Guild Wars 2

I’ve heard rumors that ArenaNet intends to revamp the story mode fight with Zhaitan sometime. When or how I do not know. If I were them, I’d do that as a sneak update to adding a 5th path to explorable to check out Zhaitan’s corpse – which was also hinted at seeing later (the corpse, not the 5th path).

But thus far, all statements about Zhaitan’s state is simply “defeated” – the term “dead” or “killed” is not used outside of the Shard of Zhaitan item. Aside from that item, the closest we get is:

Wjerd Bladeborn: Quiet now, quiet! A toast among the champions: to Marshal Trahearne and the cleansing of Orr!
Famke the Fair: To the end of Zhaitan! The dragon had a good run, but was no match for us!
Pier Darkmountain: No match for the Commander, you mean. To the Dragonslayer!
Fibharr Tgosson: Aye, to the commander, the marshal, and the entire Pact. Drink!

<Character name>: Hiding from the crowds, Trahearne? That won’t do. The world needs to see the Pact Marshal celebrating!
Trahearne: Not hiding, my friend, thinking. Completing my Wyld Hunt lifted a weight from me, but Zhaitan is still a terrible threat.
Trahearne: Now that threat is truly gone, it feels like the sun has finally emerged after a cold, endless night.
Trahearne: I can’t help but wonder…what’s next? Now that we’ve formed this unstoppable alliance and tempered it in battle, where do we take it?
<Character name>: To the next challenge. The next victory. There are more Elder Dragons to confront…and now we know how. We know they can be defeated.
<Character name>: First, we celebrate. We won, Marshal. It would be a crime not to stop and appreciated that.
<Character name>: Come on. There’s an army of people and an ocean of libations waiting. All of Tyria deserves to share this triumph, including you. Join us!

Trahearne: The world owes you a great debt, Commander. As long as I am Marshal of the Pact, I will see that debt honored.
Trahearne: My only regret is that I was not there to see Zhaitan fall. But I shall look forward to the skaalds celebrating your triumph.
Trahearne: Congratulations, Commander. We’ve earned the right to set down our burdens for a time and celebrate.

Trahearne: Zhaitan’s defeat has saved many lives. More importantly, it has restored hope to a desperate world.
Trahearne: The dragons are not stars in the sky. They can be counted. They can be fought. One day, we will kill the last of them. Only then will Tyria be safe.
Trahearne: This is a new beginning for Orr, and for Tyria—a clear sky after a long storm.
Trahearne: This day is ours.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Victory_or_Death#Dialogue

Implication that at the very least, the Pact believe Zhaitan is dead, rather than simply defeated. But they never actually outright state it, just outright state it was defeated and that Zhaitan fell.

Psynch.4087:

I was away from the game during this patch — did these things pop up during every invasion, or only Gendarran?

Edit: Did steam creatures only show up for certain invasions? If so, which ones?

There was only one steam portal like that – the other portals are just the electrical portal, no foundation. The invasions happened every hour but now they happen about every 5th hour or so I think.

Steam creatures showing up can happen in any invasion, I believe, but depends on the event itself. Mechanically, each event location has its own id – so the steam creature events each have their own unique id. Which events play during the events I believe is randomized, determined by the phase of the meta. It’s possible there are steam creature events in each invasion zone, but that doesn’t mean there will be one in each invasion.

Psynch.4087:

This may sound like a silly question, but how did the Aetherblades and Molten Alliance reinforcements enter during the invasions? I mean mechanically, did they use portals/airships/dredge carts?

During the invasions, Molten Alliance used dredge tunnels while Aetherblades used airships.

Oddly, MA do not use portals during the invasions, despite having their own kind of portal (Flame Legion magic). Similarly, elsewhere the Aetherblades have used portals (same kind Scarlet uses elsewhere).

I would be simple, actually. The objects they collected themselves do not speak about the Elder Dragons. One is about mursaat magic which is not directly tied to the dragons, the other is a telescope which again is not directly tied to the dragons, and the third was a giant stone of magic which again is not directly tied to the dragon. They would need to acquire spoken or written knowledge about the Elder Dragons for them to tie those artifacts to the Elder Dragons – we now of their ties to the ED because the Priory had found such knowledge.

In regards to the races telling the Six of the Elder Dragons or not… well, what if they didn’t tell the Six Gods of them? We don’t know when nor why the dwarves began worshiping the Six, whomever said they had a chance before the Elder Dragons fell into myth? Though the jotun have a claim to have been once worshipers of the Six, we don’t know if this true and if so if they had retained non-mythological knowledge of the dragons. With Glint, she lied to humanity about what she was, why wouldn’t she lie to the gods? The Forgotten too lied about Glint to humanity, so they may have to the gods – we don’t know if they’d tell the truth and the full truth at that.

So we cannot assume that the Six Gods knew about the full case of the artifacts or of the Elder Dragons just because the Forgotten and Dwarves worshiped them.

Who says the Ebon Falcons still exist?

The route of the Living Story is meant to have been determined by the fractal that was picked – the difference may have been that with Thaumanova picked we have Evon being bitter and will do something backhanded (which fits his MO perfectly if he can benefit from it); whereas Evon winning may have been Kiel being sent to the foreway to attack Scarlet herself. The Consortium could have ended up the focus for either winner, thus regardless we may end up with a Consortium=enemy sub-plot.

The difference may end up mainly being “the fight is brought to us” with a side of delving into Inquest versus “the fight is brought to her” with a side of delving into Abaddon.

Wow, didn’t think there was anything ArenaNet forgot to remove that was from the Living Story.

Well, aside from the dialogue between hologram Kiel and the asura research (who’s name I don’t recall) in Southsun from during Secret of Southsun.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

It makes sense, too- a good deal of the dragon lore in the game comes from Arah explorable, which is more or less doing the same research as the gods did while they were around.

Technically, false. Most of the dragon lore comes through the Durmand Priory who have learned it via dwarven and jotun legends. Arah explorable mainly tell us about the surviving races, though a bit in relation to the Elder Dragons via “how they survived” (exception being the jotun which is “what they learned about the ED from their studies”).

The Elder Dragons are not divine in any way. And the Six Gods were only on Tyria while the Elder Dragons slumbered so there’s nothing to reason that the Elder Dragons know of the Six Gods beyond the knowledge of the minions they corrupt – which would to them be little more than worshiping bodiless ideas given that no minion known is from a time that actually saw the Six Gods (the only known entity to be that old and close to dragon minions is Malchor whom is not corrupt).

Furthermore, the Six Gods didn’t even know of Zhaitan (or at least that Zhaitan was the power source they drew from) when they drew power from him, and there’s nothing to argue that they knew of any of the Elder Dragons.

Just because the two groups are very powerful and lived on the same world doesn’t mean they knew of each other – the Six Gods may have known of the Elder Dragons through the Forgotten and Glint, possibly dwarves too, but hardly

The Maguuma Jungle has a very common tree species within it called the Stonewood. They can grow very very tall indeed. And think of the Echovald Forest trees, which are just as large as the Pale Tree – and the entire forest is of them. Gargantuan trees are not that unique.

I think I must be missing something about the console bit…

The Molten Alliance console was referring to the extremes of the alliance (flame and icicle and iron – not sure how iron fits into that though, smithing?); the pod did give interesting bit about how it reacted to heat which could explain why Kessex got more humid (per Kasmeer and Marjory’s dialogue during Halloween when the veil was up); the asura console pointed to the Aetherblades and their focus on air magic to fuel their steampunk tech, but I saw nothing indicating holograms.

@Hopelessalchemist: She actually had attacked Lion’s Arch previously through the Aetherblades. Remember Mai Trin and Dragonbash? As to why she didn’t assault Lion’s Arch during Queen’s Jubilee… well, why would she? She assaulted the Jubilee on a whim, and was after those Watchknights. Assaulting Lion’s Arch was an unnecessary risk to do – aside from teasing and taunting the Seraph, Shining Blade, and abducting the Watchknights she would then have to deal with the Lionguard and why would she strike two major groups at once? You never want to fight a two-sided war. Too many resources split.

Also, she indirectly (planned to) attack Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel via the Molten Alliance – we just stopped them before they could land their assaults.

@draxynnic: You… do realize that was a jest, right?

But in taking the jest seriously, I think you misunderstand Evon and why helping Scarlet would be in his favor. Aside from spite, if he could land a repeat of Mai Trin’s situation – but larger – and return with helping clear out the city, he’d be in the people’s good favor, and have yet another chance to take a seat in their government. It wouldn’t be trying to dominate Lion’s Arch with brute force, but trying to dominate LA with subterfuge and string-pulling. Using Scarlet to kill his enemies, then see to it she is killed in turn.

Honestly, if Evon is going that route, he would be the alliance Scarlet had made that makes the most sense with proper motivation, prior development, and story plot-twisting – and most of all, a plot twist caused by the playerbase’s own actions.

@Aaron: Though their motivations differed greatly but the notion is rather the same.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

… kind of. I still think there’s a lot more to that story that has been conveniently forgotten. “He threw a temper tantrum because other people took back his gifts” sounds like the victors writing history.

The asian documents, should they prove correct, would be much more satisfying, but I believe that we’ve never gotten 100% confirmation that they’re canon.

I feel like they are (here I mean should be) canon – mostly just because they sound rational and it would be odd for Anet to look back and try and think of a different reason for everything when something had already been written.

I agree FlamingFoxx, sadly it would seem that ArenaNet has written two separate lores for the game series – having spoken to a guild member who’s part of the Chinese community about the topic a bit, I have learned that a lot of elements are downplayed in China’s version of the game, or outright altered/removed. For example, the notion of sylvari sexuality is downplayed greatly – to the point where, for example, Caithe and Faolain are not lovers.

lordhelmos.7623:

lol, you have to admit though. The similarities are there. While its not an exact carbon copy formula, I find it hard to believe some of the writers were not influenced by the mass effect plot with the way the dragons currently operate.

Oh, I doubt it. Though the first game came out in 2007 if memory serves me right, the theme of world enders hibernating through cycles is an old classic to modern fantasy (and perhaps science fiction and most likely science fantasy (like GW2 is)) stories. Dragons being the ones who’re hibernating waiting to redominate the world after all life ended for xyz reason even more common – one rather easy-to-point-at example being the movie Reign of Fire.

lordhelmos.7623:

-Fall of the Jotun empire, which was so bad it blew them back to the stone age for hundreds -if not thousands of years.

That was hardly caused by magic, but pride and desire for conflict. Arguably so for the conflicts after Abaddon gifted magic – give any society whom is not tranquil power and they shall wage war, magic or technology.

In fact, in all of your examples, magic is merely a tool that is used to bring devastation – it is not the cause of the devastation but a medium for it. The cause is the ones using magic, the ones who would wage wars even without magic.

And in that regard, I’m not sure how magic can be corrupted, twisted, whatever by how one uses it. I mean, yes it can be used to twist and change – Abaddon did this, the Elder Dragons are doing it, on a smaller scale Elementalists, Necromancers, and even Mesmers are doing this. By its very nature magic is something that changes things – the user defines whether it changes things for the good or for the bad. But I cannot see why or how – let alone any evidence to support – magic could be turned into some… miasmic-like substance.

lordhelmos.7623:

If they really wanted to destroy the world, there would not have been multiple cycles.

I would think it is impossible for even six opposing armies to truly wipe out all life – especially when life can come again from another world (like humanity did). Life would eventually evolve again, and there’s also the fact that once the Elder Dragons consume so much magic they begin to starve – apparently six of them on a single world is too many (possibly why they’re not allied – not enough food to go around).

lordhelmos.7623:

No the magic that is fueling Jormag’s corruption in my eyes is what was left over when the ancient Jotun empire nuked itself with arcane power because they were power hungry sorceror kings. That magic lingered in the shiverpeaks and now Jormag is sucking it up, growing more powerful in corruption due to it.

Except that, once more, the jotun didn’t kill each other with magic. Not fully. Y’see, all of their magic was once absorbed into the Bloodstone – before their petty civil wars. And their magic users were the first to be killed off in the battles when they did come about.

And even if such magic could be influenced by the acts and the jotun did use a lot of magic for killing, then it would have been so long ago – and after the previous rise – that it wouldn’t be so affective especially in comparison to the magic of the norn and kodan which are modern and present, thus would be more potent. Magic may be hard to destroy but there’s no reason to believe that unused magic would be so potent and collective after several centuries.

And then it turns out that it was the Leviathans who created the Elder Dragons, having the ability to alter the things around them themselves and fled to the reaches of the planet the Elder Dragons cannot reach – just as Scholar Fryxx will predict as he’s already theorized the Leviathans are linked somehow to the Elder Dragons.

I take offense to that! <3 charr

“I don’t believe they’re gods, but they were certainly powerful.” Or something of the like. Humans and sylvari (unsure on norn and asura) do have the Artesian Waters dialogue instead.

1. The information actually goes to the Dream of Dreams, not the Pale Tree. Despite what may be common belief, the Pale Tree is merely the caretaker of the Dream of Dreams, and the Dream of Dreams is not unique unto sylvari nor are sylvari unique unto the Dream of Dreams (evidence: White Stag and A Light in the Darkness for former, Malyck for latter).

2. Unknown, really. The only non-sylvari known to have a continuous tie to the Dream of Dreams is the White Stag, but that connection is on par to the Pale Tree’s connection rather than a sylvari’s.

3. As said by FlamingFoxx, Trahearne is a firstborn – the sylvari society goes to all of the Firstborn (well, when applicable) for guidance as they are seen kind of like elders of ancient tribes were – knowledgable, wise, and good council. This is the very reason why Faolain was made leader of the Nightmare Court even though Cadeyrn was its founder and the one who pulled Faolain fully into Nightmare. Trahearne is perhaps seen as the one who’s gone to the most because the story thus far mainly revolves around Orr and he’s basically the #1 expert on Orr even outside of sylvari. I wouldn’t say he’s a “mama’s boy” – no more than any other sylvari at least.

4. No, it’s his way to work – and avoid – his Wyld Hunt. A Wyld Hunt is a calling, like destiny, to fulfill something or die trying – Trahearne’s is to cleanse Orr (once more, a major plot point) similar to Caithe (and the PC sylvari) needing to kill Zhaitan. Trahearne spent his 23 years of life studying Orr in order to fulfill this – though as he admits in the personal story, he also used this constant study of Orr to convince himself he’s not yet ready to attempt cleansing Orr thus sees it as him running away from his Wyld Hunt.

5. Hard to say since it isn’t explained – to my memory at least. But what I get is Caithe feeling that the PC isn’t ready, and the Pale Tree is telling Caithe that the PC must meet Trahearne to be ready. It might be explained if you talk to the NPCs after that cinematic, though I don’t think it’s up on the wiki.

6. Caladbolg brings out all qualities in an individual, it’s just not negative. It seems to be indiscriminant about the qualities in a person it brings out. And it likely is the reason why Trahearne’s effectively bipolar by the end of the personal story – going from “I can do this!” to “Oh woe is me! I have failed in my life!” to “I can do this!” It actually is a good explanation for his so-fast change of persona during Against the Corruption.

7. Its power is not the same as the mythological Caladbolg. If it were, then one would think of the norn as the three goddess sisters of fate from Norse mythology; or the asura has demons from Hinduism. Thankfully, though ArenaNet takes names from ancient myth, unlike the typical D&D they don’t have a perversed version of it. Well, except things from GW1 like dwarves and centaurs and harpies. 8D

Enaretos.8079:

But there is a correlation between the Gods and Zhaïtan though.

I don’t remember where exactly I read it (GW1 Wiki, GW2 Wiki or the novels), but the gods actually decided to build Arah because there was an immense source of power there, not knowing it was Zhaïtan’s dormant power.

Edit : source @ http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zhaitan#History

sigh No. The power the Six Gods sensed and built (or rebuilt – implications imply the city was originally around before the Six Gods walked on Tyria) over the Artesian Waters. They later drew from Zhaitan to enhance the power of the Bloodstone, unknowing what the power they drew came from. It’s a common misunderstanding because you only get the Artesian Waters being what drew the gods during a single story step (Where you summon the Avatar of Grenth) – and after it is completed and you talk to Trahearne. Everywhere else just mentions that the Six Gods were drawn by power in Orr, which naturally people think is Zhaitan – partially thanks to a rather old (2009 iirc) interview by Jeff Grubb in which he stated that Orr is a place of power just like the Central Transfer Chamber.

Either way however, this is the only tie the Elder Dragons and the Six Gods have with each other. It’s a very old hypothesis that they’re tied, but it’s pretty much explicitly stated to not be so. Still, the hypothesis continues to show itself in the form of different people mentioning it.

It appears my old post did not get put up…

@Malafide: While the writers originally itnended the krait to be a “pure evil” race, this is not because of the krait’s nature but because of its nurture. ArenaNet had from the very beginning created a scapegoat to leave that pitch black mentality for the krait in the form of the very thing that makes them evil in the first place – their unquestioning fanaticism to what the Oratuss say. If they ever wanted to make them not-evil they can do it with reasonable ease – and they’ve already began playing this card it seems with the Toxic Alliance, seeing as we’ve seen two Oratuss aiding Scarlet and defending the Tower of Nightmares (or was it three?). Besides, ArenaNet also said that they wanted the centaurs to be a pitch black race with no or few redeeming qualities, however they also gave them a scapegoat to become good (modniir enslavement) and even turned back on that through Qindova in Lion’s Arch.

@Stooperdale: There’s a lot more than just Scarlet’s involvement even in the explorable version, which is also in the story version. Subject 6 (reminds you of Subject 7 perhaps?), the anomaly, and though it’s said through Scarlet, we have the nature of the explosion for Thaumanova – that the Inquest went from experimenting on chaos magic to experimenting with dragon energies and doing so on top of the intersection of ley lines resulted in said meltdown.

Just because Scarlet was there doesn’t mean “it’s all about Scarlet” which is exactly my point. Scarlet was there just because ArenaNet apparently felt the need to make Scarlet the one who had involvement with the Thaumanova’s explosion. Her presence is actually insignificant compared to everything else learned – even that learned via Scarlet.

Stooperdale.3560:

We are told in that conversation however the Scarlet (Caera) was crazy before she went into the eternal alchemy technobabble vision tank. If an asura calls someone a crazy scientist then they’re probably totally looney tunes. The “What Scarlet saw” story only showed her nemesisness after she emerged from the machine.

Arguable. We don’t really get much of Ceara’s personality prior to her experience with Omadd and the machine – in fact, she literally only talks or shows her perspective at two points: her awakening and her entering/in/leaving the machine.

However, throughout the story there is the theme of “not giving a kitten” (to put it bluntly) and being overly cheery. Which matches her in-game persona rather well. There’s nothing to argue that she didn’t go crazy at some point after her awakening – especially if it was some point after leaving the Grove, given that Caithe didn’t mention any insanity/craziness from Ceara while she was in the Grove.

Shiren.9532:

It would if Scarlet wasn’t “silver tongued” and able to manipulate very difficult and diverse faction in Tyria into forming alliances and serving her. The pieces of Scarlet don’t add up, she’s an unbalanced equation.

I do think that Scarlet is meant to be bipolar. At least to varying degrees.

Sadly, it isn’t shown in game. Off screen (post machine experience) we have this silver-tongued mad scientist, on screen we have this tween who thinks she’s better than everyone and doesn’t give a skritt’s buttocks.

Yes, they’ve managed to slowly reduce the lore-breaking aspects of Scarlet. But it’s all just retrospective. Honestly, Scarlet probably would have been better off if that particular short story never got released, and we just had these NCPs’ lines.

Still, doesn’t help the lore-breaking/bending aspects of her about her vision nor how she gets these alliance to not only work together but to continue working for her after they blatantly failed.

That last kittenIPS, is more due to mechanics than lore. The mechanic being “lack of skill diversity” – in GW1 by the time of Eye of the North each profession had nearly 125 skills (some many more some a little less with dervish and paragon being least amount of skills at, iirc, 85 profession-based ones). But in GW2, you are much more restricted in the number of skills – especially with the whole healing/utility/elite slots and the weapon-specific skills. And this choice was done for a balance reason – with well over 1,000 skills in the game it got hard to balance them all especially when you can combine any ~250 skills together at a single time.

Erm… Rox didn’t survive a cave in. She was sent out of the mine and as she reached the entrance the cave in occurred – she was knocked out of the way by the debris. It was miraculous, but circumstancial not survival.

Also, I don’t think there’s such a thing as “miner magic” – Rox certainly doesn’t seem to use any magic (not proactively at least).

I don’t think the desert corner of the Edge of the Mists is meant to represent the Crystal Desert – at least not perfectly. The lack of undead or anything we had previously seen in the Crystal Desert shows for that – unless the giants we saw in GW1 are as I’ve suspected: ogres. And even if so, the jungle corner doesn’t seem to hold what we know to be in any jungle witnessed in GW1 nor GW2 what with the grawl presence.

Anyways, as to where the Aetherblades’ base is… they could easily be anywhere, honestly. Remember June content? They had an entire base within a mountain/cliff – two in fact (one each, specifically) – both hidden by holographic projections that made the mountain look as solid as it had been previously. They could easily be mining out some tall mountain in the Shiverpeaks and just have some of their Inquest-made hologram projectors.

The reason it was brought up is because the change in the calendar was done to sync up the Tyrian timeframe with our own – for real-time story progression. Literally something happens in Tyria every other week (or whenever there’s an update). This conflicts with other known facts and representations of lore and mechanics – the clash of lore, mechanics, and “real-time progression” logic is what brought up the mention of the day/night cycle under the argument that “if the updates are meant to be represented with real-time, then the rest should be too, including the day/night cycle which clearly isn’t otherwise years would be 12 times shorter in Tyria than for us.”

Wintersday is celebrated as the “last day of Winter” – what’s determined isn’t how long winter lasts, but how long snow and coldness lasts. As Aaron said, it is explicitly stated that the first day of the Season of the Zephyr is the first day of the year (see any GW1 manual of if unable, the table on any wiki page for the calendars such as this one.

Things like the spring equinox are solar events, rather than terrestrial events, while the weather is more terrestrial than solar. The two can influence each other, of course, but only to a degree. Now, in GW1, the length of “winter” was said to be controlled by Grenth and Dwayna, but that only strengthens the notion that Wintersday did not control when the spring equinox would be.

In Tyria, the equinoxes and solstices are static – unlike on earth – by the calendars’ standards. The weather, however, is not.

No, you’re not. That was actually one of the complaints I made about how the game (even just the Living Story content) cannot reasonably be occurring “in real time” despite ArenaNet’s latest attempt.

BTW, it’s a 2 hour for both day and night (day lasts for 70 minutes, night for 40 minutes). At least per the wiki. So you’d be getting 12 Tyrian day to 1 Earth day if you take it directly. Though obviously days and nights last longer than such a short time in lore (several hours each – seems to be closer to more like the length of Earth days).

I don’t think traits are “innate abilities” so much as “passively active spells” (or training experience, or equipment-on-hand – depending on which trait).

On the talk of necromancer development – I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned Wells! Previously they needed a corpse, now you can use them at will and if traited where you want too.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Scralet’s invasions lore wise were officially ended when that LS part ended. Its just something for players to do until her arc ends Anet even said this at one point (wish I could find it though).

I’m going to have to ask you for a source on this because the comment I heard was that they’ll simply keep going until Scarlet’s arc ends – I’ve never seen a mention that “lore wise they stopped.” Especially since:

“Since her attack on Queen Jennah’s Jubilee, Scarlet Briar and her minions have wreaked havoc across Tyria. She’d dangerously adept at engineering monstrous devices and villainous alliances both. "

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Priory_Arcanist_Dolja

She’s stating that the attacks have been happening since the Jubilee – heavy implication of present tense. Based on this sole acknowledgment of the invasions since the jubilee content, I’d say that the invasions continuing afterward are indeed a part of lore.

So again, I’d have to ask for your dev statement that they stopped storywise, since there’d be a conflict between developer statement and NPC dialogue.

Even if Scarlet caused the reactor meltdown, the fractal is still not “all about her” which was the original point I was making. She was involved, yes, but the spotlight wasn’t (solely) on her.

Which is odd for ArenaNet, but welcomed.

Theories about the ties between the Fervid Censer and the Tower of Nightmares have been made. My personal theory is that they’re both tied to Mordremoth, as they seem to both have similar effects (they induce hostility, though only known how for the latter – via hallucinations). Furthermore, as I noticed a few days ago the Fervid Censer glowed red near the top of the Tower of Nightmares, rather than its usual pale yellow. An interesting phenomina nonetheless.

I do not think there’s any ties between Canach and Scarlet or at least no ties between Canach and the Tower of Nightmares. As Eluveitie said, Canach sees himself as a tragic hero of sorts, though he’s certainly misguided in his attempts to “help the helpless”; similarly, Scarlet seems to be very touchy about people who thwart her, based on her “Stupid humans, always getting in my way.” note from the latest update as well as her leaving rants during Queen’s Jubilee – and it should be noted that Canach helped clear out Molten Facilities (hence his gloves).

Now, whether or not Scarlet took the Fervid Censer and its pollen after Canach was imprisoned (which as far as we know he still is), that’s far more likely.

But I do not think that the pollen is of the same exact source – too many differences:

• Fervid Censor was yellow/light-green and its effects were permanent and directly makes creatures hostility (though this can be due to hallucinating threats). It also created fungus-like plants around Southsun.
• On the flip side, the Tower of Nightmares is more blue, specifically induced hallucinations, and was said to be made by a mixture of krait and Nightmare Court magic. The appearance was vastly different too, being more flower-like than the Fervid Censer’s effects.

Makes me think they’re of similar origins, specifically Mordremoth (I base this on nothing solid), but that the Tower of Nightmare is a “twisted” form of it – altered by Krait magic and whatever seed it was that Scarlet gave the krait to plant and protect (per Penelopee).

ArenaNet doesn’t really post here (as in the lore forum) either. I think we’ve seen a grand total of 6 posts since the forums went up. And at least two of them was just in response to the Scarlet hate.

Either way, 01 Season of the Zephyr would actually equate our Spring Equinox – most often being March 20th – and not January 1st. As I made mention before, the Mouvelian calendar – despite ArenaNet’s attempts to ‘sync up’ the calendars – starts (had and still) with the first day of spring (“Season of the Zephyr” is synonymous with “Spring” – Phoenix with Summer, Scion with Fall, and Colossus with Winter).

So if you’re wanting the most accurate, the best you can really do until we get more details about the mysterious-new-5-days is just put every season at 91 days and count day 1 of spring as March 20th. Until ArenaNet does further retconning, the worst you’ll get is 2-4 days shy if in Summer, Fall, or Winter.

And what I’m saying is that there is no foundation for those questions to be deduced. The only mention of the Mouvelian calendar, beyond the use of putting dates to events, in GW2’s timeframe has been that very interview.

If you’re wanting simple dating for your character’s age: the game began in 1325 AE (same year as Zhaitan’s death and the Karka invasion), and is currently in 1326 AE (the year of all of Scarlet’s antics so far; once Wintersday is over, it’ll be 1327 AE given current state of things). So if you want your characters to be, say, 28 when Zhaitan died then said character(s) will have been born in 1297 A.E. In regards to dating, it is done in the format of <Day> <Season> <Year> – e.g., 09 Season of the Phoenix 1326 A.E.

So long as you avoid going above the 90th day of a season, you don’t need to know where those five days are placed in the year (of if there’s a leap year).

Well as I said in the very beginning, none are known and quite honestly it’s possible to predict how they function. We’re given next to nothing about it. Just “there’s now five more days to the calendar” with no reason why it is other than ’it’s just been discovered this is so.’

With no foundation, you cannot build.

I don’t think balance changes have any holding on lore, except possibly through everyone simultaneously deciding “hey, I’ll change this skill from how it worked to work a different way” which seems incredibly unrealistic so I’d just slap the “Mechanics!” bumper sticker on it.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It was far from “all about Scarlet” – I wish people would stop over dramatizing Scarlet. She may be a terrible character at least in presentation, but not as much as folks claim is actually tied to her.

Well, she was behind almost every Living Story threat, was she not? She created the Molten Alliance, masterminded the Dragon Bash assassination (with follow-up dungeon, as she runs the Aetherblades), she crashed the Jubilee, she set up the facility in Twilight Arbor, she created the toxic alliance, and she was instrumental in the Thaumanova melt-down.

The only significant non-Scarlet Living Story threat there’s been has been Tequatl’s increase in power.

I’m not saying that Scarlet isn’t behind most of the Living Story (you missed the Super Adventure Box as non-Scarlet related, btw; And Lost Shores, Halloween, and Wintersday), just that the Thaumanova Reactor wasn’t “all about Scarlet.” She was hardly instrumental in the Thaumanova meltdown – she was there, and she didn’t prevent it. But that’s all we’re really told about her involvement. Unless you’ve seen something I haven’t…?

Wow, I completely looked over the mention of a Firstborn, Aaron. Hah.

Nice to see that Angel provided some actual clarification on the first of three messes Angel’s old interview made (the Bloodstones’ magic/schools; “all people can use magic” despite seeing NPCs and book characters who clearly don’t, and the calendar BS) as opposed to that response of “clarification” that was given in the old thread about it which clarified a grand total of nothing. Also good to see a clarification on the weapon focus thing – was wondering that myself since reading the book.

Now if we can get some clarification on the other two lore-rending bits from that old interview, and an improvement to Scarlet. Then I may have faith in ArenaNet again. Until then, it remains lost.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Only if they make it an instance, because otherwise it will be the same giant stutterfest again like with the attack of the Karka on Lion’s Arch.

That’d be like saying that the Crown Pavilion and Tower of Nightmares were stutterfests. :P

Depending on how the invasion is done. If we see the actual invasion (we better), it’d be instance most likely. But afterward we may have Lion’s Arch turned into a hostile zone rather than a city… which would be interesting.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Erukk.1408:

Well…

If Scarlet does invade Lion’s Arch, Evon is a shoe in if another Captain dies. It will also appease all the Evon support. Minus the FoA fractal though.

Even if that happens, I expect it will be a while off. After all, we are only just now starting to see a hint of the story repercussions of our vote. They’ll need to make something important happen, something that clearly wouldn’t have happened if we picked Evon, before they throw him on the Council anyway.

Evon allied with Scarlet to wipe out Lion’s Arch in spite. Then he’ll return and become Commodore Evon Gnashblade – or so his plan is.

Why does the Living Story have to occur in real time though? There’s no need for it. I mean, the very nature of the day-night cycle them made while developing GW2 counters this “real time” business!

NOTHING in the game has supported real time creation and even if they seamlessly alter the game’s lore and mechanics to show real-time, you still have an issue with the bi-weekly updates: everything major happens every two weeks. Every Scarlet terrorist attack, every push into enemy territory or enemy pushing into good-guy territory, etc. will be done on a predictable timetable. But the entire basis for Scarlet, for example, is that she’s not predictable – something that “real time” updates happening bi-weekly completely counters.

Thus once more, this attempt is kitten, because they’d either need to break the bi-weekly updates and keep it truly real time with updates happening more “chaotic” by appearance (rather than nth x of the week/month/year); or alternatively they need to drop the “real time updates”. Otherwise it just doesn’t make any sense. Either the characters are permanently holding the idiot ball (as draxynnic often calls it) or it happens in whatever timeframe ArenaNet says it happens rather than a predetermined updating system.

And let’s face it, if ArenaNet wants to say that five months’ worth of updates only takes place over a few weeks in-game, they should be able to. Locking themselves in with this kitten attempt of “real time” updates only hinders them.

SynfulChaot.3169:

As previous to these five days each season was slated to have 90 days in it, how is it that these extra days are distributed? Are they spread somewhat evenly between the seasons or are they tacked on at the end? And how are leap days counted in?

Don’t know. Don’t know. Don’t know.

Half of the reason why I say the change was a blatant retcon and done kitten. It doesn’t even take into account that, unlike the Gregorian calendar, the Mouvelian calendar’s New Years Day is on the first day of Spring (Wintersday being the last day of Winter). That’s the middle of March for us!

So comparing the two, Tyria is effectively at the end of “February” or beginning of “March.”

It’d be nice to not only get a mention about those five days fitting in, but how the Mouvelian calendar suddenly got months (never mentioned before Flame and Frost except for the Canthan calendar) and why this idiotic thing was done to “sync up” the calendar despite the New Years not fitting in. We only experience Wintersday during December because it fits with our Christmas and New Years – not their New Years.

Not to mention a syncing up would lead people to believe that these major events happen on a bi-weekly basis… despite the whole 2 hours of night cycle going on mechanically… Why doesn’t Tyria just go on high alert every other Tuesday?

The change makes no bleeding sense.

I am now picturing a series of great wurms like Issormir and the Great Jungle Wurm swarming across Tyria…

On a side, I’d say “no she doesn’t deserve it, but yes she should get it just to help redeem the terrible delivery that was Scarlet.”

Honestly, I’m convinced Scarlet was meant to be a throw-away plot that would just fill up the time for ArenaNet to get situated with a new form of making content. Think about it: All the concept art we’ve seen seems to have been done by 1-3 artists, we know that there’s only 4 writers on the Living Story teams with Bobby “supervising” them, and the rest of the teams of designers and programmers don’t seem that big. But on the other hand… where’s Jeff and Ree? Where are all those other artists, designers, and programmers? There’s over 200 folks working at ArenaNet and while they aren’t all working hands on directly, there’s far more folks working at ArenaNet than there seems to be working on the living story content at the moment.

Plus, during the live stream with John Stumme and two others (cannot recall who), there was constant mention of borrowing assets from the sound and creature design teams… Which further points to “there’s something we’ve heard nothing about in the works.”

And I think that’s what’s coming after Scarlet – preparation with more writing effort put into it with Scarlet just being some half-baked (literally and figuratively) plot to hold the line, not some tie in or anything. Just a filler who got no real effort put into developing her before releasing her. She’s an excuse for the developers to by them time, nothing more.

To counter Rednik’s statement: All of the rare weapons crafted are of cultural design (dredge, krait, ogre, bandit, etc.) so at least some of the crafted items can be culturally influenced.

As to the Ascended armor specifically being Orrian, I’m doubtful. Just doesn’t have an Orrian feel to it in design, given that Orrians were influenced by Arabic culture and it doesn’t really match the outfits we’ve seen (on King Reza in GW2 or on Khilbron/the undead in GW1, tattered though the latter may be).

Sans pictures, they have all been uploaded for a while on GW2W:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Tales

If you want them in order click this link instead, but there’s other things included here.

And honestly, the “hate” wasn’t so much about the existence of the short stories but that the critical info from the short stories was never in the game in any way shape or form. Which with this update, all of such from Scarlet has finally made it into the game. Excluding from the simple-minded “I hate everything!” posters.

Honestly, I’d just slap a “Mechanics!” bumper sticker on this – like the mountain borders or necromancers summoning minions from the corpseless air (as opposed to NPCs in some events summoning them from corpses – Trahearne is, iirc, the only one who doesn’t summon physical minions from corpses) and a few other things. But if I were to have a lore explanation then I’d either go with drax’s explanation or say that the ranger doesn’t really have all those pets charmed and at its disposal, just the two-four that s/he can switch between which would always be with the ranger (or nearby in the case of aquatic/terrestial pets).

As for the suggestion your sister made: As I said in the PM you sent me, I’d argue that, for a ranger alone, this wouldn’t be possible. Though rangers summon nature spirits as Malafide said, there’s no precedent for them using – let alone controlling to the point of what would effectively be possession – of the souls of once-living animals. The… nature of Nature Spirits isn’t exactly clear, but they seem to be spirits within the land themselves since they always deal with elements/environments and above ground take on treant shape like the druids (who shed their flesh to become closer to nature – thus one can argue, they became nature spirits) – on a side, nature spirits may be akin to the Spirits of the Wild and Urgoz/Zhu Hanuku (the latter two called “forest spirit” and “sea spirit” respectively).

With a necromancer (or Ritualist in Cantha) it might be possible, but there’s no known case of spiritual possession of the living thus far. Spirits have only been known to possess inanimate objects and corpses – things that are not living, in short. So based on known lore, it would have to be that the pets are all well-preserved corpses.

Issue with that is that the dwarves didn’t seem to know of the Eye (based on Ogden’s reaction it certainly isn’t commonly known about although norn seem to be). They got the mention of the Seer from their ancient texts – which is far more likely to have ties to their dwarven legends about the time of the Elder Dragons than a building in an area they almost never go to.

And it’s not people not making that “leap” but rather the leap holds the sole basis of the definition for the word “seer.” Which isn’t very firm grounds to stand on at all, given the name is attributed to a race/individual whom holds no known ties and it’s not like the Eye of the North is the only scrying device in existence.

On a side: it’s just one Seer, not three.

Well it would be a decent way to make killing Scarlet a permanent dungeon/event/fractal. The Mists creating copies of her for us to slaughter to our hearts content.

Considering the druids “disappearance” was more or less shown to be them turning into spirits during GW1, I doubt that it is linked to them turning into seeds. Especially with the reveal of the husks in GW2 with them being the recently re-discovered bodies of the druids.

Jaken.6801:

- Scarlet deems humans as “annoying” and always in their way (i was playing a human, if you are a different race, tell me if you got another mention), if you are looking up Watchknight data

Was sylvari, said same thing.

The bit about the Mists is interesting there…

webtoehobbit.4201:

But that’s the question I have, why give us the components to break the barrier that would allow us to kill the big toxic plant? Are we playing into her hand? Apparently she wanted this to happen?

The things that can make something can more often than not be used to break that something.

I believe that is what the case is here.

Alternatively, it is what Jaken said.

I don’t get why people think “Scrying Pool = Seers”. Despite the name given to them, the Seer we met never actually… seered.

Technically speaking, by the way, original mention of the name “Seer” comes from ancient dwarven text about one individual.

“The Mursaat have taken Thunderhead Keep! Jalis ordered my scouts, Korg and Onar, ahead to learn what they can and to find the one the ancient texts call the Seer.”
“The Dwarves insist on finding some ancient spellcaster they claim is a seer.” http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Seeking_The_Seer

The name “Seers” just seems to have stuck as a nickname for the race, like the Forgotten. Originating by players calling them such, since no name for the Seer’s race was given, ArenaNet seems to have kept it – for whatever reason.

Stephen.6312:

Sorry, my previous link took you to the top of the Wiki page for “Dream and Nightmare”. The correct link is: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/c/ca/Pale_Tree_concept_art.jpg/400px-Pale_Tree_concept_art.jpg

If you consider this picture, you’ll note an obvious discrepancy – the reflection of the Pale Tree looks markedly different. If you can rotate the image, flip it upside down: Now look at the reflection. What do you see? What is she?

That concept art is meant to be a symbolic representation of a “Mother Tree” – that reflection is showing a female figure meant to be the embodiment of the Pale Tree being mother to all sylvari. Little different than the Avatar of the Pale Tree.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

So why is it we have only seen one giant sentient tree so far, if there were multiple seeds like it? And where could this cave have been? A place guarded by powerful plant-creatures? Sounds like the druids. Could all of these seeds have grown into sentient trees? Or was it something about this particular location (a leyline for example) that caused this seed to grow into something special?

The Maguuma Jungle is full of giant dead-looking trees that thrive only by burrowing their roots deep into the Maguuma. They’re called Stonewood Trees.

Just because a tree doesn’t interact doesn’t make it non-sapient, really. I mean, why does the Pale Tree interact? I would guess what makes her unique to th eother trees would be that she was raised by Ventari and Ronan.

Magical trees are rather commonplace in Tyria (world). From Urgoz to the Ancestor Trees to the Pale Tree.

How can we be so sure that the Pale Tree is truly unique by its nature and intelligence? Maybe it’s it’s nurture and not it’s nature that makes it uniquely obvious.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

There are missions in GW1 where you have to sneak by hostile druids, and since they are rather slow, I can imagine someone like Ronan sneaking in and taking a seed without being spotted. I don’t know if druids are the type of creatures you can reach an accord with, since they seem rather primal to me.

The Druids were once humans. Krytan humans, to be specific.

Anyways, as Aaron said, those were Jungle Guardians, whom were treants that protected the druids and the jungle.