Guild Wars 2

Given that they seem to be adding a new bit to southwestern Brisban, accessed by the looks of it at Toxal Bog, I doubt that Fort Vandal – which as said has been there since launch – is related.

Instead I’d look at the festival.

• Rox and Braham mention going after the voice in Scarlet’s head.
• Marjory and Kasmeer mention investigating the dragon’s roar.
• There is a lot of mentions of a long trip the Zephyrites are going on next to an unknown destination (so either we’ll see them again soon, or they’re being written out via the old put on the bus trope).
• We have Trader Aerin whom seems suspicious that he got so many voiced lines.
• Not to mention Canach being bought by some human noble lady.

I think those, and the map change, are the hints. Other than the portal covered by thorny vines in the news post.

I have loved this game and its lore for 7 strong years. I didn’t even take a break from playing GW1 until GW2 came out since I started playing at the beginning of July 2006. It wasn’t until last winter that I took a break from GW2. You managed to undo 7 years of strong followship in a single year. I suppose it is only fair that just after my 8th anniversary of playing this game, you go and put in what seems to be the final nail in the coffin for GW’s lore. I loved the game, Bobby, I loved the story. I joined the Test Krewe the moment I could because of such, and defended Anet and did other things that I cannot speak about due to NDA because of my love for the game and its story. But now? That love has all but gone, Bobby, destroyed by the utter clusterkitten to the lore that Scarlet Briar was (and what the kitten is with that over propagandizing of Scarlet? She’s not a good character, stop trying to pretend she is – Abaddon and Shiro were far better villains, and they never got an ounce of the attention Scarlet’s getting), and now by further contradictions and now outright making old lore “malleable”.

Old, established lore are the pillars of a continuing story. A poor writer does retroactive continuities. A good writer works in a way to explain why old ‘facts’ became ‘lies’ and uses that to boost the story. A great writer puts in what they want while not destroying the established pillars of the story. GW1 throughout its lifespan did the last; GW2 at release did the middle; and the Living Story is the first.

I don’t think I even want to play the game anymore, Bobby. I truly don’t. I think this will end up being my last post on the forums. For now, though, I’ll continue log in to unlock the future stories, and I’ll stalk the forums – only in hopes that you (ArenaNet’s writers) and Guild Wars returns to being a great story made by great writers.

BobbyStein.2315:

lakdav.3694:

Well they did move away from most of the things they said during development (see the manifesto), it only figures that interview-lore isnt sacred either.

Unless we’ve built content around something, it’s usually considered malleable from a design and lore standpoint. Occasionally we decide to go in a different direction months or years after the first ideas are documented or even talked about externally. In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.

In short, go by what’s in the game.

lakdav.3694:

I wouldnt even mind to rely only on lore that is presented in the game if there would be enough lore in the game. Im still hoping for some kind of codex in the hero panel.

My advice for you and others who care about the lore is to let us know what you think of the implementation in season 2. We’ve put a lot more resources into seeding each episode with loreful bits.

As always, thanks for playing and letting us know what you think.

Woooooow. Is that really all you have to say?

You could at least explain why this change was made. Even if it’s made up on the spot. It’d raise your credibility.

But instead you say what is effectively “be ready to disregard anything not in the game.” For argument’s sake, I’ll pretend you said games and books. Otherwise we’d have to disregard all lore in GW1 and the three novels!

Tell me, should we disregard An Empire Divided (which is the source for almost all the lore on Shiro and Cantha’s history) too? And the GW1 manuals – after all, they weren’t in-game. Or how about the lore tidbits provided in Art of Guild Wars from the Prophecies CE which gives insights that was never brought up in-game (such as old Krytan funerals being performed on swamps, where the bodies are wrapped up and stood up on boats before being pushed off)? Should we disregard each and every interview, which gives hundreds of fascinating bits of lore? Was the Dolyak Express focusing on lore pointless then since you can change what’s given at a whim?

I suppose this also means that if we hate an interview like the poor reception this one with Angel McCoy got. Or even "the clarification posts made by you devs regarding unclear points in either interviews or the game itself – of which there’s even more than the total number of interviews?

Shall we just toss it all out then, because kitten it! You can just change it at a whim, because it’s not “in game”. But hell, even the things you present in-game get changed! Steam creatures’ origins got changed! The mentality and believability of krait and dredge and Flame Legion got changed!

It isn’t just “what isn’t in game is malleable” with you guys is it? Because you even alter the things presented in-game.

With you, it’s more of “we’ll change anything in our lore to fit our current design” isn’kitten So I must ask you this Bobby:

What the kitten are your continuity designers doing in which they’re not creating a continuity but a retcontinuity!

This destroys the story’s credibility, putting it on par to WoW with how often things get changed and retcon to fit the new releases. You might as well start writing the lore on toilet paper because that’ll stop plugging up the toilet when you flush the lore down. And don’t bother arguing that’s not what you do, because that’s exactly what you admitted to doing even if you don’t use those words. “Actions speak louder than words” and your actions have spoken a cacophony.

This is truly saddening that this was your reply Bobby. It destroys all credibility there is in any forum post or interview ever had and ever will be had. Hell, at this point you can even retcon those short stories put on the web because “it’s not in game.”

There is so little lore in the game that if someone were to just play the game they’d think that the world is a bland and boring place! How do I know this? I’ve seen people say that! And I had to go into great detail, linking dozens of articles and interviews and forum posts, to clarify otherwise! But it was only because of the lore that’s presented out of the game that I could convince them that it wasn’t the bland and boring game they believed it to be – and now you’re saying that you can toss all that lore, all those explanations and expositions, out the window at a whim?

Why not just say that there is no lore, Bobby, because that’s effectively what your words are meaning.

-continued in next post-

I’m not okay with brining the world leaders together instead of ambassadors. I’m not okay with the most famous guild that was formed to slay Elder Dragons not bring present for a meeting about slaying an Elder Dragon. I’m not okay with only Vigil having a Pact/Order representative at the summit. I’m not okay that all the world leaders gave in so simply. I’m not okay with Knut claiming to be over 150 years old and knowing such youth when aged norn live to only roughly 120 while still being physically active. I’m not okay with someone who agreed to show with no strings attatched earlier suddenly spouts she cannot help when Kryta is arguably in the best situation it’s been in for roughly 2 generations.

But I guess I don’t have a choice.

Everyone! Stop crafting the new backpack of Mawdrey and Mawdrey II! It’s a trap, a trap to doom Tyria!

Don’t you think it’s odd? ArenaNet, before Season 2, began said that they want player choice to be bigger in Season 2 than Season 1 (where we had the election). But where is that choice? It certainly isn’t obvious. But what can ArenaNet monitor so well that not everyone doing the main story will do? It’s obvious, right? It’s the backpacks! Crafting, or not crafting, the backpacks will affect the future of the Living Story. How, you might ask? Why would this bring about the doom of Tyria? Because they’ll overgrow us and take over in the name of Mordremoth!

In 4 months time, when ArenaNet has had a chance to analize the results and build upon them, the backpacks will grow and the lies of their description being kind and cuddly will be revealed. They will stretch those tendrils around our characters necks and strangle them like they have done to so many NPCs around the world, and our characters will not be revive-able – for they are no longer knocked out like the defeated state, they are dead, and resurrection magic doesn’t exist anymore. Then with the heroes of Tyria gone, Mordremoth’s forces will spread ever eastward, a new day a new zone! And if most instances of the map doesn’t push back Mordremoth’s forces, they’ll take over. But because of all the backpacks, there won’t be enough level 80s to eliminate the threat in Dry Top, our characters that we’ll have to remake will be too low level to do anything in Brisban, and when they reach Rata Sum – no more asuran characters! When they reach the Grove – no more sylvari characters! Divinity’s Reach? The same! Hoelbrak and Black Citadel! You guessed it! And then, when Mordremoth’s forces inevitable encroach on the last bastions of Tyria, Ebonhawke and Deathblade’s Watch, and they fall, the PvE servers, and the game will be nothing but WvW and sPvP. The world of Tyria will be Mordremoth’s vineyard.

lordkrall.7241:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Your missing the point. Why is this lore outside of the game. Why has every revelation we have had about anything in the lore either given by a piece like this or through an interview with their lore team?

It hasn’t.
Scarlet was introduced in game for one.
So was the Molten Alliance and the Aetherblades.

Some things simply don’t make sense to put in the game and is not needed to understand the story, thus they can add them outside of the game to give it some extra flavor.

95% of everything we know about Scarlet, comes from either the short story on her or the interview about the short story.

The creation background of the Queen’s Jubilee the same. How old the Molten Alliance is, is also the same. The nature of magic in the world. The history of Cantha from Faction’s time. The majority of the origin story of Abaddon. Marjory being former Ministry Guard. All of this – comes from out of the games.

They don’t need to shove things in our face, but doing like they did with Ghosts of Ascalon lore – where you have Dougal Kaene, Killeen’s grave, Ember, Gullik, and a random plinth telling a majority of the important lore behind the novel in the game is perfect enough. All you need is some interactive objects or some NPCs to tell the main important parts of the short stories in the game, no more.

Let those who want the story dig for it if it must be so, but don’t force them to dig through the wide internet for an interview never mentioned by ArenaNet.

The sad thing is, the only revelation revealed in game during the course of the Living Story is “Scarlet made the Molten Alliance and leads the Aetherblades” – aka “Scarlet did it.” That’s the only revelation in the Living Story. But slap in those short stories and the interviews/look-backs by Angel and Scott, and you get so, oh so much more. Enough to make the lackluster villain called Scarlet Briar somewhat interesting. Enough to explain why the Molten Alliance can do so much damage so well. Enough to explain most of the issues to the LS’s plot (sans Tequatl…).

In response to others (because I love dashing hopes):

Harpies – highly unlikely. Firstly, I think it was outright stated that GW2 won’t have flying, though I may be wrong on this. Secondly, all harpies are female, and since they went through the trouble of giving sylvari genders… Thirdly, they’re a very – and I mean very – primitive race.

Centaurs – Anet outright stated early on that they wanted centaurs to be a “black race” (aka evil with few redeeming qualities), and given the model I just don’t see them making it worth the hassle for armor.

Hylek, Skritt, Ogres, and Quaggans – won’t happen. Ever. Why? Racial sympathy, that’s why. Same goes for grawl which haven’t been mentioned yet.

Dwarves – they’re pretty much extinct. They won’t return as a playable race, most likely. Maybe as NPCs, but even that’s questionable in the long run.

Kodan – they seem unlikely given the lack of customization abilities in appearance. Charr have leopard patterns, tiger patterns, Siamese cat patterns, plain patterns, etc. Kodan? They have white, white, and more white. Polar bear people is very limited.

Undead (joko’s or otherwise) – possible, but they’re not really a race. I mean, Joko turns any race into an undead, so the variety is too great to make a playable race out of, both due to being too complex (they’d have to share animations with other races, which breaks the “each race have their own unique animations,” or multiple undead versions of races will share animations, which will just look silly) and due to how NPCs can have even greater variety (in GW1, you got human, centaur, giant, and seemingly charr undead in Joko’s army – in GW2, it can easily spread to heket and harpy, even perhaps ogre).

Now then, my opinions and why:

Tengu – their GW2 models share postures with charr, meaning that they can easily use charr armor designs just as sylvari and human share such. It is said in the Making of Guild Wars 2 book from the CE that the tengu were originally a candidate for a playable race, with the Dominion of Winds to be their starter city, but were cut – however, ANet still views them as a race with future potential. At the end of the personal story, one tengu who joined the Pact says he’ll take news of other races’ abilities to his people, and other tengu say they’re evaluating the races to determine who are their allies and who are their enemies.

Tengu also have among the largest lore established of GW1 races outside humans (even more than there was lore for charr in GW1, and on par to dwarves). In GW2, they also have four houses – similar to how charr have four legions, asura have three colleges, and humans have three social statuses. They can easily be added in any sort of future expansion – be it related to Cantha, or something else in Tyria.

Largos – though not a lot known on them, they seem to be presented in a similar manner as sylvari were, except using the game as the medium of introduction, rather than articles like The Movement of the World. Furthermore, they can easily share human/sylvari armor models with minimal alterations (if any) due to the placement of the wings, at the nape of the neck. And similar to the tengu, there’s a largos who said she’s going to tell her people word of the Pact’s accomplishments against Zhaitan – and its heavily implied they’re fighting the deep sea dragon, so at the very least they will be playing a bigger role. They can easily be added in an Unending Ocean expansion dealing with the Deep Sea Dragon.

I cannot really see a third race as a possibility – kodan come closest, but their lack of customization bothers me though they can still be added into a Far Shiverpeaks expansion, with a large Sanctuary somewhere in that in-land sea that Jormag made as a home city. Naga are also close, if there’s ever a Canthan expansion, but their lack of legs is harmful to their chances and if there’s a Canthan expansion I suspect tengu to be more likely, despite their lack of modern influence with Cantha.

It’s obvious that Evon was the one who blew up the Zephyrites. Why? Simple: they’re competition. Thanks to Kiel, Evon became likely to be the top merchant in Lion’s Arch, but he has a major competitor in the Zephyrites. Take out the Zephyrites, and he can easily have Lion’s Arch under his thumb – which was his original intention in forming the Black Lion Trading Post as shown in his background short story.

Evon is Season 2’s villain.

#TeamSuwash

/justcuz

“Scarlet’s birthdate is a minor piece of lore.”
Yes. It is. But you’d be missing the point if this is all you see for the complaints.

By changing Scarlet’s birthday the way it has been, you’re changing the birthdate of Secondborn everywhere. This also means that any player roleplaying a Secondborn now has to revise his/her character. This of itself is not a big thing, but then you hit “Angel McCoy’s very recent comment about their approach for the player characters”:

Initially, when we created the original body of the game, we were especially careful to never break immersion by using PC dialogue lines that you might feel didn’t fit your PC. We’ve relaxed this with Living World content and it has proven a more positive experience for many, I hope. Our original thought was that you would add the personality to the words when you heard them in your head. We still know you will do that, but we’re now more comfortable with having your PC say things that commit to an idea or a knowledge or a thought that you the player might not have had. Our goal is to increase immersion and make you feel more like it’s your PC’s story.

This feels like outright contradiction.

With one hand, you offer more self-customization of your PC’s personality by devoiding the story of it. With the other hand, you mess around with the canon lore that alters player-made stories for their PC.

But this is still just the tip of the iceberg of this issue. You see, when you retcon something there are three questions that must be asked:

1. What was changed?
2. Why was it changed?
3. How was it changed?

As pointed out above, the ‘how’ has, until now, always been via storytelling; the why has always been to improve the story. The what is really irrelevant – whether it is a big piece of lore or a small piece of lore, the why and the how determines how players will react to it, because whether it is the first or the last in their minds it opens up a door for lower quality if they remain quiet (at least for some players, and in this case, it seems to primarily be the older players).

Now tell me: what are the answers to the questions in this situation?

1. What: The birthdate of the Secondborn. The act of itself has some pros and cons to it, and as said it’s usually irrelevant in the big picture. Moving on.
2. Why: Because… we don’t know. “Because external sources are malleable” is all we’re told. This is the primary source of my frustration now. Not because of the explanation itself (or rather, lack of), but because of what the given explanation entails (that anything spoken by an NPC, or spoken by a dev, is subject to change and we may never even realize it).
3. How: They just did it. No explanation, no stating so until we figured it out by seeing what one would think unrelated, no story given. Nothing. They just did it blatantly, and without remorse.

This is similar to when the calendar got changed as talked about here because the “why” was ‘because we want to link up the two calendars’ and the how was kitten because they didn’t take into account that the Mouvelian calendar begins on the spring equinox (and furthermore, their story explanation was basically “we asura have realized that humans who’ve been studying the sky were wrong about the length of the calendar, even though the 5 days they missed would have put snow in the middle of summer and hot days in the middle of winter in half of their generation; we asura, however, despite not even knowing that the sky and stars existed until 250 years ago, have discovered these 5 days and are right.”) – though I suppose that’s now ‘malleable’ isn’kitten Well, still canon until they say otherwise. The main difference between then and now is that they told us then, but not now. And it is the fact that they didn’t tell us that is perhaps the biggest spark. Out of all the lore we’ve gotten out of game – if they didn’t tell us this has changed, what else has they not told us has changed? Are we going to need to sit down with an interview and ask the same questions we asked before again, just to see if the answer has been altered? We shouldn’t, to be honest. We really shouldn’t be.

I hope this clarified why there’s “this much discussion about such a small detail”. To put it in metaphorical terms, however, today’s retcon just a pebble that could start a rockslide.

MastaNeenja.1537:

dat epitaph….

I thought she died when you beat the invasions. Since her laughter was of the dying variety.

I know i got my hopes up but dang she’s already back.

This is the Mad King’s month end of story!

The second update will likely deal with Thorn, rather than having a full month of Halloween.

Her laughter was a mock-death kind. She was mocking the players as she retreated.

CureForLiving.5360:

Well then, atleast we might be able to kill her now? Would that make you happy?

How Anet’s been treating Scarlet in interviews… expect her to be around for a while. Given Scotts mention of a couple years between ED plots, if we were to take that seriously, expect her to last to the end of 2014 at least.

Sad, I know. Horrific even. We can only hope that they improve her character and how they reveal her exponentially in the game in the future. Too much about the living world is being told through those short stories and, worse, interviews that Anet never makes mention of (the TowerTalk interview about Jubilee and Scarlet for example).

Coldin.2840:

Scarlet has not yet proven to be a Mary Sue yet. Just because you don’t like her doesn’t mean she fits that profile. Most of what she has shown is very standard, super smart, egotistical villain.

You must not have read her short story.

She excells at everything, got the most legendary norn blacksmith to want to teach her but refused, got taught by one of the best Iron Legion snipers then ran with the secrets, got into all three asura colleges being the first non-asura to ever do such (and even if the interview with TowerTalk pegged the feat of graduating all three colleges down by explaining she took specialized courses, that’s still a feat that shamed the asura intelligence), and (though countered in the interview mentioned) saw the Eternal Alchemy (now it’s “may have seen but most likely didn’t”).

She has been set up, betrayed, exiled, desired, and she thought nothing of it. She has been pampered by the whole world since day 1 all because she has high IQ. And to top it off she’s disconnected from the Dream of Dreams without the rigorous meditation Soundless need to do.

That sounds very Mary Sue-like to me. And that is why I don’t like her, personally speaking. I don’t think she’s a Villain Sue because I don’t like her; I don’t like her because I think she’s a Villain Sue. The interview helped lower the Villain Sue-ness of her character, but its still there, and worse, it (her background, both story and interview info) isn’t there in game.

Angel McCoy.1832:

In our minds, this is your PC’s story. Just because you can watch your spouse go through their dramas, and you accompany your spouse to the grocery store, doesn’t mean it’s your spouse’s story that you’re living.

Wait… are you saying… that Trahearne is our character’s spouse?

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Personal Story spoilers

hide spoiler

Bottom line is that, at the beginning of the Pact (almost 2 years ago in-game time), you were “The Commander.” After Zhaitan was killed, the Pact continued on and you went off into the world to do stuff. At that point, other commanders were brought on, and you become “A Commander.” And you became a commander who had lots of other things to do besides running an army that was repairing, preparing, and stocking up for the next big battle with the Elder Dragons. We could not build a story on that alone, not a good one that made sense, not considering where we want the story to take you. Any time anyone calls you “The Commander” now, it’s someone being nostalgic. It’s perhaps more correct to say you were “The First Commander.” That helps us explain why you’ve been running around the world saving people as opposed to being locked in a war room with Trahearn. I’ll see what I can do to get this explanation into the game.

Hmmm…

Firstly, we see at least two Commanders of the Pact in the initial release alone. One’s in Citadel of Flame explorable (Commander Suma), and one is in Frostgorge Sound (Commander Wik Tailbiter). There’s also a Commander (charr, vigil armor) in southern Timberline Falls, but there’s no Commander rank in the Vigil so that leads one to believe… Pact (ironically, all “Commanders” that are with or near Pact forces are charr and Vigil). So players by all appearances were always a Commander from the get go – to those who paid attention.

Secondly, I disagree that “repairing, preparing, and stocking up for the next big battle with the Elder Dragons” cannot deliver a good storyline. This is what all of Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, and Dragon Age: Origins pretty much are. The primary course of the story is about you building up your forces by solving local problems while fighting some forefront threat, before you end up being ready and take out the background threat.

This is, in fact, how most stories that revolve around some world-ending threat go. Most of the plot is about building up forces and fighting someone who isn’t actually the big bad and you know he/she isn’t, and then after beating that someone you can finally go after the big bad in a climatic battle.

And interestingly enough, those are greatly acclaimed games there. And personally? Amongst my favorite.

Thirdly, a huge problem with what you said here is that it is never even brought up that we left the Pact. In fact, in Flame and Frost when you first meet Rox, if you talk to Smodur he says, and I quote: “What’s a commander of the Pact doing here? I thought you had dragons to fight.”

There was no “I’m going on leave.” There was no “good job, Commander, now go have some well deserved R&R.” Or anything of the like. Just a vanishing act. Most militaries would consider this deserting and execute the deserter. Tyria sure is lenient!

Angel McCoy.1832:

RyuDragnier.9476:

About those last spoilers Angel, have you thought that maybe you should make it so there are multiple fronts, and that the pact is also hot on the heels of the other elder dragons?

We have lots of conversations here about the many places we could take the story, and ultimately, it comes down to what we think would be the most fun. We can only make so much content, so we have to carefully choose which content we make.

If we split our attention to two storylines, then neither one gets our full attention.

We, like you, want the most bang for your buck!

I don’t think Ryu was saying to split the storyline, but rather to have it stated in-game – perhaps shown in-game – that the Pact is fighting on multiple fronts – in the Far Shiverpeaks, in the Dragonbrand close to the Crystal Desert, and elsewhere that dragon minions can be found.

Kenrid.7859:

I think what Mr. Stein is trying to say here is things change. The interview and blog being quoted are from more than a year before the game was released. They changed the whole look of the sylvari during that time. A month after that interview they could have decided, you know, let’s make it so a whole crop of sylvari are about to be born. But the asura come in and experiment and kill all but the 12. We will call them The Survivors instead of First Born. They could have done that if they wanted, if they did, you still going to hold them to what they said a year before when still in the creation process?

You realize that those interviews and questions came out during ‘sylvari week’ – when the redesign was revealed, and they told us about the Firstborn and the Secondborn and so much more, right?

That was the big reveal of sylvari lore spread throughout multiple sites, revealing the big change and new direction of the sylvari from their earlier ‘pseudo-elf’ look.

And it is generally very poor form to change released story, because if they admit that they altered what was stated multiple time during the biggest reveal of sylvari lore via asking if it was in-game or not, that’s no different than saying “anything not in the game is subject to change.” And that’s a lot of the background lore we’ve been given over the years. Hundreds of interviews, hundreds of forum posts, dozens of livestreams, hundreds of documents released to give a sense of the lore of the game for potential customers. To say that all of that can change at the drop of the hate removes a hell of a lot of credibility from the writers at ArenaNet.

And if that’s the case, we might as well dump all the lore we get out of game, and as I said, that’s a kitten lot. Given how the lore is presented in GW2, in fact, most of the more enticing tidbits come from out of the game. Reasons for the gods’ leaving, reason why sylvari look humanoid, how and when the Flame Legion came upon the titans, the entire history of Shiro Tagachi that was never touched upon in-game. Because ArenaNet lacks a means of providing paragraphs of text without humongous dialogue trees – even in GW1 – most lengthy lore comes from out of game. To say that all of that is subject to change?

Then what’s the point of having all those forum clarifications by Angel and Scott? Why bother even accepting interviews that focus on the story? Why even release those “<race> week”s? There is no point, because hell, any of it can be discarded at the drop of a hat!

Kenrid.7859:

Jeff Grubb gave an interview on norn and was asked how they pick a mate. He said they are about their story, their legend, and look for a mate whose legend matches their own. I have not seen anything in game to confirm this.

Actually, this is shown in Eye of the North, the background around Knut Whitebear and his wife (though we never met her, there are a few NPCs who talk about how legendary she and Knut are, and how while Knut lives in Hoelbrak she’s out there still building her legend), this is also brought up with Eir and Bjorn (whom lived a similar life – the husband settled down while the wife continued to build her growing legend).

It’s also shown that it isn’t universally the case, however, such as the event chain in northern Dredgehaunt Cliffs.

Kenrid.7859:

In a small way this is kind of why companies don’t like giving out too much info during the design phase. And I don’t mean just lore, but skills, professions, whatever..

“Two years before the game came out you said there would be Wardens and Marksmen, where are they!”
“We took them out, didn’t work, we didn’t like them.”
“You can’t do that, you ruined the game!”

It’s one thing to change the mechanics and story before release, it’s another thing to change such after promising them. Because then you’re breaking promises. And in the case of lore pieces like this, when you present the same fact multiple times during a period which is emphasizing the aspect of lore you’re providing pieces of, and then go about changing it with no story reason, that’s just sloppy storytelling. They should know what they should reveal and not, and work around that which they revealed – whether it’s keeping it in place but making new stuff work out (like your “The Survivors” idea, though even that wouldn’t work due to the sylvari week reveals) or by explaining why it’s false via in-universe explanations (like why the History of Tyria from the Prophecies manual is mostly proven false now).

BobbyStein.2315:

For you, the game should be about the PC at the expense of the open world content and ambience. For me, and for Guild Wars 2, it’s about the world as a whole since it’s a cooperative, shared environment. Neither approach is wrong, but we decided to put more of our resources into bringing the world to life. I don’t regret that at all.

BobbyStein.2315:

Actually, it’s the reality of game development. You have limited budget and time to work with, so scope must be adjusted to fit. Features must be prioritized, and sometimes that means cutting content or systems.

While I get that there’s a limit with budget and time, I feel that you’re skipping the crux of the issue.

Go out, play the game, listen to the dialogue there is.

Now tell me, how much lore and story do you get out of those events? Those hours upon hours of voice acted lines in all those events? In all honesty, there are so very little lore in the events of the game, and most – if not all – of it comes from text box dialogue! That’s just downright silly to me.

If I were running that and saw how events were having no true context given in the spoken dialogue, I’d re-use generic line for NPCs of similar race and gender. Get 10-15 voice actors, one or so sessions (depending on how much one can get done in a session), and just record a bunch of generic lines – from “follow me” to “defend me” and so forth. And you have the dialogue for thousands of events – with no quality loss to the current set up of events. The sad thing is, most events already have generic sounding lines, but it’s an obviously different recording each time. While that is great for widespread immersion – NPCs don’t sound exactly the same everywhere one goes – it reduces one from the more story-related voice recording.

Already the system you have up forces lore related dialogue in events to be in text boxes. For example, most Orr events just talk about “finding a relic” but we never find out what the relic is or anything of the like. Only the beginning and ending voiced lines really need to be unique – and this is only to provide lore. And even then, not all have to be 100% unique. But that’s what you do. And like I said, it’s great for immersion, but then you lose your ability to go after the more story-focused lines. You lose your ability to actually let the players hear the lore of the game, and instead you force them to talk to the NPC in the middle of an event to read about the lore. And in sadly most cases, very little at that.

Now, I’m not saying “voice PCs” – instead, I’m saying “use generic lines for non-story/lore-giving stuff, because they’re practically all the same anyways.” And you can even alter tones and whatnot to have the same recorded line work for multiple NPCs (even races) and still sound different enough.

Honestly, I don’t care if the PC is voiced or not. Though I would have preferred them not-voiced from the get go except conditional lines, and having the tone for those chooseable amongst a set, and give the PC a dialogue tree – much like Dragon Age: Origins overall.

I don’t want the living world to end.

I want more permanent stuff, and for a living world not a progressive story (which is what we’re getting). A living world would focus on more than just one villain and her joker antics.

The main problem, for me, is that the “Living World” is not a living world. It’s a step-by-step linear story focused around Scarlet and Kiel and those they interact with (Rox, Braham, Marjory, Kasmeer, and Faren mainly it seems). And with each step, the previous step is removed.

It’s like building a staircase, but to create the next stair up, ArenaNet’s removing the bottom stair.

The saddest part, is that they claim they wanted a living world from day one. Which means right off the bat they failed. Why? Release content is static, and permanent. “Living World” content is not. It comes, and it goes. It alters what it affects, and leaves everything else in place.

If they really wanted a living world, they should have begun with releasing the initial content in steps – keeping it all permanent of course. For example, just off the top of my head, releasing each chapter of the personal story every week or two, having zones that are lvl 30+ sans Gandarren (Harathi Hinterlands, Bloodtide Coast, Fields of Ruin, etc.) cut off at release, slowly accessible as more of the personal story is released.

This would not only make the content of Orr’s invasion feel like it takes more than a few hours/days (in-game it’s supposed to be “several weeks” between Forging the Pact and The Source of Orr’s completion), but it would have given ArenaNet time to improve the fight with Zhaitan and later PS which were very buggy, as well as create a sense of true preparation with the attack and retaking of Claw Island (and of course Orr), and giving us a pacing for completing the main game’s storyline.

And on top of this, only have a select portion of the full amount of available events/event chains available and slowly add the rest that were tested to work together in.

By the time we are given everything we had prior to Halloween content, it’d have been the new year. They could have put more time into The Lost Shores, into Flame and Frost, and so forth as they would have had 2-3 more months to work on them.

But that’s in the past. Nonetheless, they really messed up with their “Living World” in my opinion. (I say the same for how they treated Guild Wars 1 after announcing GW2 – should have kept working and expanding GW1 with expansions or even just BMP-sized DLCs while slowly working on GW2, again IMO).

Main point: No, this isn’t a living story or a living world. It’s just a linear story told in steps, and not giving even a wide enough change to things that are indirectly affected by the changes.

“The Game is Primary Source”
This just isn’t true, unfortunately. As has been explained, there isn’t a single NPC that cannot be redacted from telling truth to telling lies or being misinformed of the truth. This began with Ghosts of Ascalon, to player knowledge, and has continued ever sense. To quote Jeff Grubb:

We (the designers and writers) know what happened as far as the raw facts of the matter, and we keep an updated lore database in case any one of us steps in front of a bus. Matt [Forbeck] strained those facts through the racial viewpoints of both human and charr, based upon what information they would have (i.e., as survivors) and their own prejudices. The end result creates more of a feeling of real world, and for the inhabitants of the world there are different flavors of truth, depending on who you are and what you are doing.

This is just the most available to me of multiple interviews in which Jeff states the same at the end. Effectively: NPCs are only privy to the knowledge they’ve learned. That knowledge can be right, it can be wrong.

I could go through a long list of NPCs that have been proven wrong, but I’ll keep it short with obvious examples instead:

• ‘They say that ours was the first, but that the gods created other worlds after the Exodus.’
• ‘Yes. She was the first of all creatures on Tyria, created by the gods to be the caretaker, but it became clear that she needed help. That is when they summoned the creatures known now only as the Forgotten.’ (‘She’ refers to Glint)
• ‘The gods threatened to take magic from us. They were afraid we would use it against them. Our confusion was great, and the jotun kings began to fight among themselves.’

This basis also extends to in-universe external sources, such as the things that individuals in the short stories and novels say, as well as the written documents such as An Empire Divided. This has been known for quite some time. Because of this, the rule of thumb about the credibility of sources has had the following hierarchy of most credible to least:

1. What players see first hand in games, and what narrations describe in stories.
2. Word of God
3. What NPCs have experienced and told their first hand accounts to players (thus, second hand accounts for players)
4. What NPCs have heard and told their second+ hand accounts to players (thus third+ hand accounts for players)

This created 2 absolute types of sources, and 2 dubious types of sources. However, with Bobby’s comment, it now has become 1 absolute type of source, which gives exceedingly little details, and 3 dubious types of sources, and in the following order:

1. What players see first hand in games, and what narrations describe in stories.
2. What NPCs have experienced and told their first hand accounts to players (thus, second hand accounts for players)
3. What NPCs have heard and told their second+ hand accounts to players (thus third+ hand accounts for players)
4. Word of God

Most of the lore in the game now is fully ‘malleable’, because we can never be fully certain if an NPC is lying or misinformed, and because we can never be certain when a fact previously told to us by the developers has been altered.

While these facts aren’t changed yet, what Bobby Stein said is basically “they aren’t changed to players’ knowledge”.

This in itself is not that huge of a deal, but it makes our certainty of lore beyond low.

So there’s enough Scarlet-hate threads, I don’t need that brought here. I’m making this to post my thoughts and theories to explain, in at least a semi-reasonable manner, both how Scarlet has gotten so many to work with her, why she needs them, and what she intends to do from what she gained out of them. This is just my attempt to un-bend the lore that Scarlet’s plot is risking to break (but hasn’t quite yet if you dig enough).

Note: This is almost all theorycrafting based off of the few facts we gained

The Molten Alliance
The facts behind the dredge and Flame Legion prior to the Molten Alliance is that they both were plunged into civil war – Flame Legion Tribunes fighting against each other (per CoE path 3), and the old moletariate being usurped by a new not-corrupted one (per SE path 2 and 3). The outcome of either civil war – if there is a conclusion yet – is unknown.

I have been believing that it is just a single Tribune of the Flame Legion who began working with Scarlet, and that it is the old moletariate, formerly led by Shukov, who is working with Scarlet. For the moletariate, whom are mentioned by the Molten Alliance dredge and the Whispers’ spy in the MA, they were willing to work with the asura and sylvari (specifically saying that the Inquest were allies and that the dredge would “humble the sylvari”), leading them to work with Scarlet being not unreasonable in of itself. And via the Destroyer path, we know that they sought the power of fire for overtaking the surface.

My theory is that Scarlet used her Inquest ties (whatever may remain – some must given their presence during Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates of Tyria) to find out about the old moletariate’s actions. Knowing that the Destroyers failed, Scarlet came up with an alternative that they didn’t like but were too powerhungry (per the Prisoner at the end of Flame and Frost) that they didn’t care.

After its formation, the MA could have then led to the victory of the civil war(s) – or not, hard to tell with no delving into dredge and Flame outside of the Molten Alliance.

Aetherblades
The Aetherblades are a hard case to pin down. I’m guessing that she rounded up the remnants of Taidha’s armada – the Order of Whispers intended to get that easy-going captain (forgot name) be the new leader, but nothing says that succeeded. What if Mai Trin was able to succeed Taidha but still had the Order of Whispers on her back? Uniting those pirates of multiple captains into the Aetherblades and working with the Inquest would give them the leverage they needed against the secret organization. And getting that captain’s seat would give them amity from the Lionguard. This would explain their motivation for joining Scarlet – and once Mai Trin failed to take the seat, the Aetherblades were too deep in Scarlet’s insanity to back out – and it would explain their numbers as Taidha commanded the largest pirate armada in modern times, IIRC.

Toxic Alliance
The Nightmare Court involved is only a splinter faction – probably a fallout faction from the three-way battle in Twilight Arbor. Scarlet gets their help by promising the spreading of the Nightmare (be it truth or lies). They’re the easy ones to figure out, since the Court’s motives are so simple. Even their own pain furthers the Nightmare so they’d be willing to risk enslavement by the krait.

As for the krait – I wouldn’t be surprised if she sent ether a hologram to contact the Oratuss or she had Courtiers go one after another until the krait got tired of killing the messengers and listened to it, being promised a chance for the return of their prophets and obtaining a shattered obelisk that was “found.” How it was found? Numerous ways. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were originally brought to Tyria by the krait, but stolen by the Aetherblades and held for ransom or “returned by those who killed the thieves.” Alternatively, the “Toxic Hybrid” we’ve seen the art of could be a Mordremoth-corrupted krait oratuss – the corruption and means of free will obtained by the Inquest who via Subject Alpha, Zone Green/Experimental Green Lab, and Kudu are known to have both Mordremoth’s corruption and a means of retaining free will after corruption.

Steam creatures
This is really the kittene to guess. Since the Queen’s Jubilee we’ve seen the Steam creatures as part of Scarlet’s invasions. The Clockheart seen in Twilight Arbor’s new Aetherpath is cybornetic, like the Molten Berserker and the Steam creatures. I suspect that their involvement goes only so far as that Scarlet captured some and reverse-engineered their technology to give her teleportation and her cyborgs.

Let’s face it.

Everything about the change to the last two chapters has been stupid, inconsistent with continuity, and illogical.

Whomever thought that was a good idea was either high or is brain-dead. It’s become a clusterkitten of discontinuity.

1. You have to go past the temple of Melandru to reach the Source of Orr, but it’s a risen fortification as we see in Blast from the Past – which now happens later – and there’s no access into or past it.
2. You fight a Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan in the Source of Orr, and get the revelation that “the other Eyes” were royalty of Orr. The next step later (now), you meet two fierce risen, an Eye and Mouth, and in the following step you kill said Eye, learning in the next step that there’s more than one Eye – except we already know this, as the Eye we meet in the temple of Abaddon is the second Eye, and we make mention of “other Eyes” in the Source of Orr, indicating more than just the Sovereign Eye being encountered at that point.
3. In Against the Corruption, we have a large unit of Pact forces, yet we only invade Cursed Shore later on now, despite having established a foothold (thanks to pirates) well beforehand.
4. A minor one: previously, the Source of Orr was defended by only those that you met in your efforts in Orr as well as Lionguard Mira. Now, you don’t meet those individuals by the time you’re assaulting the Source.

This change would only have made sense if they altered which temple they went to (say, going to temple of Abaddon to learn this information of the Source) and where the Artesian Waters were (say placing them along the riven just past the catacombs in Straits of Devastation), while also altering about 25% of the dialogue in the PS, and the entire purpose, more or less, of What the Eye Beholds

So yes, once again I must state that whomever decided this was a good idea was either high, brain-dead, or they never did the storyline or bothered to look up what the steps are about (which means they don’t give a skritt’s kitten about GW’s story and lore and thus why the hell are they allowed to touch it?). I don’t care who it is that did it – even if it was Jeff and/or Ree that people respect. There’s no excuse for such a blunder, because even if they did the changes I mention, why put that much effort into it when said effort could have been put to making the already continuity-harming clusterkitten story a bit better?

Edit: And all this, of course, doesn’t even account the removal of the Fear plot, which introduces just as many continuity errors.

Oh hohoho, can o’ wurms, opened.

• Question 1: What happened to the Forgotten? Specifically, why were they not around in the Crystal Desert when Glint fought Kralkatorrik? It seems possible though hard to believe they were all killed during Prophecies…

• Question 2: The Isles of Janthir on the GW2 map are to the north of Kryta, however in GW1 Mantle Knight Franklan states that Saul went south to Janthir to retrieve the Eye of Janthir… Why the discrepancy?

• Question 3: In War in Kryta a seer was seen on a table in Zinn and Blimm’s lab. It has been wondered for a long time: Was that seer living or dead? A volunteer or captive?

• Question 4: On the calendar: why add those five days? Why is there a need to sync up the calendars? And doesn’t the fact that Wintersday is Tyria’s new year, but the year starts with the first of Spring (the Spring Equinox) ruin the syncing anyways as our Spring Equinox is March 20th (for northern hemisphere) anyways? Furthermore, how did these five days come to be, as such a large amount of time would have been easily noted within a decade and would encorporate a full year give or take by the time Tyria went from GW1’s timeframe to GW2’s? I know it’s three questions as one but same topic. And a highly controversial one.

• Question 5: How did the charr, whom were practically primitive at the time, decimate a prepared Orrian nation when said Orrians were powerful magic users? See: Prophecies manual entry on Orr and Orrian History Scrolls It just seems unlikely that a kingdom of strong magic users would fall so easily to the charr after the charr forced marched to Orr through Ascalon.

• Question 6: Where in the Unending Ocean are the largos, karka, krait, quaggan, and DSD from/at? In relation to each other and to the three known continents/Battle Isles.

• Question 7: How much of Thruln the Lost’s tales are true? Was there truly an Age of Giants which had both jotun and norn ruling? Did the jotun truly once worship the Six Gods and have their magic taken from them?

• Question 8: What happened to Magdaer after the Ascalonian Catacombs story mode? Eir said she’d take it to a blacksmith she knew but we’ve heard nothing of it since and Logan, who was going to get it, has not wielded it.

• Question 9: Back to Largos: why do they appear so humanoid despite being deep sea creatures (such a body shape would not be naturally beneficial to underwater life and their movements are akin to that of humans or sylvari when underwater)? And why do they have similar names to Orrians/why does Sayeh know the Orrian language so well (as seen in Temple of the Forgotten God personal story step)? Could the largos have once been human Orrians?

• Question 10: Those ‘thumpers’ are likely tied to Scarlet, almost confirmed at this point. Why is one outside the Chantry of Secrets and have they done anything about it (investigate, etc.)?

• Final Question: What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen tengu?

I’ll force myself to stop there, otherwise I’d never finish asking questions.

snow.8097:

Why is the bazaar of four winds related to their government?

The Bazaar of the Four Winds is not related to the tengu. The Tengu’s cultures assimilated into four main groups, calling the groups “Houses” – these Houses were named after the four directions of the compass (North, South, East, West) though the tengu who mentions it calls it the “four winds”.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

It’s hard to tell what the functionality of the item is from just a screen shot, so I’m here to clarify. This screen shot actually shows the Bloody Prince Thorn costume and not an armor skin, so it is not usable in combat.

Why do this?

The Mad King Thorn armor and the Bloody Prince Thorn armor are both awesome. I really wish they and other town clothing were able to be used in combat… GW1 did their costumes right, why do worse wit GW2? :/

From the update notes:

Chapter Focus:

• Chapter 7 is now focused on helping Trahearne cleanse Orr.
• Chapter 8 is now focused on defeating Zhaitan.

Apparently they removed the entire fear storyline (the story steps between Forging the Pact and The Battle of Fort Trinity).

So I went onto my thief which had completed the PS and now it’s set up as:

Chapter 7:
Forging the Pact -> The Battle of Fort Trinity -> Against the Corruption -> Cathedral of Silence/Romke’s Last Voyage -> The Source of Orr

Chapter 8:
Temple of the Forgotten God -> Through the Looking Glass / Close the Eye -> What the Eye Beholds -> Estate of Decay / Starving the Beast -> A Grisly Shipment / Ossuary of Unquiet Dead -> Further into Orr -> (subsequent storylines) -> Victory or Death

This makes no sense. Why did they remove an entire story chapter and shuffle Chapter 8 around? I don’t think it’d make any sense now for The Source of Orr, as now we’re fighting the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan before we fight regular Eye of Zhaitan and learn about it?

Is there a purpose behind this? Has the entire story involved changed? This makes no sense!

Apatia’s story was one of the best parts of the PS, imo, especially the latter, and the division of them was implemented so well with the Pale Tree asking players what their fear was and creating a division based off of that.

And now we’re going into the Cursed Shore via “air drop” well before we invade into Cursed Shore with the army. And the entire point of Chapter 7 previously was to obtain benefits for the army (the Blue Orb, recruits, etc.) while Fort Trinity was being built, but now it’s suddenly built just like that… It’s not even a division between story chapters for the gap, it’s just… there.

I just… what?

Can someone from ArenaNet please explain this to me, as I am truly baffled.

I’ve been monitoring this thread, and I felt the need to say something regarding how the discussion has progressed. Those whom are saying they don’t see what the big deal is seem to be misunderstanding (or lacking knowledge of) something or seeing the problems at face value. I see generally three main points being raised for why the reaction is an overreaction:

1. “Scarlet’s birthdate is a minor piece of lore.”
2. “The game is still primary source (and always was).”
3. “ArenaNet has retconned before, and so have many other stories that are very well known. This is not new.”

Allow me to extrapolate upon these in reverse order:

“Continuity Errors are Common”
This is true. Continuity errors, plotholes, and the like are very common amongst most stories, especially longer ones and those shared amongst more and more people such as Star Wars. The difference between Guild Wars and the rest however lies in two factors:

Firstly, ArenaNet has five people who’s primary job is to ensure continuity and the Guild Wars universe is not large enough for such to make constant slip ups especially around things that are highlighted and documented by the community.

Secondly, Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee had, in the past, presented extensive dislike of blatant retcons. Whenever they’ve retcon’d something it was done via presenting an story explanation for why this was done. For example: When Abaddon revealed as the Sixth God, the story was that the Five Gods removed all knowledge of him (or rather, tried to). Before we learned the truth of Glint Jeff Grubb said this:

Much of what we know about Glint comes from Glint herself. The truth of the matter may be very different, and she has her own reasons for saying what she has said.

It was about a year later that we had Edge of Destiny’s release and the truth of Glint revealed. ArenaNet has been very adamant about giving proper story explanations for any retcon.

However, this has lately changed when Season 1 went into high gear. Most such changes revolve around either interviews with Angel McCoy or Scarlet Briar’s in-game story.

(Side note: I have nothing against Angel, Bobby, or others as people; I do, however, have issues with what they do – I separate the two and mean no offense ever to the individuals as people)

Furthermore, in the past when the story is claimed for retcon but it isn’t, Jeff Grubb and others have gone out of their way to explain why it isn’t on occasion. For example, at one point before release it was believed that the creature beneath Drakkar Lake was Jormag, and this misconception came from abstract descriptions in Edge of Destiny as well as the concept art for Drakkar Lake. Jeff Grubb went to extensive lengths to prove that the concept art was talking about the original idea that got changed well before it or Eye of the North’s release. Unlike Malafide, I don’t mind the change to the Bloodstone itself per se, because they gave a story explanation (however poor it was).

ArenaNet has proven that they dislike retroactive continuity without giving proper and well thought out explanation. Until now.

Tentonhammr.7849:

You just don’t want to wait.

Key thing here.

HoT isn’t a game full of grind. It’s a game full of long term goals.

But people want things now, so they try to get those long term goals as if they were short term goals. This results in the sensation that the game is ‘full of grind’.

lordkrall.7241:

Unfounded?
The fact that people have been discussing it since beta would suggest that there were indeed things pointing towards it, ergo not unfounded.

The supporters have been arguing it despite continuous evidence against the theory. All evidential support they had was debunked upon release.

But ArenaNet goes and make the most illogical, asinine, and ridiculous but “common” theory canon lore.

It’s pretty kitten clear this wasn’t the fate of the sylvari upon their creation or during release.

What’s next? The gods are the Elder Dragons after all?

CureForLiving.5360:

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

Too late, they’re going in the most stupidest directions.

It’s just that they’re giving the vocal fans what they think they want.

The NPE was this as well.

It’s become clear to me: ArenaNet has someone or someones who’s too kitten sensative to their feelings over their work that they intentionally kitten it up in a way to make it into what the players claim to want.

What’s next, Anet? Kormir no longer is a god, it is the PC from GW1?

I think this “revelation” is utterly bullkitten because 1) the “theory” has been debunked time and time again by the game itself and 2) sylvari being dragon minions (purified or otherwise) has always come off to me as a terrible story decision to try and take, as not only are they nothing like the pre-established dragon minions, but I feel that this would destroy the uniqueness and the entire concept of the sylvari being “a brand new race born in a time of turmoil”. We have many stories that feature races, nations, and other groups struggling to survive a time of great turmoil in various degrees, but just about every single one of these races/nations/groups are well established, or are a rebirth, but never – or very, very rarely – the beginning of the race who do not know why they were born into a world on the brink of the end. To reveal that “why” as “you are descendants of the world-enders!” is just plain silly and unimaginative to me.

Malkavian.4516:

How exactly was that theory unfounded. When it all came down to it, it does justify how Sylvari can be consumed by nightmare and how it’s virtually impossible to bring them back to the light as they are originally made to be Mordremoth’s minions and that all Ventari did was to show them the path to the light.

The theory that Nightmare was Mordremoth’s corruption was an entirely different – and actually supported – theory that made some semblance of sense, unlike the “sylvari are dragon minions” ‘theory’ (and I use that word very loosely).
————————————————————————————————-
Dear ArenaNet, I don’t kittening care about your story anymore. Congratulations. You just managed to ruin one of your biggest fans since 2006, one of the biggest contributors to the wikis until last year, and someone who was eager to be part of your company until that same point last year. You had a chance to bring me back. I’ve been patient with you, hoping that despite the constant continuity errors that the Living World (especially Season 2) adds in, that you’d fix your path. Well, it’s obvious you didn’t. You decide, once more, to go with the “rule of cool” and ignore this fascinating thing called logic and continuity.

Congratulations, ArenaNet, and goodbye.

If you see me in-game, it isn’t for the story anymore. It’s for the mindless acts of killing pixels. Though Quake does a better job at that.

I haven’t even played Episode 8, but this single spoiler makes me not want to. To think I was actually looking forward to the update today. But no more. If I do play it, it’ll be to complete the Carapace and Luminescent armor, or to satiate a potentially inevitable curiosity about how, exactly, they decided the kitten up.

It’s been good knowing you lore community, but this is my last straw. If you see me on this forum again, it’d be habit and no more.

Edit: Oh, and it’s been said in an interview/by Caithe in TA story (I can never recall which and wiki doesn’t have all TA story dialogue up) that Faolain was, indeed, the first to encounter Nightmare – however, she didn’t fully fall into it until much alter, when Cadeyrn, already fallen to Nightmare, pulled her into it, where she then replaced him as leader of the Nightmare Court.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Think about it, who was responsible for Lion’s Arch being destroyed? Kiel.

I’m not seeing this. Kiel was the one warning the Captain’s Council once evidence of the attack was delivered. While we were told that should Evon have been elected LA would have stood a better chance, it isn’t Kiel’s fault that LA was unprepared but the rest of the Captain’s Council.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Now who was responsible for organizing the trade agreement, only to have the cargo filled with explosives? Kiel.

Who said that the explosives came from the cargo?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Who benefits from the money raised by the Zephyrites to rebuild LA? Kiel.

All of Lion’s Arch, rather than just Kiel.
Who benefits from the money raised by the Zephyrites to rebuild LA? Kiel.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Now that all the money was transferred to the Captain’s Council, she had no further need for them, so she blew up the airship, ala the Consortium ship in Southsun Cove’s LS.

She blew up a ship that had no one on board and in turn destroyed a bunch of paper contracts that kept refugees effective prisoners on an island full of hostiles.

Not exactly close to how you’re painting it.

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s understandable why some people would be upset or impatient by not getting these details all at once, but rest assured that we’re not conveniently forgetting about these tidbits—we’re just saving them for later.

What’s upsetting most people – myself included – is not the lack of details so much as the details we’re given make her to be a flat character with an annoying personality, with actions that are contradictory to her stated goals, with a past that makes her very Villain Sue-like.

And you have to keep in mind that even though you claim otherwise, a lot of important things are left open-ended. Take, for example, Canach’s Fused Gauntlets. We had to be told in a forum post that he got them from raiding a Molten Facility, and that in the time since The Lost Shores he was being chased by the Consortium (learned only in the short story) and turned to make himself a self-proclaimed “protector of the people” (only learned in the forum post – because let’s face it, his actions in Secret of Southsun/Last Stand at Southsun show that he doesn’t really care for “the people”). We had so little of Canach’s story in the game itself, it made him feel like a flat and unimportant figure. But for those who delved into it, there was plenty to be found. This is one of the main issues of the Living Story – and the main reason why Wooden Potatoes’ Living Story recap videos are so fascinating to people. He tells the story far better than the game does, and people like him for that.

Sure, you don’t need to know those facts to play through the story or understand the main plot. But you need them to be interested in the main plot. And that’s the key fact you guys are missing out on, and what all your “don’t tell them everything in the game (yet)” ruins – our interest, not our comprehension.

Oh, and regarding your pacing… I suggest you slow down the content just a tad bit. Because lets face it – the content going away every month, with new and equal amount of content every two weeks (the second update of the month only lasting 2 weeks)… that’s going to burn players out. Sure, you got a rise of players now, but what about when they’re burned out?

I love the game, I love the story, though I’m sad in the direction the story’s going in the apparent retcons that I’ve seen happening (see this interview here which seems to retcon everything and anything about the Bloodstones and magic as presented in GW1), and though I’d like to consider myself a casual player I’m more than likely a hardcore player… but even I’m starting to get burned out at this point. With the SAB stuff – which I thought was merely an April’s Fools joke (and now it seems there _was no April’s Fools joke!) and with which the content is 99.99% an orgyfest of popcultural references (more so than anything else in GW2, which is saying a lot) – I’m just burned out already. And seeing all those achievements, including the ones I missed previously because at that point achievement points didn’t matter (and don’t say “you don’t have to do it” – I’m a completionist by nature, and I feel the need to complete the metas at the very least)… it’s just too much.

And now that the SAB, what was previously to be taken as purely a joke on 90s video games (which as a joke I LOVED), as serious content with a real story and being canon to lore… I just… I feel like closing out of Guild Wars. And maybe it’s because it started out as seemingly pure joke content, that I feel absolutely no strive to try and find that story hidden at the end of the content.

Like I said, I love the game and the lore, I’ve been part of the community since Dragon Festival 2006, and I have remained as strong a part of the community as I could be, being part of the Test Krewe and other NDA stuff, expanding the wikis as much as possible, and participating in all events I could. So I’m still holding out hope, but honestly, all I see ever since the end of Flame and Frost, has been more negative points to enjoyment than positive points. Yes, there’s some good stuff, but the story definitely does not contain many of those positive points.

-more in next post-

I’ve been waiting for a new red post here, to be the final determiner whether or not I stay or leave.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Lore is not malleable except under extreme circumstances. We are actually quite dedicated to the lore of GW1 and 2. However, situations do arise where we inadvertently or purposefully adjust lore.

And how hard was it to say this instead?

Bobby could have simply said “we felt it was necessary to change this because it makes more sense in the long scale of things.” Or given your latter comment about it not being in the internal wiki, say something akin to what you said there: “the external wiki wasn’t referenced and that line wasn’t in our internal wiki, so we presumed that GW2W was incorrect and made a new date that made sense given our current view of the story.”

Well, I suppose there is a reason Bobby isn’t PR. I know I wouldn’t make a good PR.

Angel McCoy.1832:

In the case of the “days per year,” that was a response to our new Living World cadence and the upcoming journal (which I couldn’t mention at the time). We felt it was important to align the real year with the in-game year. If we adamantly stuck to the old in-game calendar, then we’d be cumulatively off by 5 days every year. Before long, we’d be doing Wintersday in January. Which makes no sense whatsoever (and would completely kitten our development schedule! Hehe.). Plus, we wanted the new year to turn over on the same day as the real new year. I gave a loreful explanation for the change at the time.

Now this I completely cannot agree with in any way, shape, or form. And there’s really two points – which I’ve been making since the get go.

1. Why do Tyria and Earth need to align day-to-day exactly? GW1 had less than a month pass in 6 Earth months (between Prophecies and Factions), and even 3 years pass in 8 months (Factions to Nightfall) or 10 months (Nightfall to Eye of the North) and even 1 year pass in 3 years (Eye of the North to Beyond). Calendar syncing is just outright unnecessary. You don’t give dates in the journal either – you just give the year. So you can say that we’re going through 1 Tyrian year when we go through 1 Earth year without saying ‘they sync up exactly the same’. Especially since the latter – what you did – opens up a different can-o-wurms.
2. That can-o-wurms being that, if you actually looked at your calendar’s lore before changing it, you’d have noticed that the year starts at the Spring Equinox. For us, that’s March 20th (on average), not January 1st. Furthermore, Wintersday is the Tyrian New Years, so having Wintersday in December while the calendars ‘sync up’ now makes no sense. We now have cases where players sync up the calendars using January 1st as Season of the Zephyr 01 – which as you might guess, would put the holiday of the Autumn Lunatic (Mad King’s Day aka Halloween) in Winter…. yeah.

And furthermore, if the calendars are truly synced up, this gives the sense that kitten hits the fan in Tyria every 14 days. Which makes you think why the good guys don’t go on high alert every 14 days, and makes you think why the bad guys don’t decide to attack on the 15th day just to throw everyone off.

Honestly, your explanation here is lacking. You give years, not days, so there was no need to argue that the calendars sync up perfectly, when even if you just add 5 days… they don’t. We’re experiencing winter months after they should be.

In all honesty, there is no need to sync the calendars, at all. It is entirely superfluous to claim such, since you don’t go dating the journal as “32 Season of the Zephyr 1327 AE”. Heck, not even just “Season of the Zephyr 1327 AE.” You can quite literally say that Escape from Lion’s Arch and Battle for Lion’s Arch happen over the coarse of two days and get away with it perfectly, because in all honesty… the NPCs made it sound like it was just two days in the first place! You can say two adjacent updates happen three months apart from each other and we wouldn’t find it odd in the least (well, depending on the story dialogue).

A Massive Headache.1879:

Probably more due to mechanics, not very many people are enthused about underwater combat, and for good reason, it’s clunky and the flow of combat isn’t very good

And enter ArenaNet’s design philosophy:

“If players don’t like it, we ignore it. If players like it, we fix what isn’t broken.”

Just because players don’t like something doesn’t mean it should be avoided. It means the opposite – they should work to improve it, and a content update focused on underwater stuff would be the best time to work on improving such.

Leah Hoyer.1983:

commitment to tell the best stories possible.

I’m sad to say that there’s a long way to go with how the living story is going.

Leah Hoyer.1983:

So, don’t expect the Elder Dragons to break into song anytime soon.

Can we have this as April’s Fools video?

Leah Hoyer.1983:

I’m eager to hear what you think is working and what you think needs improvement, so let me know. I look forward to more chats.

I could give you a huge list.

Most recent offender was the unnecessary changes to the personal story – removal of the greatest fear storyline and moving the very end (the climax of the story) to just before the final chapter.

The storytelling has been sub-par with far too many cases of stories being unfold offscreen. Take Season 2 Episode 2’s sudden mention of Mordremoth, or most of Season 1.

I really don’t have much issue with the characters – the only one I could really say has issues were Scarlet Briar – who felt like a generic Harley Quinn that was turned into Scarcrow who was turned into something entirely different – and Trahearne – who came into the personal story out of nowhere for non-sylvari characters.

The issue comes in the storytelling and the lore contradictions. So if you want to improve the story, I have one word of advice:

Learn and love the lore. All of it.

If you prevent contradictions, then the amount of hatred and complaints towards the story will decrease incredibly. Some of the greatest complaints of Season 1 was Scarlet’s rather confusing constantly-changing personality, the off-screen storytelling, the forced “players don’t know” to attempt mystery (it doesn’t), and the lore continuity errors.

There’s little to do to fix the problems and disdain that was raised due to story made, but hopefully you can help improve future story, which in time will lessen the at disdain.

If you can prevent any lore continuity errors, then you’ve made a huge step towards improvement. If you can prevent stories being told off-screen, then you’ve made a bigger step towards improvement.

I wouldn’t listen to Clerigo, as he just represents a portion of the community (not everyone dislikes the biconics). Just as some dislike the biconics (Braham, Rox, etc.) some hate Destiny’s Edge.

Also, belated, but welcome to the community. I’m Konig, a connoisseur of GW lore and stories. I look forward to seeing improvements, though you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not hopeful – there’s been far too many disappointments from ArenaNet this past two years.

Leah Hoyer.1983:

Thanks for the feedback, folks. I appreciate your comments and will say that consistent, complex, nuanced characters and storytelling are absolutely my goal as well. I’m soaking up all the existing story that I can, via gameplay, wikis, our novels, and lots and lots of conversations with my coworkers who have great insights (and opinions) on our expansive lore. I really love the game and am excited to be a part of it moving forward. Keep the comments coming!

Leah
(now with fancy, red ANet banner)

If you want some help in getting to know what the community knows of lore, just let me know. I have a reserve of old interviews (even as far back as 2004!), links to all the stories written and published, and even have access to the manuals and artbooks that contained well-hidden lore.

I hope you make a visit periodically to the lore forum, they’re quite deprived of dev posts. And of those that show, it’s sadly “sorry, in hindsight we could have done better, this is what we meant/why we did that!”

BTW, you guys hiring another writer?

I got so excited about the red icon… Should have known.

I’d say she’s more unpopular than popular. To the fans.

It seems to be the opposite to the writers. They must have some “grand reveal” they think is so awesome to be worth all this tedious wait.

I’ll hold out hope, as ever, that they do have something that’ll improve Scarlet from a saturday morning cartoon villain to something better, but I’m not seeing it yet.

Maybe if they make it that Mordremoth twisted Scarlet and she doesn’t realize it. Or they stop tying everything to Scarlet or a repercussion to it.

• Did some of Edrick’s acts in life get attributed to Oswald or someone else? Given Ozzy’s reaction to Eddie burning down that last village, some of the things in his later life attributed to Oz seems out of place – particularly the towns who’s names got erased from history.
• Will the Painlord return next year?
• Will we get some more story next year, like we did last year, as opposed to 2 instances and a short story that tell us the final days of Edrick?
• Why remove the metas and dungeons from last year? GW1 had old content – even old stories – return yearly, without a fuss. Why couldn’t GW2 do the same for those who didn’t/couldn’t experience prior years?
• Why did the Mad King disappear for ~250 years? Why didn’t the Lunatic Court’s antics in removing the seals work? Will this be covered in-game next year (if so, shhh spoilers!)
• Since we got John Stumme present… any plans of furthering the story on GW1’s side? Particularly expanding the holiday storylines that were left unfinished (if nothing else)?
• Who was Wife No. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8? We know Zola and Lyrica (5 and 1 respectively), and we’ve heard of Henrietta and Estrella (though their numbers unknown), and it seems Edrick’s mother was none of the above four (unnamed and only known to be prior to Henrietta, Estrella and #8, and her death doesn’t match Lyrica and Zola’s deaths so she’s #2, 3, or 4 depending on which Henrietta and Estrella was).

Yeah, not so much retconned or broken by Scarlet – people love to exagerate it a lot – but it really bends the lore to unquestionable points which in most people’s eyes becomes breaking because they often presume things are more set in stone than they are. Which is part of Anet’s issue – they give too little to explain things, people then make presumptions (justifiably so presumptions mind you!) then it turns out that the unknown gets filled in with something different or an individual was simply just wrong.

The worst crimes Scarlet offers was her short story, second to worst is getting the krait to work with her. The former got less offending later on, but initially she was presenting as being a sylvari who studied under the greatest norn blacksmith, under an expert sniper, all three asuran colleges (something no asura has done – and she did within a year each), and under hylek – the last being “just because she could at the time, not because she wanted to or was interested in it.” She was outright presented as borderline Mary Sue, especially since she met attempts to use her as a scapegoat, attempts to kill her, and the loss of her experiment stuff with the same “I don’t care!” reaction. Topped off with “she saw the Eternal Alchemy and learned about all there is!” This later got dumbed down in the colleges and Eternal Alchemy bit, with the former being specialized courses, and the latter via “she didn’t actually see what she thought she saw” later turned into “it was all in her mind… kind of”.

The krait working for her has yet to be clarified. She somehow got obelisk shards, and she somehow threatened the enslaving race of krait whom view themselves superior to all into working for her to get their prophets made… and they complied without question.

The biggest issue with Scarlet is how she’s delivered – and this issue extends throughout the Living World. There have been pieces this improved greatly (Tower of Nightmares stuff, sans the lack of why krait didn’t just gut Scarlet, is perhaps the best example). Second issue is that there is no character development presented. Take how she is when she wakes up, and sans some paranoia over some entity that messed with her mind after she went into Omadd’s device – something unknown until the past month (aka we went a full half year, more or less, not knowing the only thing to develop her) – and compare her to now, and you get practically no difference. Again, the only difference is in her two journals of her talking to herself about the unknown entity. So even her interactions with all others remains unchanged. And the third biggest issue is how everyone likes her – the blacksmith who rarely takes in trainees? Takes her in. The gladium who’s a loner and hates everyone? Teaches her for two years. The asura who are paranoid on a whole? Gives her their secrets. All six groups she takes in as minions? Follows her even after the failure of her promises. Yeah… what?

I don’t think they were shot. There’s no trail on those explosions – they happened from within. Which means that whomever it was that set them off was on the ship itself. And there were no (apparent) bandits/White Mantle/Inquest in Labryinthine Cliffs to board the ship then.

The only highlighted person who joined the Zephyrites would be Trader Aerin. But that could easily be a red-herring given that he said he was leaving his gear on the docks because as he was told it is customary to leave one’s burdens when first joining the Zephyrites. Which either means that the explosives where brought on board by a returning passenger, or the Zephyrites brought them themselves (and whomever set them off did not bring them). Which either means accident or internal conflict or returning passenger/sleeper.

Or, I suppose, it could have taken place a bit after an Aetherblade attack, with a survivor of the Aetherblades hiding after the Zephyrites won the battle. But that seems like a stretch. Saboteur is more likely, IMO.

The Pact is not an independent organization. Hell, you can’t really call it an organization. It’s an alliance of multiple organizations.

And the individual organizations did fight Scarlet.

Think of the Pact like this: You have 9 major groups (three Orders, LA, five major races), and in these 9 major groups, you have a portion of each major group dedicated to fighting a massive threat to all major groups (the Elder Dragons). Those individual portions make up the Pact.

The Pact is just a vanguard unit against the Elder Dragons. If you include the full of all 9 major groups, then the Pact is very small in comparison – and the non-Pact parts of the major groups deal with non-dragon threats.

To say the Pact should go deal with non-dragon local threats such as Scarlet is to say the Fallen Angels (a unit of the Seraph sent to Ebonhawke) should be fighting the centaurs because if DR falls to centaurs it’s all pointless. Fighting centaurs isn’t their job, it isn’t their duty. They’re there to protect Ebonhawke.

I don’t see that implication.

The Mists is more than the afterlife. It is the origin of all things (supposedly); the protomatter that can create anything, often copies; home to islands of reality (fractals, sPvP maps); and most importantly in this case: memories of the past, present, and future.

We were never told – as far as I’m aware, and counter to popular belief – that revenants summon spirits. As you said, we channel the power of legends. This could be tapping into the “memories of the Mists” which means we could, theoretically, tap into the powers of heroes not yet born (or not yet heroes, or not yet dead).

If you know Fate/Stay Night, then you may be aware how one of the summoned heroic spirits is in fact the soul of one of the current living combatants – a soul summoned from a future hero, despite most souls being of past heroes. Theoretically, a Revenant may be able to pull off the same.

Though in Episode 5 – particularly Hidden Arcana – there’s a few statements of Ogden being the last dwarf in general, rather than simply the last dwarf on the surface. So Jalis could be dead – along with all other stone dwarves.

winterchillz.2564:

Once seen as harbingers of destruction and death, a race that had the power to destroy their own gods, only to rise as saviors of Tyria and put forth the biggest hero of them all – Rytlock Brimstone.

The charr didn’t destroy their own gods. Humans did it – twice. But the charr like to omit that part of history.

Just like they like to omit the part where they conquered Ascalon and only lived in it for less than a generation before it got conquered by humans from them.

Despite the fact that individuals lived in Ascalon before them, and those that lived there after lived there longer (by about ten times the duration if not more), they still claim Ascalon as “rightfully theirs”.

I’m a fan of the charr, but truth be told… they’re liars and hypocrites when it comes to telling their history.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

So, I’m not going to spoil anything but I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you guys that according to game lore, there was never a Canthan district. If you’ve done your research, you’ll know that the great collapse was formally an arts district.

According to Ree it was a Canthan district…

Unless she was stating the design history and the lore history in the same sentence. I forgot where the interview was (I think it was a TowerTalk interview about humanity’s lore), but Ree explicitly stated that the collapse happened because of a rush in establishing the foundations, and in the same answer explained it was the Canthan district.

I actually have done my research – the Great Collapse’s story and Thaumanova’s story are two of my favorite aspects of GW2 lore. And there is evidence to say it was an Arts AND a Canthan district.

Aside from Ree’s statement, in the Order of Whispers personal story step Suspicious Activity you are able to ask Valenze and the others about the person you’re going to investigate, and she says:

“He was born and raised in the Canthan areas of Divinity’s Reach. He worked in the gladitorial arena until he was injured. "

So tell me – where was/is this “Canthan areas of Divinity’s Reach?” The gladiatorial area could only be the training grounds looking spots next to the Plaza of Balthazar (no other place fits a “gladiatorial area” description), which is right on the edge of The Great Collapse!

[Edit: Edited to reduce potential rudeness sounding. Meant to seem sarcastically snide, but re-reading post sounded crude and rude]

@Deified: None of that is actually new so it wasn’t “finally put [] in.” There’s also the statements by a shop owner that she lived there, the Shining Blade saying no casualties yet Riot Alice in the human street rat storyline stating her father died then, and other conflicting stories that make you question the validity of the Shining Blade (which will likely disappear when the update occurs…) in this matter.

Feonix.4790:

Warning: incoming long post.

-snip-

TL;DR: Brought some friends into the fold. The NPE doesn’t help to explain anything to them and only serves to frustrate them (and me) by gating major systems – including the kitten plot – behind a level wall, forcing them to play for many hours before the game actually becomes fun. It should just be fun right out of the gate, like it used to be.

I cannot +1 this enough times.

Lazerator.3482:

She’s not real. She’s a video game NPC

I am Konig, and I approve this post.

What’s this? You have to pay for DLC expansions?

What insanity! It’s like ArenaNet is doing something every other company doesn’t do!

Oh wait, they are… by having it free if you log on for even 1 second within 2 weeks of the update’s release.

Honestly, you don’t even have to pay the content. Just turn on your computer (laptop or desktop), run GW2, go away, come back a couple hours later, log in, let the loading screen occur (go do something if you want), and then close once you see the game itself.

Family? Work? School? Vacation? If you cannot even spare 5 non-consecutive minutes then I think you have bigger problems than “I have to pay for releases that others got for free! QQ”

Like time management issues.

@Dizzie: No game in existence will ever give you an expansion for free. If you want new content, you’ll have to pay for it just like you’d have to pay for the base game. GW2 isn’t free to play, it’s buy to play – buy once and have it for eternity or your account’s permabanned. GW1 was the same, and you had to buy each campaign and expansion. Season 2 is different in that you have a chance – like a reversely rigged lottery (where it’s completely in your favor) – to get it for free. And it won’t disappear, ever.

PLOT TWIST

Ceara truly did die when she delved her mind into the Eternal Alchemy. What she saw was not the Eternal Alchemy but instead the afterlife for sylvari – an ethereal showing of the sylvari life cycle. The truth is that Faolain had heard of Ceara’s accomplishments and wanted to draw her into Nightmare and found Omadd’s lab, but was too late. In anger of her tardiness, she used her magic like a puppeteer’s strings to animate Ceara’s corpse and voice, killing Omadd.

Now, using Ceara’s corpse as a front, Faolain has married Caudecus to solidify the Sinister Triad alliance. “Scarlet Briar” is merely a false identity created from Ceara’s past to hide the true villains behind it all, and using Faolain’s magic and the Inquest’s technology, the trio has agreed to take out Divinity’s Reach first, causing a bit of chaos in Ascalon and the Shiverpeaks in an attempt to get the Flame Legion and dredge to join the Sinister Triad (the centaurs were to be the fourth member, but the death of Ulgoth made the plans change) – the Molten Alliance was merely a “test” to see if they can work together and the results proved that they can… so long as they don’t fail.

On the other end of the continent, Shodd has become discontent in working in the lab of the asuran Commander. He joined the Inquest and learned of the Steam creatures’ current existence in Lornar. Using them, he gained ranks to leadership, replacing Kudu. And it was he and Caudecus who agreed upon attacking Divinity’s Reach (Shodd being stuck in his desires of genius, power, and glory recalled the mention of the Battle of Divinity’s Reach by the Grand High Sovereign). It was also Shodd who retrofitted the Watchknights into the Twisted minions and it was through both the Inquest and White Mantle/Bandits that the Aetherblades got outfitted. The humans of the Aetherblades are in fact merely bandits, while the charr of the Aetherblades come from the Renegades – who secretly work for Bangar Ruinbringer – and the norn come from nearby pirate crews.

At the moment while Faolain and Caudecus use the guise of Scarlet Briar to cause anarchy in the west, Shodd is hitting it up with the twin Councillor sisters, Ludo and Zudo, in order to further Inquest connections in the Arcane Council. Using these connections, he intends to tamper with Kiel’s research into the Thaumanova Reactor – using the chaos magic to open a tear into Universe A that the Grand High Soverieng came from (Universe 1 being the current universe).

However, this plan fails, and instead of more steam creatures like Shodd wanted we get…

CORPORAL BANE Mother kittens! Coming from Universe Alpha where humanity has redominated the continent and then some, the commandos storm through to liberate humanity from the yoke of oppression by other races and the Elder Dragons. Bane’s first move is sniping Shodd and Evon in Lion’s Arch, and then he moves on west with his commando unit to wage war against the Sinister Triad alongside the forces of the Seraph (being Bane, he doesn’t care for the aid of Wardens or Peacekeepers, though they give it). This culminates in a full out war westerward, ending in a final confrontation between the PC, Bane, Logan, Caithe and Zojja versus Faolain, Caudecus, and Lazarus – whom are backed by…. an imprisoned Mordremoth! Who in actuality awoke the same time as Primordus (because Primordus was pushed back, but the other Elder Dragons’ awakenings were unaffected by this) but subjugated by the then-healed Lazarus.

In the final confrontation with the Sinister Triad, Faolain and Caudecus bite the dust, but Lazarus escapes into the Mists cursing humanity and asuranity once more – but this time slapping the sylvari onto the list of those who’s generations shall suffer for their transgressions against the Unseen One. Unfortunately, Mordremoth escaped in the confusion and flew eastward, spreading the Blighted across the landscape of Kryta and Ascalon (which will replace most of the spawns of Risen, Bandits, and Nightmare Courtiers).

With the initial threat of the Sinister Triad attempting to topple the human kingdom now gone, Banes heads to Orr and kittenslaps Trahearne for sitting on his kitten during this whole conflict and declares Orr a human refugee nation for all humanity. He then takes over as Marshal Bane and leads the Pact forces, backed by the Commandos, westward where they take out the Big Chicken (aka Shatterer) for good and goes further east across the Blazeridge to confront Mordremoth. Slaying Mordremoth thousands of feet into the sky, the Elder Plant Dragon falls into the inactive remains of Hrangmer – which upon impact, breaks through the rock and turns the volcano active once more, burning through the planty flesh of the dragon. Bane then leads his Commandos to the sadistic Blood Citadel where charr prisoners go to be “truly punished” and ends Bangar’s wildcard-reign and the Renegade threat.

The Jade Quarry was indeed part of the Jade Sea that was solidified by the Jade Wind. It was in fact the purest of the Jade made by that event. And I am well aware of Fade at the bottom of the docks, as I even alluded to his (it is a male NPC, not female – he just has a femenine look) dialogue.