Guild Wars 2

Calling it now, the new emperor of Cantha will turn out to be Bubbles.

In auric basin you can find an Exalted teleporter which takes you to a ruined temple, recognisable to everyone who played the first game, and which has always been pretty mysterious.

In that temple is a skill point, and this is the flavour text that it has:

“Such a powerful place.”

Yup, that’s it. And this is the case for pretty much all skill points in the new areas. GW2 is already pretty garbage at delivering lore and now it’s even worse. Compare this to skill points in the base game:

“Though the statues and columns have been reduced to rubble by centuries of dark magic, dragons, and time; the scorched remains of this once majestic Ascalonian temple still glow with a pulsing energy.”

or

“This eroded structure was once a hall of learning. The skeletal remains of the conservatory dome are thick with algae. The water here glows faintly with the energy of an experiment long abandoned.”

I hope the expansion skillpoints are just using placeholder text, because if not, then they just suck, they’re disappointing and are a massive downgrade from the original quality of flavour text in gw2.

They should have been instanced. Always accessible.

Problem solved.

Why can’t the medic, bulwark, purge and sneak gyros be stuck to your character, just like the tiny little function gyro.

If you look at the original HoT trailer at 1:40 you can see a bunch of gyros behaving just like that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOUk2y0K2m8). Is there any reason to have them wander around like minions instead? Taking that control away from the player removes the tactical aspect of positional play and has resulted in gyros that are often lagging too far behind to actually be useful.

dsslive.8473:

I believe that the white mantle (and as such the mursaat) used the term “chosen” to try and put some honor in their sacrifice, while in reality it could be anyone dying on the bloodstone. The reason why they killed some, but not all, is simple. They still need humans to charge the soul batteries every time, so if they kill all the humans they have no more souls to charge the battery.

I’m not sure it is that simple. The Mursaat weren’t just killing anyone, they used the Eye of Janthir to identify the chosen, through what method we don’t know, but if it was purely random then why bother with it at all. Perhaps it was identifying those who might become ascended, those with high magical aptitude, or whose souls might provide the most power. Or maybe it was midichlorians, who knows for certain. But there was clearly some method to the selection process, they didn’t just take anyone.

And the Mursaat may not have been sacrificing the chosen simply to charge soul batteries. In the prophecy Glint had said that the Mursaat would meet their demise at the hands of the Chosen. It wasn’t simply a human farm for soul batteries, had the Mursaat truly been evil they could just have wiped out all humans, instead they took only those who posed a threat to their race, leaving the others unharmed.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s been told that the war between seer and mursaat was during the time of the Tome of Rubicon’s writing in the ancient past. The Tome of Rubicon was written around the time of the previous Elder Dragon rise.

It’s been said that the mursaat “only recently” returned to the world of Tyria – as the Unseen Ones.

They betrayed the races, waged war with the seers, and fled the world.

Recently returning to Tyria has little to do with betraying anyone, and that may have been only from the perspective of the humans, they might have been there, unseen, for hundreds of years. And the war with the Seers still doesn’t prove or even suggest anything, the only thing we know is that they fought the Mursaat and that they sealed magic in the Bloodstones. Perhaps the Mursaat didn’t want to have their magic locked away in a device created by the Seers, we don’t know how trustworthy the seers were, and the Seers didn’t need the Mursaat magic for their plan to work once the Mursaat had left the world.

The Mursaat were a race of spellcasters, their options were give up their magic to the Seers or take themselves elsewhere. The first option would weaken them as an entire race, the second would allow the Seer plan to work while the Mursaat kept their magic.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

We don’t know the full details of the betrayal, but we know that they’re the betrayers. We also know that they wiped out almost all seers, and we also know that Spectral Agony and their phasing trick was the most useful thing the non-Forgotten had against the Elder Dragons (as shown in Arah mursaat path).

Here’s the only quote about their betrayal, from Greyston in the Mursaat path:

“Weren’t the Seers and the mursaat enemies?”
“Indeed. They worked together once, but the mursaat betrayed the other races and fled from the world, returning as the Unseen Ones.”

This can most obviously be read as the betrayal being that they fled the world, if you’re taking it weirdly literally then you might say it means that they first betrayed the other races and then fled (but the word then is missing, which would have suggested a chronological connection). But as there’s no evidence of what that other betrayal might have been, if there was anything beyond the Mursaat fleeing, you certainly can’t say anything about motives for those potential things.

This stuff about Spectral Agony being useful against Elder Dragons isn’t mentioned anywhere, you’ve simply made that up. It isn’t shown in the Mursaat path at all.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

“Travelers to Kryta will find a stark contrast between the fortified, polished-stone buildings of the White Mantle and the thatch-roofed huts of the regular citizens. There is a surprising amount of wealth here, but it is kept in the hands of those who adhere to the doctrines of the Mantle, and this is reflected in the architecture of the region.”

So yes, there was poverty. You probably thought that thatched huts was the norm, because anyone who wasn’t White Mantle were living in them. Well, they were the norm, but they weren’t the norm for White Mantle. The norm for White Mantle was polished stone buildings.

Being that Kryta had a pretty tropical climate I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with living in thatched huts. There’s no evidence that they lived in anything different before the Mursaat appeared.

King Adlebern had a jewelled crown, wore fancy army, wielded a fiery dragon sword and lived in a castle (He also wasn’t a rightful king and would later destroy what was left of his own people). The people of ascalon wore simple clothes and lived in thatched huts.

Queen Jennah lives a castle too and throws fancy parties while her people are massacred by centaurs.

You can’t blame this inequality on the Mursaat. It’s just people being people.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It has been explicitly told to us that the mursaat betrayed the alliance of races (consisting, originally, of the Forgotten, Seers, mursaat, dwarves, and jotun) and subsequently wiped out the Seers before fleeing into the Mists.

Where has it stated that this “betrayal” was anything more than the Mursaat fleeing with their own knowledge?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And we’ve been told that they killed thousands of Chosen in Kryta.

Is there a source for this figure? And I was THERE in Kryta 250 years ago, the average man and woman didn’t appear all that subjugated to me.

And if we’re making WW2 analogies, here’s one for you. The Dutch surrendered to the germans, they gave up, stopped fighting so that their own people might have a chance to live. Is that cowardice, is that worthy of their annihilation? If you think so then you’re a psychopath.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Either way, Kryta (and in turn the White Mantle) was dealing with the charr until Orr had sank – or was just about to. Still, it prevents converting the most religious of kingdoms to the Unseen Ones’ faith.

Why would the Mursaat have needed the white mantle to take over Orr? If they had wanted to take over any kingdom just for the sake of it they had plenty of time to do so, that time isn’t limited to after the formation of the White Mantle.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And there was more than one person; his inability to see the king is not a case of the White Mantle not trying. And it should be noted that Zain went directly to the people, bypassing the king, and spread his teachings and artifacts.

Oh no, he’s telling the people about his beliefs! What a villain! There’s no indication this even had anything to do with the Mursaat, it’s just a Krytan ambassador. No nefarious plots, no evil deeds, he didn’t kidnap children or pillage the countryside. Just an ambassador. He may have been entirely sincere, from his point of view the Unseen ones just saved Kryta from the Charr.

“I do not understand the hostility that my presence generates from your King. I seek only to help the people of Ascalon. You could help me in this cause. I have a shipment of supplies that I was going to deliver to an Ascalon woman called Ellie Rigby. She runs an orphanage for those who have lost their parents in these evil times. King Adelbern however will not allow me in the city to deliver these supplies.” – Ambassador Zain

What a monster! I bet those supplies were laced with evil Mursaat poison!

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You cannot argue that the mursaat were anything but evil when they had the option to leave the world of Tyria – thus being unthreatened to the Titans on Tyria – but instead chose to kill thousands and subjugate hundreds of thousands.

Where is the evidence that the Mursaat would have been safe even if they hadn’t been in Tyria? The Titans came from the mists how do you know they wouldn’t have been able to find the Mursaat wherever they went. And the Mursaat killed thousands? They rounded up the chosen annually, and we saw how many they rounded up at a time…. 5.

If 5 was the average then over the course of the Mursaat rule it’s pretty unlikely the number of sacrifices went far beyond a hundred, 5 a year would be about… 30 people in total, as the test of the chosen began in 1067 AE and most of the Mursaat were dead by 1072 AE.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And pray tell where is this “Glint’s revenge” you keep mentioning? There’s no such thing. Glint never showed any form of malice against the mursaat.

Literally the flame seeker prophecies, made up by glint, were the entire reason the Mursaat began to sacrifice people for soul batteries to keep the titans locked away. Whether real prophecy or not, Glint was the one who spoke it, and in doing so set those events into motion, it was the fear of the prophecy coming true that caused the Mursaat to take the measures they did.

And the original heinous crime of the Mursaat is this:

Scholar Yissa: The races gathered together to fight the dragons, each contributing something.
Scholar Yissa: Hmm. Yet the mursaat took their knowledge and fled into a half-world, out of phase with our own.

Wow, that’s it, they said they weren’t helping and they left. Are you seriously saying that’s an okay reason to then murder every last one of their race? Even with the Mursaat gone the other races managed to survive, so what’s the big deal?

The one to Rule.2593:

Yeah how dare they not recycle the same old content from like ten years ago

Because continuing old lore is recycling content right? Gee, they should get rid of the glint and forgotten lore then too I guess.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I wouldn’t find any form of alliance with a race that has not once but twice committed genocide for selfish reasons to be at all interesting.

Which genocides were those then? We don’t know much about why the Seers and Mursaat were at war, not enough to say who was initially at fault. Beyond that they only killed the Chosen in kryta, most people in Kryta still lived normal and happy lives, a lot of people welcomed the rule of the White Mantle after the king fled. That’s not exactly genocide.

Charr are now allies of the humans, who killed countless Charr over the centuries and stole their land for purely selfish reasons.

The Charr literally destroyed Ascalon in the Searing, and would have done the same to Orr and Kryta. For what, revenge?

You wouldn’t ally with either of those races right?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Orr was destroyed and if you paid close attention in GW1, you’d note that they tried spreading influence to Ascalon.

Orr Sank in 1071 AE, the White Mantle took control of Kryta a year before that, so Orr wouldn’t have been destroyed at that point. Also, a single, peaceful, white mantle ambassador who never even got to see the king is hardly much of an attempt to spread the “evil” rule of the Mursaat is it?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You’re twisting my words, and the situation of the mursaat, to fit your own desires of wanting to see the mursaat as good guys.

Not at all, you just can’t see that there are a lot of shades of gray here, I wouldn’t call the Mursaat good, but what they did wasn’t evil for the sake of evil, they had actual understandable motivations. Glint was after revenge and the Mursaat desired self preservation at the cost of others. Neither are good, but one seems to me to be worse than the other.

Morfedel.4165:

1. That common belief is correct. Lazarus plots revenge, but his race is gone. If we ever see a, mursaat again, it Will be one individual. If the flameseeker prophecies were indeed correct this is the most likely outcome.

At least eight Mursaat survived the flameseeker prophecy. Seven were killed during the Krytan civil war, years after the release of the Titans. The last living Mursaat that we know of was Lazarus (who split himself into aspects to survive the release of the Titans). But this suggests that it was at least possible, in more ways than one, for the Mursaat to have survived.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The mursaat aren’t guilty of cowardice. They’re guilty of treachery and genocide. Multiple times – because the moment they returned to the world, they just did the same thing again: attempt genocide and be treacherous.

So are Humans and the Charr, and the Asura have in the past tried to wipe out the Skritt too. But I guess it only matters if you kitten off an Elder dragon champion? Then you can say goodbye to your entire race.

The Mursaat didn’t take over Kryta because they got off on taking over and being worshipped as gods, they took over as a means of getting rid of the chosen ones – To save their own race. Otherwise why not take Orr, Ascalon and Elona too? The were doing something very specific, sacrificing the chosen, charging soul batteries and keeping the door to the Titans closed. That doesn’t scream evil, misguided maybe, but they weren’t doing it out of malevolence but a desire to preserve their race.

As for the war in Kryta, most of the Mursaat were dead, the rest were being hunted down, again it seems like their main motivation was self preservation. I don’t recall Queen Salma ever trying to secure peace with the Mursaat, in fact wasn’t it she who declared war on the White Mantle? With the prophecy over it doesn’t seem like there would be any need for the Mursaat to keep sacrificing the chosen.

So when Glint/Humans/Charr kill people for the hell of it it’s fine, but when the Mursaat do it to save themselves it’s wrong? Sounds like jingoism and racism to me.

SoulyD.9125:

We don’t know all the details, but before they fled they also waged war on the seers which they won as far as i know. Seems like a strange choice of action if you just want to run away to save yourself.

The Seer/Mursaat war occurred after the Mursaat had fled. Maybe that was because of Glint’s thirst for blood too. Perhaps it was an attempt by the mursaat to free the magic that the Seers had taken from the world and hidden in the bloodstones, but that makes little sense as by the time of GW1 the Mursaat had won the war and yet they had kept them intact and were the ones protecting/using the bloodstones in the Maguuma and Fire Islands.

It doesn’t seem likely that the Mursaat really had any reason to return to this world, they only did so to stop the prophecy and save themselves. The Seers were most likely the instigators of the war.

I never really get the Mursaat hate. I mean did they actually do something that justified the entire genocide of their race?

Sure, they fled when the elder dragons awoke, they fled to save their people. You can say it’s cowardly sure, but how exactly does cowardice justify Glint’s revenge?

The whole revenge plot of Glint is just insane, make up a prophecy stating that the titans will kill the Mursaat, forcing the Mursaat to do everything in their power to again survive – which meant killing humans. I mean, even if the prophecy was an actual prophecy Glint could have you know… kept her mouth shut and the Mursaat wouldn’t have been any the wiser, probably just chilled in their pocket dimension and wouldn’t have tried to kill the chosen ones.

Then there’s the whole problem of the titans. Was it ever actually explained why the titans tried to kill the Mursaat? I mean Abaddon was evidently not a fan of the bloodstone concept (the same idea which the Mursaat had refused, choosing to keep their magic and flee). But regardless, should we really be allying with a Dragon who, just to get her genocidal jollies, creates a plan to set free the minions of an insane god? Surely that’s a worse crime? The titans didn’t just kill Mursaat, they killed humans and dwarves too. The Mursaat only killed, essentially, in their own self defence, Glint killed for revenge.

I mean jeez, if Glint is the kind of psychopath that the Forgotten and Seers want to ally with can you really blame the mursaat for bailing on them in the first place?

But sure, lets deliver Glints baby to her magically transformed death machines and kill the other Elder Dragons leaving baby glint to consume all the magic in the world!

The smashed up machinery near the hidden strawberry patch in Diessa Plateau always looked a bit like a broken down train to me. Maybe the Charr did try it once but the asuran waypoints put the railways out of business. And steam trains went the way of the horse.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It would be a pretty big “wtf!?” if the mursaat returned in huge numbers.

Not as much of a “wtf” as there having been a city in the maguuma that no one has seen this entire time. Besides how do you know what the remaining Mursaat could have done in 250 years? Scarlet made an entire army in a few weeks/months. You wouldn’t need huge numbers either, even a few Mursaat could probably wreck kitten, the last Eidolon I saw was a shield and the Seers aren’t anywhere to be seen.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Mursaat have been established as powerful but selfish kittens who are willing to kitten entire worlds and races for their own existence. They’ve done such twice.

Would you really want those kinds of people as your allies

Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve done that.

I wonder how Elona is doing since we released Palawa Joko.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Snip..

Still doesn’t explain how a city in the maguuma was kept hidden, and not through one game but two, from the white mantle and shining blade, and the asura (if it was hidden underground, which doesn’t seem likely from the pictures).

It also doesn’t explain why glint would use humans, when her custodians at that time would have been dwarves. Or why the master of peace has been flying around for the last few years with her legacy instead of dropping it off at the city actually designed to protect it.

The blog also makes it sound like the Exalted were surprised that Mordremoth happened to have woken up near them, surely glint would have known that Mordremoth was there having been one of the beings that worked to put him back to sleep.

None of this makes any sense lore wise, other than name dropping glint and the forgotten it has nothing to do with any lore that has been established thus far, and instead you have to find ways to weasel it in.

TheReaperTheFourthHorsemen.7894:

the Mursaat city isn’t even stated to be golden or gold and alabaster

“The local authorities blindfolded him and rode him out two full weeks before leaving him to fend for himself. Alone, penniless, and lost, Saul wandered through a dense forest for three full days. On the fourth day, Saul emerged from among the trees to see what he thought was a hallucination—a city of massive towers reaching into the heavens. It was a sight to behold, alabaster and golden filigree. This was a place of purity, a place where a man such as Saul could begin anew.”

http://64.25.35.116/gameplay/exploring/tyria/story/lore-10-protectorsofkryta1.php

Ayrilana.1396:

People are arguing that the city the Exalted were in was the golden city of the Musaat.

I haven’t seen anyone argue that. Most people are just annoyed that a golden city full of mursaat like creatures (just like the descriptions of golden mursaat cities) turned out to be just a golden city full of creatures that look like mursaat but are just a whole new race with no existing backstory or lore but who were HERE THE WHOLE TIME! As if that’s something that makes any sense.

At least when they did it with the asura and the norn in gw1 they had a good reason, as they lived in places we hadn’t visited. 50 (or there abouts depending on how inaccurate anet are) years after the construction of a golden exalted city in the maguuma we literally visited the maguuma and we saw no cities. At least the mursaat had the excuse of being Unseen. But I guess this giant exalted city was behind a bush the whole time or something, right?

Ayrilana.1396:

Swizzle.7982:

Ayrilana.1396:

White alabaster with gold filigree is not a city of gold…

A lot of ancient Greek columns were alabaster. Use that as a reference to what it is.

You keep using this argument, but gold filigree is usually used on small objects and decorative panels, a CITY made of alabaster and gold filigree could certainly be described as golden.

Again. Refer to the pictures I am attaching again for you. That’s not gold filigree. The Chapel of Naples would be an example of what you could expect as it has white alabaster walls and gold filigree.

I literally have no idea what you’re arguing now. The exalted city isnt a mursaat city. Ok? We know that.

The issue is that now there are TWO golden (or GOLDEN FILIGREE COVERED) cities in or very close to the maguuma each housing two races which look extremely similar, only one of which has ever been mentioned previously.

Ayrilana.1396:

White alabaster with gold filigree is not a city of gold…

A lot of ancient Greek columns were alabaster. Use that as a reference to what it is.

You keep using this argument, but gold filigree is usually used on small objects and decorative panels, a CITY made of alabaster and gold filigree could certainly be described as golden.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

snip..

Your argument is basically “don’t pay attention to anything Anet actually says”. I mean most lore is from manuals, short stories written by the writers or blog posts rather than the actual games, If we ignore those then the gw universe has pretty much no lore. I know you’ll keep trying to justify these things but it just seems silly, Anet could have made up ANYTHING, yet all they do is contradict themselves, retcon things or at the very least push the credulity of their lore to its limits.

Which is just a shame more than anything, because discovering the lore of the world is a huge reason why I play these games.

Ayrilana.1396:

I have yet to see anything that tied the Mursaat to the Magumma Jungle nor anything that suggested that they had a city of gold. So yeah, you’re right to be a little confused.

You’ve already seen the quote describing the city as alabaster and gold. And the only mention of the location of the hidden mursaat city says that it was two weeks ride from kryta, with no mention of swimming or sailing being part of that walk.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

1) Mursaat structures weren’t golden, but reddish-purple. As we saw in GW1 itself.

Keep in mind that not everything from the manual made it into the game, as it was written while the game was still in development. It’s easy to pick multiple things from each GW1 manual that doesn’t match what’s said or seen in-game.

We never saw the city which Saul actually discovered in GW1. And the only description of it is from the manual, which says alabaster and gold.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The term Forgotten came from the centuries of not-knowing that began in 174 AE when the race left the civilized world.

If the Forgotten left in 174 AE to the crystal desert what are they doing in the maguuma only 50 years before GW1? Even if people hadn’t forgotten them, I’m sure it would have been mentioned if they, or their exalted creations (if you want to argue that they created them in the desert) had marched across ascalon/shiverpeaks/kryta to get to the maguuma.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

As it is a known fact that Forgotten trained/tested/transformed humans into Exalted during the time of GW1

Except that’s not true. The only humans to ascend were us, the player character. Even Turai Ossa (868AE) never managed to ascend and that was long before we went to the crystal desert. During the time of GW1 the FORGOTTEN had been, that’s right, forgotten, for hundreds of years.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

We did see them in GW1, following the Forgotten, though we didnt know they were called Exalted at the time.

If you assume that Enchanted Armors were Exalted. And we only saw those in the crystal desert.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Enchanted_armor

reapex.8546:

Glint lived for thousands of years, there is no way she would tell us everything in one to three encounters. Our minds wouldn’t be able to absorb everything she knows.

Ok, but these events, turning humans into exalted and building a golden city in the middle of the maguuma, happened only 50 years before we met glint. We went to the maguuma jungle there were no forgotten there and no exalted there.

The only things humans had turned into were druids.

This whole thing seems like someone took the lore regarding mursaat cities, ascension and the forgotten and the idea of druids being protectors of the maguuma, but only understood half of it all, then tried to mush it back together, getting literally every part of it wrong.

It makes sense, which is probably why it won’t be what happened at all.
Did Saul go back to the Maguuma after first finding the city though? I thought he only saw the city and the “mursaat” the one time, and then returned to Kryta.

It could also be that Saul had met the Exalted and it was they that he hoped to call in during the battle with the charr, only the Mursaat appeared instead (making this the actual first meeting of Saul and the Mursaat), seeing it as an opportunity to begin their ultimate plan to kill the chosen ones. Of course Saul would know the Mursaat weren’t the same as the Exalted, especially when they started rounding up and killing people, which would explain why they made him disappear. The others, Hablion, Dorian etc. would have just assumed they were the same creatures Saul had told them about.

EdwinLi.1284:

Well i have a hypothesis and this may allow us to figure out what happened to Saul D’Alessio.

Maybe Saul found this city of Tarir and mistakened the Exalted as the Mursaat. He went back to kryta tell the story of the golden city of Tarir and the Exalted. After that returned to the Maguuma and as the lore stated he was unable to find the city again but he did find the Mursaat. However, since both the Exalted had strong magical powers and both can fly Saul may have mistaken the Mursaat to be the Exalted believing the Mursaat were another form of Exalted.

Using Saul’s misunderstanding the Mursaat pretended to be the Exalted. This may also explain why Saul may have been taken away since Saul knows the location of the Exalted which serves Glint and the Mursaat were after all fighting against Glint’s flameseeker prophecies.

If they state this in game, I could get behind it. Would actually be very clever as part of glint’s revenge. Set up a city with things that look like mursaat, have Saul find them, only to have him wind up summoning the mursaat during the charr invasion instead of the good exalted guys, setting off the events which led to us murdering all the mursaat.

But basically anything other than this completely contradicts their own lore.

Windsagio.1340:

I’m gonna call it, they’re seeding ‘as understood’ lore.

That would be amazing, the mursaat pretending to be exalted, everyone thinks they’re the good guys, we hand over the egg AND BAM, mursaat get their sweet revenge on glint by making dragon omelettes.

I’m not sure the writers are that crafty though.

Ranatoa.4869:

Swizzle.7982:

Also I’m pretty certain that 250 years ago the forgotten had already been, you know, forgotten by humans, surviving only in the crystal desert. But just 50 years before that they were turning humans into mursaat lookalikes? I mean, it wasn’t even humans who were custodians of glint back then, it was dwarves, so it makes even less sense.

Also this:
After the Transformation of the Dwarves, Glint’s guardianship was passed down to a secretive group of Canthans and Elonians who would later become known as the Zephyrites.

Yes, AFTER the transformation of the dwarves. This didn’t happen 300 years ago, it happened less than 250 years ago in 1078 AE. 300 years ago the Brotherhood of the Dragon were the guardians of glint and her legacy.

OtakuModeEngage.8679:

Why would glint mention Exulted if there are no dragons for them to fight

Maybe a heads up like, “Hey, if you happen to see some guys in the maguuma that look exactly like the things I’m tricking you into murdering and who also live in a golden city, don’t kill them, they’re cool.”

And yeah, Im sure the maguuma is just chock full of golden cities… Everybody and their dog is building them apparently

lordkrall.7241:

Stories evolve. Or do you really want them to only ever release stuff that was mentioned in the very first installation of a series?

Stories evolving is one thing, stories being retconned and lore being contradicted is another. Why would glint mention the dragons if they were asleep, it wasn’t very relevant at the time.

Here’s actual GW lore:

“On the fourth day, delirious with hunger, Saul emerged from the trees to see what he thought was a hallucination—a golden city of massive towers reaching into the heavens. The architecture was astounding, and the creatures who lived here were unlike any he had ever seen. Walking down into their city, Saul got a closer look at the denizens of this place. They were tall and thin with strange wing-like appendages that waved about in the slightest breeze. When they walked, their feet seemed not to touch the ground, and when they spoke, it was the most melodious sound he had ever heard. Surely these creatures were the stuff of divinity”

Gold city. In the maguuma. Full of mursaat.

But now there’s another golden city in the maguuma, full of things that look like mursaat but aren’t, built to house an egg (just one egg, not all 200 from gw1, and not the one that had already hatched in gw1!) and this makes sense how?

It’s like the writers for GW2 read half the GW1 wiki and said “YEAH OK, I THINK I GOT IT, FORGOTTEN IN THE MAGUUMA, FORGOTTEN ARE THE BIRD PEOPLE RIGHT?”.

Also I’m pretty certain that 250 years ago the forgotten had already been, you know, forgotten by humans, surviving only in the crystal desert. But just 50 years before that they were turning humans into mursaat lookalikes? I mean, it wasn’t even humans who were custodians of glint back then, it was dwarves, so it makes even less sense.

Whole thing is dumb. Golden cities, should have been mursaat.

Either this is some ruse to throw people off, or anet have really just thrown all the old lore out and are just making up nonsense now. If these things were created 300 years ago then why did glint never mention them, why did we never see them in gw1?

But they were there all along! loooool, pls hire new lore writers anet.

There’ll never be any raids in gw2 either, raids just go against everything gw2 is about!

NPCs in GW2 have one of two movement speeds.. and both are wrong.

A lot of NPCs do the strange lightspeed waddle, which you often see in story missions where they’re set to follow your character, as if they’re moving at 500% of normal speed to keep up with you. It’s hilarious to see, but it really doesn’t look good..

Then there’s the other speed of being far far too slow. This is the speed used by minipets and engineer gyros, they always lag behind. In the case of minipets this means after a few seconds of running they have to teleport back to you, only to lag behind again, and again, and again.. In the case of something like the stealth gyro it makes it virtually useless.

Why? It isn’t due to any player speed buffs, these things both happen regardless. Is it really impossible to set the speed of these things to just be the same as player characters? It’s not a major gripe, nothing to rage about, just a sort of.. “oh… that’s disappointing” feeling, because it hardly seems like it’d be that hard to fix, you got it right in GW1.

Amber.2637:

A lot of people seem to be suggesting that the classes are over powered on purpose to improve the sales. That is kind of a silly way to try to get more sales though, and I don’t really think that would be the main reason for this. :P I didn’t buy the expansion expecting the elite specs and new class were going to be better. I bought it because we were being offered new content and more customization to our classes. Also because ArenaNet is trying to make support roles more viable, so the druid interested me. People who are looking for a quality expansion probably wouldn’t buy it if they thought the classes were going to remain op too long after the release.

That’s not really how things work though is it, if it was we’d be living in world where things were made to last, they’d be well designed and made of quality materials. Planned obsolescence wouldn’t be a term that had meaning, apple products wouldn’t exist. I mean, the classes aren’t balanced for kitten, but you already bought the game.

Specialisations are selling points, be it some new role, or just being over powered, it’s gotta be new or its got to be better or people won’t care. It’s not a silly way to get sales at all, it makes perfect sense. Someone goes to pvp, gets rekt by a chronomancer and says “I want to do that!”, and anet gets more money.

They may tone them down a few months after the release of the expansion.

What better way to encourage sales than put some shiny, new and utterly overpowered things in the expansion. This is done in pretty much every single mmo out there.

Not much point worrying about balance right now, we know things are overpowered, they know things are overpowered. They know what they’re doing, no one buys new things when they have something just as good already. People will want to be chronomancers and reapers BECAUSE they are better, and so they’ll buy the expansion. And eventually they’ll balance them, just in time for a new expansion, and we can do all this again.

Crise.9401:

Except that I didn’t imagine anything, sure I don’t know how often they will be created but they did say this specifically: “Additional Mist Champions will become available in future live content releases and will also require Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns”

Yes, that’s what they said. But right now there are three mist champions, two are available to everyone, 1 is available only to those who own HoT.

The original argument, that “It still doesn’t change the fact that the WvW and PvP changes are not actually included in HoT. They’re separate, and free to all players.” which you stated does not hold water, does in fact hold water because we are talking about now, or at the very least at the point that HoT is released.

You can argue that in 5 years anet will give everyone an asura mount for pvp, but that’s not a kittening refutation of anything.

What you have at best is speculation. At worst the word of anet. For all you know the new pvp game mode may end up like courtyard, and never recieve any additions or updates. The point is you’re arguing with speculation, other people are arguing with evidence.

Crise.9401:

Please pay attention, I said most will be, not most are… as in in the future,

I am paying attention, it would be odd if you had said “most are” because none are. Because HoT isn’t out. So all “will be”, you didn’t bother specifying between the ones anet have said exist and the one’s you imagined.

lordkrall.7241:

Varrg.2704:

This is not even funny at this point. Especially since half of the content which is supposed to sell HoT could be just patched in in regular updates.

Indeed, which they said themselves.
But the forums just haaaaaaad to have an expansion instead and wouldn’t shut the kitten up about it.

Wow. That’s the most stupid thing I’ve heard today. People wanted an expansion because expansions are typically LOTS OF NEW CONTENT. That’s what people wanted LOTS OF CONTENT, this isn’t hard to understand. It was clear living world was drip feeding stuff, but nothing like new professions or races, or dungeons, or a great number of things. Now it seems like the expansion is following suit, even anet themselves have said it will essentially be light on content as it’s meant to implement the groundwork for future expansions (Probably something they should have done two years ago). That isn’t what people expect from an expansion. And on top of that the lack of information is making it appear as if there’s not even anything for them to show us.

Crise.9401:

Except that this argument stopped being waterproof when most “Mist Champions” will be gated by HoT.

There are three mist champions. One is exclusive to people who own HoT. Please explain how 1 out of 3 is “most”.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Now please excuse me while I play a game that actually tells players what’s coming in the future . . . in detail.

Especially once they start pre-orders at least.

And the thing is it’s not as if people will come back to gw2 just because it’s there. There are so many other games out and coming out soon, that a game people have already tried, and played, and left has to be even more enticing than everything else out there. I think it’d be far easier to just keep people interested and invested, even if it’s just checking in every week to read something new about the expansion, than losing people and trying to get them back later.

Vayne.8563:

White knighting

That’s strange, because in every guild I’ve been in in gw2 once numbers drop off they don’t recover. I don’t know what kind of business you’ve run where kittening off your customers was beneficial but I do know that once my friends leave gw2 I won’t have much of incentive to come back either.

People are asking to be excited. You do understand that right? People are asking to know about something they want to be excited for. Things are pretty kittening bad when people are getting so kittened off at the lack of news that That_Shaman decides to show us new engineer drones. This shouldn’t be happening, Anet should be saying “HERE, LOOK AT ALL THIS SHINY NEW STUFF, we want to tell you about it, and you want to know about it!”

I realise any kind of debate with you is entirely pointless but I think most people understand the issue.

Vayne.8563:

There’s a difference between saying let’s wait to see what’s coming before we judge and defending it. People are attacking without seeing information about the content. They’re making assumptions. You might think that’s fair, but I sure don’t.

So in your estimation, what exactly is being defended. The wait and see attitude?

Because I can’t find anything defensible about commenting about the size of the expansion until we have the detail.

Except this whole thread is about the fact that we’re waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and still waiting, and still there’s nothing shown. So yeah, people are going to start making assumptions based on the evidence of nothing being revealed.

The “wait and see attitude” has no defence, because we’ve all been waiting and yet we’ve seen very little.

Vayne.8563:

What individuals want doesn’t matter all that much, unless that individual group is so large, it’s some sort of majority. But also, what individuals want needs to be weighed against the overall good of the game.

That’s flawed logic. This is an MMO, it’s built around player interactions and things which influence one person can extend to influence more. For example, I’m in a guild. One person leaves the guild because there’s no SAB coming any time soon. Another few people leave because there’s just not a lot for them to do at the moment. A few more check in for dalies and read the GW2 reddit for news, but that’s about it and with no news coming they begin to drop off too. Another guildmate quits because they enjoy dungeons but they don’t think anything will be happening with those any time soon. Suddenly there’s no one in the guild.

But that’s ok right? None of those people were in the majority, so it’s fine to ignore them.

Anet are doing so well catering to the majority that apparently hate news and don’t want to be excited about the expansion at all.

lordkrall.7241:

Swizzle.7982:

The problem is a lot of this information concerns something only small numbers of people really care about. Guild halls? Nice for guild leaders and some of the larger guilds maybe. Tournaments and beta dates? Well, I know I don’t care about those. The other information, I don’t even remember that… So yeah, we might be getting information, but it’s nothing exciting or memorable. And if this is the stuff they’re showing us to build hype about their expansion.. well, I think there’s an obvious conclusion there that a lot of people are coming to.

And what makes you so sure that more people care about a Warrior Specialization for example?

The Guild Halls seems to have plenty of things for all three game modes and it does include rather large changes for WvW.
YOU might not be interested in it, but that doesn’t mean it is not new information.

We can’t start disregarding information just because we don’t care about it.
Heck, I am not really all that interested in the Specializations, but I don’t go around claiming we have gotten no information after weeks when they have talked about them.

Well, I don’t play warrior. I actually dislike playing warrior, I find it to be the most boring class in the game. But the specialization for even my least favourite class is still exciting, because maybe I’ll end up liking it, I’ll at least end up playing with people who use it, and most likely fighting against it too.

But go on, what other info do we have? Guild halls, revenant… and?

We know more information from data mining than from blog posts.

lordkrall.7241:

Oh, I agree, but people seems to imply that we have gotten no information whatsoever for months.

The problem is a lot of this information concerns something only small numbers of people really care about. Guild halls? Nice for guild leaders and some of the larger guilds maybe. Tournaments and beta dates? Well, I know I don’t care about those. The other information, I don’t even remember that… So yeah, we might be getting information, but it’s nothing exciting or memorable. And if this is the stuff they’re showing us to build hype about their expansion.. well, I think there’s an obvious conclusion there that a lot of people are coming to.

This is the current status of the hype train.

http://i.imgur.com/J20iw.jpg

Hype level: Half-life 3.

Kasteros.9847:

Great Thx for answer and it looks like anet is still kittening their players ^^ and thinking of em as cows that blindly bring em money ^^ sorry guys, it is truth that probably every normal player found out over 2 years ago

But didn’t you make this thread because you WANT the white wings? What is this, an illustrated guide to cognitive dissonance?

Blackworm.2167:

You can argue that any “Pro” group is a hate group, and vice versa. You seem to be arguing with a fair deal of bias and / or preconceptions.

“The real world” isn’t very specific and only serves as anecdotal evidence in this scenario, which doesn’t hold up.
The fact of the matter is, what I said cannot be argued. A “Pro”-anything group can and will be called out as “Anti”-whatever their opposite is, oftentimes using only emotion as their reasoning.

Firstly you don’t understand how burden of proof works, secondly, while “Real world” may be a nebulous concept to you it’s actually the basis for most evidence, strangely.

Thirdly, you’re wrong. A pro anything group is obviously not automatically an anti whatever their opposite is. Groups which have bigoted, racist or prejudiced agendas however do like to hide behind the whole “But we’re just pro white people!” card (for example). Now, this is demonstrably not true for such groups, their “pro” stance happens to almost always include the aforementioned bigotry and prejudice towards other groups. Now this next part might be hard for you to grasp as it takes some comprehension of contextual factors. While it could, theoretically be possible for a pro-white group of people to exist, what exactly would they do? Have parties that only white people were invited to? Well that just crossed the line into discrimination. Perhaps they would invite people of other ethnicities? (Point to the KKK rally that does that please.) Well then we’d have to ask in what sense is this in fact pro-white, what is it that they are gathering for? Perhaps it is to support other white people who are marginalised by society? Seems unlikely. Perhaps it is to foster a safe environment for like minded (Though about what remains unknown) people? As opposed to what, the general environment?

Of course, the use of “Pro” by these groups is simply a way of justifying hate towards others, they aren’t pro white people at all, they are pro “people who share their ideology and hatred towards other races”. You can see this in the way certain white groups talk about white people who choose to have non-white spouses. That’s the real world.

Now I’ll let you go though all that again with Pro-black groups and Pro-LGBT groups, you’ll find that social context and historical context mean that a lot of those questions can now be answered and that by being pro towards one of these groups does not necessitate being anti any other group. That’s not to say that one day in the far off future the world won’t be ruled by tyrannical groups of LGBT people who deny basic human rights to heterosexual people – Then you might have a point. Pehaps then you’ll also see why context is important and why everything you say is wrong.

Behellagh.1468:

I noticed, since Friday night is when I refresh all my MMOs looking for patches, that Champions Online is giving everyone who logs in this weekend can get Rainbow Flight, an ability where you fly around on a cloud that is shooting out a rainbow, a 525 Zen (their proxy currency) item for free.

Dear Anet

Please give ridable SAB clouds that puke out rainbows.

Thanks.

Blackworm.2167:

Do you have any non-anecdotal evidence for this claim, and why we shouldn’t assume the same that “Pro-LGBT” groups tend to in fact be Anti-Heterosexual, and so forth?

Yes, the evidence is called the real world, you should take a look at it. Can you point out a group which describes itself as being uniquely pro-white which isn’t a hate group? Or an LGBT group which has an anti-hetero agenda?

Ironic really, the whole reason this is being discussed is because one group of people just got the right to do something that another group of people have always had the right to do. But sure lets paint LGBT groups as hetero hating hypocrites, that’ll be fun.