Guild Wars 2

OK nice this is answered guess w/e it is it’ll be fine, though with a bit less ‘urgency stress’ and a whole different type of delivery, i am way less ‘stressed’ than i was during LS1, even though that was on the same 2 week schedule.

I’m guessing it is because now I know various parts will be there for me to work on in my own time, both farming and story achievements, meaning that I don’t feel that much of an urge to have to cramp everything in 2 weeks and for as much as I can squeeze out. Put the mind at ease and the body at rest, a lot more enjoyable

@Zaxares tobad i can only +1 that once …

And i do not mind the remnants of that tower there in any bit, surely Anet will find a way to build LS1 into DLC and by then it will make sense exactly what it is and why it was there, more then likely not thinking about why it was also there during low level experiences.

The Toxic alliance foes how ever? If they didn’t die in the crash of the tower, we would surely have been able to defeat the remnants by now. And with the tree and scarlet gone (and thus likely also the alliance), how would they even be able to keep appearing… and for what purpose ?

The split up groups, leaving true choice in our wake
this is a work in progress, I am trying to device a way (or ways) on how ‘we’ can play through the LS, and leave a true choice for the replay through our LS experience

Using a split up group has been a movies/writing way of taking us along the choices made within the story (btw. never split up, it will get somebody killed … but anyways). It should somehow be possible for us as players now, to live through the story as the movie or book would. You would go with each of both groups separately, and as long as you have time and a sensible way to join the other group during the LS, as they go through their part of the story. You would create 2 storylines …

These than could be build in alternating fashion (on a two week period), one step for one group for 2 week, one step for group two for the next two weeks, etc… In the end one would theoretically be able to offer at least parts of this content as a ‘true choice’ for the replay. You would choose a course of action, and only see that side of the story, offering the other side for another replay.

The best would be if you could somehow offer sensible choices at various interfalls, so that a alternations become possible. But how to do this so that the LS and the replay still make sense… and offer roughly the same choice(s)!

Would it be enough to just set out to find the same thing from a different angle, come together, discuss options, maybe have a shared step, to then split up again to again find the same answer with a different approach, again? How many times could you do this b4 it starts to become too obvious…

one of the things i am interested in, is to show a living world, be it in the game or the living story, this ‘mechanic’ hopes to show a way to reflect change based upon actions of the player

The selective slaughter, reflecting change
When opposed with different groups of foes, that band up to fight against the PC’s that in itself may offer a way to reflect change to the experienced events/story by using the action of the player to reflect change. Quite possibly this change can be automated so that resources can be concerned with new content, and based upon the time the selective slaughter is left to run, the outcome of the fight could be reflected in the rest of the story…

How could that work/be implemented?
this example runs off of the invasions we experienced during the Scarlet events, without mentioning it specifically, i will deem Anet more then capable to judge whether or not it can be used in different setups
1. A map is set with spawn points for the fights to take place.
2. A script is used to assign a certain foe-type to each spawn point. (based upon equal chances, and a none set initially at 0%)
3. A counter is used to keep track of the points ‘completed’, likely linked to the key foe (a champ or elite) of a certain type. This type is then counted…
4. A script runs at the completion of the entire event, ranks the amount of foes types slaughtered, and adjusts the chances of spawn based upon the outcome (by something like: most slain 1st. -0.2% , 2nd. +0.0% 3rd. +0.1% none: +0.1%) into the original generation script.
5. The next time the event runs, the spawns are set based upon the new chances.
6. The whole thing runs a new.
7. Over the course of 500 runs, roughly only 50% of the locations show a foe spawn, while slowly, but surely, preference ‘might’ start to also show…
it be interesting to see how this works out, will difference show, or will it gravitate to equilibrium? If anything the ‘none’ will show that an impact is being made

Another way of doing this, depending on the way that foes are spawned:
1. Locations are set for each foe type to spawn in said location.
2. A script runs to determine if a spawn will be set. (100% yes, 0% no)
3. If a location is compromised a script would note the change and set (yes -0.01%, no +0.01%)
4. To further the impact, a second script (or all in one) would run at the completion of the event, ranking the foe types slaughtered, and adding multipliers to the chances based upon the ranking, most slaughtered: 1st. x5 2nd. x3 3rd. x1
5. The events are left to run, and as the foes get slaughtered it becomes less and less likely that a foe will actually spawn. If a certain route or foe type becomes preferred, the spawning will reflect the changes.
6. The ‘no’ could also be represented by spawning an entirely different creature type in the location, for example a boar. Which would not change the chances, but might be different from just an empty spot…

If then the next or the 2nd next event would be a story step that is set to take into account the result of this fighting, then the events and the noted changes would be put into the frame work of the story. This could be done by using the event that is to follow as a hint…

for example:
- A spy notes that you brought down the numbers of group Y considerably, and suggest to strike their base…
- A deflector could turn to you and tell you that group Y are now so weak, besides what the antagonists proposes now is not what (s)he signed up for. He is willing to save his friends (and not betray them) by revealing the base of ‘Y’ so they may be less likely to proceed, and you may stop this horrid plan in it’s tracks. Besides he never liked… (might also be used to set a trap, by pitting against the strongest)
- Some other story step could reveal the location of the main base of the weakest link…
-> Do note the actual foe types could easily be interchanged based upon the chosen type of delivery.

result
- In the time that the assault on the base is being pre-paired a pre-build base can be decorated to appeal to the foe that is the result (or X bases could be build to represent each type, where the other bases are already planned to be used in other story steps)
- The foes are defeated, and done with…
- For the rest of the story group Y is not part of the story…

replay
Obviously such an open world fight can not be repeated in a replay. But perhaps an instance can be devised that simulates something similar. For example, a map where you are left to cull the numbers, foes spawn in locations, and after every 3rd group of foes, or perhaps certain key locations, foes re-spawn. All set on a timer…

The result wouldn’t be kept dynamic, but the ‘living story’ result will be reflected in the rest of the story.

I answer this in another thread. My hopes are that seeing the Dust map shows actual map change based upon ‘something X’. That the Ascalon area will see the map changed based upon ‘its now night’. This had pretty much always been how the ghost situation was supposed to be, I think that if you read the book, the ghost encounter also takes place ‘at night’… (or in dungeons where daylight doesn’t reach)

It may be that a day Ascalon has been laying on the shelves for quite some time now, but seeing that the system to govern the change in maps and events wasn’t up to standards (or finished), now that it has, and been tested with dust storms, they might well be confidant enough to release new content on several maps all at once.

This would mean that the efforts of Rytlock succeed only partially, mainly, ’we will give you the day to fight off these dragons, but the land is still ours, and be gone when the sun sets, because we will take over, and anyone will be our enemy, plant, charr, or any other of these scrubs present here. Ascalon is ours and it will stay that way, until the rightful heir to the throne will claim his place, and Ascalon will be a human kingdom once more…

Now nothing really changed, and for a new player (or a new character) nothing has truly changed, the ghost are still there during the night, and the separatist (and others) have taken over during the day. For older characters though, it would also make sense. And for the story in the repeated version (the bought one), well it may display the exact same thing, and there are merely some questions as to why people didn’t see any daytime ghosts as they levelled up (if they even noticed). Or it is replaced by a failed attempt (just some lines and frames cut out of the scene). And all is well and understandable. ‘Only ’we’ currently present will ever know that at one time the systems to govern total map changed based upon timers just wasn’t ready to deal with the day/night time events in the Ascalon area.

In this sense though I am a bit more concerned with LS1 left overs, as these do not make sense for a player if they haven’t done LS1. Phazing might ultimately be the best way to deal with this, but it also creates the problem of splitting up the community, something that they just seemed to have tried to fix with the mega server package. So i am not entirely sure how to deal with this yet…

Implications for other Cross Map events (for example temples)
i wish i knew exactly how these worked, so i could be more specific and accurate, but i will give it a try non the less. Seeing the events (by my minor knowledge) are linear, the process of keeping track would be slightly different.

1. As long as the last instance of a map doesn’t ‘despawn’ with an end state of any of the temples, it will spawn the next time with the state it was last saved in. Else, the map will restart at point 0, the next time it spawns. For as long as there are people on the map, it will follow normal procedures (which unfortunately i do not know what they are)
2. If another instance of the map is started it will start with the last known state of said map, unless it is an end state. In which case the first stage of the map will start (or the randomizer failsafe is used). This also mean that if you hear your guildies mention that you are about to do step X, but the map is full, you will start an instance of the map in the state your guildies are in, and they ckittene the ‘join player’ feature to continue where they left off…
3. If an instance completes the temple fight, the event opens up on the next map, if it is already on it’s way (it could check the population on said map and the state of the map) and depending on both it would either:
- place the player on the existing map with current progress (preferred)
- place the player in a new instance. The system could take into account how long it has been since the previous map has reached an end state, and set the state of the temple in said map to ‘open for a charge’ based upon said state timer.
4. The same would apply for the last map.
5. When you are ‘left’/still on a map that has reached it’s end state, and there are other instances of the map running (depending on how far along these are, and the population on the map), the system could alert the player that (s)he can change maps by using a waypoint to join a server that is in a different state. !Including! The next time you use a waypoint, you will be moved to this map. This will ensure that the amount of instances is kept low. New entries to the map could be loaded on which ever instance ANet prefers them to load, if players remain on the map (as said) the events will ‘reset’ or scale back, and Anet can set a threshold somewhere to make this map open up to new arrivals at this point. ‘Aka. re-use the instance’

While ‘again’ i might be missing certain features of the whole temple fighting thing, and perhaps just excluding them from the whole system would be simpler, this seems like a valid way to reintroduce the temple events in a more dynamic fashion though

Tnx JerryMain, that was very enlightening and seeing I had just taken the world server for ‘granted’ i was not aware of these… They do indeed pose some problems for a system like i was proposing…

There is only one thing to do now really, call upon guidance of Menzies the Mad …
Introducing ‘the shadow server’:
The shadow server is a ‘state database server’ that logs all the changes to all the states of all events on all the maps, this server makes it so that if a certain map is entirely empty and the last ‘instance’ of it is ‘despawned’, the next time some-one enters the map it is started up with the last know state of said map. Another function of the shadow server is to re-enable (some of the) cross map events. This will work in the following manner

1. If an instance of map is changed all the states of said map are stored on the shadow server. When a new instance starts it will retrieve the data from the shadow server and start the instance in the last known state.
2. Any changes to the states of the map will be logged onto the shadow server.
3. When a second instance of said map is started, this map will start with the last known state on the shadow server.
4. For events that offer cross map functionality (like the system I suggested earlier in this thread), the shadow server will take the combined results on all instances of the existing maps, into account, to determine in which state the ‘world’ is, in order to start of a next level of events for each instance.
5. To accomplish this each map is periodically evaluated based upon it’s state, and the combined state. If the combined state indicates that the ‘events’ are escalating, then the events on all maps are set to scale towards the next thread level. If the combined states indicate that the players are sufficiently dealing with the thread, and the combined state indicate that the events would de-escalate, the next time event is started it will take the de-escalated state into account. There is a certain bandwidth set so that the thread level might not change.

5a. In order to reduce the amount of ‘we just did this event’ encounters, each thread level has a certain number of events, on each map, as well as those that take place in various other section of the world. (this f/e means that if no instance of said map is present at the time of the event, it is considered a lost event in the state count). When this map were to load, it loads based upon the last known information on the shadow server, which, as you guessed it, would also take into account if a cross-map state has changed since it was last activated.

6. As some of these events are linked to world bosses and champion events, the state of the whole world will be taken into account when these events spawn. Again the combined efforts will determine if the events in the world de-escalate. The world bosses themselves remain on the well known timer, ‘but’ the state in which the entire world is at the time they spawn, will determine in what strength you will find these Foes.

Hard Core – Mega organized.
For both the Karka Queen and the Jungle Wurm, various events in the world have been linked to them, to provide ‘world state counters’, Teq. is obviously linked to events to do with the Risen. Because these events are already mega-hard, changes in strength may vary mildly. Lets just say that we re-evaluated the events and made changes to reflect efforts on other fronts, or failure to do so… (f/e. the karka queen might be ‘extra’ annoyed if a lot of karka have been killed in the time in between her spawning, the system as a whole might validate karka concentration to show up on other maps as well | In regards to the Jungle wurm, the same may apply for Grubs f/e.)

Standard world events.
The same applies here as for the mega hard – coordinated attacks.

Standard world events
Nothing changes here… as these events are for low levels, and are not meant as high coordinated events. But, we have added new possible ‘world events’ at the 30min mark, which depending on the area these are related to, will or will not spawn. These events are basically higher tiered events based up on the world state on the shadow server.

Champion Events
Expect certain champion events (that made sense to use based upon this system) to reflect the current world state on the Shadow Server.

Dynamic Events
Various dynamic events have been added to the world, mainly (but not exclusively) linked to activities of the Dragons. This was done to make these entities feel more present in the world, and the shadow server governs them as a hidden puppet master. There are various tiers in this system, and each tier is represented by various events either on the same map, but also on various other maps where activity may or may not be expected. Results in these new, and various existing events have been linked to the events mentioned above.

It might also be a misunderstanding in regards to the mentioned ‘no content update for Drytop until the next one’. Which may have been misunderstood as, there will be no update for a certain time…

Just as a reminder, in the current Dry Top area a whole section of the map can be ‘explored’ as the location of the future addition. While there is nothing there but landscape, if you haven’t known about it, it may interest you to try and find it, and explore it. That way you can get a bit of new DryTop and a part 3 to LS2

@BrunoBRS, do not forget about EbonHawk, as well as the separatists. Ascalon is far from dead…

@Fuiltech, it is not un common for Kings of different lineages to have their kids marry and produce offspring in order to expand the Kingdom… Who is being shown in said locket may well be related to the story, as it could be one that is descendant from both bloodlines… who? and how?

Well my biggest guess would be that Gwen (featured in GW1) could be ‘a’ descendant of King Adelbern, as it has never been made clear as to who Gwen’s father was. She then would have been the half sister of Prince Rurik (who died by PC hands without any offspring, as far as we know). So that would make Logan the heir to the Ascalonian throne, and some gossip has been going on that he might have a child with the queen of Kryta. Which would make said child to be the king or queen of Tyrian Continent Humans. A descendant from King Doric, who basically took a blood oath burdening his bloodline with the protection of the Keystone (and with it the protection of the bloodstones), and a Descendant from King Adelbern, burdened with the curse of Ascalon and ‘from human perspective’ the rightful king of Ascalon.

But that’s a far stretch though, with a lot of speculation

Quite possible, and an interesting viewpoint, created just like the realm of torment is said to be created… or possibly already existing as a realm of said power, and merely linked to the plane of Tyria (seeing not all scholars agree on whether the realm of torment existed or was created, and whether it still exists).

It still leave the option though that the seat of power in that realm would be considered the ruler over said power (aka grenth) though that ‘from the view point of said realm’ Dhuum was it’s right full ruler.

@Sir Vincent, that would be quite an interesting surprise and twist as well … do you expect that this time he will just stay with the group, and instead ‘not’ run off to try kill every Charr in sight…

I am going to come in here and surprise everybody with a big YES, you are right! BUT! statement…

You are likely right, and ANet ‘stole’ this from ME, not to plagiarize them but to honour that specific game. Let’s not forget that a lot of GW developers are gamers too. And if you are an older true gamer (like one that played multiple genre’s through the times), then you will find A LOT of references to other games. Just to name one example, The Karka islands, they are (to me) a direct reference to a small little island in the Tuturial phase of ‘The Saga of Ryzom’, if you haven’t played that game you obviously wouldn’t know. But that little island is filled with crab like critters, and on the island there is always ‘one’ boss, when the boss is killed after a while, a new one forms (or rather, ‘in lore’, the crabs fight until one wins and becomes the boss, we never experience the fighting though). The familiarity even goes as far as some of the distinct movement of the critters…

BUT! For most longer term GW players this is never seen as plagiarism of an older game, it is seen as an older gamer referencing a game as a former fan in honour of said game… A nod so to say: ‘that was a cool game, we will use some of it and give it a twist of our own, while at the same time leave at least that much in tact that a gamer who has played it will experience it as an ’Easter egg’…

Great you played ME, and you loved ME, now GW borrows some of it (that can’t really be considered as original in the first place), but left it in tact in a sense that you are reminded of it, cool huh! … Now i do not know what you thought of mass effect, but your sig. says enough of what you think of GW2 … If it weren’t for the topic to have this eye opening conclusion from my end, as a longer GW player, that also played it’s fair share of other games, i wouldn’t have even given this obvious troll attempt and plagiarism accusation much attention. Guess you got me there, though i doubt you would have expected this from it all…

Guess if you don’t like the story, you can always try to find the other game references that are more then likely still all over the game…

@PopeUrban, we do not know that for a fact, the Human’s attribute the ‘Necro’ powers to Grenth, as they are related to the underworld. Aka. they come with the office. But we do not know for sure that even though Grenth sits in the office, technically the powers come from a magical plain that still sees Dhuum as it’s representative.

Some of this can be deducted from the Lore of Dhuum, who is said to grow stronger with every death…

So, I were to say, there is the chair that rules over the underworld and the powers that come with it, and there is the representative that is ‘supposed’ to sit on it, and the one that is ‘currently’ (or at least during the time of the gods) sitting on it, and exercises the powers that come with the chair. Like I said earlier, this is a definition question and not one that can be solved by clashing opinions.

In regards to Malchor btw. If Dwayna was Grenths mother, then do you think what I’m thinking ?

Regarding Ghosts
Removing the Ghosts from the world would mean a major overhaul of the whole Charr area. It would also (sort of) need a phasing system in place, because even though the ghosts can return in PS instances (taking place ‘in the past’), gaming in the general area would then loose it’s context entirely.

But, as we have seen by the arrival of the ‘Dust’ being able to change an entire landscape. And remembering that ‘once’ it was said that there would be differences between day and night, also in regards to foe presence (which didn’t seem to be the case for the Ghosts for some weird reason). I think that we will see a partial resolution instead.

Meaning, the attempt by Rytlock ‘works’ but only for the ghost presence during the day. The reason as to why the alliences are put to the test will likely be that Logan (possibly ordered so by his queen), refuses to use Magdaer as well, giving this partial result. One, because these are all human citizens, even though they are dead, and let us not forget that the Charr still lay siege to Ebon Hawke… It’s a nice ‘Needs of the one vs needs of the many’ moral problem (be it with a bit of a twist).

Now next to the Sylvari being distrusted for the events of Scarlet. The Human motives will be mistrusted for the resolution of the Ghost situation in Ascalon, which is tried to free up resources to fight a greater common thread. Likely also having effects on the Peace treaty.

We will be left with perhaps even multiple Ascalonian/Charr maps with a wide array of new day events, while the ghosts event are to be used strictly during the night. Similar to how there are different events in Dry-Top, during a Dust Storm and Without one…

All will make sense still (in regards to all story lines), so in that sense nothing has truly changed, yet, we see new events and new content, a whole development of the story. And we get a more dynamic world…

I’m gonna have to be honest, that if this turns out to be the case, i will stand up from behind my computer and applaud…

@RedStar, consequently it was mentioned in an interview that while he is dead his corruption lingers, and his Champion is still around. This is mentioned as the reason why there are still risen around. And while cleansing has been started, this is a slow and painstaking process…

Or you could obviously hint out your reason, but the lore one is a bit more poetic

@Yumiko, in regards to the lodestones:

Going off of: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lodestone
We would have:
- Onyx Lodestone: Natural form ?!
- Charged Lodestones & Crystal Lodestones: Kralki, just crystal ones are simply decharged.
- Corrupted lodestones: Zaithan
- Glacial: Jormag
- Destroyer & Molten: Primordus, one corrupted one close enough to melt but not corrupted

In this regard it may also be interesting to look at GW1 lodestones:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=lodestone

dinner time i’ll leave this to you, you may find some interesting stuff

Regarding the Ice Brood
In today’s Lore interview release (from the Spanish community, muchos gracias for sharing) which can be found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/New-lore-interview-to-Anet-lore-team/first#content

It is stated that Dragons don’t ‘typically’ fight with each other, as long as they don’t ‘tress pass’ on each other’s territory. Seeing that Mordi ‘has to’ pass through the Shiver Peaks, ‘we’ might get an unlikely ally in the fight Against Mordi, as Jormag might be fairly irritated about his presence in the Shiver Peaks… Obviously this ‘ally’ will strengthen it’s presence or will respond with stronger creatures, these would obviously also pose a new thread to the area and thus to us!

more feedback

On Dragon Champions
Seeing The Champion seems to be the ‘highest in command’ in the ranks of Dragon Spawn, and various sources hint at it to there ‘being only one’. Suggesting 3 champs for each Dragon goes against all previous lore…

I do agree though, that with some more higher ranked sentient ‘Dragon spawn’ it would be possible to create a more elaborate profile of the Dragons, so that each can have it’s own subtleties. But as you create difference in dragons, why? create these difference the same (aka 3 for each). Why not give one dragon just one (aka the champ, rest just small minions), another 1 champ and 3 lieutenants, yet another 5 ‘lieutenants’ that combine into one Champ (great for bubbles f/e and or Primordus).

Seeing that the Dragons are set into a framework, that seems to have a great deal of logic behind it (somewhat like the MtG power-chart/wheel), having 3 setups would be enough, and opposing dragons could share a hierarchy breakdown.

I would also like to mention that Anet has already tried to use multiple entities to ‘speak’ for the dragon, We see this in the PS regarding Zhaitan. Aside from Teq. there are the Mouths of Zhaitan. And in lesser sense the eyes. That seem to give a bit of character to Zhaitan himself. In my examples above he would be the ‘One General, Multiple Lower servants’ type dragon. Which would make Mordremoth use a similar setup. seeing Bubbles and Primordus suiting themselves the best for a merging Lieutenants, that would leave Kralki and Jormag for a Champ with 3 Lieuts.

On Minions
My critique here is that, due to the above mentioned ‘power-chart/wheel’ that makes up the dragons. It might turn out (and there are hints to it), that NOT all dragons are capable of Corruption! Most noticeably, the dragons on the left side (Bubbles, Mordremoth, Primordus) seem to be more ‘creating’ dragons, while the dragons on the right side (Kralkatorrik, Zaithan, Jormag) have shown to lean towards ‘corruption’ to create their minions.

Now there may be shades of grey here, and the analysis of the power-chart/wheel is only in it’s infancies. As some Dragons may only be capable of corruption when the subject ‘freely’ accepts the corruption (hints of this can be found with Scarlet). These dragons might still be capable of ‘mind control’ or at least a high influence on the mind to try and subvert their target to ‘freely’ choose to submit themselves to the dragon. But like Mordi, certain events related to Zhaitan, could/might also be linked to somebody that is influenced by him, yet not corrupted (in a sense that can clearly be noticed, like that of Jormag and Kralki.)

So yes ! I fully agree that the corrupting side of Dragons could be increased by including more creatures that would be corrupted (merely by being in the areas of corruption). Yet, if indeed it turns out only 3 dragons create minion ‘by’ strong and active corruption, of any being, than obviously this would only make sense for these dragons!

On The Dragon fight
While I somewhat agree with the experience of the end fight, you will have to acknowledge that the dragon is a lot bigger than the size of their Champs. We can fight these in game, and it takes an awfully big group of players to take them on… Also, due to the size it may be impossible to fit him onto a map due to technological restrictions…

Yet, the end fight would have been that much more fulfilling, if we would have followed the dragon down, and would have been able to stab the now severely (physically) weakened dragon with our ‘group’ (aka. Us the hero together with Destinies Edge). It would have also given Anet the possibility to further expand the personality of the Dragon, and sow some mystery by them having a dying breath statement…

As far as animation goes, this also makes things easier, as not all the parts of the dragon would have to be animated. And only the still ‘working’ parts would have to be models with wire frames, while the rest of the dragon could be made as a mock-up.

@JerryMain, if you reference to something it would be nice to use it as the example of the issue you describe first. Seeing I hardly play the Temple Events, and thus have absolutely no clue as to what you are talking about, even more so in relation to Mega Servers? Your ‘what might be great feedback’, becomes entirely useless… What is the problem? How do Mega Server relate to the problem? (and where you can see an example of this I now understand)

@lordkrall, I do not see any reason why you put ‘earth’ with Mordremoth? Sofar all the minions are plants. If you want to place ‘earth’ somewhere, it would be with Primordus, whos minions are Magma. Which is basically molten earth… so fire/earth.

I see this done more though, and I don’t blame you … people see Plants, think Melandru, and remember God of Earth & Nature. And assume that Mordi, due to representing ‘Nature’ in a sense, he is also related to earth… Seeing a one on one relation ship with Gods/Dragons has already been debunked, there is no reason to assume that Mordi while representing nature, also represents earth (until we see any hints or proof for it).

Thank you for sharing, I have some ‘corrections’ to make though, concerning the analogies. While I like the use of them ( @Anet Representative!) please do check if the analogy you use is based upon the right principle! If you use an analogy based upon some science, do make sure this science is actual proven fact (or near to) so you don’t spread what is basically ‘non sense’… it makes me cringe

On the ‘creation’ of water
Water is created by the chemical binding of Oxygen en Hydrogen, this is an exothermic reaction (aka energy is also released when the two combine) that needs either a ‘start up energy’ (spark of something will do) or a ‘reactant’ (which is platinum). The reaction takes place when the concentration of both Oxygen en Hydrogen is high enough for it to take place (hence we find both Hydrogen and Oxygen on our planet, even though the planet contains platinum and loads of places that are plenty hot).

A Geyser does NOT create water! A geyser is a geological process caused by underground volcanic action. It works like a pressure cooker: An underground cavity is constantly filled with water (likely from the top, so that the water flow also seals off the cavity), this water is then heated by the volcanic action and starts to boil. Once the pressure is high enough to break through the inward flow of water, the pressure is released. OR, like a thermal syphon, which works in almost the same way, though it would involve a ‘tube’ that filled with water, the water boils and from expansion pushes the water out of the tube.

This is different from a spring, which is a geological process where water gets to the surface either due to gravity and an impenetrable rock layer (the water penetrates the soil -> hits the rock layer -> flows downward with gravity -> exits as a spring), OR, by a process that can best be described as the ‘Connected vessels’, where the water level is corrected by a connection between two points of elevation, which are caused by impenetrable rocks. (the water penetrates in one area -> flows downwards in a tube of impenetrable rock -> due to the tube being U shaped, with one ‘shorter leg’ on one side -> the water then flows out the short side.

Seeing as Ley Lines are described like rivers, all these processes ‘may’ take place on Tyria if the conditions are right, and magic behaves like water. One hint of this might be seen in the CoE area, where there seems to be an ‘Eternal Faithfull’ geyser of magic being propelled into the air (unless there is another explanation for this ‘eternal’ flow of magic into the air).

On dark-matter
Dark matter is up until now an Unproven hypothesis to explain the rotational speed of the matter in the disk of solar systems. If you want to use an analogy for aether, use ‘The Higgsfield’, while discovery of the Higgsboson is still somewhat up in the air (‘we’ (as in mankind) are not sure what we found), and is only so far been suspected to be found in LHC. Aka. to be truly acknowledged as existing it needs to still be confirmed by an independent second control experiment!

But seeing the Higgs field is related to the Higgs Boson, where the interaction between these two in something that I can only describe as ‘friction’, is the reason for the existence of Mass. Which gives particles a way to interact with Gravity, to results in weight. This whole process can truly be called ‘magical’ in a sense, and the higgs field Omni presence can (from my point of view) truly be called ‘the aether’….

Disclaimer
I do not blame the person coming up with the analogies and using them, for these misunderstandings. Using analogies is actually a really good way to convey otherwise hard to explain concepts. And science is not for everybody… But I did feel the need to correct them, so that no scholars will fail their chemistry or physics tests…

Ehrm not realy, we saw the pale tree b4 we saw the ‘diagram’, so we move past the Pale tree, to get to it, this is also what Scarlet experienced. The ‘assumption’ that this means that the pale tree is at the center of the diagram, is only based upon a sketch made by Scarlet, which by all mean, might just be that, trying to make sense of it all… And she, like you, assume that how we pass the tree, indicates that the white (both are whitish) means that the tree is the center. No proof of it though…

What I do see as proof though, or at least a very strong hint. Is this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/zaitan-dark-green-orb/first#post4222396 Which explains why Mordremoth as a Dragon is so late to arrive, if his orb is the 4th to light up… And while I will agree that pointing at the pale tree is an assumption, it would explain the whole thing (and yes, that means that the pale tree suffered a case of ‘the Glint’, but ‘you know’, look at GW1 … some things just seem to return and come back), and obviously that theory (linked) is an assumption too…

Still though, and that is my biggest problem with this Occam’s razor thing, regardless of the reason why Mordi would go after the PaleTree (as Kralki did with Glint). Using just that as a means of concluding, ‘Mordi went after the Pale tree because they are both plant like’. While conclusions based upon observation, it may not be the actual reason…

I’m getting sort of lost on you on that last 4 bits though, but I will answer to that 5th (from the bottom). Why did scarlet see that vine, scarring the Pale tree? Well because maybe that is the ‘true form’ of the pale tree. In a sense you can ‘also’ see that as a hint that the Pale Tree was supposed to be Mordremoth’s minion factory… (or maybe it was what scarlet thought she was. as she then after the vision grew some herself.)

On the lost bit then? Who’s birth would have been highlighted? The pale tree’s birth? cuz if so, it was in the last episode of GW1: Eye of the North.

Who knows, but if ‘a Sylvari’ approaches a dark morbid nightmarish branch of Sylvari and suggests: ‘Lets make a huge life producing tree of our own, producing toxicating seeds, and plant/krait like monstrosities’. That would strike those Nightmare Court as something that sounds like a good plan ?

Guess time is limited and what you run into is entirely based upon what you happen to see, strike you, and click on … I fully agree on almost everything OP said so far, in fact, I have been the exact same thing, be it with different arguments. Mainly this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/zaitan-dark-green-orb/first#post4222396 which is the last most comprehensive version of it…

Where do I disagree, that is the dream/nightmare thing … why? Because a nightmare is still a dream… The dream is where the Sylvari ‘experience’ everything that the other Sylvari already experienced, so that each batch is that much wiser than being born as a blank. (or at least, have the option to experience everything, we do not know for sure they experience everything, as a lot of them are still very inquisitive and naïve.) The Dream even relays new information during their life, although as a Sylvari player I have yet to experience this.

The difference between ‘normal’ Sylvari and ‘nightmare’ is the things they focus on, the nightmare court focus on all the horrid in the dream, and consequently view the world as a horrid place in which you need to be horrid to survive and thrive. The normal Sylvari either focus on the positive or on the whole. The dream’s influence on the still living Sylvari may be the reason for the Soundless, why experience things through the mind and body of others, if the experience of ones self is much more fulfilling.

Will the nightmare court be willing to subvert to Mordremoth, yes I think so, based upon the below though it remains to be seen if that is possible (aka. is there even a Mordremoth’s corruption). Then again, based upon Scarlet’s experience, it seems to be quite possible that there is a Mordremoth’s corruption. It may turn out to work different than f/e Jormag’s or Kralkatorrik’s corruption though. Simply because of how it all works on Tyria, in regards to which dragons are capable of what…

Another thing we seem to agree upon is the system in the Diagram in the vision. In this regard https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/The-Eternal-Alchemy-The-Orbs-Theory/first#post4222527 this thread may be of interest for you. As it hints on way more system setup features for all the Dragons.
Likely this thread is interesting as well: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Perspective-Dragons-Gods/first#content it is far from complete, but I think I am on the right track, mainly because almost all the things that I am left with are sort of ‘white’/monk features, that might be represented by the white centre in the diagram,

@Ariella, while I can not speak for others, and while I did check and apparently there are more sources for him than the wiki (so he did exist, in the middle ages, and is referenced there for this principle). I personally consider it to be somewhat of a moot principle (like the principle of the flat earth); and the only place where this principle does have some merit is in simplifying research.

Aka, if you want to do research that involves a Hypothesis, and you are formulating various ones to be the basis of your research, start with the one that has the least amount of assumptions so that your research is more likely to come to viable results.

That is not saying though that the simplest answer is the correct one, it is saying, try to figure out if the simplest answer is ‘the’ answer, b4 trying to figure out if some difficult constructed theory with all sorts of assumption (that may or may not be true) can be ‘the’ answer. I hope you see the difference here

And actually your suggestion is not the simplest answer based upon what we know. The simplest is, the Pale Tree is supposed to be the Champion of Mordremoth and the Sylvari are supposed to be Mordremoths minions… ‘But’ something happened that made it turn out in a different way… we even have a clue in the story of Ventari that could be a possible reason for what happened. (and, there are actually some more hints that point in this direction.) Will he go after the pale tree? did Kralkatorrik go after Glint… ?

Three things that I would like to comment on:
1. In regards to Braham, your critique would only be true if all males in the game are like him. That isn’t the case, so ergo. It is who Braham is, and we just happened to be ‘stuck’ with a male that is more ‘testosterone’ driven. So be it, it’s interesting in itself, and for that matter look at Rox … they aren’t drawn to each other for no reason, they think alike. As a matter of fact, the Norn and the Charr in parts seem to be cut from the same branch…

2. In regards to your end statement on how Tyria =/= Reality, and Anet should tell more about how Tyria is. Well perhaps Tyria is more like earth, and through this Anet is telling us that. You may not like this, but that is a whole different point of view than saying that Anet isn’t telling you things about Tyria…

3. In this regard though, I will somewhat have to agree with you on one thing, why ‘only’ Taimi (this also goes back to your 1st ‘problem’). If indeed Tyria is more like earth than we previously knew, then why aren’t more NPCs showing this. The fact that it’s just Taimi we see, and not f/e other disabled NPCs (not un-commen in a world torn by war). That would be my point of critique in relation to this. And it’s more of the fact that Taimi seems to be ‘the only one’, that sort of makes it offensive in a sense that I can see…

Is this inconsiderate, well I do not know, I would use the words ‘not thought through enough’. Now I am all for more diversity in games, but if you choose to put something in there ‘like a disabled person’ or ‘lesbian’, you acknowledge then that this happens on your world. This than has implications, aka. it will happen more! Now some of it you may not always be able to see (like a sexual preference), but those that would be visible (like a disability) should then turn up in multiple places, so that ‘it’ can be considered as something normal for the world. So if you choose a main character to be disabled then disability is something on your world, thus it should be more prevalent in your world…

And personally I would prefer there to be more, I like my fantasy to not be this perfect thing, I like it when it also effects my thinking and reflects on day to day real life. Why? Because it’s a safe place to be confronted, in a sense…

@Ariella, well we don’t because Occum’s Razor is just a movie originated ‘scientific’ principle, that can even ‘proof’ the existence of well just about anything. For example:

In the middle ages there was a recipe for Mice:
- one pile of hay + one sac of grain = mice

Apply Occum’s Razor, life originates from just about anything, as long as you have the right ingredients. Errr :/

The ‘major’ setback
This can be presented as a ‘set to fail’ event, but can also be presented as a ‘deal with it’ event. It’s mostly to surprise us with an experience, not all things work out as planned.

It isn’t major if it doesn’t at first feel like it’s the only way to reach an important goal. So for example, we learn that there is a Seer somewhere that might know how the dragons were defeated last time. Or some reference to some document, or ‘you know’ something important.

Obviously we set to go find this person/object, but upon our arrival we are ‘to late’. Now obviously there are implications here, that need to be taken into account. Most noticeably: ‘There is a spy amongst us…’

→ Now this can be made clear instantly. A certain character that is with us at the time isn’t with us ‘the next day’. Or possibly multiple… and we have to figure out whom…

→ It is left to fester, but is taken into account from then onwards, until the spy/mole is identified and dealt with.

→ It is left to fester, but it is never cleared, it is left in the middle on whether it was a mere coincidence.

Dealing with the ‘major’ setback
It can be that the only persuit is in the direction of the setback. Thus we need to find a new way to attain the unknown. We need to find alternatives, or now that this option as an alternative is a dead end, our hand is forced and we are left with no other alternative, the choice is set.

Due to the consequences a ‘major’ setback can turn out into a hump in the road (f/e finding documents in the location of the person, that instruct us with what to do.) Or it can be a major plot twister…

The ‘minor’ set back
This is a story element that doesn’t have to do with choice necessarily, though there is a choice element playing in the background. Mainly, do you persevere and press on, come up with an alternative, or give up…

We saw a minor set-back recently in part 2 of LS2, when Belinda dies. Now sure the death of Belinda is tragic, but the actual implication is the set-back. We loose Marjory as an active member of our group…

But! I personally think that story step could have been made a lot more interesting? how? WE, as the boss, should have been able to choose the fate of Kasmeer. How?
- Go along with Marjory, and have Kasmeer stay with you.
- Go along with Kasmeer, and convince/order Marjory to let Kasmeer go with her. When <Racial trainer> died I would not have been able to go on if it wasn’t for Thraerne being there to keep me going. I can not let you go alone…

Now this choice, in our continuing story, does have it’s implications. But from my point of view these could have been easily dealt with, and at the same time offer some opportunity… also because most of the story steps are instanced, how?

-> Make it a choice with-out consequences; Because Kasmeer might be needed in a particular instance of the story that is to follow, Kasmeer could have been brought back at the moment she is needed. Simply with a ‘Hey, Marjory is safe with her Family, all her sisters came too, and after we discussed it we both concluded I be of better use with you. Because ’we’ are now heading for the pale tree, and it is unclear on what notice she can see us (well 2 weeks obviously for the next patch), nothing is gained nothing is lost.

More interesting:
-> Due to us now lacking Kasmeer and Marjory in our party, ‘Rox’ brings in an old member of her group in the Fahrar along. You know, obviously Braham is injured, and realy, it feels like just the thing Rox would do in this situation…
-> Due to us now lacking Kasmeer and Marjory in our Party, Braham talks to the seraph there, as word of the events there DID manage to reach the Capital (making Belinda’s death not totally in vane) more troops were send there. The seraph commander in charge, agrees to give 2 volunteers a chance to come along with us.
(aka. New characters get introduced that may only be used for a couple of story bits now, but increase the pool of potential additions or story angles later on). He does this because he knows Rox by now, while he is convinced he is ok, without some extra people around Rox might have never agreed to press on, which would mean it would be ‘just you and the kid’, and the smaller the pack of wolves the less likely success is achieved…

Kasmeer can still return for her dialog, given it is not already there in the first bit of the story, and we can adventure with these ‘tag a longs’. Nothing else would have changed about the whole story, and we would be at ‘full strength’ to deal with the situations.

The choice with-out consequences
We saw a little of this in part 2 of the LS2, we get the choice to take Rox or Braham with us to find X. When this choice is put b4 the player it seems like a valid and interesting consideration and choice, yet (well at least since I choose Rox and let Braham be with the larger group) in the unfolding of events nothing happened that made the choice matter.

Now obviously in this particular case it wasn’t ‘that’ well implemented, the map was to small and it was to obvious after the choice, that it didn’t matter. But this is an interesting choice non the less at the moment the player is confronted with it, and if the map would have been bigger, or the time of reuniting longer, it might not have even shown to be a choice of non importance.

The, set to fail, event
I’m not sure if I saw this in game already, but if anything, it wasn’t done in a way that it stuck in my mind. This story telling element is used to let the user make a choice that doesn’t matter, yet still offer an interesting choice at the moment it is taken.

Example:
We are set to find out what a certain enemy is up to, we find them in X location doing Y. ‘We have basically managed our initial goal’, but now we are at a possible split. Do we prevent what ever is being done (action) or do we let things develop because we have ‘bigger’ plans, or would rather evaluate what we learned (passive).

If we choose passive a couple of things could happen:
- as we ‘recede’ we are spotted and a fight breaks out. the key foes flee…
- as we recede ‘nothing happens’ the story will just unfold like it would.

If we take action the following could happen:
- The key foes order to stop us (skill sets are there to make sure of this), and the key foes escape.
- The key foes order to stop us, they ‘speak to us’ and supply us with more information. We learn more then we did initially, but of something unrelated to our ‘story goal’. Then the key foes leave and order to kill us, we fight we survive.

All these instances offer an interesting choice, offer an interesting story step, but they have no effect on the actual progress of the story.

Hello community, I thought this might be a fun thing to do for aspiring ‘writers, game makers, programmers’. It would also be interesting to them in order to learn, and interesting for the general populous to recognize certain story telling ‘systems’ and or ‘implementations’ of them. Perhaps it might even help Anet along in their storytelling and implementation of it, now sure they will be thinking of this themselves, but like the skritt, the more minds working on it, the better and the more likely the right results will come from it.

So what is the goal of this thread?
Well, to collect story telling implements from writings, movie, or told. (situations, plot development, etc). And to supply them with a possible way on how these could be implemented/used in a game as an actual way to enrich the story telling. Or provide interesting experiences for us all …

Seeing a bunch of code is not within everybody’s grasp, I’ll kick off this thread with some examples, so that the level on which ‘I’ would deem it sufficient becomes clear… We should assume that the coders/implementers know what we are trying to accomplish, so that ‘they’ can make it happen…

ps. If you are a writer and you are unfamiliar with the logic/coding limitation that a gaming environment comes with, but you happen to think that a certain mechanic might be possible, or could be really interesting yet you have no idea on how to implement. Feel free to share, others may well be capable to work it out (or tell you if it could work), and thus we can all learn…

ps2 !! This thread does NOT take into account if anything would be viable in terms of resources, the goal is to come to interesting ways to implement story telling into a game, not the amount of work/money it would take to implement it.

No Threat, no activity I agree here
It was only yesterday evening, b4 I read your post that I was ‘investigating’ where Primordus was making his ‘moves’ above ground, or at least show his presence. I think I counted 3 locations on the whole of Tyria, with Mount Mealstrom being ‘by far’ the largest. Now yes, there is a high end map dedicated to the Flame Legions, but that’s just it, it’s the Flame legion map and hardly any Primordus activity is going on there… Something similar takes place in regards to the brand…. Now, bubbles is completely absent, and ‘we’ basically only know of him through the NPCs, though in many instances it is slightly unclear on whether they speak of Zhaitan or of Bubbles. The only real dragon with a large presence on the world is Zhaitan, but as you so clearly put in one of the later mentions, they are mostly cannon flodder.

This leaves out Jormag, and the main reason is that I am not sure where to place him, where he is present it’s mostly to do with Norn, and not all of them are corrupted, they are just worshippers. So Jormag seems more prevalent than say Primordus, but that is because the landscape is more prone to be linked to him, while in fact, the flame legion are present on a lot of maps too.

After this elaboration, I then would have to say that my critique on your idea follows that of Rym. It ‘could’ turn out to become just as much a ‘meh’ as Scarlets invasions were… And, more over, it couldn’t be these dragons hitting a random location on the map that just doesn’t make sense. For one, the lore section of our community would explode regarding the implication that such a system would imply…

But! If the modifications that Rym already suggested would focus on the locations that the Dragons are currently most present, then that would make sense, would also give a good starting point (follow expectations)…

And! If the route or even goal of the expansions would follow the lore of the Dragons, aka they are drawn to magical objects. So expansion in search of magical objects (no matter how small or powerful) could make sense. And in certain instances even be linked to the shipment of artefact by the Durmond Priory. Or just some ruin.

You could build a system that could become reliable yet random, and offer a sense of urgency. Or at least a local thread. Now what of the Over-arcing thread? Because I have seen these ‘area take overs’ in an other game, and quite honestly, once you get used to it, it merely becomes a loot farm. Why? Because the thread is gone, the area is over taken, but nothing happens there after. The area stays that way until driven back (usually by defeating the key foes that were set to prevent the whole thing), and it all starts a new. But there have to be consequences, or else there is no thread…

Well lore offers a way out, magic increases the strength of a Dragon, so as these events (because I would put these expansions in the event system) fail for us, but succeed for the Dragons. The forces of the Dragon could strengthen in the known location, certain boss fights could become harder, with more adds, or new unlocked skills for the champ. To prevent some ‘contamination’ of the regular event system, what would happen in a total take over, certain key maps could be chosen to have the influence of the Dragon increase (mainly the high level maps).

If you tie the whole thing in an over arcing dynamic event system, there HAS to be a way to scale back. Well, there is a mechanic available that would strengthen the story and world, that is timed, and would make sense… What if the defeat of one of the Major Dragon Champions scales the events down a couple of notches. As if the Elder Dragon needs to use his magical influence to embue an other dragon with Champion powers. We defeated this dragon, its magic is gone, so he would draw/prey upon his existing forces, to gather enough magic to create a new Champion.

Now we have a system:
- Dragon related events spawn in currently known location, an attack on a caravan, a raiding of a ruin. Etc…
- If the event fails, the dragon succeeds, the amount of spawns in known locations increases, certain events have more spawns or become harder. Or new ‘temporary’ outburst of Dragon Spawn rise, from which new events take place.
- Upon defeating one of the Dragons, the system switches back a few steps. If the Dragon is not, the system just moves on.
- At some point (end state) there are just numerous Dragon event taking place in various location through-out Tyria, nothing really happens at this point. To make it seem still somewhat unpredictable a set of say 3 or 4 events would take place on a timer with a randomized pick. And this would then happen in all the location where events with Dragon spawn happen.

Aside from what others have mentioned, and I pretty much agree with… You may also want to consider that RP is not the only reason to make new content. The RP customer is not the only one to serve with new content… We are 3 weeks in, and both our PC’s as well as Us players, hardly have a clue where this is going, there are Multiple, story bits presented that offer an amount of speculation about Lore that would make the Durmond Priory need another floor in their Library, just to fill all the angles and speculative reports…

There is also a whole set of ‘light’ jumping puzzle, comboed, with ‘whole’ areas left open to find, the persistent explorer can find acres of ‘spoiler’ content. Which was the case in part1 and also the case in part 2.

There is a whole set of new weapons, various new items, new stuff to craft, new recipes and ingredients. As well as new sorts of content (f/e the shard team race), and lets not forget the whole new themed area with new environmental effects), for the crafters, the loot hoarders, the event gamers. This all combines in a tiered system the provides an optional coordinated gameplay mode, for commander-tags. Aka. the normal ‘activity gamer’ is blessed with a whole bunch of new content, and that’s ‘only’ in the first 2 parts. It’s also quite clear that this area is there to stay, and that at the conclusion of this LS (or perhaps even during it). The area will be changed into a more permanent state of limbo, so it can provide players with another lvl80 gaming area.

PLEASE, compare that to the LS1, where every instalment was pretty much just an urgent situation where the ‘Vigil’ approach was the ONLY thing that mattered. As a light role player, light lore enthusiast (of the Durmond Priory), and an easy going (yet hardcore GW) player. I am actually pleasantly surprised, and relieved that the approaches to the content are not just that of the Vigil. Where I felt almost burned out halve way through LS1, by all the urgent stuff to do that just didn’t seem to end. I am pleased that we start off on not so much of a steep slope regarding ‘urgency stress’. As LS1 had a very steep slope, and I for one (and based upon the specifically mentioned, as well as the between the lines ‘slow down releases’ request) felt that at some point it just became ridiculous and over the top.

Now I am sure that as we progress the story and the ‘why, what, who’ unfolds there will be urgent and pressing issues to react to. Hopefully Anet will temporise this with cool down moments as well (instead of a steep line going up, and up and over the top). So trust me, you will get your fix… But in the meantime it would be nice if you could look over you own personal needs, and approach to the issues at hand (you strike me as a member of the Vigil), and look at the broader whole that this LS offers you, others and the game as a whole.

@Ronin, in regards to the ‘corpse’ of Zhaitan, I pretty much think it is ‘in’ the map, More specifically in the ‘Straits of Devastation’, in the ocean there is a PoI that has a rather huge Corpse sticking out of the sea. Reason to believe it’s not one of Teqs size is that there is a smaller corpse not far from it. Having seen this area on a youtube movie makes me believe that it is indeed Zhaitan.

Now whether it is or not, I guess that is up for debate, in this sense I were to even suggest that it is the Entity our PC’s identified and named Zhaitan, due to it being the largest dragon out there, and most noticeably differed from the others like Teq. Yet, if the corpse in the ocean is indeed what is meant to be the dragon we killed in Arah, I would suggest that he is rather small to be responsible to lift an entire continent… (though after seeing DragonballZ to many times than I care to remember – I know not to mistake size for power). So, did we kill Zhaitan? or did we kill the supreme black magic Champion and are the true Dragons just to big to be dealt with…

@PopeUrban, In regards to Dhuum/Grenth. I can see where you are coming from, it’s more of a discussion about the definition. Or rather, where the lines of the Definitions run: Is a God just one of those that is warshipped by the Humans, representing a throne. Or is a God a highly potent magical entity representing/linked to a certain aspect of Magic (like Menzies & Shadows, in another example)…

So, I am getting it … I just follow different lines for my definition than others (well you anyway, apparently) …

In order to settle this I would be inclined to use subcatagories and a broad to specific definition set…

God -> a Highly potent Magical Entity that represents one or more aspects of magic.
Supreme God: that is recognized an worshipped by multiple races
Racial God: that is worshipped by a single race, regardless if they are recognized by multiple races. Regardless of how high a certain god is placed on the ranking by a single race, this God can not be considered a supreme god, if this God isn’t also warshipped by another race.
Lesser God: these are entities that comply with the definition of a God, but are not worshipped by the whole of a Race, or have fallen out of grace.

Which then leads to the following set of ‘Gods’. (I am a bit rusty on my other races though, in regards to god worship)
Supreme God: Melandru, (maybe Lyssa too, not sure on Vabbian situation)
Racial Gods: Dwayna, Balthazar, Grenth, Lyssa (humans); Animal Totems (Norn).
Lesser Gods: Menzies, Dhuum, Abaddon, Titans, Jormag, Primordus.

What do you think?

Sharpoon.8197:

Should I end my nonsensical ramble now?

Yes plz, maybe you want to read the 1st post again, then most of what you started to ramble (while possibly foaming at the mouth a bit as you saw: dragon & gods, together in one title) makes no sense in relation to what this thread is about…

Like, I already said in Bold, that this doesn’t link the Dragons to the Gods (aka. they are not the same thing), then in the text below I explained how the God powers are divided up as history goes, this I then may be relayed to the breakdown levels that can be see in the ‘whatyamacallit’. I said that a one on one power of the Dragons to one of the Gods doesn’t make sense…

But! while the powers in the time of the Gods were scattered in different entities. It’s fairly clear that there are (atleast) 6 dragons. This ‘suggestion’ then assumes that the aspects of the Gods are transferred (combined or split up) into the various Dragons.

It’s NOT saying that the dragons or the gods are the exact same thing. And while not mentioned specifically (as I assumed people would be able to understand this by reading between the lines) it basically says: The Gods are made up of blocks (like lego) of various aspects of various forms of magic -> The Dragons are made up of these same blocks, BUT! the configuration of the blocks is entirely different.

So I was trying (by using the break down of the Gods from GW1) to then analyse the (for as far as) known powers of the Dragons, to find out which ‘blocks’ went where…

marking this tread for some feedback, I agree with various parts of your critiques, some of your solutions a bit less. Some of it has to do with the format, some of it has to do with the story as a whole, and some of it with some (what I consider) ‘lore-facts’.

Yet various of these can be worked around to keep the idea behind your solution in tact (for the most part at least). bedtime in a bit

@DDCarvalho, go to the Crucible of Eternity … (and the order of the orbs and dragons do not match, because of the process the champs have to complete to waken up a dragon.)

@Johnny Boi, I like this discovery or ‘point of view’, it conveys a certain balance to the system as a whole. And even though in the choice of words it is hard to please all, I can certainly see what you are hinting at …

I may have to borrow this as a system setup feature, and might help me in this thread as well: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Perspective-Dragons-Gods/first#content

The main thing interesting for you in this thread, might be the ‘suggestion’ that one side (left) of the ‘thing’ has Dragons that create their minions (out of water, out of nature, out of magma (fire/earth)); while the other side (right) has Dragons that seem to corrupt to attain their minions (with crystals, from dead, with ice).

I can also see that there is a mirror in the horizontal; both water & magma are flowing, while both crystal & ice are solid. This line of mirroring is then also opposite of eachother: Mordi creates ‘life’ out of already living things (plants), while Zhaitan corrupts the dead to give them ‘life’. Hope you see what I mean there…

feels a bit like Anet released their equivalent of the MtG color-chart/wheel

@Quells, seems very much to be the case

Some of this may not make sense, as it is a reaction, but as you read through it the mechanics of how I came to the above breakdown should make sense. If you have questions or want clarification plz do ask

So I’m going to have to agree largely with CaptainVanguard here, in regards to the amount of Gods. And yes, Menzies belongs there too, be it that he is a lesser (known) god, but he still manages to live on as long as the others, and is able to amass an army (of shadows) to fight Baltazar. What other being than a god would be capable of that…

I do not agree with CptVanguard, where it concerns the amount of Gods. If one god replaces another, than by all means it represents the same ‘God power’. So in that sense I agree with PopeUrban, YET, I am going to have to disagree with the amount of ‘god powers’ there are, as can be seen throughout the history of the gods, these powers can split up. I think this may be what happened in the case of Menzies and Baltazar, they both went in for the grab, and they both got a piece of ‘the Action’.

Same goes with Kormir, she only usurps the ‘Secret part of Abaddon’, the Water part, well that is somewhat shoved under the carpet, and eventually ended up with Lyss and Ilsa mainly due to their importance to Vabbi. When this happened though is entirely unclear, but seeing Kormir didn’t get it, where it went was then ‘corrected’ after the fact…

So why do we only see 6 orbs, because that is the current natural order of magic on Tyria, as you look at that vision you can clearly see that there are ‘breakdown – levels’ signified in the whole mechanism. Which clarifies why (in the natural order after the dragons, or at least when ‘the Human Gods’ existed), there were other possible breakdowns of these ‘plains/domains of magic’. And thus, ‘no’ PopeUrban, you can pray to the Human gods all you want, they are gone-gone, and no longer answer any human prayers.

And it’s mostly this ‘breakdown’ during God-times, and the Natural order of Magic on Tyria during the times that the Dragons roam, that makes it impossible to link all the Dragons directly to the Gods. The other way around though?

I think then it is in EotN that the Facets of the Gods appear as Dragons, which makes this even more complicated. Because yes, it still implies that the ‘God powers’ are still related to the ‘Dragon Powers’. But we can not see if f/e if when you slay the Aspect of Grenth, you slay a ‘facet’ that is related to the God of Ice (being a Jormag power) or the God of ‘The underworld’ (death/undeath , being more of a Zhaitan power). If you catch my gist here…

What the facets of the Gods, appearing as Dragons, seems to indicate more, is that the gods are no longer present, instead of appealing to the friendly gods, you are confronted with hostile dragons. In the end the riddle then basically tells us: be wary, in a not to far in the future time you will confront these!

I came to this post in the ‘living story’ section of the forum, after completion and consideration I think it might interest people here a lot too. Basically to prove that the Dragons can NOT be linked to the Gods !! … the other way around however ?

f.e. Not truly intended as being the right breakdown from the get go, but still ‘my thought’. Hopefully people can expand on it.

Left side of the ‘whatyamacallit’ ‘all dragons seem to create their minions’

Bubbles: Dragon of Water, and ??? ‘creates’
-> Lyssa / Abaddon: God of Water

Mordremoth: Dragon of Plants (‘nature’), and ??? ‘creates’
-> Melandru: God of Nature

Primordus: Dragon of Fire and Earth ‘creates’
-> Baltazar: God of Fire
-> Melandru: God of Earth.

Right side of the ‘whatyamacallit’ ‘all dragons seem to corrupt already living things’

Kralkatorrik: Dragon of Crystal (I find this one the hardest to describe). ‘corrupts’
-> Lyssa: God of Illusions or that of Beauty? -> ‘energy storage’
-> Dwayna: God of Air.

Zhaitan: Dragon of Un-dead (and possibly of dead-dead) ‘corrupts’
-> Grenth: God of the not so dead, aka. Un-dead
-> Dhuum: God of the Dead (void)

Jormag: Dragon of Ice (and ???) ‘corrupts’
-> Grenth: God of Ice

add! I have tried to backfill this by looking at the Gods and their profession patronages to see if they make sense for certain dragons. Well that only made sense to add ‘Energy storage’ to Lyssa where it concerns kralkatorrik, seeing that crystals are renounced for their storage…

What do I ‘sort off’ mis?
– ‘Shadows’ – God Menzies -> Dragon ?
– Illusions – God Lyssa -> Dragon ???
– Protection & Smiting – God Baltazar -> Dragon ?!?
– Divine Favor & Healing – God Dwayna -> Dragon ?

What might be a more general ‘quality’:
- God of Life – Dwayna -> Creating Dragons
- God of Undead – Grenth/Dhuum(?) -> Corrupting Dragons

What of the white orb ??
Seeing I miss some things, what if the white orb represents this:
White orb (Tyria?): Protection, Healing, Devine Favor.
-> Dwayna: Patron of Healing & Devine Favor.
-> Balthazar: Patron of Protection monks

add I have not played and extensively viewed all the GW2 professions, and their ‘power descriptions’ so I leave them out for someone else… I will post a next post to give some of my backing thoughts on how I got to this…

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Leallax.1482:

The orbs seem to light up in the order the dragons awoke, except for Zhaitan/Mordremoth.

You mean, only Primordus and Kralkatorrik’s orbs shine in the placement they awoke (1st and 5th respectively). The order of orb shining is:

Red->Blue->White->Green->Purple->Black

Tying this to the CoE zone colors we get:

Primordus->DSD->Jormag->Mordremoth->Kralkatorrik->Zhaitan

However the order of dragon awakening was:

Primordus->Jormag->Zhaitan->DSD->Kralkatorrik->Mordremoth

Thus the color order should be, if representing awakening:

Red->White->Black->Blue->Purple->Green

So the orbs lighting up don’t represent order of awakening.

What if it’s strength instead, with strongest to weakest? Or order of intelligence? Or order of dominion size (biggest to smallest)? Or even order of age (oldest to youngest)? There’s a dozen possibilities…

And I am liking the strength level or age concepts…

I have been posting this in almost all threads that deal with this, but seeing I haven’t seen anyone pick up on it, I will repeat it here so maybe some more people can shed their light on it…

The vision: We see light coming from the center (white orb), basically tapping all the orbs as they light up. We ‘know’ from EotN that the Champion awakens b4 the actual Dragon does. We know from http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon_champion that these Champions are meant to do something to awaken the Dragon. Seeing they all eat magic, I were to assume it’s to prepare the Dragon’s Morning Coffee and some bacon ‘n eggs. So if we assume the hit from the center stirs the orb to awaken a champion, this champion than goes out to start a ’basic’ army and collects magic stuff. (this may even be represented by the orbs spinning around)

So lets look at the Orbs & Dragons (in the order of the Orbs & CoE colors):
- Primordus, delayed ‘50y’, but awoke non the less with a new champ, first to stir, first to awaken, well done Champ!

- Bubbles, stirred 2nd, but arose as 4th… well, I dunno, ‘we’ have uncovered various krait shards, not sure how many were left down there, and the Quaggan cute as they are, do not ‘come off’ like a very magically advanced race. I’m guessing, this Champion had a pretty hard time finding it’s magic artefacts… (this may also be due to competition from Zhaitan, see further below)

- Jormag, stirred 3rd but awoke as 2nd, we do not know what is up there, but the kodan strike me as a rather advanced magical race, even though their believes are still very tribal from a human perspective. Norn are somewhat similar. Anyways, he has the north pretty much to his own, well done Champ!

- Mordremoth, stirred 4th, but ohwmy awoke last, what happened there? I do not know what champ was supposed to be handling things here, but it sure messed up!

- Kralkatorrik, stirred 5th, but awoke 4th, not to bad, that’s about as good as Jormag’s champ did.

- Zhaitan, strirred last (6th), but ohwmy awoken as 3rd… (wo)man! You would almost get the impression that his Champ awoke in a location that was already filled with magical artefacts, some ‘vaults’ perhaps? or maybe his champ awoke on some magical capital? maybe both?! … also, as a corrupting dragon, his champ, be it minor corruptive, but amphibious. Maybe just had to swim across the bottom of the ocean, awaken the minion, whom simply carried the artefacts to his master… Well done Tequatl !!

et presto… fixed … ^^

So what it comes down to, somewhat, is figuring out (independently from the Gods) what the powers of the Dragons are. We can then put that list next to what the Gods powers are, and see how certain dragon powers break down into god powers.

f.e. Not truly intended as being the right breakdown from the get go, but still ‘my thought’.

Left side of the ‘whatyamacallit’ ‘all dragons seem to create their minions’

Bubbles: Dragon of Water, and ??? ‘creates’
-> Lyssa / Abaddon: God of Water

Mordremoth: Dragon of Plants (‘nature’), and ??? ‘creates’
-> Melandru: God of Nature

Primordus: Dragon of Fire and Earth ‘creates’
-> Baltazar: God of Fire
-> Melandru: God of Earth.

Right side of the ‘whatyamacallit’ ‘all dragons seem to corrupt already living things’

Kralkatorrik: Dragon of Crystal (I find this one the hardest to describe). ‘corrupts’
-> Lyssa: God of Illusions or that of Beauty? -> ‘energy storage’
-> Dwayna: God of Air.

Zhaitan: Dragon of Un-dead (and possibly of dead-dead) ‘corrupts’
-> Grenth: God of the not so dead, aka. Un-dead
-> Dhuum: God of the Dead (void)

Jormag: Dragon of Ice (and ???) ‘corrupts’
-> Grenth: God of Ice

ADD! I have backfilled this by looking at the Gods and their profession patronages to see if they make sense for certain dragons. Well that only made sense to add ‘Energy storage’ to Lyssa where it concerns kralkatorrik, seeing that crystals are renounced for their storage…

What do I ‘sort off’ mis?
- Protection & Smiting – God Baltazar -> Dragon ?!?
- Divine Favor & Healing – God Dwayna -> Dragon ?
- ‘Shadows’ – God Menzies -> Dragon ?
- Illusions – God Lyssa -> Dragon ???

What might be a more general ‘quality’:
- God of Life – Dwayna -> Creating Dragons
- God of Undead – Grenth/Dhuum(?) -> Corrupting Dragons

add I have not played and extensively viewed the GW2 professions, and their ‘power descriptions’ so I leave them out for someone else…

about DHUUM … won’t quote the two above here that seem to misinterpret the whole underworld god thing. But here it goes:

A. Dhuum was never usurped !! Please for the love of Grenth, check his lore !! He was merely ‘put on ice’ by Grenth (nice intended pun there) and in his prison he was being as unhappy and godly as ever, growing in power with ever dead entity entering the underworld.

B. Dhuum was ‘thus’ never de-throned, in a sense that Dhuum no longer had Godlike power. No, all that happened was that Grenth TOOK his throne, and Dhuum could no longer sit on it. He (Grenth) is mentioned as the ‘god’ of the underworld, but if you look at the lore that constitutes more as ‘The ruler over the underworld’. In lore he was favoured over Dhuum for his more relaxed rules regarding death and entry of mortals into the underworld (largely by ecto farmers I would add for a casual )

- So I’m going to have to agree largely with CaptainVanguard here, in regards to the amount of Gods. And yes, Menzies belongs there too, be it that he is a lesser (known) god, but he still manages to live on as long as the others, and is able to amass an army (of shadows) to fight Baltazar. What other being than a good would be capable of that…

I do not agree with CptVanguard, where it concerns the amount of Gods. If one god replaces another, than by all means it represents the same ‘God power’. So in that sense I agree with PopeUrban, YET, I am going to have to disagree with the amount of ‘god powers’ there are, as can be seen throughout the history of the gods, these powers can split up. I think this may be what happened in the case of Menzies and Baltazar, they both went in for the grab, and they both got a piece of ‘the Action’.

Same goes with Kormir, she only usurps the ‘Secret part of Abaddon’, the Water part, well that is somewhat shoved under the carpet, and eventually ended up with Lyss and Ilsa mainly due to their importance to Vabbi. When this happened though is entirely unclear, but seeing Kormir didn’t get it, where it went was then ‘corrected’ after the fact…

So why do we only see 6 orbs, because that is the current natural order of magic on Tyria, as you look at that vision you can clearly see that there are ‘breakdown – levels’ signified in the whole mechanism. Which clarifies why (in the natural order after the dragons, or at least when ‘the Human Gods’ existed), there were other possible breakdowns of these ‘plains/domains of magic’. And thus, ‘no’ PopeUrban, you can pray to the Human gods all you want, they are gone-gone, and no longer answer any human prayers.

And it’s mostly this ‘breakdown’ during God-times, and the Natural order of Magic on Tyria during the times that the Dragons roam, that makes it impossible to link all the Dragons directly to the Gods. The other way around though?

I think then it is in EotN that the Facets of the Gods appear as Dragons, which makes this even more complicated. Because yes, it still implies that the ‘God powers’ are still related to the ‘Dragon Powers’. But we can not see if f/e if when you slay the Aspect of Grenth, you slay a ‘facet’ that is related to the God of Ice (being a Jormag power) or the God of ‘The underworld’ (death/undeath , being more of a Zhaitan power). If you catch my gist here…

What the facets of the Gods, appearing as Dragons, seems to indicate more, is that the gods are no longer present, instead of appealing to the friendly gods, you are confronted with hostile dragons. In the end the riddle then basically tells us: be wary, in a not to far in the future time you will confront these!

part 2. (dang, over 5000)

- In regards to the Shatterer, while we only see one actual Shatterer flying around. And I will say that I am not entirely sure of this, but from my memory, in the book (think it’s the first) that actually deals with the brand, I think is mentioned that the sky is literally swarming with dragons (of all sizes). Kind off like how you mentioned that ‘Tequatl’ is so easily replaced because it is swarming with Teqs in the sky (as per the Arah story instance). The same applies to the brand, and (again not entirely sure, because the image of the concept art for the brand is also in my head as the mental image of how that would look, still though, I am confidant enough to say that it was actually mentioned in the book) thus this also accounts for why there can be a Shatterer every ‘time’ we play him. It is merely another existing dragon moving up in rank after The Champion is defeated. Which is basically what the wiki piece is referring too, there can be only ONE general/prime-commander at a time, if one is defeated (given that the actual Dragon it works for is awake and kicking) another takes it’s place (if the actual dragon is not yet awake, this will set back the awakening of said dragon, as per lore (aka the events in EotN).)

- In regards to the end, then perhaps you should re-evaluate your views here, because, and I will say this again. You blame me for ignoring the lore, but it seems I am the one trying to stick to the lore that I find. You just seem to make things up as you go in order ‘not to loose’ the discussion, and do so (so far) by giving as few sources for your claims, and where you site lore you seem to nit pick what suits you. Be it that discussion is somewhat about that, though in the end, you and I both should at least agree on the Lore bits, the conclusions we draw from that though, well I would say we are both free to our opinions…

So, you said the order of the orbs in the vision has nothing to do with the order of the dragons awakening, its mere looks and pretty. I try to explain it by dragging in a bunch of known facts, which seems to explain what is going on. Which it needs, because as you indeed pointed out correctly, without explaining what is going, the order is ‘wrong’ in regards to the order we know (for fact, with which I agree) that the dragons awoke. So either somebody made a mistake, or perhaps even, resources were spent on something that was bound to stir up a lot of talk & speculation, and all it was, was only looks and pretty … errr … NO, this was intended and it was to further seed the lore that I pointed you to. Well in fact, I had the hunch way b4 I found the facts, and the more I looked the stronger my case.

Now does that ultimately proof anything, that I am absolutely right? NO, of course not, but from the sources that I have seen it is the most likely conclusion. Can you disagree with that, sure! But stop saying I do not follow known lore, while the fact is that I do.

BrunoBRS.5178:

sigh this is the last time i’ll bother, because i can only bang my head against a wall so many times.

@Arghore – i never said the order indicate awakening of the dragons. in fact, i think they don’t represent anything. it’s merely aesthetic.

you don’t have to explain/theorize more on what elder dragon champions are, because we have that information. they’re creations of the elder dragons that are more powerful and have a will of their own so they can interpret their master’s bidding. you can’t say “no, only the dragon shaped ones really count”, because then you’re just plugging your ears and ignoring lore. “dragon champion” literally means “champion of the [elder] dragon”, not “a champion that is also a dragon”.

“there is only one shatterer” doesn’t mean there is only one champion. it’s the shatterer title that’s passed onto another, and nowhere in the article does it say the other dragon is even alive at the time. given how the shatterer looks like a spawn of the brand rather than a living thing that was corrupted by it, we can’t confirm nor deny the existence of other dragons, so we err on the side of caution, which is “nope, no other dragons until i see them”.

i won’t repeat myself over glint, because this post explains being that a dragon champion has nothing to do with rank. the rank is a side effect of being a champion, not the other way around.

- I guess we can at least agree then, that we end this discussion with mutual feelings.

- Yes Obviously you never said that, because I’m the one arguing that the order of the Vision is the order the ‘magical domains’ begin to stir, which then awakens a Champion who then… well, like you said at the start…

- “they’re creations of the elder dragons that are more powerful and have a will of their own so they can interpret their master’s bidding.”
I know this is a quote from one of the Dev’s in the early days of GW2, but my personal opinion is that this is taken way out of context. While this was mentioned as a quality of the Champions, it was never said that there were no other’s that could do the same thing, but didn’t constitute as a Champion. Because with that statement came the bit where it said that these Champions were the Prime Commander, or General, basically the highest ranked in all the spawn. A, what can only be described as the ‘chef of the kitchen’, while obviously in charge of the food, hardly constitutes as a Champion. Aka. a Mouth of Zhaitan might be a ‘champion’ in the game (as per difficulty level), but that doesn’t make it The Champion. Same for various other creatures on that list…

To this I will add, sure, it doesn’t have to be a ‘dragon’ shape, but The Champion of a Dragon does have to be the leader of the whole…

@Ronin, thanks for that link, it was a nice refresher… only thing I fringed at though. The stone in the Vulcano was (to my knowledge) never proven to be the Keystone… It was ‘just’ one of the 5 bloodstones. Hopefully after this show ‘we’ won’t have to go and explain that in every thread now :P

@Bruno, I assume you are referring to that big chunk of either stone or tree in the back of the throne room? While indeed it looks like a piece of stone, and it has some lights going on, personally I think it’s either to represent that the line of Doric is supposed to be the guardian of the bloodstones (for as far as anyone (NPCs) thinks these bloodstones are for real, more then likely they are as distant in memory as the White Mantel – aka. stories to scare little kids). So it is in a sense a way to refer to King Doric, like rulers of many ages have tried and refer to descending from some particular bloodline and power and importance through proof…

‘See that big stone behind her, with those magical lights, it must be ’that stone’, it was sealed with King Doric’s blood, well if it is here then this must be the thrown of Doric, and thus ‘Cue which ever person’ must be of the bloodline of king Doric. Seeing I doubt an object of that importance would be kept right there in sight, regardless of the fact that no-one is going to carry that thing out of Divinity ‘on their back’…

Now I will admit that I am somewhat influenced by certain fantasy movies I have seen throughout my life, but given the age of a lot of the developers, I would not be amazed if the actual keystone isn’t much more than a little shard/sliver impregnated with Doric’s blood.

Maybe all of this is due to there not being the equivalent of Twitter anywhere in Tyria. While there is consumer electronics, it is still in it’s 8 or 16 bit (forgive me for not knowing exact specifications) version and mostly used for gaming…

- Your first question has been answered
- B4 the Zepherites arrived there were already extensive repairs being done, likely by anyone that decided to stick around, that was able to hold a hammer or shovel.
- This is due to the lack of Twitter mostly, while those that need to know have likely been notified by a messenger traveling with a waypoint the rest of Tyria will have to wait until this information ‘leaks’/comes out. It is similar to you not knowing who crashed his car today in Kinshasa…
- The vines are somewhat something else, unfortunately we know little of the use of them by NPC’s. But, by the use of Yak trading routes it can be deducted that waypoints are not frequently used by NPC, and seeing a price is linked to the use, if NPCs use them, they are likely people with ‘coin’ to spare. Be it that the major portals in capitals are ‘free’ of use, and we see Yaks use them to ‘skip’ atleast part of travel.
This indicates that if no NPC uses them, no NPC really cares about them, and as long as use is not prevented, it might just be viewed like a vine growing against your shed.
- There is a small group in Dry Top, attending to the wounded, rapport of the events there was with Belinda as she returned to Ford Salma, we all know what happened there. If she had time to relay her rapport to the people that ‘need to know’ and those people are still alive after the attack, we might see some more activity, if it is deemed important enough to spare already sparse resources. News of it may not spread until later, esp. after the attack on Ford Salma, close the human area’s. Some concern about the vines might spread. Or we may at least see guards trying to deal with them, while ‘normal citizens’ wonder why ‘Weed control’ has been added to the ‘to do’-list of guards, esp. seeing that looting might still be ongoing in LA…

Why? because a lot of this is ‘need to know’ information, and spreading of this information among the ‘populous’ might only create chaos and despair. As citizens are just returning to LA, word of another dragon rising and being able to just strike from below, would turn LA into a ghost-town in a matter of days.

Hope this all sheds some light on the why and how in regards to responses from the (day to day) world upon the events that keep us busy. As soon as some Azura invents TV and Politicians see the potential for the influencing of the opinion of the general public, and mass media see a potential to advertise. We might see a more general upheaval upon events of the day. Likely ‘The Tyrian Weekly’ will have to come first, and it will obviously have to depend on journalist being where the action is… in Tyria though, that tends to mean you are also on the forefront of being amongst the first to die…

Xukavi.4320:

As far as I know according to GW lore no one knows where the key stone is right now. Also, we’re still missing the location of 2 other Bloodstones. I honestly do think that the Master of Peace is headed to the bloodstone in the Maguuma Jungle. Maybe part of Glint’s legacy was the knowledge of the location of the bloodstones we knew from GW1.

The Keystone ‘is’ one of the 2 unknown (locations) bloodstones. Known are:
- Maguma Jungle stone
- Abaddon’s mouth stone (on the fire islands)
- Bloodstone cave’s stone (in the bloodstone caves)

The bloodstone cave’s one is the only bloodstone of which it’s (still) existence in GW2 can be derived from activity around it’s location. The other bloodstone locations are inaccessible.

In regards to the keystone, my personal hunch is that part of the recently mentioned locket, that shows the current heir to the crown of Kryta, aka. the bloodline descendent of King Doric. With whoms blood the bloodstones were ‘sealed’, and who’s bloodline was tasked with the guarding of the keystone (and through it the bloodstones themselves). As this keystone is needed to reassemble the stones. The potent magic of the item, and the showing of the portrait makes it a likely candidate. Especially seeing that ‘a key’ is usually not the size of the door it fits on…
But until more is revealed about this locket, this is obviously speculation

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Rym.1469:

Nope. Now focus and memorize.

Scarlet, Leylines,Dragons eating magic, Magic, Magic World, Sylvari, Asura, Scarlet, Leylines, Magic, Magitech, Buy Gems, Leylines, Magic

Whenever you want to make a theory linking original lore with GW2 lore just repeat bolded text a couple of times. It should help.

Pretty much this. In the realm of fantasy fiction there are few things that haven’t been explained away with Ley lines. They are a convenient mechanic, despite being used to exhaustion. A way to say “a wizard did it”, sans wizard.

PS. You forgot “bleeding magic”

While I missed a certain (apparently French) source for some sort of Redcon, and while i do agree some things seem to have changed in regards to previous known lore, in a way that (from the long term player) looks odd. I personally do not think that the Lore of GW1 has been thrown out of the window.

My personal view is that some of the known history of 250y ago just wasn’t the right explanation (even if these sources were from the Dev’s themselves, various years ago). To quote the durmond priory ‘History doesn’t lie, historians however’. We see the same thing in our human history on earth. GW1 takes place roughly 1000+ years after the events of the exodus, and what we see is still a fairly primitive civilization. So if legends tell of a bloodstone and the gods, who split it etc… The fact that the knowledge of the actual creation of the bloodstone had been lost, and conveniently linked to the Gods by historians of the time (again including Devs), can be viewed as the creation of our world to be linked to various gods through the history of mankind, and many still link it to ‘yet’ another god, other follow a possible theory based upon science… What was right can turn out to be wrong, at the moment the right source is found or a new discovery is made…

I also think that with the stories of EotN, it should have been clear that GW1A,B,C had ended, the realm of torment was/is no more, with Kormir the last of ‘the gods’ had left Tyria, and a new chapter in the natural order of Tyria was about to unfold…

I personally think that in some cases it’s more the case that the lore of GW1 has been ‘hidden’, we (our PCs) seem to know very little as to what happened prior to the dragons. And the pressing issues are (where it not concerns durmond priory members or matters) explained through the viewpoint of the characters experiencing the ‘Now’. This was more the apparent when I found that little cave that led into the entry of the location of the bloodstone caves. In front of the entrance was an event NPC explaining the incoming forces of Zhaitan as being related to the presence of the fort there, as if an eternal endless dragon would be any bit concerned by an anthill (although admittedly ‘he should have’ ) …

And by all the signs around that location (by my observation) show that the bloodstone is there… there are also various other places the GW1 lore is being used, since the game has been released, and through it we learn more about the lore (f/e the Arah dungeon explorable), be it that this lore differs from what we previously knew. I am sure that for some this is a revelation equal to finding out the earth is a sphere, prior to ‘knowing’ the earth was flat for generations…. I found out through the wiki (not much of a dungeon player, and am still trying to deal/cope with the known history of the bloodstones and the new history; it might have far reaching complications to how the Gods sealed magic use, the whole history might need to be rewritten en rediscovered. A true inconvience, but and I think I can now revert back to where I started this post above here, to avoid repeating myself.)

add after consideration over dinner I think I should add to this that my interest for lore is generally stimulated after I finish a game (or atleast until later in a game) this means that I am unaware of all the changes that others have already come across. In this sense you can read that my discovery of the change in bloodstone lore is of recent… above is thus my attitude to this (and some minor other things) change…