Guild Wars 2

Other than “tall, lumbering, humanoids” I don’t see a similarity. Heads are completely different, as well as the composition being different (husks appear like made of twisted tree trunks; Juggernauts looked like made of vines).

Loki.9147:

I think she simply means everyone is capable of learning magic.

I think she makes it clear that it’s not simply “able to learn” but “uses.”

It’s not uncommon for a toddler to begin showing signs of magical talent by creating illusions to entertain herself, putting up a crude barrier between itself and something threatening it, or producing water when thirsty. The early manifestation of magical abilities appears to be a survival mechanism.

This seems to indicate that people can use magic without needing to learn it, as it is part of a survival mechanism.

zaxziakohl.5243:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

For me, it was more in how it was done and why it was done, then the in-universe reason for it.

How do you think the world took it when we suddenly found 24 more hours every for years and started having leap day? It probably wasn’t more than an article written by some scientist who wrote it in the best layman’s terms he knew. After that, it was up to the people to either adopt it, or not adopt it. Asura, being asura, and knowing that they are the most intelligent, well of course they are right, and anyone who doesn’t listen isn’t worth telling. No need for anything more than a short sentence/notice. It’s all they need to know. Now would more back-story on the discovery be nice? Hell yes, I’m not saying it wouldn’t…however, unless your in his krewe, don’t expect any major details until it’s in history books or he’s won the Snaff Prize. :P

How the world takes it… is completely irrelevant with the fact that the retcon was done just to sync up the living story updates with out own calendar (the “why it as done”) or the fact that it utterly ignores one very important fact in lore (let alone a different fact inmechanics) which prevents this syncing up – Wintersday, the Tyrian New Year (or rather the Tyrian New Year’s Eve) occurs on the day before the Spring Equinox (which happens late middle-March for us). Meaning that even if the Mouvelian calendar is given five extra days so that it has the same amount of days as ours for LS update syncing… our New Years and their New Years occur at different times of the year, yet we experience them at the same time.

And worse yet, a very fast wiki search shows this.

zaxziakohl.5243:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Quote about Human history being made trivial and being buried by the new history ~snipped for length then accidentally deleted wrong quote lmao

Do you know the history of trepanning? -snip-

In that same way, many of the Human beliefs from GW1 have become trivial, and to some extent buried under a layer of new culture. There is a sadness in the way it happens, the way things lose their meaning, their purpose, with time, but it always happens. Being upset that it’s happening in a game, when it happens in the real world, doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a complex world, not everything is going to be kept, remembered, cherished, and loved for all eternity, it will be replaced.

Okay… That’s not really what I’m talking about… Drax said it far better in his first post. But in essence, it’s not how the NPCs are treating their old history in-game, but how the developers are treating the old lore in regards to the new lore.

And technically… we don’t really see it happening in the NPCs. It’s just that there isn’t even a chance for us to see it – or to see the opposite happening.

zaxziakohl.5243:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

On charr distrusting magic – snipped again.

To be honest, from what I have seen in game, represented, the charr DO distrust everyone. Charr are constantly betraying each-other, they are always paranoid about what other Charr are plotting….They are one of the most confrontational of the races within their own culture, and much of it IS due to magic.

-snip-

I don’t really see this paranoia. The closest to “distrust everyone else” there is… is that the charr are combative by nature – that’s very different from paranoia. They don’t like weakness, so they don’t want to work with weaker races (humans and sylvari to many view) or cowards; they don’t want to change their ways, so they dissent from their High Legions (Renegades) or try to stay to old ways (Flame Legion).

Yes, they are one of the most confrontational races, but it’s not due to distrust – or magic. It’s due to the fact that they’re a combative and militant race by nature (and nurture). But they still trust each other – and their own warband above else (well, in most cases – there are rare exceptions, like the Gladium Father storyline).

draxynnic.3719:

Either way, I don’t think changing the year is the real issue, it’s that the reason given for it is so unsatisfying.

For me, it was more in how it was done and why it was done, then the in-universe reason for it.

draxynnic.3719:

Finally, on magic having been available for longer than a year…

I’m going to disagree with Konig on this one. This, actually, covers a LOT of inconsistencies that have been brought up in past discussions. We’ve been told that humans used magic en masse in the invasion of Ascalon in 100BE, and we knew there were other cases of magic being used in that century. The timelines are unfortunate, but we’ve seen other histories prove to be inaccurate before, and that particular part being inaccurate solves a lot of inconsistencies. Apart from human access to magic beforehand… the previous timeline expected us to believe that most races went from having no magic at all to magic being so apocalyptically powerful that Doric decided it needed to be limited within a year… -snip rest-

While thinking on it, if it were a case where each god took a little magic from the Bloodstone at a time and gave it to certain groups (e.g., the scriptures’ events) then it’d work. And that seems to be what you’re implying that clarifies things.

But the way Angel words it, to me, is like the first point (well, third) says “they all worked to releasing magic at the same time” while the second (fourth) says “there were over a hundred years of wars because they released so much magic.” In other words, her wording – to me at least, and this may merely be interpretation – says that the event we all were always told to be 1 BE, was in fact a hundred years earlier; that the world existed with so much magic for hundreds of years.

We have been told on many occasions that magic existed prior to the gift of magic, so that’s not the issue. It was “The gods (not only Abaddon) “unsealed” the Bloodstone and magic flowed back into the world.” which made it sound like a single event, not a release-over-time, or any other form of multiple events.

So yes, magic in general being available for more than a year – this was a known fact already. That’s not where the issue I was making is.

zaxziakohl.5243:

I have to say Konig’s responses rather bother me. He is automatically dismissing some things.

1. GW1 Lore was told from a human vantage point. All the lore you got, the lore you received, was from them.

2. In GW2 You get lore from the perspectives of MANY races (and not just the ones we play).

I’m not dismissing this at all, let alone automatically. I even acknowledge it outright in my posts. I say it happens and that it should. So I’m sorry but you clearly were misunderstanding me, or skipped over parts of my response.

In a case you state – charr belief and distrusting magic. Yes, their belief is different than human belief. It’s hard to say otherwise. I never dismiss or deny this – instead, I use this to explain what I think Anet’s doing wrong, which drax elaborated. They’re not using that difference and disagreement in belief, but rather downplaying the old belief presented in favor of the new belief.

It’s like Guild Wars 1’s story dug a deep hole in the ground. And with Guild Wars 2, they started to dig around that hole to make it wider – but in the process of doing this, they started filling that old hole’s depth. And now they have a mound in the center of their wider hole, that mound being human history and lore.

On charr distrusting magic – my point in that was that it is something they do (and reasonably so!) as well as magic users, but Angel says that everyone can use magic. In other words, taking Angel’s words (“everyone uses magic”) with pre-established lore (“charr distrust magic and magic users”), you come with this logical conclusion: charr distrust everyone, even each other.

zaxziakohl.5243:

These interviews are done from the perspective of a god, who is not only trying to explain the truth, but the LORE that you know. The TRUE back story, and the beliefs of those in the world. OF COURSE they will conflict.

What you’re missing… is that some of this conflict comes from out of universe perspectives just like this interview. In other words, both are “the truth” or “the TRUE back story” as you put it but conflict. Then there are things we see rather than are told, and the sheer logical confusion created from other things that would require a lot more than is even implied to be “wrong” in “human history.”

Angel McCoy, Narrative Designer

When you think of the history of Tyria from a non-human standpoint or, broader still, from a pan-racial standpoint, you begin to realize that not everything the people of Tyria believed 250 years ago is actually the whole truth. […] At some point, a Durmand Priory scholar or an asuran researcher questioned whether these historians were right or not. Sometimes they were; sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes, they only knew part of the story. We want to give you more of the story.

This paragraph rather irked me as a response to it. Mainly because… it doesn’t really have anything to do with the interview. At least, not in a way that’s obvious to us. We already know that human historians can be wrong – the History of Tyria shows us this very well. That’s not the problem at all. The problem is that the interview goes and counters not just what we’re told, but what we see. And in some cases of the former (countering “what we’re told”), the alternative presented doesn’t make sense (that the schools of magic were merely a dogma; a cultural limitation – as said in this thread, such would not make sense if people already had access to all four schools at once). It would be a vastly different case if it was just “the schools are no longer as limiting now as they were in the past” rather than “people don’t limit themselves with the schools now like they did in the past” – the way the question on the four schools was answered was basically saying that the schools were never a true factual limitation.

Angel McCoy, Narrative Designer

> Humans (including Canthan humans) were brought to Tyria (from…no spoilers!). They are not native to Tyria and did not come with much magic of their own. From a human perspective and oral tradition (that can get warped over time), they say the gods were giving them magic, but the reality was that the dragons had gone back to sleep, and the gods felt it was safe to begin returning magic stored in the Bloodstone to Tyria. The gods (not only Abaddon) “unsealed” the Bloodstone and magic flowed back into the world. Humans and other sentient races of the time began using it.

> Over the course of hundreds of years, wars broke out. King Doric begged the gods to slow the flow of magic back into Tyria and the gods granted his wish by shattering the Bloodstone into pieces and limiting their use. Abaddon was annoyed by this.

A few things to note about this:

• You say this as if the gods did know about the Elder Dragons, and not only that… were around when the Elder Dragons were last awake. However, in-game, we’re told that “They [the Six Gods] pulled the energies of Zhaitan himself, even though they did not know of the sleeping Elder Dragon.” (Source: Randall Greyston) And he’s not the only one who tells us that the Six Gods only arrived on Tyria after the Elder Dragons went to sleep, let alone imply such.
• All lore so far has told us that it was Abaddon who unsealed it, and the other five gods lessened that unsealing. That it was Abaddon alone who gifted magic. Are you trying to say that all the lore – both in and out of universe – saying this is false?
• “Over the course of hundreds of years, wars broke out.” You mean over the course of a year, wars broke out. Abaddon had gifted magic in 1 BE, and the reduction of magic occurred in Year 0/0 AE. Or is it to be that every historical record, even out-of-universe listings of the timeline – are to be wrong here?

Angel McCoy, Narrative Designer

For many of us players, it’s only been a couple years since Abaddon’s tantrum, but for Tyrians, it’s been much longer. The gods have been gone. Generations have lived and died. The world’s understanding and control of magic has grown and improved. The understanding of the cosmos (the Eternal Alchemy) has improved. And yet, there’s still so much the people of Tyria don’t know.

While that may be, that doesn’t excuse how something that makes no sense other than there being a physical limitation, and suddenly said physical-ness of the limitation never existed.

Of course, Tyria hasn’t advanced as quickly as we have. They don’t have cars or Internet or Post-It™ notes.

The charr and their Circus Charricus disagree with you about no cars.

Again, I do thank you for taking the time to respond to this… but you don’t really clarify anything in your post about the problems raised in the interview. You used a lot of words to tell us nothing on the matter at hand. There is some interesting tidbits and interpretations to take from your four points of lore facts, but you made no mention of the calendar, of the schools themselves, or people’s interactions with the schools, or of how “everyone” can use magic. And those were the problems at hand.

Now, to reply directly to parts of the response itself…

Angel McCoy, Narrative Designer

So, let me explain where some of these lore decisions came from. They and many others are based on the following needs:

1. The fact that GW2 takes place 250 years in the future after GW.

2. The added complications that come with GW2 being non-human-centric. We’re no longer telling a human story, but a multiracial story, and that means only one of five races have the “gods” as part of their world construct. The lore needs to not only make sense for all races, but actually be relevant to them.

3. We want to evolve the lore, not rewrite it, but not just recycle what was already there either. We want to reveal new layers in the onion and expose secrets that even GW players didn’t know.

The first point and the third point is perfectly fine and good. The second point, there’s a bit of a problem.

Yes, it is indeed non-human-centric, however, how you react to this feels more like “humanity was wrong” all the time with a side of “the gods are nothing special” – rather than trivializing the gods and their actions, which seems to be the direction chosen, it should be showing how the other races view and were affected by the acts of the gods. There was an interview a while back, mentioned in this thread, where a dev (I thought it was Ree but drax says it was Jeff) mentioned how the asura reacted to a magical event in the past – that, reasons unknown to them, the amount of magic in the world increased and subsequently decreased – and heavily implied it to be the asura’s reactions to the act of Abaddon gifting magic to the world. That was done properly – it didn’t trivialize the gods’ actions, but showed how another race reacted to the gods’ acts.

After all, these are gods, not just “powerful wizards” – yet it is the later which is how the gods feel like they’re beginning to be treated, especially with the interview that basically says “the bloodstones do nothing” when you read it as a whole. Yet nothing to say “the bloodstones were important, but now they’re not anymore” it was instead treating them as cultural limitations that humanity imposed on themselves. I’m referring to this in particular:

These schools aren’t as important in modern magic as they were even 250 years ago. They have fallen out of style as people have realized that magic doesn’t need these kinds of limiting factors. Only the most ancient magic users, those who based their magical constructs on this dogma, continue to pursue their knowledge in this way. Thus, you’re only likely to find reference to them in the back-most shelves at the Durmand Priory and in jokes made by young people about old people.

This response basically tells us “the four schools were just a mental limitation; a cultural choice on how to treat magic” and never a physical limitation imposed on the world by the gods when they reduced magic.

-continued next post-

Now that I’m not being pressed for attention elsewhere…

Firstly, I’d like to thank both of you (Angel and Regina) for taking the time to respond to the concerns of the lore forum. I really wish we had a few more dev responses on this forum when confusing things come up (other kinds of lore conflicts). And for the record, I was sure to re-read the interview and Angel’s response before writing this in full. Thalador’s posts (which I also re-read before writing) are a good basis for the problems of the interview since he nicely summarized them and explained why they are problems – even if a bit harshly in some places.

This said, however, as I mentioned before I don’t really see anything in the response that actually addresses the points made in the forum before. To summarize (in less than five posts) the issues, I believe they can be dumbed down to this:

• The interview trivializes Abaddon’s and other gods’ actions as well as the entire purpose of the Bloodstone. This is primarily in how folks use magic and how magic of the past is treated. The interview treats the Four Schools as merely cultural, but as shown in this thread, that’s illogically impossible (as folks had access to all four schools combined, and then were forced to not be able to).
• It contradicts observances made in the game itself as well as the novels – the claim that everyone has magic. We see, in the grand scale of things, rather few magic users; and if everyone used magic, wouldn’t that mean that the entire charr society – which is established in modern times on the distrust of magic users – be entirely distrusting of everyone else?
• It seemingly ignores the secondary profession capabilities of Guild Wars 1, even with 250 years this seems out of place.
• And last but not least – there’s the blatant retcon in the calendar. Something that didn’t even need to be done, and the retcon itself was kitten to the point where it only makes matters more confusing now.

Now, the response it self uses a lot of words to say… just about nothing on these points. The calendar – which is, IMO, the worse offender in the interview – doesn’t even get touched upon at all. Similarly, it doesn’t touch upon the “everyone uses magic” notion either. The mentions about Abaddon and the Bloodstone does help to counter the interview’s trivialization of the matters, but does nothing to explain why the situation is such. But while it does this, it doesn’t touch upon the schools of magic at all or how they truly interact in the lore.

All in all, the response feels more like a “don’t hate me” post (using the words of a guild member, Edus) rather than an explanation for this direction in the lore. You explain it simply as “250 years have passed and it’s no longer human centric, and people can be wrong.” And this is all fine and dandy, but it does nothing to actually alleviate the problem at hand. It’s little different than trying to put a band-aid over a ripped-open ribcage (a gruesome comparison, for sure, but I felt it was a proper comparison to how the response to the interview’s damage to the lore acts).

-continued next post-

“in Guild Wars 2 time”

I’m guessing “people who are alive during Guild Wars 2” – arguably, Logan considers himself Krytan not Ascalonian. Most prominent Ascalonian would be Wade Samuelson.

Incidentally enough, this does nothing to really answer any of the questions or concerns poised before.

And I even see some conflicts with the lore in this response. I’m about to start a Arah dungeon run atm though so I’ll respond in length later.

Holograms have always been transparent so I doubt that they’re holograms unless it’s mixed with mesmer illusions like the Watchknights.

But honestly, the wings make as much sense as the Sclerite Karka Shell backpack. Transportable tentacles related to crabs existed already, but rotting wings create problems? What?

The concept art cinematic shows the corruption happening in front of her. Though it’s a concept art cinematic so I doubt that it’s factual. After all, the one of the Foefire looks like a giant bomb was placed in a city that… is more similar to Divinity’s Reach then Ascalon City (different shape and all – being circular).

As for her placement – I think it was said she was returning form the western frontier, so her turning around would mean she was in the lead and those behind her got corrupted (which is, iirc, how she recounts her story).

Her being out in the open would actually match with what I said earlier, btw. The closest non-branded area is above a short edge hanging not far from the niche that the skill point is (bird’s eye, less than five feet worth).

So it could easily be that she was in the lead, they were going around a little bend of that crevice (or climbing it – straighter path), and Kralkatorrik comes. She just missed being branded while her warband, whom were behind her, were. She drops down to kill her warband.

I’d have to re-read the book, but I doubt that the skill point was put into the game before the book’s writing. Probably put in afterwards, when the map was established already.

Raven Paradox.1860:

ArenaNet learned from that horrid mistake that made a living world event be nothing but a farm for failing.

One can only hope.

Though this update was in the works for 3 months approximately before the Jubilee and Clockwork content went live. So it’s hard to tell.

However, the Claw of Jormag event champions don’t drop loot, so it they adopted that philosophy then there’d be no distraction to the event.

Kyrel.8942:

Living story takes place at the same time as the Player’s character’s point in the story.

http://wartower.tumblr.com/post/60458277036/this-lorespecial-is-about-scarlet-briar-the-evil

(It’s English after the German intro. Don’t know how to skip ahead, but it’s in there)

Which as I have said elsewhere, just turns the lore chronology into a clusterkitten.

The Living Story takes elements that must be after certain parts of the personal story (Aetherblades stealing the Pact Airships), yet at the same time the living story and personal story occur “in whatever order the player experiences it.”

Right… So the Aetherblades stole from the Pact, before the Pact existed. Gotcha!

This is part of the reason why I think ArenaNet no longer cares about their lore – despite what Bobby Stein says in the Living World Forum posts.

Conncept.7638:

Well actually, he probably isn’t permanently dead, in fact no dragon ever is. There’s a piece of dialogue somewhere (wish I could remember where, it was in a personal story instance) in which an asura scientist states that ancient dwarven history shows that the dragons have undoubtedly been defeated before. But they live in a constant cycle which completely ignores life and death, raising up over and over again to either destroy the world or be destroyed regardless of their previous success or failure.

I have yet to see such a thing.

Perhaps you are mistaking your memory with the Forging the Pact personal storyline step, in which the Priory finds a dwarven tomb that details previous battles with the Elder Dragon and that they believe a hint to defeating the dragons is in the tome? It’s never said the tome details that the dragons have been defeated before. Let alone “undoubtedly.”

If that’s not what you were referring to, I require a link. Because that’s something that next to everyone everywhere in the history of Guild Wars 2 has overlooked it seems.

Per Arah explorable, the Risen treat Zhaitan as if he’s still alive.

If the other Elder Dragons corrupt the risen, then I suspect they’d be able to recruit. But it wouldn’t just be the Risen finding a new dragon to fanatically serve. Then again, Subject Alpha and Kudu’s experiments imply (to me at least) that when a being is corrupted by multiple dragons… it doesn’t serve any dragon, but can control those dragons’ minions.

Lostwingman.5034:

Does Elder Dragon energy work that way? A direct feeder into his minions that is fundamental in their structure instead of being part of the Elder Dragon’s control over the minion?
I’m a bit new on lore but don’t all dragons absorb magic? It might be possible that Tequatl is just the biggest sponge there and would thus be able to absorb the largest amount of released magics.
At that do we know how magic Zhaitan had absorbed would be released? Would it only seep out but largely remained infused with the corpse, only degrading over time or would it be released into the world like a popping balloon?

Sigh I had written out a long reply, editing my previous post… only for it to be over the limit so nope all of it got deleted. To summarize my previous attempt at a response to this post:

1. As far as we know – iirc – Elder Dragons corrupt by consuming magic, twisting it, and sending it back. We know that they can actively and passively release magic – when done in the former, it corrupts (e.g., creation of the Dragonbrand), when done in the latter it doesn’t corrupt (e.g., the asura using magic from Primordus to power the first Asura Gate network).
2. Elder Dragons are always connected to their minions – some becoming more specialized than others. It is how they see, eat, and learn of the world. Furthermore, it is this connection which allows them and their minions to realize who is friend and who is foe – break the connection, and they view even others of their kind as enemies to be killed or corrupted (and naturally, you cannot turn a risen into a new risen) – this is how Destiny’s Edge killed the Dragonspawn in the novel.
   • It should be noted that the minions which Elder Dragons see and eat via are specialized as far as know (e.g., Mouth of Zhaitan, Eye of Zhaitan). Not ever minion can do this as far as we’re aware (and if they could, there wouldn’t be a need for specialized minions) – though the Elder Dragon knows everything their minions know.
3. The strength, self-will, and intelligence of a minion is determined by how much magic is sent back into the minion – the more corrupted magic, the stronger, smarter, and self-controlling it is (though all minions will be fanatically devoted to their dragon it seems; only through unique external aid can this be broken, like with Glint’s situation).
4. A minion’s connection to their Elder Dragon is sustained post-mortem, per the later personal story. However, if this is vice versa, is unknown. The Risen at least still believe Zhaitan to be alive.
5. While dragon minions “eat” magic for their dragon, we don’t know if they can become self-sustaining. All minions as far as we know survive because of their Elder Dragon. It is said in-game after Zhaitan’s defeat that the Risen are now incapable of making more of their kind, of spreading their corruption. While they may be capable of feeding off of Zhaitan’s corpse, based on what we’re told (which may be wrong; there’s no previous precedence for an Elder Dragon’s death that we know about) they cannot add to that corrupted magic – it’s a limited resource which will eventually disappate as more risen are killed.
6. Dragon champions are known to have magic retained in their bodies after death, so it’s likely in your last question that it is the former situation – that the magic slowly dissipates into the world from the corpse. If it was a sudden release, I would expect killing an Elder Dragon to be akin to killing a god (when killing Abaddon, his magic threatened to destroy the entire Realm of Torment and Tyria if not contained; and Kormir became that container).

Helrith.6472:

As per the Angel interview, we now know that the Mouvelian Calendar is synced up with our calendar,

Pfft, no it isn’t.

Angel’s blatant retcon only manages to screw up the “syncing” even more. They want it to, but it makes no logical sense. Here’s why:

1. The Mouvelian Calendar has no months.
2. The Mouvelian Calendar has perfectly even seasons of 90 days (or rather, did prior to the extra five days in which their placement is unexplained).
3. The Mouvelian New Year is on Wintersday. However, while we get to experience Wintersday at our New Year, their new year/Wintersday does not occur in the middle of winter. Instead, it occurs at the end of winter – the first day of the year is long established since Day 1 of Prophecies’ release, to be the Spring Equinox. That’s the equivilant of our March 20-22 depending on which year.
4. Her “extra five days” BLATANT retcon does not account for leap year. Nor should it.
5. What about the day/night cycle experienced in game? That’s a four-hour long cycle overall. Are we to believe that they don’t count their days on the calendar by the sun’s rising and setting?

So there is no syncing. There never was. And unless we start having Wintersday in the middle of March and the day/night cycle changes, there never will be. And in doing so, they will utterly screw up the lore they claim to care so much about. And quite honestly, there’s no need to sync up our calendar with the Tyrian calendar, because let’s face it – if that’s the case, then why does everything happen in 2 week periods in lore?

But I digress.

Helrith.6472:

but next week the Living world update is based around Tequatl getting ‘Stonger’ (game mechanic wise, the World boss update we have been promised for forever) but lore wise, how? his master/creator SHOULD be dead.

To the contrary though, human characters are referred to as ‘The Hero of Shaemoor’ in the Living World events, so hence my thought that MAYBE the Living World storyline (greatly assuming/hoping there is one) is behind the Personal Story (that we have had since launch).

The Lost Shores content was stated by a dev (Matthew Medina) to occur post-Zhaitan. Flame and Frost and so forth obviously occur post-The Lost Shores. So the whole Living Story does indeed occur post-Personal Story.

The reason why NPCs refer to human characters as the Hero of Shaemoor and whatnot, is because Anet has the odd idea of creating a “parallel story” (Living Story) with events and actions that must occur post the “paralleled story” (Personal Story) – such as stealing 50k Pact Airships. Yet to do this, they must treat the PC like they’ve not yet defeated Zhaitan – unless they actually did. This means not doing things to NPCs that would make them feel unnatural to any point in the personal story – meaning Logan and Rytlock cannot get along… even though they’ve made up and put the smack down on Gaheron. And at the same time, they cannot treat Gaheron – or Zhaitan – as either living or dead.

Quite honestly, ArenaNet’s attempt at the Living Story – both their attempt to “sync up” with the real world’s timeframe, as well as their wanting a story that is “neither before or after” the personal story… really screws kitten up. It feels like they’re trying to make now four different story directions (personal, world, living, and dungeon) and have them all “happening at whatever order the player experiences them” despite the fact that only one (living), maybe two (world) gets expanded.

It really puts a clusterkitten in the lore’s chronology. What happens first? Scarlet or Zhaitan? Did the Pact form first, or did the Aetherblades steal ships from the Pact? You can literally experience Aetherblades before the Pact forms, thus the “new invention” of the Pact airships… already existed by the players’ experience? Wait, what?

So much for the care they put in their lore.

~_~

Joiry.2504:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Joiry.2504:

the pace of the story needs slowing, etc.

To this, I disagree. At the current pace of the story, it feels like we’re going to be stuck with Scarlet for two years if not far more. And with how linear the “living world story” is thus far, this is far from enjoyable.

That is to say, I would like the content updates to slow down, but not the plot itself. Because it feels like it’s being paced a little too slowly. Which, to me, just makes it relatively boring after a while.

I’m not sure how the two can be separated. The content reflects the events of the story.

Instead of “too slow” I’d say the story is “too lite”, as in lite beer. It lacks depth or any real characterization. The pace of the story, in terms of timeline, could be a bit slower. Doesn’t mean it can’t seem more meaningful and in depth if Anet spent more time fleshing it out instead of giving us these one and two dimensional characters with simplistic motivations.

I think the story feels slow because there’s not much too it, one wants more. But more can be achieved in other ways.

I’d agree with the “too lite” feel to the story. But what I meant was “the amount of story we get is good, but the pace of the plot is too slow” which seems to be more or less what you were saying.

And this is why I disagree with you saying we need more updates faster, because let’s be honest, they’re barely keeping decent quality as is by all appearances. I’d rather not have the quality drop. Even if it meant making the content come at half the rate, if the quality – and the story’s pacing – increases then that’s great enough to do it.

IMO, in terms of pacing and content updates, I’d point to Winds of Change as a good example – three updates for one overarching plot that were several months (2-3 between first two and 5 between last two) between the updates. If the Living Story updates were separated to once a month instead, I’d say a good plot rate would be like what we saw with Flame and Frost, but with content equal to our current 2 weeks’ updates.

@Kingmutez.4931 and anzenketh.3759: I LOVE that image example. Maybe refine it a bit, but that would be a great way to integrate the short stories into the game. But as anzenketh says, that only solves the recap and short story (and the cinematic item if possible) problems, but not the other big problems that exist.

I’ve heard that there will be a story update. But I doubt it’d be big or related to previous stories.

The explanation given on the official page seems to be “he’s gathered power” – so we may have to figure out why or how he did so.

Tequatl isn’t really skinless. It’s just an abomination of flesh – a mixture of skin, muscle, and bone. Some parts of his body are clearly skinned while others are not.

Tequatl is the only boss with an overhaul.

The rest got updates – presumably Claw and Shatterer too since even the Megadestroyer got it.

I’d expect that the other world bosses – not just the Claw and Shatterer – will get overhaul updates in the long run. I do believe they said that there will be more such overhauls in the future.

The safe spots on bosses I expect to be removed/fixed in this update, perhaps with other alterations (like the Svanir Shaman in Frozen Maw meta starting at 75% health). But in the future they’ll likely get complete overhauls.

People, people.

Spears exist in the game already.

Clearly the concept art shows us that Tequatl will become an underwater fight. Despite the fact that thing looks nothing like Tequatl (more like a t-rex on steroids; aka 50 times more epic then Tequatl).

You guys keep saying it was the Spirits of the Wild that prevented Aesgir from bring corrupted. However…

Where is this said? Hmm?

As far as I know, it isn’t. It’s instead hinted by Talon Bladedancer (note – the wiki only has the non-Priory member dialogue) that it was a jotun scroll that aided Aesgir.

@Narcemus: The skill point doesn’t mark where Almorra was when Kralkatorrik passed by, but where she killed her warband. If you take note, the skill point isn’t even 5 feet from the non-branded areas.

@historic: You’re misunderstanding me entirely. The point isn’t that he broke a tooth rather than killed Jormag. The point is that he remained uncorrupted. Doesn’t matter how, the fact he wasn’t corrupted into an icebrood should be far more of a plot point than Almorra escaping corruption by a hair’s width – this being in response to the OP saying that Almorra’s survival sounds like a major plot point.

And my comment about the Spirits of the Wild was meant to show that even they cannot withstand Jormag’s might, given how Owl died and three others have been lost since confronting the dragon. How can they aid Aesgir when they couldn’t save themselves? And if they did, why is their ability to prevent corruption not a plot point (see above)?

Right, yet a spirit was killed by Jormag in a separate situation. And Aesgir is hinted at having had a jotun scroll with him at the time.

The point is Almorra simply got lucky. She didn’t face a dragon. Aesgir did. And survived after harming the dragon. And I somehow doubt the Spirits were the only reason, otherwise they’d be a central point in confronting the Elder Dragons.

Because all other weapons and armor since the dawn of Guild Wars made perfect sense in lore…

Honestly, an armor or weapon skin making sense or not in lore has become the least of my worries, since you had such that didn’t since the days of Prophecies. They’re just cosmetic. Don’t take them for lore.

Want a lore excuse? Those wearing the wings were corrupted and have become Risen Knights.

If you look deep enough, you’ll find that the whole of GW lore has a dark undertone. This is often overlooked due to the fact that just about every other npc since Nightfall has been a comedy routine.

Basically what Kryel said. She was just outside of the effects of the Dragonbranding.

What’s more plot interesting is how Aesgir knocked out Jormag’s tooth without becoming corrupted.

The prison in ebonhawke mentioned in EoD is in the game. Well, the top level. With mention of a bottom level were the most dangerous criminals are kept – top level is mainly for drunks.

It’s said in an idle dialogue that not all sylvari survive the fall of awakening. I presume that like a ripe fruit, the pods fall and then the sylvari wake… And they can wake stillborn.

Not to my knowledge. Just that they are/can be hostile.

The thing of note isn’t the shattering. It’s the creation and separation of the four schools – which I would like to note, did not necessarily exist prior to 0 BE.

We know they exist, and we know they held effect. This is fact. And we know that the increase and reduction of magic influenced other races – asura being a specific mention.

I never really understood why people tried to connect Dwayna, a goddess of warmth and light, to Jormag, the Elder Dragon of ice and snow. The themes are complete opposites, while all the other comparisons are “matched up” (sort of).

But I’m detracting…

@Ludovicous: the glassy eyes in that scene is due to looking into Kralkatorrik’s mind. This means that Kralkatorrik, whom has only altered the physical and eletrical, had minutely altered Jennah. Plus, glassy is the last thing I’d use to describe an illusion’s eyes.

There are many other scenes too, by the way, where Jennah is treated as her own. In fact, and this is all pure memory so I may be wrong, when Logan woke up after killing the destroyer harpy-with-a-name, Jennah was there, with Anise said to be elsewhere.

The Orrian History Scrolls proclaim that humanity were brought to the world at Arah.

But Orrians being Orrians…

Those “mursaat like motifs” can be seen in far better view in Kessex Hills (no trees). There was a thread on it a long time ago and people were saying they looked like elephants then. It is also the design on the Shuttered Gate

It isn’t that “their heads” are covered by trees, but rather there is no head to it. If it were a mursaat, it’d be cut off just below the shoulders. It also lacks arms and legs.

Syrpharon.7491:

Also he told me that this wall is said to have came out of nowhere in almost an istant, immediately appearing; also, he added that the wall appeared around the happening of the Great Tide that occured when Zhaitan awake from his sleep.

Not… quite. The tengu built it after they arrived in Tyria. The timespan for how long it took to build it is unknown, but it was built within the past 100 years. Not date is given to when the “Tengu Wall” ‘appeared’ either.

Also, it’s Great Tsunami, not that it matters.

Syrpharon.7491:

Could it be that the Tengu, being forced to leave Cantha, decided to close themselves in their territory, and against the menace of a giant cataclism like the rise of the elder dragons, they asked Mursaat to prevent their homeland to be destroyed, and the least created a giant wall that would stop the waves? In exchange, the Tengu would secretly worship the Mursaat and dedicate themselves to them?

I don’t really seeing anything that ties tengu to mursaat. They secluded themselves due to the oppression recieved in Cantha, and erected the wall themselves for that same purpose – not to hold off the undead (or the wave that came out of nowhere as far as people knew). Now they’re fighting destroyers within that wall, and to get to Tyria they even fought through the Risen forces.

To your numbered points:

1. Like Narcemus said, there’s really no situation to bring up their religious faith. Even in GW1, this was rarely mentioned – and only by the Angchu at that. It should be noted that the only tengu we speak to, as far as we know, are Caromi – who were in Kryta at the time of GW1. It should further be noted that each of the Four Houses are of different culture and different locational origins (prior to arriving at the Dominion of Winds that is). So the Caromi afterlife belief may have been different than the Angchu’s from the beginning.
2. The wall appeared after the Great Tsunami. The tengu also arrived after the rise of Zhaitan (which is when the Great Tsunami occured). It was actually the giant wave that led the tengu to realize “we should go there” – they went towards the Great Tsunami’s origin because of the Great Tsunami and, supposedly, a prophecy foretelling peace for their people (or there was some reason that the Great Tsunami marked the time for them to travel to Tyria and seclude themselves).
3. Not in modern times, no. In the past, the Caromi were raiders. In modern times, they’re 100% neutral to all outside races. They closed their doors to others because of the persecution they received in the past – Cantha being the main example. They’re untrusting of other races because that trust with humans (if not more) has been broken before in the past.
4. No. It was Sanctum Cay, an abandoned (after the Cataclysm) island which held an old Smiting Monk monastery (aka a monastery to the then Five Gods). Except the fact that the White Mantle assaulted the Shining Blade there, there’s no tie to them.

Joiry.2504:

the pace of the story needs slowing, etc.

To this, I disagree. At the current pace of the story, it feels like we’re going to be stuck with Scarlet for two years if not far more. And with how linear the “living world story” is thus far, this is far from enjoyable.

That is to say, I would like the content updates to slow down, but not the plot itself. Because it feels like it’s being paced a little too slowly. Which, to me, just makes it relatively boring after a while.

Given how Orr looks now, prior to Zhaitan’s rise, and how the Crystal Sea seems to have been, I suspect that Orr was connected only to Elona via land – making the Crystal Sea an inland sea accessible via the then Siren’s Bay.

So it is possible that historically, Orr was not considered a part of continental Tyria. And technically, even in GW1 the Crystal Desert wasn’t considered part of continental Tyria by some.

Unlikely, mainly because you’re wrong about what the wardens were but also due to location.

The “forest spirits” were actually Urgoz and its kin, corrupted by the Jade Wind (well maddened by it). The Warden’s origins aren’t shown, but it’s hinted upon them being former humans, much like the druids.

As far as I know, nothing says the wardens were servants of Melandru – the only group tied to nature in such a way that serve Melandru would be the druids.

Kurzick Juggernauts are also akin to the druids – formerly humans who sacrificed their body to become immortal constructs of plant, their lives tied to the Forever Trees (that’s where they differ, other than appearance and mortality; though the druids later gave up their plant bodies as well to become spectral protectors of the forest).

Nothing outright denies it, but despite the ties of forestry and the word Warden being used by both groups, nothing implies or hints at a connection.

And before it’s asked – no, Urgoz is also unlikely to be tied to the sylvari. He seems, to me, more akin to the Spirits of the Wild (whom are said to not just encorporate animals, but other aspects of nature as well – the examples given being seasons, fire, darkness, and mountains; “forest” is easily possible to be among them, though it is said that there are multiple forest spirits like Urgoz – on a side note, I personally suspect that Zhu Hanuku is the Kraken Spirit of the Wild, and there are hints that the Crab Clan may revere their own animal spirit, which is naturally a crab).

It was brought back on September 3rd. There was no story change to it, or its change to the hologram, unlike the fixing of the statue after Thorn’s return.

I think when the OP mentioned revamped zones or no new zone, that we haven’t seen permanent zones (Labyrinthine Cliffs disappeared) or permanent zone-wide event revamps. Tequatl is indeed coming, but only Southsun has gotten permanent events other than the invasions, which is far from a revamp of a zone.

Aside from the new Ascended drops, and the Quartz Crystals for those who did the achievement, the only permanent stuff beyond invasion and Karka Queen is some structures in Southsun and Divinity’s Reach, and 3 pointless instances.

All other events were temporary, even though they didn’t need to be. Labyrinthine Cliffs was temporary, even though it didn’t need to be. All dungeons have been temporary, even though they didn’t need to be.

Yes, there have been some permanent things, but compared to what’s temporary, they’re minute.

Randulf.7614:

Absolutely no lore should ever be communicated exclusively outside of the game.

This is basically the core point I was trying to make in regards to the short stories.

When you show us the facts in short stories, be sure to tell us the facts in-game at the same time.

Format doesn’t matter so much as it exists, and if it’s temporary it must be plainly noticeable, and it must be permanent if it’s subtle.

And if the lore is meant to be an observable thing – like the Aetherblades stealing parts of the hologram projectors during Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates in Tyria, then have a post-content NPC to make note of it, under the same rules as stated (permanent if subtle, plainly noticeable if temporary).

Antara.3189:

After reading Konigs summary on Scarlet, I’ve learned more about her than I did in the entirety she’s been in the game.

Is that a bad thing?

Case. In. Point.

Even retroactively making more of the content permanent would be an improvement, IMO, even if there’s no story reason for its return – at this point, the typical retcon excuse of “it was always there” would honestly be fine with me (and I’m a person who hates retcons).

The Molten Alliance invasion events, and the various instances should all have been and need to be permanent additions (and for the later, available on character basis – either as a continuation of the personal story mechanically, or a “second personal story” that functions simultaneously – I’d prefer the later, since that makes things easier on storytelling; the dungeons (Molten Facility, Canach, Aetherblade Retreat, and Scarlet’s Playhouse can be remade to be solo-able (those that aren’t) and when the Fractal versions of MF and AR come in, it’d have to be altered from the original given the size and difficulty anyways).

I’ve never heard of an afterlife called “Bright Hollow” – where’d you get that from?

So long as it’s not done the same way as Cutthroat Politics (buying stuff from the gemstore that boosts one’s voting abilities; spending money to buy more tokens), I’d enjoy such a concept.

For example, rather than choosing to focus on Flame or Dredge, it’d be determined by how many dredge and Flame Legion NPCs are killed in an alloted time across the servers.

What’s a darn shame, is that it cannot be a “by server” case, with guesting not altering the score.

BobbyStein.2315:

I’m happy to say that these comments haven’t fallen on deaf ears. I’ve been in many meetings about these very concerns. We have some solutions planned, but they will take time to build. I can’t be more specific than that.

I’m sure I mentioned it before, but one suggestion I would have is to have the instances of the Living Story (dungeons included, though perhaps revamped for solo-play) and have these instances a continuation of the personal story – during release, the instances are open to all; after release, you must go through all content (personal story->Flame and Frost->etc.) in order.

It would also create a good reason to go back and improve old content (there are some fights in the personal story which are fairly boring; and I’m not only talking about the one with Zhaitan).

Erasculio.2914:

BobbyStein.2315:

Will we eventually create these books? I hope so. But for the immediate needs of the Living World story, a tracking system is more important, followed by some type of journal support. We’ll build those first before committing to anything like books because our lack of a LW tracking system is making it difficult for people to follow the LW story, plain and simple.

It’s somewhat annoying to consider that maybe rushing to a solution now would lead to further problems later on; maybe there would be an elegant solution to the books issue that would also work for the LW journal, but rushing to get the journal out now would prevent people from finding the best solution. And with something else in place, adding proper support for books would demand the addition of a second new mechanic, as opposed to unifying everything under a single system.

Seconded.

P.S., I really wish the forum would allow larger posts.

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Or does ArenaNet no longer care about their lore?

If you only knew how hard we’ve been working these past six years…

If I was asked how Anet cares for their lore three months ago, I would say that they take the utmost care in it. That they don’t retcon anything, but if they do want to change things they make legitimate and well-thought out explanations for why there’s change. I know for a fact that in the past Jeff Grubb himself went on to explain how something widely taken to be a retcon-during-development was not so.

But lately, the story feels more comedy than seriousness. You set up a dark toned world (world-ending monsters on the horizon, undead plaging the shores, crystalline monstrosities wrecking havoc, etc.), but then you fill the main story with puns and pop-culture jokes; every other character is a comedy routine befitting Bulk and Skull from the original Power Rangers. Sometimes I even hear their themesong playing in my head when the more comedic characters come out.

The flavor of the lore has changed drastically from GW1.

And that’s not even touching the blatant lore conundrums that GW2 – and especially the Living Story and interviews since – has introduced. Some of which outright don’t make sense, some can but feel over the top, and some are feeling like a swift kick in GW1’s lore’s gonads. Just browse some of the lore forum’s more recent threads and you’ll see how the more active folks of the lore community are feeling as the Living Story carries on.

Personally, I was able to overlook those issues that were presented in the initial GW2 release, especially the comedic volume. But the Living Story’s just taking it to another level with our Super Pop Culture Jokes Box.

And don’t get me wrong – I’ve loved the lore of Guild Wars since I started playing. So it’s very painful to see, let alone say, that the lore’s value is dropping. It’s like standing on the bedside of my best friend whom I’ve known since I was a little kid as he’s dying of an incurable disease. It just kittening hurts.

BobbyStein.2315:

I think the biggest challenge for the writers right now is getting enough story into each release such that people can understand where we’re going with everything. The fact of the matter is that we have a short amount of time to write, voice, and implement the content for each LW release (3 months on average up to maybe 4 months under ideal conditions). We also have limits in how much written and voiced content we can handle each month (text and VO budgets, essentially) due to limited resources (i.e. people) and a fixed deadline.

Then why give yourself such a short timeframe? It’s not like we got folks going “YOU MUST MAKE THINGS COME OUT FAST FOR US RAWR!!!!!”

I know a lot of folks complained that Flame and Frost felt like it was slow, but that was because the first two months we got next to nothing compared to other content updates. Rather than having an update every two weeks, wouldn’t it make more sense to have it once a month? Each “chapter” (aka Living Story team’s content) taking up 2 months’ time?

This would effectively double the time to write, voice, and overall improve the content. And it gives players more time to do the new content – temporary and permanent – which in turn lessens the feeling of being burned out that I mentioned before. I know Colin at PAX said that you’ve had a rise in players while the Living Story has been out at such a rate, but think about it… you’re forcing players to remain active or risk losing out on the story and content. You’re punishing the players for not playing – which is just as bad as playing a subscription game which punishes players for not playing (though in a different way – by taking money).

If you look at the forums, I think it’d be pretty clear that players are starting to get burned out. A little slower for better and more content wouldn’t hurt anyone. I sincerely suggest you consider such an option before the playerbase starts dropping like flies.

BobbyStein.2315:

In the LW, you consume it at ours and I think that’s hard for many people to get used to, especially since we don’t have the right tracking system in place yet.

If you ask me, what’s hard for players is that too much of the content disappears. If you don’t play now, then it’s gone forever.

This post highlights the problem very well in my opinion. I suggest reading through it.

-one more post coming-

And the reason why it’s important to do is because, well, I’ll use Scarlet as my argument.

In game, we can learn that Scarlet excelled through all three asuran colleges (and rather showed off to the asura in doing so) and that she was norn-, charr-, and hylek-trained on top of that. We’re also told she claims to have seen the Eternal Alchemy. Felt like it pushing it, but alright. In What Scarlet Saw, we get more of this.

She was a pupil of the legendary norn blacksmith, but refused his full teachings. She was a pupil of a charr sniper and left with the charr’s secrets. She learned from hyleks “just because” even though they gave her little to it. And she studied from all three colleges with the Arcane Council begrudgingly accepting her… And then we see what she saw when she “witnessed the Eternal Alchemy.”

Then in an interview with Scott and Angel, from my understanding (I haven’t listened to it and instead got a run down by a guildie), some of these things got clarified – she didn’t do full college coursework, but instead a special academic course system. She only believes to have seen the Eternal Alchemy, though she may actually have, as she was put into what sounds to be a sensory deprivation.

In the end, what we see in game is: a teenage-sounding sylvari of utmost annoyance, little depth to her character, and supposedly shows off to asura, learned from most major races that have something to share, and supposedly saw the knowledge-of-everything.

What we see in the short story: she learned from only 1 norn, only 1 charr, 1 hylek tribe, and had to haggle her way into the colleges, and saw what appears to be the fate and purpose of the sylvari – not all things.

What we learn from the interview: her college experience wasn’t a full experience but specialized; and she might not have seen what she believes she saw (aka what she saw could have been a hallucination of sorts – or just an misinterpretation).

I get that you want to “pace the story” and the characters’ development, but this isn’t pacing the story – this is revealing it in different locations. And if you’ve paid attention to how people view WoodenPotatoes and why they like his videos, you would know that this is a bad idea. Because people can get interested in the story, but they don’t go out to listen to obscure interviews.

The information gained from the interview should have somehow made its way either into the game (preferably) or that short story. Without that interview, Scarlet sounds like a Villain Sue, arguably more so without that short story (though also arguably more so with that short story).

You “pace” the story, but you introduce your main villain as a five-minute wonder. I’ve talked to friends and even the ones who enjoyed Scarlet said that she got boring fast, simply because she had no depth hinted to her – mind you, some of these folks didn’t read the story (afaik) or listen to the interview (as it was before said interview). And THAT is why these things need to be in the game. You don’t need to flesh everything about Scarlet out – that’d be bland if you intend to keep her for a while. But you have to flesh her out enough so that she doesn’t come off as a 5-minute wonder. Hint to her depth, not ignore it until later. That depth isn’t hinted at until the interview, which is just bad.

-more in next post too-

BobbyStein.2315:

I suppose I haven’t explained this clearly enough. We don’t have UI or tech to do this. The only thing we can do in the game currently is attach a short description to an object that is triggered by interaction (F to read, for example) or put that information inside a conversation tree. Those are our options. Neither solution is ideal for large chunks of text due to size limitations and usability restrictions. We’ve used both approaches on occasion to present details as you’ve described. But these current solutions are hard limited with how much we can display onscreen. They aren’t really appropriate for the amount of text information we’d put in proper books.

In other words, we can’t put these short stories into game UI because none currently exists that would support it. I know that sounds odd since we’re essentially talking about showing text in a window, but it’s a bit more complex than that. There is a lot of design, programming, and art that goes into building a system like this.

Do we turn the book into an item? If so, is it stored in your inventory? Do we build a separate tab for book storage? Is there value attached to it? Can you trade it with other players? How many characters per page are we limited to? How many pages? Does it have image attachment support? How would you navigate the pages? Does it scale from lowest to highest resolution properly with word wrap? Would we simply convert the Bonus Mission Pack book design over, or are there restrictions or dependencies with GW2 code that would make it difficult and time consuming? Can we attach items to the books? Can they be used to replay content or watch cinematics? These are just a fraction of the things that go into building a new feature.

You seem to really misunderstand my point, Bobby. My point can be dumbed down to this sentence:

It doesn’t matter how it’s in the game, just that the main facts gained are in the game.

Take, for example, Ghosts of Ascalon. In my opinion, bringing the main facts from this novel into the game was done perfectly – or at least nearly so. You have, in the game:

• The main plot of the later half of the novel summarized by Dougal Keane in Fort Marriner.
• The Secluded Glen with Gullik and Killeen’s grave, and the priestess, to show that plot point (Killeen’s death) as well as the character interaction between Gullik and Kileen.
• And you have the Plinth on the Viewing Hill to retell Frye’s witness of the Foefire events.
• You also have Ember in the Summit Peak which tells her relevance to the peace accords.

In these four things, you present: 1) the main plot and purpose of the novel (via Dougal and Ember); 2) half of the events of the Foefire (just missing Savione’s relevance); and 3) the characters’ interactions with each other (via Dougal and Gullik)

This kind of thing is really all you need to show in the game. You don’t need the stories themselves in the game – in fact, I’d find that would lower the quality, with the exception of the Trek of the Zephyrites which as I suggested could be those interactive object books (“press F to read”) in multiple volumes if need be just like how The Founding was done in Ebonhawke – and that kind of transition works because it is already in journal format, rather than a narrative.

Another good example which was actually done with the short stories, are the first two: Braham’s Story and Rox’s Tale. Why? Because we learned the main points – not everything, but the main points – to Braham’s Story in his instances during the story itself; and with Rox’s Tale, we learned the main point (she’s a gladium, her warband died in a mining accident) in North Nolan Hatchery by one of the NPCs after the F&F activities.

This is what I was meaning. We don’t need the stories themselves in the game, per se, we need the main facts derived from it – the facts which give the characters context – in the game itself. Each story could have gotten its facts put into the game in different, already-existing, means.

-more in next post-

Kormir isn’t the goddess of water. That’s Lyssa now; Kormir is the goddess of knowledge, spirit, and order (and secrets and truth).

But I honestly cannot see Margonites siding with Kormir in any way whatsoever. The Apostate did not choosingly sided with the players; he was cast out because he began to question Abaddon’s eternal life (rightfully so) – the other Margonites were so fanatic that any saying against “Abaddon has always been a god and that as a god he cannot be killed” is worthy of condemning. The Apostate merely makes a bargain with the players because he was outcasted.

In the case of the Lost, he outright lost faith in Abaddon and saw his people as a folly, so he would indeed be what you’re arguing.

However, given ArenaNet’s latest trend for enemy factions where they’re all backstabbing kittens who would sell their firstborn daughter to slavery and only 1 or 2 out of hundreds+ would dare question their ways of life… I doubt we’ll be seeing more Margonites. Especially since the entire goal of the Order of Whispers and Forgotten after Kormir’s rise was “wipe out or imprison all Margonites and demons that partook in Nightfall.”

@Thalador’s #1: I always viewed the situation as this:

Magdaer is an Orrian artifact, human made supposedly, so it was likely designed to create an eternal army to fight the enemy. Why not focus on incineration of enemies? Well, can you really tell who the enemy will be in 1,000+ years? It is said that the ghosts are full of Adelbern’s hatred, yada yada… but was he ever able to control the effects of the Foefire? To quote Adelbern in Ember’s retelling of the events of the Foefire from Ghosts of Ascalon (page 282): “I have long known that Magdaer had other powers – remnants of the gods themselves. We Ascalonians may be doomed, but Ascalon will live on forever!”

To me, this implies that Adelbern didn’t chose what the spell effected, and perhaps couldn’t. But he did know what the spell would do, and so he simply used the spell.

What if it was a spell devised – perhaps by Balthazar all things given – to create an eternal army full of bloodlust for the caster’s foe?

I always viewed it to be that the charr in the city itself incinerating as merely being that close to the spell’s epicenter, not that it was an effect of the spell but merely their exposure to such a huge amount of magical energy. And that the spell’s intention was to merely affect humans (though why it affected cows… I don’t know).

Avariz.8241:

I always take the originator(person or persons) of the art to be the actual authentic fact (main line and truest) of the art. In this case the GW1 and GW2 game. Any other art form that compliment this I would enjoy as an addition.

-snip-

Now in regard to differences between GW1 and GW2, and the many books based on the games; I always base my facts on the games and not on the books. The originator of GW1 and GW2 to me is the actual games produced and owned by Anet. However, GW1 and GW2 the games themselves do make alterations to its own facts patch after patch little by little so my facts do get mixed up or can be out dated.

There’s two problems with your proclamation:

1) For the case of Ghosts of Ascalon and Sea of Sorrows, these were written/heavily edited by Ree and Jeff Grubb (anti-respectively). If anyone knows how to keep consistency in the games’ lore with the books’ lore, it would be the two who’s job is lore continuity.

2) It has been explicitly stated that the game was altered to match the description of the books – they even added a tower to Ascalon City, so that it would match the description made of the city in the book. Edge of Destiny seems to be exempt from this somewhat, though they’ve made explanations for why those differences (the LA arena mainly) existed.

Though it isn’t the case in other series, with Guild Wars, the books are as accurate as the game – again, exception being Edge of Destiny somewhat (as it wasn’t as heavily edited by Anet than GoA, nor written by Anet like SoS).

@Getefix: On the Kryta bit, that’s not entirely true.

Yes, Kryta was established as a colony of Elona in 300 AE, but it was not originally established as such. Since the days of Prophecies, we knew that Lion’s Arch was King Doric and his line’s palace – "" “(source)”: We knew humans were in that region since before the exodus. In GW2, this gets expanded – King Mazdak was the first king of Kryta, who came from Orr; in an interview and from Sea of Sorrows, we learn that Kryta was established while at war with Orr, and that the prince who established Kryta (aka Mazdak) forsake his rights to the Orrian throne.

So it seems that humanity settled Kryta twice – the first prior to the Exodus by Mazdak and Orr, the second in 300 AE by Orrians. It should also be noted that the first centaur conflict with Kryta is recorded to be 300 AE, (source) implying that the Elonians pushed north in Kryta when establishing their colony, while the Orrian-Kryta remained further south as there are a mixture of Orrian and Krytan relics/ruins in the southern (former) Kryta – namely Sparkfly Fen.

Humanity coming from the Battle Isles is interesting, however it should be noted in Cantha’s history that:

“Even less is known about the origin of the Luxon and Kurzick peoples, who arrived on the continent after the tribes that would become modern Canthans settled the northwest coast and Shing Jea Island. The humans of Cantha may have actually originated on Shing Jea, though this has never been proven.” (source)

In-game speculation places human origin on Shing Jea. Take note that Jeff Grubb statement on human homeland was “It seems, from their previous appearances, that they have come up from the south, so the “human homeland” may be further south than Elona and Cantha.” (source) He speaks with a lack of definitive, to leave room for this to have changed.

It should also be noted that humans first stepping foot on the world at Orr is not the same as Orr being the original Tyrian human homeland. It is possible still possible that they did come from south of Cantha, perhaps avoiding southern Cantha because the western shore was already inhabited (by naga, forgotten, tengu, or other). Though a bit does conflict with another thing Jeff said in that interview: “They arrived in the Tyria (the continent) sometime after they first appeared on Tyria (the world).”

But then again, the lore that humanity first arrived on the Tyrian world at Orr comes from an Orrian historian – and we know that one Orrian historian was already drastically wrong with human history so what’s to prevent a second?