Guild Wars 2

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Oh boy, here we go again.

Here’s one: Norn aren’t what they used to be just like Charr are different from the past.

Where’s the lore that states Norn haven’t gotten weaker since the days of GW1? Where’s the lore that states Charr are weaker than Norn in current GW2 times?

Going off of a combo of what arthurobenzi and Gieniusz Krab are stating: is it possible that the GW1 Charr were just as powerful as GW1 Norn but were considered weaker because of their savagery?

Where is the lore that says Norn these days are weaker then they were before?

Gameplay doesn’t count. There is nothing in the Movement of the World that’d suggest a total racial decline of strength and other areas in individuals. Infact, you could say there is stuff to imply they’d work at becoming STRONGER, Faster, etc in response to the forced exile.

Imbune.5497:

This….still makes absolutely no sense. Ok you want to lazily have the pact say ’it’s not our business’…but remember who they made the player become? The COMMANDER of the pact? So the commander of the pact is running about saving a city from ruin but couldn’t command even a small unit of the pact to….I don’t even….sigh.

It’s this sort of thing why I say the storytelling in gw2 is just abysmal and seems to want to contradict everything the player does (especially anything related to the personal story). I won’t even get into the ‘logics’ behind making the person whose wyld hunt is to NOT kill an elder dragon, create and lead a pact that killed an elder dragon (…well he technically didn’t kill the dragon but that’s what it’ll be written as-first born created pact and kill elder dragon) while the firstborn WITH the hunt did…well…kinda nothing.

Every time I start thinking about gw2’s story I become even more and more annoyed -__-

Trahearnes Wyld hunt was to cleanse Orr. He had the most knowledge of Orr compared to anybody else. IIRC, Caithe’s Wyld hunt was to kill the dragon as well (or dragons). And she was present at Arah. Trahearne never took credit so I don’t see him getting credit for it other then “He helped form the Pact, which did defeat Zhaitan.”

Also, AGAIN. You and others seem to be missing this giant, glaring, NEON SIGN fact.

Orders make up Pact manpower. Orders were present at Lions Arch and other events in force. Player character is a high ranking member of the order AND second in command of the Pact. Again, the only thing that the Pact didn’t send (in technicality) was it’s leadership elements and heavy gear.

I’m getting amazed at how people can’t understand this SIMPLE fact….

Claw Island gets taken, the three orders meet up. Player suggests pooling resources. Order leaders ponder who could command it (That wouldn’t show clear favoritism). Player Suggets Trahearne, a neutral but respected guy who knows a LOT about Orr and Risen. Order leaders accept.

Pact is formed with the various orders making up the manpower (while still keeping their home forces and actions under Order control) Pact goes on to kill/defeat Zhaitan (depending on your point of view).

LA gets attacked. Orders respond with lots of aid in manpower and getting refugee camps set up. They help reclaim the city aiding the Lionguard.

SO, Yes. Trahearne didn’t order the Pact to storm in. BUT HE DIDN’T HAVE TO. The local order forces (lead by the order leaders) helped the Lionguard in large enough forces to retake the city once the Miasma cleared out. Scarlet took the city in one night/day. We can assume it took a day for the Miasma to clear out, then another to get into the breachmaker and kill Scarlet. Then you have several days of cleanup and all which leads us to the timeline given by an npc medic. ONE WEEK.

bullyrook.2165:

Wanderer.3248:

This thread is a bit like comparing a hurricane to an earthquake to a tidal wave to a volcano. Apples and oranges. You could measure the amount of destruction, but that partly depends on what’s in the way.

one dragon took a group of six to nearly kill while the other has battled the combined might of dwarves and asura for the better part of 250 years. I’d say there are grounds for comparison.

Said dragon was also stated to have ONE, SINGLE point where it could be harmed. And they were aided by Glint (a dragon), and used mind control (of a sort) to KO Kralk, which was only possible due to Glint.

The other dragon first appeared by swarming through the Asura underground network with it’s destroyers, and even while being held at bay by the dwarves destroyers pop up here and there.

Obsidian.1328:

Yeah, Cathedral of Flames I always assumed was made by someone else. It doesn’t fit in with other Charr structures at all. Kind of like how the Ebon Vanguard were inhabiting the Eye of the North. They were just using someone else’s stuff. :P

Maybe some humans pushed that far north but later got wiped out easily whenever the charr started pushing back.

Obsidian.1328:

Kalavier.1097:

Maybe not like a human city, but I’m sure they do have villages/cities of a sort. Though I recall some ascalonian style ruins all the way in the charr flame legion homelands…

Where is that? 0.o

GW1 citadel of flame/dungeon area. IIRC, much of it is ascalon style of ruins that the Flame legion inhabit.

I think the one fleshreaver dungeon and the Dwarf hammer dungeon in the charr homelands region also had some of them involved… Even the bonus stone summit one after you beat the great destroyer.

Or at least, they had ruins which used the Ascalonian style of construction :O.

Maybe not like a human city, but I’m sure they do have villages/cities of a sort. Though I recall some ascalonian style ruins all the way in the charr flame legion homelands…

Stramatus.5219:

Dustfinger.9510:

How do we know they were nomadic in GW1? That they didn’t have vast cities back in their homelands away from the front lines of their invasion?

See EOTN, Charr Homelands. Bunch of camps, I think I recall one stronghold, but certainly no cities.

EOTN and gW1 not once showed us children for dwarves or Charr. Or Tengu. Or female dwarves/charr…

arthurobenzi.2619:

Kalavier.1097:

No. If a real war was to take place, even if the Norns have an army, they would lose. The Charr are the warmasters (soldier + weapons) they live for her. Norns are not able to face an entire army. Because the norn are not made ??for war, they are solitary hero (and Hunter).
The only nation that was able to deal with Charrs, was humans , but today they are only a shadow of their past greatness.

Not alone. But a large group could. If such a war happened between Charr and Norn, the Charr would be so bloodied afterwards other forces could take them out.

Saying “The only nation” is kinda false seeing as back then, we really have Humans, Dwarves, and charr. Humans held out because of the great wall and the Mursaat, Dwarves simply weren’t touched.

As the searing showed, the humans didn’t withstand them. Kryta’s military and government shattered or fled. Orr’s army was slaughtered and swiftly overrun.

Again, yes they could overrun and defeat the Norn. However, my point was more of “If you got a large to huge number of norn together, all working AGAINST something. That thing will be destroyed.” Norn as they are would fall to an army working to wipe them out. But if they rallied together and pushed back as a mob…

Obsidian.1328:

Dustfinger.9510:

How do we know they were nomadic in GW1? That they didn’t have vast cities back in their homelands away from the front lines of their invasion?

That kind of thinking leads to all sorts of problems. How do we know there aren’t vast Grawl cities as well somewhere off the map? Or Centaur? Or Ogre? We don’t, but we can only presume based off of how the game portrays a given culture. The GW1 Charr gave almost no impression of anything urban or settled in nature. Everything points to a nomadic and/or tribal way of life. Extrapolating from those precedents seems a logical thing to do.

If anything, the Ascalons would be the one’s to have cities/towns outside the known one’s we see in-game. They are known to be both explorers, and permanent settlers. Who’s to say they didn’t have vast settlements back behind their homelands away from the front lines?

We know Ascalon had Nolani and Surmia (spelling?) north of the wall. Maybe another (which could be the urban fractal perhaps.)

Thing is, EOTN established they had forts and such. “homelands” and even in GW2 we hear about the “blood citadel” which is the Blood legion headquarters, though we don’t have a location.

The front lines isn’t really a good example of a races behaviour elsewhere. Charr warcamps don’t mean they don’t have towns in other areas, and in GW2 they obviously set up villages so it makes sense.

Grawl simply don’t make sense to have cities. Centaurs and Ogres both have some sizable camps/forts, so both would make sense to perhaps have a city.

CHIPS.6018:

The Pact captured many Aetherblade prisoners. So explain to me why after a whole year they got almost no intelligence? Show me prove that their current methods (e.g. your suggestions) are effective.

Do not give me the “it isn’t easy to find intelligence” excuse. You would just be agreeing with me that the current methods are ineffective. It is our job to know. People’s lives depends on us.

Like I said if the Pact did it jobs well, we won’t even need to talk about any of this.

No, they didn’t. The Pact/orders aren’t stated to have a single one. The Lionguard has Mai Trin but that’s it.

CHIPS.6018:

If they find us we would try to run. If they got us cornered, we will surrounder without a fight. No way we would fight our allies head on.

But like I said we are confident in hiding our identities. And the Pact, unless it improve its spy ring and intelligence gathering, would have very little chance of finding out who we are. We would be impressed if they do. ^^

“OMG the Dark Knights kills children and families!!!”

Pretty much every single bad guy organization kills children and families, on a much larger scale. What’s your point?

I very much doubt the first line would happen at all. This faction as you describe it wouldn’t surrender. Much less be taken captive as they could pose a threat to major nations leadership.

OoW is the major spy ring. They have spies in groups to the point you only notice it if you are an OoW yourself. Failure to get answers from prisoners that never existed doesn’t make them bad.

Well you see, you present this idea of scale which paints your idea of a “dark knight pact” as being a HUGE faction, capable of storming even an Aetherblade major base (or home base) and WINNING. A small, tiny scale group could not do that.

You now seem to be going “WAIT, we aren’t big enough to warrant such attention or focus!” but at same time going “But we are more then big enough with a decent army that we can storm major enemy bases and silence HUGE threats once and for all.”

Which is it? Tiny group that takes potshots to safeguard from local threats, or a huge force capable to wiping out the bad guys and maybe even dragon forces?

CHIPS.6018:

You have to remember the context here: The Order of Whisper never got the Aetherblades to talk. The Order of Whisper knows almost nothing about the Aetherblades, even now.

I mean yes of course I agree we should play nice in the beginning. But look at the results! We got no intelligence whatsoever by playing nice.

If the bad guy talked without any sort of tortures (e.g. we would let him into our witness protection program, help his family, reduce his jail sentence, etc etc), then of course we won’t need to torture him.

If the bad guy talked after we tortured just him, then of course we won’t need to torture his family.

etc etc.

So to answer your question, no I am not against playing nice. But when playing nice yields no result, then we have to move on to torture. Else thousands of civilians will be dead.

I do like the idea of using good cop/bad cop to get the bad guys to talk. Perhaps we can try this in the future.

The OoW has never been stated to have aetherblade prisoners. Neither was the Pact. The only known prisoner was Mai Trin, who was held by the Lionguard.

Anyway. You can’t flip flop between “WE GO STRAIGHT TO TORTURE!” and “Well, we’ll play nice sometimes!”

CHIPS.6018:

As for the Charrs, I am glad you agree they were ruthless toward their enemies. This much was obvious. That’s why they won. Ascalonians didn’t became nearly as ruthless, that’s why they lost. Have you ever seen an Ascalonian skin a Charr alive? Have you ever seen an Ascalonian raid party enter a Charr village and kill their “innocent” civilians and cubs? Did Ascalon conscript absolutely everyone into the army? Nope? There you go.

History shows that I am right.

I’d say the Charr won moreso because of the Searing, and the fact they can physically overpower almost all humans in straight up face to face combat. It has nothing to do with being ruthless and more to do with supplies. Charr obviously could ship supplies south from the more stable regions to the north. Humans were kitten out of luck.

CHIPS.6018:

As for Ascalon vs Charr:

1) Skinning dead is very different from skinning alive. But either way Charrs literally eats Ascalonians. Can’t top that now can’t we?

2) Ascalon have tons of spies and scouts deep into Charr territory. Never did we see them attack harmless Charr villagers. Not once did they even mention killing Charr civilians.

Charrs have no problem killing every human woman and children they find. Ask Gwen if you don’t believe me.

3) Charr males already outnumbers, by a lot, the whole Ascalon army. This much is obvious. The point is Ascalon should have used conscription.

4) Without the Searing (illegal nuclear weapons, in GW standards), the Charrs won’t have beaten Ascalon this “easily”, if at all. Ruthlessness, merciless, immoral and illegal clearly gave the Charrs an advantage here.

1: Actually stated to be more of a fear factor/laugh for the Charr then literally (at least as of GW2). Flame Legion might do it, but the others are implied or outright stated to not do it. Either way, neither side saw the other as more then beasts at the time.

2: We actually hear almost NOTHING about those spies and scouts. We know they exist, but we know nothing about what they’ve done. Again, the second part ties into the “We know for a fact both sides viewed the other group as beasts, nothing more.”

3: Wouldn’t have helped. The charr physically overpower humans. Forcing a bunch of farmers into battle would break the human ranks faster.

4: While somewhat true, I recall pre-searing implied the fights were getting worse.

Name.9625:

Kalavier.1097:

arthurobenzi.2619:

the norn will never have a real army, this is why a single legion currently sufficient to destroy them. Because an army would be against all their social and cultural foundations.

If the Norn formed an army, whatever they targeted would be kittened up beyond belief.

As I said ingame during battle of LA. Man, poor Aetherblades. Imagine (purposefully aiming low) 100 Norn lionguard/order members. ALL driven by rage, anger, and grief for vengeance. The enemy forces will not survive the onslaught.

Also, because it’s fitting and relating (Unsure if it’s mentioned). Two Charr npcs (I believe blood legion) in Black Citadel actually express that they wish they could get MORE NORN ALLIES TO HELP THEM against the Flame Legion/branded/etc. The other goes “At least they are joining the vigil.”

Going by ingame scaling, if Kodan = 10 feet, then a max female Norn is just over 10 feet tall. Male Norn apparently can get a fair bit larger.

I really wonder how this is going to explain why so many norns were absolutely unable to harm Jormag then. As they clearly state, they fought him with many many men, but still lost.

There is a different between “Forming an army to fight some other mortal/normal race.” (which is what I meant. IE, Charr, bandits, etc) and “Fighting a kittening elder dragon”. If his tooth is anything like his scales, nothing the Norn have could scratch him.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Tarreth.8914:

“your” land?

Yes our land. This whole “the humans were actually the badguys” thing was just shoehorned in by the developers to make the races more equal. Nothing more.

Actually, humans ‘are bad guys’ isn’t really done that much.

If you look, there are some Charr in Black Citadel who openly go “We think our version of this battle is blown out of whack and is BS. We are trying to find relics to tell us the true story.” Both sides did their propaganda.

Anyway, there ISN’T any need to reclaim Ascalon. The treaty official gave Fields of Ruin to Ebonhawke/humans. Humans have their bit of land (which the Charr are helping to secure).

Ascalonians are stubborn, but really only the Ascalon settlement ones are truly bad about it. Ebonhawke was more accepting (Though thats probably because of being tired of the siege). Hell, in CoF you encounter the siegemaster of the charr and one of the sappers/scouts of the Ebon Vanguard. Immediately after the cease fire, the human marched to the charr, and they shared several drinks and became friends.

arthurobenzi.2619:

the norn will never have a real army, this is why a single legion currently sufficient to destroy them. Because an army would be against all their social and cultural foundations.

If the Norn formed an army, whatever they targeted would be kittened up beyond belief.

As I said ingame during battle of LA. Man, poor Aetherblades. Imagine (purposefully aiming low) 100 Norn lionguard/order members. ALL driven by rage, anger, and grief for vengeance. The enemy forces will not survive the onslaught.

Also, because it’s fitting and relating (Unsure if it’s mentioned). Two Charr npcs (I believe blood legion) in Black Citadel actually express that they wish they could get MORE NORN ALLIES TO HELP THEM against the Flame Legion/branded/etc. The other goes “At least they are joining the vigil.”

Going by ingame scaling, if Kodan = 10 feet, then a max female Norn is just over 10 feet tall. Male Norn apparently can get a fair bit larger.

Priory knows about the elder dragons numbering more then 4. They have books mentioning the deep sea dragon, and one Priory member (Also an OoW agent) mentions “five against six” aka, five races, six elder dragons.

While true, I recall it was noted to be a basically forgotton thing that next to NOBODY did anymore. And it was only the fact The main minister was a history buff the guy knew about it.

Exactly my point. He’s more decay then undeath. Why one of my theories about his appearance is his form literally decayed to that point.

Um, the Trial by combat is actually described as an ancient thing, and not really used in the ‘modern’ courts.

In the Noble storyline the minister uses it to escape the trial and the resulting problems it’d slap on himself and Cauducas.

CHIPS.6018:

Unless we start torturing, I guess we will never know if they will talk or not wont we?

There are other ways to get people to talk, especially if they have a family they care about.

The Pact can’t even find the Aetherblades. The Tower of Nightmares (a super huge structure) were hidden for ages. Trust me, they have no chance of finding who we are.

No actually, it wasn’t hidden for ages. As soon as that illusion/magic wall got put up people noticed and started investigating.

And we have seen organizations like the LA council unwilling to spare a single dime to defend against Scarlet. You think they will mobile anything against a rogue group who isn’t their direct enemy?

They, while stupid, had a good point. Typically if one attack fails, an enemy doesn’t charge back again. Yes, they’ll target a rogue group that holds a VERY, VERY good chance of simply trying to kill the council and take over the city.

Corrupt nobles, I suppose you can’t deny that… However, if even one is ousted, the rest will fall or withdraw.

More like nobles who are disappointed at the Pact.

And they’ll leave you too when they find out about murdering children.

And that means the good, skilled people will avoid them. They’ll get the criminals, the crazies. The ones that want to murder and torture, but not get in trouble for it. Why do you think the bandits swelled? They had a “get out of jail free” card (at least some groups) and thus went crazy with their strikes.

Like I said we do not go out of our ways to break laws. We would follow the laws 99% of the time. But the thing is we view laws as merely guidelines, that’s it. They are meant to be broken when necessary for the greater good.

No, you can’t play that game. You can’t say “No limits, no rules.” and “torturing and murdering children is okay if we get the bad guys.” and then say “We follow laws 99% of the time.”

It doesn’t work like that. You either follow the laws but break a few here and there, or you ignore them entirely.

CHIPS.6018:

When the time comes and it requires of you, would you be willing to break your morals and honour in order to protect the people you care about?

You must decide this priority for yourself. This is very important. Because look at the past:

Ascalon did fall.

That’s all you and I need to know about moral and honour. They are weak. Let me say this again. Moral and honour is correct, but they are weak.

Ascalon fell due to the searing, a magical bombardment that turned the land into a wasteland with tar more common then water. It has NOTHING to do with honor or morals.

We and the Shining Blades didn’t beat the White Mantles fair and square. We assassinated so many of their top members, no trials (obviously). We killed most of the remaining Mursaats (those who survived against the Titans).

There is a difference between killing somebody who explicitly is knowing to commit mass murder and such, and torturing children. Mursaat were a hostile race trying to kill us. Same with the White Mantle really. It was more like war then anything else.

When a group of Ascalonian soldiers stole camp supplies from the refugees, we hunted and killed every single one of them to set an example for the rest. There were no trials there neither.

Actually, I recently glanced at that quests wiki page. The dialogue was more along the lines of “In the wake of Rurik’s Death… we’d be fine with them leaving to go their own path. HOWEVER, they pretty much took ALL OF OUR SUPPLIES. Without those we won’t survive, so we have to recover those supplies and take them out sadly.” So no, it wasn’t about setting an example. It was because they literally sabotaged (willingly or accidentally) the entire refugee caravan.

The whole world is facing extermination from the Elder Dragons. Every single person knows this. If some people are foolish enough to go around causing problems, weakening our efforts against the Elder Dragons, we should ruthlessly and mercilessly exterminate all of them. And this involves gathering intelligence though torturing them and their families, so be it.

We must put so much fear into our future potential enemies, that they would never even become our enemies in the first place. They would just open a shop and sell something.

As for the family of my main character, they are all dead. They were killed by these self-righteous people. All they care about is being righteous and stopping experiments on Charr cubs. They couldn’t, or refuse to, see the future where the Charrs will exterminate Ascalonians.

That’s the core problem of self-righteous people. They value moral and honour over the lives of those they are supposed to protect.

A: You’d make enemies in every nation because they WILL, SWIFTLY turn to the possibility of this “Dark Knight Pact” and it’s leadership deciding… “The Captain’s council is corrupt, we must clear them out and set up a new one!” “Queen Jennah is weak or the ministers corrupt, we must rebuild the human government.” “The Inquest is allowed to openly hang out in Rata Sum and one of their supporters or members is part of the council! We gotta take that threat out!”

Basically, you’d make EVERYBODY afraid of a sudden military attack and take-over. Which means anybody found in the group won’t be treated nicely.

B: Using fear as a tactic backfires. See the Empire from Star Wars. You’ll eventually make an example of something, and that’ll RALLY people against you.

C: Again, the order would care more about human experimenting. Hell, that period of time I don’t see them being against a way to fight the charr better. They might prefer you study on captured adults though. Also, how the hell would they find Charr cubs? Only people on the frontlines were adults. Did these guys sneak into the charr homelands and villages?

D: Is a victory worth it if to win you become what you sought to destroy?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The power the six gods obtained likely refers to them drawing power from Zhaitan to strengthen the Bloodstone(s).

My theory is that of there originally being a race of dragons – the first civilization, of which Glint came from (she is said to have “regained” her free will via the Forgotten’s ritual so it is heavily implied she was once flesh and blood), to fall to the Elder Dragons – and I suspect that the Elder Dragons are just Dragon-looking demons, as they honestly look and function akin to Imps (which hold draconic features, are demons from the Mists, and feed off of elemental magic, growing as they consume more magic).

The dragons in Cantha – Kuunavang, Glint, and bone dragons (Rotscale too) included – would be what remains of this ancient first cycle of life in Tyria, when magic was it it’s highest for the most time. Not from the times necessarily, but descendants of survivors – though I’d count Glint from that time given her lines in Edge of Destiny.

I actually had a similar idea. What if the Elder Dragons were at one point no different then others, but as time passed they became more powerful and started dominating their fellows. So the champions we see are essentially the remnants of the ‘sub-species’ of dragons of the area (or that were around a specific one)

So now Tequatl instead of being just a dragon, he was perhaps one of the first to fall to Zhaitan, etc.

Though, nit-picking (not to you, to others)… Isn’t Zhaitan the elder dragon of decay, not undeath?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Yes, actually. Jennah reads Logan’s mind. Anise and Jennah attempt to read Kralkatorrik’s mind. Macha uses telepathy to Cobiah at various points.

It’s more than just making you see hallucinations. When I said “mind manipulating stuff” I didn’t mean “mess with minds” but “affect the mind” – this includes telepathy and mind reading, both shown in the novels directly.

I don’t recall the first two actually. I thought the only person to mess with Kralk’s mind was Snaff with the headset thing.

I haven’t read Sea of Sorrows.

However, That just makes the mesmers more OP in lore. I don’t think people understand just how powerful they can get. I mean the Ebon Vanguard mesmer summoned an entire ILLUSION ARMY that distracted the charr for hours-maybe a day.

achensherd.2735:

If there was to be a vigilante organization in Tyria that conducted medical experiments, genocide, torture, and terrorism, and that creatively defined “honor” and “morals” to answer for its own actions… yeah, we’d so be hunting them down. I’d look forward to seeing how potentially three-dimensional they’d be compared to the game’s existing “evil” organizations, but make no mistake, they’re going down.

And amusingly, if they don’t bring any Elder Dragons into their activities, the Pact still probably wouldn’t get involved.

Scarlet’s forces got routed by local Order and lionguard forces.

If such a group was formed, it’d make so many enemies the Pact would just have to sit back and laugh at them. Why I said to take a main aetherblade base, they’d need to form into decent sized groups to assault it. Which could mean either the Aetherblades casually bombard them, or the ‘good guys’ who are kittened off at the group for all the civilians going missing and other kitten, flank them and wipe them out.

CHIPS.6018:

As for torture of the families, let me break it down for you again.

Let’s say one Aetherblade member knows where the home base of Aetherblades are. He refuse to tell even when we torture him.

So we bring in his family (3 of them) and torture them in front of him. He breaks down and tell us the actual location.

We attack that location and ends the Aetherblade threat forever. Thousands of civilians lives were saved from a potential attack.

So we had to torture 4 people in total (the bad guy, and 3 of his families), and thousands of civilian lives were saved. I would do this any day.

A more realistic version of the situation.

“We captured this guy, but he ain’t talking.”
“Bring in his family, we’ll torture them infront of him.”
“Uh.. okay boss.”

You then torture his innocent mother, wife, and son infront of him until he breaks down and gives up what he knows.

You then raid that location, finding either A: a trap designed to kill whoever is capturing Aetherblades.
B: A base that only fuels/houses/supplies a small portion of the Aetherblades
or C: An empty cave/derelict base that has been abandoned as the Aetherblades keep moving.

These guys aren’t idiots. They are pirates. When do you have pirates place EVERYTHING they have in a single location?

Or, as I just thought of. What if the ground forces don’t even KNOW where the bases are? They stay inside the airship during launch and until they reach cloud level/the target, they simply sit inside the thing playing cards. They won’t know the location of the base.

What if the families disowned them? Or the pirate changed his surname/full name? Or he/she disowned them? Or if they don’t even have families.

You basically are saying your group will gladly torture and murder innocent children to even THINK about getting a lead. Disappearing families will cause questions. More ‘good/decent’ people will leave after finding this out, and oust what they know to the major armies/pact. Funders and suppliers may pull their aid after hearing about all these disappeared families.

Notice how the largest aetherblade base we’ve seen, the one in TA, when we took it out, it didn’t even DENT their fleet or combat ability. And that was three airships + a few more in construction. Even if they had on solid home base, you’d need a huge army to take it. And huge army militant/rogue groups are big targets for local armies dealing with a lot of missing innocents.

You form up to march on Aetherblades, and everybody who wants a piece of your group charges in and routs you before you even get there. Or the Aetherblades simply swoop from above and bombard you into dust. If they had a solid, major base, it won’t be easy to take. Much less the fact oh hey, you started assaulting the front door. Okay, they pack up as much as they can, launch all airships, and flee far away to set up a new base.

What if they base is across a major body or water, or at the top of a mountain range?

CHIPS.6018:

There is an alternative method, which is to attack the Aetherblade home base directly. Without supplies their airships can’t fly. Good idea, but wake me up when the Order of Whisper finally find out where they are.

Besides the fact Pact fields flak cannons against dragons, as well as most direct fire cannons and megalasers can easily target Airships. Hell, most megalaser emplacements we see are anti-dragon. The thing is, Aetherblades are pirates. They aren’t going to swarm an entire fleet to steal gold from a town. They would only do that in like LA, where they expected to stick around for a while.

Also, A: Home base could very well be in the mists. Which means finding it is almost impossible.
B: It could be mobile. They set up camp here. After a month, they pack up and move to a new location.
C: They could very well have many bases like the Aetherblade Jumping Puzzle set up ALL over. With only that ships crew/base staff knowing the location of an individual base (and maybe a universal meeting point). This means your tracking down lone groups, and overall the Aetherblades are free.

Order of Whispers can’t just pull information from their kitten . Aetherblades have explicitly been noted (Aetherblade path) to willingly charge into combat with heroes who WILL KILL THEM, because “It’s better then what Scarlet would do if we let them pass.” So while she was still alive, you really think they’ve talk?

As for moral questions:

-Answer to who: There is no diplomacy, because the Dark Knights are considered illegal in most places. But at the same time no one knows who the Dark Knight members are.

So that means whenever you march a force, you’ll be assaulted by the local military groups because you are acting as a rogue element or pirate force. Good to know you’ll WEAKEN entire regions because they are more focused on stopping your band of rebels instead of defending themselves.

-Govern: The Dark Knights will have leadership. Their leaders will be people who think in similar ways as I do.

That does nothing to reassure me, and I’m sure others. I don’t see it lasting long.

-Funding: Funding will come from people of the upper classes who believes in Dark Knight’s vision.
And there are rich members in the Pact. Some are even from the noble background.

Corrupt nobles, I suppose you can’t deny that… However, if even one is ousted, the rest will fall or withdraw.

-Limit: These are absolutely no limits and laws. That’s the point. Hence the Dark Knights are illegal, and they couldn’t care less if it means saving lives.

For example, the Dark Knights have no problem hurting and torturing the “bad guys”, until they give up the home location of the bad guys. There will never be a trial. Everything is street justice.

If they refuse to say anything, we will locate his/her family and kidnap them. We will see how long these “bad guys” can hold up, while watching their family get tortured in front of them.

Immoral? Depends on your point of view.

These “bad guys” are hurting and killing thousands of civilians. If torturing them means saving the lives of thousands it will be worth it.

If Mai Trin were in the hands of the Dark Knights, she will never walk again. She will be lucky if she still have her right arm when we are done with her. It is that simple. In hindsight, I am sure you would agree it would have been better this way. Now she escaped, fully healthy, and will threaten to kill thousands again in the future.

Sounds like the Ministry of Purity. You know, the guys who made ENTIRE kittenING FAMILIES disappear. Why? Oh, they were related, in whatever vague way, to a gang member. It hit the point where the hero, alongside plenty of others, outright turned around and started slaughtering the Ministry goons. Hell, if you spare the leaders, in the final battle they ARRIVE TO HELP YOU.

-Right or Wrong: How about this. I will tell you what is the wrong thing to do:

Sitting by and doing absolutely nothing about the Aetherblade airship threat. Continue to do nothing until they raid another city and kill thousands. Using the Elder Dragons as an excuse for everything.

It takes time to deploy airships to various regions around the world. Since the Aetherblades may have a base in the mists, that means there would be ZERO kittenING WARNING. You can’t track them, much less deploy ahead of them.

-Rogue: They are illegal. They don’t care what people call them.

And that means the good, skilled people will avoid them. They’ll get the criminals, the crazies. The ones that want to murder and torture, but not get in trouble for it. Why do you think the bandits swelled? They had a “get out of jail free” card (at least some groups) and thus went crazy with their strikes.

CHIPS.6018:

I never said that the Pact should force their way into LA. But since they knew that Scarlet is coming, they could have been more prepared. It doesn’t matter how dumb the LA council was. The Pact shouldn’t be dumb alongside with them.

The Pact airships should stay just outside of LA’s territory, but be ready to move in the second the Scarlet began her offensive. Wipe out the Aetherblade airships when they weren’t looking. With their airships gone they can’t deploy the poison gas canisters.

More civilians could have been saved if the Pact were more prepared for something they knew was coming.

And the miasma canisters deployed by toxic and molten alliance forces? The aetherblades only deployed a THIRD of the total canisters (going by the events being similar to how the battle actually went). Sure, the airships are gone, but they fly fairly low. Now the debris is hampering Lionguard responses to areas, and the other two groups are basically rampaging freely. Molten around the Fort and farm, Toxic directly in the housing region.

I’ll triple post or such because I know some may break the post limit. I also want to say Chips, your ‘GW1 family’ wouldn’t be targeted by the Order of Necromancers. Note the two necromancers they actually send you after are direct threats to civilians.

I forget the first guys reason, but IIRC he went crazy and was killing as many Ascalonians as he was charr. The second one they OUTRIGHT SAID THEY SUPPORTED HIS RESEARCH/GOALS. Longer lasting minions was something they liked the idea of. They ordered you to kill him because to research that, he kidnapped FELLOW REFUGEES, CIVILIANS, and murdered them to do his studies.

The mess with your heads yes, but there has never been ANY indication or hint Mesmers can read minds. They can more then likely not make you think you are riding unicorns across a field of rainbows, but they can’t go “I’ma read the password from your brain!”

True, on flipside they could possibly make themselves appear as an ally and get the person to willingly give up information, but straight up mind reading isn’t in their power list.

Warping reality, illusions, and mind kittenery is their area.

Lol… the old “THOSE DRAGON LIGHTHOUSES ARE OBVIOUSLY SLEEPING ELDER DRAGONS!”?

Loved those guys. So crazy.

We know there are 6 elder dragons in the region.

There is the vague possibility of more throughout the world.

Flashmob.4190:

I think to answer this question we are lacking alot of vital information on the pact at this time:

1.) We don’t know when it happend compared to the personal story

Anet has explicitly said how long it takes. It’s on the timeline even. Modern day living story is 1-2 years after Zhaitan’s defeat.

The Pact mainly has been rebuilding forces, cleaning up orr, and planning their next campaign.

Temihal.8651:

I said in my post that the Pact won’t turn evil now.

I know, and agree. I was talking to the guy who was going on about how he/somebody should form a “Dark Knight pact!” that’d take on these warlords as well as dragons.

Trying to make him THINK.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Kalavier.1097:

Um, they never said dragons could corrupt other dragon minions.

In the Crucible of Eternity Subject Alpha uses the powers of 5 Elder Dragons.

I’m fairly sure Subject alpha is an inquest science experiment and NOT an actual dragon minion.

Plus ingame he only uses three ‘dragon’ themed attacks as I recall.

Um, they never said dragons could corrupt other dragon minions.

Okay, I’ve noticed this lately and it’s been annoying me since I noticed it.

For some reason, I can hear other player characters laughing, cowering, etc (also the random shouts at times) when they emote or use skills.

However, it seems like NONE of my characters (as of lately) make a peep while doing emotes like laugh or cry, or even shout out things when receiving buffs or losing minions.

Was wondering if anybody else encountered this and knew of a fix?

Also, about this “Dark Knight Pact”

Where would it get funding? Supplies? recruits?

If it basically marches wherever the kitten it wants and targets whoever it wants, I don’t see the orders, much less any governments or villages, willingly giving resources to it. Hell, recruits may shy away for the most part because instead of joining an order/army dedicated to saving the world from the dragons and DOING GOOD, it’s this murky realm of picking and choosing whether we go after a dragon today, or some backwater terrorist.

The difference between a garrison and an occupation is one is wanted. Marching into a city whether they want it or not will cause MAJOR political feedback.

I once had the idea about Mordi’s minions. What if the Fern stalkers from GW1 (The skeletal humanoidish plants) where actually ancient minions of his? Like, the starved/degraded versions.

If Sylvari are the minions, what if they were originally twisted humanoids, and then as time went on they slowly turned into those stalkers?

As far as I know, the only people who mention “unnatural beauty” and “She must use magic for it” are gossiping civilians.

Hardly the people we want to take as solid lore sources.

“All the hints”? It’s mentioned in her basic description, and otherwise… I don’t recall it being brought up in my human noble’s storyline much at all.

Toastehh.5832:

I think it helps to view magical techniques as just another technology. Professions were merged into the Guardian because people simply discovered better, more powerful ways of using magic. You could become an old school ritualist, but why would you – you’d just be hopelessly outclassed unless some new advancement is made (expansion, cough).

As long as Livia/an immortal GW1 PC kept up with new advances, I don’t think they’d be any weaker – just ridiculously experienced and probably with some old tricks nobody is used to dealing with any more.

A Gw1 era person who used magic to live until GW2, but never stopped learning/practicing, they’d be legendary in power. A friend made the comment “Thinking about it, if My ele lived from gw1 to Gw2, and kept improving her ice magic, she could easily be one of the most power ice magic elementalists of humanity”

A fitting viewpoint. My GW1 necro (who I state as using magic to live until GW2+), would easily stomp a modern necro, simply because she is far more powerful, durable, and experianced.

Big Tower.5423:

Hello guys! I saw the new mask and some ideas started cooking in my head. Although, i am not sure if it fits the lore. But i’l jut go ahead and ask some questions about the idea.

1. Can a charachter be possed or host a spirit sort of like Anders in DragonAge:2?
2. If it is possible, is there any spirits in the game and is there any lore about spirts?

1: Not normally. While yes, Bria’s fiends seem to do it (I’ve not done much in that corner of Ascalon sadly), otherwise it almost never happens.

2: Yes, plenty of spirits. You can find many named ghosts in some areas wandering about (friendly). Displaced spirits around the ruins of the temple of ages (Queensdale), and of course, hostile ones (Ascalonian ghosts).

Those are the human ones, we of course have the necro shadow fiends/shades, the various ones summoned by mist portals in Queensdale and other spots of the world, the Gw1 rituatlist spirits and even to an extreme end, Razah.

Though, to be more pointed, what’s your ideas? I don’t mind unique ones and unlike some, I’m willing to help make it match the lore mostly or try to without robbing the idea of it’s core.

Also, another huge thing. Let’s say the Pact has… 30 airships. And they send 10 to defend LA (before the battle). Let’s say… 5 of them are for sure destroyed in the battle, the other 5 heavily damaged/crippled (Maybe to point of having to be scuttled/scrapped)

Now, you can go with either A: They got hit parked outside of LA. or B: they got damaged actually fighting aetherblades over LA.

That’s a MAJOR loss for their air fleet if they were wanting to go on another dragon offensive soon. One that might force them to delay while those get repaired or replaced. Knowing how the Aetherblades use their airships, the Pact fleet would take losses for sure.

As far as I recall, Necromancers summon shades, not chaos beasts. :P

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The Last King of Orr: Zhaitan can be defeated, but that will not save Orr. The land must be cleansed of this poison. Seek the source…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Light_in_the_Darkness
(Note: The line simply refers to killing an Elder Dragon doesn’t result in removing the dragon’s corruption – the source is the Artesian Waters, the central water that then flows elsewhere throughout Orr).

Course, even after the waters had been cleansed, it may take years to decades or more for the waters to fully run through all of Orr (and the immediate ocean around) to wash out the corruption.

Well, it’s also noticable in the final design (People have posted the model), there was more to him at one point. His one hand looks like a wing merged into his body and the bones turned to claws instead of a claw. A chunk of his outer scales/skin is explicitly dragons merged onto him.

The ‘spines’ flowing behind him give the appearance of once having a body beyond what may be his ribcage.

kta.6502:

Kalavier.1097:

Zaxares.5419:

It basically sounds like this player wants to use their own “custom campaign rules” for RP. Nothing wrong with that, although I wouldn’t be able to RP with them if their custom rules basically went against the established canon lore. (The same way I couldn’t RP with someone who said they were a Sylvari Firstborn or who insisted that their Human was really a 500 year old Ascalonian Vampire.)

Well, there is the few unnamed Sylvari Firstborns… but I can agree with that.

:P. Reminds me of early GW2 days when somebody was talking about a demon-possessed character. I simply went “Yeah, that doesn’t happen in GW…”

There is such a thing as dragon possession tho. Just refer to Scarlet Briar’s situation. Her diary talked about her being possessed.

This was WAY before that though. Back then the best was corruption messing with your brain (Like the human in PS), but the guy IIRc was talking DEMON possession :P

The Night Fox.6018:

SPOILER FOR SYLVARI PERSONAL STORY

As we have all witnessed and confirmed that the new dragon that was disturbed by Scarlet’s shenanigans is indeed Mordremoth. Exact location of his rising is in suggested to be in Brisban Wildlands which is a theory uncontested at the moment.

His location is Magus Falls. It’s very, very obvious from the cutscene. The path goes through Tharmuava reactor, through a barren set of land, into a lush region. Magus Falls is that lush region.

Dustfinger.9510:

Kalavier.1097:

Jormag’s are also agressive, but they haven’t been making the pushes and purposeful invasions the Risen were.

To add to this, a-net also said that while the SoS get their power from Jormag, it isn’t because he acknowledges them as “his army”. That they are really beneath Jormags notice.

Pretty much a “Meh, they are spreading my corruption and icebrood around. Who cares?”

Zaxares.5419:

It basically sounds like this player wants to use their own “custom campaign rules” for RP. Nothing wrong with that, although I wouldn’t be able to RP with them if their custom rules basically went against the established canon lore. (The same way I couldn’t RP with someone who said they were a Sylvari Firstborn or who insisted that their Human was really a 500 year old Ascalonian Vampire.)

Well, there is the few unnamed Sylvari Firstborns… but I can agree with that.

:P. Reminds me of early GW2 days when somebody was talking about a demon-possessed character. I simply went “Yeah, that doesn’t happen in GW…”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Zhaitan was most aggressive because he’s been right on civilization’s footsteps. The others haven’t so much after kicking the races from their homes.

Kralk’s minions are aggressive, for certain. As are Jormag’s. Both groups are perhaps the primary dangers which could be pointed to even before Mordremoth’s reveal.

Primordius did things longer ago with the Central Transfer Chamber, but was mostly quiet since it seems. And “Bubbles” . . . we don’t really know . . .

The branded hardly leave the brand though. They pretty much just wander southward or near the ‘brand storms’. Sure, they utterly destroy (Or try to) anything which enters the brand, they don’t seem that inspired to rampage across Ascalon.

Jormag’s are also agressive, but they haven’t been making the pushes and purposeful invasions the Risen were.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

False. What we were told is “they are not allied.” This doesn’t mean they’re enemies, it just means they don’t work together.

Though Captain Whiting in Sea of Sorrows does say “this is the time of the Elder Dragons” (paraphrased) so it wouldn’t be odd to consider them as friendly-but-not-allied. The closest to “they’re enemies” we get is if the minions cross each others’ paths, they fight. But given that the Elder Dragons don’t care much on what they do (see here – Jormag doesn’t care that Sons of Svanir kill his female norn icebrood), this doesn’t account to much in regards to hostility between Elder Dragons.

Though I do want to see a battle between two dragon champions.

Don’t the minions openly attack each other if given the chance?

Though my theory about Zhaitan’s appearance was that he used to look like the concept art (The full four legged dragon :P), however battles with the other damaged him to the point of forcing him to absorb and merge lesser dragons to patch damage. Or, that’s one theory I would accept.

Andele.1306:

Easy, dragons!
Their numbers seem to be under a hundred (and thats including revived ones and lizardish dragons in name only).

If you include dragon champions, it could easily be a lot more.

Tequatl, all those dragon champions flying over Orr (normally and in Arah storymode)…

The many claws of Jormag. The host of branded dragons (Shatterer is merely a title, and handed to the next when one dies)…

Yeah.. :P Also we don’t know if other regions have their own elder dragons (or normal dragons).

Isn’t Gwen’s grave a skill point? That automatically means the dialogue would be different then the tombstones actual wording.

Anyway, it has been confirmed people can use magic to prolong their life.