Guild Wars 2

Good ol’ leviathan. Such a shame it never got implemented.

That human model was a nice touch. Really brings home how big these things are.

That line was just our character trying to make sense of what the king meant by “source”. At the time we made the logical assumption that Reza meant the source of the corruption, but as we later discovered, he really meant the source of Orr’s magic, the only place from whence the corruption could be cleansed. The “authorial intent” of that line was to slip us a red herring in order to jerryrig a mystery.

Maybe it’s not the most popular idea, but I’d really like to see the Caithe-Faolain arc pushed to fruition. Caithe’s my favorite DE member, and it just felt wrong that she was the only one cheated out of closure in their storyline.

Also, Skrittsburgh! The place has held strong against a veritable sea of Inquest, Nightmare Court, bandit and destroyer predators, and has gone through more leaders in the last year and a half than even that many skritt can count. Let’s see some recognition for Tyria’s long-suffering first kingdom of skrittkind!

Nah, he took a pity dive. Brought the tower down on top of himself because he felt so bad for us, shooting flaming confetti like it would actually do something.

UTC to American conversions:
Pacific- UTC-8- server time
Mountain- UTC-7
Central- UTC-6
Eastern- UTC-5
Note that Daylight Savings shifts everything around, but for the time being this is accurate.

Vyko.6953:

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

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

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

Chiming in to publicly commit to being around next week. No backing out now!

What he’s saying is that, while level 25, he got his face stomped in by an enemy twice his level, and he’s upset that said enemy happened to be a deer.

The hive thing? I always marked those down as thorn devourer nests

Shiren.9532:

I played GW1 for about five or six years before I first entered Dry Top. Was there any reason to go there at all? Why would people guess seeds come from there?

It was a fairly cool zone. Other than that… no, not really. I doubt very much that the seeds come from anywhere we see in GW1, but even if they did, Dry Top has no caves and only Thorn Stalkers as plants.

Sylvari/Ele- So Much Burn!

Not really lore, but fun anyway.

Human Thief, if you intend to do any sort of player killing, could be So Much Gank

Shiren.9532:

True, they make the point that sylvari are useful in certain missions because they won’t turn if they are captured.

The other thing to keep in mind is the page quoted is from the website pre-launch. Can we reliably consider that information (I don’t have an issue with the stuff in-game) canon?

I believe so- there are a lot of fine details that we heard from in pre-launch articles that never made it into the game. The general approach to this kind of thing is a totem pole of canonicity (is that a word?), with word of dev at the top, then in-game information, then out of game official sources. As long as the information isn’t contradicted by a source higher up the pole, it’s considered canon.

Shiren.9532:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I can’t remember anything explicit in-game, but the old sylvari page on the official website, before it was dumbed down, said " While the other races may be corrupted by the Elder Dragons, turned into undead minions or crystalline creatures of the Brand, the sylvari are never turned. Those born of the Pale Tree simply die before the corruption takes hold. "

Hmm. Maybe I’ve been mistaking interview for that, which would explain why I haven’t been able to find such an interview.

-does some internet archive checking-

YES! That’s what I’ve been remembering! It is found again at long last! And once more kitten you Anet for dumbing down those pages!

https://web.archive.org/web/20110815225850/http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/races/sylvari/

Those born of the Pale Tree simply die before the corruption takes hold. Couldn’t that be interpreted to mean the sylvari can’t be corrupted, not because they are immune but because they are too weak? An immunity suggests they can withstand it and come through the other side. If a race never recovers from a cold and instead always dies when they get it, they aren’t immune to it, they are exceptionally vulnerable to it. I guess it’s a semantic issue?

You might be right, but it really is semantics. In the case of dragon corruption, dying is preferable to surviving, so unlike with colds a fatal allergic reaction would be considered a good thing.

Nihilus.3015:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

All I recall from devs on ED sizes is that their champions (Shatterer, Tequatl – those two having been known at the time) were very small compared to the Elder Dragons themselves.

And that the Drakkar Lake beast was too small in their minds to be a proper Elder Dragon thus while originally being a possible Jormag, got changed mid-development to being a dragon champion.

The models of tequatl in arah are smaller than the world boss in sparkfly.

No, they’re just farther away. You can break out of the map and find the corpses after the dungeon’s over.

Here’s a guardian for scale.

Kalarchis.8635:

I just want to note, this doesn’t mean that all Sylvari are immune to corruption. It just means that our Sylvari, ones of the Dream, are immune to it. We really don’t know when it comes to the rest of the species.

We don’t even know enough to say that other sylvari aren’t of the Dream.

I can’t remember anything explicit in-game, but the old sylvari page on the official website, before it was dumbed down, said " While the other races may be corrupted by the Elder Dragons, turned into undead minions or crystalline creatures of the Brand, the sylvari are never turned. Those born of the Pale Tree simply die before the corruption takes hold. "

Like Andele said, it’s referenced a handful of times in the sylvari starting zone and some of the starting quests, and for all characters in Orrian quest Infamous linked (if, of course, you choose that path). There were also a lot of pre-release materials, including the sylvari page on the main site, where ANet stated it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

mercury ranique.2170:

Would the dragonbrand be any use for guessing the width of Kralk’s wings?? It depends off course a bit on how he actually created it. There are imo three options.

1: everything that was under his wingspan turned into the brand
2: everything that was udner his body turned into the brand
3: he breathed or farted something conelike and all that it hit was turned into the brand

I think it is the first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3CdIjf9uHY

This video shows a shadow of him passing by and shortly later, anything that was touched by his shadow turned into the brand. So I think that the dragonspawn is as wide as his wings are

The Dragonbrand was created by his fiery breath, as shown in Edge of Destiny.

That’s always seemed weird to me. Why breathe a continuous, unfaltering stream all the way south? Why isn’t Ebonhawke part of the Brand, when Kralky’s breath ripped through it too? Not to mention that in Edge of Destiny Kralky’s breath only corrupted the creatures and didn’t mess up the land- it took a very angry second pass at Glint’s Sanctuary to do that, and as a side effect it killed all of his minions caught in it.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just took a second look and the book itself is inconsistent on that last point. I’m inclined to chalk it up to an oversight on the part of Mr. King.

mercury ranique.2170:

Would the dragonbrand be any use for guessing the width of Kralk’s wings?? It depends off course a bit on how he actually created it. There are imo three options.

Even if that is the case, it’d be hard to get a figure. At first glance that’d make for quite a small Kralky- after all, the Shatterer’s wingspan almost reaches from edge to edge. However, distances in-game are generally accepted to be smaller than in lore- after all, it’s hardly plausible that you could walk from Blazeridge to Brisban in a couple hours. In that case the Dragonbrand may also be more narrow than it should, but we don’t know how big of a difference there actually is.

Emprize.9806:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Mechanics, mate. Would you rather see a world where most non-monstrous species only exist in the backyard of the major cities?

Can you be more specific about ‘mechanics?’ I know what mechanics are but am unable to see how a lvl 50 doe fits into the mechanics. And as i said before, instead of a ridiculous lvl 50 doe, Anet should just place a neutral doe there (such as raccoons and rabbits, critters that die in one hit)

That would mean not having yellow creatures, which would mean the places filled with yellows would either have to be replaced with whites, which makes for a zone that feels like a kiddy playground, or filled with reds, which makes for a zone that feels like Orr or GW1. Either option seriously detracts from how fun the zone is to play. That means there has to be yellows, which means there have to be creatures that can defend themselves but are not usually hostile- like deer. The only part that doesn’t really make sense is the fact that there are sometimes white deer.

Mechanics, mate. Would you rather see a world where most non-monstrous species only exist in the backyard of the major cities?

As far as the Nightmare Court go, the explanation the NPCs have put forward is “Scarlet gave them a chance to spread suffering”. The least satisfying of the lot, really, especially seeing as their the only group to actually clear space in one of their bases so she could build a bloody factory, but I don’t expect we’ll see anything better forthcoming.

I did something similar and came out with nearly 700 feet, so…

EDIT: Just did it again with a bit less approximation. Came out with 528ish feet long and 576ish foot wingspan

As much as I think my Grizwhirl idea would’ve been better, the Study in Scarlet instance made it pretty clear that the answer is simply that she made all these various groups believe they stand to gain from her plot.

/nurses hurt feelings at being overlooked, plotting vengeance on the lore forum.

“First contact with the quaggans has gone according to plan…”

To chime in- that quote isn’t from the wiki, but the very first pre-release article ANet gave us, back in 2007. ANet has, broadly speaking, stuck to it, and in the case of Elona I suggest following the Movement, but there are places where ANet has changed things around, particularly dates. I mention this because there is indication in-game that the date for Palawa Joko’s conquest may have been moved from about 1135 to about 1275 (see Divinity Guide).

Actually, citing the wiki is usually evoking appeal to unqualified authority, but as you say a direct link to a ANet post bypasses that.

Considering what that combat scenario ended up being, it really wouldn’t have been any more ridiculous.

I dunno… part of it, I think, is also the scale of everything going on. The airship you’re on when Zhaitan shows up is the size of Fort Trinity, and he never comes even remotely close to it. It’s kinda funny, in the sad way, but the best shot for scale we have on him is this (cut to the 1:50 minute mark to avoid serious weirdness), where you can see he pretty much stretches from the Shipyard to the Gates of Arah. Also this, which I believe came from a datamine. You can see that Teq (and if you’ve stood up against his feet, you know just how big he is), even accounting for his entire wingspan, is only the size of a single one of Zhaitan’s wings.

TL;DR: Zhaitan really is quite big, enough that I could see him having a fang the size of Jormag’s if he had a mouth. The problem is you never get a chance to see how big- Arah story screwed up that aspect of the fight too.

I’ve been wondering about this too. It isn’t linked solely to the LA probe- the Trionic Lattice probe had self-destructed as soon as Origins of Madness went live.

As much as I enjoy these hammy meat jokes, I think Braham Briarbane has a nicer ring to it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

.
(@Aaron, they actually met in 1319 (the year Destiny’s Edge was formed), not 1320 AE)

I said 1319 or 1320- I didn’t have the book on me- but either way you’d still have to account for pregnancy taking most of a year.

There’s no way. Jennah was, at the most, 31 when Kasmeer was introduced. We don’t know how old Kasmeer is, but even if she’s only in her teens that means Jennah would have had to have her in her own teens.

Besides, Logan and Jennah didn’t meet until 1319 or 1320. Any child of that union couldn’t be older than 7.

webtoehobbit.4201:

But how can the Living World be after the Personal Story according to this dev post in the lesbian relationship thread of the lore and story portion of the board?

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Rox, Braham, Marjory, Kasmeer, and Taimi are referred to internally as “B-Iconics” (or Biconics) as opposed to our “A-Iconics” or main iconic characters, Caithe, Rytlock, Eir, Zojja, and Logan. They are not a “replacement” for Destiny’s Edge; these characters fulfill a different role in the story. Because members of Destiny’s Edge are so entwined with your Personal Story as well as the over-arching story with Zhaitan, and because the Living World plot lines are taking place at the same time all those other story threads, we couldn’t have the members of Destiny’s Edge splitting themselves between these other areas and what was going on with Living World. This is partly why we introduced these new characters.

This dev states that they take place…. at the same time.

Which is very weird, because other devs have explicitly stated that LW follows PS. If anything, that means they aren’t all on the same page, which is really quite a bad thing.

Dustfinger.9510:

The cost I see is the lack of omnipresence for that one character that is best equipped for each situation. But putting in a second best character becomes world building as well because it shows that that one best character isn’t so far above the rest of the world that they are completley irreplaceable. It alludes to a greater population that can also be of use in this world ending catastrophy.

But to use Malafide’s example: why not a hylek? Poison and antipoison aficionados, and they were right there, so it was a matter of life and death for them. Instead we get a human imported from Divinity’s Reach, just because she was important to the plot four months earlier, who knew about poisons only as a matter of luck. How does that allude to a greater population of competents?

Dustfinger.9510:

It can be likened to complaining that there exists two strong races in an entire world. It’s really an effort to shrink the world down to simplicity. “A-net, why make norn and kodan? they are both big friendly species” I imagine the only answer a-net would bother giving is “Well, heck. Why not? It makes the world bigger and more interesting” …..but then the ‘criticism’ becomes “No, it is just a way of shoe horning in another race when there is already one that can fill the role”.

That’s not true at all. Having both the norn and the kodan is worldbuilding; it enhances the believability of the world. When a character cuts in front of those that said worldbuilding has established are better qualified for the role by pulling a relevant ability our of the blue, it detriments believability.

For myself, I don’t really mind that Marjory was at the middle of Tower of Nightmares- the character development that her inclusion was an excuse for was worth the cost- but nonetheless, the way ANet handled it did ensure that there was a cost.

Erukk.1408:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Yes, looking back, it can all be justified, but that doesn’t change that it was a shoehorn.

Meh, leading characters are always going to get shoehorned into the story one way or another. If she wasn’t there to begin with, we would have probably been sent to get her from DR with the excuse, “She was a Ministry Guard that worked a lot of cases dealing with assassinated nobles, so she’s a poison expert.”

Still, it’s nice when they put in the trouble to craft an excuse. Or, better yet, a cause.

I think that’s the problem, though- Marjory was essentially there as Kasmeer’s sidekick, but as soon as the illusion was down she shunted not only Kasmeer, but every other character present to the side and once again become the focus of events, on account of talents hitherto unsuspected. Yes, looking back, it can all be justified, but that doesn’t change that it was a shoehorn.

CureForLiving.5360:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Aetherblade ships are all made to the same specifications, so there’s nothing distinguishing one from another, and therefor no sense in naming them.

The same could be said for boats, planes and cars. I’m sure a Aetherblade crew serving on an airship for long enough would probably give the ship a nickname at least. From a purely pragmatic stance large scale operations involving multiple air ships would be horribly complicated (airship fifth from the right, go to Point A, airship with the two charrs on deck go to Point C).

I agree. My statement was from the player character’s perspective- the various crews on the other side are obviously a different story, but we have no means to nor interest in knowing those nicknames.

ElysianEternity.6215:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Huh. I don’t remember that. Was it in a red box?

Yeah it was a red box.

Probably just an oversight then- those boxes are only used for combat-triggered one-liners, which due to their sporadic nature never have anything to do with the specifics of what’s going on around them. My guess would be that when ToN introduced that kind of voiceacting to the krait, it got applied to both versions of Nymfassa.

Tuskin.2548:

I don’t think Lion’s Arch will be destroyed because several Personal Story(meeting Destiny’s Edge, joining the Orders, retaking Claw Island… etc.) missions take place there. Otherwise how would they change the Personal Story for all new characters and characters already made who haven’t reached that point yet?

According to Massively, "Personal story steps will be accessible through a new entrance. " It looks like Lion’s Arch will still be there in the PS, just not in the open world- which I really wish they’d been doing before.

ElysianEternity.6215:

Also, another minor fun thing to consider about that mission. Nymfassa’s dying words are “Prophets forgive me.” Nothing too big, but I found it amusing that she begged her prophets for forgiveness before dying although she’s been shouting about Zhaitan earlier. Maybe her mind was twisted into believing the krait prophets work with Zhaitan. Just found it interesting because we don’t really see the Risen priests doing that. :p

Huh. I don’t remember that. Was it in a red box?

ElysianEternity.6215:

Pitching in here, lately I’ve been screenshooting and scouting for ambient dialogue by enemies.

Serious kudos (Kudus?) to you, man. I quit in frustration the 30th time I accidentally agroed the group I was spying on.

Jelle.4623:

As far as I know I have all my guest spots still open so I can join in on any dungeon runs (I read somewhere that most of the [Lore] guys are in Sanctum of Rall? Which is a NA server I believe, I live in Europe and play on Far Shiverpeaks, I don’t know if guesting works for oversea servers?)

Anyway, the sooner I join you guys the better I reckon.

I don’t know about guesting, but dungeons are cross-server, so we should be able to do them without going to that trouble.

Two things: first, bombing is a horrible way to wipe out an enemy army. There are any number of ways to avoid death, including something as simple as running in the opposite direction, and absolutely no way to ascertain rather living targets were actually taken out.

Second, bombing isn’t popular in our world. It’s only used for two things- taking out ground installations (factories, etc.) and breaking civilian will. Arguably, US droning makes a third category, but it’s not really bombing. Bombing is highly ineffective against armies without a coordinating ground force- it’ll scatter the enemy, but it won’t remove them, and as the US has learned time and time again, scattered enemies are the worst kind to fight.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This may be nitpicking it a bit, but it is kind of weird how Tyria is basically set in a pseudo-medieval setting, but with extremely modern and liberal views of same-sex relationships. It kind of makes sense that people on a different planet, with different species, approach this matter in a non-medieval way. But on the other hand we’re shown very little of how the people of Tyria view these sorts of relationships.

Are same-sex relationships considered normal on Tyria? Would same-sex relationships be acceptable among nobility as well? How do the people of Tyria feel about inter-species relationships? Would a human/charr relationship be possible, given their history? We’re never really given any indication of what society in Tyria feels about these things. But if we did get some insight, it would add credibility to the world I think.

It’s not that weird, really. The homophobia of the medieval period, and straight through to the modern day, sprung from a three-pronged monothestic religious movement that lacks anything remotely close to a parallel in Tyria. It’s weird to carry things over if you don’t also bring the reason for their existence.

As for how it’s treated, I would have sworn there was a pre-launch interview going over it, but I don’t blame them (this time) for not including it in-game. As this thread amply proves, even the little they do show is more than sufficient to spark quite vocal debate, complete with ridiculous and completely unsubstantiated claims. There’s a reason you very rarely see games take a stance on contemporary political debates unless a core element of the developers’ vision; no game company wants to be pulled into the sort of kittenstorm that would unleash.

EDIT: Found the interview (Hail Google!). http://gaygamer.net/2011/10/interview_guild_war_2s_ree_soe.html

The relevant bits are “Other races have a history of same-sex relationships, but those relationships tend to be downplayed and not lauded within the culture. This is not to say that the races of Tyria are naturally homophobic; they’re absolutely not. It’s simply not particularly common.”, “The other races are curious about it, true, because many of them aren’t used to seeing that kind of relationship. Still, the other races don’t, in general, approach it with a sense of abhorrence or disdain.”, and my favorite, “Individuals of the various races might have their own reasons to denigrate a same-sex pairing. Such individuals will tend to be seen as villains within the overall culture of Tyria.”

That strategy has two very major flaws- first the logistics of making explosives to level a major city and fitting them all into your ships in a way that won’t end spectacularly, and second the absolute uselessness of the tactic for any aim other than “wipe a city of a map”. Scarlet’s universe bending powers exempt her from the first one, but also introduce a third constraint, which is game design- players are not going to be able to interact in meaningful fashion with a fleet of bombers. And there’s still a second problem- what if she wants to take out the Ship’s Council as a side objective? Good kittening luck being even reasonably sure of that if you won’t come down. What if she wants to exploit this leyline? She just razed all the existing defense infrastructure, and will now have to build her own and be vulnerable in the process. The bottom line is, carpet bombing is a horrible strategic choice in the Tyrian universe, and 90% of the time in our own.

I would definitely get behind dungeon runs for dialogue. Can’t speak for the rest of the guild, though.

Shakiness/camera movement: Felt smooth in the first two videos, no complaints. A non-issue in the third, since you were just cutting from dialogue to dialogue.

Choice of music: I liked it, and I definitely think you’ve got the right idea picking tracks without lyrics. Bit loud, but I don’t know rather that’s from my end or yours.

Coverage of Subject: I think you’ve got a good thing going with the dialogue. You spend just the right amount of time on each screen. I also really liked that you had something specific to Cycle, which my Noon bloom has never seen. Please, make a habit of finding that kind of thing!

Personal opinion: I can’t decide rather that rotating U-map is the coolest or most disorienting UI mod I’ve seen. On a relevant note, it seems kind of a shame that you couldn’t get any in-game audio in there, but I get that that’d be a whole new set of soundbalancing issues for the editing.

Kalavier.1097:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think it’s also a problem with Destiny’s Edge literally being shoved in our face. Whether we follow the personal story, or do dungeons. Especially in the human storyline, you are literally sent to Logan Thackeray dozens of times to progress your personal story. And even outside Divinity’s Reach he finds ways to crawl into your story, or send you letters.

And I don’t think apart from Rytlock anyone in Tyria dislikes Logan. Everyone seems to find him just great. Meanwhile me and guildies are poking fun at his dull and shallow character through teamspeak. It gives us a lot of laughs, but it really goes to show just how empty he is.

I didn’t mind them in the personal storyline though. They felt like interesting characters at that point, and on top of that they were a great barometer for the player’s rise. It was only at the point where they set foot in Lion’s Arch again that the writers hit their reset buttons and they were rewritten as you describe.

I felt like it was more of them accepting the break up and moving on, getting into important daily roles for their society. Then suddenly being tricked (IIRC, it was a trick by Caithe) into meeting each other and getting a line about reforming the group that set everybody off. They just weren’t ready to work together again and needed to work out issues, which is what they did in the dungeons. There is more issues that need to be smoothed out, but they can work together now at least.

The thing is though, at the time Caithe sent that message all the others had also, in the course of their storylines, worked themselves to the point of be willing to reach out to the others, for the good of their own peoples. Yes, Caithe tricked them into going faster than they had wanted, but that scene stands out to me as the second worst in the game because A.) It was still the direction they had all independently resolved to go in, and B.) everyone but Caithe and Eir completely and abruptly forgot that big revelation they had come to just the quest prior.

@Elysian Yeah, Zojja definitely came out the worst for that reset. Up to that point, she had been proud, perhaps even snotty, but not so far that she couldn’t recognize and compensate for the traits. As soon as she hits the dungeons, though, her sole character trait becomes petulance, no matter how irrational a response it is in a given situation.

Kalavier.1097:

(Glint’s lair was not in a grain of sand, it was as big as it appears. Illusions just made it impossible to find to everybody).

Not, strictly speaking, true. The book isn’t very clear on what sort of magic it was, but it was more than just an illusion- otherwise at some point during the day they spent going back and forth over the same empty tract of land, they would’ve bumped into a wall.