Guild Wars 2

It’s based off the “How will the Black Citadel react when they learn of the return of Rytlock?” tease Johanson threw at us- speculation on why that’d be relevant to the story at all. Personally, I think it’s more likely they’re picking the ghost banishment back up, but so far we don’t have much to guess off of.

All the same, though, we know DE hasn’t been to Cantha. There’s also concept art cutscenes in-game that show Zhaitan as a radically different creature than what we thought, or sylvari rousing druid husks. Both of those are misleading as well.

What I’m saying is, generally, you have to be skeptical with these things.

To be fair (again), at 0:13 it also looks like we see them in the Jade Sea. Concept art is tricky to take as proof.

To be fair, Snaff didn’t have any magical abilities, that he demonstrated, anyway. All of his magical contributions were made through devices and inventions, which is very engineer-y- although that’s assuming he could be pigeonholed into a profession, which I’m disinclined to do.

I think that’s a safe guess, but we’ve had a fair amount of story with him since then (for a minor NPC, anyway) and it hasn’t come up. Add in that little addition Rytlock made in S2 that Magdaer isn’t actually useful for getting rid of the ghosts, and I doubt we’ll be seeing it in the foreseeable future.

The simple answer is: we have no idea.

The slightly longer answer is that it could happen, but not until the story is ready to head that way, and quite frankly we can’t even say where the story is heading next.

Having slept on it, I think the main reason I object to the idea that the story has merely shifted conflicts is that it’s only done so on the player’s level. For our characters, the protagonists actually driving this story, the little hints scattered about don’t seem to have made an impact. We the players have taken them, decided they’re relevant, and built predictions and extrapolations on their framework- but for the characters, the Apostate’s was only one of many, many irrelevant books in the library. Ogden’s comment was something of an aside in an answer that was itself meant for a very general question, and even then he qualified it as one theory out of several. The character’s only articulated motivation to seek the egg was that the Pale Tree was desperate that they should, and that they’d rather have a dragon as a friend than an enemy. No sooner did they say as much than Caithe let sylvari players know that wasn’t the half of it, but that hasn’t been elaborated on. While we players may see the signs that a shift is coming, as far as the character is aware, Mordremoth is the only thing to worry about at this point. They emphasize that at every opportunity, with a variety of NPCs pitching in to agree.

That, I think, is why the conflict in the expansion feels so muddled. Our character had an urgent mission, missing friends, an elder dragon being treated no different then Zhaitan, but abruptly veered partway through for the sake of writing on the wall that we could see but they couldn’t. Instead of making the necessary move to bring the character in on why that was important, this supposed true conflict gets left behind after a mere two instances and never mentioned in the rest of the story. At this point they should have doubled down on the Mordremoth conflict, but the detours we engage in ostensibly to that end don’t contribute anything. After that drawn-out lull, things become a jumbled rush. We practically trip into the final boss battle, and the story cuts off abruptly as soon as it finishes. I agree that it looks like ArenaNet is shifting gears for their story down the road, but HoT didn’t feel like a transition. It felt like trying to set the stage for the next conflict by sweeping the existing one out of the way, as hastily as possible, and since they were setting the pieces in their new place why not drag the player’s eyes out to watch? For all the extra voice work our avatars got, HoT hit a low in treating them less like characters than a mouthpiece for plot convenience, and it blunted the impact of- well, just about everything.

TL;DR: Foreshadowing is well and good, but when there’s a schism between the conflict communicated to the player and the one communicated to the character, the character’s is supposed to take precedence. HoT got this backwards.

If I can jump on the Lord of the Rings comparisons: what we got was a Fellowship and Two Towers (S1 and S2) where Sauron was the menacing big bad throwing his pawns against us at every turn, secure beyond our reach, the destination of the heroic quest- and a Return of the King where we get sidetracked right in the middle of the assault on Gondor with planning for the rebuilding after Sauron’s defeat. And after that, instead of something happening to refocus our attentions, we kinda just trundle onward vaguely in Mordor’s direction, taking detours on any passing whim, until we trip our way into the heart of Barad-Dur and remember oh yeah, we need to get around to killing the Dark Lord. How lucky we happen to have this Ring now!

Oh, and the last six chapters are just missing.

And even that’s not ‘living’, per se- best we can tell, it’s a disembodied imprint of a consciousness that a revenant can draw a watered down version of the original’s power through. We don’t even know if the legends are capable of awareness when they aren’t being channeled.

It happens from time to time- although I am glad this one’s on the short side. Maybe it’s because we’re supposed to be the spot to discuss the story? But it’s not particularly unusual.

While it’s a fascinating read, I think you may be overestimating the power of the dragons here. While they certainly have formidable regional impact, none of them has reached the point of global catastrophe yet, with the partial exception of the tidal wave Zhaitan set off. Jormag in particular- while it’s not a stretch to see Primordus acting as catalyst to a disaster we’re already concerned might be overdue, Jormag triggering an entire Ice Age is… well, he hasn’t done it in Tyria, not even close, and in our world he’d have substantially smaller magical resources to expend. And wiping out the US and Europe? From the very edge of the arctic circle, it’d be about 1900 miles just to get to DC, and don’t get me started on Texas. While we don’t have any firm scale on the size of Tyria, that strikes me as far larger than the sense we’ve gotten for the domain of any ED. Important bits of Europe might be closer, but even so, there’s no way ice monsters are going to devour all of Canada and Scandinavia while the other world powers sit on their hands. Game of Thrones is far too popular for that.

If I may pursue the Zhaitan tangent- it’s also possible that the windstorm effect had something to do with Mordremoth being planted at that hub. We’re told ley lines essentially act like riverbeds, acting as the path of least resistance. If that’s a reliable metaphor, when Mordremoth died, the energy followed these lines, like a river in flood. If the same burst of energy happened with Zhaitan, assuming he didn’t happen to land at a major line, you’d probably have something more like dropping a water balloon on the ground- it’ll splash everywhere, and while most of it will end up running ‘downhill’, it won’t be the same concentrated burst that you’d get if it all went one (or even four) ways.

I stress that if because it’d be entirely reasonable Zhaitan didn’t expel such energy. Two key points to remember here- first, Glint. Ogden at least believes she functioned on similar principles to an ED, just on a smaller scale, and when she died a goodly amount of power was retained within her corpse. The specific comparison used there is that the body is like a sponge. I take that to mean it has a holding capacity, if you will. Even setting aside the toll we took on Zhaitan’s resources, we find Mordremoth’s physical form in a literal pool of magic- and although mechanically the floor is just under the surface, it was deep enough that the massive Mouth was able to entirely submerge itself. There wasn’t anything remotely like that in Orr. Even the fabled Source didn’t seem to be pure magic. I see that as sufficient reason to believe that Mordremoth was over-saturated, perhaps vastly so, more than his form could contain without his will to hold it together. What we saw, I believe, isn’t necessarily what happens when an ED dies, but only the corpse expelling a potentially enormous excess.

And the catch there also being that they were artifacts from Cantha, where spirits were routinely bound. I can’t imagine custom-made artifacts that can invoke spirits didn’t have ritualists involved in their creation, which kind of misses what Agro is looking for.

Off the top of my head, Belinda’s ghost did voluntarily attach itself to her sword- although it bears mentioning that she hasn’t been seen to manifest since. There’s also the cursed pirate treasure at Broken Beacon, although you could argue whether that constitutes a ‘natural’ haunting.

It would be an… interesting set-up if all of the descendants were indeed channeled into a single warband per legion. For starters, where would their cubs go? Would they be inducted automatically into their primus-parent’s warband, breaking the glue of being raised and trained as a unit that holds any other warband together? Are they set up into succeeding generations of warbands, with the younger eventually replacing the older? If so, when does the replacement happen? When the imperator dies? When their legionnaire bests whoever the older generation puts forward to replace him? Would these younger warbands consist of members born at different times, and if so, would they be close enough together to overcome the problem with just shoving them in the old one? If not, are descendants of the Khan-Ur under some societal onus to all have cubs within a short period of time, to produce enough to fill out a warband?

1.) Short version? A genius for invention, an utter disregard for collateral damage, a persuasive streak we hear about but never see, and being left to work in the shadows until her pieces were already in motion. Most of her power, such as it was, wasn’t her own, but a result of the number and diversity of villains she got working for her over a fairly considerable period of time. Her inventions were formidable, but they were only the final product of that process.
2.) The Queen didn’t. The illusion was only a precaution for the final speech- and seeing as the opening ceremony had been disrupted, it was a reasonable one to take. As for Lord Faren, and the other representatives, Scarlet was looking to take the queen hostage. We don’t know why, since that part didn’t work out, but it stands to reason that she would have taken measures to keep her prize alive.
3.) A three pronged assault- the Aetherblade fleet from above, the Toxic Alliance out of the bottom of the harbor, and the Molten Alliance tunneled up into Fort Marriner and brought more forces in by portal. Once in place, these groups started setting up distributors for a miasma that put an end to any resistance within the city. Our liberation attempts were snuck in during the times the wind was right to disperse the cloud.
4.) Yes and no. Yes: we knew the attack was coming, and even warned the Captain’s Council, but besides for a couple members who were essentially in our pocket, they didn’t believe Scarlet to be a credible threat and didn’t invest in defenses. No: even if they had listened, the way they were attacked would’ve been nearly impossible to counter, especially given they had only about a month’s notice . Lion’s Arch at the time only had a couple airships to its name, so it couldn’t fend off the entire Aetherblade fleet. Repositioning their cannons might have helped, but those weren’t made to be used as anti-air weapons. Stopping krait from moving along the bottom of the harbor would’ve required engaging them underwater, where they have a huge advantage. And the Molten Alliance strike, which used dredge burrowers and Flame portals, would’ve been impossible to prevent.
5.) Before that instance, we engage her on her airship in the open world- and by ‘her’ I mean giant holograms of herself, but apparently destroying them had an effect. Feedback? Catastrophic overload? Trip on the stairs on her way out? We don’t really know.
6.) ‘Days’ is all we’re told- so somewhere between two to thirteen days is a safe range. The actual number doesn’t matter too much, though. ANet plays very loose with chronology.
7.) That’d take a much longer answer to tell in full, but again, short version? During the first Molten Alliance attacks, you ran into Braham and Rox, Braham looking for help for his homestead and Rox getting ordered to protect a Blood Legion hatchery, and volunteer to help both of them. Kasmeer you first bump into on Southsun, where she’s a bystander in the struggle with Canach, and then you’re later referred to her partner Marjory as the best detective to investigate the assassination of a Lion’s Arch council member. Taimi just shows near the end, eager to see the Marionette Scarlet built, and attaches herself to Braham to avoid being sent back to Rata Sum. If that sounds haphazard and all over the place- well, it was. It wasn’t until really about ten months into the season that an overarching narrative began to become clear.

Our knowledge could be lacking, and Rytlock could have provable descent from the last Khan-Ur.

The requirement for such descent could be deemed an outdated antiquity that simply hasn’t been convincingly challenged yet- every single other position in charr society is awarded on some form of pure merit, and the society they most enjoy badmouthing has dynasties as one of their defining traits, so it’s not an unlikely social evolution to make.

While I will never argue in favor of retcons, they have already set a precedent of overwriting the only source on the matter- the sole place where it’s stated that imperators are descended from the Khan-Ur also says “The primus warband of any legion carries the name of that legion–Ash, Blood, Iron and in the case of the Gold Legion, Flame”- but none of the current three with known charr surnames actually do- and “within a hundred years only a few Charr outside the Gold Legion bothered to remember the original name”- when, again, the opposite is true. I believe I’ve only seen the term Gold Legion once in-game, and I can’t remember where, so I may well be mistaken even in that.

I’m not particularly keen on seeing Rytlock as imperator, much less eventual Khan-Ur, but that’s just because it seems like bad writing to me. The in-universe objections would be fairly easy, and perhaps even interesting, to overcome.

And to be fair, it’s about as legendary as what Grymm Svaard did. His big deed was to kill his own brother which, while tragic, couldn’t have been unheard of in the campaign against Zhaitan.

To be fair, though, we have the probable White Mantle/definite bandit activity in the latest story content, and the bridge in northern Brisban is just as natural an entry point to anything set up there. There’s also the charr barricade in southeastern Maelstrom, but when we got a new map out that way back in S1, it wasn’t used at all. There’re a lot of pieces in place- enough that we’ve never reliably been able to guess which will be used next, or if the next story will use them at all.

@KestrelGirl, you might also be remembering a map-wide Mordrem event than ran in Diessa shortly before HoT’s release. Alas, it was temporary content, so you won’t be seeing it again. Either Diessa or Iron Marches, though, the mordrem activity has still been a fair distance away from the Shatterer.

He’s an event/skill designer, though. Any special thanks to him doesn’t require a new model for said species.

Are we sure it’s a new model? There’ve been branded minotaurs about since launch, after all.

Blech. Not ’til April at the earliest? I was expecting a break, but given how small HoT was, six months seems… excessive. Especially given the nine month lull preceding it.

Anyway, while I am put out by the total absence of any sylvari plot threads from that list, I’m still a little pleased to see a broad range being promised. From its conception the LS has suffered from being too narrow, focusing on tiny points in the world and a single plot arc while putting everything else on hold. Even at its best, S2 never tried to go beyond two parallel arcs at a time. HoT, in its own way, had a similar shortcoming. I doubt they’ll hit the sweet spot on their first try, but the fact that they are willing to try advancing multiple plots at once is encouraging.

The short version is… none of us know, except for the one from S2/HoT, naturally.

We can probably be sure Kralk didn’t get them, because the last egg was left behind in the ruins of Glint’s lair, but beyond that, it seems to be a deliberate mystery ANet is setting up. In specific, we know that someone in Glint’s lair gave the Zephyrites that egg, but when Ogden Stonehealer teased that he knew who it was he turned around and said “Then you’re not meant to know just yet. All things in their time.”

The researchers, at least, I know have been around since launch. They’re just in a surprisingly out-of-the-way spot, away from where you’d go naturally while doing hearts or map comp; I’m not surprised you hadn’t chanced on them before. The bridge bit is a sort-of reference to the area in GW1, back when crossing free-floating rock was a much bigger deal than it is in this game.

The glow… I could be wrong, but they look like they’re just flowers on a lower graphics setting. I’ll jump on and take a peek.

EDIT: Yep, flowers. They weren’t glowing quite as bright on my settings… and then again, between the sylvari and asura, glowing plants aren’t that strange along the Tarnished Coast.

Not the surface, necessarily. Those gates were theoretically linked to every city and outpost the asura had ever had, except for the most far-flung ones, but while some were in shallower caves, the main asura civilization was deep enough that it wouldn’t consistently get them to the surface any faster. What it would mean is when they did get to the surface, they’d be all over the place, not confined by the boundaries of a single contiguous territory the way other dragon minions are- but how much of an impact that had depends entirely on whether the asura disable the Chamber in the 42 year lull between the Great Destroyer’s destruction and Primordus’ rise.

The reason the Chamber was so important is that it was adjacent to the Great Destroyer’s lair. If we couldn’t get there, we couldn’t stop the threat. Until we found that out, we didn’t give taking the place back any thought.

I’m with Deleena. The devs have been a little vague about the gods’ departure- no doubt it is yet another story thread that’s ‘on the table’- but between what they have said and my own feel on the blanks, I’m thinking the gods had come to see their help as causing more harm than good, both in terms of widespread devastation and in human over-dependence. They might come back if it comes down to that or the human’s certain destruction (in Cantha and Elona as well; remember they didn’t step in to save Ascalon or Orr), but so long as we show we’re handling things, however poorly, I expect they’ll keep their distance.

What we saw with the risen navy was a ten-year gap before if attacked anywhere. What we saw was just ten attacks on Lion’s Arch in the city’s first twenty-six years. What we saw was Claw Island easily overrun because the Lionguard commander could not believe Zhaitan would send a fleet large enough to overrun them. All of that points to the dead ships attacking only sporadically, which naturally means they spend most of their time not attacking.

Some squires, and the knights probably were knights at one point- and there’s also the coral encrusted risen, the preservers and despoilers and the like, who are partially armored. Still, it feels more like the leavings of the army you’d expect the Orrians to have while fighting a war on their own soil.

As for the monks- I’ve always seen the acolytes as sufficient proof of what drax is talking about. They’re clearly the remains of the religious faction of Orr, exactly the ones you’d expect to be monks, yet even the ones who served Dwayna are necromancers now.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Wait are you saying that Zhaitan left its main naval fleet at places which nobody came and would bring itself no benefit, even when Orr was under attack?

Considering that that is exactly what Zhaitan did with all of the Orrian risen before, and during the Pact invasion?

You’re missing one very, very important aspect of Elder Dragon behavior- how they treat territory.

Consider, for the moment, the single example of the Quinatl Deadgrounds. Now, this once village is never threatened. There’re no events, no PS steps, that ever show an attempt to take it back, or even visit. As you would put it, it is not “someplace when it could bring the dragon more magic or minions”, a place “which nobody came and would bring itself no benefit.” It is well behind the risen lines in the area, secure, but is close enough to multiple battlefronts in the region that it’s garrison could easily move up. The structures are all a ruin, with nothing left that could pass as a fortification, it’s set back from the sea by rocky cliffs, and at any rate it doesn’t have any weaponry that could reach that far. In short, the place holds not the least bit of strategic or tactical significance.

And yet, the risen are there. Hylek, in fact, in about the right numbers to be the original inhabitants. There is no question they are not helping the dragon’s standing where they are, there is no doubt that they’d be more effective in that regard just a short distance north… and yet, they are here. Why?

Think of Zhaitan as a pragmatist, a general looking to wage a war, and there is no answer. The predictions provided by that theory do not match the reality, and so it must be discarded. What we actually see here is an interest in territory and in keeping minions throughout that territory, and even in having them go in in a mockery of their lives before.

Now expand beyond this example. Consider the Orrian villagers who go on plowing the land, growing nothing, , instead of moving to block the Pact supply caravans passing by their fields. Consider the various high priests in the Arah explorable, who failed to emerge to help the High Wizard stop the Pact from striking at their master. Consider the undead of Murkvale who shamble beneath the bridge, sending only small numbers against the Pact bases, preferring to keerp their horde camped in their worthless tract of swamp.

So, yes. If the risen fleet sat out the fighting, they’d be following a pattern that’s very well attested to.

Oh, and on trade- are you saying the charr are so dependent on asuran goods that they need to have them shipped through LA? If the charr are that interested, why don’t the asura simply make them pay extra to use the gates?

It’s necessary for the asura and Lion’s Arch, maybe humans. The norn, charr, and Ebonhawke are landlocked, the sylvari have shown no inclination for sea travel, and we don’t know whether the humans have any ports left besides Garenhoff, which is only a small port that can reach Lion’s Arch without going anywhere near the southern seas.

As for the Pact- I repeat that they have demonstrated just about no strength at sea. But let’s put that aside for now, because you’re insisting things are otherwise. The question to discuss seems to be whether the risen fleet, without Zhaitan sending them fresh orders, is aggressive enough by itself to necessitate Pact intervention.

I don’t think characterizing them is a bad thing, though. The force of nature angle only works if you can sell them as that powerful in the final fight, and so far, ArenaNet’s had two fairly underwhelming ones. That isn’t a bad thing of itself; it’s just a reflection of the development prioritizing accessibility and a personally heroic narrative. It does mean, though, that their stories need to be tweaked so that they’re still rewarding with those priorities. That’s where I see the characterization as coming from, and yes, it means moving away from a force-of-nature concept that wasn’t reconciling with how they wanted their game to play.

As for megalomania- I feel that’s pretty believable in creatures that have no difficulty twisting living things, and even landscapes, to their service, creatures who remake their surroundings in their image, creatures that have seen the rise of untold numbers of civilizations and been personally responsible for their falls. You can forgive a god complex in something that behaves like a god.

Erukk.1408:

The Exalted were recruited and construction of Tarir began 200 years ago, but I don’t think we were ever given an exact date in which the last Forgotten died. Only that it was sometime between then and now.

I’d agree it might be an oversight, but I don’t think it’s a horribly massive one, especially since we don’t know the average lifespan of a Forgotten.

I think the idea is supposed to be that the speech came before their hibernation, though, and that the hibernation came before Rata Novus fell- which certainly wasn’t in the last decade or so.

Off the top of my head I can think of two events where the Pact use their own ships, total. Both are flying Lion’s Arch banners, leading me to believe they’re borrowed. In the first case the ship is exceedingly vulnerable to generic underwater risen, to the point that I’ve never actually seen the event succeed- it gets sunk every time I try. And even assuming success is canon, what saves it? The crew jumping overboard and fighting personally. In the second case the ship is used solely to make a delivery to a secured dock.

That’s it. That’s the Pact’s fleet of normal ships right there.

As for the reason we don’t want to go to Elona or Cantha, maybe it’d help you understand our reasons if we imagined what a Tyrian trade ship docking would look like, given what we last knew.

Elona: undead dictator. Willing to play nice, but only to the people who bow down before him. He may have any foreign ship assaulted at once, seeing outside influence as only a chance to stir up resistance to his rule, but I’d wager instead he’d simply seize and imprison the crew for questioning. He’d have the trade goods as tribute- after all, the well-being of his people doesn’t matter to him, so he doesn’t stand to benefit materially from trade. The only advantage to the situation is if he could be seen accepting homage from peoples in other lands. He might release the envoys, send them back, but I’d count on him sending with them a message that the only ships he’d allow to dock thereafter are those bearing lavish presents for him, and that their crews would be strictly monitored, their movements limited, to keep them from causing trouble. That’s a net loss for the Pact.

Now, Cantha- xenophobic, isolationist emperor who tolerates no political dissent. You can count on any non-humans arriving to be killed on sight, but let’s assume an all-human crew, for argument’s sake. We know that Cantha traded with Kryta under Usoku- but that was a Kryta at war with the charr, a Kryta supreme within its own borders and barely tolerant of the non-humans beyond them. This new multi-culturalism trend, epitomized by the orders and the Pact you’re suggesting would clear the way to Cantha? That’s a very, very dangerous sort of thinking to the emperor. Safer to close the ports, but, hey, maybe as long as they’re all humans and they keep their mouths shut, trade might be worth suffering them.

Great. So… now what? Is this trade the sort of military support that defeating the dragons would require? No. Is it providing vital supplies? Probably not. Cantha as we left it had a massive population it could barely feed; you’re not going to get much in the way of raw goods from that sort of country. Maybe they have luxury goods, silk and the like, maybe even jade. Maybe Kryta’s also stabilized enough that they can start exporting food, and so get money from that.

So where does that leave the Pact? One nation, Kryta, getting richer. That’s of no immediate benefit, and while it might result in more Krytan aid down the line, what happens when you find yourselves with a prosperous ally who owes their wealth and success to bigoted xenophobes? What’s that kind of reliance and influence going to do to the interconnected Tyrian culture the Pact needs to exist? What could the Pact possibly get in the short term that’s worth that risk? And that’s not the only risk. What I’ve laid out is a best-case scenario. See all the maybes up there? If a single one of those goes wrong, the Pact’s looking at all this effort going to waste, with the possibility of a very powerful new enemy thrown into the bargain.

Now consider that they’re considering that Bubbles is out there somewhere. Add in the chance of grabbing the attention of the last Elder Dragon that’s left them alone so far.

Honestly, does any of that still sound like a good idea to you?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Mordremoth talking isn’t tied to his spheres either – while sylvari hearing him from far away is, Mordremoth talked personally as well. This means the other dragons can too. Though I hope they do it a bit more cleverly than “and now they talk!” because that would be silly. Maybe a progressive ‘over the course of the campaign the dragon learns the Tyrian tongue as it sees it more and more as a threat’ or something – something that would explain why Zhaitan never talked.

I don’t think it’d take too much explaining to handle that. In this one case, the lack of impact Zhaitan personally had works in their favor. What would it have said to us in the brief period it was on screen? Yelled out threats, as if its presence in the sky wasn’t threatening enough? Begged for mercy? Supposedly, the Elder Dragons are able to draw on the knowledge of their thralls to some extent, so it’d be a hard sell to convince us that Zhaitan didn’t understand our language, but relatively easy to believe that it didn’t have anything to say to us during that all-too-short fight.

A.) No. Djinn have power, but not that much power. I’d put them more or less on par with the stronger magic users of the playable races. The only thing they really have going for them is their (rare) ability to grant wishes, but even that’s more along the lines of just magicing up wealth.

B.) No. Just… no.

C.) Apparently not. Maybe nothing can be done, or maybe people figure his value to the community trumps trying to figure out his freedom. I’d lean towards the latter, though- there’s some reason to believe djinn need to be bound to something.

D.) Quite a few people, actually. In the distant past, it was apparently a fairly regular practice among the more powerful and rich mages in Vabbi, and maybe elsewhere in Elona. Nothing beyond human capabilities, at any rate. We don’t know specifically who bound Zommoros, though.

E.) No. You’re thinking Mad King Thorne. Zommoros can make an appearance whenever he likes- and he did so to help us during the karka attack- but he doesn’t like to often. He’s not very, ah, sociable.

F.) Not in the world, but what do we do for the gods? At all? There’s one quest in the personal story, I suppose, but we get fair payment for our trouble.

I don’t remember the events of the launch game or SoS clearly enough to give accurate counts, but I know that in EoD they only fought one ship- and they didn’t destroy it, it retreated in the end.

Actually, given the fact that all the bone ships started out as sunken ships, and that we only ever sink them in game, you have to wonder if any of them were actually ‘destroyed’ or if they could’ve been repaired, given time.

Now, as for good reasons why the Pact may not have cleared out the remaining fleet:
1.) Without Zhaitan around to drive them towards any particular spot, they’re likely to default to attacking living things on sight. Aside from the ones in the shipping lanes- shipping lanes charted out after Orr’s return to avoid the undead blockade as best they can- these ships pose no threat to the races that make up the Pact, and can afford to be neglected.
2.) The Pact has no particular power at sea. They have airships, but those can only be applied against surfaced dead ships, and they seem to only do that when docking or attacking. They have submarines, but those submarines are fragile and have no guns capable of aquatic operation- in fact, even in the main invasion of Orr, they had to be escorted by swimming troops to make it through intact. We very, very rarely see the Pact operations using actual ships, and those that are around, they seem to have borrowed from the Lionguard.
3.) There’s nothing of known value beyond the ships. The Ring of Fire islands were considered ludicrously perilous even before any of the Elder dragons were stirring. The coast south of Orr, from what we saw in GW1 anyway, is all uninhabited mountains down to Kourna, and it’s set in such a way that the tidal wave likely couldn’t have reshaped to topography the way it did in the Sea of Sorrows. The argument could be made that it’d clear the path to Cantha and Elona, but both of those, at last report, would be more likely enemies (which we have more than enough of) than allies, and the Pact seems aware there’s a sixth dragon out there that could further complicate matters.

Deleena.3406:

I think its a (well done) attention to detail thing to show how the Pact fleet was pulled down. (basically a origin of all those vines up above)

I think it’s pretty much this. From what we’ve heard about Mordremoth and how he spreads, I suspect that vine layer is under every map, except Tangled Depths- but in Verdant Brink it had to break out through the surface to take the fleet, leaving it exposed.

As for the point, Zhaitan was very hard to miss when he took to the fight. I suspect their idea was to flush Mordremoth out of hiding and deal with him when he was out in the open.

Depends entirely on what you mean by “their own”, but since said legends seem to be compelled to lend their aid… by most meaningful measures, I’d say all of it. They cherry pick what they want from what’s available in the Mists, but they use it as they see fit. That’s not so different from any other class, which draw from the ambient magic available in the world of Tyria.

The two times we have associated with Joko’s activities are approximately 1135 A.E. and 1275 A.E. . The first is when he started his invasion, but we don’t know how long his conquest took. The second is when most of the refugees who make up the Elonian population in DR fled, but that was well after Zhaitan’s rise.

That said, though, there was a 103 year gap between Joko building his palace and his first invasion, and a sixty year gap between his return and second invasion. Lengthy stretches of time don’t mean we’re safe from him.

He had personal connections, and several of them did pay off- but we’re talking a blacksmith who can help make weapons, or a scout who can poke around a flooded temple. Nothing political. Besides at the Grove, where he was essentially born into a position of power, he never displays any sway in any of the big population centers, let alone with the institutions who run them. Even in Lion’s Arch- remember how he couldn’t even get the Lionguard to take their own job seriously? When it becomes necessary to win over these groups on the threat of the Elder Dragons, it all falls down to the Commander and Biconics.

Oh, I don’t know. Trahearne’s the only bar that’s been set, and he had no military planning or political connections. The first, he picked up on the job, and the second he got by without for years, and then had the Tree and us cover that part for him.

I think the only real requirement for the post is being someone the leaders of each Order respect. While at the time of the PS relations between them were acrimonious to the point that the prospect of anyone with affiliations to one was thrown out without consideration, I’m optimistic that three years of fighting together may have led to certain officers earning that respect.

This is a rather moot argument, seeing as our official word on the matter (Argon posted the link AND this quote up above) is -and emphasis is mine- " a brand-new revenant starting on their journey will not have had to visit the Mists or undergo any more of an advanced process to access revenant powers than they would for the other core professions. All that’s necessary to begin training as a revenant is knowledge of the profession, the faith and will to reach into the Mists, and an open mind." Emphasis mine.

Kalavier.1097:

Eh, Sylvari – Asura isn’t as big as Charr -humans was.

Scarlet’s actions really only caused anti-Sylvari feelings within Lion’s Arch itself, and I’d be disappointed if Anet suddenly has everybody and their grandmother know about the true origins of Sylvari without any build up. The first REAL wave of news about that after all would include the Pact soldiers explicitly told by Laranthir/Commander to spread the word that “Not all Sylvari are evil/belong to the dragon!”

I think they’ve already jumped to the everyone knows aspect. When we first reach the scene, in that Silverwastes intro instance, before you’ve even left that first fort, random Pact members are shooting out “You’re also a dragon minion. Reports say all sylvari are.” If they’re holding that it’d already gotten that far and that accepted in less time than it took the commander to trek out to the cave and back, at that rate it’ll easily be all over Tyria by the time Mordremoth falls. I don’t like it, but I also don’t think ANet’s displayed any interest in disputed information as a story device.

EdwinLi.1284:

The issues for each races have not been resolved and are just on hold. We have…

-Ministry vs the Throne (With the ministry still using the Bandits and sabotaging the Seraph)
-Struggle to keep the Human and Charr peace together
-Ascalonian ghost still plague the Charrs and certain amount of Charr still think it is pointless to put effort against the Elder Dragons becuase they don’t see them as a threat.
-Majority of the Asura Council still believe they are safe from the Elder Dragons and still attempt to hide any information from the Asuran Public.
-Sylvari are now revealed to be Elder Dragon minions which the public will most likely not take well to eventhough Mordy is dead because now this may lead to question all Sylvari’s actions.
-Norn are still suffering from Son of Svanir raids which all we did in Season 2 was slow them down so the Norn can provide some small Norn force into the Pact.

Running down this list one by one, with an eye to whether the Commander’s absence would make any difference:
-Still a conflict here, but two major factors are in the way. First, it’s largely been dampened down. What we’re seeing here in terms of actual threat is the Ministry enabling two proxies, with a single mastermind seeming to orchestrate much of the exchange. That mastermind is now under surveillance, and one of the proxies is pretty well contained. The bandits are still a force to be reckoned with, but if anything major happened at this point, it’d almost have to be them acting on their own. The second is that this is already a conflict we haven’t touched in three years. Why would another couple make a difference?
- This I think we can fully discount. There is no struggle there. All involved authorities are entirely on board, and the player has had practically no involvement with the peace talks. There’s room for the Blood Legion leadership to throw a pretty major spanner in the works, but it’d be hard to accommodate that outside an expansion, and our presence wouldn’t be able to prevent it.
-This is still legitimate. What we saw of the ritual only worked on a localized scale, and there’s no reason to believe Rytlock improved on it while he was gone. Add in the disaster over the jungle and Smodur might withdraw his support from the anti-dragon effort. Our absence, in this case, would deprive the Pact of the only major advocate they have outside the orders, so we might have to court him back around. I’m just not sure a time skip would make any difference to that story.
-Still legitimate, but our character has already proved unable to make a dent in that particular mess.
-This’d probably be the best pick. As the one who defeated Mordremoth, the highest-ranked survivor of the world’s largest multi-race force, and possibly a sylvari ourselves, our word will stand to hold a huge amount of sway on this issue. Without us tamping down public outcry and suspicion, we may yet get what we saw in that first teaser trailer.
-It’s hard to say how much that matters. Season 2 referred to something along the line of increased activity, but only routed us through a pre-existing meta. In any event, though, the Sons don’t seem to have leaders any more than the regular norn (that is to say, no one enemy would lead more than a small party), so our ability to defang them is going to be very limited until we take out Jormag. Our presence or absence won’t matter beyond the outcome of individual confrontations.

Tebasil.4961:

But, Waine didn’t die if you choosed the Order of Whispers plan.
I can see where you’re getting from, but if Waine’s death solely depends on the players decision, then I don’t think it’s that solid.

You don’t kill Waine personally on that path, but he still dies. You can see his corpse next to the sword, and the Seraph you bribe is very distraught over it.

Deleena.3406:

In the time it would take to burn down the whole Maguuma jungle mordy could prolly grow 10 new bodies. (look how devastating The Searing was and it still didint kill all the plant life in ascalon) /although kinda make you wonder why didnt the Pact use a Searing Cauldron like in orr XD)

Generally speaking, I think burning down a jungle home to several different groups of friendlies is frowned upon.

I’m not so sure that we’re that close to Mordremoth’s death in the raid. One of the journals note “The pylons have been imbued with energy ever since the windstorm.” Those would have to be the pylons that generate the vale guardians, unless you argue they’re referring to something from a future wing. Another entry, though, says “Sabetha thinks there might be a search party coming for the prisoners. I don’t think they’ll make it past the guardians. No one has.”

That would suggest enough time has passed since Mordremoth’s death, and the subsequent formation of the vale guardians, to allow multiple incursions to have been fended off, enough that the bandits are confident in them as a defense. If that’s the case, is it a stretch to believe they’ve also had time to examine and reach basic conclusions about another entity that may be post-Mordremoth?

As for the PoI name, there’s no shortage of places in the game that have more recent names for old ruins. Even ignoring, for instance, most of Orr, Lost Precipice certainly wouldn’t be called such during its habitation by its original builders. Given those ruins seem not to have been continuously occupied (the dates on the graves make a huge jump from 1079 straight to 1328), I’d not be surprised if bandits referred to the place by the great monster lurking there instead of bothering to dig up what it originally was named. Ditto with the Pact Commander, newly arrived in the area and in the midst of an urgent rescue mission.

The event NPC mentions it, supposedly. I haven’t seen it myself, but I’m told it’s one of the first two events in south lane, the one you have to talk to someone to start.

Hm. So it’s been brought to my attention that in Dragon’s Stand, you actually come across an Inquest barrier in the first events in south lane. The area behind is the POI ‘Rata Novan Remnants’, though, and the area has no one but chak. Maybe there was an Inquest krewe working out there, and they suffered the same fate as the previous asura?

Well, the Inquest isn’t the sharing type, so I’m not surprised we didn’t ask them for anything. Also remember that before Heart of Thorns the Pact was convinced they knew all they needed to (including everything the Inquest at CoE knew, by way of Zojja), and during the expansion we were in too much of a hurry to leave the jungle to seek information that may or may not exist.

I am surprised there weren’t any Inquest labs in the jungle, though. They were all over Orr, and Dry Top as well. They’re clearly not afraid of dragon territory.