Guild Wars 2

Your idea of how the world should work doesn’t mesh with ANet’s idea of how the world should work.

Don’t try to fit a square peg into a round hole?

Sylvari do photosynthesize to an extent, but not enough to keep them alive solely through that. They have to eat too.

The breathing is probably for much the same reason we do, but with some kind of internal plantlike structure rather than lungs.

Devs have mentioned(I forget where) that drakes have no relation to the Elder Dragons.

That doesn’t mean it’s a dragon though. It just means it’s being studied.

The Pact is focusing on Zhaitan because he’s the most active and outright dangerous dragon around at the moment.

Dropping by to entice the flames of war

“Hey guys I’m just dropping by to troll”

Dropping by to entice the flames of war with the rumor (guesses from other threads) that the pale tree is a dragon champion that turn on its master (Like Glint did) thus the Silvary would already be dragons minions and as such can’t be corrupted by other dragons.

Nope.

Also ANet doesn’t encourage trolling so you probably shouldn’t do that.

“While the other races may be corrupted by the Elder Dragons, turned into undead minions or crystalline creatures of the Brand, the sylvari are never turned. Those born of the Pale Tree simply die before the corruption takes hold. Many sylvari believe that this is because they were born to battle the dragons, blessed with a certain protection against their most horrible powers. Some non-sylvari scholars state instead that the sylvari’s strange biology foils the corruption of the dragons. A few clever souls state that sylvari just taste bad to dragons. No one knows for certain which is the truth.”
-Guild Wars 2 Official Website

This is not WoW where all the races are so bigoted and downright idiotic that they cannot see past their own differences and conflicts to attack the giant big bad guy knocking down their front door with a battering ram.

They’re working together.

They’re actually smart.

What was said above. When injured to the point by corruption that other races would be turned, either into Risen, or Branded, or Icebrood or what have you, they simply wither and die.

They’re not immune to the corruption inasmuch as they can’t be harmed by it at all, but they cannot be turned and corrupted into dragon minions.

They just die before it can happen.

Pirate.7514:

I have a set of magic find for farming, and crit for other stuff, and while I can understand how it sucks when 2-3 people in the 5man keep dying to trash due to them wearing MF armor, thats also the problem with pugging, I also understand pugging being a required evil, so I purpose a much more simple solution, they need to add an Inspect option to players, so you can see there armor and ask them to switch to real armor or be kicked.

You guys basically keep explaining why they’re never going to put an inspect system in the game.

ANet is never going to support telling other players how to play in a game that’s built so you can play however the kitten you want to play.

MithranArkanere.8957:

There should be, at least an option to let others inspect you.

That way, if you don’t want to go with someone that primers magic find over more, or you want to go with people that do not care as much about your gear, you’ll be able to do so.

No. ANet will not put inspect in the game, for this exact reason. They do not want people to try to force people to gear a certain way.

And then you’d get “WHY DO YOU HAVE MAGIC FIND/DETERMINED/ETC FOOD” instead of whatever DPS food you could be getting.

Having it on gear is the best solution.

What’s the most expensive gear on the Trading Post? This is the gear most people are buying.

Go ahead, you can go look.

What is it? Beserker gear. Glass cannon gear.

What’s some of the cheaper gear? Explorer gear. Almost noone’s buying it(I think Cleric/Carrion gear is actually more expensive)

People are going to be class cannons anyway.

People really should stop trying to tell other people how to gear. ANet’s entire philosophy is to let people gear how they want, build how they want, and play like they want.

They’re not going to remove MF for that exact reason. Because people should be able to do what they like.

Gear is not a huge factor in this game. Player skill is. Having Magic Find gear is not going to cripple you in any meaningful way.

What way would you have us gain Magic Find, though? If you take it off of gear all that leaves is consumables. And how long before you hear everyone “OMG Y U USING MAGIC FIND FOOD?”

Having it on gear is the best option in order to have it ingame, unless they go some kind of awful “Prestige” route like Diablo where you gain it by grinding, essentially.

People are pitching a fit about it because of some perceived issue, or because they’re jealous. That is really all it is.

There is no actual issue here, it’s all perception.

This is why ANet has not put in(And probably -won’t- put in) an inspect feature. So that unless you TELL someone what gear you’re using, they can’t see it.

So people can gear whatever way they want, which is what ANet wants.

Magic Find on gear is not a problem, and people are making it into one either because they’re jealous, or from some kind of perceived “It makes you suck!” which is entirely untrue.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

Hence the lockout, so you can’t reset exploration mode. Each path “Once” every 24 hours seems quite fine, everyone wins then.

Lockouts work for WoW because gear actually does something other than look cool.

Here it would be unnecessary gating and people would absolutely hate it.

No no and no again.

Making tokens drop from bosses would just bring back people clearing the easiest couple of bosses and resetting. ANet changed it specifically so that cannot happen.

Auron.2657:

Illushia.3721:

Ranger damage is balanced around having a pet out and about, so you’re only crippling yourself by trying to leave it stowed.

The pet’s are no where near 50% damage, I don’t spec in them so it’s like 10-15% pet dmg, and there only good for situational buffs.

15-20% is probably closer, and that’s a huge chunk of damage. Even 10% is not damage that you want to lose.

You’re crippling yourself by not having a pet out, between the buffs, the conditions and debuffs they put on the enemy, and the tanking they do for you.

Ranger damage is balanced around having a pet out and about, so you’re only crippling yourself by trying to leave it stowed.

Just to point out, they did say that the Zhaitan fight is bugged so it’ll probably change from spam 2 to win.

True.

I just guess I’m sticking to the idea that ANet’s presented rather than trying to come up with anything new, which in itself isn’t bad I suppose.

They’ve outright described the Elder Dragons as being… I guess, animals, but really strong and powerful animals. They have urges, they need to eat, they want to destroy things and all that nonsense, but they don’t plan or anything like that.

Instinctual is a good word.

Hmm… If the Elder Dragons are really akin to forces of nature, then what are the consequences of taking a “force of nature” out of the equation? Perhaps defeating Zhaitan will in turn empower the other dragons, making them stronger in its absence?

Well, they’re not forces of nature. They’re dangerous, they screw kitten up, and they leave, they don’t plan or scheme. Just like a hurricane would.

So taking one out of the equation MIGHT strengthen the others just from lack of competition, but they’re so disparate right now I really doubt it.

So perhaps they are, in a way similar to the forces of nature, but instead “forces” of magic/transcendental beings, which are factors in the “equation” or “equilibrium” of the world?

I really doubt. You’re really taking the ‘force of nature’ thing too far, when they’re not really the same. See my explanation above.

If so, their purpose may be simply to balance the world and keep a semblance of homeostasis in the world. Their motivations may even be incomprehensible to themselves, just as the ocean is not necessarily “aware” of itself or its purpose, but rather interacts with the world in the form of physics.

That… is a stretch. I really doubt that, because they essentially almost wiped out the world before, and only went to sleep when everyone hid and they ran out of things to eat.

If they really are the magical counterparts of the forces of nature, their purpose may be simply to balance out the magic in the world, which does appear to be spontaneously created, in a way inconsistent with the real world concept of the conservation of matter and energy. They may just be a way of nature maintaining an equilibrium of magic; their consumption of magic and then cyclic “sleep” simply a way of taking the excess magic out of the equation.

That just seems a huge stretch, and I really doubt it. They just eat and eat and eat, regardless of any sort of balance, since they would rather eat everything and almost did before.

The only reason that they didn’t before was because everyone hid.

There’s no balance in eating everything.

I would think she’s probably a Mesmer, given her illusion abilities but I’m not sure.

Nightmare is, in fact, a part of the dream; a part created by the dark feelings of sylvari, originally when Cadeyrn saw the results of the Inquest’s experiments on one of the first-born.

Actually, no, the Nightmare existed before that, it only manifested first in Cadeyrn because he was the first of the Sylvari to express those emotions it thrives on.

the “Other Tree” doesn’t have any call to fight the dragons.

While this is true, Malyck does say that he’s going to try to convince his tree to join the fight.

The Elder Dragons were a reference to Chrono Cross and I didn’t notice it yet? facepalm
Next you know Lavos will appear from the depths of the earth? (Or worse, Deus from Xenogears crash-lands on Tyria?)

They’re not a reference, he was just pointing out some of the similarities.

I’ve seen 1v1 little skirmishes pop up the swords, so I have no idea how it works.

Seeing some other dragons would be kind of interesting, if they go with EDs being supercharged normal dragons of some kind.

Could fill the “Bad guy gone good” niche people keep trying to fit the Sylvari into.

They are the size of a small continent

Ah… Nope? The biggest one we’ve seen so far was maybe Kralkatorrik and he was just a large mountain/couple of mountains in size.

Definitely not in continent range.

They conform to the typical Western dragon archetype (six limbs: four legs, two wings)

Zhaitan is more like … dragons stuck together into a massive undead dragon-esque… thing. And he’s the only one we’ve actually seen so far.

http://www.theroundtablet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/gw2-zhaitan-the-undead-dragon.jpg

He’s quite nasty.

They designate champions, some of which can acquire (or are given) free will

Glint was given free will by outside influences, and was killed for it. And as far as we know, the people that accomplished giving Glint free will are long dead and gone.

Lore indicates that they were put to sleep because the previous civilization could not defeat them

They went to sleep of their own volition because they’d eaten and destroyed everything they could find.

Are the Elder Dragons biologically active, or are they magical constructs? If the latter: do they consume magic to keep themselves active? Does their life cycle correspond with sufficient the presence of sufficient magic to sustain them? If so, could the Gods of Tyria, in gifting magic to mortals, have contributed to the awakening of the Elder Dragons?

They seem to be some kind of amalgamation between the two. Starving Zhaitan of his magical ‘food’ which he actually eats through a "Mouth of Zhaitan" completely separate from his body, which lends more to the idea that they're not really biological sufficiently weakens him to allow him to be attacked.

And it more seems like that they awoke simply… because. And that they all wake around the same time.

Is their ability to consume magic a selection mechanism etc…

It more seems like that’s just how they eat.

What is the relationship between the Dragons, the Gods of Tyria (which were a tangible presence in the original Guild Wars), and the ancient giants (Giganticus lupicus)?

Probably nothing. The Gods showed up after the Dragons were defeated last time, Humans in tow, and well after the giants seemed to have disappeared.

What do the Elder Dragons think? Are they self-aware? Do they have plots and plans? Or are they automatons, mindlessly pursuing some mysterious objective?

ANet has essentially stated that they exist to eat, destroy, make more minions, and fight each other. They don’t seem to have plans or goals.

Does their ability to change their surroundings indicate that their purpose might be to stir things up, from an evolutionary perspective? To basically generate punctuated equilibrium, wherein a wide variety of new and diverse species appears rapidly, as though out of nowhere?

Their corruption is… corruption. It doesn’t create new things, it alters that which is already there. And they don’t reproduce(other than by creating more of the same) so any changes they DID make would just die out over time from simple attrition.

They’re described as forces of nature, albeit possessing some level of sapience.

They’re described as akin to forces of nature, inasmuch as they don’t plan, they just destroy things. Not that they actually ARE forces of nature.

2. Yes the dragon at the start of the sylvari zone is caused by the corruption of the Nightmare Court, thus showing the true nature of the Sylvari since the second generation mostly didnt get influenced by the teachings on Ventari’s tablet

No.

The Dragon at the end of the Sylvari starting instance is a representation of the Player Character’s Wyld Hunt to kill a dragon.

Caithe had a similar Dream, meaning Caithe and the PC are the only two Sylvari to have had a Wyld Hunt to kill a dragon. It’s mentioned in several of the personal story quests, and where the Dragon came from.

And what are you talking about with the tablet? All the Sylvari from the Pale Tree(Save those turned to the Nightmare) follow Ventari’s tablet one way or another.

It’s only those from the other tree, like Malyck, who don’t follow the tablet but have a fairly similar outlook and demeanor to those that do.

Other races don’t much care about homosexuals either.

Furienify.5738:

It does feel rather forced.

I mean, I realize romanticism in general is one of the sylvari hallmarks. Either sexuality comes as naturally to them as its counterparts. But I can’t think of a gay character in the game that isn’t sylvari. No, Faren does not count.

None of the Sylvari are gay either. Since they don’t have normal genders, gender roles, or ideas of sexuality.

Saur about life, is you.

Don’t build them?

I know it sucks but my guild is essentially in the same boat. Those boosts are too expensive for not enough time, and will never be worth it unless we get a lot more people.

The OP obviously has never dealt with Blizzards “you can’t play on Tuesday” 6-9 hour weekly maintenance. ANET’s updates , regardless of the time of day they roll out, are cake compared to that.

The reason their maintenances are so long is because WoW uses the WC3 engine still. Which was never made for MMO-style games. They basically have to break it any time they want to change or fix anything, which is also why coming out with new content, updates, and fixes takes so long for them.

This isn’t about wanting extra damage.

It’s about wanting damage that everyone else gets, but we’re screwed out of by no reason.

We don’t want extra damage. We want damage we should have anyway.

juiceman.2870:

I can how a build kind of built around stacking this is made kind of useless by limiting the stacks but somehow the mobs need to be able to put a fight against giant zergs of players. The 25 limit I am sure is to limit the damage on the boss so it doesnt die too easy. If they removed that then they need to add some other buff or something that reduces damage or some way for the boss to take hits so it needs to be there in some form.

This is like saying it’s okay if for some arbitrary reason if there’s more than three direct damage dealers that the fourth one or even the third one does no damage, or less damage.

It’s dumb.

gamerRazmus.3862:

I wonder if sylvari breathe in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen?

Afaik yes.

Probably. Depends on what they have for waste disposal and processing.

@Illushia the night Elves were not part of the Naaru group. Their source of power come from Elune herself. The rest of them yes. But I see where you going with is. I hated blizzard doing this like that a specially when it’s comes to theTauren who at one upon a time they had a tribe who where call the sun walkers who draw their powers from the sun which blizzard changed said they draw it fom the Naaru thus they can be paladins. The blood elf I can accept with the way they explain it but till it still sounded wrong anyway.

The most recent CDev all but confirmed that Elune is a Naaru, so yeah.

Rather than say anything else about the “Pale Tree is dragon/champion” stuff, I’ll just point out.

People don’t like it when everything gets all linked back to a single source. Blizzard’s doing that with the Naaru(Draenei, Tauren, Humans, Night Elves(going that way, at least), Blood Elves etc) are ALL linked to or owe their powers/abilities to the Naaru in some way.

And people haaaaaaaaate that.

So I imagine that ANet won’t make the same mistake and link eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeverything back to the Elder Dragons somehow, especially since they already said they don’t want to do that.

They can start with the Sylvari by hopefully coming out and stating at some point that they aren’t related to the dragons, other than wanting to fight them.

Well, yeah. You’ll see torn/compressed flesh and most likely internal damage, but given what we know about plants in our world, it just seems like a fall from some height wouldn’t be as fatal/dangerous for a Sylvari as it would one of us.

1) They can and do.

2) I think it’s more something like leaves/tissue wrapped around their wooden ‘bones’.

3) I haven’t the foggiest idea.

This led me to a thought.

People can’t survive long falls because bones are inherently brittle. Apply enough force and they snap and break. To tie into that, our organs are very fleshy/liquidy and just kind of… go splat under duress.

Plants don’t have either of those problems.

So would a fall from up high really do any damage to a Sylvari?

Caithe is in love with Faolain, the Grand Duchess of the Nightmare Court.

Eir shoulda been courage or recklessness. =p

Guild armorsmiths have backpack items.

Things you get from your personal quests don’t have a model as far as I can tell.

As far as I can tell, though, the Sylvari seem to share most things.

As far as sleeping I’ve seen a few NPCs just out and about on the ground in the grove sleeping.

So maybe they don’t need a whole lot of space for personal belongings?

The Zhaitan fight is bugged and Devs are fixing it.

He’s not supposed to just sit there.

Nageth.5648:

Illushia, you certainly have an inflated sense of self. Do you realize how many bad ideas are uttered every day without your prior approval? Better yet do you have any idea how many bad ideas you’ve uttered? Really, if you want to talk about an idea talk about the idea and don’t try to degrade the person writing it.

This has nothing to do with me and everything with the idea being horrible.

No one is asking you to “deal” with anything. I really hope you don’t read fan fiction for your own mental health.

Imagine we simply don’t respond to some of these crazy ideas. We let them grow as they will, without anyone contesting them despite them obviously being inane.

What happens then is that more people read these ideas, with noone going “NO THIS IS TERRIBLE” and they accept them as good ideas, or even fact.

And suddenly we’re dealing with Sylvari running around spouting off about how they’re the spawn of this and that dragon and they’re going to help take over the world.

This is not a good thing.

Nageth.5648:

Wow, kind of “no no no not explaining this anymore” aren’t we.

Anyway, biggest issue I see with making the Pale Tree a defected underling of a dragon is that an expansion would be entirely Sylvari centric. Doubt they’d go that direction.

It just seems to go against nearly everything that ANet’s established for the Sylvari so far.

I had to deal with enough crazy ideas on other games.