Guild Wars 2

Copestetic.5174:

lordkrall.7241:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The thing to keep in mind is that Rurik’s betrayal could severely undermine the King, and have a bad effect on troop morale. And his journey across the Shiverpeaks could just as easily have resulted in the death of all those Ascalons, and not just himself. Its easy to look back in hindsight and say that he was right. But what he did was wrong, even if his intentions were good.

Wasn’t the choices basically: Stay and more or less guarantee the death of everyone or seek aid and risk the death of everyone?
I got that impression while playing the story at least.

Let’s not forget there’s factors that’s not getting any attention, and two of them are pride and honor. Obligation could be another, and patriotism as well. While Rurik and co. had no objections on saving their own skins, others stayed behind to fight a war for as long as they could; probably, due to the above.

I’d argue there’s no honor in leading people to a meaningless death, and pride and patriotism that have similar effects are more vice than virtue. A leader’s obligations are to his people, namely, to ensure their well-being, so obligation called Rurik- and Adelbern- to Kryta.

Obsidian.1328:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

The choice was either stay and die (oh look, that happened) or leave and maybe survive.

Then why did Ascalon win the war?

They didn’t. A single, out of game, source, about something else entirely, made mention of “recovering after the conflict”- which does not necessarily mean they won the war- and even if it was meant that way, in the game it was later shown that they most certainly weren’t winning. I get that you have some deep-seated issues with the direction GW2 went in, and I even sympathize to a certain point, but in this case it just doesn’t work. Even ignoring that you’re trying to hold one out-of-game line over numerous in-game indications, it wouldn’t make sense for Ascalon to win the war at that point- their food supplies had been reduced to whatever stores survived the Searing, the army would’ve taken heavy casualties in the same and been further reduced with Rurik’s schism, and as we later found out (although I’m sure you’ll argue that such ideas originated with the later teams) the charr still had plentifully fertile lands from which to feed and breed their forces. It was either a miracle or simply badly thought out that Adelbern managed to last for 20 years. Outright victory? Nothing short of Melandru and Balthazar’s direct intervention could’ve managed that.

Obsidian.1328:

lordkrall.7241:

Wasn’t the choices basically: Stay and more or less guarantee the death of everyone or seek aid and risk the death of everyone?

No. What gave you that idea?

The whole “if we stay here, we’re all gonna die” speech, I would imagine. It didn’t help that Adelbern’s response was basically “Yeah, well, you’re banished, so there!”

It’s been stated they don’t have internal organs, so it’s hard to say whether they’d be subject to flatulence. It’d depend on how close whatever they use as a digestive system mirrors how the human one works. I haven’t seen anything on it in game, and I don’t really expect to- ArenaNet doesn’t really go in for fart humor, for which I am duly grateful.

The ‘adventurer’ thing was just me expanding on krait/dredge/centaur situation. All a bit tongue in cheek. If it could be done bloodlessly, or with minimal resistance, as you claim, of course you’d be much better off, and Kryta would probably benefit from it long-term. Laid out like you’ve done it above, I think the tengu would be the only sticking point- I greatly doubt they made an agreement with Kryta when the whole reason they were in that mess is that Cantha flagrantly broke a similar agreement, and again in Cantha they’ve shown a willingness to die before bowing. Resistance there would be stiff, likely even if you could bring an airship fleet to the table.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

But the timeframe, though… yeah, I’ve got no excuses there. ArenaNet has always had a bit of a problem with times and distances. That all of this happened in a year is no more hard to believe than that the dwarvern civilization never progressed beyond swords and bows in 10,000 years.

I hate to invoke real life here, but humans in the real world also used spears, bows and arrows for 100,000 years – guns have only been around a few centuries.

Spears, yes, but the figure I’ve seen for bows is around 10,000 years- and I doubt the dwarves survived the Elder Dragons with stone tools. Possible, if the other races shouldered most of the burden, but that wouldn’t be my first guess.

narwhalsbend.7059:

In real life, technology progresses based on past inventions, but if this is true, how did helicopter technology progress from the current Pact Helicopters to the KT-29 Moahawk that the Ebon Vanguard uses at some point in the future? They are very different.

Maybe the charr eventually revisit their original design? It was quite a bit more conventional. Or perhaps the Moahawk is from an alternate future that we won’t end up at.

Sifting through this a bit, a few thoughts: first, rifles were widespread before the Pact formed. We know they’d gotten to the point of being issued to the Seraph at least a year before the game actually started.

As for the vehicles, you’re right…ish. The charr had a functioning prototype submarine developed over “many years”. They also drafted the idea for helicopters, but we help in the first test flight (which spins out of control and promptly crashes into a cliff), so that’s less than a year old. The airships were completely a Pact innovation, although they may have been based on human hot air balloons. (We do not know whether the airships or hot air balloons came first, however.)

For the turrets, the simple fact that we never see them in the field suggests to me they’re by nature immobile, probably due to the nature of their power sources- they appear to run on the same energy as the walls do. If that amount of power can’t be packed into something smaller than an airship, there’s still plenty of room for more conventional weaponry that doesn’t run on overcharged batteries.

But the timeframe, though… yeah, I’ve got no excuses there. ArenaNet has always had a bit of a problem with times and distances. That all of this happened in a year is no more hard to believe than that the dwarvern civilization never progressed beyond swords and bows in 10,000 years.

EDIT: Added more accurate information on the vessels.

Randulf.7614:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Randulf.7614:

They stated a few weeks back there will be some changes reverted back in the mission sequence, but that it was a time consuming job and there was no time frame for completion

Technically all they said is that they are working on fixing the issue. They never said the word “revert” in any variation, synonym, or synonym’s variation.

A strangely pedantic reply, but in order to appease, I have edited my post accordingly

Not at all pedantic. It means they’re just as likely to change it more to fit the new sequence as they are to change it back. Depending on how they go it, we could conceivably see a “fix” that just removes all the characters that die before hand, leaving the end of the PS not only lengthy but dull, or else make it so that no one dies- not something I’m necessarily opposed to, but again, it’d rob a lot of the quests of what was built to be their primary impact.

Worst-case scenarios, sure, but as the saying goes, it seems nothing’s off the table.

Personally, I’ve always seen Adelbern as a tragic hero, not a villain. The deck was stacked against him, and he had a fatal flaw- his inability to forgive opposition- but if not from circumstance and that one conceit, he’d have been a solidly good character.

To clear a few things up on the OPs notes on the dwarves- you’re confusing the Great Dwarf and King Jalis Ironhammer. The Great Dwarf was a deity who may or may not actually exist. All the things you’re attributing to the Great Dwarf were the acts of King Jalis, generally considered a great dwarf, but not a Great one. Further, it seemed like the dwarves, both Jalis and the rank and file, had no idea what the ritual was going to do, and also, Jalis doesn’t control or possess or otherwise puppeteer the other dwarves- the ritual altered all of their minds, Jalis included.

Mental Paradox.3845:

I expected this kind of response.

It’s pretty clear to me. You have no backbone.
Don’t do it because whatever’s in there has value – do it out of principle.
Humanity has already surrendered WAY too much. Ascalon to the Charr, LA to pirate scum and a traitor, and now this vast piece of land by the Tengu.

Enough is enough.

Killing people on principle along racial lines? Can’t you see how well that works for the centaurs, dredge, and krait? Socially and technologically isolated, fighting a war on too many fronts to possibly be winnable, and at the mercy of roving adventurers swooping by at all times of the day and night to disrupt your operations and take a crack at assassinating your leader.

I was listing it as a possibility that could be supported from what we know. If you go back and look, you’ll see I’ve also got “in everyday use that we just don’t see for gameplay reasons” up there. For myself, I agree that the most likely case seems to be that horses are still around in modern day Kryta to some degree or another, but since there’s so little to work with here and since AVM is writing fanfiction, I laid out two extreme ends of a spectrum of choices that they could work with.

It’s an ambient dialogue from the two generic asura standing outside (Just north of the east entrance, if you’re curious). I don’t have it verbatim, but they were fleeing skritt, ducked into a gate, and found themselves where I found them.

Thus extinct in the known world. And intentional teleportation requires a receiving gate, but I can think of at least one case where a gate dumped asura outside Thaumanova instead, so there is a precedent for faults or glitches getting around that. Intentional teleportation also, so far as we’ve heard, requires both gates to be tuned to each other. Unless there were a whole heap of gates abandoned, one apparently in the middle of the ocean, all attuned to one random gate in a subterranean dwarvern city, what they did falls outside how gates are supposed to operate.

Horses are up in the air. We know they exist somewhere, and we know they probably existed in Orr, but you could make an argument for anything from them being extinct in the known world to being in everyday use (although probably only by humans) that we don’t see for gameplay reasons. If this is just for fanfic, feel free to pick whichever is most interesting for your story. I do not believe there would be equivalent mounts- the only other thing that comes close would be asura riding their golems.

For medicine, one of the novels refers to chirurgeons (a archaic term for surgeons) in Lion’s Arch and Rata Sum. The Rata Sum one seemed to be the sort who treated amputation as a cure-all. In-game, we don’t see much, really- the clergy of Dwayna undergo “medical training”, and they seem to serve as the primary healers in human communities, but that’s… really just about all we know. I’d suggest using the engineer heal-oriented skills as a starting point and fill in the gaps with where the given race seems to be technologically in mind. To take your specific example, any possibility of monitoring glucose levels and whatnot are probably going to be limited to asura, and even that’s a stretch- it’d take an asura in a position to form a krewe to be interested in accomplishing it, and the more niche the concern, the less likely that’d be to happen.

Still, you are writing fanfic, so stretching is not out of the question.

Stooperdale.3560:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

But rather than rebuilding with pre-existing forces, such would be better off with new forces, new nations, and delving deep into those groups’ lore. We had a go with the minor races in this to a small degree in the PS, but what of other races? What of kodan and tengu and largos and so forth?

Kodan come with Jormag storylines. Tengu come with Primordius storylines. Largos come with Deep-S-Dragon storylines.

Maybe, maybe not. I know those are who they’re fighting right now (or rather, I suppose, two years ago), but there’s room for that to change, especially with the tengu. I wouldn’t call it a sure bet.

perilisk.1874:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

But it would also feel like retreading old ground, even worse than episodes 3 and 4 did- and I remember those taking quite a bit of criticism in that regard. Increased national support is good and all, but at this point they either have to be complete imbeciles to ignore what threatens them, or so far out of the line of fire that they have no motivation to help us no matter how many one-sentence arguments we throw at them.

If you mean, in terms of recruiting everyone and so on, sure. That should hopefully be a done deal.

But if their alliance stands up in place of the Pact, there will be more troubles and infighting than can be resolved with a speech from Trahearne on the Lion’s Arch docks, especially if someone or something is working to undermine that alliance.

I could imagine some old wounds being reopened between Sylvari and Asura (which would help justify the most recent episode a bit more), or humans and Charr, either by fate or by malicious conspiracy, and the PC has to get to the bottom of it.

So babysitting squabbling children? That’d be retreading the dungeon storyline, would it not?

perilisk.1874:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What I don’t expect:

• The Pact getting their butts handed to them, at least in a permanently damaging way.

The Pact getting their butts handed to them would make uniting the traditional forces of the five races to fight Mordremoth, a thread that began this season with the meeting at the Pale Tree, even more imperative.

It would also give the PC (Pact Commander, convenient acronym) something to do in a future season in terms of building them back up. Trahearne could give us a little cube to help things along.

But it would also feel like retreading old ground, even worse than episodes 3 and 4 did- and I remember those taking quite a bit of criticism in that regard. Increased national support is good and all, but at this point they either have to be complete imbeciles to ignore what threatens them, or so far out of the line of fire that they have no motivation to help us no matter how many one-sentence arguments we throw at them.

Stooperdale.3560:

Whenever you think about the organization of the legions it makes the Pact seem like a disorganized mess. The Pact has no clear command structure, the Charr seem to be separated from their warbands, squads are organized with troops from all over the place, there are a mix of troops from five races and three orders, and key personnel seem able to wander off on adventures whenever they like.

Agreed, but I think that’s necessary, given the Pact’s mission. Their forces are pretty much exclusively drawn from other, much better defined organizations. Making a rigid chain of command could potentially create conflicting loyalties between the Pact and the original groups, which would in turn cause those groups to be less willing to support the Pact. I think of it as something like the UN- necessary in certain things, and very useful when everyone’s working together, but unable to assume any real authority without key players pulling out, which would cause the whole thing to fall apart.

Been a while since I checked, but I’m 95% sure GW2 hypnoss use all necromancer skills. The event you’re mentioning is the one with the undead krait, right?

EDIT: Quick check found that on land regular hypnoss use Poison Cloud, Life Blast, and a third field that just poisons.

wildebat.3650:

I’m getting a little sick of the sylvari. First Trahearne, then Scarlet and now Caithe and the Pale Tree. They’re starting to become a creator’s pet.

I’ve been feeling that way about the asura too. Honestly, I don’t think that ANet is playing favorites- they just decided to go with a main plot (the Elder Dragons in general and paired Mordremoth/metaphysical reality in particular) where the sylvari and the asura have more to offer and the humans and the norn have less. Normally, not too much of an issue, but since the plot’s also moving at glacial speeds it’s been compounded until it feels like the slighted races have been forgotten about.

Well, the krait magic we observe in game is pretty much exclusively necromancy, with toxic fields being the most aggravating aspect… but I’m with Konig on the Aetherblades, especially considering they are tied pretty intrinsically to the sky and air magic. Besides, pirates in-game are often just bandits with a propensity for coastlines, and at least a little of that is backed by lore and not just mechanics. As for the dredge, the icebrood weapon was an unqualified disaster for them, one that could only be replicated at an immense cost to manpower. ""I agree that it’s weird how some of the factions map to dragon spheres, but I think you’re contorting the data to try to force a conclusion instead of basing your ideas off what’s indicated.

Jaken.6801:

I am curious, does the wiki has a list and discription of the nature of known magic?

If it did, it wouldn’t be much more definitive than what we’ve already got here. There’s not really anything official on the topic- as far as I know, there’s just one interview question about ether, and the rest is us fans wildly extrapolating based on skill names and damage types.

To offer up my two cents- I’ve always been pretty skeptical of this in the past. Sieran freely admitted to not paying attention to Ogden’s lectures the instance after, and was all around very amateurish in filling us in on the dwarves in the instance prior. That felt like unreliable narrator to me. The forgotten date came from sources we were basically asked to entirely rethink anyway, and doesn’t make a strong case by itself in any event. Eir’s line, though, felt much too blatant to dismiss. I suppose it could be argued she’s basing her supposition off inaccurate human legends, but this close to what’s shaping up to be a major reveal about Glint’s nature is a very bad time to be reminding us that we can’t trust what we hear, even if the revelation turns out to be only indirectly relevant.

I would like to put forward a third theory, admittedly pretty tenuous, but I feel no more so than those already being discussed- what if the previous dragon rise lasted 7,000 years or more? We’ve seen that Zhaitan was spreading pretty slowly, and I believe it’s also been confirmed that two centuries into this dragonrise magic is still at a higher level than it was fifty years beforehand. What if they take much, much longer than we’ve assumed to deplete the world’s magic? Do we know of anything that might support or torpedo that hypothesis?

Given that arcane magic only does simple things, takes some flavor from whatever the ele is attuned to, and as mentioned may be an elaboration on the energy that fueled (fuels?) their spells, I’d say that it’s probably more accurately unelemented magic, rather than a fifth element of itself.

Diovid.9506:

Mikei The Mighty.8690:

Yeah i guess, the mostly likely way will be the gem store. I’d love a mini Cynn, and have her talk all her kitteny lines "The next person to call me “hot lips” gets scorched."
Mini Mhenlo does have a nice ring to it though !

We never did see the original 5 actually meet though did we? We know Eve meet the other 4 in the graveyard, but what about the 4? how did they all meet?

I kinda assumed they met during the charr invasion after the searing, being forced to work together and then just stuck with eachother. I don’t think there is any indication that they were a team before the searing.

This, although we do know Devona knew Mhenlo and Cynn pre-Searing.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

So really, a third zone is rather on par to Season 1. It’s expected S1 to be more, naturally, since more time passed across it, but yeah 3 half-zones (that’s basically what Dry Top, Southsun, and Silverwastes are) is not very ‘entitled’ to be requesting. And TBH, I was predicting 3 such half-zones since the break after S1 given all the content S1 gave.

To be fair, though, quite a bit more time passed during S1- released across 17 months, compared to S2’s 6 1/2- or 19 months to 10, I guess, if you want to count the breaks. Even accounting for an increase in efficiency, I wasn’t expecting much more than half of what we got in S1, and I think that’s fine. A constant pressure to one-up what you did last time isn’t really what you want driving your game.

Mikei The Mighty.8690:

Yeah cos i think all 4 of them have gravestones in GW2 – i think either outside Divinity’s reach or in Ebonhawke

Iirc, Reyna and Alesia are buried at the Granite Citadel (really wish we knew what happened there!) and Stefan was caught by the Foefire in the vicinity of Grendich. I don’t remember any mention of Orion’s fate.

I think you’re reading more into that choice than there is. By the time they offer you a choice of ancestry, it’s already understood that you’ve apparently lived in Divinity’s Reach your entire life and had a sister serving in the Krytan army. I agree that it’s pretty disappointing that you didn’t get any meaningful choice on the matter (I would have loved PS chapter based on my culture instead of my socioeconomic status), but the game pretty much did “start out and say all humans are Krytans”, at least where players are concerned.

As for the Ascalonians, they do seem culturally, or at least politically, distinct where they’re the majority (Rurikton, Ebonhawke, Ascalon Settlement). It’s just an unfortunate aspect of GW2 lore that the main hallmark of that distinction is more firmly entrenched racism.

narwhalsbend.7059:

I forget where and who, but there’s a group of ancestors of henchmen standing around in Divinity’s Reach. You can go find them and talk to them.

I think that’s what jaken’s thinking of. They aren’t descended from Devona & company, but the first four henchies- Alesia, Orion, Reyna, and Stefan.

Mental Paradox.3845:

But professions didn’t get more complicated. GW1 had thousands of skills, GW2 forces a handful of skills on you that even a braindead preteen can remember.

But most of the GW1 skills were minor variations on a small pool of capabilities, whereas GW2 skills are a smaller pool, true, but covering a larger range. Considering that traits seem to essentially be blanket minor variations, the result is that a GW2 profession does have a lot more to learn.

Even the skill bar is more complex. In GW1 you were capped at 8, GW2 non-engineers have at least 15 available at any given time.

I got lazy with that one. What I was thinking of when I went looking was Ember’s telling of Kalla’s story in GoA, particularly how she glossed over that the charr were willing servants to the shamans up til that debacle with us slaying the titans. The modern charr like to put that period in terms that make ‘them’ (and they do seem to love drawing a distinction between charr and the shamans/Flame Legion) lied to or oppressed, which is at best an interpretation shaped to fit the modern context of the shamans as the enemy, and at worst is outright false. Of course, Ember’s account isn’t available through the wiki, so I cut corners and referred to the story by way of Salinus.

@Mental to be fair, back in GW1 the professions were individually a lot less powerful, and thus, I suppose, simpler. What they can do and how well they can do it has been expanded across the board, and that’s not even accounting for the number of weapons a profession trains in having doubled to sextupled.

@Foxx I get the feeling that the asura in Rata Sum are more concerned with actual chemistry and physics than this adventuring profession nonsense. I mean, it takes quite a lot of dedication to achieve genetic engineering in a mostly fantasy setting.

Tesseract.4185:

By the way, regarding the Lore, is there any records how they implemented each known profession and the first people who adopted those professions?

Not except for guardian and the GW1 campaign specific classes, which were invented by humans, and engineer, which was invented by charr. At an educated guess, though, I’d say the other professions developed among the sufficiently advanced races independently. After 0 B.E., up until fairly recently, magic was broken down into four flavors, if you will, from which the four primary caster professions seem to have naturally developed. There were probably cultural differences- I doubt the asura called their healing magic prayers- but that segregation of magic would likely have encouraged spellcasters to develop along similar lines across all races. After that warrior would just denote non-spellcasting combatants. Ranger’s a bit trickier to account for, though.

Like Diovid said, the timeline surrounding that event is muddled beyond use right now. As for how they took Ascalon, the charr say that the human gods gave humans magic and not them, and claim that patronage is the only reason the humans succeeded… although as we see in GW2, the charr have no problem twisting the truth, generally to make their ancestors appear victimized rather than failed or complicit.

PeterFries.1057:

What would you have named those sectors? We (mostly) went with cardinal directions to help players orient themselves.

Would you mind elaborating on where that decision came from? To my knowledge, we’ve never struggled with orienting ourselves in a new zone before (getting from point A to point B, sometimes, but not knowing where we are in relation to the center of the zone), and the communication I’ve seen between players has almost always been in fort colors and the bosses. I’d rather not construct an opinion on this until I understand why you guys decided it would be for the better.

perilisk.1874:

PeterFries.1057:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Since you’re here… why does the Far Silverwastes, formerly Mamnoon Lagoon, no longer looks like a lagoon was there? I don’t mind but was really looking forward to seeing an old lagoon.

Edit: And any other naming trivia? ^.^

One of the names I suggested for the Silverwastes area was “Fractured Mamnoon”…

Why “Silver”? I mean, the “wastes” part is pretty obvious.

It’s a reference to the GW1 zone that overlaps the western part of the map, Silverwood. Not sure where the silver came from there either, though.

ErickDntn.1847:

http://imgur.com/a/MBtyV

Someone uploaded that conversation which mentions Mordremoth’s corruption on Ceara, apparently will only show up if you are Sylvari.

At least that is what the Pale Tree thinks.

Even there, though, the Pale Tree qualifies that it’s what she believes. She does not state it as objective fact.

Like I said, all evidence points to it, but I don’t think ANet is done holding it over our heads just yet and I’m hesitant to commit to the interpretation until we’ve seen this plot through.

Erukk.1408:

Rhaegar.1203:

I think Scarlet and Aerin proved Sylvari are NOT incorruptible.

I guess we have to ask if there is any difference between physical corruption and mental corruption/influence, because Scarlet was working for Mordremoth, but she seemed to be arguing with him on who can claim credit. That isn’t something a minion does with its Elder Dragon.

Even then, because ANet STILL hasn’t resolved her arc, I don’t think we can say with full certainty that Mordremoth was who she was hearing. All evidence points that way overwhelmingly, but they’ve left themselves enough room to take that conclusion in a completely different direction if they wanted to.

I was kind of flippant about it earlier, but since the conversation is still going in that direction- I suspect what happened isn’t that the Pale Tree was a bad leader, per se, but that she didn’t and doesn’t consider it her role to lead. Everything we’ve seen of her has been along the lines of advice and guidance, and never unsolicited, save for asking Ceara to please not destroy the world. She concerns herself with the Dream, and the overall direction of the sylvari race, and ensuring that all the newborn saplings know of the high regard in which she holds the tablet (whether that constitutes forcing it on them or not is up to your interpretation), but beyond that she seems perfectly willing to let her children find their own way. I think what we see in the instance is the Firstborn coming to terms with the fact that having no leader at all simply does not work anymore.

Sorry, Milea. This particular corner of the forums is very unfriendly to those two. Better luck in the Living World Discussion?

I don’t think we know. Besides some guild merchants, I don’t believe we actually meet any of them. We only know what they tell us in their letters.

Stooperdale.3560:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I suspect she just didn’t have anything to add- she’s always been portrayed as a very hands-off parent.

She’s showing no parenting at all at that moment.

Isn’t that par for the course? This is the same entity that didn’t feel the need to tell us about Mordremoth until it had already spread across the continent.

As things stood before (although a lot of this is built upon the Dream and Nightmare article, which I guess is in an undefined place in the canon now) the Pale Tree communicated directly and telepathically with the firstborn. Just because an Avatar that exists solely for visitors (i.e. non-sylvari, so it likely didn’t even exist at that point) wasn’t present doesn’t mean the Tree was excluded from the conversation. I suspect she just didn’t have anything to add- she’s always been portrayed as a very hands-off parent.

As for the timing, they did cite the deaths of several secondborn as a reason (I guess we’ll see whether that’s removed by the fix). It could just be that it didn’t occur to them that the saplings needed guidance until that point.

SheiyeSai.6037:

That vision you’re referencing is actually described more accurately here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_All

Not at all, actually. That (entirely fan made) article doesn’t even mention the starting point of the vision that Darc was primarily referencing.

Nice catch, Kossage! I’d completely forgotten Vorpp is there. He’s still around, but alas, has no dialogue at all.

Sarasv.8962:

That is because Vorpp and his crew were inquest. It states it in the story instance that they were inquest. Meaning that the inquest were already a divided subgroup then at the time – for how long though has been uncertain. Maybe after they came up from the underground. After all the Inquest is a large krewe working towards their own goals.

No, they state that the place is used by the Inquest in the present – as in now, 1327 A.E., 22 or 23 years after Vorpp’s experiment. What we see in the past are clearly labeled as college asura (Statics, iirc), not Inquest.

If anything, I’d say mesmers were considered even more classy in GW1’s time. Admittedly we don’t see nearly as much of the nobility back then, but even so one of the major nobles we did see was a mesmer, and even those that were probably common-born were generally acted more aristocratic than members of other professions. The profession was also much more closely associated with the arts as a whole and the theater in particular.

To be fair, I can understand it being a big deal as far as inclusion is concerned. It wasn’t just girls kissing, it was the first real non-dysfunctional homosexual relationship to get the spotlight in GW. In that context, it probably mattered quite a lot to the people who consider themselves associated with that term.

Long version here

Medium version, back at the very start, before we had any idea about the Scarlet mastermind, we were introduced to Braham and Rox as pretty much random characters with ties to Destiny’s Edge (Eir is Braham’s mother, Rox’s S1 plot arc was trying to join Rytlock’s warband) who got pulled into fighting the new Molten Alliance alongside us. At the end the two of them hit off a friendship. That was the January-April 2013 plot. We were left with two new characters we could drop in on and the knowledge that the Molten Alliance was instigated by someone else. May was mostly pointless, but we did meet Kasmeer as a random noble gathering information on a new tourist resort. June saw the introduction of random sky pirates with airships, who assassinated a member of the Captain’s Council. We met Marjory as Kasmeer’s employer, an investigator hired by Logan, who had been a friend of the dead councilor. We captured the Aetherblade leader, which apparently didn’t set them back at all. Said leader promptly fell into just about absolute irrelevance, but she was where we first heard the name Scarlet. July introduced the Zephyrites and got us involved in ultimately pointless LA politics. August we ran into Braham and Rox again, as Rox started what became a string of ever more absurd trials to get into the Stone warband- in this case, attending a celebration in DR. Scarlet got her big reveal, crashing the party in person and stealing the fancy new human robots to add to her forces. We rescue her hostages, after which she swears to take a special interest in us. September was pointless, October we found out Scarlet knew some secret of Caithe’s, and in November the four biconics we’d known so far finally met each other when a massive tower was secretly erected by a new Toxic Alliance. That was also when Marjory and Kasmeer became overtly flirty. We tore the tower down in December to stop its poisonous hallucinogens from messing up the region. January we found out Scarlet had a massive airship and started to get a glimpse of her grand plan, and were introduced to Taimi, an asuran child who was obsessed with Scarlet’s genius. Braham was pressganged into being her babysitter. February we figured out Scarlet’s master plan was to attack LA. Nobody listened to us, so Scarlet burned LA to the ground to get at the ley lines underneath it. In March we counterattacked, killed Scarlet, but not before her messing about with the ley lines using a massive airship drill got Mordremoth’s attention. Forged together by the horrors of the attack or some such, the biconics have stuck together ever since.

It… really wasn’t the best story, especially not drawn out over 15 months. I skipped over the LA subplots and several gameplay changes that got a tacked on story justification, and the Scarlet backstory, because they seem to still be racking that story out so they can keep hanging the unanswered questions inexplicably out of reach.

Rhaegar.1203:

I still doubt they’re building it. And if they are, why is it Krytan in design?

…unless it’s a matter of using “old” assets.

Considering there’s a grand total of three non-undead ship models, two of which are used liberally in Orr, Rata Sum, Lion’s Arch, and certain stranger places (Nonmoa Lake, for instance)… I think that’s pretty well likely.