Ok, couple of things I’m running into in this thread that don’t make sense to me.
First, the assumption that this won’t tie into the Living Story. I expect thakittenwill and here is why:
1. Let’s start with the obvious; this thread exists in the Living Story Forum. A place specifically designated for Living Story content. If it was just a plain old lore-kitten ss update, it’d just be a patch-note like all the other bosses. Teq’s “evolution” is relevant somehow to the story.
2. The Living Story -isn’t- just the story of the Aetherblades and Scarlet Briar and those things which we’ve already encountered. It’s the story of Tyria. A whole world. That’s why it’s called the “Living World”. I see no reason why only one plot can be in play at any given time when dealing with the scope of an entire world. So Scarlet Briar has been defeated and is taken a break while she plans her next move; great. But guess what? Something else is happening; a beast once thought defeated has arisen and is back to wreak havoc! I see no reason why a living story event -must- be connected to Scarlet Briar, or the Molten Alliance, or anything else that has happened so far. Could it be related to Scarlet Briar? I suppose, with the right mental acrobatics you could tie them together somehow… but it shouldn’t -have- to be in order to be part of the Living World of Tyria.
The other thing that’s not making sense to me is the debate about the chronology of events and whether or not this and other events occur before or after the Personal Story has been completed.
While I see what both sides are trying to say, the fact is that the developers -have- to create events that occur post-Personal Story. If they don’t, then it creates a world which is the opposite of Living. The personal Story, in effect, never ends because though you might finish it… The guy next to you hasn’t, your alt hasn’t, the kid at the store buying the game for the first time hasn’t. If events added into the game never take place -after- the living story then what we end up with is a game that -never- progresses beyond the -beginning- of the Personal Story.
Why the beginning? Because if we assume Zhaitan was never killed and still lives, why should we assume that Or was ever purified? Or that the Pact was founded? Or the Caledbolg was ever retrieved? Or -anything- the players have done ever happened?
Assuming Zhaitan still lives essentially relegates the entire world outside of the Personal Story into a -prelude- to said Personal Story. Everything happens -before- you start; which, I think we can all agree, makes zero sense.
The Personal Story is just that, Personal. It takes place in a sort of figurative sub-dimension where your character is experiencing certain events at his own pace while the rest of the world has moved on. Every Living Story moment added to the game since release takes place -after- Zhaitan has been defeated; regardless of where you are in -your- Personal sub-dimension of a story.
You cannot use your characters’ progress as a chronology of a world which exists independently of your character. Otherwise Destiny’s Edge gets together all wonky-like if you do the dungeons in the wrong order and nothing makes sense.
The world lives on without you. If you haven’t killed Zhaitan yet, so what? It’s irrelevant because hundreds of other people have. “But they don’t count to me!” you say. Well, you don’t count to them either.
I believe the Teq evolution -will- be tied to the Living World and I believe it will be a relevant result of Zhaitan’s defeat.
