Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but this has more to do with lord than anything else, so I will write there. It was very early in HoT that I realized how different Mordy is in his approach from other Elder Dragons, what with his industrial theme and him having a voice, but only now did I realize why it is so.
Simply enough: Mordremoth and his army is an allegory for populist far-right movements, religiously or ethnically motivated, particularily National Socialism and modern-day Salafi Islamism.
Weird, you ask? Well, allow me to explain further.
- Fascists and religious extremists alike have wide goals – not world domination perhaps but conquest and expansion are always on their minds – but target a specific group of people from whom they spawned, be it a nation, an ethnicity and its close relatives (as was the case with National Socialism, who sought the expansion of not only Germans but the entire Germanic world, including Scandinavia and the Nerherlands), or a religion (such as Sunni Islam). Likewise Mordremoth specifically targets and brainwashes a very specific group, the sylvari, whose nature it represents.
- Most important detail: Mordremoth claims to be the true origin and purpose of all sylvari. That IS what fascism is about. Mussolini claimed his fascist empire to be the continuation of Rome, the particularily infamous Adolf derived his Reich from both the German Empire and the Holy Roman Empire (Second and First Reich respectively), the modern day Islamic State claims to be the continuation of the original Caliphate and its extremist religion to be Islam in its pure, unadulterated form. Now, look at what the Mordrem Guard do. They CONSTANTLY ramble about how they are the true sylvari, how they are what they were originally meant to be – and how other sylvari kittenisted are traitors and hypocrites. That is basically what the National Socialists preached and what the IS preaches now.
- The effect they have on the targeted community. One of the themes of the expansion was how sylvari are prejudiced against. Now, remember what happened to the Germans in the USSR and the Japanese in the USA…
- The concentration camps. Need I say more?
Is anything of what I said sensible, or is it some meaningless rambling?
(edited by Imperios.2543)
One important thing: asura are not Romans.
There is not even that much Ancient Roman about them, outside of names – unlike the charr, for example. If anything, they are Mesoamerican, or perhaps Greek.
They do not necessarily need to use proper Latin.
There is plenty of content to do still, but when the story itself will continue?
The 2 suggestion reminds me of Arkham Knight’s Joker arc. Brilliant!
[Spoiler] So when you first saw the end boss for HoT...
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Imperios.2543
“So that is where Darth Baras went after I defeated him!”
When Mordremoth became a vegetable? Should they retain their free will but still be evil kitten holes, turn back into normal sylvarI physically and/or mentally, or just turn into vegetable minions of a vegetable dragon?
If Mordremoth is said to reign over the mind, then what happens with Jormag who possesses the ability to control minds as well? What is his/her (I like to think of Jormag as female) second sphere?
They are imitations. Mordy cannot corrupt animals so instead he kills them, uses them as fertilizer for his plants and shapes these plants in likeness of living things.
Thank you. I’ll make a scepter then.
Sword and pistol was my favourite weapon combination ever since I first began playing GW2, but scepters can work too.
Can sword and pistol be used in addition to staff on condition mesmer builds?
Can condi mesmers also use phantasms?
So what I wanted to do essentially is a build that focuses both on powerful phantasms and lots of conditions of all kinds. Chrono spec is more of an afterthought and could in theory be replaced by Domination.
What do you think? What armour set could best be used with this? Carrion? Sinister?
So what I wanted to do essentially is a build that focuses both on powerful phantasms and lots of conditions of all kinds. Chrono spec is more of an afterthought and could in theory be replaced by Domination.
What do you think? What armour set could best be used with this? Carrion? Sinister?
I wonder. [spoiler] Why killing Fattie in Mordremoth’s dream result in his physical body dying ans magic dispersing from his body? Shouldn’t he have simply become a braindead vegetable (pardon the pun) wih all the magic still in his unconscious body, or does that mean that magic in Tyria is somehow mental and stored by the mind itself?[/spoiler]
(edited by Imperios.2543)
If anything he looked kinda like Bowser.
Sure it was call but… why so fat?
How do you think Mordremoth’s avatar body should have looked like?
While the fat Godzilla guy looked cool, I think that making his form slender, or perhaps even humanoid – like a Mordrem Guard on steroids – would be better.
Is that retailer (warning: vodka language) eligible for recieving free character slots for Heart of Thorns?
The FAQ says that all registration codes offer free slots, regardless of where it is bought, and gamazavr offers registration codes, not pre-orders. I have already activated the code; I received the expansion but not the slot.
Gaile Gray on reddit also stated that only certain companies are eligible for registration codes, but none of the Russian companies were included in the list. Gamazavr states that it is the official partner of ArenaNet.
Should I just wait for the registration code or will it never come to me?
Will that cheap video card be able to handle Guild Wars 2 on good graphics with a good PC in general?
Imagine if two of these three commanders were resurrected Scarlet and converted Trahearne. Now that’s going to motivate us to end Mordremoth once and for all.
One thing I did not like in original GW2 dungeons is that it featured very little actual architecture. ArenaNet makes most gorgeous landscapes, but unfortunately most of the dungeons looked very bland and generic, with nearly half of them being, well, just caves. Most of them were also nearly indistinguishable from the outside world: Arah looked very much like the rest of Orr and the Crucible of Eternity was no different from any other Inquest base.
Could HoT raids perhaps be different? Could they introduce unique architectural and design styles in each instance, distinct from the rest of Maguuma?
Weapons rooted in lore.
I’d like a legendary to have a backstory behind it.
AFAIK, many female players were displeased that many sets of female armour in Guild Wars 2 are very revealing and unpractical. This is understandable: few girls like to look like women of loose sexual morals.
This problem should be fixed somehow.
But I’m a man and I sure as hell do not want to lose my sexy norn elementalist with a lightning whip and my sylvari warrior in plate bikini.
So how about introducing cosmetic undergarments as a form of compromise? These undergarments could take form of shirts (like in World of Warcraft), jackets, pants, perhaps chainmail for heavy armour users; the more plain-looking ones could be bought with gold, while the fancier ones could easily fit in the gem shop. This way, women can have modestly-dressed, more realistic characters, while men can have scantily-clad hotties they like (or vice versa – there are revealing sets of armour for men too in GW2, after all). It’s a win-win situation!
male counterpart.
Weren’t corsets, like, unisex?
One question.
How is one supposed to level now? Dailies were one of the main sources of XP.
Fast temperature changes! My one weakness!
This knowledge might come in handy.
/shifty eyes/
To catch a thief, you must become a thief.
To kill a necromancer, you must become… an elementalist.
Chill! Burn! Chill! Burn!
(Dang, now I’m imagining Konig as a WoW-style raid boss in one of those over-organisation parody videos.
“Okay, so we’re going to need to apply lots of cold damage until the boss turns blue. Remember, until then, any fire damage will undo cold damage he’s taken in the last 15 seconds, so if you can only do fire damage, DON’T ATTACK THE BOSS. Hit the minions, they’re there specifically so that fire characters have something to do when he’s in the red phase. When he switches over – I’ll announce it in vent in case you’re busy blasting skeletons or something – I’ll need all you fire characters to switch to the boss ay-ess-ay-pee while the frost guys switch to keeping the minions under control. Other damage types do substantially less damage to him then the properly executed cold-fire-cold-fire cycle, so help cull the minions if necessary, otherwise work on the boss, but it would be best if you can participate in the cycle by swapping between fiery and icy weapons. Holy does a bit more damage, of course, but it scales up even better against the minions, so if you’ve got a holy spec you should probably concentrate on the minions. Any questions?”
“KILROOOOOOOOOY STONEKIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!”
“Oh man, not AGAIN!?!”)
> This.
Konig should become the new world boss.
^This
Less cliffhangers, more meaningful story.
Neat! We need more hard content desperately.
Personally, I find it weird how SoT gets all the hate;
If you ask me, I loved every minute of it; the dialogues and the animation was superb, the new stealth mechanics were interesting, and the plot itself was quite nice (Faolain was <3, getting to know the origins of salad people was refreshing and as an asura player I liked to see the dark side of the race I play).
My only problems with SoT were that it was quite short (ALTHOUGH this is alleviated by the quality of the release, which was great) and that I couldn’t really, well, play as myself. HOWEVER this patch seems to be filler/transition content for something larger, so perhaps that is okay.
I would LOVE to see the new stealth mechanics and ESPECIALLY the new dialogue system to be used in later patches, though. It’s somewhat depressing not to hear the Snaff Prize Savant’s voice for so long :P
Maybe it’s because her fall into the Nightmare begins with her search for FREEDUHM?
“We are not that different, are we? Both youthful and full of zealous ardor, both willing to endure whatever painful contingencies required to achieve triumph – whether it be on the field of battle or inside a laboratory. In a different time, I think, we could have been comrades – friends, even… had it not been for the blood that courses through my veins. The same blood you so brutally spilled two years ago in the Crucible.
My name is Zunn, Second Archsophos of the Inquest. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
Name: Zunn, Second Archsophos of the Inquest
Backstory: Kudu’s son. Having survived the fall of the Crucible of Eternity, Zunn is now one of the Inquest’s highest-ranked members, continuing Kudu’s research in dragon energy and leading Inquest operations om Mordrem territory.
Character: Brash, abrasive, but at the same time, not smug like his father. Very willing to undergo risks – both when it comes to his own life and the lives of his comrades. Rather touchy about his father (in a similar way to Zojja/Snaff). Will probably face the main character a few times without his golem before the dungeon/raid because of the aforemented things.
Boss battle: Without his golem, Zunn fights mostly with conventional weaponry like a warrior/thief mix – dual swords/dual pistol combination – nothing particularily dangerous. He also uses experimental Mordrem energy technology to bolster himself in battle such as barriers and life-draining beams (cast on one of the NPCs and, if multiple players are presents, PCs – to stop the beam, one has to stand between Zunn and the victim, resulting in a short circuit that damages the player but breaks one of Zunn’s shields). Overall, however, he is not so dangerous alone.
The REAL kitten starts when Zunn is faced inside his massive quadrapedal (see last picture) Mordremothic golem, which would require an actual raid team. At the first phase, the upper part of the golem is invincible, and the large “legs” of the boss have to be broken first. However, as the kitten thing IS ACTUALLY MOVING AND CAN STOMP YOU, doing so is no simple task. As the golem moves, it also shoots lasers at the random member of the group (announced in the chat) – forcing that party member to move constantly for as long as the laser is active (circa 6 seconds) lest he/she be killed instantly by the beam. After the laser barrage is over, an impassable bramble patch (or trail of burning ground) is left where it struck. The team’s task is to damage both large legs of the golem to slow it sufficiently and to trick Zunn into being trapped inside impassable terrain – at that point, the golem’s legs are broken and it is incapacitated, starting phase 2.
This phase shall be far more add-heavy, as more Inquest troops appear to help their leader. The golem can no longer stomp people or fire his laser repeatedly, but can concentrate its energy into a huge, powerful bolt that, should it hit the player, not only kill him/her but also turn him/her into another add (a Mordrem). Also, due to being damaged, the legs of the golem start leaking Mordremothic energy, creating several puddles of energy that continue expanding as the fight progresses. Aside from buffing the adds turning them into Mordrem, these pools also deal severe damage if a player steps into one. The only way to destroy these pools is to trick the golem into exploding them with its laser beams; to do so, one must kill adds, take their shields that provide invulnerability, and then step into the puddles.
Finally, when the golem’s hull is broken, Zunn leaves the kittenpit and starts attacking like crazy, using his weapons and magic much like in previous encounters but now leaping from enemy to enemy, choosing targets randomly, and increasing his attack speed significantly. He will also use more Mordremothic abilities, such as creating puddles of energy (similar to those in phase 2) and pools of transfiguration – which, if a player steps in, increase his/her stats and heal him/her, but also turn him/her into a Mordrem add if he/she stays there for too long.
That’s it. Come up with your own encounters!
Pretty much what it says in the topic title.
Since ANet, while good with protagonists, has had some trouble (I believe) in making interesting named villains so far (while PS had a few like Kudu, Gaheron and the Infinity Ball protagonists, none of the world bosses have much personality and LS only has Scarlet and Aerin), and is still learning boss mechanics, I suggest we could come up with a boss or two for them.
Though I doubt any of them will actually end up in the actual game, these proposals could set up a format both when it comes to lore and gameplay, and especially in having these two aspects of the game intertwine.
I’ll start now:
Why do so many humans in GW2 have English-inspired names? Kasmeer Meade, Marjory and Belinda Jane Delaqua, Ela Makkay, et cetera et cetera.
AFAIK, the ethnic majority in Kryta is vaguely Mediterranean (Krytans) – Saul d’Alessio, queen Salma etc. Ascalonians (who are the most English people in the game) are a minority, on par with people from Cantha and Elona, and Ela Makkay and the Delaquas are not even from there. Sure, there could be some cross-cultural exchange, but still it does not make sense for English names to be dominant. If anything, Italian or Spanish should have been more common.
TL;DR: Disconnects during missions annoying, make a save system that allows one to play from the checkpoint one disconnected from.
Long introduction; scroll down to see the main part of the post:
Hello.
The first thing I would like to say is that I thoroughly enjoyed both the Personal Story and the Living Story’s second season, and found their respective plots enjoyable and compelling. I especially liked the characters of Sieran, Zojja, Trahearne, Faolain and Marjory Delaqua, as well as the plots regarding the Asura race (especially the Infinity Ball), the Order of Whispers, and the recent Mordrem storyline.
(that being said, the first season of the Living Story was impressive as well purely because of its innovatory format, engaging, if at times unusual, narrative and impeccable boss fights notwithstanding. However, I would exempt its discussion from this thread for reasons described below.)
One innovation I have found particularily enjoyable, though, was the implementation of single-player story instances for maintaining a personal storyline that has been used for the entirety of the Personal Story and the Living Story’s second season. As opposed to other storyline-based MMORPGs, where the combination of complex, plot-driven quest chains and non-instanced areas resulted in disarray and even, at times, servers shutting down (cough cough our bond is iron cough), or Guild Wars 1, where story instance usage was so thorough that the game could never dare to call itself massive, Guild Wars 2 combines these two systems, creating a world where the story of a character and the story of the world support and complement one another.
However, this system too has its flaws, and the greatest one of these, the one I and, I believe, many other Guild Wars 2 have faced throughout their play, is the disconnect problem._ Should one, at one point or another in the story, suffer a connection failure and thus need to restart the game or relog, any progress that he or she has so patiently worked on will be inevitably erased, and the poor soul will have to repeat the mission over and over again until his Internet connection would show mercy to him or her and allow him to complete it_. That problem, coupled with my faulty Internet connection (courtesy of my location in the icy wastes of Russia), has significantly lengthened my playtime, which was nice had it not been for me having to repeat some long missions (such as: Battle for Claw Island, Retribution, Forging the Pact, The World Summit and Hidden Arcana) several times.
GW2’s predecessor, GW1, apparently utilised a system wherein mission progress could be saved, allowing the player not to waste significant amount of time on replaying the mission over and over again. Is it possible, coding-wise, for this system to be introduced to Guild Wars 2?
How about we reenact the Russian Civil War instead?
Communist sylvari and monarchist White asura :P
The Mad King that visits Tyria in Halloween has always been played as comic relief. A figure of fun, totally cooky, sadist-as-humor character.
Having spent a bit of time in the Labyrinth recently, it’s struck me how much the Mad King/Bloody Prince repartee plays violence against women as a joke.
Does this make anyone else uncomfortable?
(I’m kind of hoping that bringing this to anet’s attention will encourage them to actually update the Halloween content/storyline rather than rolling out the same misogynistic stuff year on year…)
Wha? Why?
The Mad King is a villain. It’s not like his actions are seen as justified by the game. So what’s the problem?
I do wonder why both Oswald and Edrick have English names, though. Isn’t Kryta Italian?
Aren’t most skimpy heavy armour sets skimpy for both males and females, except that they show the chest for the men and the belly for the women?
For the convenience of the developers, I think we should make a series of polls regarding the Feature Pack changes.
This way, ANet can understand what we want more clearly.
I have already made a few polls but more are welcome and will be added here.
1) Should the Personal Story’s post-September mission order remain as it is?
2) How often should personal story missions be given (per level)?
3) Should weapon skills be unlocked earlier?
Yes! YES! YES!
/15ashlegioncharr
Yes.
/15bloodlegioncharr
Now we only need to have a Harbinger-like dragon champion.
with the exception of one: Humans.
What about Bubbles and Zhaitan?
(edited by Imperios.2543)
Will we get any content for non-80s in Living World Season 2?
What I really liked in Season 1, despite all its flaws, was that anyone could partake in, say, Clockwork Chaos, Boss Blitz or the escape from Lion’s Arch. Levelling alts, or even making your first 80s, was truly interesting. I barely knew any GW2 lore at the time when I first saw Scarlet invade Lornar’s Pass with her clockwork minions other than “lol Mass Effect + Skyrim = dragon reepas” but seeing Clockwork Chaos gave me a very stunning impression, and from that point on I became more immersed in the lore. Dry Top, however, is 80 level only. Could we have any stuff for lowbies, too? We could, for example, repel Mordremoth’s hentai vines, or gather the armies of different races and orders, et cetera et cetera.
Also, will we have any large world events like Marionette or Lion’s Arch? They to me were the best feature in Season 1.
[sarcasm mode]
who is that in the video that kills Scarlet? that’s not me! I killed her! I’m the hero not her.
[/sarcasm mode]
The norn that finished Scarlet in the video should be replaced by Trahearne.
…Anyone? Do you think ANet should introduce new Maguuma zones?
Since the next Living Story will probably involve Mordremoth, I hope (probably in vain) that new zones north of Brisban will be introduced, such as the Magus Falls. Do you believe it is a possibility?
I personally would prefer those zones to be not level 80-only, like the Southsun Cove, but growing in difficulty organically from Brisban (think Queensdale -> Kessex -> Gendarran -> Harathi). Right now, the asura and the sylvari lack their own leveling zone post level 25, which I find somewhat disappointing because these races’ design paradigms (architecture, culture, enemy design) are quite aesthetically pleasing to me. We ought to see more of them while leveling.
I also hope that ArenaNet will explain the origin of the sylvari and probably the asura, as well as introduce the White Mantle and the mursaat. Perhaps Lazarus the Dire could be a major secondary antagonist in S2, along with Mordremoth? Elder Dragons don’t really have any personality, so adding a more human villain would give ArenaNet the ability to develop their story more – Lazarus could be like Scarlet, with a certain motive and some character development over the story… but better.
What would you like to see in Maguuma?
There’s another one I forgot to tell about.
I was doing Personal Story for my female charr, the Order of Whispers’ storyline in particular. I was talking to Tybalt.
Here comes my sister.
“Will this lion fall in love with our lioness?”
I have a five year old sister who often watches me play Guild Wars 2. Although she does not understand the story aside from what I tell her (she can’t speak or read English), she nevertheless provides interesting insight at times.
-> fighting a champion centaur, he dies and we loot him. “Brother, will he come back” “No, we defeated him” “But what if Scarlet comes and heals him?” – My sister on Scarlet’s modus operandi
-> doing Arah explorable “Brother, why are there still so many zombies here? We killed the zombie dragon!” – My sister on Orr revamp
-> doing Scarlet’s End – Marjory and Kasmeer kissing “Is it a boy?” – My sister on Marjory’s gender identity