Guild Wars 2

There is a quote I want to say, but for the life of me I can’t remember how it goes or where it came from. And google is no help, since it only brings me to pages related to terrorism.

Kill a man, and he becomes a martyr.
Wound a man, and he becomes a hero.

I can’t remember the last part, but it went something like…

Discredit a man, and he becomes no one.

Jennah can’t really kill Caudecus for these reasons. Because if any harm comes to him, no matter the circumstance, he will be used as a rallying point for Jennah’s enemies to gather under. Her keeping him under her watch offers more advantages.

1. It puts him entirely at her disposal.
2. It heavily restricts his actions.
3. It allows them to monitor any of his remaining actions much more closely.
4. As long as he’s alive, it constricts the bandit actions through lack of clear leadership. His death would only allow for another leader, outside of her knowledge and “care”, to take his place

Alice.8694:

You’re just repeating yourself… Ultimately you cannot deny throughout the entire LS before scarlets “threat” grew to crazy proportions. Not once did we ever try to understand and save.

Her threat started at crazy proportions.

The first time we saw her: she invaded a capital city, killed an unknown amount of innocent civilians, took over an entire underground structure, then she proceeded to use that area to launch invasions across all of Tyria. After, we learned that she was behind the alliance of two different hostile forces that threatened the safety of two hugely populated cities.

What was there to understand for us? Her motives for her actions? Why she was doing what she was doing? Here is the thing about her motives though. She really only got them after becoming Scarlet Briar. As Ceara, she had her research projects and her constant thirst for knowledge, but she didn’t have any murderous motives. That only came to be after the experiment, and she was exposed to “the Entity”. Afterwards, Scarlet seemingly fell off the grid, and there was no easy and simply way to track her actions or motives.

The only way the player or anyone would get those, is if they ask Scarlet themselves. And she wasn’t giving away or telling anyone anything through the course of the LS. Doing so would make it easier for the player to spoil her plans, and she didn’t want that to happen.

As for the saving part…

You can only save someone who wishes to be saved. If you are forcing a person to change, that is not saving them. You are simply molding the person into something you wish them to be. And in the end of everything, Scarlet didn’t want to be saved or changed “for the better”, because she didn’t think she did anything wrong. All the death, the entire destruction of a city… Nothing. It was all part of her plan to free the “new Master”.

Alice.8694:

While it is nice rationalizing this after the fact…

The point I am making is no one tried and that the lack of trying or caring is not heroic.

Our heroes knew that entering Omadd’s device fundamentally messed her up, but their response was still “kill” not “save”. It doesn’t matter if it were possible to save her or not. Perhaps she was branded and beyond saving. But what if she were the other, crazy and in need of help. Why was that idea, considering the world we are in, never once entertained.

So we only save those who we already know are savable and never try to save those that are not?

While it is nice to try and save everyone, that just isn’t possible all the times, and people in tough situations have to weight the odds and go with their gut. Especially when said person in a threat to themselves or others.

If Scarlet was just a minor character, and she didn’t pose a much of a threat to many people, I would be willing to try and save her, but that isn’t the case. Scarlet was a MAJOR and active threat to the entire population of Tyria, and she had the ways and the means to escape the player’s custody and continue her actions. Actions in which she held no regret for at all.

As long as she lived, she would be a active threat to the entire population of Tyria. Sad as some people might find it, sometimes it’s just safer for everyone if the bad guys die.

Hell, why didn’t a brave Sylvari step up to sit in Omadd’s device and try and find out exactly what Scarlet saw. The Asura could have easily provided restraints and would have happily experimented.
Or hell… Just ask the pale tree… Because apparently she already knows something.

For heroes… We sure didn’t try very hard.

Judging by how that device killed all previous subjects of that experiment, and the only survivor got driven insane and became a threat to the entirety of Tyria, I would imagine that the Arcane Council, or whoever controls the legality of the experiments in Rata Sum, ruled that experiment illegal and beyond dangerous.

So, the only Asura probably willing to run that experiment again would probably be the Inquest, and they would be in no way doing it for the good of everyone. They would only be doing it for themselves.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t think Caudecus is really keeping his hands out of things. And he’s alive.

Prove he’s White Mantle and he’s next, instead of those smug, potato-headed asura.

Because the Asuran race already have their need for a fanatical group of racists bent on world domination filled by the Inquest.

Plus, the Inquest covers dental…

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Villain you say? I agree!

I also think he’ll use the threats coming at us to have an excuse to summon “allies” from Fractals.

Which wouldn’t work at all, because beings created in fractals can’t leave their respective fractal. The whole fractal, including all the stuff inside it, simply resets, and it repeats its events over and over and over again.

Scarlet’s armies have razed Lion’s Arch and occupy the smoldering husk of the proud port city – but she has not won yet! With the noxious miasma dissipating, heroes and friends of Lion’s Arch can mount an assault to re-take the city and fight Scarlet herself. Free the city and put a stop to Scarlet’s machinations!

— Official website

How much the gem store or the functionality of the TP as the whole is connected to lore or storyline is anyone’s guess. Though, I would guess barely myself. If they were fully connected, the TP and gem store probably wouldn’t have been functional at all throughout the last two living stories.

Tanith.5264:

Erukk.1408:

I always wonder why he didn’t do this before the attack. The players and Anet like to portray him as a cunning businessman, but he spend months saying that Scarlet is going to attack LA, yet he didn’t do anything to prepare for it. He should have been moving his base of operations, or at least his goods, out of LA. He had more than enough money to have had bought and build warehouses and to hired security to protect the place.

How do we know he didn’t?

“My business is in tatters, and I’m surrounded by refugees who can’t buy my stock. Yeah, my day is looking up."

Those aren’t the words of someone you planned ahead.

Stooperdale.3560:

Evon is a businessman so the first thing he’s going to do is rebuild his business. He could move his center of operations away from Lion’s Arch but there’s nowhere obvious for it to go.

I always wonder why he didn’t do this before the attack. The players and Anet like to portray him as a cunning businessman, but he spend months saying that Scarlet is going to attack LA, yet he didn’t do anything to prepare for it. He should have been moving his base of operations, or at least his goods, out of LA. He had more than enough money to have had bought and build warehouses and to hired security to protect the place.

Fascinating. My patches are usually around 60-70mbs for bug fixes. I wonder if it usually differs that much from person to person…

That reminds me of the gilsellers they had on my server way back in FFXI. They were all in the same linkshell(guild), and all their names ended in -buns (Honeybuns, Stickybuns, etc.)

Though, if they are only using bot guilds, all I can think they are doing is storage. If they are buying/selling masses of items on the TP, they are probably storing it all in separate gbanks.

DarcShriek.5829:

What would you consider to be confirmation? It sounds like you need a neon sign the screams “Scarlet was corrupted!”. Your not going to get it. You have all the clues you’re going to get and there are lots of them out there.

What would I consider a confirmation?

…An actual confirmation? Whether it be a dev quote confirming such or a quote ingame stating it. Until then, we only have theories stating the suspected corruption. Having a corrupted sylvari would set a precedent in the lore, since it would in direct opposition to their stated immunity to Elder Dragon corruption. We will need facts and a confirmation to back up this new information. Theories just won’t be enough.

Wanderer.3248:

I have to wonder, if she was a servant of Mordremoth, why so coy about it? Why not just name him? Zhaitans minions are all Zhaintain this, and Zhaintan that. Why doesn’t she say come out and say she’s bringing about the rule of Mordremoth.

Because Zhaitan’s minions were corrupted, and they were fully brainwashed by the time we see them. The only thing they have on their mind is their Elder Dragon 100% of the time.

As far as we know, Scarlet was only influenced by “the Entity” at the time of her death. The markings on the sides of her face suggest the possibility of corruption, but until we get confirmation on it; we only know she had been under the Entity’s influence.

Lasica.5068:

Marjory herself is of Canthan descent but appears to have been bought up in Divinity’s Reach (born there I would assume) but there is no information about how long her parents have been in the city.

This was talked about in the Lore forum awhile ago. During one of Angel’s nice visits to the forums. Though, she didn’t have her dev red up at the time.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Living-Story-recap-livestream/first#post3487678

Cantha has been shut off from the rest of the world for a very long time. Marjory’s parents and grandparents were all born and raised in Kryta, not Cantha. She is of mixed heritage as well. Just as in today’s world, we find men of Chinese ancestry named Kevin or Joshua, so Tyria has also become more of a melting pot. We will get more into Marjory’s history in the future.

Shiren.9532:

That story emphasises why I think Marjory and the crew were the wrong ones to be featured in the Lion’s Arch updates. The emotional weight, the ownership of the city, the identity and spirit of Lion’s Arch isn’t represented by them. It feels missing from the story as a result.

I thought they should have showcased the Captain’s Council more. These are the rulers of the city, but yet they didn’t seem to do much during the whole thing. I can understand them using Marjory and Co. during the first part, but they missed a chance to show and expand on a cast of other key characters during the BfLA. It would have been an excellent time to show the Captains retaking LA with their respective (surviving) first mates and crew.

An example of the melting pot that Kryta has become of the various human cultures around Tyria.

How is this problem different than any other MMO? Once a player completes everything, the only thing really left to do until new content comes out is to make another character. Then another… Then another…

Once content does come out, it is usually all finished within a couple of weeks to maybe a month. Then after that, you are only logging in to level your alts, or you are just doing dailies or running a dungeon/raid for the “latest drop” (aka: new raid tier armor). The problem you are describing is in no way new at all, or just pertaining to GW.

I do agree that Anet does need to work on non-zerg content. While that does help with the feel of the story, as it helps convey the large scale destruction and battle feeling, not all players like to do zerg after zerg.

The story problem can be easily solved by just walking around and talking to npcs. The one’s around the LS area usually fill the player into what’s happening at the moment. Though, if you are missing any parts, and if you are feeling particularly lost about it, you can always go to the Lore forum and ask. They will usually point you to an easy place to get the cliff notes or explain anything you might ask about.

There is only one thing I’d totally disagree with though…

To finish it all off, the kill on Scarlet was totally rushed and didn’t explain anything! Why did she gather the molten alliance, etc.? No one knows. In fac,t no one knows why she did anything at all.

If you did the final instance, and you killed Scarlet, the final cinematic very much showed why she did everything she did. It didn’t show the finer details of everything, since the explanations for the various alliances were breadcrumbed through the LS. but it showed what her entire endgame was.

I’m sure part of the reason is because of the blade shards. Since the Aetherblades now have them a part of their loot table, there has to be a number of them somewhere to farm. I feel horrible about the people that will have to farm them in WvW and the Aetherpath for that backpiece.

On the other hand though, it would be interesting to see Mai return sometime in the future. Especially now that she isn’t under Scarlet’s thumb anymore.

It’s going to be funny/horrible when Mordremoth and Lord Vanquish get into a twitter feud….

I find that pic fascinating…

“This is what captured the attention of the dragon we heard.” I’m hoping this is from the character’s PoV, because didn’t she have the Mordy’s attention before hand? The whole slowly driving her insane enough to finally give into it would require a little of it, I would imagine or hope.

Also, they heard the dragon all the from LA? I’m surprised.

So, other than possibly the afraid part, her experience is similar to Faolain’s to a degree? They both saw something horrible, or possibly horrible on Scarlet’s part, since we have no idea what she saw, but in the end both of them embraced it in the end.

Sylvari really need to learn not to embrace horrible stuff it seems. Though to be fair, Scarlet seemed to have been forced to embrace it, to a degree. It’s hard to put up a lot of fight after so much constant mental stress

People with a lot of money to throw around can get a lot done. With or without the approval of the higher ups, whether it be in fantasy or irl.

1. He could have told everyone to get out of town while they still could. He told the player and the captains, but he didn’t seem to tell the populace, as far as we know.
2. With all of his wealth, he could have sponsored and funded extra security for LA.
3. But since he hates the Lionguard, that would never happen, so he could have hired some extra “security” for the BLC HQ.
4. He could have moved his employees and goods out of town, especially since he knew an attack was coming.
5. Heck, he could have moved himself out of town.
6. He could have made contingency plans for himself and his employees incase said future attack.

But nope. I think he did the right thing about warning the players and the Captain’s Council, but he did nothing else. He has the money and influence to do a lot of things, especially to prepare himself and his workers, but in the end all he did was sit on his hands, and now he’s whining that no one did anything. When, in the end, he could have done a lot himself to prepare for the attack.

Tamias.7059:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s already been confirmed that what’s under LA are ley lines. Many times.

Mordremoth is heavily hinted and known to have influence in the Maguuma Jungle.

There was an intersection of ley lines beneath Orr (that’s why Orrian magic was so much more powerful than any other human magic). You know what else there was? An Elder Dragon. Just sayin’.

I think you are confusing ley lines with the Artesian Waters. You might be able to speculate there might be a connection between the two, but there isn’t really enough information about them to make a solid argument either way.

Plus, the Artesian Waters is on a magnitude on to itself. There was so much magic pouring off it, that it was able to be felt through the Mists and caught the Six’s attention. Lion’s Arch’s ley line convergence is no where near that level.

Yes, he could take advantage of the situation, but you have to remember he is technically part of the Lionguard now. If he tries any sort of uprising, the Captain’s Council can just take his business and all of his wealth. Not to mention, they get to shoot him.

On top of that, I’m not sure about how much public support he would get either. He was right about Scarlet attacking, but he did the exact same thing as the captains. Which is nothing in end. I doubt he will win over any hearts either, when word spreads that he shut down that Asura gate being used to evacuate civilians to save himself, leaving Captains Shud and the people she and the players were helping there to die.

Having a group of regular Krait ambush and kill a group Toxic Krait “blasphemers” would be a nice addition to the open world. It would make sense for the remaining Oratuss(es? Oratusi? Or is both singular and plural?) to order the death of all those that would seek to create a “false prophet”.

Teratus.2859:

Time Travel isn’t exactly something new to Guildwars

during the Asuran personal story it is possible to get a scenario in which you encounter yourself from an alternate future and defeat him/her

You also encounter your creations from the future in that mission which are the steam monsters hinting that your alternate future is the origin of these creatures

there are also several cases of looking into the past and future within Gw lore which more or less supports that time travel is a possible thing in the Gw universe.

It wasn’t time travel. The Grand High Sovereign came from an alternate future from a parallel universe. The two universes might share some elements, but they aren’t the same.

Shodd and I conducted the final test on the upgraded Infinity Ball, which quickly turned into a dangerous and surreal fiasco: variant versions of ourselves from a parallel universe came through with an army of mechanical fiends, bent on conquering this world like they conquered their own. Fortunately, Zojja was there to help us fight them off. I don’t think Shodd learned his lesson yet, but I did: too much ego in a genius like too much arcano-static energy in your crystalline storage matrix- spectacular to behold, but it will inevitably blow up in your face.

— My story

It was basically the “Mirror, Mirror” episode from Star Trek.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Many world bosses can still be done with small numbers of people. Golem Mark II in Mount Maelstrom is likely soloable, and I’ve done it with only one other person before without any issues, and it rewards 20-25 Dragonite.

This.

World bosses scale down, and they die so much quicker when there are fewer people there as well. I killed the Fire Ele earlier this morning, with maybe five people or so, and it died in about 30 seconds.

I’d rather they stick to a specialized minion to do the talking for it, or at least the mindkittens towards the player. The Elder Dragons trying to talk to us, would be like us trying to talk to ants. We’re just on different levels.

The Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan’s combat dialogue was nice and creepy. They don’t need Zhaitan to speak to mess with the player, since its more powerful minions can just as easily fill in that role.

It only a pity we had to get so far into the PS to get to it though.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I would not be surprised if Kiel, Magnus, and Evon end up being the top dog celebrities of Lion’s Arch after this. Aside from “he who killed Scarlet.”

I would give Captain Shud a lot credit as well. She didn’t do anything flashy, but she stayed behind to man the Asura gate to evacuate civilians. Not to mention, she made sure to take the gates leading to the other cities offline, so Scarlet couldn’t use them. Which I’m sure the other cities’ leaders are grateful for.

It would depend really if they ever give the Elder Dragons an actually voice, and not just a specialized minion for the job.

Claudius.5381:

In my experience people farm monster masses for the supply bags, not champions for their bags.

Much more pressing problems are the afk people, the designed conflict between liberators and heirloomers and the widespread misunderstanding that reaching the 1200 treshold would not be worth it.

This.

I don’t mind the zerg, because at least they are helping with the event in someway. AFKers are just leeching the event for free rewards, and they are just purely dead weight. The really need to bring back the ability to report a leech for these types of events.

If they do that, and they mess around with the rewards system to get a better balance between zerg vs rescuer rewards, the event would work a lot better.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

On a slightly-off topic note, I’m calling Rytlock and Rox now. During Origions of Madness instance, Rytlock’s tone changed rather drastically to Rox at the end.

My guess is a Rytlock-Rox-Bhram love triangle.

If you believe the validity of certain datamined dialogues, Rox and Rytlock are half siblings that share the same mother.

Thank you for your reply and time Angel. It is always a pleasure when you (or one of the other devs) come to the forums.

I always wondered though. Will we ever find out if the Toxic Hybrid was ever a true prophet or just a krait shaped sylvari like construct? Or is it one of those things to be saved for a later LS or a obscured reference for the future?

Eluveitie.1290:

Guys, he’s clearly a troll or someone beyond redemption from simple logic. Leave it be, let him talk to himself.

That reminds me (off topic)…

There was an interesting study about internet trolls that came out awhile ago. Of course, it just basically just told us what we already knew. Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People. Though, it is always nice to have data on something to back up an argument.

Taimi may be the closest thing we have to a Scarlet expert, but she doesn’t know everything. If you go to the camp outside Vigil’s Keep, you can see her running around asking people if they saw Scarlet during the attack. She tells the player Scarlet isn’t there, but if she knew Scarlet’s location, she wouldn’t be running around the refugee camp asking everyone if they saw her or not.

The player saw Scarlet during the attack, even though his/her character didn’t. So, Taimi might be making a semi-educated (wrong) guess, or Scarlet left after she positioned the drill.

Chrispy.5641:

I might make smart[censored] comments sometimes that rubs people the wrong way because they fail to understand that it was a joke, but atleast I don’t devolve into insulting (or implying insult) to anyone.

Really? Because what you just described yourself purposefully doing to other people, could be considered equally insulting. Especially if you come back and reply with something like, “Oh, I guess you don’t understand sarcasm.” Which is implying another insult towards the person.

Anyone want to take a guess on what the secret may be? My personal guess is that it’s related to Mordremoth. If Mordy is related to the finale, they might put out some hints about him soon. Because if you aren’t a frequent visitor to the forums, you might not know anything really about him/it.

Well… Suspected ties possibly relating to said Elder Dragon.

eleshazar.6902:

Agreed. Thought they learned with The Marionette fight…. Guess I was wrong.

The LS is made by four different development teams, and they each get about 3-4 months to develop a month’s worth of content. The Marionette fight was nice, but our positive feedback on the subject won’t effect the LS for at least 4 months.

MAGpie.7962:

Six elder Dragons.

Six human gods…

Mmm

No
No
No
No
No
No

Six Nos

Hmmm….

Nikku.3562:

This is why there should have been an achievement, or some other immediate but minor incentive, for saving citizens.

That’s what I was thinking as well. They should have added something like the infinite achievements that they have during the holidays. If they had an achievement like “Rescue 30 civilians and you get a loot bag”, and it only counted civilians YOU either revived or encouraged that got out safely, it might have cut down on the zerg a bit.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Caithe is the only NPC in the entire game who is unimpressed in some fashion by Scarlet.

Two npcs. Canach didn’t care for her much either. Though, judging by his dialogue, she probably bruised his ego in some way.

It seems they have adjusted the reward tiers to award at 100, 300, 600, 900, and 1200 citizens rescued.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Someone showed a screenshot on Reddit of them getting a mini cobalt jungle wurm head mini from the 5th tier bag.

It seems to have been a bug, and they fixed it in the bug fix/update they just did.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

If Zhaitan had specifically wanted LA then he would have gone after it. As it stands there were never any major Risen attacks on LA (I’m ignoring Sea of Sorrows).
Had Zhaitan been aware of whatever if under Lions Arch he could have flown over and dealt with it – we wouldn’t have been able to defeat him.

I would count the Claw Island attack as a major attack against LA. Without the Orders helping the city, it would have been completely overrun by Risen and taken over.

Plus, Zhaitan hasn’t really moved the entire time it has been awake. It seems perfectly content with only sending its forces out to take care of stuff. This seems to apply to most of the Elder Dragons, especially from a gameplay perspective.

It’s not really realistic, but having lazy (or just slow) Elder Dragons evens out the playing fields. With how powerful the Elder Dragons are, they could have easily conquered all of Tyria in a year, if not a couple of months time. All they would have to do is a fly over of the land and corrupt/destroy it as the go.

So, sure, if Zhaitan wanted something, it could have easily taken it. But if it did that for everything, we (the player characters) would have probably either be corrupted or killed a long time ago.

It makes me wonder if Zhaitan wanted LA for the leyline convergence under it…

He’s busy doing a mountain of paperwork and going to meetings to get more funding for the Pact. It seems his second in command is nowhere to be found to help with the work load.

Farzo.8410:

Guild Wars 2: Mists of Cantha

Guild Wars 2: Warlords of Elona

The sad thing is, is that I can actually see the last two happening somewhat.

It doesn’t help matters at all, since there is no clear and easy way to farm the mats for it, like metal or wood has. All we can do is cross our fingers and hope the drops we do get are light armor, and not heavy or medium, to salvage.

Leather has the “luck” of being the red headed stepchild of GW crafting. No one cares about it, so its beyond plentiful and cheap as hell.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Speak for yourself, I’d be going for Zidane, Amarant, Vivi, and Beatrix. A better thief than any in Tyria, a brawler who can give ogres a run for their money, one of the most powerful users of offensive-type magic, and the single most dangerous sword wielder ever.

And together? Off to Elona to give a long overdue spanking to some petulant walking corpse with delusions of absolute power over the region.

No Quina?

Not even on the off chance that s/he might try and devour Joko whole, if you tell him/her that he is talking magical beef jerky?

For shame!

CureForLiving.5360:

Oh that’s interesting. Any particular in game dialog to support this?

It came from an interview.

http://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com/forum/m/2737230/viewthread/9902543-2rps-lore-interview-arenanet

Question One: Can Soundless permanently cut themselves from the dream, or is it a meditation they must upkeep?

Scott McGough: Most Soundless sylvari perform a specific kind of meditation or mental exercise in order to shut themselves off from the Dream, a technique developed and disseminated by one of the firstborn. They need to perform this exercise often and repeatedly to minimize the empathic bond they share with other awakened sylvari. This minimization can be virtually complete, but it can never be literally complete—in other words, a Soundless sylvari cannot ever fully disconnect from the Dream, but through sustained and repeated meditation, they can minimize the common day-to-day empathic connection they feel with other sylvari. If the Pale Tree needed to speak to a Soundless sylvari, she could, but it would take more effort on her part than it would to speak to a regular sylvari.

Off topic, but I can’t help picturing the Pale Tree going all Kool-Aid on some poor Soundless’ mental connection.

Pale Tree: OH YEAH!!

Sharkinu.8096:

I wonder if the quote from the ascended piece is a Pacific Rim reference or just a coincidence.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tempered_Spinal_Blades

We faced Scarlet at our door, and that day we brought the fight to her.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/quotes?item=qt1967203

Today we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them.

All the Mordremoth stuff was a red herring! The true master pulling Scarlet’s strings is Bubbles!