Guild Wars 2

RedStar.4218:

DrakePhoenix.1532:

Plus, look at all the devastation that Scarlet caused. Technically, it wasn’t really Scarlet who was the mastermind.

How corrupted exactly was she remains the question that probably won’t ever get answered. And why she retained some sort of personality while every other minions lose it won’t probably get looked into either.

But Scarlet wasn’t a regular sylvari. Well before she was corrupted she was gifted. Mordremoth didn’t give her any kind of special ability to help her.

Kellach.
Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan
Captain Whiting
Morgus Lethe
Labwan the Deceiver

These are all champions that hold a high level of independence. In fact, every champion whom speaks is shown holding a high level of independence, and it’s heavily implied the same goes for those whom we don’t hear speak too.

Plus, Mordremoth’s corruption seems tied to willpower, not dissimilar to Jormag’s preference to convince others to join him before corrupting – the difference is that, per Pale Tree’s explanation, it sounds like a strong willpower can prevent corruption, but once it’s in – it’s in, and Mordremoth isn’t interested in “convincing”.

The Pale Tree’s line I refer to is this:

“I believe she opened herself to it when she let down the wall of her mind. Mordremoth’s corruption seeps in through the cracks in our willpower.”

Which, intentional or not, ties into how Nightmare Courtiers convert their prisoners – torturing until they give in to the Nightmare.

Ghosts of Ascalon mentions a prison quarry on Lake Doric – Lake Doric as we find out at Seraph’s Landing, is the eastern lake that was once Greater Giant’s Basin. So there’s a nice quarry of unknown size just east of DR. There’s also the one in Kessex Hills.

Chances are it’ll be a case of the nation leaders meeting together, saying “we know he’s a threat but we just can’t spare anyone!” and with 2-3 lines from the PC they go “you’re right, you’ve shown me the error of our ways, we’ll send… will a small unit do?”

Yes… yes, it will… A small unit will be enough to watch our allies be slaughtered while we pwn everything afterwards in vehement revenge.

Edit:

The summit won’t go according to plan. The different countries will fight over something stupid and that we probably never heard about then their are going to get interrupted by mordrem attacking.

PLOT TWIST!

Everyone goes in agreeing, thinking the summit a waste of time for the most part and instead of bickering whether or not to assist in killing the Elder Dragon, bicker about how many forces they should send – each leader trying to one-up the previous.

Then Primordus himself shows and burns the Grove to the ground, and a new zone pops up: “Malyck’s Grove” – all new sylvari characters get a new level 1-30 storyline and a new home city (Malyck’s Grove), that is, until Mordremoth corrupts it in Episode 7, right before we deal the finishing blow to Usoku. What? Why’s Usoku involved? Easy, he siphoned power from the Deep Sea Dragon and took Zhaitan’s death to invade after 2 years of it, and when he did he used the DSD’s power to put out the fire of Primordus, turning him into an actual statue.

Erm… When Kralkatorrik, Jormag, and Zhaitan woke they each performed a cataclysmic event.

Within four years of waking, Jormag had shattered the Shiverpeaks, pushed the norn south, scattered the kodan, and devoured Owl – then his activity lowered a bit into a slow but continuous push south, with a surge of activity in the few months prior to the Personal Story (that has remained since). And that activity showed with the planning to assault Lion’s Arch – though said assault was stopped in the preparation stages.

Kralkatorrik was stopped after making the Dragonbrand by Destiny’s Edge, but that swath of corruption still left a heavy mark for human, charr, and ogre-kind.

Zhaitan did remain a bit inactive after his initial rise that caused a tidal wave, but it was NOT 106 years before he invaded. He in fact sent multiple invasions in the past century – the first was when he destroyed Port Stalwart in 1229 AE (a victory, and 10 years after he woke up) and the second was in 1256 AE when his army assaulted Lion’s Arch and the Krytan navy (a loss, and 37 years after waking), there was another at a time we don’t know that wiped out Port Noble after 1256 AE (though Watch Commander Talon during The Battle of Claw Island claims it happened before such, Sea of Sorrows shows otherwise – likely a mere oversight, but Talon can be wrong), and then finally there was the one in the personal story in 1325 AE. And inbetween all those massive large scale navy invasions, he’s been slowly spreading his influence just like Jormag, focusing along the shorelines – going to the Fire Islands, Sparkfly Fen, Bloodtide Coast, Mount Maelstrom, Kryta, and recently Caledon Forest.

Primordus and the DSD we don’t know much of anything about their awakening, though even before awakening Primordus’ champion posed a greater threat in minion numbers and spreading threats (destroyers in Eye of the North reached from the Tarnished Coast to Kryta to the Far Shiverpeaks and the now-called Blood Legion Homelands) than Mordremoth currently does, one can argue, or at least equally – and that was just a champion.

Mordremoth is spreading his influence wide, but there’s no high Mordrem numbers like the numbers of risen seen when Zhaitan sent his four invasions, or when the Great Destroyer went about attempting to wipe out all subterranean and surface life to prepare for his master’s coming.

Of all Elder Dragons, I’d say that Jormag’s been the most threatening when he woke, but his time of massive threatening ended just as Zhaitan’s times came and went. Mordremoth is merely the most aggressive now, but like the others if waited out he will subside a bit, retaining just to the territory he’s claimed.

lordkrall.7241:

Mordremoth on the other hand have in just a bunch of days sent active, organized attacks across most of the continent.

So yeah, I would say it is rather logical to see Mordy as a bigger threat than Zhaitan and the other Dragons.

Some vines and a few dozen Mordrem sprouting out in two lines across the continent compares to dozens of hundreds of destroyers sprouting anywhere across a continent before the Elder Dragon even awoke… how, exactly?

Mordremoth is merely the biggest threat for now, but if he follows the other Elder Dragons activity rating, the amount of threatening he is will be comparable to every other Elder Dragon – only a threat when entering his territory. Which is pockmarked and currently very little.

I remain unconvinced that Mordremoth is a bigger threat than Primordus – who’s had 200 years to feast on 6 asuran cities of equality to Rata Sum, and for all we know search for ley lines himself given that both are underground (hell, it’s no wonder why he hasn’t surfaced, why should he when he could be moving from ley line hub to ley line hub snacking as he goes). Given all the plot devices the writing team has made to make Mordremoth the biggest bad of the current time, Primordus should be infinitely his greater.

Charr worshiping titans was established long before they had obtained any Greco-Roman ties in their culture, and before they even had much in the way of Mongolian influences either. ArenaNet used that just to flesh them out for GW2 alone. And the titans have held no connection to the Greek mythos Titans aside from name and being primordial forces (by GW1’s standards).

ArenaNet tends to only go to historical cultures and myths just to flesh out their racial cultures and establish a naming scheme. I can’t really say there was ever a point that the plot was influenced – heavily or otherwise – by said myths and cultures, at least beyond the dwarves turning to stone (in Norse mythos, dwarves would turn to stone if they were touched by sunlight; unlike in GW2, this killed them) but that’s a very loose connection, in all honesty.

I wouldn’t take much in the way of mythology to find out where ArenaNet’s going. Half the time – and ever increasing – I’m not really sure they know where they’re going.

Norn and norn-related stuff have influence from norse mythos. This was even heavier in Eye of the North.

Sylvari and sylvari-related stuff have influence from Celtic and Arthurian mythos.

Charr and charr-related stuff have influence from Greek and Roman cultures (but not mythos), charr history having influence from Mongolian culture and history.

Asura hold some influence from latin, particularly in their city naming and the Elder Dragon they contended with (Primordus). One can also find Mesoamerican influences amongst their architecture.

Humans take from a myriad of different cultures, depending on the nationality of the human. Orr takes from Arabic (as do Largos), while Vabbians appear to have more Persian influences, Ascalonians being more medieval northern European, etc. etc.

Each of the minor races tend to take influence from a specific culture or mythos as well – though some like krait don’t seem to take from any culture or mythos. Hylek take from Mesoamerican (Aztec, Miyan, Incan) for example.

Trees being literal doorways to other worlds, especially white oak trees (which the Pale Tree is per The Movement of the World) was a common theme in Celtic mythos, and they often served as home to lower gods such as the Fae (now commonly called faries – but don’t let Tinkerbell fool you, Celtic Fae were no kind beings). This is tied to the sylvari in the Pale Tree being a metaphorical doorway into the Dream. The Nightmare Court were also inspired by the Unseelie Court – basically downright evil Fae who opposed the Seelie Court (I am dumbing it down greatly).

Wanderer.3248:

In another myth, when one of the Gods (Thor) kills the midguard serpent, the world ends, and all the Gods and Giants die. Only the Aesir (Elves), survive.

That’s rather off from how I’ve read it.

Thor and Jormungandr face off during Ragnarok – which the final battle between the Aesir (the Asgardian gods) and the forces of Sutr and Loki and Loki’s children (Hel, Fenrir, and Jormungandr). During said final battle, Odin was consumed by Fenrir, and Thor and Jormungandr kill each other in battle (Thor killed Jormungandr but the poison from the midgard serpent ended up killing Thor shortly after). Near the end of the battle, Sutr with his flaming greatsword burned all existence, leaving only the Yggdrasil untouched. With suspect of tampering by Christian monks, the story then goes on to say that all that survived the battle were two humans, a male and a female, that took shelter in the boughs of Yggdrasil.

Again, this is a fairly brief summary and skips over a lot. And it should be noted that there will be variances depending on who translated the texts. There’s seldom a word-for-word transcription, and there’s often cases of the translator embellishing the tales to make them flow better while still staying to the original mythos.

The elves were not the Aesir, but were the third group of societies living on the highest of the three planes (there were 9 worlds/realms, but 3 planes in which these worlds existed on, each plane having 3 worlds; the highest plane was home to the elves, the Aesir, and the Vanir; the middle plane was home to humans, jotun, and dwarves (aka dark elves – they were one and the same in norse mythology); and the lowest plane was home to Hel and those who died of sickness and old age).

Riot Alice said she’d head north. Some survivors in the town say that the rest of the survivors fled north into the mines (though there’s no hint of them there). I’m guessing we’ll be seeing them ‘again’. By which I mean ArenaNet has created a loose thread for them to grab and pull upon later in the storyline, like the millions of others that they’ve created all while oh so very slowly raveling them into a ‘plot’. By which I mean a partially coherent and rushed storyline that covers a bunch of loose story threads and only one actual story instead of the dozens of stories told like in GW1 or the Personal Story.

I think the point that was seriously poorly explained is that the OP and Pale Tree don’t think that just the three Orders giving partial resources into the Pact (take note that one of the major points of the Orders’ involvement in Season 1 was that it wasn’t the Pact’s involvement, but the individual Orders’ showing that the Orders aren’t fully merged or supporting the Pact) will be enough to deal with Mordremoth after the losses accumulated with fighting Zhaitan – that the Pact, though it likely has regained strength by now, is not up to par to the threat of Mordremoth.

Why they think that – especially the PC – is unknown, unstated, and unhinted at beyond the vision. Apparently it gave far more than what players were able to infer.

But it seems to be a common thing that they’re skipping on some of the details and missing opportunities for a fuller, fleshier, story narrative.

It’s a Dolyak Shaman’s horn or something. Forgal’s father was the last Dolyak Shaman, and the description says the Vigil icon is carved onto it.

Well, SOMEONE had to.

I never assumed that ley lines were straight, I in fact implied that I suspect they’re not by saying that unless they are parallel lines (ergo, more or less straight – or always the same distance from each other even when bending) that there should be plenty of hubs of various numbering of intersections.

King Baede, the king during the time of Zhaitan’s rising, had commissioned Divinity’s Reach to be built. There’s a bit of the details in Sea of Sorrows about it. The city itself was founded a year after Zhaitan’s rise, but it continued construction for a while. It was financially expensive, given that the asura gate Baede commissioned alone cost millions of gold – and the first shipment was stolen by Cobiah at that.

How it was constructed is never delved upon, but given that there was no apparent magic used in ‘fixing’ the Great Collapse, I find it hard to see the city itself being a primarily magical construction.

That would be their /dance animation, actually.

Kalavier.1097:

Erukk.1408:

Kasmeer went to go get the Queen to agree to attend the summit, but she was never send to go talk to her. She herself admitted that would probably be impossible.

Kasmeer: I think our best shot is to talk to Countess Anise. If anyone can get the queen’s ear, it’s her. I just hope she has time to hear us out.
Player: So you don’t think the queen will talk to you?
Kasmeer: Even when my family was in good standing, it was tough to get an audience with her. And now? Well…she’s very busy, you know?

And as much as players like to think being Commander of the Pact gives them special status everywhere, it still don’t allow them to instantly gain audiences and access to the leadership of every nation. They can probably request a meeting, and possibly get priority given their rank, but they have to go through the channels like everyone else.

EXACTLY!

I’m sorry, but a well known military hero in the USA can’t just march into t white house and instantly get a meeting with the President.

Why should we be able to?

edit: And as somebody else said, the Arcane Council probably only vaguely knows my human noble, Whitebear and Smolder the same way as Whitebear met my necromancer ONCE.

Jennah on the other hand, knows my character decently well because of PS and CM combined.

Likewise flipping it around, Knut Whitebear might know my guardian very well (Being a Norn), but the Arcane council wouldn’t know a thing about her. Jennah only interacting with her once if we are talking PS/dungeons as character stories

This argument kind of fails with Jennah and Knut, actually, since they openly allow people to meet with them. Talk to the people outside Jennah’s throne room, and you’d see that’s the case there as mere peasants are waiting for their appointment with the Queen. And Knut has stories about how he himself is settling disputes in Hoelbrak rather than letting Wolfborn handle it.

Smodur makes sense that we can’t meet him… except that during Flame and Frost, if you had completed Forging the Pact, you were allowed in the Defense Quorum to talk with the Tribunes and Imperator himself!

Apparently the charr hold the Commanders of the Pact in high regard.

Similarly you can prevent Jormag’s corruption by having mental blocks. This appears to be the same with Mordremoth – having a strong will that won’t give in prevents sylvari corruption alongside whatever the Pale Tree is doing.

You can find dozens of ghosts, spirits, souls, etc. outside those affected by the Foefire. Go to Demetra in SW Harathi, or to Aurora’s Remains in SW Brisban Wildlands. Plenty of ghosts there. In GW1, there were ghosts throughout Ascalon – a decade before the Foefire – and in the Crystal Desert and the Desolation.

Ghosts are just those who died so suddenly they don’t realize they’re ghosts, or they have things that are keeping them attached to the world. Most ghosts in the Crystal Desert, for example, remained on Tyria because they didn’t see their pilgrimage to Ascension through – and supposedly when we Ascended, Turai Ossa moved onto the Hall of Heroes and many of the Crystal Desert ghosts also moved on.

Ley line hubs is just where there’s an intersection of ley lines. If ley lines are common, then unless they all run parallel (they don’t), then hubs should be as common as ley lines intersecting.

Which should make them rather common. Given that waypoints run off of ley line magic.

Mordremoth’s vines are following the ley lines. According to Scarlet’s research, Tyria’s insides are pockmarked with circular holes (aka, dig down deep enough, and you’ll find that Tyria is swiss cheese) which the magic of the ley lines travel through. It seems apparently obvious to me this is what Mordremoth is using to move around so easily, as he follows the food that Scarlet began feeding him.

I don’t think he has any specific destination with his vines, and his attacks are just “oh! Food on the surface! I must consume!” situations.

Go ahead and mail them all to me if you want to get rid of them so badly.

Apparently the Atlas has been turned into a redirect for the main page. The old url is just sending me to https://www.guildwars2.com/en/

And here I was hoping to use the Atlas to watch one of Season 1’s videos… Guess it’s to youtube.

Rather hilarious they spent effort on something which was well received – at least for the concept of it even if not the full implimentation – but it gets cut.

Like everything else in Season 1, it seems they couldn’t follow through for more than a couple months at best. Dunno if funny or sad, really.

In the original ending of Season 1, it was revealed that Rox and Rytlock are half-sisters. This seems like that is still true, even if not revealed. Rytlock and Rox talk a lot about knowing each other for a long time, throughout the final step.

The only thing changed is the addition of the interactive object (for the backpack scavenger hunt). The swirls and lightning effects were there before.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I agree Konig. And what was the deal with Whitebear being tied up with the Sons of Svanir? That camp is not really a fortress is it? We ran in there with about 4 people, no defenses to block us what so ever, used the crystal and instantly shattered it, and it was done in just a few seconds. Is this the huge problem that was keeping Whitebear from attending the summit? If so, can we vote for a new Norn leader?

Actually, yes it is a fortress. The Burrowstead is one of the Sons of Svanir’s two largest outposts – the other being Svanir’s Dome. It’s said by one of the NPCs near one of the two outposts. It isn’t shown very well in-game given how easy it is for even a single person to wipe the floor with the entire area, especially Burrowstead as it’s always been a solo event chain, but our PCs are epic so shrug.

Shiren.9532:

The Ascalonian crown to solve the Foefire curse was one of the most obvious executions of deus ex machina I have ever seen. “Oh you know that curse that has been a huge pain in our kitten I found a book that told me how to lift it, there’s this crown that wasn’t mentioned before that can conveniently be assembled by a series of fetch quests utilising existing events”. Bria is actually one of my favourite DEs in the game and I wanted to know more about her situation, but this was just lame.

How it was presented was certainly at least borderline dues ex machina, however I felt that it was a nice explanation of the rumor that a “true heir of Ascalon” is needed to break the curse.

Probably would have preferred a “Blood of Doric” kind of thing required instead though.

A majority of the storywriting in the previous updates were passable, some parts downright good, but there were still obvious and amateur mistakes in each update. The third just has a lot more. Either way, my major issues of this update:

• The Pale Tree knew of Mordremoth’s awakening, yet told no one about it.
• In Iron Marches, after completing the events you tell a charr they’d need an army to eradicate the Mordrem, his response? “Just how I like my vegetables-dead.” Not only does this make zero sense as a response, but he said this to a sylvari…
• Eir says to go wipe out the Sons of Svanir camp alone, but the step is an open world meta – which requires the presence of NPCs, including a new one. This ignoring the zerg of players. Then Eir and Braham show up in an instance, implying they fought behind us… despite everything being dead. I did like Braham’s voice acting though. Kudos.
• When Rox and Rytlock talk about the Mordrem threat, Rytlock says in response to hearing them burrowing underground that “then the Shiverpeaks will block it.” And the player says they’ll just come through the Field of Ruins. This is despite the fact that Iron Marches is practically overrun with Mordrem. They’ve already come through the Shiverpeaks and we know that and as Tribune, Rytlock should to!
• Mordremoth is continuously referred to as “the greatest threat” that we must tackle first. But he’s only attacked select targets – mind you utterly destroying them – each having magical artifacts (krait obelisk shards, the caravan passing through Concordia, and artifacts in a Priory caravan in Iron Marches that they refuse – openly stating such – to explain what they’re transporting). This is no more dangerous than Primordus, in my view, making Jormag who’s clearly gained strength (as the Sons of Svanir have become more active, per the purpose of Eir’s request) and has been pushing south for the past century and a half.

The crown being required for the ritual is a nice twist on the “rightful heir of Ascalon” rumor, but breaking into four pieces feels a bit contrived. I’d rather they’d have had us do the Ascalon City meta to search the city ruins for the crown or something. Closer to the Barrowstead event chain that got turned into a meta.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i felt like i was reading fanfic

This is how I’ve felt the entirety of Season 2 thus far.

Honestly, the writing is very amateur – Season 1 was probably as bad, maybe worse, but the poor writing was at least partially hidden by the fact that the mechanics in telling the story and delivering the writing was so mismatched and chaotic. Now we see that they tried new things, it didn’t work, so they’re going back to the previous establishment (Personal Story instances) with a hint of even older stuff (repeatable missions ala GW1), but this just shows how poor the writing is now.

As Season 2 progresses, I’m finding myself less and less interested in continuing. Only the completionist in me, the me that detests not completing something, is keeping me slugging along by this point. And probably will until I feel the story has become as bad as Twilight – the one and only story I ever put down before finishing without intention of picking it back up later.

Open World Events being required for personal story continuation is fine, except when everyone else is doing the same thing.

Wait a few days and the problems would be lessened. Wait a month and there’d be very few doing them.

But if ArenaNet wanted to be truly good with it, they could have had a splitting storyline ala the personal story, so not everyone would be doing the same path, so open world events would have folks spreading out a bit.

I’ll just leave this hear and see if you guys have the same thoughts I did. It’s an old redditor’s map alteration of Scarlet’s probes that we saw in-game.

Unless the wording for the “mid-season break” coming after the 4th episode is just a generalization and doesn’t means “exactly in the middle” like it implies, then we’d be having 8 episodes. Given that, I can only see a max of 2 maps that are Southsun Cove size (which is where Dry Top will reach with one more area of it released).

If this is true, not only would Season 2 be dreadfully short, but I’d find it a bit lackluster if we end up killing Mordremoth during it, given the current pace of the first two episodes. Season 1 was – if we count Flame and Frost as a single update – 18 releases long excluding any preludes, aftermaths, and holidays (though each had about half the amount of content that S2 episodes do – if not less like in Tequatl Rising’s case). I’d hope that Season 2 would be at least 12 episodes long. Which, if so, would mean 2 breaks. However, I think 16 episodes/releases would be better – thus 3 breaks with the 4-break-4 system.

Hopefully, the wording is just a generalization.

Actually, despite the appearance, the Jade Maw is a kraken apparently. It got a massive overhaul in appearance and now looks more like a kraken-leviathan mix.

The creatures trapped in jade that Jatoro talks about is actually seen in Istan. His crashed ship exists in the game, and you can see the jadeite slabs with sealife within he was talking about. What was in the slabs of jade? Standard fish and dolfins. No kraken, nor leviathan.

The Solid Oceanic Fractal is unrelated to Jatoro, who already explains he got the slabs of jade from The Jade Quarry – a place in Factions. The Fractal itself is just a mimicry of the Jade Sea and a kraken within it – the Jade Maw may even be the Mists having combined the leviathan and kraken species even.

Ronin.7381:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There was no “aspect of Ceara”. Why do people want to idolize – heroize, or whatever – a rather poor character and an obviously pure evil villain at that?

But she wasn’t pure evil….

Despite not being a fan of the character myself, I’m going to have to disagree with you. Ceara and Scarlet were two different personalities and we still don’t know what plans she had to follow up with had she not died in LA at the hands of the player. While I think the whole tragic-villain cliche is often abused in GW2, I don’t think we should let our personal dislike towards the character completely invalidate the character itself. People are just trying to latch onto the lonely little scholar who wanted to pursue knowledge without jeopardizing innocent and unfortunate souls who crossed her path, it wasn’t until Omadd and the events that followed that changed her to not giving a frag.

The aliens in Independence Day were pure evil, Scarlet was not.

Ceara and Scarlet are indeed different personalities. Ceara was amoral (the fact she could use black market dealings, be so carefree, work with the Inquest, and even create the Steam creatures as Ceara is proof of this), but Scarlet seemed purely intent to cause chaos and anarchy – aka immoral. Ceara died when she went into Omadd’s Machine. She was never seen or heard from again. Scarlet was hinted at to before entering the machine given new knowledge on her timeline and the journal from S1 combined with the hologram in S2E1 where her voice changes once she had been in the machine (her S1 journal’s voice was the same as the Ceara voice, from before the machine experience).

Hence why I said there was no “aspect of Ceara”. Scarlet had no tragedy involved. It is right to consider Ceara and Scarlet Briar as different individuals – different personalities – but there is no reason to believe they existed at the same time.

FrostSpectre.4198:

The Device makes you insane, pretty much only: if you’re Sylvari and either part of The Soundless or The Nightmare Court.

But still, there might have been something left of Cearas personality, but we don’t know, we’ll see in the future…

You base your statement off of nothing. By all knowledge, it was the machine that broke Scarlet’s ties to the Dream – ergo, she wasn’t Soundless or a Courtier before entering.

Vesuvius.9874:

Mordremoth would’ve woken up eventually anyway, with or without Scarlet. Regardless, unless you have an explanation for Scarlet’s statement where she said Tyria will need her one day, there will always be people questioning, “Was she really the villain people think she is?”

Yes, it would have woken up eventually… in about fifty years. The Elder Dragons naturally awoke 50 years apart (roughly) and the previous dragon to awake, Kralkatorrik, did so 7 years prior to Mordremoth’s awakening.

By which point the other five Elder Dragons would likely be dead or put to sleep by the Pact, and they’d be ready for its awakening if not having found a way to prevent it from waking or killing it in its sleep.

As for why she thought Tyria would need her. She was a narcissist and an egomaniac. It was explained right after her reveal – sadly via interview – that she thought nothing can stop her or become a true nuisance except maybe an Elder Dragon. Just because she thought Tyria needed her… doesn’t mean she was doing good to Tyria. A criminal – especially psychopaths and egomaniacs – will never claim that they are a criminal. They picture themselves as doing what is necessary – for themselves or for others, depending on the individual – and seldom recognize their actions as “evil without good intentions”. Taking Scarlet’s words for being ‘needed’ or a ‘hero’ is as trustworthy as listening to Adolf Hitler saying he’s saving Germany from dying.

Jski.6180:

I think your right Mordremoth would of woken up and with more power because of zhaitan’s death but the shock that got Mordremoth up now is like getting some one up before they are ready so he week atm that why he using his vines to draw in as much power as he can. Think of it this way zhaitan moved a land mass with this power yet Mordremoth only can muster growing vines. Mordremoth is not nearly as powerful as zhaitan but he is trying to get to that point. I say Scarlet saved the world from another major zhaitan event at the cost of many lives but no where as near as the live that would of been lost if Mordremoth was at full power.

As for the next dragon we are not going to have the help of some one like scarlet because these dragon are already up and doing things they just have not made there move yet. So that could be the “miss her when she gone” ideal.

I fail to see how slowly waking by absorbing magic would be waking more powerfully than being spoonfed a humongous amount of magical energy – continuously I might add. The Elder Dragons don’t normally wake by feeding off of ley lines – and Scarlet redirected multiple ley lines straight into Mordremoth (and at at least two intersections possibly three). She gave Mordremoth a feast in bed, as opposed to the other dragon champions like Drakkar giving their dragon a simple breakfast in bed.

And Zhaitan’s death shouldn’t affect the immediate power level of an Elder Dragon when awakening, since the amount of magic they require to wake up would be the same irregardless. At best, it would merely alter how soon the Elder Dragon can awake, and later on how powerful it can become at its apex before being forced to slumber due to lack of food.

Filaha.1678:

Because of the things she says which implies she feels that she’s helping the world somehow.

It’s not like we know why she did it yet.

Would you listen to Osama Bin Ladin saying that he blew up the Twin Towers for the good of Earth? I don’t think you would – so why would you listen to Scarlet who pretty much did the same thing but worse?

And it seems pretty obvious why she did it – she intended to pit forces against each other (Elder Dragons and perhaps the Pale Tree) to redesign the world (or at least the sylvari) in her desired ways.

Risen Giants don’t count to Giant Slayer.

Icebrood Norn do not count to Sons of Svanir Bane. Icebrood Elementals don’t count to Elemental Slayer.

Branded Earth/Air Elementals don’t count to Elemental Slayer.

Destroyer Harpy doesn’t count to Harpy Slayer. Or to Elemental Slayer.

Why would killing Mordrem – the vines included – count to a slayer achievement that’s not for Mordrem?

@Pixelpumpkin: Actually, in Arah seer path there are trees you can kill which count to plant slayer, so it’s more than just treants.

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

I believe I saw an Anet member once say that the globe isn’t correct as the OoW hasn’t explored the entire glob. Not 100% sure though.

What was referred to is the in-game model, which is very very different from the texture pulled out of the gw.dat and used in the OP’s linked model. No comment was made for the texture itself, which is far more accurate – though with its own amount of inconsistencies – than the in-game globe.

The Inquest had a minion of the DSD.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And when did the Living Story start? Shadow of the Mad King – a month before Lost Shores.

Well, no. The Living Story started with “Flame and Frost” with the incredibly stretched timing of it and lots of people already going “this is gonna suck”.

Shadow of the Mad King was just, as far as anyone could be concerned, the “current day” version of what happened every time of year in ancient Tyria/Elona. Only less awesome.

Go to the Atlas, go to “Our Story So Far” and look at all the entries there. You have The Lost Shores trailer at the bottom. They didn’t include any holidays with the Atlas, but you cannot deny The Lost Shores not being part of the Living Story, even if the term didn’t come about until Flame and Frost, the concept was there since the beginning – and you can see all the systems designs used in The Lost Shores used with Shadow of the Mad King. Mechanically, Shadow of the Mad King was used as the first prototype for the Living Story.

Design wise, the Living Story began with Shadow of the Mad King. But since they “don’t include” the holidays beyond minor mentions, then it “isn’t part of the Living Story” story-wise. But The Lost Shores undeniably is. My statement remains unaffected and still correct.

If you want to stop the pointless nitpicking, then let me rephrase for you: “So yeah, “in hindsight.” Seems to be undesirably common since after release…”

There was no “aspect of Ceara”. Why do people want to idolize – heroize, or whatever – a rather poor character and an obviously pure evil villain at that?

Just like Taimi… and what did the little pipsqueek do? Oh, yes, ran into a “makes-you-insane” device as it turns on…

This doesn’t look all that non-magical to me, tbh. Though all other uses of “aether” over “ether” in-game tends to be involved with magitech, usually involving air magic oddly.

And when did the Living Story start? Shadow of the Mad King – a month before Lost Shores.

But servers and parallel universe Tyrias have been made canon via interview:

“There is a set number of “versions” of Tyria, and that’s the servers: Tarnished Coast, Blackgate, Gate of Madness, etc. Each server is another version of Tyria (or “world”) that exists within the Mists."

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/25iqrv/i_attended_the_gw2_china_beta_festival_heres_some/

It would not surprise me at this point if they write the megaservers into canon as these multiple Tyrias colliding in the Mists and beginning to overlap. Given that such a plot was used already in GW. Ah, wait, that’s GW1 lore, nevermind.

Also, we all know that Season 3 will be dealing with Scarlet Briar’s half-brother’s sister’s cousin’s father’s niece’s half-sister’s soul possessing a mursaat that’s took the magic that was left in each of the Bloodstones, turning them into useless chunks of rubies, off-screen of course.

Ah, yes, you’re right about the antimatter mistake.

But about ether being ‘non-magical energy’: “As such, aether is one aspect of the magic mortals or Elder Dragons use.” Furthermore, Aetherblades and mesmers utilize ether/aether as part of their magic.

One thing in the interview that I think was a slip though would be “It is part of the magical/physical structure of the universe, but unavailable for direct study” – During Halloween 2012, Levvi’s device we used was capable of scanning ether, and there’s the aforementioned mesmer skills which are all adptly named “ether <something”. This certainly gives the impression of direct manipulation.

If memory serves me right, there was an old interview with Jeff Grubb in which it was said that being able to take the form of the totem spirit only became possible after some coming of age thing. Maybe Braham is still too young (he’s only 17 during Season 2).

You realize that Mordremoth wouldn’t even be awake if not for Scarlet’s destroying Lion’s Arch?

Yeah, she’s no hero. Stop trying. Please.

Just face it, we won’t be getting rid of Scarlet’s mark on the world until the writers found a new pet-project to be the new focus whom will cause her own destruction to the world that will remain forevermore. And though that comment’s full of sarcasm, not even the writers can deny how much focus Scarlet got even compared to the better villains of the past…. Despite the character being hated so (and not in the good sense).

Arghore.8340:

On dark-matter
Dark matter is up until now an Unproven hypothesis to explain the rotational speed of the matter in the disk of solar systems. If you want to use an analogy for aether, use ‘The Higgsfield’, while discovery of the Higgsboson is still somewhat up in the air (‘we’ (as in mankind) are not sure what we found), and is only so far been suspected to be found in LHC. Aka. to be truly acknowledged as existing it needs to still be confirmed by an independent second control experiment!

But seeing the Higgs field is related to the Higgs Boson, where the interaction between these two in something that I can only describe as ‘friction’, is the reason for the existence of Mass. Which gives particles a way to interact with Gravity, to results in weight. This whole process can truly be called ‘magical’ in a sense, and the higgs field Omni presence can (from my point of view) truly be called ‘the aether’….

Dark Matter exists in Tyria though the lore about it is 100% unknown for how it functions in Tyria. I personally presume it is tied to dark energy, a form of magic that Necromancy focuses on, and ectoplasm, which ghosts appear made of.

Whether or not the answer in the interview was using the Tyrian version of Dark Matter or the typical science-fiction/science-theory view of it… isn’t very clear to me, to be honest.

But what seems clear, since we use “dark matter” to craft armor and the like in Tyria, it doesn’t seem function like the typical scientific theory – in which, from my understanding, is basically the opposite of matter and the two touching would wipe both out completely from existence (I am no scientist so that may be a false fictional view of it).

pdavis.8031:

Just another thought:

Would Dark Energy be an even better analogy for Aether?
“The simplest explanation for dark energy is that it is simply the “cost of having space”: that is, a volume of space has some intrinsic, fundamental energy"

So basically the Aether would be the energy that is “between” and “holding” everything together. Yes Dark Energy is much more complex than this, but at it’s core its the idea that there is no “empty” space. Even the space between electrons and protons would consist of “Dark Energy”. Thus the Aether, like the force, is what holds and binds everything together. Think of it like the entire universe, and everything in it, is inside a giant bowl of Jello. That Jello could be said to be dark energy, or in Tyria, Aether.

Given that dark energy also exists in Tyria, and is definitely different than aether, it would not be a better comparison.

In Tyria, magic appears to be – once refined – divided into four types of energy: chaos, dark, light, and elemental. Each profession seems to specify (but not solely use) only one field (and it seems to me that the four schools were focused around these energies, as well as the method of using them). Then we have things like how Thaumanova was a focus on chaos energy; the Prime Hologram was a focus of light energy; the Ultraviolet Hologram was a focus on dark energy; etc. Unrefined magic is Aether (more commonly spelled as ether), by all appearances and per this interview. Then there’s also ‘draconic energy’ (and similar variances of the term) which is magic that the Elder Dragons consumed and is currently corrupted by them.

Dark Matter seems to be something akin to Ectoplasm.

BobbyStein.2315:

I want to address the comments about the player character’s knowledge of Mordremoth and how that fits into the story. For some players, this may have felt like it came out of nowhere. Up to this point, the only explicit mention of Mordremoth in the core campaign was on the Teeth of Mordremoth skill in Crucible of Eternity.

Season 2 of the Living World assumes that the player character has completed the Personal Story, killed Zhaitan, and has attained the rank of Pact Commander. It also assumes completion of season 1, that the player character killed Scarlet, and has a friendship with Rox, Braham, and the rest of the crew. Because of the PC’s assumed rank in an organization that deals in fighting dragons, and that such knowledge isn’t really a secret (but isn’t widely known as characters in the world have no reason to openly discuss it until now) we wanted the player to make the call by identifying the dragon in a conversation among friends. In hindsight, there should have been more build up or discovery before reaching that point. Lesson learned.

We want to seed Tyria with lore bits and other items that can better educate adventurous players seeking more knowledge on the subject. Keep your eyes open in future releases. Thanks so much for taking the time to post your feedback regarding episode 2.

Interesting reason, but I can’t quite like the idea.

During Victory or Death, Trahearne says that he will lead the Pact through four more impossible battles (exact wording is not on the wiki so I cannot quote) and if you’re a member of the Order of Whispers, Riel Darkwater says: “One down, four to go. May they never see us coming until it’s too late!” Furthermore, in Victory or Death’s journal entry, the PC says: “Swarms of Risen still roam Tyria, and there are four more Elder Dragons to contend with.”

This indicates that the Pact and Priory only knew of 5 Elder Dragons’ continued existence. This means they either knew of Mordremoth or the DSD before-hand. One can easily say “it’s Mordremoth they knew about, and predicted it will have to be fought in the long run” but the Durmand Priory as well as the Crucible of Eternity (the later investigated by the Pact) both show knowledge of six Elder Dragons. This leads to the conclusion that the three above mentions of four more Elder Dragons to defeat means that they don’t expect to fight the sixth one (be it the DSD or Mordremoth), and one final fact is Bullablopp whom is pretty close to Pact actions, to the point where Trahearne mentioned wanting to recruit the Timberline Falls people (“I want you to look into the krait slavers the shores of Nonmoa Lake. Every innocent they capture is one less potential soldier for the Pact.” and “As we discussed, krait slavers have been taking anyone they can catch on or near the waters of Nonmoa Lake. These aren’t just innocents, they’re potential Pact recruits, so it’s imperative that we free the prisoners and shut down the slavers.”) which would include Bullablopp’s home, and Bullablopp heavily hints to the DSD’s existence. So if Trahearne went through with recruiting around Nonmoa lake (there being a hylek tribe and a quaggan village there), then they’d know about the DSD being awake and active.

So if the Pact and Order of Whispers thinks there’s only four more Elder Dragons to fight by Zhaitan’s defeat, has that number went up to five now and the fifth was the DSD? Or were they talking about Mordremoth and are still unaware of the DSD despite having quaggans (and largos) from the south in their numbers now?

So yeah, “in hindsight.” Seems to be undesirably common since the Living Story started…

RoyHarmon.5398:

Would you please consider adding in a quick bit of dialogue (written is fine) to add to the episode in the future? Maybe some remark in one of Scarlet’s journals, or some “in case you NPCs don’t have my security clearance” kind of recap. It would go a long way toward smoothing out an immersion-jarring experience.

And to the others talking about naming Mordy in the instance, why not just update The Elder Dragons or have a “more exclusive” version placed inside Fort Trinity/the Durmand Priory instances (Cear Aval aka Trahearne’s Office for the former) to include information about all Elder Dragons?

Would make more sense and gives those adventuring players more to find.

1. Everyone can (space because it censored) use magic.
2. Healing magic effects all races equally, regardless of knowledge of races.
3. So why the hell use multiple other means of healing? And at least one case being because of such different biology/physiology/whatever?

Yeah, I’m going to say that this is yet another case of them getting it wrong.

I would honestly take that response with a grain of salt. Why? Aside Bobby Stein and Angel McCoy telling us that all interviews are malleable, talk to and Mender Aviala just outside the Grove – she explains that Menders exist because sylvari physiology is so different from other races (wood for bones, blood for sap, etc). So it’s pretty clear that just simply knowing healing magic isn’t going to cut it in all situations.

And it isn’t like surgery doesn’t exist in Tyria either – throughout Edge of Destiny there are calls towards chirurgeon whom were (to give a rough idea) the medieval era equivalent of surgical doctors. The very existence of such implies that healing magic can’t fix all.

Either the human proclamation (a rumor more than a legend) is wrong, or the ritual will fail, or both.

In all honesty, who’d expect it to succeed? ArenaNet would have to, with the next update, alter hundreds of hearts and thousands of events over 6 zones. They said after Tower of Nightmares that it pushed them to their limits in what they could get done in a month’s time with all the new models, new events, and changed heart mechanics. I don’t expect the Foefire to be ended.

My best bet is that the ritual will backfire and Rytlock will be killed. Reason being is that the VAs for Destiny’s Edge are hard to come by – the entire point of bringing in the biconics – so I wouldn’t be surprised if they kill the harder-to-get-VAs-for DE off one by one. Which likely means Zojja’s going to kick the bucket once any need for her off-screen is done (y’know, being the guardian of Taimi and all), and I could see Steve Blum and Nolan North as hard to get.

GW2 was designed so that both the events in the open world as well as the instances tell the story. As said, the events in the open world are the invasions while your PS is just you performing high-risk high-importance tasks.

E.g., Defeat Risen guarding the Plaza of Lost Wisdom ruins and its subsequent events where two scholars are trying to retrieve artifacts from Abaddon’s temple is the prelude to Temple of the Forgotten God personal story step. Some events lead into, some events are based after the PS steps.

So while you’re doing stuff like destroying the defenses of the Temple of Melandru so that later the Pact can go and take the temple over, the Pact’s pushing further and further into Orr via the meta events and escorts.