Guild Wars 2

Loltha.2390:

Did I see somewhere where the Kodan were supposedly related to the Norn? I can’t remember if it was supposed to be ancestors or if that was what the Norn would eventually ascend to.

Would make sense tho. Kodan are like the Buddhist monks of GW2. And you never see Kodan children. Maybe when they find religion they skip the boink boink.

A humanoid Norn maybe a fit romance for a human…but a Kodan? Better match for a Charr, I’d say.

The idea that Norn and Kodan are related comes from the Kodan alone and it’s not very likely. Kodan are always bears, Norn can transform into one (among other animals) for a short time, but their true form is humanoid.
The reason we see no Kodan children is probably that almost all Sanctuaries we see are in danger to be attacked by the Icebrood. The Icebrood attack and kill Kodan, so they would also have to attack and potentially kill children, something that I’m pretty sure is not aloud to be shown in games (atleast not with that age rating), even if it’s non-human children. So to get that issue out of the way, we simply see no Kodan children, that does not mean they don’t exist (on a similar note, we see no Icebrood Grawl, that does not mean Grawl are immune to the corruption).
Now there are some DEs where groups of children are attacked, but those are all build around the players to protect them, and if the event fails the kids simply run back home. The sanctuary however is their home and outside it’s even more dangerous. So there is no place Kodan children could flee to. In other words, we have to asume that some Kodan children die, when we fail to protect their homes. Yeah, let that thought sink into you. Now be happy that we don’t have to see that, thinking about it is gruesome enough.

And to get rid of the arguments, for all we know the Norn are not related to humans or Kodan. I personally think they are related to either the dwarves, or giants, or even both. I mean it would be strange if 4 humanoid races live on the same planet (with the humans being basically “ridiculously human aliens”) and none of them is related to another.

Ellisande.5218:

The Krayt are evil. They deserve to be wiped out.

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” – Gandalf

I just had an idea what would have been a great ending for the game (thereby also resolving the lame Zhaitan fight issue). The player just crucifys Trahearne and places a big sign next to him: “Try our new tasty Pact Marshal”. Then Zhaitan comes, lured in by the possibility to kill his “archnemesis” and the opportunity to get a free snack. However, our good friend salad head is booby trapped. KABOOOM! Zhaitan is dead, Trahearne is dead, everyone is happy.*

*this post may not be ment seriously

International.7980:

He’s ok. At least fought on key occasions unlike the evil Leech. I really hated her and would have by far rather have kicked useless Koss into that vortex (if Anet creates an expansion that involves killing her, I’d be first in line to buy).

What’s up with the hate for Kormir? I understand that people are annoyed by the fact that she became a god, but honestly, she was the only choice. It couldn’t be the player, nor any of his heroes. It had to be her.
Also, unlike Trahearne, Kormir was a great leader. She never took credit for the things the player has done, it felt believable that she had allies that would join her cause, since unlike Trahearne she wasn’t a shy scholar, but a experienced soldier. And even then, she had to convince everyone to go to war with Kourna, unlike Trahearne who is just like “You owe me one, LOL!”.
Kormir also cared for her men and she admitted mistakes she made. She blamed the lost battle in Gandara on herself, the same she did with the whole Nightfall (event, not campaign), because she woke up the Apocrypha. Compare to Trahearne, who is just emo and doesn’t think he can lead anyone into battle. He does not regret anything, in fact he never does anything wrong (in the storyline), all his decision (rather the player’s) are working out perfect. He is by defintion a Mary-Sue, while Kormir wasn’t. And yes, Kormir doesn’t help very much later on, but guess what, she is bling, because a freaking demon ate her eyes and yet she still goes on and does everything she can to support the player. You can say what you want, but that is bad*ss! She suffered, she got tortured, she blamed herself quite a lot and in the end, she deserved to become a god through all her pain. Yes the player probably deserved it as much, but again, storywise that was impossible. Compare to Trahearne, he doesn’t suffer at all, he is just wimpy and afraid to take responsibility. I’d rather follow Kormir into battle, even when she is blind, she has more of an idea what she is doing, than Trahearne ever will.

He looks more like Dr.Manhatten, thankfully he has decided that he still needs some clothes though. :P

Charr: They are bad*ss, they look cool, no matter what armor, despite what some people claim, who cares about some clipping issues, it’s just the Charr’s overly manly furr fighting it’s way out of the prison that are clothes. Overall Charr are very manly, only second to the Norn. Even female Charr are more manly than Asura or Sylvari could ever hope to be. Make the right choice, join the fight, the Legions want you!

On a related note, never make a Sylvari, to much of them are running around, they are like bad weeds, unesthetic and they pop up everywhere. Join the Charr and nuke the Pale Tree for a better, Sylvari free tomorrow.

It would be even better if the loading screen gave you helpful tips.

So the last name of your account is Michael, which is also my older brothers name and the first name of the titular character is Marcus, which is my name… coincidence? I think not!

Humans don’t originate on Tyria, it’s pretty much impossible that they evolved from a Tyrian species, unless the gods came to Tyria, took a species and then came back thosuands, if not millions of years later with a evolved version, which I doubt.

Also Grawl are simians, while Charr seem to be feline. I don’t think they are in close relation. If anything, I could see the Grawl being related to the Norn or dwarves, maybe even both. Possibly even the Jotun and other giants. One has to notice that all those races a very humanoid, but from what we know, they can’t be related to the human race. Now having one race that looks completly like another, except height, without being related, is a bit of a stretch, but okay, I’ll accept it. But all those different kind of giants, Norn, dwarves and Grawl all seem to stem from simians, without being related? I don’t think so. I think they share a common ancestor, with the Grawl being the first to split from the family tree.

Well to be honest, I never got whats the big deal about the Apocrypha. It kills a few workers, but after we got in and killed it, everything was fine, except of course that we found out that Varesh was a worshiper of Abaddon.
But I’m pretty sure Varesh followed Abaddon, before the Apocrypha was awakend and since Abaddon clearly influenced people before that point and even attacked the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, I hardly see what big of a difference the Apocrypha made. At best, it was ment to weaken/defeat Istan, like the Lich was supposed to do in Tyria and Shiro in Cantha.
I would call it part of the Nightfall, but not the start. Too much happened before that point.

Similarities in height and the way the live are no indication of a common ancestory, a rather common mistake people make in evolution. It could easily just stem from analogy, that means two species that live in the same environment will have similar life styles. Compare for example birds and bats. Both have wings, but they are not related. Another example would be the common mole and the marsupial mole, both look almost identical (sans fur color), but they do not belong to the same family tree. They just occupy the same evolutionary niche.

To determine if Asura and Skritt are in fact related, we had to take a look at their bone structure, or their genes.

And how exactly can Grenth as Menzies help Abaddon and Dhuum, while he battles Dhuum at the same time? The gods would know he is both at the same time, so he wouldn’t be fooling anyone, except the mortals. But what would he gain from that? Menzies doesn’t even have humans to fight for him, only Balthazar and Grenth do this, which in turn makes it even more unlikely that they are the same. Why would he use humans in his battle against Dhuum, who is also his ally, but not in his battle with Balthazar… who is also his ally?

New crackpot theory, the herald is Bahltek, who got a lot nicer with age. He now enjoys sharing knowledge with inferior minds, mostly because his arrogant attitude left him without friends for several hundred years. He’s just lonely, that’s why he stalks our PC.

Brennus.1435:

They said this once about kitten Sapiens Sapiens and kitten Sapiens Neanderthalensis. But now we have reason to believe that kitten Sapiens and Neanderthal mated. I’m just throwing kittens in the crockpot here to add to discussion.

Edit: They edit Hoe-moh, lol. Use it appropriately.

The difference is, the modern human and the neanderthals belong to the same family. Norn and humans don’t and we know that. There is no point in discussing how they look similar, Anet said they can’t have offspring, so this is a fact, until they dicide otherwise, but I highly doubt they will.

Great! Now please make one where Gwen get’s smacked around. She deserves it even more. >:D

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And I think it would be possible for doing such in German – by giving the PC a title that would be neutral, rather than masculine or feminine. Mind you, I’m a fairly novice in German so I may be wrong. But even then, Germans give odd combinations for masculine and feminine nouns (take skirt for instance, in German it’s Der Rock – masculine; or mustache, which is feminine iirc (can’t recall what the word in German is). So even if they do give masculine or feminine case, it’s not absolute for whether the referred to object/person/place is masculine or feminine.

It’s not impossible but it is harder. It’s only about the articles (der/die/das instead of the gender neutral “the”), in german you change titles, according to male and female, usually by hagning an “in” to the title, to show that the person is female. To conceal the gender, you must assume that an unkown person is male, until profen otherwise. Which is of course considered unpolite.^^

Also the word you are looking for is Schnurrbart, which is male (der Schnurrbart, which literally translates to “purring beard”). But objects have weird gender rules in general.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Hardly. Gwen doesn’t have any statues – Jora has statues throughout Hoelbrak and elsewhere. Pyre also has at least one statue. Ogden is around in GW2, and is by far very prominent to norn storyline (even moreso for norn Priory). Vekk, you have a point there. But I think you’re overreacting on Gwen’s “prominence” in the lore.

She is the most prominent of the EotN heroes if you count all her appareances. Odgen is second place, Jora third, Pyre fourth and well Vekk is pretty much never mentioned after EotN. Just remember how often we had to go into the HoM to listen to that awful Gwen/Kieran dialog, to progress the story. They later changed it I think, but when I played it, I had to stand there and listen. Well I could have gone afk, but you can never know if it doesn’t get interesting once.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Really? What did he do? He united the orders into the Pact? Nope. He killed Zhaitan? Nope. All Trahearne did was do the paperwork and make the decisions, and often gave you the choice of the role you wanted to play. I don’t think there’s a single thing he takes the credit for. The most you can get is NPCs saying he led the Pact to victory through Orr, which is partially true.

Smerkras already mentioned it. Also there is the whole, “They attacked you, but I think I am their target” thing. As I said, nothing major. He is a Gary-Stu, unhelpful and annoying (though atleast his german voice, while monotone, is not as bad as the english dub), but overall, there are worse characters than him. Namely, “Naggy McNeverShutUP” (=Gwen, if you haven’t guessed it)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What the heck indeed. Because your wrong. True, there’s little mention of the GW1 PCs, but it’s rather hard to denote such in the subsequent game. I mean, even with linked accounts… which character is chosen from your GW1 account?

Also, again, the GW1 PC isn’t replaced by Gwen in the least. No one is.

They way they wrote it, they made it hard. Give the PC a title and you can mention him, with out going into specific details about his gender, where he came from and what not.
It’s not that Gwen is outright stated to have done the things I did, it’s more like, everyone forgot what I did and instead they worship a glorified side-character. This is what angers me.
Let me give you an example. You find the ultimate cure for cancer, that works on all types of it, in any stage and has a 100% chance of success. You are celebrated in your time. Now a traveler from a future comes and offers to take you 100 years into the future. You accept, only to find out that no one gives a kitten about you anymore, instead they all worship and actor/singer/athlete that lived in your time, as the greatest hero ever. And all this person did was being in a very good movie/sang a great song/scored a winning point in an important game. How would you feel?

Of course you didn’t invent the cure to be loved, you did it to save lifes. But still, your legacy is gone. All that is left is the lifes you saved, but they didn’t even bother to remember your name. The sad thing is, that is how the world works at times, with celebs getting more attention than the real heroes of this world.

But maybe it’s because discredit is my soft spot, not only when it affects me, but anyone. As soon as I see that someone takes credit for other peoples work, that drives me nuts. So much that I can’t even enjoy movies where this is the major plot point.

Too rocky. Now don’t get me wrong, I love rock, but it doesn’t fit the games setting. Zhaitan needs something orchestral, with lot’s of ominous chanting.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I disagree. And the issue here is that your opinion is subjective (as is one’s on Trahearne). You are, in fact, the only person who I’ve seen said that the Prophecies Gwen annoyed them. Now, the EN Gwen I can see, and I fullheartedly agree with the WiK/HotN Gwen (why did they have to go and make her relapse after the EN quests were meant to be a “working out her problems” part? And why did I have to play the therapist?). But her being a hero is 100% understandable and makes sense.

Truth be told, I’m glad Gwen’s the captain who solidified Ebonhawke to be a fortress, and became hated by the charr as the Goremonger. You got a character who’s basically a case of Break the Cutie and shows she has issues, but overcomes them to greater hights. Yeah, it’s the same set up as Trahearne (except he came prepackaged broken), but it’s far better than a perfect hero beginning grand and becoming grander (imagine if Rurik didn’t die, and did manage to fulfill his goal of regathering strength and marching an army across the Shiverpeak Mountains, just to save Ascalon?). That would have been an annoying hero. A Gary Stue.

While it does makes sense that she is remembered as a hero, still greatest hero of humanity? Sounds to me like she worked on some propaganda while sitting in Ebonhawke. And even the most air-headed Ascalonian should have had heard of the human hero. That one guy, who stopped wars, killed evil gods, saved thousands if nor millions of lives.
The problem is, the player never really got a title in GW1. Via a title the player can be addressed without revealing his/her gender (well atleast in english, in german it doesn’t work that way, but that is besides the point), as it is done in GW2.

Apparently the plans for GW1 were to make Devona and the gang the heroes, as substitute for the players. Well I don’t really like them all that much, but I could accept it. But then, they changed the plans giving Devona & friends got less to do with the following campaigns, until they were pretty much out of the narrative, replaced by heroes. Sounds good to me, I love the NF heroes, all of them are awesome (well except those Zaishen guys, they are kinda pointless but whatever, they don’t appear in the story). Sadly they just had to make Gwen a hero. Ugh, her presence almost overshadows all those likeable heroes like Vekk, Ogden, Jora, Pyre (or Brandor as he is called in the german dub… the only given name change that was ever made /shrug).

But that’s still okay, if they had just left Gwen alone, but nooooo, she is involved in the WiK, she has HotN and she is important for GoA. It’s like they obsevered me and picked out the character I like the least to give her a special treatment. x_X (Or my guild, none of us likes Gwen and that means over 30 people).

Why I see her as worse than Trahearne is pretty simple. Trahearne annoyed me in the Gw2 main storyline and he took some credit for things I did, but overall (as you mentioned) I still get the feeling, that the ending celebration is about me. However every deed I did in GW1, is forgotten. Not a single kitten is given about it. It’s gone. Blown away. And replaced by Gwen-worship. What the heck? This is why it hurts so much. I spent years playing those games. And all is gone. Oh I have the HoM. Whoopy-freaking-doo! Except that this HoM doesn’t look like the HoM I had. It’s just a generic ruin, with generic loot…

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You should pay more attention to NPC dialogue during personal stories. I mean, you’re called “The Dragonslayer” by a group of partying norn, while Trahearne’s just “the marshal” to them.

You misunderstood me, I did not say, that it happened (it only did in Gwen’s case), I just said, I don’t want it to happen.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Who on earth hates Gwen. Gwen is possibly one of my beloved NPC’s from GW.

Did you not play Prophecies and have her follow you around with her flute and be all annoying like.

I played Prophecies and Eye of the North, and because I did that, I can not comprehend how anyone could like her. One of the worst fictional characters in history.

But to quote myself:
“Not only did she annoy me in Prophecies, no she came back for EotN, even more annyoing than ever. For me, she stands for everything I disliked about Ascalon. Yes I started playing GW1 with Prophecies, I saw the destruction of the land by the Charr. But unlike 99% of the players, I had no emotional attachment to the country. I always prefered the much more unique Kryta (which is sadly ascalonified in GW2). I even liked the Charr more than the Ascalonians.
I did not care what happened to Ascalon after I was gone, since from my point of view, they were just so generic. And then came Gwen, never shutting up about the Charr and how her pain and loss was worse than anyones. I think Kieran Thackeray phrased it well, when he said that all of them suffered.

But you know what, I was annoyed by Gwen, but I did not hate her… yet. It wasn’t until I read Ghost of Ascalon that I developed a burning hatred for that witch, that can never be extinguished. In that book, I think it’s either Riona or Dougal who said it, it is mentioned that Gwen is the greatest hero of humanity.
Wham! What a lie! What a freaking lie! Gwen did nothing! Nothing, that is even remotely close to what my character did. Or Togo, or Kormir or 50% of the human NPCs in GW1. "

That’s just a part of my much longer rant about Gwen.

If loveable is another word for annoying or brain-damaged, then yes.

We’ll see, but in my book, it would be best if Trahearne is never seen or mentioned again. I don’t want another Gwen fiasko, were an already unlikeable character get’s pushed into the spotlight and ends up getting called greastest hero of humanity (in Gwen’s case) or Tyria (in Trahearne’s case).
They can kill him off (off-screen please) or let him live, I don’t care, as long as he never ever shows up in the storyline again.
More Tybalts and Forgals please, less Trahearnes and Sierans.

Chipaway.4596:

Dinosaurs? Dinosaurs?

I really regret missing out on the first Guild Wars. I love dinosaurs. They’re like huge lizards that make funny squawky noises with tiny little arms and I just want to cuddle them and love them and put them in little bonnets… uhhh, should probably sleep soon.

You know there is a difference between actual dinosaurs and Barney.

Mystic Starfish.2586:

Imo, it’s more of a case of the boy who cried wolf. Sure he corrects himself later, but the fact that he has to correct himself all the time lessens his credibility. Yes, it’s kinda hypocritical since I tend to get a lot of my facts on the forums wrong too XD

The difference is, you do it on a forum, people don’t read just your post, while never looking at the others at all and usually mistakes get corrected on the same page, but atleast in the same thread. Wp’s lore videos however do these mistakes, thousands of people see them and only them, because they never bother to take part in a lore discussion, except maybe to post more of WP’s videos, and of course they believe every single word he said, in the worst case they never see the video with the correction in it.
That’s how you spread misinformation. I’d rather see a video lore series by draxynnic and Konig, I think they take the lore seriously enough to avoid mistakes.

Post it in the link section, if you need to post it, most people here know more than the basic ideas WP’s lore videos provide.

Guild Warrior.9540:

Again I hate political correctness over stupid things.America in Japanese games and anime is far worse then any western game depicting asian culters.Just look at metal wolf chaos.Why arent we allowed to have asian cultures depicted in a slightly inaccurate(its effen fantasy!) view even if its positive like cantha being a proud and powerful civilization?Yet in asian media americans are represented as fat stupid gun crazy slobs.Just this week in fact North Korea released a propaganda video on youtube showing New York being nuked by North Korea.

It’s always like this, In american media for example Germany only consits of Bavaria, with their lederhosen and beer tents, the Black Forest, with people building clocks and baking cake and some secret nazis who deny the holocaust ever happened (which is by the way a crime in Germany).
This is much more offensive than anything Anet ever did in Cantha and yet how often do you hear germans threaten to boycott american media? Probably never, because we don’t care. Everyone knows that those are just stereotypes (usually played for laughs) so why take that seriously? Besides, I personally think it’s a great joy, finding out what aspects of a fantasy culture belong to a certain real life culture.

Shanna.4762:

They could always represent Cantha more positively this time around, It has been over 100-150 years since Cantha actually became isolationist in the timeline…They are very touchy over there about being represented negatively by westerner’s and while I do agree it’s silly, it’s not necessary for that to be the case with GW2. I can see any number of possible (positive) portrayals of Cantha in this era with the end of the isolationist era. There would almost definitely be a new Emperor (Or Empress) on the throne of Cantha by now which always brings about new possibilities

No I think they should not do that. Anet should do with the continent what they want to do with and not what people with false national pride want it to be. If they think a fantasy culture is a wrong representation of their actual culture (which makes of course no sense at all) then it is their problem. I want to see Anet’s version of Cantha, not “we changed it according to the wishes of some people in the asian community” Cantha.

Even taking out the Canthan district in DR is going to far, imo. I’m all for respecting different cultures and not offending anyone, but this is ridiculous and borderline oppression of the artistic freedom of Anet by a vocal minority.

Probably gonna go with Jormag, because his minions are cool.

This question was answered here already: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Zhaitan-and-Necromancy/first#post1288013

Narcemus.1348:

According to the lore players the charr ate everything that has died off between the games, lol.

Yeah, you know some person made this joke and now everyone wants to do it, trying their hardest to make it into a running gag. Just ignore it, eventually it will go away, when people realize that it stopped being funny after the first time.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The only room where the dragon minions are allied is, in explorable mode, where they’ve surrounded a shielded Inquest member – I’ve never once had a group which decided to save that Inquest member, preferring to self-destruct the shield to kill all minions. So who knows if they fight each other if you save him.

I do, and no they don’t fight each other. It was strangely charming to see Icebrood next to Destroyer, all most hand in hand, waiting for my team to respawn, so we could fight them again.

It’s a pitty that some people (I wont use names /cough) always asume that we will fight Joko, instead of being his ally again. That guy is sure as hell opportunistic enough to make a pact with the Pact.
I for one, welcome our new insect undead overlords.

Horses exist in Tyria, they are not extinct, they still run around doing horse things (if you read Edge of Destiny, you will notice living horses are seen near Lion’s Arch). The reason we don’t see them is that players would demant to be able to mount them. Anet has no plans for mounts, therefore we don’t see horses. Many people probably don’t know that horses can be used for much more than riding…

Anyway, short answer, horses do exist, but we don’t see them because people are stupid.

Well since Tyria has seasons and day-night cycles similar to earth, it has probably the same rotation. Though I do wonder now, how long is a day on Tyria?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There is only one connection humans have with the Forgotten: they share the same faiths. That’s a weak connection, given no other faith is shared.

You seem to have completly overlooked my posts. Sharing the same faith is only one of my points.
But I agree that your connections seem plausible too. But Humans – Forgotten seems to make more sense to me than Sylvari – Forgotten. Look at it like this, just like the humans, the Forgotten are in a defensive position when we meet them for the first time in the Crystal Desert. They defended their last homeland against the Elonian invaders and managed to fortify some ruins.
At the same time you could say, the infusion against Spectral Agony is like the Sylvari using thorns to hold dragon minions at bay. The fact that it’s used for Seer used it for defense isn’t a very compelling arguement in my eyes, it could fit both humans and Sylvari. However if anything, than there is a stronger connection to Sylvari, since the infusion makes you immune to spectral agony, just like the Sylvari are immune to dragon corruption (atleast Zhaitans). Now you can say, Sylvari’s immunity is natural, Seers have to make it themselves, however at the same time you could argue that the Pale Tree gives them immunity, maybe the Sylvari born from different trees are in fact not immune. In that case, I would say the Sylvari are much closer to the Seers.
However I admit that this is pure speculation.

I was wondering about that too, only the raptors are left. I can only imagine that they were driven out or hunted to extinction by the Asura. I would prefer the first one, so they could show up in the maguuma jungel again.
I hope we get to see some again, so I can sing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il85E-ms-44 (could be considered NSFW)

The name was invented for GW1 and it was a place where the player could not go, so we couldn’t simply walk into there! :O

No seriously, I never thought if Mordor when I heard Orr. And I looked it up again, apparently Orr is hebrew for light. Which would fit even more with the theme naming. Now let’s see if it turns out that Kryta also has some origins in a levantine language or place.

I know that it does not fit perfectly, but it’s just a fun theory and it still holds more merit than those countless dragons = human gods connections. However you seem to think that I only compare them how they were when the dragons were/are awake, which I don’t. I compare them overall, since comparing them during the influence of the dragon threat is impossible, we know to little about what happened back in the last cycle.

Humans – Forgotten: For the purpose of connecting them, it is not important when they started worshipping the same gods, it’s only important that both do and both take it very seriously. The dwarves for example, also worship the human gods, atleast some of them do. But it is not as big of a deal as it was to humans or Forgotten. Also you contradict yourself, you say Forgotten were a guardian race, which is information which came from the time when we thought the gods brought them to Tyria, like they did with the humans, but at the same time you put emphasis on their culture before the gods arrived.
Fact is, we know that the Forgotten were once more widespread and they declined. It’s possible that the humans drove them out of most areas, when they were still weakend from the last dragon cycle. The information that they were sheperds to the young races and were never ment to dominate the planet, seems to be something the humans came up with to justify their actions against them.
It’s pretty easy to see the similarities between the Forgotten and the humans, probably even the easiest of all. Both lost land to more aggressive races, both are powerful magic users, the Forgotten moreso than the humans and both heavily worship the Six.

Charr – Dwarves: This comes mostly form the fact that the Charr serve the role of standart fantasy dwarves in GW2. They are the stout race. They rather use their muscles and technology than magic, they have large mines, and the distrusts the elves (the humans in Tyria’s case). And since the GW dwarves are not too far away from standart fantasy dwarves, the comparison of course fits.
They even have a historical similarity, with the civil war. Now of course you can say “but Kryta had a civil war too!”. Yes, but the White Mantle, while religious fanatics, were actually not xenophobic, they even accepted worship of other gods to a degree, the Stone Summit and the Flame Legion however are both extremely xenophobic. Both are also more of a political faction, while the White Mantle started out as a religous group and only later became a political power. With the Flame Legion it was actually the other way round, they only later became a religous group. Same could be said about the Stone Summit, it seems that only after they lost their leadership in the battle of Thunderhead Keep, they turned to plan B and prepared to summon the Great Destroyer. However, that’s not necessarily a religious act, it’s only tied to their religion. They did not really worship the destroyers.

Norn – Jotun: I admit, this and the Sylvari – Seer ones are rather iffy. But to me it almost seems like the Norn were invented to be the counterpart of the Norn in this case. They were the only of the elder races which was not introduced in Prophecies, so I could see Anet making a 5th one, so they have a nice match up.
However, they do fit to some degree. It is mentioned that the Jotun lived in mountain fortresses, that were each lead by a king. Sounds familiar to the homestead with their individual founders and their descendants in my ears. It is also said they became obsessed with strength. How can they become obsessed with strength if they don’t value it already? I’m sure they were great scholars once, but at the same time, there are many indications that their current behavior did not come out of nowhere.

Guild Warrior.9540:

Behind the scenes the word Tyria probably comes from the City of Tyre in Lebanon.An ancient port city. There is even a shade of purple called Tyrian Purple which the royals in Tyre would wear.Fun note Tyrian Purple is also a dye in game.

Possible, there is also Ascalon, the latin name for Aschkelon, an equally ancient city in Israel. And I’m pretty sure I’ve read somewhere that Orr is an arabic word for “light”, but maybe there is also a place that atleast has “Orr” in it’s name.

You can only post pictures as attachments. You really should read the whole tips page: “Most forums don’t allow images, check the rules!”

That has been my theory for a long time, with exactly these match ups.

I posted it somewhere here on this forum, but I couldn’t find it. But it was a copy of an older Guru post anyway and that one I could find, so here we go:

Humans – Forgotten: Worship the Six and were once a dominating race, later pushed back into a melting pot. Also both were at war with the Charr once.

Charr – Dwarves: 2 Factions in a civil war, have access to magic, they rather use blackpowder, alchemy and steam though.

Asura – Mursaat: Master of magic technology (Golems- Jade constructs/ the already mentioned soul batteries – some asura energy storage devise, I bet they have some :P), but also arrogant and think of themselves as superior to everyone.

Norn – Jotun: Love a good fight and like to stay individual, though they Jotun have taken it to extreme by being xenophobic to even their own kind.

Sylvari – Seer: The most mysterious and alien, both have no real genders.

That’s actually pretty interesting. Is Tyria called Tyria in every language? Does the name come from any of the languages? Maybe Tyria is dwarven/forgotten/mursaatian (?) for ground/earth and other races adopted it for the name of the planet, just like the latin word terra (actually it should be orbis terrarum) is often taken as a name for earth.

That’s a rather common phrase, I highly doubt that it’s a reference to Riddick.

We already have this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6bHAIx2gBQ

and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzTCz_1IQtM

The first one was used as a commercial in theaters, the second one was used, in a shortened version, as a tv ad.

exelion.2369:

Charr didn’t reverse engineer dwarven tech. They didn’t really industrialize until long after the dwarves went through the transformation. The Dwarves never really had grand engineering feats, they were just really great smiths. The Charr built all they have accomplished on their own. And it seems the dradge have mainly made their own tech but merely taking over old dwarven ruins.

The dwarves build much more than just explosives. The Iron Forgeman is a dwarven invention. Those unfinished replicas hanging in Oola’s lab are actually copies, not prototypes as it was long believed. So the dwarves had golem technology comparable to the Asura, which the Charr don’t have.
Overall Sorrow’s Furnace and all the other dwarven mines, look like highly industrial places, much like the bigger Charr settlements.

Yeah I noticed that too, quite a lot heroic NPCs are female. But that’s probably just so noticeable because usually the men to women ratio in works of fiction is around 3:1 (except if the target audience is women). I think that should be pointed out for once, as a positive.
Also I might add that men are the expandable gender. In works of fiction men die often more frequently and casually than women. Evening that out is a good thing too, imo. So this is really no sexism to either side, in fact I think the GW universe is one of the most equal in that regard.

Well jungle stalkers were originally called stalkers. They changed it, when they realized the tameable version was called “juvenile stalker”…

Bob.8456:

Yup. My Ranger in GW1 was enamored with the Norn culture, I ran Norn armor and weapons and spent a lot of time AFKing in their outposts. When the time came to choose my race for my GW2 Ranger there was no hesitation, it had to be Norn. I gave my GW1 Ranger’s name to her and RP’d her origins (in my own mind, at least) so as to trace her back to this very quest from the original. I even made her short for a Norn to play this up a bit…and then I hear this talk about ANet stating that they cannot cross breed. Whatever.

Your Ranger and a Norn could still have adopted a child.

Dat smile! I wonder this was a photography, with the painterly stlye added, or a painting to begin with.

And before you ask, yes Anet, did use pics of models as basis for concept art before, so it wouldn’t surprise me here.

Also, is this really lore related? :P

Most zones in GW1 had those mountains too, but at different places. It’s just Anet’s way of fencing in the zones, in lore, those hills don’t exist.

Grezko.7950:

With all the respect for your country’s culture, Ascalon is more closely modeled after a European feudal system. And yes some times even in european feudal systems the lineage of the mother takes priority but in most of those cases(if not all) this affects only royal houses (the English crown being a prime example). The most common situation is when a woman marries he children assume the title of their father. There are some exceptions to this rule of course.

I see no hints of Ascalon using a feudal system. They have nobels owning estates and the land around it, but the people working their seem to be employees rather than vassals.
Also Tyria is very open in terms of gender equality (only some evil factions do not have it), so I would asume it’s like with a family name today (atleast here in germany), the child will use the father’s lastname/crest or a mix of the father’s and mother’s lastname/crest.

Congratulation, you defeated Trahearne, the one true enemy of your personal storyline.