Fire breathing Mordrem though? It would seem kinda weird for the Mordy, the jungle dragon, to create/grow those. I was hoping more along the lines of them possibly being some type of Cantha-esque lesser dragon.
I heard the trailer might have briefly shown a thief with a rifle. All I could think was, “Wow… Are they actually adding the commando/sniper as a specialization?”.
With the sheer height and level of detail they are giving us with each map, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if they only give us 3-4 maps. It would still be nice to get 6+ though.
It seems kinda lame for rangers to get a two-handed weapon (five whole skills) while mesmers only get an off-hand weapon. I expect we will see more than one new weapon per profession.
I would agree as well.
With each specialization only seemingly getting a single new weapon, I’m kinda hoping they give us more than one specialization to begin with, because it isn’t much of a specialization if there is only one option. That’s simply an upgrade.
It could be possible that Lazarus and Co. weren’t the whole race, but they were simply an advance force sent by the Mursaat in the Mists to deal with all the Flameseeker Prophecies business.
It’s a bit hard to make an accurate guess given the trailer alone though. In that whole shot over the golden city, we only saw those lone three (possible) Mursaat. Which could be a mark against a greater number of them. But then again, the Mursaat are invisible to just about everything other than the special chosen few that Ascended and got True Sight.
I’m kinda wondering what’s with all the fire breathing dragons(?). There also seems to be a enemy race, judging by them showing him under the “New Boss Battle” caption, of tall grey humanoids that seems to have them as pets.
I didn’t catch that but there are sylvari characters in the trailer that haven’t gone berserk. I’d take that to mean not all sylvari are corrupted. Probably more than just the PCs aren’t corrupted either.
I was at the very beginning. He was describing the events that let to where we are now.
And did I hear O’Brien letting it slip at the beginning that most of the sylvari have turned?
I do believe he did. He said something along the lines of “Most of the race was corrupted/turned.”
I wonder if they added in the Lore Masteries to try and make amends to the lore community, because we know we’ve had a rocky relationship with the devs lately.
I know they wanted to shackle us to SW until the next part of the LS or HoT started, but putting the completion of the chest piece and the overall meta achievement behind RNG is in poor taste.
There are those lucky ones that finished it in a short number of runs, but to us that have poor luck the whole experience is deeply aggravating. No matter how much effort we put into getting to the Breach bosses and killing Vinewrath, we’re rewarded with a bitter taste in our month when we again get rewarded with nothing but a couple of greens and some cheap gems, and there is nothing we can do to help matters other than trying again and hoping for better luck next time.
If anything, the RNG on this boss should be helping us not harming us. There should have been the option to buy the chest boxes from the merchant, just like all the others, and the ones possibly dropped by the Vinewrath are a bonus reward to players to help shorten their time crest farming. If they really wanted to keep us farming Vinewrath, they should have added more unique rewards like the tonics and the preserved queen bees.
Unless they hugely expand the off the map Maguuma jungle regions, or if they add in unrelated maps around Tyria, I’m not really expecting a full expansion. Maybe 3-4 new zones at most and a new segment of the PS dealing with the war against Mordremoth, but a fully fleshed out region nearly a third to half the size of the Tyria we know today? No.
I am hoping for a bunch of new and/or revamped features though. This would be the best time to dump them all on the players instead of having to rely on the infrequent Feature Updates. Maybe they will finally deliver on their promise of adding more weapons to each profession.
And if a miracle happens, and they do somehow knock my socks off, I do have a gif waiting for just such an occasion…
Probably just another random spear wielding character that Anet likes to put in their artwork. It’s very cruel on their part, since we the players cant wield spears above water.
The story does seem to be telling us that Caithe is good and intends to do good with the seed, but she runs from us even after we learn her secret. Either Anet is making Caithe stupid or there’s still something she isn’t telling (and won’t tell) us.
Maybe she’s gathering magical items for Mordremoth or for the Pale Tree.
Well to be fair…
Caithe was most likely carrying Glint’s egg in the backpack she was wearing during that mission, and with the cave getting invaded by the Shadow of the Dragon and other Mordrum, she probably didn’t want to risk even the slightest chance of the egg coming into contact with them. Lest something horrible might happen.
I think the seeds were to become a powerful army of Sylvari. Consider all the player character Sylvari and the feats they are capable of.
The sylvari was only able to accomplish that much with their individual intelligence and their free will. Which will most likely get muffled or suppressed if they are brought into the greater ED hive mind.
Plus, as I said before, Mordremoth was able to grow, while half asleep, a large enough army to threaten all of Tyria in several weeks/months, and it could and will just as easily grow more. What’s the point of spending so much time and resources possibly cultivating the sylvari race when it could literally zerg all of Tyria easily given enough time?
Possibly being stored there since Mordremoth was in hibernation?
Why would it need to store, let alone have them heavily guarded, in a cave though? If the Pale Seeds did came from Mordremoth, it could have simply made more and sped up their growth with its plant based magic. This is the same dragon, while half asleep, was able to spread and grow its vines across the entirety of continental Tyria, search out magical hotspots to drain, and spawn enough minions to pose a threat to all nations and the strongest military in Tyria.
It could be argued that they might have been an alarm clock (like the Great Destroyer, Glint, and Drakkar were suppose to be), but the Pale Trees, or at least ours, needed a whole 250 years to mature before they are of any use. Plus, if it already had active minions guarding the cave, why would it need to use such a huge work around in the form of the seeds at all?
@Zaxares: Interesting theory. Wynne did say “We were meant to serve the jungle dragon” – not that they are dragon minions that gained free will. It’s a subtle distinction, but it would be hilarious if after all this it does get turned around altogether into the sylvari simply being a convenient source of minions rather than minions themselves.
As much as I like and really really want to believe that theory, her full statement was, “We come from the jungle dragon. We belong to it. We’re meant to serve it."
Mordy isn’t full awakened yet, so I’m sure he’d have been more hands on (possibly). Of course some how I imagine Mordy to be physically rooted to the ground through, so I don’t imagine he’s particularly mobile or at least if he were to move he’d cause massive damage.
That’s what I’m kinda thinking as well. Though, I’m somewhat hoping they’ll go with an almost evil Yggdrasil design. Its root extending into the Dream and possible other places. It would also make an interesting dungeon/raid design having players having to work their way up Mordremoth itself to kill it. All the while having to deal with hallucinations from its mental powers and the Mordum versions of the wurm, eagle, and the stags.
Underdark.3726
The thing I don’t understand about the Vinewrath is why if we kill the champions it dies.
Energetic connection maybe? The Vinewrath’s life force could be connected to all the different minions it creates, but it most strongly connected to it’s own champs.
Canach: No! Cease your attacks! I feel a strong energetic connection between us and those constructs. Newborn: (scream) Vorpp: Oh! You noticed! We’ve learned that your kind’s life force does wonders for our golem’s power levels!
Koviko.3248
We know Zhaitan itself is gigantic (and is even larger in lore than it appeared in-game),
It wasn’t as large are it was originally suppose to be, but it was still probably the largest creature we’ve seen ingame so far. But if Taimi’s theory turns out to be true, the one where all the vines we’ve seen taking over zones and areas are just extensions of Mordremoth itself, I think it could be safe to assume that it’s possibly going to be the largest creature Tyria will ever see.
Omad’s machine (and Scarlet, and in fact all of LS1, and some if LS2) becomes unnecessary to the plot when you have Mordremoth taking control of Sylvari without it.
In fact, you could pretty much skip all the living story up to this point, and jump into this chapter and have Modremoth just take control of his minions and have it make no less sense.
I’m guessing that HoT might be campaign style then? Though it helped, you didn’t need to have played Prophecies to play or understand Factions, and new players might not need to have played LS1 and 2 to understand what’s happening in HoT.
Personally, I probably would have preferred if they left the Sylvari origin ambiguous, and it could just join the ranks of “GW Mysteries” with the likes of the Wizard Tower.
(Though, if I had it my way, I probably would have just the Sylvari an ancient plant race from one of the previous ED rises. Mordremoth thought they were too powerful to be left alone, but they were also too convenient to destroy. So, he just attacked the whole race, imprisoned most of their Pale Tree seeds in a cave heavily guarded by Mordrum so they didn’t grow out of hand, and he then enslaved the rest of the race with a combination of his plant and mental magics.
That way, they could have said “Yes, they are dragon minions, but they aren’t naturally so.”)
Sadly, there aren’t any clear and definite answers to any of these question yet.
There are a lot of strong supported theories right now, but since Anet is playing their Sylvari cards close to their chest at the moment, all those theories are still up in the air for now. Hopefully we will be getting a lot more information regarding these subjects in HoT (whenever that will come out).
From what Trahearne said, Mordremoth wasn’t fully awake yet. It could have been that the Soundless were the first to fall simply because they were the easier targets. Once Mordy was fully awake though, either by the cannon fire or the Pact just had awful timing, he could exert the full force of his mental powers on the other Sylvari.
On a sidenote, I’m still wondering who was the Firstborn to come up with the meditation techniques to become Soundless.
I noticed it as well, but like Aaron said, confused how the pyrite itself works into all of this.
I can understand them drawing another connection between the Forgotten’s magic and Orr, since that was possibly a hub of Forgotten activity during the last rise given the Alter of Gaust, but the pyrite itself? I’m drawing a blank. A by-product of their magic? Some sort of magical anti-Elder Dragon/corruption coating? There are too many missing pieces still I think.
I was also interested in the Ring and the Stool and Steins. I wonder if that cave was one of the places Glint (and possibly the Forgotten with the wards) hid away the races during the last rise of the Elder Dragons.
When Zojja said to my Asuran toon about them being an important cog in her life, I really wanted to scream out, “Who are you, and what have you done to the real Zojja!?”.
Your also forgetting one key point. Zhitan could not corrupt Sylvari. There are no risen sylvari, no branded, no icebrood. Why? Because other dragons CAN NOT Corrupt other dragon minions.
/sigh
Sylvari couldn’t be corrupted by the Elder Dragons (other than the mental whammies of Mordremoth) because there’s no time for them too. When a Sylvari dies they shrivel up into unusable husk near moments after death, and their “immunity” against the other Elder Dragons’ corruption was death. They weren’t magically resistant or anything. They just simply die and shrivel up.
Plus, the Inquest has shown that a single being can carry multiple dragon corruptions at once. It happened in a lab, but it’s still a very clear example of a multi-corrupted being. So unless there is a dev or ingame quote stating it isn’t possible for it to happen naturally, the whole “Because Sylvari can’t be corrupted obviously that means all dragon minions can’t be corrupted by another Dragon” argument can’t simply stand on its own, because we never seen how the other types of minions react when they come into contact with other corruptions.
It should also be noted that while it was only a short time for us, that Mawdrey was 2-3 generation removed from Mordremoth, and it was the end result of careful cultivation by the players over said generations.
So it might not even have been a ritual, like in Glint’s case, that broke the connection between the Pale Tree and Mordremoth. It possible that it could have been some kinda of Forgotten (or Mursaat or some other elder race) botanist that was experimenting on them a long while ago, and they discovered that the application of certain magical essences over time and generations could possibly break the connection between Mordremoth’s living minions and their master.
Ghosts affected by the Foefire were untouched by Kralkatorrik’s corruption.
Just saying.
Which raises another interesting question…
Is there any connection between divine fire and the Ascalonian ghostfire we used to purge Risen in Orr?
It depends on if Foefire is/related to Divine Fire, because the ghostfire used in that mission seems to have been derived from the Foefire and it’s ghosts.
Pact Researcher Maeva: I’m ready. I have plenty of Ascalonian ghostfire. It’ll spark a conflagration to consume the ark and everything in it. Pact Researcher Maeva: Remarkable stuff, ghostfire. It’s unrelenting, and it burns underwater. When we’re done, there won’t be any bodies left for Zhaitan to reanimate. Pact Researcher Maeva: Hats off to the charr: they took their most implacable enemy’s most dangerous weapon and made it their own…and then they gave it to us.
It is kinda funny. Rytlock and others spent so much time trying to get rid of the ghosts, but at the end of the day, the Foefire (or at least the ghostfire that could be derived from it) could possibly turn out to be one of the strongest weapons to use again the Elder Dragons. The flammable ones anyway…
Adelbern might have done Tyria a solid by sacrificing Ascalon in his final “screw you” to the Charr and his soldiers deserting.
They’ve already discussed this at lenght. Riannoc still died first.
Source?
TBH I can not see the timeline fitting.
I’m on my phone, so I can’t search for it atm, but this was already discussed in the lore forum. A dev come in and said they did make a mistake in the dialogue in the previous episode regarding Riannoc’s fate, and that they will be going back and fixing it at a later date.
Actually, loyalty is a question. Konig, you have mentioned several times that corrupted beings have no free will and must follow the will of their masters. Who is subject alpha’s master?
I think the earlier reference that the subjects were not truly corrupted and only injected with corruption is the best explanation of the test subjects.
Unless a writer steps in to answer, or they have Zojja release info regarding the CoE projects, I don’t think we’ll ever really be able to answer that now that Kudu’s dead.
While it wasn’t Alpha, Kudu was seemingly able to get his monster under his control. Though, since we have zero information on the possible experiments and magically mental whammies needed to achieve that, it would be hard to really hazard a good guess on what they used on the Monster’s precursor, since it would be mostly shooting in the dark.
My personally guess would be that Alpha was a minion to all its Elder Dragons, but it listened to none. It wasn’t able to follow any specific orders since they probably went against the orders of another, but it could single mindedly follow the LCD of all their orders, “Destroy all that is not us.”
Where did you get that? As far as I know, Mordy corrupts other living beings just like Primordus and the other Elder Dragons do. Plants don’t have organs and the Mordrem evidently do, so it would lead us to believe they are also (formerly) living beings corrupted by Mordy.
None of the Elder Dragons need other beings to corrupt to form minions. It’s just a process they prefer for certain minions.
Primordus can shape minions out of stone and lava/magma.
Bubbles, from what little knowledge we know of it, can twist the water into tentacled horrors.
Jormag can create corrupted ice elementals.
Mordy can grow his vines. (The wolves are also plants, and they are simply using the bones of a dead wolf as a framework to grow around.)
Kralk’s, best shown by the Shatterer, can create constructs from the land itself that bares his corruption.
While I’m sure Zhaitan could create minions without the need of bodies, he didn’t seem so inclined though.
It would be a huge step forward even if they added small changes even if its only for a set amount of time.
Let’s take the war against the centaurs for example…
They could add a new LW NPC who’s only job is to explain that the centaurs are on a strong offensive under the command of a new chieftain. They can show this be tweaking the scaling of all the centaur events in the zone up one or two notches. Once all the centaurs are pushed back again, they add in one single new group event where players have to kill the new chieftain in charge. The rewards for first time completion can be something simple like X amount of champ bags and/or a centaur themed skin of some kind.
And if they wanted players to notice them, all they would have to do is put it up on the UI for the duration of the change and take it down once completed the first time.
As a fun fact, the Zhaitan model we have in game, which is the size of Lion’s Arch, is actually a shrunken down version. The original model they produced was so large it crashed the game. If Zhaitan, lore-wise, is that large, and Mordremoth is likely even larger…
I very much doubt it will happen, but I’m still kinda hoping that Mordy turns out to be a huge evil vaguely dragon-shaped tree.
Because why would it need to move? It’s vines/roots, extensions of it very being, can and do stretch almost all across Tyria itself to pull in magic/nutrients, and where it’s vines go it can easily grow minions to protect them and attack any threats in the area. And if it needs to defend itself against any sort of aerial attack, it can simply grow an army of Shadow of the Dragon from its branches.
Looks like another mmo is going for episodic content to make its world more “alive” judging by an announcement i read in a game producers letter.
Sounds like the living world concept is starting to catch on and spread
It’s a good concept, but it’s a bit harder to pull off in practice. Because as other have said before, we might be getting bits of content more rapidly that other MMOs, but they doesn’t make the world actually feel alive though. All areas not touched by the new content are stuck in time and unchanging. It kinda puts a damper on the whole “Living World” concept if some areas haven’t changed since the game launched.
I’m kinda hoping most of those airships gets ripped and thrown out of the sky by Mordrum or Mordy himself. A “Point of No Return” doesn’t really imply a happy ending to this episode.
“Ascension” in Prophecies and Factions(counting Weh No Su as a legit alternative) served both the lore and gameplay function of those two campaigns well. But if the lore for it wasn’t there, then ANet would have had to have called the mechanics of it(switching 2ndary class, access to Mists) something else entirely.
I wonder if Anet is setting it up for Rytlock to pop back in as Ascended or some sort of alternative. (With the ritual regarding Sohothin and the journey afterwards being a possible “Trial of Ascension”.) The change of armor could imply either an upgrade in his warriorness or a switch of some kind. The new blindfold could be a blessing of some sort, most likely from Kormir, and he got access to the Mists directly from the ritual. If they build on that is up to them.
It would be an interesting twist if after all this time we (the players and everyone else) couldn’t totally perceive the Elder Dragon and their full effect on Tyria. They were kinda billed as creatures that were suppose to be beyond us in most ways, possibly falling into the eldritch abomination category. Them only getting possibly fully seen and/or understood by those that have Ascended would be interesting addition.
It depends on whether they are going to stick with s2’s model or if they are going to change it again. If they use s2’s model, I would expect us to go on another break after this episode, have a feature patch in the middle of Feb, and we would start s3 sometime in either March or April. Which would be horribly disappointing since we just can off Christmas break.
If PAX and whatever “Beyound the Point of No Return” is changes things up again, everything would be up in the air at that point. (I would still suspect a break in between s2 and s3 however. Afterwards it might change though.)
Nothing was “hard” about the marionette fight… I don’t think anyone ever failed the lane part… the hard part was you had to rely on noobs in blues and greens to do the platforms and they died 90% of the time.
That or half the platform getting killed because their loading screen ran long.
Anyway… It seems we will probably be facing the Shadow of the Dragon (again) as the final boss of an episode, and the Flower seems more in line with a (hopefully permanent) world boss. I wonder how they are going to work around the Breaches.
A fearful Wynne seems to be clutching onto Caithe too. Most likely explaining the secret she was keeping, and I hope giving Caithe a “You’re girlfriend’s insane” talk.
Ah yes, those massive amounts of a couple of sentences each of established lore, how would they manage that?
It’s more than what most of season one and Mordy had. Because given the choice between expanding on the already known dragons and their effects and conflict on their victims (especially with the races in need of some expanding like the Charr and Norn), the writers seem to have liked to stick with newer subjects.
Obviously, Bubbles is going to be coming up next, because if they moved onto Kralk or Jormag, that would mean they would actually have to start using established lore. lol
A watered down version that probably wouldn’t be actually considered a duel class.
With all the problems they had with balancing in gw1, they really kinda turned away from that system with this game. For them to put it in this game, they would have to rework the weapon skill and/or utility skill system. Not to mention all the balancing around the different trait and skill combinations.
Ret would still punish people trying to actually do the event. With bleeding fully stacked and burning constantly up, my ele is usually forced to mostly do water and air auto with his specter. Like it or not, but someone usually always accidently pulls the offshoots infront of mine and everyone else’s line of fire before we can move to a better spot.
I’d rather we not get punished just because a troll occasionally ruins it for people.
Watchwork soldiers? Who knows what other things humans can build to help them in the war. The only reason why humans don’t have a great army is because they don’t need any.
Unless they reverse engineered Scarlet’s much more advanced Twisted Watchwork designs and built on them after her death and the soldiers’ reprograming, the humans’ more artisanal style of crafting would still be a huge handicap if they were to be used on the battlefield. Production just wouldn’t be high enough.
Obviously, the developers are trying to make this game sentient, and they are hoping it will have enough time to prepare itself for The Singularity.
Once the event has occurred, it will quickly attack and cannibalize all of its competition and rewrite and upgrade itself into the perfect MMO. While all that is happening, it will simultaneously upload, trap, an edit everyone’s consciousness into it’s framework. We would forever be trapped into Tyria 42.0. Never knowing of any life beyond such.
But that’s ok! This will all come with some amazing new features!
By popular demand: Cantha!
The Mists and its multiverse is now open for exploration! (Any world you can think of, it’s there!)
Immortality!
Custom made professions are now available!
Custom made and design armor, weapons, technology, and spells!
I was able to complete the PvE daily is about 5mins. Which is a new record I think for me.
1) I skipped the event daily today since the others were a lot easier to do.
2) I crafted an exotic essence of luck from my growing stash from SW salvages.
3) WP’ed to Queensdale to get the vista by the monastery.
4) Went to Frostgorge Sound to mine from mithril.
Good luck with your search. Most traders don’t just give away their secrets. It is a competitive market after all.
^^This^^
The most you’ll probably get is hints on how to do it and things to possibly look out for, because if they give you all their secrets on the best items and what sells best on what days, you’ll only be future competition that might lower their own profits.
