Guild Wars 2

(Lost my post, recap instead)

To my knowledge, the Charr offensive all took place in 1070 AE. The Charr used the Searing to beat Ascalon, invaded Orr which lead to the Cataclysm, and started to attack Kryta before being repelled by the White Mantle. That’s quite a lot of territory for them to move through in just a year!

With that in mind, it seems like a war could occur rather quickly. It seems that 2 wars in 7 years could have occurred. For instance, 2 years of conflict, a year of respite, then 4 more years for the “second” war. Then, the decades long third war begins. It is also stated that they sometimes refer to the Third Guild War as THE Guild War, which seems to go along with Konig’s point that many would consider such a time period to all be a single conflict.

It was actually the Forgotten who were doing this, before the Exalted were brought to be.

Also, I’m not certain that Glint is necessarily interested in Bloodstones. The phrasing isn’t clear, but I think the tablet is saying that the Forgotten allied with her in order “to prevent Tyria from declining into a state of primitive adversity.” It’s possible a Bloodstone was the idea they pursued, but I think they were trying to find “a way” separate from a new Bloodstone.

I’m not implying it’s a good idea, but Lazarus is supposed to have an obscene amount of magic available. If his goal was to make it seem that an ancient fortress had been here all along, he could likely accomplish it.

Additional circumstantial evidence: Rhoban does not mention mursaat, and the last Dwarven device was locked inside a mursaat room.

I’m down wits the islands changing shape a lot. Taking an entire fortress largely intact along, while leaving behind the volcano they were built around…. that’s a bit more of a stretch, but sure.

Here’s a stretch I just thought up: what if the mursaat fortress was constructed by Lazarus very recently, including the addition of the lore tablets? Cami’s journal does hint at her being ‘watched’. Perhaps it’s all a ruse to gain our sympathy? (it’s rather tin-foil-hat area, though)

I liked the 3000-ish years ago dragonrise date, as the 10k date seemed to mostly be speculation. Then, the mursaat tablets went and claimed it was 10k as well.

What was the source for sailing to Orr and Elona? It makes sense, but I did not find that reference anywhere yet.

I have another issue. Based on the mursaat tablets, I’d assume that they were written before the mursaat were largely wiped out by the titans. However, they are scattered around a fortress on an island that didn’t exist in GW1. That point seems to be confirmed by the recent Guild Chat. So how was a new mursaat fortress built on a new volcanic island by a nearly eradicated race, and why did they bring old library books with them?

Ah, the Manuscripts, of course. I haven’t read them, but I should definitely give them a look! Thanks for that!

1 and 3, no real reason to doubt those being accurate.
2 must be false, given that the Forgotten were around for the last dragonrise. This shows that the stated timelines aren’t flawless. Likely, they are ‘in-universe’ documents, even if we don’t have them mentioned specifically in a game or book.

I recently saw some comments Konig made that interviews are also prone to being overridden with new lore. Still, they at least hold value as being the writer’s intent, at least at some point in time. Perhaps those lore interviews should be preserved on the wiki, whether a transcript or an archived link.

Anyway, 5 and 6 could very well just be human perceptions, or important points are missing.

Ahha! The Ghostly Hero has some text about Glint being created by the Gods. Clearly, he is mistaken on that one.

Alright, then I suppose this is good enough to begin the theory. Let me know if there are any refinements that can be made, or if it’s utter garbage. (Also let me know if I’m being very disjointed. I am not writing this particularly quickly)

The Human Gods communicated with Glint and then the Forgotten, getting them on board with preparing Continental Tyria for Humanity. This ‘alliance’ could easily become ‘the Gods created them’ through human history. Sometime after this, humanity begins to appear on Cantha. Maybe they were migrating from somewhere further south, but the Gods were with them at the time.

Lots of stuff goes on in early Canthan history, and at some point, the Gods take a portion of humanity, through the Mists, and set foot in Orr. Thus, they are brought to (Continental) Tyria through the Mists, and Dwayna first sets foot in Arah, in accordance with the Orrian Scrolls.

With this theory, Glint being a caretaker set by the Gods basically fits, as well as the Forgotten being “summoned” because Glint could not do it alone. Them preparing the way for humanity kind of goes along with them ‘creating’ the world, as well.

Can you see any glaring weaknesses?

I’ve been thinking about the timelines of Guild Wars and trying to figure out some of the discrepancies that especially seem to exist between GW1 and 2. In doing so, I’ve found some information from the wikis that I can’t find any quotes to support. I think that addressing some of these things could help, at least me, with theorizing going forward.

Some examples:
1. Giganticus Lupicus go extinct about 10,000 BE. GW2 mentions it, but it’s in the GW1 timeline as well.
2. Forgotten arrive on Tyria in 1769 BE. Seems definitely false, but where did this date come from?
3. Humans arrive in Tyria in 205 BE.
4. Glint was brought to Tyria by the Gods roughly 3000 years before GW1.
5. Dwayna first stepped forth from the Mists and brought humanity to the world. Mentioned in Orrian Scrolls in GW2, but it’s mentioned on the GW1 wiki.
6. Gods and humanity are from somewhere besides Tyria.

Basically, I want to be able to find the sources of any bits of lore we have, that way we can evaluate its reliability or accuracy.

I’d really love some Exalted themed Infinite Gathering Tools. I don’t know if the items look like the Exalted or it summons an Exalted to gather for you, but I would absolutely love to have one! Please make my dream a reality!

This issue has struck me several times. I tried to narrow down how it was happening, but having to log in to the game again, then port over to the guild hall each time was an annoying process.

Essentially, it seemed that the SECOND mouseclick used with decorating would cause the crash.
-I could click a single time and hold to reorient the decoration. The second click to place it would crash.
-I clicked once to reorient the decoration. Used the 1 Key to place it. Clicked a second time to reorient the next, and it crashed.
-I placed several decorations down without any reorienting or clicking. When I finally went back to using any clicks, it failed on the second once again.

I also had this behavior when I was not using Action Camera, so I believe it is unrelated.

The wiki is still playing catch up with the expansion, so I am having a hard time tracking down the info I want.

I know that there is a guy in the Guild Initiative that lets you exchange Influence for Favor. We no longer have enough to use that service.

We just finished our Mine, and there is a miner who allows you to exchange Influence for Aetherium Production boosts.

Are there any other sources of Influence expenditure?

I may just be jumping the gun a lot today. Ogden says that the egg has been in stasis since Glint’s death, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t with the Zephyrites.

EDIT: The story journal mentions that he received it from Glint’s lair before we visited it. True that it could have been earlier than Glint’s death, but it was at least at that location.

Where is the info about primarily coming from Elona?

The line about them being named Zephyrites, “after the gentle, ever-moving breeze of their homeland”, is a little strange. I thought they came from all over!

It also says of the Zephyrites, “They are the first guardians of the egg, and only once it nears its time will they deliver it to you.” However, the Master of Peace only acquired the egg after Glint’s death. They were guardians before they had an egg to guard?

Ah, I do think I took that short story to be the formation of the Zephyrites. You are correct that they existed long before. They only gained their Aspect magic after Glint’s death, including the construction of the Zephyr Sanctum.

Excellent, thanks for the pointer! I like the idea that heroes from GW1 could be among the Exalted. The info in A Study in Gold is interesting, but seems strangely out of sync with the dates as I understand them.

It suggests that the Exalted are family with the Zephyrites, but the Zephyrites were only formed about 8 years ago. So the words of the Forgotten are less than a decade old, but they say that Exalted are about to go in to stasis. Did they truly take their 2 centuries to do everything, then take a small cat-nap before Heart of Thorns?

First, the new maps appear smaller when measured against the old ones, e.g. Verdant Brink is not as wide on the World Map as Brisban Wildlands. However, the maps feel as though they are much larger than some of their counterparts. Does anyone know if there is any scaling of the maps? Perhaps the maps appear smaller, yet are actually larger in game? This may well just be my mind playing tricks.

Assuming that is not the case, I was looking at that_shaman’s updated Historical Map of Tyria. http://guide.thatshaman.com/
It appears that the new maps do a decent job of lining up with GW1 features. The Shining Blade Camp in the Wilds lines up with a corner of the Raid, Quarrel Falls lines up with the waterfall within the Silverwastes jumping puzzle, Balthazar’s Temple is still found where it was in the Falls, and my overactive imagination was able to match up shapes in the northwest of Bloodstone Fen with the stone formations in the Lost Precipice!

Now, that brings a timeline question the forefront. If the areas do correspond on the map as they should, then the Lost Precipice structures were created after our heroes passed through there in GW1. Even more significant, Tarir itself would have to be constructed after GW1, or else we would have run straight into it on the way to Zinn’s lab (with a waterfall that still seems to be in the same area).

So… were the Exalted formed after the events of GW1?

I don’t mind much one way or the other about 400 vs 250 HP for the specializations. Going forward, it’s fine. However, the change itself made me a bit sad.

I was enjoying my Tempest, unlocking new traits and skills over time. I was about halfway done! I logged on last night to do a quick round of Mad King Says, not knowing about the change. Got in to my character and ‘Master Tempest’ pings.

Yay. I guess… Really earned that one!

A summary wouldn’t be too hard!

SPOILERS FOR GUILD WARS 1
Prophecies – Ascalon is ransacked by the Charr. Heroes help some people flee across the Shiverpeaks to Kryta. A religious order, the White Mantle, are in charge, and are secretly serving evil beings known as the Mursaat. The Mursaat are trying to keep creatures known as Titans from escaping their prison and destroying the world. Heroes stop the Titans and stop the Mursaat from ruling mankind.

Factions – In Cantha, a plague is spreading. It turns out the plague is from a man who killed the Emperor long ago, Shiro Tagachi. He is powerful and trying to return to the world. Heroes set out, unite the warring vassal states of the Kurzicks and Luxons, to defeat Shiro.

Nightfall – In Elona, the nation of Kourna is becoming militaristic. The island nation of Istan and their Sunspears set out to defeat Kourna, because it is found that the leader, Varesh Ossa, is consorting with dark powers. The Sunspears are defeated, and then the heroes slowly rebuild, using guerrilla tactics, to fight back against Kourna and the demons that are with them. Varesh opens a portal to the Realm of Torment before being defeated by the heroes. The heroes travel to this realm and find the bad guys from the previous two campaigns are in service to the dark, forgotten god, Abaddon. The heroes kill Abaddon, and their leader, Kormir, ascends to godhood to take his place.

Eye of the North – Earthquakes are happening all over. Heroes investigate and discover Dwarves and Asura working in underground tunnels to fight and escape from lava beings called Destroyers. Heroes travel across Tyria, uniting the Norn, Asura, human forces of the Ebon Vanguard, and Dwarves (and one friendly warband of Charr) in order to fight the Great Destroyer. The Dwarves undergo the Rite of the Great Dwarf, turning them to stone, in order to fight the Destroyers more effectively. They defeat the Great Destroyer, who we now know was a champion of Primordus, delaying Primordus’s awakening by several years.

THE END!

I have a Logitech mouse. I use Mouse 4 for push-to-talk in Mumble, but that’s it. I did rebind some of my skills: 6 is Q, 7 is E, 8 is R, 9 is F, 0 is B. My attunements are still F1-F4

I have used the Action Camera in PvP. I’m Rank 22, meaning I haven’t played all that extensively. I really enjoyed using it! I main Elementalist, and was able to play quite effectively, having some fun with my guild members while trying a new Guild Mission. I find it is even easier than before, due to the speed increase when moving sideways or backwards!

I understand that it’s proving difficult for you. I can’t think up a creative solution, though. Either your mouse serves as a cursor so that you can click on skills, or it serves as the camera control.

The combo system could be a fine suggestion, but your stance that the Action Camera is ‘worthless’ without it is your personal experience, not an objective assessment of the system.

You use your mouse to activate attunements?

Is it certain that 10 is the break point for having 2 Maws spawn instead of 1?

@hoewhoew, is that was you experienced?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The last dragonrise is indicated to be 3,000 years ago not 2,000. Depending on if you subscribe to the Priory NPCs’ claims (which state 11,000 years ago) or the subliminal history of Glint, Forgotten, and dwarves (which point to 3,000 years ago).

Ah, I saw 2,000 BE and read it as 2,000 years ago, instead of a bit over 3,000. However, that poses a problem: The Forgotten appearing on Tyria would be within a very short timeframe of the dragonrise.

Another interesting point is that the Forgotten are included in the list of 5 races that worked on the Bloodstones to survive the last dragonrise. And the Forgotten are also stated to have arrived only 3,000 years ago or so.

If the last dragonrise was only 2,000 years ago, that means it roughly coincided with the appearance of humans in Cantha. 500 years after the rise would be their first appearance in the northern lands.

So, still going along with Konig’s time table, it may very well be that some of the Exalted were actually the hero’s from GW1. Obviously, they can’t have a character named after each of us that played GW1, but perhaps some of the other henchmen and heroes that don’t seem to have had much effect are the humans that were found worthy of becoming Exalted.

And for some reason, waypoints are free inside cities. Lore approved, since those little orphans scamps use waypoints to get about, as well!

I was trying to google these things to get a solid answer on what exactly these terms mean.

Raid – I get the impression that this term simply means a hard dungeon with a larger than usual group.

Wing – It kind of seems like this is referring to a single path through the Raid. In that case, “Raid” is “Large Dungeon” and “Wing” is “Raid Explorable Path”, in GW2 terms.

Attunement – Not applicable here, since they say GW2 won’t have it. But was this a process that had to be completed every time you entered a Raid? Or was it a one time thing to get access to it?

I haven’t faced any of the bosses since the patch, and it may well be their HP is off or other things are wonky with them right now.

Specifically looking at OP’s point about ‘I paid for 100% of the game, so I should be able to do 100% of the game’: You used the analogy of a gym membership. But lots of people pay the full price for a gym membership, but don’t use every piece of equipment in the gym. It’s the same for other games, too. Everyone buys a Mario game at the same price, but some of the secret challenge levels may not interest you, because they are much more challenging for no extra benefit.

Guild Wars 2 is the same way. There are lots of different things to do, and some of those things won’t appeal to all players. Some things may also appeal to players, but be too challenging for them without practice. Tequatl and Triple Trouble are some of the few things like this in the game, and that is not a ‘wrong’ design decision by ArenaNet.

Catnip! That’s clearly it! The explains why the Charr are much more mellow now than back during GW1.

I didn’t see any comment on this, but as to the land and ranching they have available limiting their meat supply, I think it pays to remember that the game cannot properly demonstrate the ‘true’ scale of the lands we’re looking at. We can run across the Shiverpeaks in a single in-game day, but the actual trip would be perilous, taking weeks.

So, the various ranches we see in game would probably be substantially bigger, and have much higher production, than what seems implied from the in-game representation.

Still, it would be a lot of meat!

Very possibly, the dominant and recessive genes aren’t the same in Tyria. Perhaps dark skin doesn’t win out against light skin when procreating!

OP mentions that he thought it would be like the New Year Envelopes. Apparently, for him, he got back more than he spent on those.

I definitely did not! I lost about 20 gold throughout the weeks that was going, but that’s fine. This is the exact same, except with much higher stakes. The Ram Envelopes didn’t have a warning either, but OP claims that the Ecto Slots are unprecedented.

As someone else pointed out, the issue here is that OP won at the small time slots, then lost when he went to the big time ones.

Since the recently changed the number of Hero Points from leveling, unlocking them all automatically for Level 80’s would have been a good move.

I am not certain how the refund is applied. They say, if you prepurchase, it is ‘automatically’ applied. That may mean a lower price on checkout for the prepurchase, or they may refund it to your card/account that bought the game initially. If you wish to get rid of the game entirely, you can contact support, and they will help you shut down your account and get a refund.

If you do prepurchase and do not see the refund, then I would contact support for clarification.

There will be a physical box of the game available. It may not be available yet, but it will come.

You can also, if I read it correctly, select the highest item from each tier and automatically unlock everything up to it. So only 3 or so clicks per category. A minor inconvenience, really!

They are all now a currency in your account wallet. So, you still have the same amount, but they are now out of your bank!

If you’re under level 80, I understand why it’s a frustration. However, if you are level 80, you have enough points to buy every skill and trait currently available.

This is because they switched to the new Specialization system, and instead of using Skill Points, that were limitless, you now use Hero Points which have a hard cap.

I was thinking something similar the other day. I had previously been consuming any recipe I found on my main. Nowadays, I realize that was a mistake, since I don’t want to pay a ‘change discipline’ fee to go to weaponsmith!

Thinking about the overall account bound focus of the game, what if crafting dicipline levels were also account bound? It would be awfully convenient!

I see 2 drawbacks to this.
1. Additional Crafting Licenses would become worthless, which would be a very bad PR move if they didn’t provide some sort of very good recompense for it.
2. Using crafting as an aid to leveling characters wouldn’t be possible. The possible solution would be to make recipes Character Level based, so that creating level appropriate equipment with that character would remain similarly rewarding.

I agree this likely won’t happen, but it doesn’t seem ‘un-Guild-Wars-2-sy’!

Canthan citizens in Divinity’s Reach are simply remembering their heritage. Granted, the holiday has lost some luster over the years. They used to have a grand old time with wonderful foods, evil Lions, and animals made of stars. Nowadays, they throw fireballs at each other in a sewer.

But it’s a tradition!! Go back to Rurikton if you can’t accept cultural diversity!

I like segman’s idea. ArenaNet had this holiday to prove that Tyria is located in the Milky Way.

It’s a minigame event with a slightly in-lore reason to be happening now.

I understand that many people don’t like Dragon Ball, and so this ‘festival’ is extremely lackluster. However, I think this complaint would be similar to complaining that the WvW Tournament did not have any PvE or PvP options for getting achievements. It’s simply an event for one subset of players, as the WvW events are.

We don’t have any herons to inspire swords here. We only have that one crane in Kessex, which certainly isn’t the eye of anything!

I wonder if Charr and Ogier are related… Loial always invokes an image of Tybalt in my head, for some reason…

Hooray for good feelings! It is nice banding together and encouraging other lanes.

I have noticed a few achievements that don’t seem to advance when they should.

I have done two pad sessions where I did not acquire the dodge achievement, despite not getting hit and successfully breaking the chain. This happened with Warden III, dodging the lightning attacks, as well as with Warden V, avoiding the shout.

Additionally, upon finishing Warden V, the first time I had fought it, my Marionette Deregulator did not progress.

Is there any info forthcoming on these?
(I apologize if this topic already exists: the search never gives me any results, despite searching for terms I can see on the first page)

Obviously, I can see some potential holes in the idea! But what you described, Talissa, seems like it could be a positive change.

There would have to be forethought into where you’re positioning your army. If you take a risk with an attack, you might very well have to sacrifice being able to defend in a reactive way. But if you know that a main army is hitting one of your towers, you know they can’t properly react to what you’re about to do, either.

My WvW experience is certainly not extensive, but from what I gather, large zergs are a prominent part of the game. I thought up an idea that could balance out zergs with smaller groups, possibly allowing each to fill distinct roles.

Proposed change: Adjust the movement speed of players based on the number of nearby allies. I have no suggestions on any actual numbers, but the basic thought is 1 guy should sometimes be able to escape from 5 guys if he isn’t caught off guard. A 5 man team can move very quickly, likely escaping from 20. A 20 man team is still more mobile than a 50 man zerg.

In my head, this would lead to a core army like the zergs we see now, maybe a support battalion or two, and a handful of squads. This would lead to coordination being a bit more viable against sheer numbers.

Now, maybe what I’ve experienced, being on TC, may not be the average player experience. So, I’m interested to know what other players think this would do to the game as it currently stands.

Ayrilana.1396:

God Of Fissures.8627:

You only say it was easy because of your Infinite continue coin. Without it, you would be dying so often that you would have quit long ago

It’s infinite continue coins, not infinite health.

You know what’d be really interesting/facepalm-worthy? If, at the end of the month, someone makes a post saying that they bought the ICC, couldn’t complete TM, and want a refund…

If only anything else could compare to Dwarf Fortress’s “Fun”!

I’d love to do so later this evening, if the chance presents itself.

Tips for getting high scores without being good at the game:

1. The first 2 minutes allow infinite respawns. Ignore rations and go for weapons/arrows and just KILL players (5 points for a kill and 1 point for each hit). Use weapons or headshots on players who are trying to scavange (and who thus aren’t looking at you).

2. When the grace period ends (or if you can’t find any more weapons/players), make your way down to the ship (the north part of the map) and scavenge a lot (1 point each). Don’t use your rations as you want to die here. Once dead, the motes from your scavenging should still be up, grab them all for 1 point each.

3. Respawning motes appear on the road from the bonfire camp down to the southern camp and over to the broken bridge. If you can’t find a player to haunt, keep moving up and down these roads for the motes for 1 point each.

4. Haunting a player can pay out a lot of points. Use the #1 ability IN FRONT of a player. When they walk into the white ring you will teleport to them and get 2 points. Your other abilities cost more motes and therefore should not be used unless you know you can get a kill with them (i.e. the player you are haunting has low health and NO rations).

Use these tips and you can easily outscore the living players (I know I do frequently) and be done with the achieve in no time.

Went looking for those, so thanks for posting them! That should help me get done before vacation this week!

Now that we know it is Rox, I have to bring this up again: THOSE HORNS!! That looks VERY wrong.

I hope they didn’t change anything about this. It’s do-able, and without ports as shown here!