Guild Wars 2

I assume many have seen the new trailer already. So far what I’ve seen The Grove will be attacked by Mordremoth himself or one of his champions. if this is true and the Pale Tree will die then the Sylvari will be homeless, and this can lead to something new!!

We know that the Tengu have no starting area. The best option is Caledon forrest. So if the Pale Tree dies the Sylvari refugees must go somewhere right? Rata Sum…hmm no not a good idea they will become test subjects. Divinity Reach…hmm maybe. Dominion of Winds….this would be a great way to involve the tengu at last.

So this is a great way do introduce the Tengu. We have a new city, Caledon forrest becomes the new starting area for Tengu. And the Grove will host a new world boss the champion of Mordremoth.

Tengu problem solved and now back to the Sylvari
We all know there is atleast one more Sylvari tree out there so that gives Anet the possibility to move the Sylvari to somewhere else. My guess the other tree is in Magus Falls.
Thus the Sylvari will have a new city and a new starting area!!

Killing the Pale Tree is a good thing.
- Tengu can be introduced because they finally have a starting area ‘’Caledon forrest’’
- A new world boss ‘’Champion of Mordremoth’’
- A new city and starting area for the Sylvari

So people of Tyria what do you think about this ?

Kind Regards,

Commander of The Pact

Gonnhirrimm

I played GW1 for a lonnnnnnng time. I was with it from Prophecies and stuck around for all of the expansions. Eye of the North was one of my favorite games. At the same time, my friend and I were really looking forward to GW2. We were both in the closed and open betas and were very optimistic about it.

But lore? I blasted through the GW1 stories to get them done and get a good weapon at the end. I paid attention to the story, and I know it well, but I never thought that GW1 told a really great story. Still, I respected the fact that they tried. Other MMOs don’t really do that (For example, I’ll never forget my disappointment when WoW totally ignored its lore when it was first released).

So going into GW2, I wasn’t expecting much lore-wise. Right now, I feel lukewarm about GW2’s lore. I did the personal story up until the high 70s when the game first came out, but I just found it boring. I couldn’t make any attachments to any characters. Worse was that unlike GW1’s story which terminated in a useful item, I found GW2’s PS story rewards to be totally useless. I mean, when I forced myself to complete the PS I thought I would AT LEAST get an exotic out of it but no. I just got a skin I will probably never use.

That said, GW1 I at least didn’t mind doing, and I’ve done the stories A LOT (in GW1 story completion unlocked hard mode). In fact, repeating missions was often a source of rewards in GW1. In GW2, I doubt I will ever do the PS again. After doing it once, what’s the point?

I should mention though that I am enjoying the LS right now, and I was a big fan of Scarlet. I think GW2 and its lore are improving, but at the expense of the PS.

bluejay.6739:

And things seems to only get worse. I groan in pain everytime I have to watch Marjory and Kas go through another borderline creepy, completely out of place love scene (and not because they are a same sex couple, but because it’s written with all the subtly of a Mac truck). I get it ANet. You’re a modern open minded company. No need to beat us over the head with it.

Thisssss. yessss. I like the fact that more and more gaming companies are embracing a greater diversity of heros, but stop doing it so blatantly. You don’t need to appeal to tumblr fangirls/boys who literally need everything shown to them at face point.

Don’t make it seem so forced. Let the relationship shine on its own merits.

This is coming from a gay guy.

This is also why ANet doesn’t have official RP servers. It would mean that they basically have to take a stance on what RP is and isn’t acceptable, shut down personal RP stories that don’t coexist nicely with the Personal and Living Stories, and generally introduce a whole bunch of restrictions which would really crimp player creativity.

I always do my best to have my personal RP stories match with lore, but if somebody else wants to RP their Sylvari as having been adopted by a human family, I don’t see why not. Their RP can take place in their own headcanon world with their friends/guild; it has nothing to do with my characters, and we can both enjoy ourselves without infringing on the other’s story.

Reading this thread makes me think some people don’t have much experience of 11 year old girls.

Admittedly it’s been almost 20 years since I was that age, but the kids I’ve worked with over the years make me think things haven’t really changed that much. Kids that age aren’t nearly as naïve as some people think (although they also don’t know as much as they think they do).

I agree that a game without kill/loot stealing, open-world PvP etc. and with a generally civil community is better, but not because kids are likely to get upset that some meanie on the internet hurt their virtual Barbie when they were just trying to play dress-up with the pretty armors. It’s because kids are more likely to learn about loot stealing, or ganking and robbing people and think “awesome, that’s such a cool and easy way to make money!” and lack the judgement to realise it’s not appropriate to take advantage of people who are obviously not prepared for that. (OP I’m not talking about your daughter specifically, I don’t know her and I have no idea what she’s like, I’m just generalising.)

I used to think it was strange that my 8 year old sister would be complaining about having no gold in UO one day, then a day or two later she’d have enough for whatever she wanted. This was back in the days of dial-up so we were only allowed to play for an hour a day, there’s no way her armor crafting business made her that much. Then I found out she’d learned two “tricks” to make money: One was camping the point where new players spawned claiming to be a volunteer working for the GMs and asking to ‘check’ their starter items (which included some useful, and valuable boosts). When they traded everything they had to her she’d open a portal and disappear. The second was scamming creeps by offering cyber, taking their money and then logging out.

And she was 8. She thought it was hilarious that people were stupid enough to fall for either trick and that made them fair game. (I have to admit I kind of agreed on the second group, but I felt obligated to object, especially since we shared an account and I didn’t want her to get us banned.)

I’d also recommend GW2. Despite the increases in complexity of late, I feel that GW2 is still a lot easier to get into than WoW is. GW2’s community is, on the whole, much more friendly and safe than most MMO’s, although if this is her first MMO, I’d still monitor her activity for a few months and teach her safe online behaviour.

If after 3 or 4 months, she’s still really into the game, then consider purchasing an account for her own and let her join you on your adventures.

Feirlista Xv.1425:

I think if the kid is mature enough to play the game then let them, but monitor their game play also find a good family friendly guild with a strict code of conduct I was in one of these types of guilds in GW1 they had strict language rules in guild chat and in TeamSpeak most of the kids that played only played when one or more of their parents were on. Also teach the kid to have good gaming manners, there are a lot of kids on these games that shouldn’t be on because they have real bad manners and just plain rude.

Excellent suggestions Feirlista!
Monitor their play, amount of time gaming, their snacks, etc. as well as playing the game with them are important for a good experience for them and keeping them safe.

Grok Krog.9581:

If you think your kid could play let em play, I think Guild Wars 2 might be a bit easier to get into with the far less skills and stuff. Only thing is I’d be wary of Orr, I would’ve found Risen horrifying at that age

My 4 year old LOVES zombies. She was having a blast watching me slay those undead guys. lol

@kta, that reads more like the origin of the Druids though, turned into ‘Oak Hearts’ to then after death turn into ghost like Oak Hearts revered to as Druids in GW1. But I will say that in that sense Melandru does sound like a possible candidate for being a ‘previous’ Pale Tree, sprouted during the last rise of the Dragons.

First of let me say that the overall work is still impressive (and i do not sneeze at the amount of work you have to shoulder). The releases so far have shown that you`ve taken the criticism with S1 and the PS to heart and that you are trying to enhance the story experience on all levels.
So far you are certainly doing a better job than before, however, as always, it is still not enough.
While it will never be enough to satisfy everyone, it is more along the line that you are aiming to high at the moment and all the good intention you have to get a “better story” out there are being held back by the flaws you work in.

While I am no writer or professional designer for MMOs, I can still see problems on a very basic, human level of a casual/experienced player/story aficionado.
So please take the following criticism with a grain of salt, but please think about it.

1. The setting and it`s translation into game

1.1. Before Season 2
The story so far presented to us was that the only elder dragons known, were the ones who were active on Tyrias borders:
- Zaithan, because we actively fought him in the PS
- Kalkratorik, because Destinies Edge has faught him and Queen Jenna (I think) has entered his mind
- Primordus, because we are able to fight his minions and we know him from Odgen, as well as from Guild Wars 1
- Jormag, since the Norn fought him directly (his tooth in Hoelbrak) and we have the Sons of Svanir, who call his name.
The ones still a mystery to us were Mordremoth, whose name was only revealed to us through Collin Johanson in an interview and through the battle log in the Crucible of Eternity, where the Inquest were studying elder dragon magic.
They were also hinting to the last and still unknown elder dragon, called “bubbles” in the community.

While this implies that after the events of the PS, Zoijja and the OoW have taken over the CoE and might have been able to get data on dragon minions, it was never said flat out and was only speculation.
Season 1 ended with Scarlet Briar succeeding in diverting a massive amount of ley line energy to feed the dragon Mordremoth who subsequently awoke.
This roar has been heard all over Tyria, however at this point this elder dragon was unknown.

Season 2
Season 2 starts with the investigation of the roar, triggered by the Biconics own interests and a mail by Mister E, who tells you about the idea that it could be that Scarlet disturbed one of the dragons.

This is the hook for this season, however this fact gets quickly brushed over as right at the beginning of S2E2 the name of Mordremoth has been revealed to be more or less “common knowledge”, at least for all who have something to do with the matter.
The investigation concerning a dragon is subsequently irrelevant and we turn to dragon fighting and

RoyHarmon.5398:

It’s easy to revert to the “after two weeks the content is gone forever” mindset that we’re used to, but things have changed. The past isn’t just the past anymore, and if they fix this episode, it will really fix it.

Agreed, due to the replyability of Chapters from here on out – nipping it in the bud and adding to Episode 1 would really solve this issue. Just a couple of lines of dialog and a special book(s) is all that is needed. Have a book in Scarlet’s place referring to Mr. M and the players reaction when speaking to the characters is, “She mentions something about this Mordremoth.”

The characters then question the name and then the player suddenly jumps to the conclusion, “What if it’s the Jungle Dragon!” Cue: Inception-Horn.

Some things to be cautious of:

-She is a young girl, right at the age where she will really start feeling the effects of media pressure on women, to be sexy and unhealthily skinny. Guild Wars 2 is no exception when it comes to negative media—the female characters are often hyper sexualized (see female humans, female norn). Make sure she has a healthy understanding of what is real and what is not, a good body image, and the awareness to resist the casual sexism inherent in a game like this.

-Guild Wars 2 has a good community—but that does not mean it’s free of horrible people. There will be trolls, perverts, and people who are simply much older than she. Take precautions to keep her as safe from this as possible.

-The storyline of Guild Wars 2 may be too mature for some kids. Use your best judgment here.

At any rate, I definitely would not let her play WoW. WoW has a more toxic community and is more sexist then Guild Wars 2 by far. I started getting involved in online gaming around her age, and was introduced to some truly vile things which I didn’t have the understanding to cope with.

Whatever you do here, the key is supervision, supervision, supervision.

A big thank you to Anet for another great looking backpiece.

Oh wait…

Popping in to say YES PLEASE TO FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE. I heard from a friend that this was briefly available during Beta or something like that and I am really disappointed that it still does not exist in game.

+10 points to all of OP’s other suggestions.

Yes please to player housing. I am still waiting to be able to craft/discover/find/dungeon/gather materials for my house and then host guild/stranger tea parties.

If and when housing is implemented, I am hoping that interact-able chairs, sofas, beds, etc are added as well since… I feel that makes sense. It’s hard to have a tea party when everyone is half-morphed with the furniture.

I enjoy the ideas Celia. I also hope that they do something to fix chair and couch physics so that one does not simply become one with a sofa, such as Lord Farin in the human home instance.

There are a good number of RPers on GW2, and the sheer number of players on servers such as Tarnished Coast and Piken Square, despite the Megaservers issues in recent months, chose to join those servers for that vary reason. I know it is a financial sink in some ways, but maybe NCsoft would grant more of ArenaNet’s full profits to them so such things may be implemented.

kta.6502:

biofrog.1568:

Sylvaries (Sylvari’s?) had a pretty different chat with the Pale Tree at the beginning of this episode.. Much more about her ‘protecting’ all her children from the magic of Mordremoth.

Say no more, in case someone is about to go through it

Now that you mentioned Mama Tree….

With the way the LS is going and Anet’s love for Game of Thrones, I fear that the devs will find a way to kill her off. I hope that doesn’t happen. Seriously.

By the Six, I hope not…
We have enough stupid, pointless deaths as it is, for no other reason then to just have people dying.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying characters should /never/ die… It’s war, after all. But Game of Thrones style character killing turned me off completely to those books and even more so to the show.

Maybe a silly question by a light RP’er mostly on my own account… so LS is basically part of my RP… Why don’t you treat the machine as it is presented in the actual world of Tyria? And with that I obviously mean that you can not interact with it, so, it doesn’t show a vision… all you have to do then is simply ignore the vision, but you can ‘find’ the machine, speculate on it/research it, but you can not have a vision in it …

Or, if you want to, why not have the same vision? it almost shows the same thing that scarlet saw, the difference possibly because scarlet saw the vision with her being part of it (so her vision includes some of her actions and consequences as they relate to the vision). But as ‘all’ character that play the LS see the same vision, and seem to not be effected by it other than being in awe. Why couldn’t your character see it as well… It is as if you can’t be that ‘special snowflake’ because everybody is, but then you can’t experience what everybody does because ‘you are a special RP snowflake?’

Another way I thought of to include knowledge of it, is to consider a possible link between an other one of your characters (that did do the LS), or as a group acknowledge a link to such a character. And have you character or your group ‘be informed’ about certain affairs. Similar to how you as a player (and or You and the Biconics) seem to be informed by this E…

Or a combination of these, f/e you are informed about the vision and details about Q. you go there yourself, but find the machine inoperable… Or perhaps some NPC in town overheard some adventurers talk about a machine and ‘what the vision means’ as they seem to leave DryTop to the West… or, you name it…

To me it feels like the machine is so much part of the whole story line that it would be a shame to omit it from your own storyline, and it would be hard to just ignore a part of the map just because you know something about the location that your character can’t know, or wouldn’t know in relation to RP’ing. As can be seen above, I would have worked with it, or at least acknowledged it as a part of the world, as it is presented in said world, an inoperable impressive piece of technology…

ps. Obviously you can’t see beyond the vision and make up your own stuff, or have consequences that apparently our LS characters also didn’t have, nor can you (for now) assume it’s part of a recording… So all you have to do then is to acknowledge that once you stare that dragon in the eye, you break free, get removed… it’s easier though to just see it as it is in the actual world, inoperable, but clearly there in front of your face…

Every single PC gets that same line.

But yeah, if I was Rox and Co. and they just heard my Sylvari spout that when she got out of the machine, I’d be pretty dang worried too.

Cliff.8679:

Killing off Trahearne would be great. It could open the doors for a storyline in which the Pact falls apart and the fight against the dragons becomes focused on the different nations working together rather than the orders.

Bonus if he gets corrupted like Scarlet and Aerin and we get to put him down ourselves. I’ll be the first to say that the hate surrounding Trahearne isn’t so much his fault as a character and it is more a failing of the personal story itself, but the two have become so heavily associated there really isn’t any escaping the stigma anymore.

Trahearne standing in battle stance , facing right at the player, with an army of undead and corrupted plants behind him…
Could you imagine the Squee Heard Round the World when that trailer got released?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There was no “aspect of Ceara”. Why do people want to idolize – heroize, or whatever – a rather poor character and an obviously pure evil villain at that?

Because of the things she says which implies she feels that she’s helping the world somehow.

It’s not like we know why she did it yet.

Vesuvius.9874:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You realize that Mordremoth wouldn’t even be awake if not for Scarlet’s destroying Lion’s Arch?

Yeah, she’s no hero. Stop trying. Please.

Mordremoth would’ve woken up eventually anyway, with or without Scarlet. Regardless, unless you have an explanation for Scarlet’s statement where she said Tyria will need her one day, there will always be people questioning, “Was she really the villain people think she is?”

I think your right Mordremoth would of woken up and with more power because of zhaitan’s death but the shock that got Mordremoth up now is like getting some one up before they are ready so he week atm that why he using his vines to draw in as much power as he can. Think of it this way zhaitan moved a land mass with this power yet Mordremoth only can muster growing vines. Mordremoth is not nearly as powerful as zhaitan but he is trying to get to that point. I say Scarlet saved the world from another major zhaitan event at the cost of many lives but no where as near as the live that would of been lost if Mordremoth was at full power.

As for the next dragon we are not going to have the help of some one like scarlet because these dragon are already up and doing things they just have not made there move yet. So that could be the “miss her when she gone” ideal.

As far as we know, there are only six dragons.

So far, there is no solid evidence to suggest the Pale Tree is a dragon champion, and there have been many threads pointing out why it isn’t likely. If anything, Mordremoth has a connection to/via the Nightmare (implied by the thorn wolves/husks being very similar to Nightmare hounds and summoned husks), but not the Pale Tree/sylvari, outside of being plantlike as they are.

As for the Eternal Alchemy/Tree connection, I admittedly can’t say anything conclusive about that. I find it rather hard to believe that a tree that sprouted only 25 years ago (granted, it was around longer than that, but only much later did it finally bear fruit) is suddenly somehow a key to the understanding of Tyria’s inner workings.

This all seems to come back to the mystery of where the Pale Tree’s seed came from, and what it was meant for. Hopefully, as we progress further into the Maguuma, we may yet come across the one other tree we know to have spawned, and maybe find some clue to the Trees’ origins.

Are you there yet, Malyck? Or has Mordy got you??

i’d like to see my buddies from the order of whispers make a return. i’d also like it if the priory guys in dry top stopped asking me if Gixx sent me, when i’ve never been a member of the priory (not on my main, at least). would it hurt to pool the character’s order from the personal story, rather than from the account bound flags from the login screen?

OP is kinda right about Trahearne. I would add though, that the one thing that makes him annoying for me is his voiceover. That bored, lethargic voice and the lifeless tone of it. And I don’t think this can be properly explained with “oh but he’s a moody necro” or “he’s a scholar studying the dead, ofc he sounds lethargic” – hell no.

Add my vote to “not killing off Trahearne”.

This “overwhelming community hate” seems to come from isolated forum posts as far as I can tell and is not indicative of a wider “hatred” in the general player base.

I really have no issues with Trahearne – in fact, I find him quite likeable. He is a noble and driven character with depth (self-doubts etc). Indeed, I have some theories about why people hate him so much (incidentally, I believe it is partly due to a more general anti-Sylvari hatred… I went over some analysis of this topic in a GW2Guru thread that was filled with Sylvari hatred).

Maybe someone should start a “I MISS TRAHEARNE” thread. Heck, maybe I will (I won’t really, since the first 10 replies will likely be filled with vitriolic hatred.)

But yeah, where IS Trahearne? His absence in the living story is becoming increasingly conspicuous.

I want more Lord Faren. I had such hopes for him in the beginning, and we have indeed gotten more of him in the LS than any other starter buddy.

Beyond him, I’d love to have all 5 racial starter buddies showing up. Maybe only in the PS parts of the LS, since character creation choices determine just who you have (hmmm, guess Human Street Rats would have to see Riot Alice, and she IS in Dry Top).