Guild Wars 2

…… Konig you just made the Revenant profession so much more intriguing to me by comparing it to the Nasuverse lore. :P -shakes fist-

Shiren summarized it nicely IMO.

I don’t consider myself part of a community, but similarly to other frequenters I do put high value in critical thinking when it comes to lore and theories.

Aside from there being different types of how people go about lore, there’s also a line to draw about the experience and standard of people.

As example, I’ve seen people who jumped on the Scarlet-hate bandwagon calling her a mary sue, yet at the same time proposed ideas like evil twin and whatnot for her that were /just as bad/. A whole lot of people are like this and actually that’s okay.
They’re readers, not writers. Consumers, not creators. They just don’t have the experience.
If you were to ask a random person who never roleplayed much before to make a rp character, you’re very likely to encounter this.
They don’t see how fallacious their own creation is until they’re forced to apply logic to them. If they never create fiction themselves, they’re even more likely to only see issues on a superficial level. And the the thing is, the same thinking goes for all writing.
As a result, this kind of people most likely has a lower standard to meet.
They’re easier to please. Easier to hype too. And no, having a low standard isn’t a bad thing by itself.

It just becomes a bad thing when it becomes the goal line for the writers …and clashes with the second group.

On the other hand we have people with a high standard. People who either occupy themselves a lot with writing or just happen to be very critical people. They know that good writing relies on how logic is applied to it. They’re more likely to see fallacies.
Since they see and thus care more about the details, they’re harder to please when they’re the readers. That might make them cynical in the eyes of other people even though they might love the series in question with passion.
A high standard by itself is also not a bad thing. But it also can get bad. Writers may lose their original vision of their work by starting to pander to please and that usually backfires.

Though usually any creator, be it artist, writer, designer, musician should seek to improve and thus aim for the high standard. So, the conflict here is people with a high standard hope that whatever they’re invested in aims to develop towards their standard. When it appears that a much lower standard is what is aimed for…well, yeah.

And here the last factor IMO, which… yanno I blame for most of this debacle and even for why there’s disagreement in the group of more critical people about these theories.
Long story short, it’s the lore delivery. In this case, the lore is so ridiculously widespread and scattered and poorly presented in game that it adds another layer to the problem of experience of story and world-building and theorycrafting.

With the sylvari/minion theory, yes the hints to the lore were there. Problem, although there were potential ‘obvious’ hints that could be interpreted as many things and minions being one of them, there were even more hints that could be taken as evidence /against/ it. Like Malyck as example. People most likely weren’t so opposed to the theory cuz of mere personal taste alone, but because it was fallacious in their eyes.
There was absolutely nothing ingame that could be taken as strong evidence for it until Mawdrey maybe, while there were more points to disprove it.

Furthermore, we could have the very same kind of argument about 6 gods = 6 dragons and although there’s the obvious connection to draw, when you analyze it there’s holes. On the other hand, Anet could show up and suddenly provide the pieces in lore needed to make it work and all of a sudden the conclusion is true (although the theory isn’t sound.)

Sooo from my viewpoint, the dilemma around the sylvari/minion theory boils down to a Fallacy Fallacy. (A really weird and skewered kind of fallacy fallacy tho)
…which is a /really/ weird and rare thing to come across when discussing fiction. <_>

IMO, the characters aren’t bad just real bland and superficial.

For game characters that ooze personality, I’d love to point to the Saints Row and Borderlands-franchises for comparison. Every single character is distinct and stands out and BL does it without cutscenes or lengthy dialogue boxes either.
And neither of them has any deep past, which however makes it part of their appeal.

GW2 on the other hand… idk, the only characters that really stand out to me are Taimi, Canach and Anise as of LS2. The writers can whip out good characters when they want. (Palawa we still love u) But for reasons, not many of them are presented as very distinct despite having the potential.

A good example of the problem is the No-Refuge Seeds of truth episode.
You play as Caithe, but the dialogue in the text boxes might as well have been your PCs. Hardly. A. Difference. Sigh.

Morkel.2039:

Personally I was not a supporter of the “sylvari are dragon minions” theory and there were not solid profs before last episode, but honestly we can admit that the whole reasoning against the theory had some fallacies.
The main difference from other dragon minions is the lack of magic absorbing stuff, but this remained me something: imagine you take a trip around the world, and you see all kind of mammals, until you find this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus

Or more in general, we should remember that not all swans are white
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

The interesting question is why sylvari have this difference.
Obviously from the writing point of view making them absorbing magic creature would have made the mystery of their origin a bit too obvious ( even if again this guy is not a bird http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus), but in a in-game perspective I think there are two possibilities:
- they were meant to be different for some reason (i.e. Mordy decided so)
- the Pale Tree decided to make them this way.

Both options are intriguing to me

About Falsifiability, personally I don’t think it might apply to the magic consumption itself. To the sylvari as whole in this debate maybe, but not to the consumption. The problem is, dragons themselves are defined by their need to consume magic. It’s not a variable, like the different ways EDs corrupt. It’s the very foundation of their existence that they need to consume magic. It’s what makes dragons a part of the cycle of ‘nature’.
And by extension, all dragon minions absorb magic as well. Tequatl’s power boost and Ogden mentioning Glint potentially becoming an Elder dragon over time also point towards that, in addition to what has been said before.

Assuming Sylvari are the hipsters among dragon minions (we stopped consuming magic before it was cool!) leaves us with the following questions:

- Can EDs which nature it is to consume magic create champions and minions that don’t? Isn’t that contradicting?
- If EDs could stop consuming magic at will while awake and create minions that do not share the need either, what need keeps them from stopping? Wouldn’t the idea of them being able to stop not go against the idea of them as part of a natural cycle and it being their nature?
- Assuming the Pale Tree is the one to absorb magic as she is a dragon champion, how did she eliminate the need of magic for her spawn?
- Furthermore, assuming that the spawn of freed dragon champions does not need magic unlike their parent would mean in regards to replacing the EDs, Glint’s egg is useless?
- If the Pale Tree is simply unique and the parallel to Glint is not the case, meaning sylvari and the tree do not absorb magic while glint’s offspring does, again: what replaced/eliminated the need for magic that is present in all other dragon minions as it is part of their being? What completely annihilated everything that makes a dragon minion a dragon minion?

Though, just like with many things right now we might just be missing half of the picture. That wouldn’t make the reasoning itself wrong, it’d just mean we’re trying to puzzle with only a half book with the pages we have.
Anet could just reveal and put the mystery factor in this equation in and woop there it is. Though what we have in our hands right now conflicts with that idea.

@Plagiarised

I just linked that interview for the sake of having sources. It confirms the 3 to each cycle part. The other part about the time-span might be ingame or maybe referred to in another interview. Totally possible with just how spread the lore is. .__.

Also Titus, major props. That kinda work’s hella appreciated.

Apparently I’ve done the terrible mistake of being one of the first to comment on this thread and having written something heavily context heavy because nobody seems to to care to read what I wrote later on in addendum to explain.
Prolly should update that. Oh geezus.

Well, here’s a personal headscratcher:

Divine fire. According to Ogden, Forgotten magic is similar to the magic of the Six. Not the first time we hear something like this, the Facets tying both to the forgotten and the Gods was mentioned before and hinted at a connection.

Tho now if divine magic is a dragon-corruption/minion repellent, can anyone explain the enigma that is the temples in Orr and some places in Arah?

I’d like to apologize for not replying sooner.

I needed some emotional break from the toxicity some people on this sub have been spreading since the reveal and then the forum log-in acted up for me <_> yay.

Anyways, I still couldn’t find any source or backup for my claim …eventhoughIstillfeeltohavereaditsomewheresob, but yeah the burden of proof is on me and I can’t prove it unfortunately. So feel free to dismiss my claim about Trahearne.

Though about the firstborn and luminaries, the interview you were looking for probably was this one: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/17676-arenanet-dream-and-nightmare/page__st__210#entry842850

Same one which gave us the First/Secondborn age difference that was dismissed later on tho, so YMMV.

(grumble ok I said that’s it for me today in the other thread but I guess here I am still)

Tobias, I think we’re talking a little past each other. lD;; (Except for the Inquest, I totally agree, hehe)

Example: With Southsun, the LS episode itself wasn’t focused on dragons. Yeah. But the direct cause of this story happening can be traced back to dragons. You’re right, it could be about climate change. It’d be irrelevant to the southsun story itself… which is part of my point yanno. It didn’t need to be caused by dragons. And nothing wrong with them causing it, because it makes sense.

But when too many side-stories plus the main story link to the dragons (also in retrospect), the story as whole becomes kinda shallow. It takes color away from Tyria and its various issues.

The base-game was mostly fine with its balance between major dragon-issues and totally dragon-unrelated side issues like flame legion, bandits, the foefire, renegades, dredge, the centaur war, the tension between the 3 high legions, kryta’s dilemma, etc.

Only problem as whole was that the atmosphere was too lighthearted and the threat of the major issues felt way too distant or almost nonexistent.

I’m not complaining that things were affected by the dragon at all. Because it’d be kinda senseless to complain about the dragons doing their jobs as eldritch abominations altering life on Tyria. Also heck even those not-dragon issues I listed are affected in one way or another by the dragons more or less distantly. But dragons aren’t the reason why these threats are happening. And it’s okay and even a must that a lot is caused by dragons. But there’s still a need for balance.

I’m …idk whining? hoping that not? dreading? word? that the writers might take all these side plots and lore and problems that while in a dragon ravaged world, aren’t caused by dragons and make them about dragons for the sake of making them about/linking them to dragons and thus creating an imbalance that basically ends up being ‘dragons are behind everything’.

It feels like Anet still has to find a balance of making a threat/major plot imminent without making it too distant like the PS/Base game or making it too forced and in your face by taking away from the rest of Tyria and suddenly relating everything they can think of to the plot of the current threat.

I hope I expressed myself better now.

Hmm…
What if the nightmare isn’t Mordremoth’s corruption per-se but a pseudo-corruption?
Such as Mordremoth trying to take down the barrier of the dream but failing, resulting in a “poison” with corruption-like symptoms tainting the dream.
Which would be the nightmare.

Or… maybe something like this. I’m getting too sleepy to figure out the details and I think that’s been enough lore-sub for me today, ahahaha. But that’s an idea.

Squee.7829:

I completely forgot about the ritual :/ Sorry.

No worries :0 It happens.

Squee.7829:

We don’t really know what entailed getting Glint free, or if the tablets were solely responsible for freeing the tree.

Uhm… we know exactly what it entails, we replicated the Forgotten ritual on a smaller scale in Arah exp on lil’ Twitchy and freed it of Zhaitan’s control. :x

True tho that we don’t know what’s more to the Pale tree. Though… I think I just said, it was the common theory with it being based on mostly friendship&love!! that’s bothered me and how close the current reveal we got is to it.
Though I’ll also say that it is fine by me if the full reveal is without all the things that made this theory unfounded (and cringeworthy) aka the tablet and its power of love being the bane of EDs.

Ronin.7381:

ElysianEternity.6215:

So, in other words the most cited, fanfiction-ish and unfounded theory since beta was supposedly one of anet’s story’s greatest mysteries?

I hope that isn’t something the writers are proud of.

I don’t even really know what to say. Just wow. Lame.

Little condescending there. I mean hell, the direction that information pointed in was fairly obvious. Was it really that surprising, truly?

Hm, maybe my disappointment could be interpreted as condescending.
I’m not disappointed in the decision sylvari = minions itself. (Nor do I feel very angry or malicious, just…yeah rather drained and sigh.)
I’m (really really really) disappointed in what the common theory entailed and how it was pushed as surprise and the writing that came with the presentation of this reveal.

Basically, pretty much every dragon minion theory boiled down to ‘the power of friendship and love of the tablet cleansed the pale tree’. Which is totally unfounded in lore, looking at what it took to free Glint. (also hence the fanction-feel)

So while the idea that sylvari are minions itself isn’t unfounded, the common form this theory took on was.

Edit: Also felt kinda bad in retrospect, so I wanna add that I’m sorry if anyone’s felt negatively impacted by my choice of words today. Didn’t wanna come across mean or something. .__.

I remember it from one of the sylvari PS-steps. Tho it doesn’t seem to be documented on the wiki so I don’t even have anything to link and I have no night-sylvari to play the PS to search. /holds head, the wiki for early PS is a wreck holy **** ;__;

I tried to google it but the only thing I found is another thread from 10 months ago https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Which-cycle-do-Trahearne-and-Scarlet-belong/first#post3702611 …which however doesn’t have any screenshot or such attached either.

Though I trust Konig’s memory more than mine and he remembered it too but… idk, not having direct access to the source bothers me too and there’s both the chance that we came across one of the exclusive-dialogue trees during story most people skip/miss or that we’re both either misremembering or came across something that was a lore-bug .

@Tobias Trueflight

Man this feels like a game of connect the dots. lD

Okay, Southsun cove. Well. The Karka appeared there because they couldn’t before because Risen. And there’s a high chance they were driven out by the DSD because what else would force a deep-sea race to the surface? Then later down the line, how did that whole refugee situation happen? Alliances by Scarlet who was a pawn to a dragon. Welp.

The Krytan Political Mess Redux. See: Reason and mastermind behind all that, Mursaat. What has Anet been hinting at all this time in S2 as we move into Mord’s territory? White Mantle and Mursaat. Is there reason to worry they’ll link both of these things rather than let these side-stories play out independently? Yeah.

Inquest. Problem with the Inquest is, a) the Inquest hardly has a common goal beside ‘more knowledge at all costs!’ You can claim that keeping the arcane council under control is their story but you’d be partly wrong because this is only one of the many individual goals they have. Maybe a better way to put it is that every single Inquest krewe seems to have their own ‘side story’ and so you can’t speak of the Inquest’s story as whole.

Mist War. Yes it’s lore but not story. And as such it isn’t relevant to anything. It’s not a story-thread. It’s just ‘there’ in the limbo until Anet gives it a story. Then its possible connections to everything becomes relevant.

Maybe it’s a bit of a misunderstanding because English isn’t my native language, but when I said “There’s a HUGE difference about ‘centered around dragon’s and taking every little thing in the game and say ‘gasp! Dragons did it/relate to it!’”, the present progressive was alluding to the future.

So yeah, it’s not about everything being about or being made dragons-did-it right now, but warning the writers of doing that. There’s a chance they won’t. But there’s also a chance in my eyes they might. Thus, I think worrying and mentioning it is justified.

Bobby Stein confirmed that the thing with Rhiannoc in Seeds of Truth was a bug. Bug in the sense of lore inconsistency that slipped past QA.

So yeah, he’s dead already in the portion of Caithe’s past we explore.

What does seem to be a retcon however is Wynne being the first nightborn.

We’ve got Trahearne who was the first Sylvari ever and is a Nightborn and Malomedies who is the luminary of the night cycle and thus often disputed to be either the second night bloom or the first since there’s been some confusion about Trahearne and him being the first.

And now we’ve got Caithe claiming that Wynne was the first one and that the secret was revealed to her because nightblooms and secrets and her being the first.

Anet, untangle me this mess plz.

@Tobias Trueflight

Every little other thing as in every little other side-story linking to them.

The Inquest doesn’t have a side-story. The Mist War is hardly a story either (yet?)
I’d hold my breath on the foefire and kryta’s political situation because either still could link to the dragons with the direction Anet is taking. (Example, Political strife caused by > White Mantle > Mursaat > possibly dragons)

Point is, there are a few things like the Flame legion as example (which burnt out …ahaha im punny) that didn’t have to do anything with the dragon at all.
Hence the warning of not linking them in the future.
Like, the Flame legion starting to worship Primordus or the krait prophets being dragon champions, or stuff like that. Yeah.

It’s not about what currently is, but about what will be since this smells like a trend right now.

It sure feels like an online-version of Assassin’s Creed with all the cliffhangering.
(It’s a word now)

I’m kinda… ok scratch that, I am disappointment that Anet’s only and really only way of building suspense ingame is mystery about what the plot is about. We never seem to know what the heck we’re doing exactly or what our role is. It’s like they didn’t learn at all from LS1 about this.

A story about the present as opposed to digging in the past doesn’t mean that we have to be clueless about everything that is going on around us. We could be invested in relationships, in decisions and consequences we have to make, in the growth of characters, in political situations in Tyria, … but nah the LS itself has always been about tune in next time for a rng-chance of finding out what even exactly is going on.

It wasn’t until the ending trailer of this episode that we’ve come to face that kinda stuff with the sylvari = minions consequences. And the forced mystery-factor didn’t contribute to it at all which is kind of the point I’m trying to make.

DarcShriek.5829:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

A Massive Headache.1879:

and I’ll say it again. sylvari being dragon minions is incredibly stupid, and I’m kind of surprised mccoys work was taken seriously.

Your comment is going to get removed, but before that happens. I agree. As far as compelling plot ideas go, this is not one.

Piece of advice to the writers. Not everything needs to revolve around the dragons. Your world begins to look very two dimensional when almost every single piece of lore we have in game in some ways ties back to the elder dragons (The Mursaat, The Seers, The Dwarves, Scarlet, The Gods…). We get that they are the big bad and are super important, but too much of one thing gets very old. You’re also tampering with lore that a lot of people love and making it seem rather trivial because you know what ‘dragons did it’.

For years before GW2 was released, it was well known that the story would revolve around the elder dragons. Now over two years into the story, you write to let Anet know their story is stupid.

I’m not convinced that ANet are the stupid ones. After all, you bought this game knowing that the story would be centered around the dragons. IF you thought the idea was stupid, why did you buy the game?

I’ll be blunt and assume you’re not a writer. Or maybe just a novice hobby one. Because it’s rather clear what the advice was about.

There’s a HUGE difference about ‘centered around dragon’s and taking every little thing in the game and say ‘gasp! Dragons did it/relate to it!’

The first just makes the main plot dragons.
The latter which Foxx referred to, takes the depth out of everything. It’s basically ‘Abaddon did it’ all over again, except absolutely everything ties to the dragons instead. Yes dragons are the main-plot, but if you link everything to them it kinda takes layers out of all side-plots that make up the world. There’s enough good side-stories in GW2 that can (and IMO should) be independent of the dragons.

Well, if they at least retcon it into something to make the story better and even out all those bumps in a manner that doesn’t raise brows and question marks, I don’t mind.

There’s really a lot of things that can’t be described in any other matter than a row of question marks though and I’d love to have these explained.

Maybe all the Seeds were cleansed by the Forgotten. Like eons ago before Ronan even found them.
And so the tablet only influenced the Pale Tree in the same way reading minds influenced Glint. That’s at least better than making the tablet the cleansing factor and takes a chunk of ridiculousness out of the original theory.

Edit: Though, the difference of sylvari to normal minions does spawn an interesting thought. If we go by the whole magic spheres and how dragons might be opposite of others, then Mord indeed IS life. His ‘minions’ are sentient and sapient in every form other dragon minions are not.

lordkrall.7241:

I am rather certain that Faolain have never been claimed to be the first to fall to Nightmare.

Caderyn founded the Nightmare Court, but I’m rather certain that Faolain was the first to fall into nightmare.

CureForLiving.5360:

ElysianEternity.6215:

So, in other words the most cited, fanfiction-ish and unfounded theory since beta was supposedly one of anet’s story’s greatest mysteries?

I hope that isn’t something the writers are proud of.

I don’t even really know what to say. Just wow. Lame.

I don’t know, just because player were able to guess it doesn’t mean its bad. Remember the series Lost? You know where the writers were so determined to be smarter than the audience that they purposefully took the series into the most stupidest directs? Yeah, I’d rather ANet not do that.

Idk, IMO it’s pretty bad if you try to sell it as surprise when the strongest and first ‘hint’ is a dude in the starter area where you wake up being all ‘hmm very coincidence such timing’.

Though, unfounded? Yeah. Because there’s a couple things ingame that go against the idea which most people who aren’t familiar with the lore aren’t aware of whenever they hold up this idea.

And this update even flatout retconned things which makes things look really sloppy and incoherent.

Trahearne is the oldest and first of the night cycle, second is Malomedies. Not Wynne who just got shoved in here outta nowhere to justify her secret.

Then we have that Faolain fell into Nightmare while she was with Caithe in Orr and that she was the first. Apparently that never happened now or what and she simply hung out with the NC?

And if the Nightmare is Mord’s corruption then wouldn’t that make Nightmare the default for sylvari and again kinda clash with Malyck who knows of neither dream nor nightmare?

I guess I can accept it as canon, though it still reeks of rather poor writing.
Heck, I’m not even going to about the whole gaining-free-will topic because the only way I can explain myself that is that all pale-tree seeds were cleansed by the forgotten last cycle.

Edit: Okay, I may be wrong about Trahearne. I thought there was a point ingame where he says he is of the night cycle but it’s not on the wiki. So either I remember something undocumented or messed up.

So, in other words the most cited, fanfiction-ish and unfounded theory since beta was supposedly one of anet’s story’s greatest mysteries?

I hope that isn’t something the writers are proud of.

I don’t even really know what to say. Just wow. Lame.

Edit because people seemingly don’t like reading multiple pages before quoting a thing they don’t know the context of or aren’t familar with part the background of reactions and emotions towards and against this theory:

ElysianEternity.6215:

Ronin.7381:

ElysianEternity.6215:

So, in other words the most cited, fanfiction-ish and unfounded theory since beta was supposedly one of anet’s story’s greatest mysteries?

I hope that isn’t something the writers are proud of.

I don’t even really know what to say. Just wow. Lame.

Little condescending there. I mean hell, the direction that information pointed in was fairly obvious. Was it really that surprising, truly?

Hm, maybe my disappointment could be interpreted as condescending.
I’m not disappointed in the decision sylvari = minions itself. (Nor do I feel very angry or malicious, just…yeah rather drained and sigh.)
I’m (really really really) disappointed in what the common theory entailed and how it was pushed as surprise and the writing that came with the presentation of this reveal.

Basically, pretty much every dragon minion theory boiled down to ‘the power of friendship and love of the tablet cleansed the pale tree’. Which is totally unfounded in lore, looking at what it took to free Glint. (also hence the fanction-feel)

So while the idea that sylvari are minions itself isn’t unfounded, the common form this theory took on was.

Uhhh, so in other words it’s more of a likely to be canon observation rather than a canon fact stated ingame as text.

Though just because it’s the ‘trademark’ foefire look doesn’t mean that it is exclusive to the foefire victims. We dunno what the foefire exactly is after all.

Just playing devil’s advocate here, but the look that’s shared by a couple of non-foefire npcs could also indicate that these spirits came in contact with the same kind of magic the foefire is based of. (ie magic by the Six? would explain the godlost swamp, the HoM peeps and the devotee of dwayna in demetra a lil’ at least while most other ghosts are white…and perhaps why this ghost is ‘foefire’ style too :P )

@Konig

Where does it say that only Foefire ghosts are blue…? The ghosts at Fort Koga are blue as well. The ones in Holy Demetra too. Kimmes’ spirit is blue. Even Jotun Spirits are blue…

Was that a book quote? I can’t remember anything on their color being exclusive and I doubt it’d apply to the game anymore…

Seconding what the other posters said, though wanna add another example.

In SE2, the Dredge you’re escorting carries rocks much bigger than themselves. That’s thumb-estimate and depending on the density of what exactly they’re carrying …anything between 2-3 tons. And that’s your average Foreman. Muscle density and energy matter (and another bazillion factors I’m leaving out for the sake of simplicity)!

There was a thread about this question a long time ago in this sub forum.

If I remember clearly, the consensus was that a) ‘lesser’ race is more on the gameplay than lore side of things, just to have a term to describe all non-main playable races and b) that major races have some form of civilization while lesser don’t.

Though there was some arguing about the definition of civilization.

What can be said for sure is that everything referred to as major and lesser race ingame is sapient.

There’s a few exceptions like Harpies, Ettins and trolls that are kinda uncategorized despite their sapience… or at least I wouldn’t know where to place them.

Does the connection sound absurd? Yes. Is it impossible? Nope.

As reminder, we still don’t know where Scarlet got the seeds she offered the toxic alliance from.

Kind of a crack-theory I had for a long time now is that the seed of the ToN was Mordremorth’s spawn and the krait and NC were merely tricked into cultivating and spreading it all while enhancing its potency with their own magic.

1) If my memory isn’t failing me, it was said that the mind-altering part was by the NC and the krait’s magic was responsible for the toxin. So if Mord’s speciality is plants/minds and poison, this alliance’s combination and involvement could have ‘helped’ the seed. A lot.

2) Reminder, the plant of the tower was sentient.

3) The Toxic Hybrid could have been a proto-type to speak for Mordremoth’s physical corruption, which was facilitated by the krait’s natural metamorphosis ability.

4) The writers were unnecessarily cryptic about the Toxic Hybrid when confirming it was a transformed krait who believed he was turned into a prophet.
My bet? We got a ‘prophet’. Mordremoth’s Prophet.
Look at all of the lines, of course some of them refer to the hybrid itself.
But some of the more creepy and cryptic ones like ‘I am aware’ and ‘I see you’? They could totally be from the perspective of the tower or mordremoth himself.

(Whichwouldbekindafreakingawsomealbeitunlikely)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Of those three I think kodan are the least likely to be made playable simply due to character creation options.

Actuaaaaaaally, lore can fix that too if Anet wanted. Remember the legend about the lost Kodan tribe? Doesn’t need a lot to justify customization and add problems to the Kodan society by pulling this card and saying nope there’s kodan with other looks now too. ;P
__

IMO, unless it’s totally outta question gameplay-wise (aka imagine a centaur-thief or doing a jp as one), it really all depends on what Anet really wants to and how creative they can be. If they want, they could totally decide it’s time for ZE REVOLUTION for the dredge. If they really want and are creative enough, they could even make a serpentine or floating race work.

But that’s just my humble opinion ;P

Aaaah, thank you Wings! This is exactly the statement I was trying to find.

Having this at hand helps to check for different interpretations and not to get things mixed up when trying to theorycraft. I’m also rather curious what the others on this forum would make out of these tidbits.

Thanks for your speedy reply but nope, that’s not the one Konig.

The post I remember went along the lines of the ancient races not understanding each other because they spoke different languages. And then Glint united them and that’s where Common’s from.

I’m rather certain that if it was on the forum, it was not in the lore-sub. So probably in general or one of the living world ones.

I’ve been puzzling about ‘Common’ as a language and its potentially huge implications (or plot/lore-holes) recently and I need a bit of help.

Now, while discussing ingame someone mentioned a statement by one of the devs that the ‘common’ language can be traced back to Glint. I remember such a post too, but even after browsing the forum with google search, I can’t find anything on the forums. Or maybe it was in an interview?

I am rather certain that this was a thing, though to fabricate any solid theories I need and would love to find this statement. Any fellow lore-hounds can help me out? ;_;

Hmmm pets pets pets, lets see, from the top of my head…

Quaggan: One arctic settlement has a pet shark IIRC, one in the south doesn’t keep them as domesticated pet but uses bait to defend against krait.

Charr: Devourers mainly yea. One village in Iron Marches dedicates to training war hounds. A lumber mill in Diessa successfully! trained Skelk. Other than that, whatever rangers can tame in their vicinity I guess.

Ogres: Whole race is famed as animal tamers and rightfully so. Pets are their lives. Moas, warthogs, hawks, rock dogs, devourers, etc, etc… the only thing that was ever specifically mentioned to be untameable that I recall are dragon minions.

Hylek: …do poison-turrets count? I mean. Yeah. I don’t recall any Hylek pets either

Other races worth mentioning that have/had pets:

Dwarves: Snow beasts and Dolyaks back in the days, but they also had rangers so…

Centaurs: They keep rock dogs. Only rock dogs tho.

Tengu. But of course! What they keep nowadays is a different question tho. But back in GW1 we had ranger npcs at least.

Krait: Drakes, sharks, jellyfish, deep-sea scorpions, and not forgetting the krait witches also tequatl-sized leviathans and other races! Woo.

Dredge: Used to have rangers in GW1. 98% likely fell out of fashion with newer technology and guns, don’t seem to keep pets or domesticated anymore. (….I wonder what dredge eat.)

Skritt: Murrelows (,…bears…? /stares at Guild Bounty uh)

PeterFries.1057:

Their orphanage will probably burn down soon anyway.

Nothing like the warmth of burning orphan(age)s to keep yourself cozy after a grawl-hit job.

Hohoho, merry Wintersday!

Nope, they have the external organs (twigs and berries. Badumtsh) but on the blog post linked above it says clearly

but they cannot sexually reproduce as the other races do; they have no internal organs capable of creating children.

So yes to sterile, no to internal organs for procreation.

Same dwarves who invented and perfected the deldrimor steel we used in Orr tho.
(Whether it was around by the time of the last ED rise is a different question)

Paradox has a good point. A motivator for discovery and innovation like the ED rise and the unification to combat them is unprecedented in Tyria’s history.
The old races waged war individually against them until Glint got them together.

A lot of events with dwarven artifacts link to demons and stuff like the sanguinary blade and eye of the dragons are made of remnants of jormag himself. It’s possible that at some point these became redundant or classified too dangerous and were abandoned.

So it may not have been much of a “they never progressed much” as much of a “they had to discard and hide their progress for reasons.”

+ If we’re extracting organs from plant monsters á la Mordrem, I don’t see why Sylvari shouldn’t have any. ;P

The only internal organs they are missing for certain are the ones for reproduction. For anything else, they probably have at least something akin to organs that emulates their functions. (As example, their digestive system might function akin to the liquids in pitcher plants)

Though, there’s a high degree of “It’s magic!” with sylvari biology and not too much on their anatomy beside that blog post…

Fyi the German translation of GW2 is so horribad that I am playing the game in English instead. A good chunk of the game reads like someone used google translate and evened out 75% of the grammatical errors. <_>
Acceptable for the common German MMO player (we’re used to that kinda translations in games) but for writers and lorehounds this is spectral agony on top of 25 stacks of torment ;__;

As for UI:
Hmm, that’s tricky indeed! How about accessing the books opens an ingame-browser like the TP instead that leads to the entries?
Probably still a lot of effort, but at least from the tidbits I know it seems to circumvent the text-line problem.

Or maybe, make it a page like the HoM-page…?
Granted, having everything ingame would be more elegant but having the books themselves on webpages opens up more opportunities for graphics and long text.

We get our kitten kicked so hard and disappoint the nations so much that we have to go to a completely different continent to recruit new help!
………………………(I can dream, right)

@Ben K. and Konig

I also appreciate the library and the after-talk with Ogden and it was a perfect way to do it! (no disagreement), though what I meant to say is not about it being optional or forced down, but rather that lore can be presented in different ways and doing it always this way is not that good either.

I also should clarify that I meant exposition in the sense of books or a speech by a Priory member or similar because they are a direct way for writers to inform players about lore. :P

A different approach would be showing things via ambiance .

The door in the silverwastes is an example: Right now we don’t know what’s behind it, but a lot of us know that it relates to the Forgotten because of the symbol. (See a lot of people might not know and wonder about it) If the symbol wouldn’t exist but instead we had a priory person standing there that’s like “I’ve deduced these structures once belonged to the Forgotten!”, we’d be back at directly being told.

Not saying either that one replaces the other. In the opposite, they’re supposed to complement each other. Otherwise the lore would get either too vague (too much indirectly being informed) or too disconnected/too forced from/on the plot. (too much directly being informed)

Edit: Man that’s some delicious looking waffles. ;D

That npc quote here could be a useful piece of info.

Lexis Tigerfeet: I’m Lexis Tigerfeet, formerly of the Ash Legion. Anything particular that you need?
>Formerly of the Ash Legion? What happened?
Lexis Tigerfeet: My warband was decimated on a dangerous mission in the Brand. I’ve come to the Citadel to consider my options to the future.
>You don’t have to change legions because you lost your warband.
Lexis Tigerfeet: You’re right. I left voluntary. I needed to get out of that structure for a while to consider my future.
>What have you been considering?
Lexis Tigerfeet: I could stay become a lone gladium, but that sounds lonely. Join another warband, perhaps, but that’d be hard at my age. I could return to the Brand and join the Sentinels. But that’s a one-way ticket.
>You’ve got a tough choice ahead of you.

Though also keep the legion-rivalry in mind, while it’s possible the rivalry also makes it hard and therefore rare for someone to get accepted into another legion’s warband.

Tho they’re also a top-dog race that is magical in nature and pretty much consists of murderers, as opposed to most other races which have a notable amount of peaceful civilians turned Risen, which makes them great candidates to being lieutenants anyway.

Furthermore…

We would if we could, but there is no end to them. The Risen krait seem to draw them here from Orr.

Not sure about the animation, this part of Warden Captain Kentigearna’s dialogue makes it sound more like the other Risen are drawn to them because of their lieutenant (or whatever higher ranking) status. And the presence of Risen or corruption is usually enough to raise other Risen.

I guess we could argue our heads in and not come to a conclusion because the field for interpretations it quite wide here and the conclusions on whether they have affinities for necromancy or not are both logical, heh. Should we call it a draw? ;P

Amg these post-its are adorable.

Tho, if I may add my feedback, writing-wise:

- Re: Conversation with Marjory.
Sharing Marjory’s opinion on the egg more than our own character’s felt rather jarring.

Never put player-character statements that aren’t conclusive to players themselves.
That works for games in which the player-controlled character has an identity already, but for fill-in protagonists that act as our window to the world of Tyria, it feels weird.

- Re: Lore
The biggest highlight beside Glint’s lair was the Library in EP5. Now I’ve read that Leah isn’t so fond of lore-dump expositions and I agree that it’s not the best way to go about lore in general.

Though! To help the exposition of lore, how does the idea of a collection-tab for lore sound to you? But instead of collecting books themselves, we collect items to unlock books about the lore tied to the items for our home instance.

Think that’s something you could pass on? What do you think?

Hmm… that line can be both interpreted as “measure in power in mastery of undeath” and “measure in power in their undead after-life” (aka being risen) if you ask me.
Tho now I see where you’re coming from.

Warbands are initially formed from the same legion, as the other posters said.

Though afterwards, they can mix up. An example would be the Charr-players warband throughout the PS in which you recruit different Charr from different legions who lost their own warbands.

@draxynnic
Can you send me a message about these events? I seriously don’t recall any. As for blood idols, if you look closely they’re just bottles with blood and meat. It seems to me more like fancy-named barracuda bait items than necromancy…

Though if you put it that way, it’s both equally possible that either a) Anet screwed up or b) it’s gameplay decisions after all (or c), both?)

Don’t wanna derail the topic too much, so I’ll keep it short, hopeyoudontmind :p

Yep the undead one. And ye I forgot the poison cloud skill. It applies poison and confusion which it normally doesnt.
2 much gameplay-lore segregation? Idk. Hypnoss are mesmers, Necross are actually their necromancers. What I wanted to say is they aren’t exclusively about necromancy, we just happen to have only a single caster-class of their many ones ingame and it’s a mesmer one with some necro-skills chunked in. <_>

Merus.9475:

ElysianEternity.6215:

You don’t have to please us, you have to be honest with us. No need to spill the beans and tell us about what you are working on, but something along the lines of “we’re excited about what we’re working on”

I think part of it is that, judging from the forum and from the subreddit, ArenaNet has a bit of a credibility problem at the moment. They don’t have a particularly good history of delivering on promises because they don’t make promises, but unfortunately you don’t build credibility from scrupulously not promising to do things. (A lot of the discontent from scheduling breaks comes from the same place – one of the few promises was a new release with new content every two weeks, and they stuck to that. Having it ‘broken’ now, even if for a good reason like the holiday season, stings.) As a result, even relatively innocuous statements like “we think you’ll enjoy what we’re working on” from an ArenaNet employee who’s only started posting recently seem disingenuous.

While I agree with the credibility sentiment, I think you misinterpreted what I was addressing about the innocent statement.

A creator, be it writer, designer, musician, artist, etc should NEVER tell their audience how to feel about their work. Especially work that is still in progress.
Unfortunately that’s common as kittens in any industry, be it on purpose or by mistake.

Telling us how we’ll react creates hype. Now, what is hype?
On the customers side, a high and mostly unrealistic expectation, founded in anticipation.
On the creators side? A sugarcoated promise that turns out to be empty.

In Anet’s case, not only are the default expectations high because of all the potential customers see in their product but by constantly creating hype by exaggerating and telling us how we’ll feel, they are also pushing these expectations beyond anything they can actually deliver (or even is human possible, which we as playerbase don’t recognize).

As result, over and over again we feel disappointed and lied at because most of us never felt in awe like we were told we’d feel. So not only is the pushing hype thing coming out of our ears and noses by now, but multiple factors like poor communication, poor transparency, etc. are only adding salt to the wound.

Result, we feel disconnected from the developers.

So, now one may ask, with the hype problem – what do then?
Answer: Be honest. That’s it.

“We’re excited how you’ll feel about our content.” or “The team worked kitten including more xxx for the coming release!” are setting expectations too, but! By all means, they are 99,99% likely honest statements. Even if we are dissatisfied by the delivery still, we are not as disgruntled as if they had told us “This will rock your socks!”

Because they wouldn’t have lied and we couldn’t deny that you put a lot of work into it.

Note, GW2 has always kind of a default hype because it has GW1’s name to ‘live up to’ in the eyes of the players and also because we’re really ????? about its future and what COULD be.

But honesty is the most important step to transparency which creates ‘positive hype’ and a better dev-playerbase relationship. Not the only step since the riff between playerbase and devs is a multilayered problem, but definitely a very appreciated one.

As example, see how relieved we are about Bobby replying to the bug in the latest LS instance and admitting it was just a bug or Peter right here exploring the lore forum and addressing points there and there.

Tl dr;

- Base hype = expectation always high as is because of high potential + high anticipation of/for GW2 content
- Unnecessary extra hype = ‘baseless assumptions’ about how we’ll feel create ridiculously high expectations on top of it = lying = playerbase disappointed no matter what you do

- Honest statements = allow for better communication, definitely better PR = still involves no promises whatsoever, just ‘facts’ = restores credibility and trust!
- Bonus: Step to tighter relationship between playerbase and devs. Woo!

And that’s my wall-o-text analysis of the problems I see around hype. ;P

^ Small correction on the krait magic part from your friendly neighborhood krait researcher rper.

The only necromancer skills they use are their auto attacks. Though that can be attributed to not wanting to give them Mesmer AA underwater since it’d look kinda ridiculous on them… They also use Chaos-storm and an event krait hypnoss in maelstrom casts illusions of herself. Hypnoss is their mesmer class and the only caster, blame game design decisions. There’s an Arcanoss and even a Devouss ingame, but they use the hypnoss model. :p

And now back on topic, yeah before the ToN poisons and such were uniquely attributed to being the Hylek’s speciality. And bringing death can be attributed to… a lot of things. Also dredge tried a lot of strange things, see the Destroyer of Worlds in SE3. They’re closer to destroyer-related problems than icebrood.

So I think relating the factions to the dragon spheres is a bit of a stretch…

@Sytherek

Well, that’s a fallacy assuming people who don’t post here don’t have similar expectations to posters though.

Just like players can be quietly happy, players can also be quietly unhappy. Someone who has an issue with the handling of lore might rant to it to their best friend as opposed to post a wall on a social media site or wherever it’s visible for others. It’s not that easy to write off a sentiment as vocal minority.

Anyways, back to Mr. Fries.

You don’t have to please us, you have to be honest with us. No need to spill the beans and tell us about what you are working on, but something along the lines of “we’re excited about what we’re working on” and expressing your giddiness and joy about seeing our reaction when it goes live is miles better than standard PR speech like “you’ll love it! It will surprise you! blahblahblah” :P

My old teacher always used to say, writers decide what is right, readers decide what is good. ;P