Guild Wars 2

Um… mine wasn’t rated.. But alright. :\
(next person can rate Heraldusluminare)

Wow, and I thought the people complaining that they don’t want their character to be the centre of the story (after so much feedback about players feeling sidelined) were bad enough. This takes “you can’t please everyone” to a whole new extreme.

I guess you could play a pacifist character, and do what an actual pacifist would do – just not go and fight Scarlet in the first place. Seriously, this is a MMO where, by the nature of the gameplay, the vast majority of your interactions with the world take place at the end of a sword. Don’t complain about having to kill stuff.

Just to start teasing players, they should make a tengu one of the biconics, with slightly improved animations (maybe even the same animations as charr, like how human and sylvari share all but dancing – and then give him a unique dance), but the playable race… never… comes…

Angel McCoy.1832:

Cut down to reduce post length You’ll also have noticed that Scarlet was extremely elusive in the tower of nightmares. Can you imagine why?

My question is, why isn’t any of this within the game already? This level of lore should be there to be discovered and not need a separate Q and A with the lore team on the forums.

These are all important clues required to understanding the nature of the first living story arc. And by you revealing them to us, does this mean you had no plans to actually explain any of this in game?

I understand that a 2 week turnaround for patches is likely very intense and a lot is being left on the cutting floor. But these two week patches are leaving much to be desired in terms of actual lore and story telling. The gameplay events that are going on presently can only tell so much. How the krait and the other alliance members were ‘won’ over to scarlet’s side would have been excellent side quests which would have gotten everyone slightly more invested in the story and removed some of the disbelief in the sudden arrival of several unusual alliances.

Thanks for the clarification Angel. Although I agree with some of the above posters, I wish some of this was in-game. It’s rather important for the story to include these details, to remain believable.

So the toxic krait can’t go home, the molten flame legion need to win to go home, and the molten dredge are in it for the glory of the moletariat. You ducked the nightmare Court, which suggests we’ll find that out in a future release. The Aetherblades were stated back in October to be in it for the loot, and the Inquest doesn’t actually appear to be in it anymore.

And just like that, all my apprehension and negativity over this alliance issue is resolved. Thank you, Angel!

Angel McCoy.1832:

we devs walk a fine line between giving too much lore, thus spoiling players’ in-game discovery, and not giving enough. If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.

Hi Angel thanks a lot for your reply. That did clear up somethings.

So it is now established that the likes of Molten Alliance and Toxic Alliance is just a small faction of the population. It is much more believable that Scarlet convinced a small group of them to join her, instead of everyone. The main population (Dredges, Flame Legion, Kraits, etc) probably didn’t even know about these alliances until very recently.

It is also established now that it is over-generalization to say none of the Kraits will bother talking with other races. It is perhaps true that a good 90% of the Kraits will never bother talking with strangers. But there are always the minority who will. Scarlet found those 10% and made full use of them.

As for giving enough lore or not, the problem isn’t with the hints for “predicting” the future. Those are fine. The problem is with the events (already happening) creating a conflict with the past lore.

I believe the story on Minister Caudecus is a good example. For anyone paying attention, it will be obvious that Caudecus is planning something against Queen Jennah. There are plenty of hints. But we don’t know exactly what he will do.

This is how I think hints should work. There should be more than enough hints for the players to to get a general idea of what will happen. Only things missing should be the details.

Let’s say if in the future Demmi Beetlestone turns out to be evil too and betray the players, did this break the lore? Nope! She had been working for her father all along. She was the perfect double agent; pretending to be a victim only to infiltrate the Order of Whispers for its secrets. The lore flows perfectly.

On the other hand let’s say Caudecus’ wife was seen walking around. The villagers who met her act as nothing special happened. Did this break the lore? Yes! It was stated that Caudecus’ wife died a few years back. So the players will have to guess on why she was alive again and why no villager see anything wrong with this picture. They will spent more time wondering about the past than with the future.

I think this sums up the problem of delivery the the Scarlet story: Players spending more time wondering about the past than with the future.

This mix with a year long delay of the Living Story’s releases didn’t help. In a TV series, the viewers can find out these secrets in a week or two. In the Living story, the players need to wait 6 months or longer to find out anything. 6 months of speculation about the past is very bad.

I think for the Living Story to work well, players must spent more time wondering about what will happen next, instead of what happened in the past. So the past should be clearly defined and very few secrets are there.

In my evil Demmi Beetlestone example, the past was clearly defined. The story flows. So the players are free to speculate the future; exactly where their full attention should be.

I have longed for Krait civil war ever since the Tower was revealed

Angel McCoy.1832:

If I’m cagey about something, it’s because I don’t want to give you spoilers, and I’m confident that when you activate your superpowers, you’ll find the right conclusions yourselves—and have a lot more fun than if I had spoon-fed it to you in a forum post.

One explanation for our questions is that it is in fact the case that we aren’t engaging our superpowers and can come to these answers ourselves if only we tried harder. Another is that there needs to be more in game clues to lead us to the answers. It can be a little of both. I don’t think we need to have answers spoon fed to us in a forum post, and I would prefer more of these answers be left out of forum posts, interviews, and short stories ¹. However, It would do wonders if more interesting things made it in game to build back story and expound the lore.

Largely the game presents us with a linear tale. We enter the game every two weeks are given one new task and complete in that tale. Instead of giving us one new task to explore, why not have a main one and several updates to stories around the world, some of which may eventually become part of the main living story thread. Sunroamer’s has a good suggestion for solidifying the lore surrounding the krait in the current Living Story. Just a simple dynamic event chain between the toxic krait fighting the normal krait ² in Kessex Hills would help tighten the in game lore about the Living Story. However, I stress these side updates need not be directly connected to the current Living Story arc. For example, I’m eager to see Fields of Ruin get an update about the peace treaty talks that have been going on for more than two years now.

¹ – Not that I don’t enjoy these things, just that I think you are making a video game not a book and it should be your primary vehicle for conveying the story.

² – Perhaps a fight between the two over collecting slaves in Triskell Quay, which we must prevent.

Having a group of regular Krait ambush and kill a group Toxic Krait “blasphemers” would be a nice addition to the open world. It would make sense for the remaining Oratuss(es? Oratusi? Or is both singular and plural?) to order the death of all those that would seek to create a “false prophet”.

Pleurodesed.7625:

VERY important. Going in wvw and seeing those midgets with glowing armor, flashy weapons and rainbows makes me want to cry a little.

How on earth do people in this game reach the conclusion that gaudy is better?

Just imagine Almorra Soulkeeper with holographic wings, radiant pauldrons, any legendary weapon and a quaggan backpack. I’d quit the Vigil right then.

I turned my WvW character quality to “lowest” for this very reason. It turns everyone into generic chain mail armor and it actually looks like 2 armies fighting each other instead of the aftermath of a care bear binge drinking party.

You must wield some impressive powers indeed, if you can just walk up to Rytlock and remove him. But thank you for sharing that.

If this was an in game feature i would be impressed.

It has been a massive problem ever since the Living Story started that players were forced to go to websites in order to follow the story. ArenaNet acknowledge this was a massive problem and said they were working on an in game solution so players can keep track of the story in game.

“We’re currently working on a system that will better direct players through Living World content. Eventually, it will also provide story context for LW and other content types. The first phase of the system should be ready before the end of the year.
I am hopeful that some of the new systems that we have in development (the LW tracking system, journal tracking, etc.) will make it easier for folks to make sense of the long-term story." -BobbyStein

We should not have to go to a website to follow the story, get exclusive content, this should all be in game. This has been one of the top complaints of the living story and this Atlas only makes things significantly worse.

How about instead of hunting down secrets on this Atlas you allow players to hunt down those secrets IN GAME, creating content and immersing people in the story.

This Atlas tears people out of the story immersion, it only contributes to the massively growing problem of poor in game story telling, and is waste of developer resources.

SunRoamer.5103:

I think MadQueen didn’t mean a literal deus ex machina in any case, just poking fun at the fact that most of the stuff so far has been pulled somewhat out of nowhere.

That’s what I meant, though they are right, it wouldn’t be a literal Deux Ex Machina, more like a plot device being dropped out of nowhere.

SunRoamer.5103:

But actually I think it would be hilarious if it would turn out to be an actual deux ex machina as you described, as in the Six descend and blast Scarlet away.

That would not surprise me in the least. It’s kind of like how Logan popped up near the end of the Personal Story with a huge airship that came right the taff out of nowhere, and resolved the problem.

SunRoamer.5103:

(The sudden existence of leylines also feels kind of deus ex machina-ish, as in it’s something which came out of nowhere to answer and supply convenient plot points)

It feels like it yes. Although Konig is right that they were sort of introduced hastily a bit earlier. So they did provide some introduction for them at least.

They ley lines are far from dues ex machinas, given that they were revealed – albeit out of game – months before they were revealed in-game, and even then we know about them a month and a half before they became relevant in the plot. A dues ex machina would be no supposition at all – ley lines just have bad supposition.

Like 99.999999% of the living world plot, tbh.

SunRoamer.5103:

I think MadQueen didn’t mean a literal deus ex machina in any case, just poking fun at the fact that most of the stuff so far has been pulled somewhat out of nowhere.

Oh I know, I just like being pedantic, it one of my defining characteristics. Like it almost as much as being facetious.

Uruz Six.6594:

Frosch.7809:

She found the location where it is resting, and has started to dig down towards it so that her Ethercannon can fire at it and kill it. I am sure that’s her plan, but it will most likely backfire badly. She is most likely doing what the sleeping creature wants her to do – help it rise.

So my prediction is that the Ethercannon will basically power the being up and allow it to rise earlier than it would have without Scarlet’s unintentional “help”.

A Pact member tells you after the defeat of Zhaitan that there is “one down, four to go”, so i bet we will see the Rising of Mordremoth, the Jungle Dragon, the sixth and final Elder Dragon to awake.

I repeat again: ‘What does God need with a starship?’ The other dragons woke up just fine on their own, why does Mordremoth need a giant drill?

Actually…

• Primordus needed the Great Destroyer to wake up. With the Great Destroyer’s death, Primordus was kept asleep for three more years. His other destroyers were still around, so it’s likely they – or another woken champion – performed the act the Great Destroyer was needed for.
• Jormag rose because Drakkar siphoned power from the Sons of Svanir (as they were thinking of doing such to Drakkar), and fed Jormag said siphoned power so that Jormag could rise. Supposedly, the death of Svanir also pushed Jormag back (per a subliminal hint by Glint about the dragon*s* stirring in the past, and were put back to sleep – it was plural, so likely wasn’t referring to just Primordus).

It seems that, without aid, the Elder Dragons will slumber for far longer than they would otherwise – Kralkatorrik woke, seemingly, on his own, and it is implied that Glint’s actions delayed him by 300-ish years (though that may be poetic rounding, as it’s more likely to be roughly 250 years – this being referenced at the same time as the mention above).

Zhaitan and the DSD may have held similar aid. In Sea of Sorrows, the leviathan known as “The Maw” was around in Orr before his rise for some years, and though never outright called undead at that point, it certainly was very resilient – much like its later undead reappearance – to the various assaults on it. It is possible that The Maw – or even something from GW1 (cough Rotscale cough) – was aiding Zhaitan’s rise.

Left alone, one would expect Mordremoth to awake about 50 years from now – as each Elder Dragon have been waking in a gap of 50 years from others. And the first two to wake, had aid while the last to wake was being fought against rising.

So what would a dragon have need for a giant drill? To reach magical currents to be used to aid the dragon in rising – as they need magic to rise in the first place.

I think I’ve solved the mystery:

She’s digging her way to a Deux Ex Machina. She’ll dig up something that we haven’t heard about or seen before, and which comes right the taff out of nowhere.

Redball.7236:

This thread is great because you can see all the people that don’t read the OP.

Hilarious, isn’kitten
To the OP – I was in the same boat as you .. only did WvW as quickly as possible so as to get dailies, monthlies and World completion… until I discovered PVT gear, a kitten good commander, from which point I never looked back!

The day I got a precursor, for me, it was a no brainer .. straight to the TP and 500G later my interest in getting a legendary was gone.

Now, when I’m in a group and someone is waving a Twilight or an Eternity in front of me, it’s not “Oooo, me want!”, it’s “GTFO .. you’re blocking my view!”

What if…

A new enemy forges an alliance between 3 species!

Brilliant.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Vyko.6953:

BTW: the model’s wingspan on wiki render is 446 metres. In comparison, model of human from game data is 190cm tall, The Bifrost is 205 cm tall and an asura is 124 cm tall (4 ft.) (from wiki: “an asura is usually about four feet tall”), so it sounds like its a real size.

Wow, if that’s the case my estimate should’ve been doubled. Any chance you could produce a comparison with one of the Pact’s normal airships? There’s one of those sitting at Fort Trinity, so it’d be easy to extrapolate from there what he’d be like in comparison to the player.

Also, really good work on that first picture! At the time you put it up on the wiki I was in the middle of fretting over how to figure out Zhaitan’s scale. It made my whole week!

Thanks! I havent found normal airship model yet, but Im searching for Shadow of the dragon now, so if I find that ship, il upload it here. Right now I can only render comparison with the bigger one. Will post it tomorrow!

I have noticed it too, also Rata Sum looks like a cube and Black Citadel like a Death Star. Half Life 3 confirmed…

My guess is there won’t be a single profession balancing CDI. They’ll start with Ranger, but then move on down the list. Necros coming in 3rd place is both encouraging and discouraging. Encouraging because it recognizes the fact that Necros still need work and will eventually have their day.

Discouraging because now that the devs feel they’re collaborating with us through the CDI, they’ll believe they’re off the hook in having to address any other profession’s concerns (short of something game breaking) until that class’ turn in the CDI queue. Which means we’ll have to wait – yet again – for our issues to be addressed.