Guild Wars 2

TheDaiBish.9735:

Where is it called Legendary Assassin Stance?

Personally, i think Legendary Betrayer Stance sounds better.

I saw it on the wiki. I thought they got it from one of the newsposts, but it’s gone now. I guess it was just one user making a hasty edit.

Has anyone noticed that all other legends are defined by their race (e.g. Legendary Dwarf Stance) but Shiro is defined by his profession (Legendary Assassin Stance)?

Looks cool, but I feel they missed a few opportunities with the skill names.

Half-neighbor then^^. Anyway, there is the vision Omadd’s machine gave us, so that there are consequences is pretty much confirmed, we just don’t know what exactly they are (aside from Tequatl’s power boost). I guess the plot of HoT will tell us, along with the purpose of Glint’s egg.

Dracyon Imperius.6309:

Oh sorry about that, it’s how it’s written in the french version (else it would be pronounced Zheta :p ), my bad.

No problem. That means you’re french, hu? If that’s the case: Hello, neighbor! Hope you had a nice Bastille Day.

If you haven’t played GW1 or read through the GW1 wiki, there is a bit more lore to the profession there. Not too much and of course not all classes match up, but it’s a start.

While Zhaitan uses magic that is very similar to necromancer, they never said or even implied anywhere that they have anything to do with each other. Necromancers existed long before the world became aware of Zhaitan. You could say that they potentially tapped into his power to allow necromancy to work, however that wouldn’t explain why this type of magic is found all over the world, including different continents. As far as we know the ED’s influence, while great, is still limited locally (aside from the fact that the presence of all of them lower’s the world’s magic level).

I agree with you though, that Anet could provide some lore for some of the magical artifacts players can use, especially the legendary weapons. Aside from looking cool there isn’t really anything special about them. A short story for each one would be cool.

And one last thing: The dragon is spelled Zhaitan not Zhaïtan. If you spell him with an ï his name would be pronounced Zha-ee-tan. It’s however Zhaitan with a diphtong.

The Factions trailer also gives a good visualization of what happend.

Yeah I’m sure they said it on the PoI livestream. I don’t watch them that often, that’s why I’m pretty certain about it.
I think they even said that, while the Nuhoch where always supposed to be massive, they upscaled them too, to compromise for enlarging the Itzel. So I would say that yes, the Nuhoch being large is anchored in the lore, it’s still has a mechanical reason behind it too.

Gaile Gray.6029:

That’s great! I really look forward to meeting you!

Senpai noticed me!

I don’t know if you were at Gamescom 2010, that was the last time I was there, but a few members of your staff took pics with me back then. It was due to my sign that said “Insert T-shirts here” and the blue “Bukkit” attached to it (does anyone remember Martin’s bukkit? Because I have the official one^^)

Where do you think those bolas come from? Magic!

Just kidding, it’s like the others said, every living creature has the ability to use magic, that’s the reason for GW1’s dual-profession system, which allowed even warriors to mix in any kind of magic they saw fit.
It’s the same for engineers btw, they also have the innate ability to use magic, they just never use it (unless some of their inventions are atleast partly powered by magic).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The hylek races in HoT being much bigger is a lore thing though, not mechanics – and not one I quite understand, truth be told.

Well they said they made them bigger so that players can see their animations better, which is purely a mechanic thing. How is that a lore thing?

krzygum.4028:

OMG I’ll be there! Gw2 is the best and I love anre net ! I will see you live!

Me too. See you then! ; )

Koviko.3248:

Also, I can’t tell the difference between a Norn child and a Human child, so it’s possible that Norn children are also in LA or something.

Norn children are generally taller (unsurprisingly) but I agree that it often hard to notice if they are not right next to each other, like for example during the Lupikids event.

I’m not really convinced by any of your points, but the weakest is the argument that the gods are dead. Consider this, to kill one god he had to be restrained and weakend. See Abaddon was bascially just a head and two hands when we fought him (he pretty much looked like Andross. Maybe the designer played a little Star Fox before? :P) and even then it took Elonas strongest heroes to defeat him. But now comes the important part, after Abaddon’s demise his energy went wild, it needed someone to contain it.

And this is were your theory falls apart, as the dragons must be on one hand strong enough to defeat a god at full strength by themselves. Most likely several, since why would the six choose to fight alone? The dragons on the other hand have never shown any signs of cooperation so far, so a 1 vs. 6 would be likely. So if the dragon is already strong enough to defeat up to 6 gods alone, he also must consume their magical energy immediately afterwards otherwise it will explode in it’s face. Don’t you think we would have noticed if one of the dragons got such an immense power boost from feeding on one up to even six gods? Now you could say maybe the five that have previously awakend all ate one god each, but that A.) let’s one god come out unharmed unless one dragon ate twice (Mordremoth can’t have possibly eaten a god as he just woke up this year in ingame terms. Again I think we would have noticed if he did) and B.) the dragon must have been strong enough to kill a full strength god in a one vs one fight and then after feeding on the god gain the strength we know he has (for example Zhaitan). Honestly I think if Zhaitan managed to kill a god he would have been waaaaay more powerful after that meal, as compared to how we fight him. Don’t get me wrong he is very strong, but I’d say a full strength god is still above a dragon in terms of power, so I would expect Zhaitan to be atleast twice as powerful as he actually was.
And last but not least, the gods actually live in the Mists, they don’t just go there after dying. We’ve actually been to their domains in GW1 and to smaller extent in GW2 during Halloween (Mad King’s labyrinth and clock tower are both in the Underworld, Grenth’s domain). The dragons on the other hand have been said to be unable to cross into the Mists (!), though they can influence them through their agents, as both Zhaitan and Jormag did.

To conclude: The way I see it the gods limited contact to the human world for 3 reasons.
1) To have less influence on human development, as past actions often had cataclysmic results (most notably Abaddon gifting magic to the races of Tyria)
2) To strengthen the barrier between Tyria and the Mists. In the Godslost Swamp the veil between the dimensions is said to be extremely weak, as the location was used frequently to cross into the Mists (mostly the Underworld). This has the unfortunate side effect that creatures from the Mists also can travel to Tyria, most notably the Shadow Behemoth. I think by limiting their communication with humans the Gods are trying to repair that damage.
3) While a full strength god is atleast on par with an elder dragon, hiding in the Mists is playing it safe. While I again think the gods would help each other in the event of a dragon attack, simply not showing up to the fight has the least risk of being consumed, which in turn would probably mean an inevitable defeat for the races of Tyria. The elder dragons are dangerous enough as they are, with the power boost from consuming a god they would probably be absolutely unstoppable.

He reminds me a bit of the holographic doctor from Star Trek: Voyager, both started out as smug (the doctor less so though) but basically slaves to their programming and both developed a character on their own after being humbled by the reality of their new life situation.
Hhm that gives me an idea, how high are the chances to get Robert Picardo to voice a character in GW2? I know he does videogame voice overs on occasion.

Nocturnia.4896:

Do any of you think there’s a connection? Some in-game anti-sylvari movements brought about by Scarlet’s actions?

I hope so. Sounds like a cool plotline which is also relevant to the whole Mordremoth story.

Koviko.3248:

Speaking of Noll, an NPC made an offhand comment about a director named “Boll”. Is this an inside joke of the Consortium or something?

So the Consortium are going to make really bad movies now as part of a tax evasion scheme? Dear gods… they gonna make a movie out of the Super Adventure Box, aren’t they?

mtpelion.4562:

Lion’s Arch now represents a political failure on the part of Queen Jennah. Before it was a relatively wealthy city carved out of her territory by nasty pirates, guarded by (moderately incompetent) soldiers, and capable of controlling vast amounts of international trade.

After Scarlett’s attack, the city was in ruin, the governing body shattered, the wealth dispersed, and the (moderately incompetent) soldiers dead.

The situation lined up perfectly for Kryta to reclaim this lost land. Who would have opposed them? With what army? With what money?

Instead of securing the lands that rightfully belong to her, Jennah not only missed this opportunity to strengthen her empire and silence dissent in her home court, she actually hosted an event the purpose of which was to pour out her own kingdom’s wealth into an opulent rebuilding fund for the dispossessed pirate scum on her doorstep!

After this fiasco, I’m now throwing my support behind Minister Caudecus.

Have you seen those giant Krytan banners in the Eastern Ward? If anything the Krytan influence is more present than it ever was, probably due to Queen Jennah’s charity event.

noraia.8570:

The Deverol Garden does look a lot like a wedding chapel though, and the flowers are bouquets that scatter rose petals, like a flower girl would, so perhaps it’s that kind of chapel?

Oh my gods! It just dawned to me, they are going to marry Kasmeer and Marjory there! And I’m going to be the best man!

PeterFries.1057:

Note that the real Evon (when he’s in his new office in the Black Lion Vaults) is using a ballot basket as his deskside trash bin.

Who needs politics when you can get mad paper, eh? Thanks for hint, I didn’t notice it when I was there (so much to discover!)

Well technically the top seat would be the Commodore, in this case Lawson Marriner, but he doesn’t seem to care about politicts all that much. Atleast as far as I’m aware he was never part of any storyline, he barely has dialog to boot.

If you want to see “Evon” for yourself, if I remember correctly he resides under the garden island, with some shady looking people. In his dialog you can confront him about pretending to be Evon Gnashblade to get free drinks.

By the way, there is a detail wrong in your analysis, Gnashblade is not a member of Captain’s Council, as he lost the election to Kiel.

Kalavier.1097:

Where is the dungeon vendors by the way?

They are back in Fort Marriner. I think in the southern part if I remember correctly.

Anyway there are a couple of things missing in New Lion’s Arch it feels, the sewer system seems to be gone, atleast I couldn’t find any trace of it.

A few interesting things I did find though (if you want to explore yourself don’t read): A murder scene at the beach (near the arena-net symbol thing), Sya a female NPC that used to be a man, hero-tron giving out flyers and achievements and a doppelganger of Evon Gnashblade.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

“Undead” really isn’t a race though. Joko has undead humans, centaurs, and what seems to be even charr.

So I never really see the interest in an ‘undead’ race. Because it’d be more of ‘undead human’ or the like.

For the sake of simplicity I see undead humans as the best solution, especially since Joko has easy access to them as Elona is predominantly human (other races such as centaurs, Harpies and Heket could be shown as NPC-undead). And I think being undead is enough of a difference to being an alive human, that it could very well work as a playable race (after all, as far as I’m aware there is no ritual or magic that can turn an undead back into a living being).
Customization could give you the option between a more zombie, mummy or skeleton like appearance for example.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Here’s a race I would enjoy playing though:

Naga.

From Cantha.

While I’d like to see them too, they would cause the same trouble as centaurs and Krait/Forgotten: animation issues. Getting armor for them that works would probably be way too much effort.

I throw in my dream playable race though: Palawa Joko’s undead forces.

Goods are only worth as much as people are willing to pay for them. So if enough people pay the 50$ than the game is worth 50$. If you don’t think it’s worth it to you, you don’t pay for it.
However Anet needs to sell, so if enough people show that they are not willing to pay the price, Anets only option would be to lower the price. Most likely disguised as a special offer so they can go back to the higher price after the offer ends.

Frosch.7809:

And please people do me a favour and leave comparisons to Germany out of this. I’m german and the idea of being compared to the Charr in any way is simply repulsive.

You must be new to the internet, there is much worse you can be compared to as german. :P (in context it’s also usually more an insult to the group we are compared to)

Besides I think the Charr are a pretty cool fantasy counterpart, even though they have more stereotypcal Prussian traits, then any other cultural group in Germany.

Obsidian.1328:

Is the short name for National Socialist German Worker’s Party really auto-censored here?

Just some trivia: the short version you are talking about, which this forum censors, is actually an insult from the political opponents of the NSDAP. They never called themselves that. Some sources say it comes form the name Ignaz, which used to be attributed to a dumb person in southern Germany.

Hey I’m one of the few who actually enjoyed the fight, even though it has a lot of room for improvement.

That might be an historic moment, the first time anyone ever actually praised the Zhaitan fight. Truly a moment to behold.

Pyro.4765:

Is it really, though? The Charr seem to be on a one-way train to ecological disaster. I mean, their junk yards spontaneously generate toxic oozes, they have to tear up huge regions of forest to fuel their furnaces, they have to tear up huge chunks of earth for the iron of their fortresses, and I seem to recall there being a Charr in the Black Citadel’s smelter district asking the player if they’ve experienced any sorts of disease symptoms after contact with the smelter. Plus they only eat meat (with a fondness for beef specifically) and almost everything they build is constantly belching black smoke into the sky in massive quantities.

That’s bad, but it’s not searing crystals annihilating the landscape bad. Compare how Ascalon looks now and how it looked in GW1. And the Charr aren’t stupid, even they know they can’t treat their environment like that forever, it’s just that right now they need this industrial complex to battle the threats surrounding them.

Derom.1205:

Yeah, Gwen was whiny.
But I just don’t see any obsession humanity has with her. I mean yeah sure, Ascalonians see her as a hero. But Canthans, Elonians or even Krytans? They probably don’t even know her. Most of the stuff you can find about her is in Ebonhawk which she helped to found, but apart from that I didn’t seem to find much. You can see Salma und Rurik pretty often because of Divinities Reach’s quarters.
So for the Charr a flame shaman can be a hero and for the humans the founding mother of Ebonhawk was called the Goremonger. Maybe its just a way to say that nothing was as black and white as some people in Tyria think about that time.

Well a lot of humans that talk history, are from Ascalonian heritage, as she get’s mentioned quite often. Compare how little other important characters like Turai Ossa or Master Togo are mentioned. I mean Ossa, like Rurik and Salma has a district named after him, but that’s it (the encounter in the Priory does not count obviously). For Master Togo, I can’t think of a single reference to him, aside from one or two name drops in books that sit around in the Priory.
Granted obsession is maybe a strong word, but Gwen still get’s more credit than she deserves. Again though, the problem I have with that is foremost that she get’s more credit than the PC from GW1. That makes her my White Whale.

Lutinz.6915:

To be fair to Gwen, the charr were really, really bad to her and she was a child. If I remember it right, she only escaped cause they threw her into a pit to get torn apart by a beast for their entertainment of the watching charr and she managed to get past the beast and escape into the tunnels the beast came from.

I think anyone who had been through what she had would be understandable in her hate of charr. Hell, even Pyre thought her hatred was justified. It was her fear of charr he saw as her weakness.

I also wouldn’t really wouldn’t say Gwen is painted as a big shining light, at least any more than say Salma is. Gwen is really only big in Ebonhawke and most players who hadn’t played GW1 or read up on it probably wouldn’t really know who Gwen was.

Oh believe me when I say I was jsut scratching the surface, there is a whole lot more wrong with Gwen, she is in my opinion the epitomization of everything that’s wrong with humanity in GW2. And we even got our first glimpse of that in GW1 to boot!

Yes I can understand why she hates Charr, that doesn’t make her in anyway sympathetic to me. She just a hateful husk of a woman. Her very existence is saddening and not something at all fitted as a role model. She barely manages to stay in racist grumbler territory, instead of going over into full-blown terrorist activities like the Separatists. Though if the Charr are to believed she actually crossed that line.

Still she is painted in a very positive way. The books Ghosts of Ascalon and Edge of Destiny both call her one of humanities greatest heroes, IIRC. I think it was Rytlock who gave away the Charr nickname for her; Goremonger. That’s pretty much the only negative thing ever said about her and that comes naturally from a Charr’s mouth. It’s just weird that humans blindly hero worship her, while there are so many greater heroes, like for example Salma or Rurik (who only have a few places named after them), but more importantly the player character from GW1, who as I mentioned before, get’s only very passing mentions and even those are extremely cryptic.

I just think as long as Gwen is treated by humans as some sort of saint, peace between them and the Charr will always be full of tensions. After all, your freedom fighters are another peoples terrorists. It’s just a matter of perspective. Not that the Charr are without fault, they too cling to the past in an unhealthy way. I think humanities obsession with Gwen is worse though.

Lutinz.6915:

What Ive gotten into here, is an underlying reason Ascalon would be a focus for fans of humans. Humanity basically won GW1 and save the world but at the cost of so much and they don’t even really get a nod for it. Of course human fans are going to be lamenting for the lost glories of humanity’s past, because the future humans seem to have is being a punching bag while being overshadowed by the new stars. And all the while we keep getting shown how great humanity once was but isn’t any more.

That actually irks me a lot too. Not for humanity as a whole though, more for the legacy of my own PC from GW1. All things considered the player character from the original game is the single greatest hero of humanity. No one else comes even remotely close to the feats of him/her.

Yet lore utterly ignores the very existence of this person, all we get is a vague, some heroes met with Glint a long time ago. Instead Gwen is treated as the big shining light of humanity. You can not believe how much I hate Gwen for that, with her constant nagging, whining and how badly she treated poor Kieran.

And that is supposed to be humanities best? A girl that managed to escape from the Charr (impressive, but not that heroic) and later she tagged along when a much better human being went on the altruistic journey to safe the world from a much bigger threat, yet she did nothing but cry about how bad the Charr are, while even an Ascalonian PC had no problem inviting Pyre into his party. The only somewhat heroic thing Gwen ever did was found Ebonhawke, but we never get to see that and also it’s nothing compared to almost single-handedly stopping Abaddon. That is poor writing at it’s finest!

Lutinz.6915:

I don’t want to see humanity focusing on a conflict with other races or dwelling on the past. Im actually arguing that humanity is so dumbed down in GW2 that it makes that past look more attractive than what they have in modern day.

While I agree that the survival of Ebonhawke is pretty epic and think tenacity is a great attribute, it kind of comes off as humanity just constantly getting beaten up. Human tenacity really isn’t a trait that makes it stand out. Charr, Asura and Norn all have examples of survival against brutal odds.

The difference is that while the other races seem to actually be effectively fighting back, humanity seems to be in a defensive huddle just surviving taking hits. It hasn’t really successfully made any solid inroads into any of the threats applied to it.

My key point is fans of the humans in GW2 dwell on the past because humanity these days seems to be diminishing and the themes that once defined it have become empty. Player aren’t going to move on because most of what we have been shown of humanity is its losses rather than how it is growing and adapting to a new world. The writers have effectively left humans thematically stuck in a past that no longer seems to hold any relevance.

On the point of Cantha, I would argue that firstly we have no idea of what state it is in and secondly, last we heard it was under an oppressive tyranny. Hardly an inspiring place to look for signs of human endurance in the modern GW2 world.

You have some good points, but those are mostly issues with how Anet writes humanity, the Charr conquest of Ascalon is not part of that problem. You could argue that humanity suffered from the Worf Effect. It grew weaker in order to balance it to the new additions, especially the young Sylvari and the disjointed Norn.
Still if you have ever watched the first Rocky movie, you know that there can be somethign heroic in defeat. Humanities time at the top is simply over, it’s comparable to the elves in Tolkiens work, they are past their prime. That doesn’t mean they can’t still pack a nasty punch and they sure don’t go down without a fight. That actually gives them an interesting new character in my opinion. After all, weren’t so many people glued to the television watching Walter White struggle in Breaking Bad? They sure weren’t watching the underdog winning at the end.

What I meant with the Cantha comment: There is potential to show a powerful, unrelenting portion of humanity in the future. I’m pretty sure if we ever go there, the story will be about defeating the quasi-dictatorical regime and basically give atleast one happy end to humanity.

Lutinz.6915:

Humanity feels kind of stuck in the past with the ghosts of its past, or at best, past its prime and looking to moving into an old folks home. Humanities theme at launch was supposed to be perseverance against adversity but it really feels like being dragged down by the ghosts of the past and taking boots to the face.

Ascalon is a focus point for that sense of loss.

To be honest, that sounds like those old british people that keep lamenting that the Empire is gone. That’s just the way it is. I don’t like new Kryta all that much either, but it’s still better than being dominated by a cult like they used to be. Similarly Ascalon is better off under Charr rule (Ebonhawke notwithstanding) than being torn to shreds by constant war.
Besides there is still a whole other continent entirely under human rule, we just have no contact right now (Cantha in case you aren’t sure, what I’m refering to). So no not all hope is lost, there is no need to clinch to the past. Humanity came back from worse, kinda like roaches always surviving. I mean technically the Charr never kicked them entirely out of Ascalon, there is still the Ebonhawke-Asterix-village situation going on. That’s an accomplishment!
Other than that I’m on board with Anets philosophy that is better to look at how even a weakend humanity can still contribute to the fight against the elder dragons, instead of focusing on a conflict with other races and how much better it used to be (pro-tip: it wasn’t!).

Lostwingman.5034:

Again, it only “looks silly” to the uninvolved.

Which is exactly what I’m talking about, as GW2 players are uninvolved. My statement had nothing to do with how the NPCs must feel in-universe. To make it clear: I think players being upset about the Searing or the aftermath are acting a bit silly.

Lostwingman.5034:

Eh, the only thing that was really 250 years ago was the searing. The war went right on going up to just before the start of the game. Rather than it being weird that there is still animosity in the game, it would be absolutely bizarre if there was little or no animosity. I mean really, the 250 year thing is a big copout. You say it like the Charr took over overnight and bam, that was it, we jumped right to the situation we had a decade ago in lore with hostilities being occasional raids. There wasn’t just bad blood and then a bunch of dead space, it kept going. If you really are a historian, you would understand that it easily stops being about “who owns what” and “who wronged who?”.

I phrased it badly, I was talking about the players that still hold grudges, not the NPCs in the game. I should have put the 250 years in quotation marks to make it clearer.
That said, I still think such things are petty, even the “who wronged who”, because it happens a lot in history. And if we can learn one thing from history, especially European history, is that holding grudges is a pointless excercise (see the french-german relations 150 years ago and now as an example).

I started with Prophecies, but I never really cared for Ascalon. Kryta always seemed much more interesting. I also never understood the Charr vs. Ascalon thing, and why people are still so upset about something that happened almost 250 years ago. Might be because I’m historian, so I know about enough conflicts and wars over some plot of land that atleast two parties claim to be their “ancestral right”. After a while it just looks silly.

1. Urvan Steelbane is the name of the legionnaire in charge of the players warband if you choose to be part of the Blood Legion, however if you choose Ash or Iron, the name of your legionnaire will be different. Either Howl the Brazen or well we never get to know the name of Iron legionnaire it seems (atleast the wiki says so, I never made an Iron charr myself). So judging by that if anything “Steel” would just be the name of your warband if you are in the Blood Legion. However, keep in mind that the warband names can also be used for the second part of the name, so the Blood Legion warband might as well be the “Bane” warband. Still that says nothing about the Ash and Iron warbands, though it could technically be the same.

2. I think it’s after the “Sins of the Father” questlines, if I remember correctly.

3. In the case of our characters, yes. We are supposed to be an official envoy from the legions to the Orders. However I think there are also Charr who leave their legions to be part of the orders, as the thing the player character does is not usual procedure (yet). Again correct if I’m wrong here, it’s been a while since I played those storylines.

4. Dinky.

5. I liked the Sorcerous Shaman the most, but the other two are also good. If you can’t decide, pick at random, you wont be disappointed.

We never see Rurik’s mother, she and the second born could have died during childbirth. That could also explain why Adelbern acts the way he does. Just a theory of course.

Well most of the buildings in Lion’s Arch were made out of ships, so… :P

Leo G.4501:

Rednik.3809:

I just leave it here.

Lol isn’t Maverick obviously heterosexual? I dunno, I never chose him as my sparring partner. I just know for a fact he’s extremely vain so I could be wrong.

Is there anyone who doesn’t choose Dinky?

Fjaeldmark.9043:

CureForLiving.5360:

Not sure if they have social stigma against dying of old age like the Spartans supposedly had.

That seems kind of unfair. What if you’re just really good and no-one is able to kill you?

It is also not true (or atleast not a proven fact), like so many things that are said about the Spartans. The problem is that we don’t really have anything they said about themselves, we only can go by authors from Athens and well those, let’s say, usually bended the truth a bit to help the point they were trying to make, be it positive or negative about Sparta.

I think the question should not be, which odd couple can we probably produce for our storyline, but which couple makes sense and brings something to the table. It doesn’t matter if said couple is gay, hetero, bi or whatever orientation you call inter-species relationships, important is only that it serves a purpose within the narrative. Kas/Marj came somewhat close to that.
However the story wouldn’t be too different if they were just good friends instead of lovers. Atleast it doesn’t distract from the plot either. Still a meaningful relationship would be better, something that actually changes the outcome of the storyline. Caithe/Faolain is an better example, since Faolain doubles as a villain. This could actually change the outcome of a storyline, when Caithe refuses to kill her former lover. We need more of this and not random odd couples for the sake of having an odd couple.

Schwarzseher.9873:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Charr mature at the same rate as humans. Humans live ~80-100 on average, so charr is likely the same but less common due to militaristic lifestyle.

Not in Tyria, here humans rarely become older than 50 years.

What the others said, also keep in mind that low average life expectancies don’t come from people not getting old, but from high infant mortality. So when it says people in the middle ages reached the average age of 45 or somethign along those lines, that doesn’t mean they died around 50 years of age, they usually lived up to their 70’s or in some cases even 80’s, it’s just the high chance of dying at birth that drags down the average to such a low level.

Sorry I was a bit unclear there, I ment the first definition is the best fit, not that the second is completely unusable like the third one.

Regarding the movement of the world, I don’t think it makes clear that large guilds don’t exist anymore. Even in GW1 most guilds were supposed to be bands of adventurers. And that’s still the case, they are just more racially diverse now. That doesn’t imply those large guilds of the old days aren’t used anymore. The orders are the best example. While never outright called a guild they all fit the pattern we know from GW1. So I would argue, until explicitly told otherwise we can assume the orders are guilds.

Short answer: yes, probably.

Long answer: Let’s look at the definition of the word guild.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/guild?s=t

noun
1.
an organization of persons with related interests, goals, etc., especially one formed for mutual aid or protection.
2.
any of various medieval associations, as of merchants or artisans, organized to maintain standards and to protect the interests of its members, and that sometimes constituted a local governing body.
3.
Botany. a group of plants, as parasites, having a similar habit of growth and nutrition.

The first definition applies here, but honestly it’s rather vague. So I guess that means that all those organizations you mentioned can in fact be guilds. We have no confirmation though. All we can do is judge by the first games standart, in which such organizations were usually guilds, so this could be true ~250 years later.

Guilds are a bit iffy in lore, as we don’t really know what the difference between a guild and any other association of people is. Basically most major organizations in GW1 were guilds. Some of them were so powerful that they pretty much took over the human kingdoms, Adelbern’s guild would be an example, though here most Ascalonians welcomed him taking over instead of Duke Barradin, the rightful heir to the throne getting the crown (some didn’t, but this opposition died down with the searing, as far as I’m aware).
Other major players of the first games lore were also guilds, this includes the Stone Summit, the White Mantle, the Shining Blade, the Xunlai (which would be an example of a non-combatant guild), the gangs of Cantha, Shiro’s forces (well atleast Togo mentions Shiro’s guild emblem, this hand-like symbol), the Sunspears and the Order of Whispers.
Some of them also appear in GW2, but are they still guilds? Hard to say, we don’t really know what defines a guild in lore. Destiny’s Edge is a guild, the only confirmed guild though. If the parameters of GW1 are still in play than the 3 orders are guilds, as is the Shining Blade and probably even the Black Lion Trading company.

BobbyStein.2315:

We showed the enemy nameplates as “overgrown” for the duration of the first episode two-week window, and then switched them to “Mordrem” when the second episode went live once Mordremoth’s name was established in the story. This was to prevent spoiler nameplates in the open world before episode 2 hit the servers.

Makes sense, but still, why change it at all? The Icebrood aren’t called Jorms, the Branded aren’t Kralkos, the Destroyers aren’t Primos and so on. They all have names that sound like the come from someone observing what they look like or what they do, which makes sense in my opinion. Now of course you could say, the pact knew they came from Mordremoth, so they called them Mordrem to describe that relation, still I think Overgrown or even Blighted would have been a better fit with the existing naming patterns. Just my two cents.