Guild Wars 2

Covington, at least, spent most of her time attacking shipping to and from Lion’s Arch. And there is a sizable refugee camp on Stormbluff made up exclusively of sailors who had been wrecked by pirates.

Despite the seemingly small number of ports, and obvious dangers of the open sea, I think shipping is an important industry. In Edge of Destiny, Morgus Lethe was considered a pressing problem solely because he sat astride a major shipping lane. All the ports we see ingame, with the exception of Lion’s arch, are bustling places for their size. And then there’s a conversation by the Lion’s Arch asura gates- I don’t remember what was specifically said, but my takeaway is that those gates aren’t really used much for the transport of goods- something further evidenced by the amount of resources the Lionguard pour into keeping the roads clear. The general sense from the game is that shipping is still the life’s blood of Lion’s Arch, and an artery that the pirates can tap in to.

Invasive experimental surgery that leaves the majority of patients dead practiced on sentient races is shady- so leave the skritt alone!
The thing about an artificial heart is the size of the device, and the rate and force of the beat, would have to be customized by race. So an artificial raptor heart on an asura would be catastrophic. There is no one-fits-all.

What happened to Ceaoloti, the hylek cultural representative? She wasn’t included among the ones who came in and got scanned, she wasn’t among the ones who didn’t come in to get scanned… why didn’t she make an appearance, and why didn’t anyone notice she was missing?

Theoretically, the technology is there. The asura’s floating architecture may be based on a repulsion field. In that case, if the field could be scaled down, weakened, and made to regularly pulse, it might suffice to circulate blood. The question is the design- for an asura to invent such a thing without having it riddled with fatal and probably gory side effects, they would need to extensively test it, which would require some rather less than ethical experiments. If your asura’s friends were desperate enough to bring him to such a shady inventor… Yeah. It might work. You do need to jump a few ifs there though. And it still would not be as effective or efficient as a true heart.

It works for the charr. It’s not so much that they wanted the Flame Legion to be more evil, as it is they needed an explanation for why the females weren’t present in the first game, and religion was the answer. With Flame holding on to the religion, it fits that they’d hold to the misogyny. It’s not forced- great religious movements nearly always rapidly and drastically alter cultural values. With 450ish years to cement it, Flame misogyny definitely fits.

As for the females, remember, for the norn strength is a virtue rather apart from how much you can lift or how hard you can hit. It’s a more nebulous concept that is sought, chased after, without being defined. The Sons of Svanir have determined that the only true way to reach this ideal is for Jormag- therefore, someone who rejects Jormag, no matter how capable with arms, cannot be strong. It’s not a contradiction. As far as the history goes, male norn do and have always taken a certain pride in their manliness- back in GW1 Olaf was horribly disappointed when he didn’t have a son. Add to that pride the idea that you are entitled to being served by a different group, and you’ve got an attractive sales pitch. The Sons certainly typecast because of Jora, but in our world the largest religion for centuries cast women as morally weak and inferior because one supposedly once ate something she was told not to. People don’t tend to question things that don’t make sense unless they have a compelling reason to do so.

If I had to guess, I’d bet that it’ll become accessible as part of the content on the 25th.

Quote: " The prevailing winds that caressed the the burial ground’s cliffside entrances might carry the stench of warm, dry rot away from the city, but inside the crypt’s twisting passages, Dougal had no means of escaping it. "

It goes back to Svanir himself. The day he embraced the power that corrupted him, his sister, Jora, was with him, but she rejected the power. For this the Sons are contemptuous of women, seeing them as too weak to be worthy of Jormag’s power. Svanir then went on a rampage, raiding norn settlements, and Jora had to put him down. For this, the Sons despise women, seeing them as deceitful and untrustworthy.

Given the context, I don’t think that can be taken seriously.

My theory is that there are essentially two isolated branches of the Order, one in Tyria, and one in Elona, and retain communication but not necessarily any physical exchange. This, of course, is based one the supposition that remote exchange of information is easier than teleporting or other such magical transport, rather than any hard proof.

It might also be possible that Zommoros has extended her lifespan. Guild Wars lore holds that djinn can grant wishes (or, at least, that there are legends of them doing such), but it never lays out just what that power is capable of.

Pure speculation, but it is a theory I am particularly fond of, and it would mean there are no inconsistencies in her dialogue.

From the Movement of the World: “and even maintain a presence in Elona, although crossing the Crystal Desert is currently impossible due to Palawa’s stranglehold over the southern reaches and the desert dragon’s presence in the northern desert. Still, the Order of Whispers somehow maintains communication with Elona, aiding its military in their fight against Palawa and his minions.”

What I find interesting is that everyone seems to assume they travel back and forth. Personally, I find some magical form of secret communication, some sort of scrying ritual or the like, more likely than literal movement.

That’s little reassurance. This would not be the first time that wiki has misled me.

The Ascalonian monks, IIRC, use elementalist abilities. Mechanically, yes, they aren’t monks, but lore-wise, they are. Same goes for the living ones.

Lore-wise, monks are still around. There is at least one case where a priest of Dwayna speaks of “we Monks”, indicating the the profession still makes up the bulk of Dwayna’s priesthood (every member is trained in the healing arts) and quite possibly the others as well. They do still seem to be serving human communities- it’s just that the demand for them among adventuring guilds has been usurped by the guardian (who, yes, combine aspects of the monk and paragon professions, as well as a few other things.)

I remember reading that Miyani by the Mystic Forge is a Sunspear refugee. Not sure if it’s true… IIRC, it came from one of ANet’s now-removed blog posts, but my memory of this is vague, so I may be mistaken.

The historical reason and perhaps even mindset maybe be different, but the current political reality of the quaggans is the same- scattered, autonomous, insular villages that do not answer to a higher political or religious authority. That is all that I mean by putting them in a “tribal” category. While they are in theory willing to coordinate between villages, in practice there are only two instances where villages are close enough to accomplish this- and in one of those there is an emerging cultural split between the villages.

They’ve trained the skelk to fetch sticks. I wouldn’t say that puts the skelk at the level of a race.

They HAD a nation, but no longer. Not all of these races follow a strictly linear upwards progression. The quaggans, jotun, and probably skritt (and humans in some ways, and possibly asura, and possibly krait, and, according to legend, the harpies) are all currently at a less powerful or advanced status than their civilizations were at sometime in the past.

As for the sometimes friends, sometimes enemies: quaggans are invariably friends, and grawl and ogres are (also) only friendly when placed under extreme duress by outside forces that threaten their continued existence (or, in a couple of cases with the grawl, they are induced into worshiping a deity that makes them play nice.)

Edit: I do apologize for the slant of this reply. It is not my intent to be argumentative- I personally just try to stay away from categories that only contain a single member.

Agreed. And as in taxonomy, the divisions are bound to be at least a little arbitrary.

That said, I wouldn’t say that the friendly troll and ettins are more cultured. They simply, for whatever reason, lack the impulse to savagely attack other races. That doesn’t mean they’re any more intelligent or cultured or even peaceful, just that they happen not to try to kill the character.

Jotun are distinguished by their history, to be sure, but aside from that there is nothing separating them from the other members of that category. They all are fractured politically, the territory of any given tribe is confined to the immediate area, and there is minor but significant cultural differences between the tribes (for instance, in the personal storyline a tribe of jotun has been converted to Jormag worship and allied itself with the Sons of Svanir.) The jotun of today maintain no vestiges of their former power, and we don’t know for certain that the other tribals haven’t also fallen, so I feel their placement is justified.

The karka feel more like particularly clever animals to me than anything of actual intelligence. The only things that indicate otherwise are a handful of comments by developers and the circumstantial evidence of where they made landfall for their attacks. Skale intelligence, to the extent of my knowledge, is argued from the Istani skale and one less-than-clear answer in an interview- nothing in GW2, or GW1 outside Istan indicate any degree of culture. I haven’t heard any arguments for skelk, but now you’ve piqued my curiosity.

I agree the distinction could be made, but I do not feel it would be meaningful. One tribe of ettins and one or two individuals elsewhere versus the dozens of other communities in the game is an aberration, as is the single known friendly troll.

Looking back at the Northern Allies dialogue, it seems that the only person who thought Jora dishonored by killing Svanir was Jora herself. Jora’s opinions held weight with Olaf, even if Blood Washes Blood hadn’t been completed, and Egil says “It’s good to see that Jora can once again become the bear. Now, mayhaps, she may regain her status. There is but one obstacle, one mountain she must yet climb. Her clan homestead is overrun with Charr. No respected Norn would allow the land to be violated by such beasts.”- no mention of Svanir or kinslaying. There was another line- “only tragedy may come from a home built with blood-stained hands”- but that’s a cultural belief/superstition, not an expression of a moral judgement.

My apologies, Dustfinger, but what point are you making?

They hail Jora as a hero, but they view the whole circumstance as tragic. Killing Svanir was something Jora had to do, but nobody envies her.

Agreed. I’d put the tribals at “developing” (you never know, there may be hope for the jotun yet), and the ettins, harpies, and trolls at “hopeless”.

Kinslayer usually means killing one’s family… I don’t know that it has ever been addressed in Guild Wars, but I imagine it’d be similar to modern feelings on the subject- a particularly treacherous and deceitful murder, unless the relative had done something truly monstrous and needed to be stopped (see Jora and Svanir.)

EDIT: The charr gladium storyline can also pit you against your sire. He was sentenced to execution by arena combat for disobedience, theft, and desertion, and should your character choose to carry out the sentence it is considered respectful and honorable.

Personally, I’ve always divided the races into 5 groups: the “major” or playable races (asura, charr, humans, norn, sylvari), the isolationists (kodan, largos, tengu), the xenophobes (centaurs, dredge, krait), the “lesser” or tribal races (grawl, hylek, jotun, ogres, quaggan, skritt), and the monstrous races (ettins, harpies, trolls). It doesn’t really work to try to squeeze them all into “developed” or “developing”, because there is too much of a difference between the circumstances of the playable races and the isolationists and xenophobes. Dredge, krait, tengu, etc., are the equals of the playable races on a strict one-to-one basis, but they all stand alone, whereas the five playable races are an interwoven community. Cultural, technological, and magical exchange has caused each to strengthen the others, and stimulated growth and development in those fields (the spread of the engineer is a perfect example of this.) The other races don’t have this advantage, and so you have races that are specialized, even possibly stagnant to a degree. The dredge, for instance, have developed excellent mining and sonic technology, but not much else. The centaurs have fearsome mastery over earth magic, but still use crude catapults while the major races have progressed to cannons. They’re certainly farther along than the skritt or hylek, but they aren’t the equal of the playable races.

Narcemus, what about Rata Sum?

Drok’s is still there. It sank, and quaggans are living there now, but it is surprisingly intact and easily recognizable. The piers from Port Sledge are still there too- that place didn’t have much in the way of architecture. Rankor, while crumbling, is if anything bigger than it was in GW1

As far as why the names changed, a possible reason is that much of Kryta has changed hands. The humans abandoned not only Lion’s Arch, but most of the southern half of the kingdom. The sylvari/tengu now living there would have made their own names for the places.

Non-lore wise, it is mostly because this is a different game. Anet took most of the major places from Guild Wars 1 and put them in the same spots in Guild Wars 2, but pretty much everything in between is completely different. The watchtowers of Watchtower Coast, the mysterious ruins in Arbor Bay, Beacon’s Perch, Fort Ranik, Surmia, all of the Stone Summit’s architecture, all absent from Guild Wars 2 without explanation. Development-wise, this makes sense. Guild Wars 2 is a new game, after all, and a balance had to be struck between the old and new. Remaking all of the areas exactly as they were would not have been feasible.

More confusing are the places from Guild Wars 1 that were made entirely different in Guild Wars 2. For instance, the Temple of Grenth is still around, but all the architecture has vanished and the statue has been remade- all without a word of explanation.

“Despite all of these outside dangers, perhaps the biggest threat to any hylek tribe is when a rival tribe moves into their territory. Such an incursion often leads to an all-out war until one tribe wipes the other from existence.” That’s from the hylek lore blog post. Doesn’t sound much like the behavior of asuran krewes, nor of any division of any playable race excepting only the villainous factions.

A major component of the success of the playable races is that they possess a cohesive culture and a unified identity. A norn identifies as a norn, and usually proudly. A hylek identifies as Tagotl, or Occuintl, or Dengatl, and considers the distinction more important than their shared identity as hylek (which itself was just another tribe. It was outsiders who applied the term to the race as a whole.)

EDIT: Of the five, though, I still put hylek as second, in terms of both current development and potential for future advancement. I just don’t feel there’s much of a chance of them uniting on a global (or continental, anyway) scale.

There’s the superstitious bit… But even more important, the hylek tribes have a tendency to war with each other when there’s a dispute over territory or resources. Sparkfly Fen is the sole exception, and it remains to be seen if that peaceful accord can last without the risen forcing it on them.

Unfortunately, it is one of many dialogues that cease to be available once the heart is complete, but it is said that Quandry Scratch was an Inquest base. Iirc, their skritt test subjects rebelled, drove them out, and established New Skrittstead over their base.

I agree with drax, but I think skritt will be the next race to become “developed.”

The quaggans were broken, politically, culturally, and geographically- they even think their deity was killed. That, combined with their adherence to pacifistic principles, bodes ill for their chances of re-establishing themselves in Tyria as it currently is. The quaggan race is staring down extinction- though it may be possible that there are quaggans elsewhere who may be faring better.

The skritt, on the other hand, demonstrate much promise in Skrittsburgh. Despite the high turnover rate in their leadership and the multiple hostile factions preying on them, they’ve still managed to maintain their numbers and, by extension, intelligence and ability to develop culturally.

Probably, but they do have a concept of ‘godly’ or ‘divine’.

It’s not the way they come across, though the grawl voices are a little disappointing (I remember fondly the guttural “WE RA RA”), but rather that they are capable of spoken language that displays their intelligence. Language is the foundation and primary indicator of abstract thinking.

Ascalon wasn’t charr to begin with either. To the best of our knowledge, the first intelligent race to live there was the grawl. The charr conquered Ascalon- it’s a bit hypocritical to say humans are in the wrong for doing the same thing.

Oh, the charr know they’re responsible for pushing Adelbern into a corner. The reason they don’t think it was bad is because the charr don’t have a concept of just war. To them, the ends really do justify the means. The Searing, enslaving and murdering civilians… those weren’t bad because the charr use a different moral scale.

Trust me, as someone who played as an Ascalonian in the first game, I hate it too. As to the why- well, when we aren’t actively tricking them, the ghosts have an unfortunate habit of trying to kill us.
As you’ve apparently done the Ascalonian Catacombs, I’m going to assume you’re familiar with the Foefire. The ghosts hate the living because of it- the only way you can reason with them is by pretending to be one of them. It’s hurt or be hurt, they don’t leave much choice in the matter.

The chieftain that talks came in February, but there has been a group of gray grawl gathered around that tree since launch. They might even have always been called refugees, but I may be wrong. I spent a fair amount of time back then hanging around hoping for some ambient dialogue.

Keep in mind that that group of grawl has been present since launch. While their story may have been expanded slightly due to the proximity of the Lion’s Arch refugee camp, at the end of the day they are just another group among the many, many NPCs whose sole purpose is to fill the city and give it some flavor. I don’t think there will be any more changes to them.

Those first two actually are in the game. The second is concept art for the Nightmare Court, and the first in an early Eye of Zhaitan. As for that video… don’t get me wrong, I like WoodenPotatoes for what he is- a letsplayer- but his lore exposition has quite a bit of, ah, artistic license. It makes for an entertaining watch, but it is no substitute for first-hand experience. Did you ever play Factions? It was not nearly that dramatic, not unless you fill in the blanks like Potatoes does, and that is something that can just as easily be done with Guild Wars 2 as it currently is.
EDIT: On second glance, that third probably is in-game as well, as the Risen Knight. So, really, two of these villains of yours are thralls of the Elder Dragons.

I think the title is referring to the Molten Alliance in the Shiverpeak Mountains. For whatever reason, many of the NPCs seemed to ignore that there was conflict in Ascalon too.

Ah, found her. Thank you.

The particular quote was "In your world, this technology hasn’t even been invented yet! " That isn’t something one can just immediately tell the first time they step into an alternate reality. Obviously, this confrontation probably didn’t happen in the alternate timeline, so the inhabitants have no yardstick for measuring where or when they now are.
EDIT: Unless if the same thing did happen in the other reality… at which point we’d likely have a nigh-infinite regress on our hands, but still, an interesting thought.

Where is it stated that settlers are working with Canach?

Just re-read the Infinity Ball dialogue, and I withdraw my theory. The Grand High Sovereign seems to possess some familiarity with our reality, which would be unlikely had their only experience been the two experiments from that storyline.

Konig, would that be from Medina’s comment on the no risen karka thread?

As far as the steam creatures go, the only reason I suspect the two groups might be unrelated is that in the Infinity Ball storyline, the only reason the alternate you had an opportunity to invade was because you kept opening portals for them- that is to say, we have no reason to believe that those steam creatures were capable of accessing this world without our intervention. For a while I believed that they discovered inter-dimensional portals for themselves sometime afterwards, but now I’m not so sure.

I must have missed that line about the karka. What exactly is said there?

I suppose I ought to have clarified, but I’m not 100% convinced the Lornar’s Pass steam creatures share their origin with the Infinity Ball storyline ones. I freely grant that it is the most likely explanation, but I feel like that is due more to it being the only provided possibility rather than any strengths of the argument itself. I would not be surprised if we learn in the future that the LP steam creatures are of a more local origin.

Just read it. I won’t say that’s the only reason the Lionguard care… but if pushed to it, there is no question of which side they’ll take.

I’m with jheryn in wanting to know what happened to the Tyrian creatures who are no longer in the game, and why some others look so very different. I understand that many have given up caring, but I’m still hopeful that some reason will eventually be provided other than aesthetic update.

I’d also like to know how intelligent some of the monsters/creatures are, particularly the karka, imps, steam creatures, riders, skale, and troll. All have indictations of being more than mere animals, but save some unique cases we don’t see them use language, nor any but the most rudimentary examples of culture. How much are they actually capable of? Do they qualify as races?