Showing Posts For Inc.4753:
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Also, the ones with both movement skills and alternating melee/ranged circles seem a bit overdone. Baredfang comes to mind. When you are moving around most of the time because you are outside the damage ring, only to have to move again because the boss uses a movement skill that players can’t match, the fight are just not fun anymore.
I don’t think it’s as much a question whether Lazarus could be revived without the 5th part, it’s more a question of could he survive long enough afterwards?
Lazarus had to re-split himself because the corrupted part turned his power on himself. Apparently just de- and reassembling himself wouldn’t be enough, else he could have been revived a few hundred years ago.
This leads me to the theory that something was needed to counteract the corrupted power, and apparently the White Mantle thought a massive boost of energy from the bloodstone would do just that.
For Lazarus to re-split himself and go into stasis, entrusting his life to the White Mantle even after Naveed’s betrayal, means to me his situation was very serious and that he was very weak after the events of The Justiciar’s End. Being revived with only 4/5 parts of his power would mean he would be revived even weaker (otherwise he wouldn’t have needed to hunt down Naveed and the others in the first place).
What would this mean for the current status of Lazarus? If the ritual took place, I’d say Lazarus is certainly dead now. Either he didn’t survive the ritual in the first place, died afterwards because of the effects of the corrupted aspect (given it’s months after the revival (or attempt thereto) and I don’t think he could survive that long), or Balthazar intervened and killed him.
If the ritual never took place (Balthazar might have intervened before the ritual) or failed but didn’t destroy Lazarus’ aspects, it becomes more interesting. If the aspects are still around somewhere then the ritual could be attempted again, either with or without the 5th aspect.
If they were destroyed, then we still have this line from Caudacus’ Journal:
Normally I’d simply destroy the original and be done, but I don’t want that mursaat’s essence near my home.
Caudacus doesn’t believe destroying the aspect will also destroy Lazarus’ essence. Now it’s not much to go on, but this is a reason to believe in the possibility that even if the aspects are destroyed the essences of Lazarus are still out there. It would be interesting to see what role those essences could still play, with or without Lazarus’ body (which as far as I know is still unaccounted for).
…
Though I’m doubtful we’ll go to the Fissure of Woe at all. Based on lore, humans had been looking for the gods, and their realms would have been among the first they’d look – we know they have some tenuous access to the realms still, as we see Priestess Rhie pull a soul from the Underworld during the human storyline.This would mean that Balthazar hadn’t been to his own realm in 250 years, so why would we bother going there now just because he returned to Tyria as less than a god?
Interesting line from Priestess Rhie in the mentioned story step (source):
Rhie: “Once, the Six Gods of the humans were very influential. As time passed, they pulled away—but they have not abandoned us.”
Player: “Where have they gone?”
Rhie: “No one knows. Not into the Mists, that’s for certain. Perhaps they simply want to allow us to decide our own fates.”
It’s just one line from one NPC, but the way she states it as a fact and her role as ‘foremost priest’ makes me believe she has good reasons or even proof to believe this. Now this was a few years ago, so there is no telling whether Balthazar might have returned to FoW, but for now I’ll assume he hasn’t been there at least until the start of GW2.
IIRC, it was confirmed that the FoW map was created by a dev in her spare time as a way to practice with the dev tools available at that time, so I don’t think it’s existence points to anything at all. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to retrace the source…
thing I really don’t get in here is that apparently draining the dragon from energy hae put him back int ohibernation – at least taimi believes so – but all the earlier “research” rather implies that dragons go to sleep after devouring all the magic from the world – AND THEN “bleeds” it out when in sleep.
to reach as far as Eye of the North storyline – central transfer chamber was build up nearly ontop of the chamber where primordus was sleeping and the asura gave you explanation to that – they took the sleeping primordus for a sort of statue and to quote a guy “this is why we have build central transfer chamber here – this statue literaly bleeds magic” [quote may not be precise but the point stays the same]
in which case huge energy drain from both primordus and jormag should not put any of them back to their sleep – it would severly wound them and put them into actually more and hastened effort to eat up as much magic as they can to cover up for this sudden loss.
Dragons probably need magic to function just as much as we need energy (food) to function. Taking enough magic away (or whatever exactly happened with Taimi’s device) probably took too much magic away from Primordus to keep his body in an ‘awake’ state, needing hem to retreat to a ‘sleep’ state and letting his minions gather magic to restore him.
Also, while we usually only see the dragons in their relation to the balance of magic, I’m not so sure being ‘satiated’ and ‘hungry’ are actually the triggers for them ‘going to sleep’ and ‘waking up’.
I’m not so sure the humans would make as useful an ally as the mercenaries will:
- Humans are just one of the major races. Mercenaries can come from all races, so a much larger pool of potential soldiers.
- How many humans would eventually follow Balthazar? He is just one of the six gods, I don’t imagine all followers of the other gods would just follow him immediately.
- Jennah probably can’t put all her soldiers behind Balthazar. The Centaurs are still a threat, and the human kingdom aligning itself with such a powerful being could endanger the treaty with the Charr.
- If Balthazar’s goals or his means to achieve those goals are not in the interest of humans, his group of followers could turn on him/abandon him. Mercenaries would stay as long as he pays them and they think they are on the winning side.
- Balthazar probably wouldn’t need to explain as much about his goals to mercenaries (‘do your job, get paid, don’t ask questions’) as he would to loyal followers. Only religious fanatics would blindly follow orders without questioning them. This means that using mercenaries enables Balthazar to keep his intentions and actions secret for a longer time.
As far as his disguise goes, a disguise can have multiple uses, like pretending to be someone else or to hide one’s true identity. Balthazar pretended to be Lazarus to gain access to his resources, but perhaps also to hide his true intentions from the world. Even after discarding the White Mantle and the revelation that ‘Lazarus’ was an imposter, the disguise still had purpose ad it hid Balthazar’s true identity and left us none the wiser to his real intentions.
Quite a simple answer could be that Balthazar didn’t want Primordus to succeed in whatever its plan was (remember, Aurene was attacked by destroyers).
If Balthazar was targeting Primordus specifically for his aspect of magic, perhaps he didn’t want Primordus to become stronger before he could defeat him. Eventually Taimi’s device gave him an alternative to a direct confrontation, of which the odds of a ‘favorable’ outcome might not have been in Balthazar’s favor.
While I agree that there is some merit to the ‘Lazarus=Lazarus’ theory based on the recovered journals, there are several things that, to me, make this very unlikely:
- The way the PC reacts, without any doubt.
- The way the Story Journal describes the Confessor’s End instance (“Evidence scattered around the manor confirmed our suspicions that the being we know as Lazarus is an imposter…but who is he?”).
- The way the teaser trailer focuses on the issue.
I personally feel it could just as well be a soul that has taken possession of Lazarus’ body at the moment of resurrection, but that is just as much a guess as all the other theories out there.
I wouldn’t classify Livia as an ally just yet. At least, not from her perspective. I’d guess she would see the PC as a fairly new adventurer, not yet proven trustworthy when it comes to the protection of Kryta and the Krytan Monarch.
…
Destroyers are empty vessels. In GW1, they’re described to be literally mindless without the Great Destroyer (aka without a dragon champion) to direct them.
But you cannot bring destroyers over to the side of good.
Nor can you give a mind through mere tender and nurturing – and no magic – to a creature without such.
Nor are dragon minions – any of them – capable of breaking free of their master’s will.
Nor are dragon minions exempt from their master’s will while the Elder Dragon sleeps (see: Drakkar, Svanir, Great Destroyer and all of GW1 destroyers, risen Gigatnicus Lupicus, Scarlet Briar, potentially the Tower of Nightmares and Nightmare Court though that never got confirmed/denied).
Simply put: Mordremoth does not need to be awake to have his minions be brainwashed thralls. No Elder Dragon does. And you cannot simply win over dragon minions with what is effectively the “power of love” – they made this explicitly clear in the Personal Story and Sea of Sorrows. This is one of the core foundations of what dragon minions are, and why they are so horrific.
Can we for a moment entertain the thought that the Pale Tree (and Sylvari by extention) are not corrupted until at least after it has sprouted from its seed? All we know is that the seed was found in a cave, guarded by what presumably are Mordrem. The origin of the seed is, afaik, unknown. It could very well be that it was not created but just collected by Mordremoth (thin argument incoming: why store the seeds for such a long time and risk losing them if you can create new ones yourself?). This would mean the Pale Tree and Sylvari never were dragon minions and thus never had to break free of its will and never needed to be changed by hugs and kisses.
Unless there is some dialogue in HoT that I can’t recall, all we have to go on are Wynne’s words:
Wynne: We come from the jungle dragon. We belong to it. We’re meant to serve it.
Caithe: You’re lying!
Wynne: I saw it in my Dream. And if Faolain knew, she wouldn’t keep it a secret.
While the first part seems pretty clear, the second sentence tells us where her information came from. As the Dream ‘is capable of showing not only the past and present, but also possible futures’ (wiki), the combined image of their past with Mordremoth, a future where the Pale Tree would not have been taken by Ronan and the future (now reality) where Sylvari are turned to the Dragon could still explain Wynne’s words.
The weak link in the idea that he is still a villain is that he gives us time to analyze and outsmart him if he reveals himself to us. Before we met him, we only know of of how the Mursaat were a race of powerful casters with powers basically unknown to man today. He could have just remained in the shadows and watched the commander from afar to find out who he is and what he is capable of. This would have made him even batter as a anihero, the silent guy that anhilates a key foe then and when and learns from watching the commander what heroism and team work is like, slowly adapting his ways.
He probably already knows how to be a clueless dupe, so he can´t learn something form us regarding Caithe.^^
It could just be that Lazarus needs us to trust him for his own plans to work. Even if he would beat us by surprising us, there are a lot of armies/faactions in the world that would want to see him dead, and would likely succeed at some point. What better way to start your revenge plot/plans for world domination/insert other evil plan by earning the trust of one of the most respected Commanders around?
It would not be the first time in this universe the bad guy pretends to be good in order to have the PC ‘save the world’ but actually helping him/her/it to power, only to be defeated by the PC when the PC learns of this betrayal.
Caudecus does not have the power to defeat Divinity´s reach in my opinion.
*He is a human supremacist, meaning he can not gather much direct support from non human races without angering his core followers.
*With guys like Bauer in command, you can´t win anything, people won´t flock to a ruthless guy like this in a regular battlefield environment. His type is basically the Logan Thackery of Caudecus. You want a Rommel, Napoleon or Leonidas at the head of your army, not a Nero, Gracus or Paulus.
His only chances are probably the ghots of Ascalon.
Caudecus would probably not have to go for a full frontal attack. With help of the Ministry Guard (basically under his control, iirc) he could take the castle from within, possibly even through the Asura Gate. As long as he leaves the people of DR in relative peace he will not have that much to fear from them. As soon as he is in power the other races won’t stand up to him but just adjust to the new situation, happy or not.
Lazarus the Dire: “Countless generations will suffer for your actions this day!”
The exact wording of the line is very interesting to me. Most would see these only as vengeful last words but I think this could be a genuine warning. As a mursaat he knew about the dragons which were about to be awake so he thought that without him the world would have no chance to beat the elder dragons.
The rising question here is: what did Lazarus know to even think that he himself would make the difference in the fight against the Elder Dragons? His situation at that very moment was that he was one of the last of his kind. If the PC hadn’t interferred Lazarus would only have been back at his original level of power, which wouldn’t even have been enough to withstand a small group of humans. Just warning the world about the existance of the Elder Dragons would also not have been enough. What could he know that can give us a fighting chance?
Although it is an interesting notion to view his last sentence in this light, keep in mind it is only his last sentence. According to the wiki, he said all of the following after discovering that his ritual failed:
“What…? What…is this? Something is wrong! My power twists upon itself! What have you done to me? Accursed human! You have done this to me! I will not forget this! Countless generations will suffer for your actions this day!”
IMO, especially the ‘I will not forget this!’ part is a strong indicator his words were a threat.
The Pale Tree (and Malyck’s tree by extension based on what we know) having their own free will is a strong question. The only way dragon minions – or champions – have free will is through some external magical force giving such. In Mawdrey’s case, it was the series of exotic magic, waters, and soil we fed. The obvious answer is that the cave full of seeds was, at some point, purified like Glint was. By whom, when, or why remains unknown – but it’s the only logical explanation given all the lore facts we know.
Dragon champions have, as Rognik said, some level of autonomy for how to go about their tasks, but ultimately they are all enslaved to their Elder Dragon’s will still, just like their mindless and nigh-mindless dragon minions.
I tend to believe that Mordremoth created his minions as empty vessels and only occupied their minds (fitting his domain ‘Mind’) when he awoke/became active. The Pale Tree and Sylvari were not empty vessels anymore, courtesy of Ronan,Ventari and the fact the Pale Tree was planted way before Mordremoth could control it, and thus were harder to occupy than his freshly created minions. Mordremoth was only able to turn Sylvari that were weaker of mind.
(Compare it to us humans. We tend to keep to the values and believes we got taught as children and usually view them as ‘normal’, shunning those who do not share these values and believes. Changing those views takes a lot of effort and outside influence).
Regarding the Mursaat returning shortly before GW1:
It would make sense for the Mursaat to only appear shortly before the events of GW1. Several NPC comments suggest the Flameseeker Prophecies had a certain chronology to them. Somewhere in the ~800 years after the Prophecies were writen the Mursaat had learned of them, but they needed too much souls to power the Door of Komalie to keep the Door closed for an undefined period. When the signs were there (possibly the fall of Ascalon) they returned (not from their out-of-phase-world but from hiding) to return as the Unseen Ones, saviors of Kryta. Using their new status they could finally get the amount of souls they needed (‘thousands’ within a few years, iirc), although by the time the PC participated in the rituals some people were already getting a bit suspicious (see dialogue from npc’s in the Divinity Coast mission).
Regarding the war between the Seers and Mursaat: isn’t it possible the war was already a long time ongoing before the Elder Dragons rose? As the current races/orders did during the personal story, somewhere after the rise of the Dragons the races realised they needed to unite in order to have a chance to survive (tab1, putting aside their differences). The residual distrust could be one of the reasons the alliance failed. After the other races had ‘betrayed’ the Mursaat (‘you are either with us or against us’) they retaliated by attacking the Seers again, possibly even trying to gain the magic stored in the bloodstone (because if you don’t use it, e.g. fight the dragons, why should you have it). Also, ancient war, the Mursaat got a chance to finally get the upper hand. In the end they could not get to the magic, left the bloodstone and fled the world. Glint later hid the other races.
Regarding the civil war/divided society: I too think it is meant as the world’s society as a whole, especially since it is said right before that that they started sharing the magic with said world.
Afaik, each map remains frozen in time. We haven’t seen any map with Risen that takes place after Zhaitans defeat. Same goes for Mordremoth and the Mordrem. Although I believe it is mentioned somewhere that they are still around, I do not know in which state. My guess would be that there are no new Risen and Mordrem being created, and those that are left function on auto-pilot (doing what they would normally without orders from their master).
Although the Priory indeed has a nice statue and decent library, the Order of Whispers has been heavily involved with the defeat of Abaddon 250 years ago and are known to have been investigating him as early as a century before that. The choice seems obvious to me.
Sure, the Pact could very well be on it’s last legs. But I don’t think Primordus became that much stronger just because Zhaitan and Mordremoth are dead. Zhaitan was already weakened when he was killed and part of the magic he still possessed has passed on to Tequatl. Mordremoths magic has passed partly to Lazarus and partly to Glint’s Egg. The unknown factor here is how much of that magic was divided this way and what is left for Primordus and the others. However, according to Taimi the map in Rata Novus (so far) mainly went to these two places, so in terms of the balance of magic we might have come closer to what Primordus has available, depending on which side Lazarus and the Egg each choose. And Mordremoth does not seem to be done ‘leaking’, so there still is more up for grabs…
Ah, so that is where those other domains came from. Guess I didn’t make enough human characters to remember. Anyhow, them being named in this way makes a strong case for them actually being true (imo), although some seem a little weak. ‘Healing’ is sliding the bar a bit more to the right on the ‘Death-Life’ scale, ‘Growth’ is just one part of ‘Nature’ (decay being the other), and, if you are willing to that far, ‘Challenge’ can be seen as a conflict between you and your goal, and what is ‘War’ but a conflict on a larger scale.
You do have a point about Grenth using Ice as a cover and Water not being mentioned till GW2. For me it seems a bit like a stretch, as I see ‘Ice’ actually more like ‘Cold’ to move it away from the domain of ‘Water’, but from a Human perspective I guess it would make sense. And it is not like my theory wasn’t a stretch in the first place =P.
@Inc: That’s pretty much what I’ve been saying for a while now.
It’s possibly also worth noting that some aspects of the gods’ domains do seem to have some mutability: for instance, Lyssa seemed to claim water without giving anything up, which suggests that the elements are not critical parts of the divine portfolios – rather, they claim an element that they feel that they’re suited for.
Indeed, Lyssa taking on a third domain raises some question about the 6×2 format. Then again, we don’t know why (if at all) these are the magic numbers and wheter they are fixed or permit some form of flexibility. With two Dragons now defeated and the Tyrian spheres of Mind, Plant, Shadow and Death ‘released’ we haven’t seen anything particular happen within these spheres.
Another theory (without any proof to back it up and perhaps a bit far-fetched) is that Lyssa taking on Water is just a part of the Abaddon coverup. The Gods couldn’t just let the element of Water disappear, because if Fire, Earth and Air have their own Gods, why not the fourth element? Lyssa could have taken up the domain just in name without actually ‘owning’ it. Who better to fool the people of Tyria than the Goddess of Illusion herself? ‘Secrets’ however would just remind the people that the Gods keep secrets from them and does not seem to be as likely a domain as Water (I don’t think many people saw ‘Secrets’ as a certain domain before Nightfall was released), so that one the Gods did not need to pretend to embody.
It seems to me having say over a domain is what it means to be a God (in regards to the Six). This would also imply the domains are more than just a claim, that they are (by lack of a better word) tangible and are backed up by a certain power over that domain that the others can’t replicate or overcome. Otherwise, I can’t seem to think of a reason to wage war on one of the Six in order to defeat one other. If it is just to take the general power a God possesses, there are probably easier ways, by means of going after less powerful beings, to get to the same level of power or even go beyond that. Take the Fissure of Woe for example. Menzies practically had taken over the entire realm and was thus rivals Balthazar in power (somehow I don’t believe Balthazar let Menzies take over his entire domain just to make a point by having only 8 of his champions take it back), even though he is generally not regarded as a God.
In regards to the OP, although I guess we can safely assume the Elder Dragons are not the same as the Six Gods, there certainly seems to be a correlation between the two that I don’t think is a coincidence. 6 Gods versus 6 Dragons, each with 2* spheres of influence? At the moment we only have 4 spheres confirmed (if we call the Priory mentioning it as a fact actual proof) for the Elder Dragons, which are not entirely the same as the ones we use for the Gods. They could sometimes just be different words used in different interpretations of said spheres. Mordremoths ‘Plant’ can be linked to Melandru’s Nature and ‘Mind’ to Lyssa’s ‘Illusion’, while Zhaitan’s ‘Death’ would then clearly be linked to Grenth’s ‘Death’. Only ‘Shadow’ is not really clear to me. It could be Kormir’s ‘Secrets’ as both are mediums to hide the truth. Keep in mind that the general perception is that the Dragons are evil and the Gods are good, which will have an impact in how we the spheres of influence are named by the people of Tyria (‘Secrets’ are something everybody has and can relate to, so can be appointed to a ‘good’ deity. ‘Shadow’ sounds much more ominous, hence appointed to the ‘evil’ deity).
Anyhow, both the Dragons and the Gods claiming the same influences could be possible because the Gods are said to have come from another planet. Seeing how the world Tyria seems to have a central role in the whole mechanism of magic, it could be each planet has it’s own reserve of magic associated with the domains, and the Gods just took theirs with them when they left/fled their previous world.
(*On a sidenote, although the wiki mentions more domains for each of the Gods, I wasn’t able to find the source for that info so I tend to keep to the domains mentioned in the original Guild Wars Manuscripts, which mentions 2 domains per god.)
The wiki page also mentions (on the discussion page) that the only source for this info is an article writen by an Orrian historian. Although this comment predates the release of GW2, I can’t recall anywhere in GW2 where the schools are mentioned (including Arah explorable dungeons) so the article still seems to be the only (unreliable) source.
I don’t think I ever saw anything except dialogue that indicates these schools exist. Therefor I tend to think these schools are just a human told story. The effect the spliting of schools is said to have, namely not being able to use all schools at once and therefor the need to specialize (professions), can be explained by assuming the general amount of magic that a person is able to wield after the Gods resealed the bloodstones is too limited to be efficient in many different ways at once (in gw1 in a smaller way also shown by the attribute system, in gw2 by the trait line system).
Following this theory, Lazarus will just have generally become stronger and the magic he is now wielding could possibly be absorbed by the other bloodstones, should we defeat him on top of one of them.
As we now know three possible ways to ascend, in which the methods do not seem to have that much in common, perhaps there is another way to look at this. To me it seems like ascension is about gaining a greater awareness, to be able to see past and expand your own perspective. In Prophecies you learned to do this by learning to defeat yourself, in Factions by learning to defeat the different Celestial beings while also dealing with essences of the ones you already defeated and Chanang could have learned this on his travels while performing his heroic deeds. Some of the effects of ascension can also be explained this way, as a greater understanding would allow the PC to learn skills from other professions and enable them to see things they could not see before.
Of course, this would mean ascension can be achieved in any situation where this greater awareness is unlocked and would perhaps not require us to go to the Crystal Desert, which would really be a shame…
GS/Staff will probably become a good setup for both roaming PvE and harder stuff like fractals and raids. GS will still deal some dmg while providing support through Glyphs and traits, while swapping to Staff gives you that extra healing that might be needed to keep the group alive. It also provided you with a decent range to stay alive during bossfights.
As I usually roam through PvE on my own, I will probably run with a bleeding Shortbow setup with survival utilities, using Staff as a backup when I need a little more healing, 1200 range or for when I’m just feeling like supporting others.
Indeed, idle looks like you are going to hit someone with the staff, rather than laser them to death untill a minor bruise appears. For Norn, I would really like the Norn male Ele idle pose. It has that whole ’I’m a Norn and you will regret that remark about Chauncey von Snuffles III’kitten’ attitude going on.
As for skill 1, I don’t like the pose either, but I also don’t have an idea about what it should be. Just tried some things in the garage with a broom (yes I did, deal with it), but nothing really seemed like the real thing. Only thing I could’t try, for some reason, is the Mesmer’s floating greatsword pose. Perhaps something like that would work.
Hidden feature: it seems permastow for pet has found its way into the game. After gliding my pet can’t be activated again. Map travel, character swap and restarting the game all didn’t fix it.
Been running with Ancient Seeds and Shortbow, this combo gives me some troubles:
- Having it activate only on a dazed/stunned foe really gives you a very small window to hit the target again, with only 1s of daze/stun on Shortbow. At max range you will need to be on autoattack or spamming another skill to make sure you hit the target in time. Activating another skill midcast in your autoattack will usually mean you are too late. Perhaps bring the daze/stun duration from Concussion Shot up to par with Hilt Bash (1.5s)? Otherwise, increase the duration only when flanking to reward skillful positioning.
- Ancient Seeds lacks synergy with the pierce mechanic. It will go on cooldown immediatly after hitting a foe, which means Ancient Seeds is only applied to the first foe you hit. This punishes you for using the pierce mechanic (e.g. keeping enemies between you and your target).
- The immobilize triggers with a delay, too late to be reliable.
Update:
- As a main PvE player, I would prefer the bleeding from Ancient Seeds to come all at once instead of one stack a pulse (given the pace with which enemies get killed).
- An indicator on when Ancient Seeds is recharged would be nice, due to the possibility of missing out on Ancient Seeds if another player applied the daze. You will basically have wasted your daze/stun on nothing.
(edited by Inc.4753)
Isn’t it so that the Gods can take over each others aspects when needed? I believe Grenth took over Water (and renamed it Ice) when Abaddon was cast down. (A quick search didn’t turn up any written proof though, so correct me if I’m wrong)
Taking that into account, shouldn’t any attempt to connect the Gods to the Elder Dragons start with the original Gods? At the very least Grenth and Kormir had predecessors that we know of, there could be more hidden in history.
(Not taking a stand on whether there is a connection, I just think the current discussion shouldn’t be about things that are known to have changed relatively recent)
I posted the following in another topic regarding the screenshot we got today in POI, but the lore forums seem a more appropriate place for this question:
Earlier, someone suggested the statue was a largos, and looking at the concept art that is featured on the wiki, the statue could resemble a largos without its wings. Now that we seem to have determined it is Abaddon, I was wondering whether there is a possibility Abaddon was in fact a Largos (or a predecessor) before ascending to godhood. According to the GW1 wiki Abaddon got his powers from another god, thus suggesting he was not always a god (and that means he could have been a mortal). It would also fit with the attributes ‘water’ and ‘secrets’, as the Largos live in/under water and don’t talk very much.
It’s a pretty shaky theory with (AFAIK) no information available that suggested this possibility before, but I’m still wondering if someone here knows something that might collaborate or debunk this theory.
The connection is magic. The Elder Dragons are all about magic, they consume it and are said to keep the amount of magic balanced (in a way). Abaddon was a god that is also said to have a connection to magic (from the wiki: ‘He is also associated with Depths, Knowledge and Magic.’). He also started his own rebellion when the other gods wanted to restrict magic again behind the bloodstone.
Something else:
Earlier, someone suggested the statue was a largos, and looking at the concept art that is featured on the wiki, the statue could resemble a largos without its wings. Now that we seem to have determined it is Abaddon, I was wondering whether there is a possibility Abaddon was in fact a Largos (or a predecessor) before ascending to godhood. According to the GW1 wiki Abaddon got his powers from another god, thus suggesting he was not always a god (and that means he could have been a mortal). It would also fit with the attributes ‘water’ and ‘secrets’, as the Largos live in/under water and don’t talk very much.
In the solar thing in the dome is something written in new krytan, can anyone tanslate that?
Part is covered by the statue’s head, but part of the text in both sides are clearly visible.
On reddit they determined it to be some old ascalonian writing. Using wiki I came to the following:
’ BEWARE T…(insert giant statue) KT(?) KEPT’
The KT? part I’m not sure of. ‘KEPT’ might refer to keeping a secret, which would fit nicely with Abaddon being associated with secrets. It does however raise the question why the text is in old Ascalonian, as I’m not aware of any connection between specifically Ascalon and Abaddon.
It looks like a statue to Abbadon. If it is, it means we’re going into the Crystal Desert, the one place on Tyria where such a statue might exist.
orr has abbadon stuff
The dome in the background seems to be of a different style than the architecture from Orr.
Speaking of that dome, is there any info we can get from its decorations? The icon in the bottom left has a slight resemblance to the Shining Blade icon, but doesn’t match exactly. The rest seem to be a solar system, perhaps a link to the vision we got in Omadd’s machine?
(3/3)
Closing
Do I have proof? Nope. Just suspicions and theories. Even worse, there are still a lot of things I haven’t fitted in yet. What is Scarlet’s plan for Lion’s arch and the three Orders? How do the leylines fit in? How can she be certain the toxin will cause the Dream to be unusable and that the Pale Tree can actually let loose? What is the story behind the portals? How do the Mists fit in? Some wild guesses I have thrown together to fit the story (for which most of the time I have again no proof or even reasonable suspicion):
- The Molten Alliance provided Scarlet with the knowledge and materials for the drill.
- The Aetherblades provided airships for transportation.
- The Toxic Alliance provided the toxin.
- All of the above provide an army and laborers.
- The drill we saw in the hideout could be for drilling a hole in the roots of the Pale Tree, to administer the Toxin directly (like Marjory’s device).
- The drill could also be used to drill for the leylines, which magic could be needed to create enough toxin for the entire Dream to become infected (in the Tower of Nightmares the magic came from the Krait Shard).
- The laser we are testing for her in Lornar’s Pass is really a precision weapon and could be used to kill (a lot of) defenders of the Pale Tree fast, without actually hurting the Pale Tree itself. No idea why it would be on the head of a marionette though, except because it makes a fun bossfight and looks great in game.
- The corruption in her mind slowly makes Scarlet more insane, to the point where all that matters is the pursuit of destroying the Dream. We experience this now in how she shows more of herself these days, perhaps because she is getting more careless.
- The three Orders and Lion’s Arch will be attacked to weaken our troops and to serve as a distraction from the real thing. Attacking all orders at the same time might break the Pact as everyone would probably go to defend their own base, or at least split them up long enough for Scarlet to do what she wants without too much interference. Also a nice benefit for Mordremoth, taking out the groups that apparently can defeat a dragon.
- Because of gameplay reasons it is very likely we will defeat Scarlet before she succeeds. The grand finale would then be in the Grove and will introduce Mordremoth to the world, and we can get ready for Living World Season 2.
Please let me know when I missed important fact or if you feel you know something that can improve this theory! I will update this post if needed.
(2/3)
Mordremoth
Back to Mordremoth. What does it want? There are several possibilities. One option is that it wants the Sylvari as its minions, but the existence of the Dream is preventing the corruption from getting a hold. Another option is that it sees the Sylvari race as a threat, given the role Sylvari had in the defeat of Zhaitan and the cleansing of Orr. It could also be the dragon just sees the Dream as a threat, in case it uses other Pale Trees to create an army of Sylvari minions (Malyck would have ‘escaped’, probably accidental as his pod could have fallen in a river or rolled down a hill for all we know). Whatever it is, destroying the Dream has to benefit the Dragon in some way for this theory to work. Lacking the power to destroy it itself, Ceara provided a great opportunity for outsourcing this problem. Set on the right path by her own thoughts, enforced by the dragon, Mordremoth could remain hidden.
Scarlet’s reasons
Back to Scarlet. The first part of her life was about learning, about creating things. I guess it’s just the basis for what she is doing now, as it enables her to engineer the things we’ve already encountered. Her true goal would now be to destroy the Dream. Simply destroying the Pale Tree wouldn’t seem to do, as the Tree is not the source of the dream. Also, it would destroy all future offspring of her race (should we call it a ‘family’ if it becomes known there could be more trees?), and the fact that she wants all Sylvari to be free of the Dream’s influence instead of just her (as she already seems to be pretty far from its influence) would suggest she doesn’t want her entire race to become extinguished. ‘Those that did not evolve inevitably failed’, and by destroying the entire race evolution is out of the picture, thus destruction would mean failure. Also, ‘My people don’t have to take what we’re given, or be what what we were “born to be.”’ would suggest she still cares for ‘her’ people. How to destroy the dream then? Well, the Pale Tree is strongly linked to the Dream, much stronger than any single Sylvari. I do think this is where the toxin Scarlet created comes in. The hallucinations it caused were already pretty powerful, as they could even kill infected people, and are probably way more powerful if introduced into a dreamworld. By injecting the toxin into the Pale Tree, I think it plausible it would find its way into the Dream and do so much damage to it the Dream would no longer be viable for supporting the Sylvari minds. Though it wouldn’t be destroyed entirely (for which more knowledge than we have right now would be needed, as even the Pale Tree doesn’t exactly knows what the Dream is), it would become to dangerous for the Pale Tree to stick to it.
(1/3)
The following is a theory on Scarlet I’ve come up with while reading a lot of other theories here on the forums. A lot of stuff in here is not mine, but I’ve read way too much to know what is and what isn’t anymore. Therefor in advance kudos to everyone I stole ideas from. Also, there is so much speculation going around I might have confused fact with theory and vice versa, and because I’m not that deep into the lore I might have missed facts or generally accepted theories that might impact this theory. This is the main reason I’m posting this, as I would love to have input on this theory to check if it is actually plausible. The quotes used are all from either ‘What Scarlet Saw’ or Scarlet’s journal.
Scarlet’s Journey
From the moment Ceara emerged from the tree, her focus was on the complexity of life and finding her own way. In ‘What Scarlet Saw’ we followed her while she was gaining the knowledge she thought she needed to create something as complex as life itself. It was this focus that led her to be so intrigued by the Eternal Alchemy. However, Ceara got kicked out of Rata Sum. From that point there is a considerable gap in time to the next part of the story, ‘several months’. I think that during these months of wandering, she wandered a little too far and had an encounter with the entity described in her Journal, which until proven otherwise I’ll assume is Mordremoth (the encounter could also have been a mere champion of Mordremoth). This ‘encounter’ was much like the one Svanir had when he became corrupted, just a lot weaker. She probably wouldn’t have noticed something was wrong. It didn’t corrupt Ceara directly, but did leave a bit of corruption in her mind, leading into the events described in the Journal we recently got to read. In her search for answers, Ceara got driven back to Rata Sum, as she thought the Eternal Alchemy would hold all the answers. Her stay with the hylek was a mere distraction while figuring out what to do next (‘Hylek alchemy was diverting, but she considered it a cul-de-sac on the road she had chosen’).
When Omadd found her and gave her ‘the chance to explore the Eternal Alchemy again’ she devoted herself to that pursuit. The events described in the journal could stretch out to a point just before she entered Omadd’s device. We know part of what Ceara saw when she was in the device. My guess is that while reaching out with her mind, her mind also became more vulnerable. Mordremoth used this weakness to gaze into Ceara’s mind (intrigued/attracted in the first place by his own corruption that seemed to be present in her), saw her position towards the predetermination of her race and enforced this thought. It is even possible the entire encounter with the Pale Tree is linked to this, up to the point it was all an hallucination directed by Ceara’s own thoughts and emotions. When Ceara finally emerged from the device as Scarlet she had changed. Her mind was now totally focussed on removing this predetermination. As the predetermination seems to be a direct result from the Dream, this would require Scarlet to destroy the Dream.
“Lure the boss into his own mines!”
“7 people run mindlessly in circles, into mines, into each other and the walls”
“kitten , clearly my fault for being a bad teacher and giving bad directions!”
/logic
Try it with a little more tact, like:
‘Folks, when the boss starts throwing mines, you have to lure him into them. Dodging towards the boss helps a lot! Also remember to ress whenever possible!’
It would be awesome if overflows could use the ‘district’ system from guild wars 1, where basically something similar to overflows were created when the main map got full but one could switch overflows via a dropdown menu (provided the district was not hard-capped)
So with all of this in mind it would be cool to carry on discussing around this area in much the same form as Nike has. Specifically brainstorming on top of the foundation of known systems and functionality. I do also want to point out that someone mentioned (sorry i forget who) the ability to potentially build forts etc and then gain new events, goals and rewards from them by protecting and nurturing your land. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?
Chris
So where I think we are now on the subject of consequences to player actions:
We all seem to think consequences can be a lot of fun. There are three levels we are looking at right now:
- Events. Having more chances to prevent a reset on an event chain immediately upon failing a single event. Also adding alternative paths to give solo players a chance.
- Maps. The status of a meta-event-chain should be more noticeable around the map. Some options are the implementation of specific events, mobs taking over the map, amd cosmetic changes.
- Living World. Have players actually participate in building the world. (link to the post I think Chris referred to, specifically the ‘Living’ paragraph)
Arenanet has plans for this, but are taking it slow to first get all their mechanics etc. in place.
There are some things that were brought up that still require discussion:
- Scaling. Should a single player aiming for map completion be affected? Should a single player be able to liberate an entire map?
- Prevention of grieving. As giving players another possible route will actually give players a choice, there are bound to be some disagreements on which way the group should go.
- Long term consequences. How to make slaying all those Risen actually count without obstructing the PS.
- How to keep enough players coming back to the event. Rewards alone have their own problems, as we can see with the Scarlet Invasions and the Daily Chest Bosses.
- How to let players have direct influence on the direction of the game, without being dependent on a full development cycle to see it implemented.
(Will post my own thoughts when I have time, which may take a day)
(edited by Inc.4753)
Something I would also like to see in the living story is more branching on choices you made in the past, specifically your order, and the influence of the orders in the living story. Sure we see vigil dudes/whispers agents and priorie scholars in events, but there is no real involvement from the orders, something of which I personally would love to see a lot more. Question is of course would this be best to put in LS or more in something like PS?
Also since so many people complain about the release schedule, I’m fine with it, it is nice to have new things to do every 2 weeks, but they should have a high enough quality and the achies should IMO not be such a meaningless grind
Do you actually want your previous choices to have an impact on your LW experience, or do you just want the Orders to have a larger role? I agree with giving the Orders and the Pact a more signicant role in LW, but I sure don’t want any choices I’ve made during PS to force me into a specific route now. If there actually will be branching content in LW based on the Orders (I’d rather there won’t, but that’s another discussion), at least acknowledge the fact that we are a Commander from the Pact and should be able to choose with which Order we go.
…
Then Scarlet attacks it as part of her plot (whatever it may be). Give the LS a bar like in Flame and Frost:Retribution, but insanely large. The bar goes down per server, as events are completed with it reaching 0 signifying Scarlet’s forces are gone for the server. Then when the LS is done, take how many servers completed the bar and how many did not – majority wins here. And if the bars weren’t complete, a new LS instance shows up where Scarlet’s just fully and utterly overwhelming and the town is destroyed. We can go back in the open world and find it in ruins, overrun by the enemy remnants and nearby NPCs talk about the failure they went through. Or if the majority of servers completed the bar, a similar instance where we manage to save the day against impossible odds. Either way, any nearby hearts and events change appropriately – new events added, old events become slower to reset or are outright removed (only if befitting), and NPCs in the area change – be it who they are, how they act, or what they say.The open world would forever be changed by the players’ actions on a whole. We’d get an overall awesome climatic battle, and either come out as heroes or failed survivors who met our first defeat at Scarlet’s hands. It becomes a failure not because the plot demanded a failure, but because we, the players, failed. And the most important part… don’t tell us that completing the bar or not has such huge consequences.
One minor addition here: instead of counting completed bars, count efforts (like events) directly. There are two reasons for this:
- Overflows. With a bar to complete, overflows will be a problem. Do overflow servers count towards the end result? In that case the result will probably be failure as overflows get created and destroyed all the time, or simply won’t have the population to complete the bar in time. If overflow server do not count towards the end result, all efforts made by players on overflow servers will be for nothing. Simply counting events completed over all servers will give overflows meaning, even if they exist for just a few hours.
- With the concept of counting full bars per server, server that actually do a lot of participating will have filled the bar relatively early, making all further efforts useless. And in the end, the total event might up failing, having that server crushing the opponents while in the end we still have sad faces because failure. The other way around: a server that ignores the event will see cheering folks claiming they have crushed the enemy while not having done anything at all. No individual (and visual) progress bar to be filled will mean anyone can continue to help the event forward, while not creating any expectations by showing a filled or empty bar.
As for not telling us that there will be dire consequences, I don’t think this will work. We’re not used to content being able to fail, but we are used to doing the content till the meta achievement is complete and then leaving it at that. Not telling us there are consequences will have people leaving too soon, because they will still think it doesn’t matter if they’re there or not.
One thing I like to be discussed here is the actual implementation of consequences. Epic battles ask for epic consequences, and those take time to be developed. While 4 months is probably very fast from a developers point of view, for a player waiting 4 months to see results is way to long. Now, I can live with having to wait 2-4 weeks to see actual results (‘We are still catching our breath after that battle, but the next campaign will commence shortly!’). So, I wanted to know if you folks here have any ideas how to implement consequences to player choice/action that can actually be implemented within 4 weeks (so not even close to an entire development cycle). I’ll see if I can come up with something myself, but so far no luck.
while I can see where you are coming from please no.
Way points as they are now are a convenience you can use or not as you see fit,Consider someone who has say an hour to play and several things they would like to do in that time frame- running cross-country as fast as possible so I can get to be where I want to be is not immersing me in the world at all.
that said I never use Way points if I just want to hang around and run events, but the point is that I have a choice.
Of course it would mean the expectations of what we can do within our time have to change. If you want to go somewhere, instead of going there at once you may have to settle for an outpost along the way. The situation you described is exactly something I would like to see addressed: going anywhere you want without actually having to travel the world and invest time, diminishing the value of the world itself.
As far as being able to choose whether or not to use waypoints, I think for the Living World and the more interesting events it’s more the illusion of a choice. In the current LW release, when I see a Toxic Spore pop up on the map, I have to travel to the waypoint, because if I walk there the waypointing players will already have finished the event. Likewise with meta-event-chains. As the game was advertised, we would see an NPC asking for help, telling us of event that are currently active. If I were to walk, I wouldn’t find anything at the location as the zerg has cleared the boss and left for the next one already. Although there is a choice, the current meta doesn’t allow playing the game as (IMO) intended.
EDIT: as I said, I would like Arenanet to give it a try, perhaps even implementing it in the live game with a few of the more remote areas where there actually should be less inhabitants, for example Sparkfly Fen, Timberline Falls and everything south of those areas.
(edited by Inc.4753)
There is one thing I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve been thinking on a bit more, which is the removal of all waypoints and replacing some (~5 per map) with resurrection shrines (manually activated). I would really like Arenanet to test this, as I think it would give a lot more meaning to other aspects of the game:
- More adventure, the world feels larger as you can’t actually travel and walk 5 minutes to get to where you are going.
- Dynamic Events get more meaning and will not be ignored so much. You now actually want to protect or recapture that village, as it contains the only ress shrine remotely close to your skill challenge.
- Encountering other players means more, as they are on a long journey themselves. As dying is now more punishing, you will want to help each other complete your goals.
- Meta-events get more meaning and become more what they are supposed to be, as there won’t be a zerg popping up to quickly kill the boss and claim their daily chest, leaving immediately afterwards.
Basically, the world becomes more adventurous and dangerous, turning away from the playground most maps are right now.
The problem with bosses spawning at the end of an event chain is that the bosses actually are rewarding, both in experiencing epic content and on getting more loot/xp/gold.
One possible solution would be to have multiple paths lead to the same boss, just with a different twist. The path where you failed an event could be harder/longer, requiring more time for the same end reward. Of course finding a logical story for having failure and success both lead to the same boss spawning might be a challenge.
A second solution would be to make people actually not want to have the boss spawning. The boss could have nasty influences on the area (summons by a Son of Svanir could unleash a snowstorm which gives lessened visability, perhaps random application of blind, a debuff like in the Snowblind Fractals etc.) or just have the Invulnerable buff for 15 minutes after spawning. Making it very hard to defeat might also work, with a bounty that increases over time to make sure the boss will be worth defeating eventually, but just not right after the failed event.
Something that also needs improving are the scavenger hunts.
First there need to be clues about where the stuff can be found. By just saying ‘There are 24 items to find, somewhere near krait, in the entire world. Have fun!’ would have had me searching in Metrica Province for hours, if I hadn’t checked Dulfy first. For most players, it’s just not fun searching through entire maps, so they will use a guide (which ain’t fun either, but is way less time consuming).
Second, each item we search for should have meaning. The achievement is called ‘Historian’ but there isn’t any information on the shards directly. I guess we’ll see some reference to the shards when the next update goes live, but the Scavenger Hunt could be so much more if each item you find has a little bit of story behind it.
Having clues where to find the items, so I can actually search on my own, and then beig rewarded by some more info on the subject I find would do so much for this achievement category, it would actually become something that’s fun to do.
As a complete aside, I would love to see some experiments in dynamic events where failure doesn’t stall the event but progresses it in a different direction.
Interesting idea. Can you provide an example of how you would imagine it working?
Alright, let’s give it a try:
We escort a charr tank to a certain enemy gate to take it down and invade their base. Upon failure, we could get another event that requires us to get explosives to blow up the gate instead. This event will be harder as the players now have to get close to the gate to drop the explosives. Or, to add a little diversity, an Ash Legion soldier pops up, makes some sniffy remark on how the Iron Legion can’t even keep their own toys in one piece, and offers to take the group via a second, secret (perhaps even previously locked) path into the base. Depending on which way you enter the base, the boss has to be taken down with different tactics. With the tank you would have to keep protecting it, or go in for an all out attack when it eventually is destroyed. Sneaking into the base will require you to watch the patrols and carefully lure small groups, as you can’t steamroll them like the tank could have done.
The difficulty here is to make the initial event rewarding enough to have players actually try to complete it instead of failing on purpose. One way would be to increase rewards for completing the initial trail. Something like having a gold transport there that will leave in a certain time, which will have passed by the time the second route is completed. Also, it would even be possible to add a second initial event, that directly starts with the Ash legion’s involvement and will continue on to the Iron Legion branch if it fails, just to make sure both paths can be played and enjoyed without purposefully failing the event.
(edited by Inc.4753)
Consequence of failure
First of all, there should be more stuff that can actually fail. Events, the entire 2 week update effort, everything that can logically fail should be able to fail. One of the problems here would be difficulty, as you want to find a decent balance between the rates of failure and success. I think the Scarlet Invasions when they were first released were pretty balanced in that regard: they required a good amount of effort to complete, causing it to fail sometimes, but weren’t that hard that it failed most of the time. Also, current event chains are to constricted. Even when we fail all events and the event chain is entirely at it’s end, it still only effects a very small and usually secluded part of the area. Like someone posted before me, there is no real reason the enemy should stop there.
Within the game there are already small consequences too small failures, and I think they can be enlarged to fit the Living World scale of content. We lose waypoints when a village gets overrun, there are extra mobs spawning if an event chain is in a certain stage, there are gates and bridges that we can not pass during certain stages. Applied to the Living World: Scarlet attacks the main control center for waypoints. If she succeeds it will disable most of the waypoints (think 90%) of the entire world. Recapturing the control center will take a large effort (Ancient Karka style). Failed enough invasion events in a certain map? The entire map comes under enemy control, spawns will triple, all waypoints contested and new events starts where we have to take the map back piece by piece (multiple fronts to split the zerg). Overall, think back to the scale of the end events during the beta weekends. Those were awesome and I have missed them ever since.
As for entire Living World chapters to fail: this is way more tricky. There should be some kind of progress through the duration of the event. Is this limited to your server? How about overflows (where the majority of the players eventually will be), will they have any impact?. Can progress be tracked over all servers in the region (EU/US)? And what effects would failure have? As the effects should be visible immediately, this would require multiple scenarios to be developed. Can different chapters influence each other without the need for two separate storylines, like an invasion only being supported by the seige engines we were able to produce during the preparation stage? Will the effects be clear enough to be actually noticed? So many questions, but a very interesting (and maybe an entire different) discussion nonetheless.
Temp vs. Permanent conten
As for temporary vs. permanent content, both have their own purpose. Temporary content should be used for creating the experience of a living world. Permanent content should be used to tell the story. To give an example of this, I will be using ,part of a previous post of mine, especially the ‘Living’ part.
The part describing the events clearly is the ‘experience’ part, something that is temporary content. However, the event leading up to these events would be a mission going out exploring the map, searching for a suitable place to set up the outpost, introducing the local inhabitants etc. A mission* like this can tell the story and should really be permanent content. This way, players who come later can still get the story and the experience of discovering something new (make playing the instance mandatory, like the second part of entering the Crown Pavilion during Queen’s Jubilee). They will miss the large events, but at least there will no holes in the story.
Zerging
As for the current content usually ending in a large zerg: reward players for playing in smaller groups. Again using the same part of my previous post, the mentioned escort events could be split up in small (2-3 players), medium(5-10) and large (20+) escorts, each having their own paths. Having a timer till when each escort will start from the staging area and having them start every few minutes, will enable players to choose the group in which they play. As all successful escort will contribute to the main goal, splitting up in smaller groups will actually get a reasonable and logical alternative for zerg-play.
*I call them missions, as that is what I would like the instances to become. Right now, instances are usually pretty small and lack a feel of progression. Having more GW1-mission like instances, where you actually explore areas you haven’t seen before, having to actually search for a way to get to your objective and maybe take 5 wrong turns and where you eventually end up in an actual new place would really make the instances much more of a rewarding experience for me.
It kind of makes it seem like all of the choices I made in my personal story were irrelevant because, in the end, I got railroaded through a generic instance that was in no way catered to the way I played the game. I do understand that with a game like this you can’t have deeply nuanced cut scenes for every different possible combination in the game. But don’t you think it makes sense for the pale tree to acknowledge a sylvari character as her child? Or that if you participated in a major plot point earlier on in the story the NPC should maybe remember that?
Having all these different paths within the personal story is in my opinion indeed one of the weaker points in GW2. StarbornStriker already mentions the lack of continuity you get to experience when choosing certain paths. It also makes things like the Krait Orb seemingly come out of the blue and cuts the story in predictable pieces (‘for the next 10 lvls I will be doing this and this and after that another chapter starts which will have very little to do with what I’m doing now’). It made me want to go back to the story-lines of GW1, where we were always focused on the biggest threat we could find.
Luckily, with the Living Story, there is probably not enough time to make different paths. However, LS so far is, like many have already mentioned, chopped up in very different pieces. Something I fear is that, as already is happening too many times, the story will be influenced by the existence of different factions (the 5 races, the 3 orders) and that it will suffer for it as all factions will get their own pieces, which are all equal in length etc. The only way to prevent this is to have them group together, as we already did in the PS with Destiny’s Edge and the Pact. Focusing on one group and branching out only when the story supports it will in my opinion make for a much stronger story-line. Unfortunately, the absence of quests forces character development into the main story, which means we may have to deal with less important stuff (in the big picture) to get to know more about the characters themselves.
For the Living World concept to become what it can be, I think there should be more ‘Living’ and more ‘World’ to the content we already have.
‘Living’
A large part of ‘living’ is the players having an impact on the world. The difficulty here is the 4 months we have to wait for new content to be developed conform our choices. Remember we elected Ellen Kiel? That feels like a long time ago, and we should be seeing her again next month. I hope we can find a way to make players impact the world in a direct way, perhaps a way that isn’t dependent on a completely new batch of content. For example, when we finally get to discover the Crystal Desert, let the players actually build the first outpost in that area. There would be escorts of supplies, protecting the build site, maybe a raid on an enemy’s lair to lessen the attacks for a while. The building would only continue if there are enough supplies and the build site and if it isn’t overrun by enemies (enemies could even destroy what we already have built). This would fill a progress bar, which could even take weeks to complete. Sounds familiar? Yeah, that’s right, WvW elements in PvE!
If the real necessary stuff would already been given, the next update could expend on exploring the region, independent of the progress of building the outpost. Perhaps the local inhabitants don’t like us being there and will launch an offensive, making completing the outpost even harder, ‘punishing’ us for not completing the outpost faster.
‘World’
Right now, I don’t think the world feels like a dangerous world but more like a playground. Any place in the world can be reached within minutes and any mob or event can be ignored. Want to go somewhere? Take a waypoint and run no more than 5 minutes. Bridge collapsed? There is probably a way to get to the other side, usually right next to the bridge. A mob in your way? Well, just walk right past it. Waypoint contested? Travel to the one next to it.
To be honest, I don’t have any realistic idea how to fix these issues. Removing over 90% of the waypoints is not something I think we’ll see happening. Perhaps a return to the ‘Ress shrines’ from GW1 would be something to consider. Another element from GW1 that might help: more larger mobs that actually patrol the area, making it more difficult to just mindlessly run past them. It might be a start looking into these things, although I don’t think it will be enough.
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