Blood Legion Homelands) than Mordremoth currently does, one can argue, or at least equally – and that was just a champion.

Mordremoth is spreading his influence wide, but there’s no high Mordrem numbers like the numbers of risen seen when Zhaitan sent his four invasions, or when the Great Destroyer went about attempting to wipe out all subterranean and surface life to prepare for his master’s coming.

Of all Elder Dragons, I’d say that Jormag’s been the most threatening when he woke, but his time of massive threatening ended just as Zhaitan’s times came and went. Mordremoth is merely the most aggressive now, but like the others if waited out he will subside a bit, retaining just to the territory he’s claimed.

lordkrall.7241:

Mordremoth on the other hand have in just a bunch of days sent active, organized attacks across most of the continent.

So yeah, I would say it is rather logical to see Mordy as a bigger threat than Zhaitan and the other Dragons.

Some vines and a few dozen Mordrem sprouting out in two lines across the continent compares to dozens of hundreds of destroyers sprouting anywhere across a continent before the Elder Dragon even awoke… how, exactly?

Mordremoth is merely the biggest threat for now, but if he follows the other Elder Dragons activity rating, the amount of threatening he is will be comparable to every other Elder Dragon – only a threat when entering his territory. Which is pockmarked and currently very little.

I remain unconvinced that Mordremoth is a bigger threat than Primordus – who’s had 200 years to feast on 6 asuran cities of equality to Rata Sum, and for all we know search for ley lines himself given that both are underground (hell, it’s no wonder why he hasn’t surfaced, why should he when he could be moving from ley line hub to ley line hub snacking as he goes). Given all the plot devices the writing team has made to make Mordremoth the biggest bad of the current time, Primordus should be infinitely his greater.

Even if you accept that this is a far bigger threat that Zhaitan, and that everyone suddenly knows and accepts this (how?), then the question has to be asked, what good is a summit supposed to be?

I’d love to see what they come up with, when no one, except Taimi, has a clue what to do.

I hope the summit doesn’t turn out to be even more people turning up with information that they turned out to have known all along.

The summit won’t go according to plan. The different countries will fight over something stupid and that we probably never heard about then their are going to get interrupted by mordrem attacking.

Chances are it’ll be a case of the nation leaders meeting together, saying “we know he’s a threat but we just can’t spare anyone!” and with 2-3 lines from the PC they go “you’re right, you’ve shown me the error of our ways, we’ll send… will a small unit do?”

Yes… yes, it will… A small unit will be enough to watch our allies be slaughtered while we pwn everything afterwards in vehement revenge.

Edit:

The summit won’t go according to plan. The different countries will fight over something stupid and that we probably never heard about then their are going to get interrupted by mordrem attacking.

PLOT TWIST!

Everyone goes in agreeing, thinking the summit a waste of time for the most part and instead of bickering whether or not to assist in killing the Elder Dragon, bicker about how many forces they should send – each leader trying to one-up the previous.

Then Primordus himself shows and burns the Grove to the ground, and a new zone pops up: “Malyck’s Grove” – all new sylvari characters get a new level 1-30 storyline and a new home city (Malyck’s Grove), that is, until Mordremoth corrupts it in Episode 7, right before we deal the finishing blow to Usoku. What? Why’s Usoku involved? Easy, he siphoned power from the Deep Sea Dragon and took Zhaitan’s death to invade after 2 years of it, and when he did he used the DSD’s power to put out the fire of Primordus, turning him into an actual statue.

I just really want to know why other dragons stop their advances at the convenient times of “we want to shift focus elsewhere”, it’s something that has been bugging me. Why does it take so long for dragons to do anything? Nevermind the fact that if the dragons themselves just swooped down and started exploding things they would get things done quicker; Just why randomly stop, is something I’d like them to address.
Jormag right now feels like he’s been “Yep. Almost there. Comin’ to getcha. … Any time now. Mmmmmhmmmmm. Riiiiiight there. Look at me arriving…. not yet. But soon! Oh yes.” for no particular reason. The kodan are scattered, norn are constantly panicking and joining his side and nobody is pushing back the icebrood’s corruption, sooooo…?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I remain unconvinced that Mordremoth is a bigger threat than Primordus – who’s had 200 years to feast on 6 asuran cities of equality to Rata Sum, and for all we know search for ley lines himself given that both are underground (hell, it’s no wonder why he hasn’t surfaced, why should he when he could be moving from ley line hub to ley line hub snacking as he goes). Given all the plot devices the writing team has made to make Mordremoth the biggest bad of the current time, Primordus should be infinitely his greater.

Primordus, the Michael Bay of the Elder Dragons. Fire, death, destruction, and explosions everywhere!

Oh…. and the dwarves are now Transformers. Because, robots!

Anmida.4058:

I just really want to know why other dragons stop their advances at the convenient times of “we want to shift focus elsewhere”, it’s something that has been bugging me. Why does it take so long for dragons to do anything? Nevermind the fact that if the dragons themselves just swooped down and started exploding things they would get things done quicker; Just why randomly stop, is something I’d like them to address.

Because of different scales of time.

The Elder Dragons are seemingly immortal creatures, so what they would consider a reasonable amount of time would differ to what we would consider it. For creatures that can stay active for centuries to who knows how long at a time, a couple of decades of just leisurely expanding the corruption isn’t much time at all. Compare that to the mortal races, who only live around close to century (though a bit longer for Norn), a couple of decades is a good portion of our lives.

Erukk.1408:

Anmida.4058:

I just really want to know why other dragons stop their advances at the convenient times of “we want to shift focus elsewhere”, it’s something that has been bugging me. Why does it take so long for dragons to do anything? Nevermind the fact that if the dragons themselves just swooped down and started exploding things they would get things done quicker; Just why randomly stop, is something I’d like them to address.

Because of different scales of time.

The Elder Dragons are seemingly immortal creatures, so what they would consider a reasonable amount of time would differ to what we would consider it. For creatures that can stay active for centuries to who knows how long at a time, a couple of decades of just leisurely expanding the corruption isn’t much time at all. Compare that to the mortal races, who only live around close to century (though a bit longer for Norn), a couple of decades is a good portion of our lives.

Of course I keep that in mind, but he was already planning to attack Lion’s Arch, and Hoelbrak several times for that matter. It still feels like he randomly turned around, went “Maybe later, I want a light snack.”, and just… yeah.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

PLOT TWIST!
Everyone goes in agreeing, thinking the summit a waste of time for the most part and instead of bickering whether or not to assist in killing the Elder Dragon, bicker about how many forces they should send – each leader trying to one-up the previous.

Then Primordus himself shows and burns the Grove to the ground, and a new zone pops up: “Malyck’s Grove” – all new sylvari characters get a new level 1-30 storyline and a new home city (Malyck’s Grove), that is, until Mordremoth corrupts it in Episode 7, right before we deal the finishing blow to Usoku. What? Why’s Usoku involved? Easy, he siphoned power from the Deep Sea Dragon and took Zhaitan’s death to invade after 2 years of it, and when he did he used the DSD’s power to put out the fire of Primordus, turning him into an actual statue.

How that would be so much better.

I mean, if the story writing is going haywire, might as well go full out random !

Anmida.4058:

Of course I keep that in mind, but he was already planning to attack Lion’s Arch, and Hoelbrak several times for that matter. It still feels like he randomly turned around, went “Maybe later, I want a light snack.”, and just… yeah.

Given how they were described as apex predators a short while ago, it could be because they value keeping and protecting their own territory over most things. Lion’s Arch and Hoelbrak might be easy targets, but as long as they don’t pose a threat to him personally, they are beneath his notice…for now.

Plus, after they have woken up, they seem to get lazy and simply pull a queen bee act. and they just sit and eat while they work through their minions to get more food. This is most likely because of story and playability issues. If the Elder Dragons were active the entire time, given their power level, no one would stand a chance against them, and we would have all died a long time ago.

That’s about as much as I have gathered, specially the last way of looking at it. It does make me wonder why does Anet keep waking new dragons when they haven’t catered to taking care of the already existant ones, however. Not to say I don’t enjoy the idea of jungles and deadly plants more than a giant blanket of ice with absolutelynothing in it except the occassional icebrood corruption, but it still makes me wonder the exact reason why. If there is any at all other than them liking original characters more than the already existant lore ones more, which is fine too, I suppose.

Wanderer.3248:

After Zhaitan attacked Lion’s Arch, only one of the five races leaders did anything.

Overtly. But Jennah tells Logan to attend to the bigger threats in Caudecus Manor story, and the number of (ex-)Seraph we see in the Pact later in the story suggests that she at least gave the option to more than just Logan). The Pact is in Fireheart Rise in order to free up some of the resources of the High Legions so they can assist the Pact, and we then see a lot of charrtech in Orr. Jennah and Smodur both support the Pact, we just never had a cutscene explicitly establishing this. The norn and asura, on the other hand, don’t really have leaders per se – what we’ve seen in this arc are basically just the nearest things to those leaders, but in all seriousness, the best Whitebear can probably do is make an announcement to Hoelbrak that a new dragon is arisen and that legends can be built by assisting in the fight against it.

Meanwhile, the Arcane Council is only really relevant because the new threat is in its direct sphere of interest – namely, attacking the waypoints and being located close to the eastern border of asura home territories. If the storyline was fighting Jormag or Kralkatorrik, there’d probably be no effort to get the Arcane Council involved there any more than there was with Zhaitan – much better results are achieved by recruiting asura krewes directly.

draxynnic.3719:

we just never had a cutscene explicitly establishing this.

Actually, there is one path of Orr storyline (The Vigil path to the Gates of Arah) that directly confirms this! It relates to the Gear Warband’s provision of the tanks you use to breach the gates of Arah; It is stated the High Legions themselves are sending them, and reserving armaments for the pact.

Queen Jennah’s assistance on the other hand -is- purely up in the air. However given the first starting NPC of Human Storyline becomes a Vigil Tactician and is there to provide assistance, and you even see a myriad of human priests providing battlefield and medical support, it is indeed easy to assume they have been purposedly sent there to lend a hand. (Priestess Amelia in particular being the priest that healed the Hero of Shaemoor back on his/her feet, and therefore assumedly a renown priest from that point on. Fame by proxy, if you will.)

An addendum to the issue of the Arcane Council’s care; It is established through the Snaff Savant’s storyline that the Council is perfectly aware of how much of a threat the dragons are, has been since always, and purposedly avoid providing assistance in order to exploit the new findings of Inquest and krewes alike for Rata Sum’s personal benefit. The reason the one summoned in particular through Zojja is who it is, is likely because he’s senile; and therefore easily manipulated, unlike the rest of the Council.
Extra addendum; Most of the Council spends most of their time trying to kill each other, sensible to assume they are more worried about that than anything else. Not that we didn’t know this, but.

lordkrall.7241:

You are ignoring the fact that it took 106 YEARS from Zhaitans awakening until it actually attacks Claw Island.

You’re forgetting that Zhaitan’s initial surge destroyed most of southern Kryta that survived the tsunami – the initial defense of Lion’s Arch finally destroyed enough of Zhaitan’s original fleet to force him to go to the slow creep rather than what he had been doing, which was trashing everything on the coast of the Sea of Sorrows.

What I think both sides of this discussion is missing is that every dragon seems to have started with a massive surge that threatened to destroy everything, until something made them pull their proverbial head in. Primordus’s was in Eye of the North, and before the GW1 PCs got involved had basically destroyed asuran civilisation, whatever skritt civilisation there was, and ‘countless’ other underground civilisations, ultimately including the dwarfs. Jormag’s initial surge devoured at least one and possibly four Spirits of the Wild and drove the norn out of the Far Shiverpeaks. Kralkatorrik had the shortest surge, but that surge came with a near-death experience at the hands of Destiny’s Edge. Each dragon seems to have started with a large reserve of power that allowed it to engage in a massive surge initially, and only after that surge did it fall back into a ‘slow creep’ mode.

What distinguishes Mordremoth is that Mordremoth is most likely in this ‘surge’ state right now. He’s freshly awoken, ready to go, and generally in a similar state to when Jormag claimed the entire Shiverpeaks north of what was once Traveller’s Vale and Zhaitan when it destroyed most of Kryta. Relatively speaking, Mordremoth seems to be going more slowly than those, but I think the NPCs are aware of history and are worried that if a serious response isn’t made to Mordremoth, then the next thing they know everything west of the Sea of Sorrows will be overgrown and there’ll be vines tearing at the walls of Divinity’s Reach.

It’s not what Mordremoth has done already that has him labelled as a threat. It’s that he has the potential to wreak the same destruction that the other dragons did in the first months and years after awakening – and it’s that destruction that the NPCs and, presumably, players are looking to prevent. He’s viewed as the prime threat because experts on Elder Dragon behaviour have looked at what Elder Dragons have done in the past, and from this they can expect that Mordremoth is likely to be particularly bellicose until his forces suffer a significant defeat.

Wanderer.3248:

How many world leaders does it take to say “Burn it; burn it now!”

If you want them to act in any coordinated fashion… as many as you can get.

If you want them to provide a concrete commitment rather than concentrating on what may be, to them, more immediate problems… as many as you can get.

The first is probably the more important issue. It’s probably not a case of getting them to agree to burn it now, but to arrange that Smodur will provide flamethrower tanks, the asura will provide free gate and waypoint travel to those tanks, the sylvari will smear them with nonflammable gunk that makes them taste bad to plants, and the humans will make balloons to convert those flame tanks into airships that can spray those flames onto the vines from the air.

Anmida.4058:

draxynnic.3719:

we just never had a cutscene explicitly establishing this.

Actually, there is one path of Orr storyline (The Vigil path to the Gates of Arah) that directly confirms this! It relates to the Gear Warband’s provision of the tanks you use to breach the gates of Arah; It is stated the High Legions themselves are sending them, and reserving armaments for the pact.

Queen Jennah’s assistance on the other hand -is- purely up in the air. However given the first starting NPC of Human Storyline becomes a Vigil Tactician and is there to provide assistance, and you even see a myriad of human priests providing battlefield and medical support, it is indeed easy to assume they have been purposedly sent there to lend a hand. (Priestess Amelia in particular being the priest that healed the Hero of Shaemoor back on his/her feet, and therefore assumedly a renown priest from that point on. Fame by proxy, if you will.)

An addendum to the issue of the Arcane Council’s care; It is established through the Snaff Savant’s storyline that the Council is perfectly aware of how much of a threat the dragons are, has been since always, and purposedly avoid providing assistance in order to exploit the new findings of Inquest and krewes alike for Rata Sum’s personal benefit. The reason the one summoned in particular through Zojja is who it is, is likely because he’s senile; and therefore easily manipulated, unlike the rest of the Council.
Extra addendum; Most of the Council spends most of their time trying to kill each other, sensible to assume they are more worried about that than anything else. Not that we didn’t know this, but.

I suspect Jennah’s support is a little more ‘under the table’ because of Kryta’s own politics. She’s well aware of the threat of the dragons (it’s why she proposed the truce to the charr in the first place), but if she officially committed Krytan forces to the Pact, she’d probably be castigated by the Ministry for a) sending Krytan forces on a foreign adventure when Kryta has enough problems at home, and b) sending Krytan forces to join a coalition where they might have non-Krytan commanders.

Never mind that there’s good reasons for her to do both – like most modern opposition parties, the Ministry never lets little things like reason and logic get in the way of taking a potshot at the other side.

However, if you cross-reference late-PS human characters with human characters from the early human PS – there aren’t that many non-Shining Blade from Jennah’s camp that don’t reappear in some capacity in Orr. Tactician Beirne is joined by Crusader Deborah from the Lost Sister story. You mentioned the priestess at the start, and there’s also the priestess of Grenth if you take the approach of interrogating the pirate “seer’s” spirit (Alastia the Crow, I think?) who returns at the Cathedral of Silence story step. That’s just off the top of my head. It’s never explicitly stated, but it really wouldn’t surprise me to find out that Jennah – through Logan – spread the word to trusted units in the Seraph that they have her blessing to join the Pact instead.

There’s also the matter of Almorra Soulkeeper’s “surprising allies” in forming the Vigil, the implied close relationship between Jennah and Logan and the Vigil in Ghosts of Ascalon, and the location of Vigil Keep on land that previously probably belonged to either Lion’s Arch or Kryta. I suspect – although there’s no hard evidence behind this – that Jennah has been one of the Vigil’s sponsors since its founding.

Regarding the Arcane Council – yeah, that’s the other half of it, although it’s been a while since I did that arc so I didn’t recall all the details beyond the Arcane Council basically being dragon threat deniers. Like I said, I suspect the only reason the Arcane Council is being involved at all is that Mordremoth is in their direct sphere of influence – if it was any other dragon, they’d probably get ignored as they usually do in wider Tyrian politics.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Then Primordus himself shows and burns the Grove to the ground, and a new zone pops up: “Malyck’s Grove” – all new sylvari characters get a new level 1-30 storyline and a new home city (Malyck’s Grove), that is, until Mordremoth corrupts it in Episode 7, right before we deal the finishing blow to Usoku. What? Why’s Usoku involved? Easy, he siphoned power from the Deep Sea Dragon and took Zhaitan’s death to invade after 2 years of it, and when he did he used the DSD’s power to put out the fire of Primordus, turning him into an actual statue.

Needs more cowbell.

draxynnic.3719:

The first is probably the more important issue. It’s probably not a case of getting them to agree to burn it now, but to arrange that Smodur will provide flamethrower tanks, the asura will provide free gate and waypoint travel to those tanks, the sylvari will smear them with nonflammable gunk that makes them taste bad to plants, and the humans will make balloons to convert those flame tanks into airships that can spray those flames onto the vines from the air.

They could turn tanks or whatever on the existing infestations now. They don’t need a summit to combine Charr, Asura and other tech – the Pact does this already. They don’t need to ask the leaders to do this. The Pact never asked anyone to build their airships.

And rather than some pointless debate, how about sending some more Pact agents into the Jungle, because we still have no idea where Mordremoth is.

draxynnic.3719:

I suspect Jennah’s support is a little more ‘under the table’ because of Kryta’s own politics. She’s well aware of the threat of the dragons (it’s why she proposed the truce to the charr in the first place), but if she officially committed Krytan forces to the Pact, she’d probably be castigated by the Ministry for a) sending Krytan forces on a foreign adventure when Kryta has enough problems at home, and b) sending Krytan forces to join a coalition where they might have non-Krytan commanders.

Actually, Kryta is fairly stable right now. With Cauducus living in Jennah’s estate/ in DR all the time he CANNOT direct the bandits/ministry guard to make the Seraph and Jennah look bad. IIRC, it’s implied or stated the bandit troubles got reduced post CM storymode.

And at the same time, the Centaur war is probably at it’s best for humanity. Yes it’s back and forth, but if you were to say, take every heart in Kryta as “complete” by the time of Living story, the Centaurs are weakened heavily. That’s why she likely agreed to the summit instantly. She supports the idea and ATM, humanity can spare Seraph numbers to such a thing. Meanwhile the other races have problems that they must get dealt with before they commit. Sons of Svanir for Norn, Ghosts for the Charr, the waypoint dangers for Asura.

Dealing with those mean they can put resources toward such an alliance.

Also, about the “Biggest danger”, it’s like meaning something more like "This dragon is just waking up, he’s doing this massive surge. THIS is the CURRENT biggest danger to us now, compared to Jormag or Kralk who are not really pushing that much. Like Zhaitan’s fleet being destroyed, or the spirits of the wild fighting Jormag back in the far shiverpeaks, I’d say it’s more of gathering forces to not only repel this surge of attacks as typical for a dragon, but also push back and strike in the jungle itself.

Kalavier.1097:

B; As said, being a war hero doesn’t just mean you can barge into high ranking officials offices whenever you please and demand stuff.

This comparison really doesn’t hold up. The player character isn’t a war hero. The player’s character is a high ranking commander still fighting THE SAME war. If you were one of the top ranking commanders in WWII, and WWII was still going on, and you said you wanted to call an emergency meeting for a threat that jeopardized the entire mission, you bet they’d instantly listen.

In Jennah’s place, i would send the reworked watchknights out instead of human soldiers.

She did announce just after the incident with Scarlet on her Jubilee that she intends to get back these machines into Kryta’s and humanity’s service. But since i doubt that she would be stupid enough to put them back on the streets of DR, she would put them into action far away from the civilian populace.

Except that the Pact was mainly created to fight Zhaitan, and Zhaitan is defeated. Sure the long term goal is all the Dragons, but Zhaitan was the main reason and focus for the creation.

It would be better to compare it to the Cold War, and even if you did fight and became a “war hero” in the Korea War doesn’t mean you would automatically get higher priority or status in the Vietnam War.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Kalavier.1097:

B; As said, being a war hero doesn’t just mean you can barge into high ranking officials offices whenever you please and demand stuff.

This comparison really doesn’t hold up. The player character isn’t a war hero. The player’s character is a high ranking commander still fighting THE SAME war. If you were one of the top ranking commanders in WWII, and WWII was still going on, and you said you wanted to call an emergency meeting for a threat that jeopardized the entire mission, you bet they’d instantly listen.

Only, to use your comparison with the detail another guy brings up, this is like you were the top ranking commander in the fight against the germans.

Now the germans are defeated and you are talking about a threat in another part of the world. Sure, you will had weight to your words and be listened you, but at the same time you probably wouldn’t get “skip all the lines and waitlists.” status. The player character isn’t Doctor Who can basically waltz into any high end meeting and be accepted and included (or listened to).

Basically, the “war” against ALL elder dragons is still going on, but the campaign against Zhaitan is FINISHED. You were part of that campaign, so yeah, you’d be a ‘war hero’ seeing as basically the war against Zhaitan is DONE. Even them, this isn’t you running into Pact HQ going “TRAHEARNE, I learned of something that might cripple our campaign in Orr!” This is you going to the race leaders about Mordemoth… An unrelated front (for some intents) to Zhaitan and the risen.

It’s rather funny how quite a few people believe our main character should be able to go anywhere and demand anything from anyone because of their former feats.

I believe this was one of the main complaints against Trahearne?