Guild Wars 2

And the fireworks would be on skill 2, right?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

While they probably didn’t build it, I would not exclude them simply because of Ogden’s quote.

No, but we can exclude them anyway. “The origin of the Eye of the North is so ancient it has been lost to even the wisest skaald”, and the Stone Summit are very recent, less than a dwarvern generation old at the time of Prophecies.

nor seen any of the Jotun structures of the past.

Actually, we see quite a few in GW2. All those kennings throughout Wayfarer and Dredgehaunt are jotun-built before their fall.

Actually, pretty much everything involving the huge Inquest lab in northeast Metrica revolves around the Inquest- successfully, may I add- experimenting with using souls to power golems. There’s also a golem in Brisban powered by extracted druid essence, which may or may not mean souls, although it is rather glitchy. Hm… if that theory that powerful golems need alternative power sources pans out, I wonder what powers Prototype X and Mark II?

As for the destroyer-essence golem’s line, I hesitate to jump to conclusions. My gut feeling is that much of the dialogue at the start of the event is probably missing from the wiki, and without it a proper context cannot be had.

Or horses were only native to Orr, and fairly rare at that. That’s what the evidence seems to suggest to me- the only depictions we have of horses are as military mounts, so it may be that they were bred for that purpose alone. It seems, though, that the idea of using mounts never gained much traction among the humans of Tyria, and for beasts of burden oxen and dolyaks would be far superior to horses.

Why would they know of Sohothin? Our character didn’t. It seems that the powers of the swords were only known to the royal family. And how would having Sohothin prevent the Foefire or the Ascalonian Exodus? Neither had anything to do with that sword.

Oh, by the shadow imps? I always thought the imps just play rough with mosshearts.

From above?

/15 and whatnot.

Well, there are a few things that differentiate them. Husks without fail are found upright, with one arm outstretched, whereas dead treants are fallen upon the ground. Husks have the appearance of willowhearts, while all in Wychmire look like mosshearts. Finally, there are mosshearts everywhere in Wychmire, so it stands to reason that there would be some dead ones in the places where the swamp’s darkness is strongest.

As far as the druids inhabiting treants… I find nothing implausible about that. They are already much alike, differing largely only in intelligence and corporeality.

Durzlla.6295:

Actually the Druids do NOT inhabit the husks for the most part, there’s a few events where the Druid spirit can be escorted back to their husk and a bunch of plant life begins to flourish around it though.

Actually, it’s because of that event that I believe all the husks are inhabited. While the spirit is gone, the husk is defoliated and swarming with flies, but while inhabited the husk is green and swarming with a fattier sort of bug. All the husks in the swamp are in the later state, save only those recently drained by the Inquest. Furthermore, the dialogue of the spirit makes clear that his natural state is at rest within the husk.

@Psynch Nice catch, both with the size of the “elder husk” and the direction, though I’ll point out it isn’t absolute- while most of them seem to point south, I did see one facing east. It also seems to me that they aren’t looking towards the statue, which would be off a little eastwards of where most of them are facing. Still, food for thought.

As for Wychmire, I didn’t see any husks- only mosshearts, living and dead, and the giant stone faces that share no similarity with the druid husks. And again, nearly all of the husks seem to be occupied, so if something is happening to the south it seems only one of them tried to find it.

XD I could live with that. More likely, though, it is one of the Elder races… it’s just a question of which.

There actually are still spirit druids in GW2- they just go by Arboreal Spirits now. As far as the husks go, they certainly aren’t in GW1… but 250 years is a long time. It could be that since the first game they chose to take physical form.

Also, I suspect husk is a misnomer- the events in that area suggest that the druids remain within, and are simply dormant.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’ve also seen comments by folks who claim Livia found the scepter in 1078 AE based on that cinematic, and that it was retconned with War in Kryta to be post-1079 AE… despite, again, the time skipping nature of the cinematic (read: there was no retcon).

Personally, I feel that has less to do with misunderstanding the time frame of the cutscene, and more to do with Livia very clearly stating her intent to go to Arah before returning to Kryta. Nonetheless, who’s to say she doesn’t have the Scepter of Orr during the time of WiK?

@Getefix Personally, I don’t believe it’s jotun. It looks nothing like the kennings we see in GW2, and architecture is thus far one of the precious few things (mostly) exempt from radical redesign. I’m inclined to believe it to be seer-built, but as far as hard facts go all we know is that it is similar to design to some structures seen in the Depths, and shares a handful of elements with the ruins of the Tarnished Coast, neither of which we have any better than guesses for their origins.

I’ve got all the dialogue for that arc screenied and stored away, and will eventually get it to the wiki- it’s just a matter of motivation >.< Anyway, the line Konig refers to is "Somewhere to the west, at the source of that river, there’s another tree. Maybe even another city, with more sylvari like me. My family. " That would mean, though, that the river in fact flows east, and comes from the west- something the waterfall at the Brisban-Metrica border also bears out.

And for the hylek- “Now that you mention it, I recall large red frogs after I awoke. They kept their distance, and they weren’t happy to see me.” It sounds to me like the Ogotl were deliberately not interfering with him, despite not wanting him around, but that’s just my interpretation.

If only it were so easy; but Metrica Province is downriver from where Malyck’s pod was found, so it shouldn’t have come from that direction.

The water systems of Tyria, unfortunately, are as they are primarily due to the mechanics of map boundaries, and not reflective of lore. Generally speaking, I believe that we can safely assume there is water where the game depicts water, but I am hesitant to apply the in-game end points. In Malyck’s case in particular, I think it safe to say that the river does extend into the jungle, and ANet simply was unable to depict that in the Brisban zone.

Glint, and to a lesser extent the mursaat, are covered, though as Foxx said a lot of the Glint stuff is in a book. The others seem to have dropped off the radar entirely for the time being.

As for the Scepter of Orr in Sea of Sorrows… “Some years ago, I came into possession of an artifact of great power, a remnant of that lost civilization. A scepter. I’ve spent many years studying it. Yes, I know what Orrian magic could do when Orr was alive.” That’s it, and it’s not much more than what we already knew. An implication that Livia still had the Scepter in 1256. Many of us also have played connect-the-dots and think that the Scepter is why she was/is so long-lived, but at the moment that is only unsubstantiated theorycrafting.

@FlamingFoxx All that was said of the Forgotten is that the ones already in the Realm of Torment took up service to Kormir. We’ve heard nothing of the Crystal Desert forgotten beyond Prophecies, although there are some very minor indicators that they are either dead or gone. It could be as you say, but that is by no means certain. On Saul, I think what OP meant was his fate after he was taken- something I too am exceedingly curious about, though I doubt it’ll ever come to light.

I must say I appreciate your creativity, Beo, and even more your effort to defuse hostility. My apologies if it turns out my contributions have only fueled the flames.

Narcemus, that was more or less what I meant, with my listing being the reverse order of yours. I gave your first point only a cursory nod at the end, for I will be less than pleased if Primordus is usurped of his most proper place.

As far as the minion thing goes, I put this in the context of the Pale Tree and the sylvari as counter to Rising’s parallel to the Great Destroyer, and his assertion that the sylvari appeared shortly before Mordremoth’s rise. It wasn’t to say that their appearance played a part in his timing, but the opposite- that no matter how you look at it, at least one of those events would be hundreds of years removed.

Krait, it may be that the humans do not accept you because you are still a child in their eyes. They are a strange race, and my studies indicate that every one of them has undergone a bizarre rite of passage, subject of many an idle boast. But fear not! I have every confidence that you can undertake it as well- after all, so many humans have done it. How hard can it be? To gain full standing in their eyes, you need only win a race with a centaur.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

That’s about as legit as it comes. As far as books go, those three are it, and function much more as prequels to the second game than as a bridge between the two, with the possible exception of Ghosts of Ascalon, which contains quite a bit of in-character views of how the world had changed.

Well, I don’t have anything near the drive of the heavyweights in this thread, so I’ll only be addressing a couple of the more central points.

Risingashes.8694:

The point stands, Sylvari appeared right before Mord woke up, exactly the same as Destroyers for Prim. Other creatures do not have this timeframe and so are not potentially linked to Mord- combine that with the next point for support of a linkage.

Actually, we have no context for when Mordremoth awoke- or if he is awake. The only thing we have to go off of there is the rough “once every fifty years” model, which would either put him fifty years after the Pale Tree was planted and nearly two hundred before the sylvari began awakening, or yet to come more than fifty years after the sylvari began awakening and nearly three hundred after the Pale Tree was planted. Either way, though, the massive gap between the planting of the Tree and the awakening of the sylvari makes it hard to use Mordy’s awakening as a link to them- unless Mordy awoke before the Tree was planted.

Risingashes.8694:

I can argue “maybe there is such” if the claim is “It is impossible to bring someone back from dragon corruption”. If the claim was “No one has found any way to bring someone back from dragon corruption despite trying really hard” then I’d have no issue with it. But you’re using the definitely ‘impossible’ claim as a counter against some of my claims, while the better ‘not found’ claim wouldn’t be a counter.

Change the severity and I’ll stop discussing this point.

The original subject of that debate was rather the Nightmare functions like dragon corruption, correct? So, to expound on my previous post, you’re missing the point. The Nightmare functions in an identical manner to dragon corruption, both in rearranging the subject’s priorities so that it is impossible to cause them to voluntarily forsake it, and in the capacity to induce physical alterations, irregardless of the comparative inconsistency of the later.

There are still quite a few wounded survivors encamped outside the reactor. They would not still be there if their wounds were so serious that they took five years and still had not healed. Furthermore, all the mentions in the Rata Sum ambient dialogue are as of a recent event- “Have you heard?” and “What will happen?” and “Who is responsible?” Altogether, I’d say that paints a picture of weeks, not months, and most certainly not years.

Being close is irrelevant. You are arguing for some form of causation, and that would require the Thaumanova disaster to occur before Kralkatorrik’s awakening, which is simply not borne out by the game.

No, he thought what was being done with it was bad. He wasn’t protesting the magic, he was trying to end the killing. Magic, from the bloodstones or otherwise, is not inherently good or bad, it’s just a tool. For every sacrificial rite or fireball, there’s a resurrection or a portal. Like any power, the moral dimension is projected only upon its use.

No… your argument is that the bloodstones somehow require or utilize “human essence”, which is just flat unsupported. You’re taking the use they were put to for a handful of years out of their thousands of years of history, and making a sweeping claim that they are therefore devices of evil. We aren’t the ones overstating the facts, mate.

Yes… that’s what Konig said. The humans are killed on the bloodstones, then the souls that are released are trapped within the batteries. The batteries were taken to Hell’s Precipice and used to power the Door of Komalie. Destroying the seals drained the batteries, thus opening the Door. Slaying the Lich atop the bloodstone recharged the batteries and closed the Door. At no point were the souls taken into the bloodstones. Rather, it would seem that the local environment of the bloodstones, which alters the workings of death and resurrection, created a zone where the souls could be captured by the batteries. See here, Rurik’s dialogue here, and most especially here.

Hm… it sounds to me like “litter” is being used there as synonymous with sibling.

My own two cents on the Nightmare- I believe that arguments of rather or not it can be returned from rather miss the point, which is that it twists sylvari so far that nothing can convince them to turn back. Ysvelta, by all accounts as kind, caring, and generous a soul as any, after falling to Nightmare is gleeful about the prospect of conquering Astorea, and chooses to die rather than forsake the Court, even when so doing would return her to the man she loved. When you are so far gone that literally nothing will convince you to turn back, it doesn’t matter rather turning back is theoretically possible or not. You are as lost a cause as any risen or icebrood.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

On a side, I’d like to see this map. I bet one of those two dungeons is Fort Vandal.

Since he didn’t get back to you on this- I’m betting that that map is the same as in the books, which marks the Henge of Denravi and Bloodstone Fen with the same marker as Arah, CoE, CoF, and AC.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And there’s never mention of her being of the Nightmare Court during Edge of Destiny

Actually, there is. Most notably pg 313: “The Grand Duchess Faolain of the Nightmare Court.”

webtoehobbit.4201:

Konig, king of the lore boards, don’t anyone else dare come up with a theory, cause only his are right and everyone else just doesn’t know what they’re talking about

Please note that Konig has never claimed such preeminence, and has a history of shying away from threads where such is attributed to him. He is simply doing the same as Risingashes, BeoErgan, or you yourself- arguing his point, rolling out evidence to support it, and looking for holes in the evidence of his opposition. The fact that he has so much more to say about it is in no way indicative of any special conceit- it is but a mark of how much more he has invested, both in time experiencing the lore and in effort on this forum. I would ask you not to speak as if that were something contemptible, simply because you are unwilling to make the same effort.

They are. I’m standing at the place where it comes out of the ground in that shot, not at the head.

Still, when they go back into the ground…

So, at the risk of redirecting the conversation here… did anyone else notice that the Great Jungle Wurm has changed colors?

I’ve been told that Smodur does appear if you take a certain choice in the “Sorcerous Shaman” arc, but I don’t know how integral he is to that story.

As to the Khan-Ur, keep in mind that the most important part of claiming the title isn’t some ancient toy, but being able to subdue all other claimants. Even under the shaman caste, when the race was unified, no one managed to pull it off.

If Smodur made that claim, he’d at the very least destroy the accord with the other legions in Ascalon. From what we’ve heard of the other legions, he’d be inviting open war with the Blood Legion, and quite possibly assassination at the hands of Ash, and this with ghosts, Flame Legion, branded, and separatists infesting his back yard. So, no. I don’t think we’ll see that happening any time in the foreseeable future.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

This likely refers to the Fractal’s own version of the scaling up in actions must be done like in other fractals – for example, in Uncategorized as you gain levels the harpies gain a launching lightning ball attack and at Old Tom you have to start using Tears of Dwayna to power the fan’s two consoles.

“Potential outcomes” sounds a lot more like Swampland or Underground Facility, where the ending can vary, than Uncategorized, where past level 10 a small addition is always made to the mechanics. Seeing as there’s an entire area that is uncompleteable in story mode (the cooling chamber), and that Dessa’s dialogue indicates something we don’t see in it (turning off the colliders in order to speak with surviving personnel), and the fact that there’re mentions to a place that is entirely inaccessible in story (the dormitories, which I’m hoping is what Mystic was referring to)… I’d say all of that is enough to make it worth looking into, don’t you?

So, the patch is about a week old now. We’ve seen the new story mode, and it’s depiction of the reactor’s last moments. However, I’ve seen not a scrap nor a rumor of what I considered to be the most interesting part of this patch- namely this: “Thaumanova Reactor: Embark on a brand-new historical adventure, and travel to the ill-fated power facility moments before it explodes. As the fractal scale increases, more potential outcomes will unlock.”

So here is the purpose of this thread- I am imploring any and all Fractral veterans to hunt down the Thaumanova Reactor at a variety of levels, and report back here what they find, with screen caps if possible. I would do it myself, but my grand moment of triumph today was reaching Fractals level… 11. To all those who will choose to accept this challenge, good luck and happy hunting!

Actually, having just done the story again, I’m going to retract my previous reconciliation. Looking around near the top of the fractal, the architecture doesn’t look at all like it’s missing a roof- in fact, it is quite typical of the asuran architecture that is open to the sky. From an out-of-lore perspective, I’d say that the designers somehow failed to obsessively spend hours hunting down any tiny scrap of dialogue relating to the reactor- that ANet is so good at burying their lore, they hid it from themselves. In-lore… I’d say either this is part of some other part of Thauma that we don’t see in Metrica, or that fractals being fractals, the architecture got distorted when it was copied.

As strange as it sounds, I actually believe the Aetherblades to be the largest of the three alliances- first off, looking at the story, the Molten Alliance conducted raids for a few months, were not heard from for a long time, and have only returned as part of Scarlet’s invasion force. That’s four months without them, and they’re only back in a minor support role. The Aetherblades, by comparison, have barely missed a release. In June, we saw them assault the government of Lion’s Arch, and loot hologram projectors across the continent. In July, we saw them attack the Bazaar of the Four Winds to make off with ill-gotten bounty. In August, they were the only non-clockwork component of Scarlet’s assault on DR, not to mention sending full crews out to harass the hot-air balloons, again across the continent; and on top of that, they were at least as big a part as the MA in the invasions. In October we found that far from being inconvenienced by all this activity, they’ve found the time to create a full-fledged airship factory. They are without question Scarlet’s go-to goons for when her clockworks don’t cut it.

And lorewise, this makes sense. The Flame Legion and the dredge both fractured in the wake of CoF and SE, so even assuming that they did manage to pull themselves back together they’ll be severely weakened. The Nightmare Court working with the Toxic Alliance are only a portion of the whole, and rather the alliance itself will survive the destruction of their tower remains to be seen. The Aetherblades, on the other hand, have no history of setbacks, and clearly do have the infrastructure to build and maintain an airship fleet. While the origins of the membership remains uncertain, if they are recruiting from the pirates they must have a flood of potential recruits flocking to the guarantees of booty and power, and away from the instability and power vacuum left in the wake of Taidha Covington.

Anyway, that’s my take on it, for what it’s worth.

As much as I like that theory, I’d like to point out that the Molten Alliance appears to be the least used of Scarlet’s alliances, and therefore is a poor source of manpower. I’d suggest instead that they have something to do with locating and identifying the lines, a mixture of dredge tunneling expertise and Flame Legion magical expertise.

I don’t think so. The Eternal Alchemy is just a belief that the whole of reality can be summed down to a series of scientific principles (or magiscientific, or however the asura explain it). It’s a concept, a philosophy, not a thing or an object or an energy. Scarlet has her take on it, but she’s not necessarily correct, sorta like how in our world there’s a variety of ways of conceiving of the Christian God and none of them can be said to be objectively correct.

I think you’re joking, but on the off chance that you are not… where do you get that rotting oakhearts come from jungle wurms? Neither of them appear in the vicinity of wurms.

Yes, the Nightmare Court uses wurms… just like they use hounds, husks, spiders, even jaguars.

There are NPCs in Caledon who say that thorn wolves do start as sylvan hounds, and the heart just north of Morgan’s Spiral shows the process, but what does any of that have to do with the wurms?

While there is certainly the possibility that wurms can be corrupted, I think it’s quite a leap to say that all jungle wurms are minions.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Again, there’s an NPC in Metrica who says that the Inquest lab was underneath the town, which means that it was underground at the time of the fractal. I’d agree with Konig on this- the fractal just didn’t copy the roof, or any of the upper portions.

Then what’s the massive UFO in the sky over the fractal? Part of the reactor core I thought? Why was that copied but not the rest of the “upstairs”?

Because we were specifically homing in on the events that caused the reactor to go critical. The core is part of that. The upstairs is not.

Again, there’s an NPC in Metrica who says that the Inquest lab was underneath the town, which means that it was underground at the time of the fractal. I’d agree with Konig on this- the fractal just didn’t copy the roof, or any of the upper portions.

Seeing as most of TA is open to the sky, I don’t see that as being a possibility. Not unless Mordy has a very… ah, interesting body shape.

And what would you prefer? That there are just diffuse clouds of magic filling up the atmosphere? As soon as the writers made the call for magic levels to be measurable, they were tied to three models for distribution, perhaps with some mixing and overlap, but basically three- drifting, circulating, or concentrated. “Ley lines” is just the accepted term for the second, and it isn’t even used in-game. You’re pulling with you a lot of assumption and prejudices you have for that term and projecting it needlessly onto this game- or at least I assume so, since you didn’t say anything about what you find objectionable about ley lines, just that they’ve appeared in content you don’t like. Saying that “ley lines”, or more accurately, a network of magical channels crisscrossing the globe is overused is like saying breathing air from an atmosphere is overused- you only have so many things to pull from without veering into the abstract.

Frankly, I think it’s an improvement, given what we had previously was the first with an assumption of the third. Now we have a blend of all three types- more room for interplay, more room for creative results of that interplay. It doesn’t conflict with what we knew before. It doesn’t clash with what we knew before. It’s just pulling back a bit more of the curtain hiding how the world works.

Scott McGough: “(some stuff about concept and design development) I think this is a toss back to the older kind of society that the world of Tyria had before, and the concept, we won’t get too deep into the details of the background, but, yeah, the idea was that that particular fractal took place, reflected something that took place in the distant past, something from Tyria’s very beginnings, where there were, there was this kind of colossus around, and then- we’ve specifically left it vague and I’m gonna keep it vague here because we love the questions it raises. Who is that man? Why has he been chained to that rock? Why are the cultists keeping him there? It’s fascinating, and once… the fractal itself was not the right place to delve into all that lore… and also I think it’s more appealing to leave some questions unanswered until we have time to develop them fully.”

That’s from a TowerTalk interview on May 5th.

TL;DR: It happened way way back, at the beginning of human society on Tyria… and everything else is still up in the air, a hanging open question unless they decide to pick it back up at a later date, in something that’s not Fractal content.

Hmm… that’s a good question. My guess, personally, is that while the Nightmare itself is likely Mordremoth corruption, what exists in the Dream is not Nightmare but rather memories that leave saplings mentally vulnerable to Mordremoth, something akin to the way being seduced by promises of power leave one vulnerable to Jormag. So to answer your question, I believe that the Nightmare Court would keep going, and keep spreading the darker side of the Dream, but with the Nightmare itself gone they’d mellow out a little, especially as the old guard are replaced- a little less Sariel and a little more Gavin.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

the ley lines seem to be pulling creatures of the elements, possibly of the areas around draconic corruption (the ice room teleports a lot of icebrood stuff, not just the icebrood boss, as well as creatures seen near the northern areas of the Shiverpeaks; the poison/plant room teleports creatures of the western Maguuma, which is near where Mordremoth is hinted to be; the aquatic room is bringing about deep sea creatures, from quaggans to deep sea crabs; etc.) this creates an interesting thought for the central room which summons steam creatures and other Lornar’s Pass creatures.

I disagree. Having just been through the reactor, I’d say as often as not the creatures in a given room don’t fit any theme, and I’ve seen quite a few that appear in multiple areas- fire imps and steam mechataurs, to name a couple. While it would be interesting if true, I just don’t buy it. Nor have I seen any other icebrood creatures anywhere in the reactor, unless you mean the turrets.

EDIT: Upon some personal research, I have concluded that there are two types of enemies in the reactor- those tied to certain points in certain rooms (breeze riders in the poison chambers, ice elementals in the ice chamber, arctic crabs in the water chamber, and of course the aforementioned veterans), and those that can pop in randomly in any chamber. Beyond those six examples, there is no correlation between chamber and creature type.

Regarding the original topic, though, Rooba describes the rotting oakheart as corrupted (a common term for dragon minions) and says that it resonates with the unstable magics, making the area even more volatile. As Scarlet implies that chaos energy is a form of dragon energy, I’d chalk that up as further proof of the Mordremoth’s minion theory.

I’m inclined to go with that third option. I would note, however, that what we see in the Fractal was never supposed to be the same place as what was seen in Metrica Province. The Inquest portions of the facility are said to have been underneath the rest, which was just another asuran town.

Personally, I’m of the same mind as you in this, but it does bear mentioning that there are two other boss side-events in the reactor. While the icebrood Svanir is certainly a dragon minion, I doubt that the deep sea crab is. I’d stop a bit short of saying the oakheart’s appearance in the reactor is enough to claim the theory confirmed.

@Konig That thing that shatters isn’t the ceiling, it’s the floating upper section of the reactor. While from that particular angle it looks to cover the whole room, if you look at it before that point it’s relatively small.

A bit off topic, but are the blue portals seen anywhere else besides used by norn or ice creatures? And I know it’s been coming up a lot of late, but is there anywhere where it is stated that the Crucible of Eternity was created after the Thaumanova disaster?
EDIT: I know the reactor was, but was the whole complex as well, or was that already there? It seems a bit hard to believe that such a huge complex could’ve been excavated, constructed, made operational, and been well on it’s way to achieving viable results, all within a span of months.

Not true. Whenever a free trial or sale goes up, they saturate Queensdale. Nearly impossible to miss them.

I have seen a fair number of low-level players without a guild tag the last month or two, so I’m inclined to agree that the letter is just Anet encouraging us to play nice with them.

It’s hard to say, but all dialogue points to it being very recent- on a guess I’d say no more than a month before the start of the game. So recent that the refugees have yet to leave a camp sitting just outside the danger zone, and many are still being treated for their injuries. In Rata Sum, you can here a lot of dialogue about it being a current event- I believe there’s even one that says the Arcane Council hasn’t responded yet.