Guild Wars 2

As for Scarlet’s unique coursework, they kinda suggested that in the “Closing Ceremony” instance, but I think people might have missed it.

Emissary Vorpp: Of course. I know of this Scarlet. She earned advanced engineering degrees at each of Rata Sum’s colleges in record time

She didn’t do the full curriculum for each college, like I assume most Asura do. She only studied they style of engineering.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Congrats. I’ll keep that in mind when I put together TM for the next world.

TM for World3 or 4 needs some vorpal bunnies. I can really see Lord Vanquish keeping a couple as a pets, because their evilness can match his own.

Bonus points for players who survive and kill the dreaded Vorpal Bun-nado!

New Elder Dragon lore would be nice. I really think they should really show them as more scary and unstoppable force, since they’re constantly described as something like “forces of nature”.

As for what I think about his upgrade, I’m thinking that he became the center focal point of Zhaitan’s corruption. Zhaitan’s minions are still active in the world, though they are getting fewer and fewer, but they are still doing their job and devouring magic. Zhaitan use to be the center of the corruption, but now that he is dead; that position is getting moved to the next strongest. Which I’m guessing is Tequatl.

I doubt it will happen, but i’m kinda hoping that Teq escapes again. It would be nice for him to take up Zhaitan’s old spot as Elder Dragon, and for him to learn from Zhaitan’s mistakes. Don’t be an arrogant kitten, just because you woke up under an already dead kingdom. Teq would have to start from scratch, all the while trying to stay under the Pact’s radar.

I can understand it on the quartz, since it’s a limited resource now, and you can only get 3-18(?) a day without buying it off the AH. The Bloodstone Dust is in no way limited, since the champ zerg in Frostsound is up 24/7. People probably just want to max out on it quickly though. One less thing to farm.

The Living Story isn’t suppose to deal with the main storyline, the player’s fight against the dragon. At least for now anyway. The Living Story and Personal Story are two separate entities.

Personal Storyline is the players fight against the dragons. So, like you said, it’s going to be permanent content. That is why I said it probably falls under the Long Term teams’ jurisdiction, since they seem to be working on new regions and dragon content.

The Living Story deals with Tyria, not the player, and what is happening in Tyria as of right now. That is why it is temporary content.

WilliamDaBloody.2591:

It’s called a GEAR box. Guess what no new mats in it.

The new ascended mats will come from WvW towers/keeps, Temples and dungeons (probably bosses as well). Basically everything that is played less since the champ loot bags becaus the loot is subpar.

Champ loot bags are dropping Bloodstone Dust. One of the three new drops you need.
Empyreal Shards are dropping from dungeons, mini-dungeons, JPs, and small WvW captures.
Dragonite Ore are dropping from world bosses, events that reward a chest, and large WvW captures.

Other than the Aetherblades, the Gear Boxes drop from champ Dredge and golems, so I doubt their loot table will get all that effected.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

That they are working on Personal Story at all is pure conjecture, more than that, it wouldn’t make sense, as continuation of the main story-line is generally assimilated with the release of an expansion.

Generally being the keyword. Anet has already stated, numerous times, they are going to try something different. That they are going to try to advance the storyline through the LS. That means that any type of content usually done by expansions(added regions, furthering the personal storyline, new races, professions, and cities) would be the combined work of the LS and Long Term teams. Living Story teams has to get the game’s narrative there, and the Long Term teams actually provides most of the actual new content.

If that fails, they will most likely make an expansion the next go around.

You do know that there are other teams working on the game, other than the four Living Story ones, right? The Personal Story wouldn’t fall under the LS teams’ jurisdiction. It would probably fall under the Long Term teams’. They are the ones working on permanent content, like building/adding new regions and dragon content.

The “Looking Ahead” article said we will be building a precursor, not crafting. I’m guessing it’s in the same sense we “built” a legendary. There are crafting components involved, but it is going to be built in the mystic forge, with a recipe, like the legendries are.

In the “Looking Ahead” article, they said they will be adding in new types of legendary gear. So, maybe they are going to be adding in legendary armor? If the precursors for those are going to be craftable as well, it might be a reason they didn’t want to raise them to 500 just yet. Legendary weapons and precursors are already ingame, so it was easier for them to get raised to 500 first.

Still, possibly legendary pants? Hilarious.

I think they need to utilize the Priory(and their library) more. Here is a huge in-game organization of scholars, researchers, explorers, and scientists, but they aren’t used to their full effect lore wise. We see them for renown hearts ever so often, but they can be used to greater purpose when explaining the lore behind certain areas as well. It would be nice to be able to stumble across a Priory explorer, camping in the middle of no where, researching. No renown hearts or anything. Just a lonesome npc that you can ask questions about a more in-depth history of the area. Events that happened there, important figures that might have lived here, certain aspects of the indigenous species… That sort of thing.

As for their library, they should add another function to the Priory’s skill point, the Heart of the Priory. Once you commune with it, you can talk to it again to get “imbued” with parts of its knowledge: the collective research of the Priory. (aka: You can read walls of text about certain parts of the history of Tyria.) Plus, since hopefully the Priory’s scholars were documenting the events of the LS, a summery of the event could be added to the Heart once that part of the LS is over.

With how narcissistic the asura are, it might be frowned upon to go to each college like Scarlet did, especially at an adult age. Their whole race seems to be promoting oneself above others, by one’s own accomplishments. To go into a different college, especially at an adult age, you would be saying to the other asura that you couldn’t learn the material yourself, and you need the help of the professors at the college to teach you. Something that the asura wouldn’t look kindly on, since you’re basically labeling yourself “stupid”.

Now back to the main topic…

As Konig pointed out, the traits of a single individual doesn’t reflect the race as a whole. The Sylvari might be born of the Pale Tree, but she doesn’t really control what traits and knowledge they are born with. That is all seemingly random from the Dream. Given what the short story said, that may or may not be true though.

Would I burn it? Probably not. The Sylvari are too useful of allies at the moment. Not to mention, if plans were underway to burn the Pale Tree, it would force all Sylvari to defend it, Nightmare Court included. We also have no idea how powerful the Pale Tree actually is. It’s a huge magically tree. The tree might not be able to do much, but id rather not get on the wrong side of its avatar though. She remind me too much of a Queen of the Fae to my liking.

And kitten ing off magical trees in a fantasy setting? Never a good idea…

With how it was worded, the precursor recipe will probably be a new mystic forge recipe like the legendries . They phrased it as “building your precursor”, not “crafting your precursor”, in the upcoming 2013 article. They said we would need the new crafting items (t7), 500 in crafting, and “other items” to build the precursor. So, it will probably be an easier, although time-gated, version of the legendary recipe.

I wouldn’t put it past them to scatter the recipes for them in-game as well. Like they did with the legendary ones.

1. Unknown
2. Gift of Mastery
3. Half way through Gift of Fortune. All I need are the 250 ectos and half the mats for Gift of Might.
4. Officially waiting for information on the new legendries and craftable precursors. Until then, I’ll just focus on finishing GoF and farming gold for possibly needed items in the future.

If I’m on, and if I remember, I usually make one. I horded a good amount of them, when they were still only 1g per stack, for future use and profit. Though due to their sheer amount of time-gatedness, which they are about to share with the new t7 mats, my guildies and I have been wondering if they might be used toward building the precursors in the future.

Since it has been stated as…

“Building your precursor will require a large amount of the new crafting material rewards listed above, 500 in crafting, and likely a combination of other items earned for completing more specific content in the game.”

The charged quartz would be right up the time-gated ally of precursor building.

As someone else said in another thread in the SAB forum, this is basically just a breather episode. After Scarlet revealed herself, and we were able to defeat her and make her retreat; this is going to act as a buffer before the next story arc. I’m guessing that they are going to bring back the main features from Halloween in Oct, but since they already have most of the festival content already made; they are going to add more LS/lore elements into this upcoming Halloween.

That was one of the points they were making when they released the Queen’s Pavilion. The QP was the last annul festival event to be made, so now the LS teams can focus on expanding the story more, since they have 4 less festivals to make each year. They can now just bring back the main festival content, add some new features to it, then they can focus on LS content.

Yes, because we all know that a great technological advancement like the SAB, would never be a target of say… Scarlet. I mean, it’s just a box that brings a person into a world totally crafted from the mind of someone. No possible future evil uses there at all, because it will never fall into the hands of said evil persons.

Plus, if Moto allows the Consortium do be able to get to sell it to others, they would never sell it to unscrupulous people! Never!

I usually find it kinda sad that players are so quick to judge and give up on a character. Her first impression was bad to some people, and they instantly want to kill her off and move onto something else, without giving the character any time to evolve.

Sure, we know some of her backstory, but we still don’t know next to nothing of her motives. All we know is that she is going to try and change some unknown “grand design”. Heck, we don’t even know her true personality. In the short story, she appeared cold, uncaring, and dismissive of any type of authority. Ingame, she appear more sadistic and crazed, but at the final encounter of the playhouse; she appeared to slip back into her old personality.

Either she has dramatic mood swings during certain situations, or the “Harley Quinn” act is just that. An act.

I agree that the community wants to get back to the dragons, but I think that is one of the reasons Anet is taking awhile to get back to them. Many players didn’t like how Zhaitan was done, since they thought he lacked any depth or personality. They might be extending the LS a bit, so the writing team has some extra time to flesh out the other Elder Dragons and their minions.

Because as of right now, other than Jormag and the Sons, almost all the other Elder Dragons and their minions are totally blank slates personality-wise. Or, they are totally unknown in the case of Bubbles and Mordremoth.

He got kidnapped by Lord Vanquish!

Joking aside, he is probably either in Elona or traveling the world.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I absolutely refuse to believe she’s actually the one behind the Molten Alliance and the Aetherblades. That person in my head would’ve been someone cunning, who’s always one step ahead of you, and oozes with authority.

Instead, we got this childish girl who acts in such a way that you can predict her actions down to her dialogue lines.

I doubt it is going to happen, but I’m personally hoping for Lazarus the Dire, the last known Mursaat, to be secretly pulling her strings. I can somewhat understand her controlling the Aetherblades, since they’re pirates after all, but organizing the political alliance between two xenophobic groups?

……No.

Supreme.7352:

Abaddon didn’t take claim for past stories for Prophecies or Factions. He just took the bosses and put them together for a boss fight.

Actually, in Nightfall, we find out Abaddon was behind most of the bad things that happened in gw1.

1. The invasion of the three human kingdoms by the Charr, which lead to the destruction of Ascalon.
2. He sent a demon, disguised as an Orrian ghost, to manipulate Khilbron. He was able to get Khilbron to read from the Lost Scrolls, which caused the Cataclysm.
3. One of his servents, the Fury, was responsible for overseeing the creation of the Titans. The beings that were released at the end of Prophecies, that the Mursaat were trying to stop.
4. He sent another demon, this time disguised as a fortune teller, to manipulate Shiro. This lead to him killing the Emperor and causing the Jade Wind.
5. The entire events of Nightfall.

We didn’t even know about him until Nightfall, and we found out he was behind almost every villain in the storyline. The only ones bad guys that can’t claim the “Abaddon made us do it!” excuse is probably the Mursaat and the Stone Summit dwarves. Even the Charr got to use that cop out.

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

Why she attack human? Why directly Queen? She saw it in “grand design”? Why she didn’t deal with sylvari’s first?

Because the outside forces might be shaping all of Tyria. She might have targeted the Queens because she plays an important role in said “grand designs”. Without her, Kryta would fall into a good amount of chaos, and that would leave it up to attack on many different angles.

The headmaster wasn’t her friend though. No one was. The story showed, that since her birth, the one thing she only cared about was trying to understand how things works. How everything works, and how it all worked together. She only saw people as tools to her basically.

There are a couple of things to take away from it, for me anyway. One is what the Pale Tree said. "Please: go no further. In seeking to comprehend the forces that shape us, you will unleash them. Society cannot withstand that.” Obvious foreshadowing is obvious. There are multiple forces shaping Tyria. Greater forces that we can understand it seems, and trying to understand them has the possibility to unleash them.

The second thing is what she said about the Sylvari…

“So much makes sense now. The Pale Tree, the Nightmare Court, Caithe and Faolain…it’s all part of a grand design.

“But I see the flaws in that design. My people don’t have to take what we’re given, or be what we were “born to be.” No people do. We can change the rules…well, I can. And I’m going to.”

Everything about the Sylvari and Nightmare Court, including Caithe and Faolain’s relationship, was a matter of grand design, and Scarlet seen it. She’s now going to try and ruin said “grand designs”, because she doesn’t want some outside force shaping her to it’s will.

It is because Logan can’t think clearly when Jenna is in danger. Which is not a good thing if he is supposed to be her protector. Anise’s job is to protect the Queen, above all else. Since Anise can’t trust Logan to keep his emotions in check, especially when the Queen is in danger, she has been trying to slap some sense into him this LS.

lordkrall.7241:

So, people shout about how this should be in-game.
HOW would this be in-game?
The only one that could tell us all this would be Scarlet (if she even can due to the experiment) and I have rather major doubts she would tell us.

Other than the parts in Scarlets PoV, and her dialogue in space, we could have ran around and talked to the people named in the story. They could have given us their accounts of their history with her, and her behavior at the time. They would have set it up to show her getting more and more frustrated with her lack of progress, up until she got to Rata Sum.

Once there, we could talk to random npcs that might have studied with her. Minus the Asura’s negativity towards a genius non-asuran, we could have learns her apathy towards others, and her continued drive to further drive into forbidden knowledge. Add in a mission to capture and interrogate Inquest members for their knowledge on the matter, me finally stop at the Hylek teacher.

From his knowledge, he find out that Scarlet left with her old asuran headmaster, and when we get back to Rata Sum; we find out he’s dead. After learning that, we have to search out a powerful necromancer to summon his spirit out of the Mists. He tells his story of Scarlet’s ideas and his final moments, and we have the entire short story in-game.

Personality wise, the Asura and Mursaat share a lot in common, even more so with the Inquest, but I doubt there is a connection other than that.

Well, we were right about her being very much an anarchist. Though, certain parts of the short story brought me back to her poem…

“Please: go no further. In seeking to comprehend the forces that shape us, you will unleash them. Society cannot withstand that.”

~

“So much makes sense now. The Pale Tree, the Nightmare Court, Caithe and Faolain…it’s all part of a grand design.

“But I see the flaws in that design. My people don’t have to take what we’re given, or be what we were “born to be.” No people do. We can change the rules…well, I can. And I’m going to.”

They reminded me of this part of the poem…

Your world is built on fog and sand
You’re out of time, your jig is done
It’s time for Scarlet to have her fun

She is setting herself up to be an agent of chaos, and she will work against any plans the “forces that shape us” has for their “grand designs”.

I wonder if the same people that hate Scarlet hate Abaddon. Because if we are talking about clichés and overdone tropes, Abaddon takes the cake. Dark fallen god that comes out of no where, but he was secretly behind most/all the villains the hero faced previously? Talk about an overdone fantasy cliché.

That’s because Rift was built for that, and they probably had a much longer time too actually make those possibly. The LS team has to make these events in a matter of months, and the type of events you are talking about, and the coding involved, takes a good bit of time and money.

I would like to know this as well. In between people being for or against Scarlet, and them farming champs in invasions, it would seem that most people forgot there was suppose to be an important speech in this patch. One that was suppose to contain a big surprise…

And I doubt the Queen gathered everyone together just to say, “I brought you here today, because there is going to be a Sylvari supervillain attacking in 5…4…3…2..”.

Yes, if there is one thing the warrior class needs as a whole, it is increased survivability…

/sarcasm off

There is only one thing I would change though. I would change the protection to invulnerability. If you are going to suggest OP skills, you might as well swing for the fences.

Try to get into an overflow server. At least then, you know the people there are for the event and not the regular champ farming zerg.

@Pacifica

I was thinking along the same lines as well. The “seeing the Eternal Alchemy” was something akin to Ascension, and it could have gave her True Sight. That might have made her the target of Lazarus’ machinations.

Sadly, that is still wild speculation without further details…

Desmond.5396:

Amstel Steel.2058:

I’m only speculating, however, it’s Lazarus the Dire pulling the strings.

Noooooo! He deserves a way better story.

Better story? And what, involve the White Mantle cultists? I’m not sure if he would really use them again, since they turned out to be such horrible minions the last time he did. Their ineptitude caused the total extinction of his race, since they weren’t able to stop the player in gw1. Plus, he’s out to kill off all humans and asura.

I would rather, personally, have the White Mantle and Mursaat storylines separate. Lazarus’ story being that he is out to totally destroy the races, or at least the humans and asura. The WM’s would center on the further corruption of the ministry, and it bleeding into and manipulating the common folk/bandits. All the while, they cling to their faith of an absent and/or uncaring “gods”, the Mursaat. It would mirror the human and six god relationship all to well.

Amstel Steel.2058:

I’m only speculating, however, it’s Lazarus the Dire pulling the strings.

That’s what I’m personally hoping for as well. I just find it hard to believe, that such an openly insane person would be able to lead a functioning allied army like this. If there was someone else working behind the scenes, someone a bit more calm, collected, and more experienced, I would have a much easier time believing that.

Fafnir.5124:

Spoiler alert:

I thought the nightmar court were servents of craggy. From Gw2 2nd novel they tryed to get glint killed also they said that you would be safe from the dragon rising if you joined them. Kragy demostrated some mez abilities when fighting Glint also becoming transparent like a cloud for a montain that is a large feat.

The only thing Kralk has in common with mesmers is the color purple. If there was anything to take away from the BotFW LS, it is that he/it is probably more inclined to air magic, and its different aspects (wind, sun, and lightning), like Glint was and the Zephyrites now are.

Scarlet does remind me of Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter…

I guess I support this idea!

DarksunG.9537:

Scarlet is, at best, a side kick or a #2. She commands no respect or authority, has no strong presence. I don’t see her leading anyone but maybe some hounds. If it’s supposed to be Joker-esque, i’m afraid it totally failed. Besides, a bonkers villian isn’t going to coordinate this kind of force.

I have to agree. She seems more of a second in command to me. I’m sure it has happened many times in history before, but I still have a hard time seeing an such insane person pulling off running an multi-race/international allied army like this. While also having the time to build legions of evil clockworks monsters…

For all that is holy and unholy, please let Lazarus the Dire be the one pulling her strings! It would make all of this make much more sense.

As for the main Sue topic, I kinda think the better question is: is there such a thing as an original character now? All heroes and villains can be boiled down and fit into easy stereotypes. Once that happens, all roads lead back to tvtropes nowadays, and people shouting exclamations of “Sue!” at the first sight of archetype.

So, we should all fear…transgendered Trahearne?

Is she going to have a boxing match against Mad King Thorn now? I’d pay to watch that.

Actually, Queen Jenna was a robot sent from the future to kill Snaff.

Mission Completed, btw…

Since we don’t know barely any details, we can’t really give an opinion on it yet. They didn’t even seem to let Dulfy do the usually day before preview on it either. That means there are at least a couple of secrets in the patch. Whether those secrets are actually good, on the other hand, is another matter all together.

I think I’ll stick to the middle of the road expectations. They might add a couple of things I like to the patch, but that’s is all I’m really expecting. If im wrong, and they add all kinda of awesome to this patch, I’ll be pleasantly surprises. If it turns out kinda “meh”, I’ll only be mildly disappointed.

And if they do another Canach-like patch, I’ll probably take another break from the game for awhile…

They should really just suck it up and put a disclaimer on the personal story. Whenever you enter a mission, text goes across the screen saying, “These events are set in the past, before the time of Zhaitan’s fall.” All this tip toeing around it during the living story is very annoying.

Queen Jenna: I have gathered you all here today to address some of your concerns. Some of you think of me as a weak ruler, some a heartless tyrant. I assure you I’m neither of these things, but if you really insist; I’ll become the cruel tyrant. At least that way, I can finally get some things done around here. Those ministers can be very bothersome to one’s plans sometimes. We won’t need them anymore.

Queen Jenna: For those that might oppose my new style of leadership….

Queen Jenna shots mind-kitten lasers out of her eyes into the crowd.

Sanctem.3862:

She could be prego.. And take a dagger to the gut 8 times in front of Logan. Logan on the other hand is no mesmer and would have a harder time dealing with projectiles.

With all their blocks and reflections, guardians have an easier time dealing with projectiles than mesmers do…

I think Queen Jenna would be able to deal with some projectiles. She is a mesmer after all…

@Zaxares

A suspiciously happy Rytlock, a limping Logan, and Queen Jenna with a nosebleed…?

Sorry, I couldn’t help it.

Thalador.4218:

It is not forbidden for undead to further their magical practices, and the living are likely to have evolved their magical theory the same way the rest of the world did. In a land where necromancy is widespread thanks to the ruling regime, I bet the darker side of ritualism and spiritualism would thrive. Couple that with paragon/guardian/warrior disciplines and you get a true Mordant Knight of Palawa Joko.

We don’t know if necromancy is now wide spread among the populace in Elona, since it was already kinda looked down before Palawa’s reign. It would depend on whether Palawa would allow such a thing. If he allowed necromancy to flourish, people might be able find out a way to use his own magical art against him. Not to mention, the people of Elona might look further down on necromancy as a whole, because Palawa himself is a necromancer.

He would probably allow it within the Mordant Knights and whatever ruling class there is in Elona now, if there is any. But the general populace? Probably not. He is a overlord that rules with an iron fist after all. Hard to keep that position if he gives power, by way of the magical arts, to the people.

Zomaarwat.3912:

GS ele is pretty good, and so are hammer, bow, shield and axe ele ^^ Id love to see a Necro with a rifle though.

Entropy alone, necros deserve to be able to wield a hammer. They can use them to slam down marks or something.