Guild Wars 2

Catering to casuals?

In order to complete the new content, you must complete it within 2 weeks before it’s gone forever (or a month in half of the cases).

Casuals wouldn’t be able to keep up. The Living Story is catering to hardcore players for sure. So are legendaries. So are Ascended gear. So is anything taking time and gold in the game. You cannot even find a good amount of lore without going in depth of the content.

How exactly is GW2 catering to casuals?

My list:

- New empty ended historic lore. Everything we have in terms of history is either a continuation of GW1’s one-sentence historic lore (which is good but not the same), or DRAGONS BE RELATED!!!! content that sometimes feels like a retcon.
- Quests (yes, I miss GW1-styled questing. Events just aren’t the same).
- Real Missions (Personal Story steps are too kitten short and too kitten frequent. Dungeons feel more akin to GW1 missions but I’d like some of such that’s soloable as well).
- Lack of contradictions in the lore…
- Properly fleshed out and defined characters (Logan? Jennah? Trahearne? Scarlet? Come on now Anet, you can do better than that!).
- Permanent PvE Mists – be it the Hall of Heroes, The Underworld, or even the Realm of Torment (<3’d the RoT). Having the Mad Realm was wonderful, though Fractals and sPvP/WvW don’t really feel “mists” like. I think it’s because they took the word literally with all that fog in the nether (as opposed to in GW1, where it was just vast open space, like in the Mad Realm).
- Less roflcomedy in the storyline (stuffed enough pop culture references and memes in there yet, Anet? No? kitten .)
- Missions with fail scenarios (“Protect me” -watches NPC die…revives NPC- Eh.)
- Replayable.
- Non-holiday content that didn’t freaking disappear within 2 weeks.

Well, Malafide… how you would depict a giant of a man holding up air, exactly? Best thing I can think of, would be an object of blue and white to represent sky and clouds.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

They couldn’t add too many new back story for GW2, without out right contradicting GW1.

To this, I disagree with you. It is very much possible to add new back story for GW2. After all, if you seriously look at the historical lore presented in GW1, with the exception of the Canthan empire, we know very little about the past of the human nations. And even with the Empire, there’s a lot of blank slates to work with.

People may ask “why wasn’t it mentioned before?” The answer is simple: it wasn’t relevant to mention before. For example, we knew since Prophecies that Lion’s Arch was the home okitteng Doric and his family. Yet we were told even then that Kryta was established as a colony in 300 AE. In GW2, this got expaneded – in GoA (and other novel timelines), we learned Elona colonized Kryta in 300 AE; and in the sylvari personal storyline we learn that Mazdak was the first king of Kryta, being from humanity’s early reign; now in Malchor’s Leap, we learn that King Doric sent humanity out to not only Ascalon, but Kryta as well; then in Sea of Sorrows we learned that Kryta and Orr were at war in Kryta’s early years, and in an interview shortly after that, we learn that Mazdak (though never named, perhaps for spoiler reasons) more or less gave up his right to the Orrian throne.

It was an expansion of human nation history we knew about, but knew just so little.

There’s a lot in GW1 lore where we knew “something” about, but not a lot (in some cases, just a single sentence), and there were large gaps of “nothing at all known.” The history of the jotun – ignoring Thruln the Lost’s questionable dialogue – holds no contradictions to GW1 lore at all, for example. Heck, part of Thruln’s dialogue even builds upon the jotun in GW1 that we saw (his claim that elementalism is “primitive magic” – there were no elementalist jotun in GW1).

There’s only three cases where Anet ended up contradicting GW1 lore – before Angel McCoy’s interview that botched up what little remained of History of Tyria’s account of magic after Nightfall was revealed. That being Arah explorable, the Charr Invasion of Orr, and dwarven history/interaction/knowledge of the Elder Dragons (apparently the Stone Summit had dealings with the Elder Dragons in every other item they possessed).

Frosch.7809:

There is not much of a difference imo between how lore was presented in GW1 and 2 – in the original GW game one often had to draw connections oneself, read between the lines, and interpret things for oneself, especially in the Prophecies campaign. […]

Neither is the lore presented in a worse way in GW2 than in the original game imo.

Its presentation is mostly the same, true; though GW2 has a heavier usage of subjective truth than GW1 does. But the main difference between the two games is quantity. GW2’s lines to read between are fewer and harder to fine, IMO.

There’s quite a lot of lore in the game, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it’s less up-front than GW1. By far. And what there is, is often hidden in talking to NPCs during events when folks probably wouldn’t do so – like Protect Explorer Harlow while he finds the Dragon’s Eye – if you don’t talk to him, you won’t get the significance of the Dragon’s Eye – a fist-sized sapphire imbued with Elder Dragon power (personally, reminded me of The Heart of Ice from Prophecies).

In Prophecies, Ascension only helped in seeing the mursaat. It was infusion that aided against Spectral Agony.

Now, despite the naming, there is nothing to tie Ascended gear to Ascension in GW1, nor is there anything to link Agony and Infusion in GW2 to Spectral Agony or Infusion in GW1. The Infusion in GW1 was taking the spectral essence of a spiritual beast (Eidolons) and “infusing” that essence into the players’ armor. The Infusion in GW2 is taking… something from the Mystic Forge and infusing it into players’ weapons/jewelry/backpieces.

Only if that “something” from the Mystic Forge happens to be the spiritual essence of a creature born of malice and hate – or of torment (akin to Titans) – would it be effective against Spectral Agony. However, whether that would be effective against Agony is unclear, since we don’t know what Agony is, except a mechanic to artificially make content harder in a similar manner that Spectral Agony did.

It was an old old interview. Should still be linked on the GW2W’s article for asura in the physiology section. In short, ashes live 5-10% longer than humans, with exceptional ages reacting 120.

As to Flax’s age. He has a good amount of wrinkles. Not everyone’s hair falls out with age, nor do we know if asura hair turns gray or falls out.

Unlike Gandaral, I disagree that GW1 had well written. Prophecies was overly predictable and Factions point-blank.

But it was better than GW2. I think nostalgia just makes it seem better than it truely was with gw1 gerribad voice acting (Not just factions, Prophecies too! But so is GW2… ANet needs to find better voice actors).

But anyways… ANet has had problems relying on out of games document since Prophecies. You get as much, if not more, lore out of the game than in it. GW2 is “worse” because of two things, at least by my view:

1. They lowered the amount of reading text. This reduces the chances they actually have to show lore because voice acting costs more money. They also replaced one-time quests with many-times events, meaning that they must be geared as much as possible to “being repeated events”.
2. They dumbed things down. A lot. Made it simpler and easier to understand. You don’t need to read the books or play the first game to know what’s happening in gw2… Which is imo bad. Another case of dumbing down – when the game was being revealed bit by bit in promotion, the official site’s lore on races and professions was large. A good summary of their placement in the world. Close to release, it became what it is – next to no lore and simple descriptions of mechanics. Another example is the bio – we were told it was originally to be 10 questions, not 5. But those additional questions either got removed or placed in the game itself (I suspect the fear was to be a bio question).

At some point during development of gw2, it seems that ANet decided to dumb things down a lot. This made it easier to understand the main plot. But at the same time you lost the depth of the story.

Flax is not Inquest. He just works with them – but when others prove better, he switches sides immediately (see Dynamics storyline, lvl 2 step).

Yahk is the Councillor who is a member of the Inquest.

I think what Tobias meant in the “big dea” is that there’s too many “small stories that do not progress the larger stories” – effectively meaning that we’re getting too many breaks too frequently from the story. If we look at this year in full, we have:

SAB, Queen’s Jubilee, Dragon Bash, Mad King’s Day, Wintersday, and Bazaar of the Four Winds.

That’s six “breaks” from the main story each year. Meaning that half of the time we’re playing this game, the main story isn’t progressing. Breaks like this should only be a fourth at best – and GW1 did that well, with only having 4 holidays (Mad King’s Day, Wintersday, Canthan New Year, and Dragon Bash). Even though there wasn’t content in the rest of the year, we didn’t get flooded with too many “fun time breaks.”

IMO, when half of the story doesn’t progress the story, then it is a big problem. Because you’re stretching out a plot just too long. Which makes people tire of it and desire something new. In many cases, this leads to losing audiences. Though I didn’t think of it as a problem before, Tobias kind of made me realize it’s yet another problem of the Living Story.

Derigar.7810:

To be honest, as a new member I have to say I’m clueless to what this “living story” is all about. I have no idea where to start on catching up, as in-game there is little mention of it.

Only recently, there was some kind of invasion? Why? I don’t know why this “scarlet” is doing all this stuff.
I find that really sad, as I love to read/follow a good story. But in this case, I can’t follow.

For now, I’ll stick to my personal story and see what’ll happen to this “living story”.

Case in point.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

An expansion is looking less likely than that article makes out, essentially. If it’s LS all the way, then… well, I can’t see any more dragons being introduced for years.

I don’t expect to see anything unrelated (directly or indirectly) to Scarlet except for “breaks” like Secret of Southsun/Bazaar of the Four Winds/SAB for years if we’re given only LS and no expansion.

Unless they have a fifth “living story” team hidden in the nether they refuse to talk about, with Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee working with them, to produce an expansion-level living story chapter.

Evans.6347:

Also, they accepted Scarlet in several College’s purely out of interest and probably to prove that the previous Colleges are subpar because she would never graduate from their College.

That’s… actually believable.

And if that’s the case, perhaps the only believable explanation there truly is without some sort of ulterior motive towards Ceara involved, they really should have explained such.

Lokheit.7943:

No, she didn’t born with knowledge, but her IQ is simply the most outstanding one we’ve ever seen (at least that I can remember), and stomps any other IQ feats by comparison just by completing all asura colleges, each one in such a ridiculously low amount of time.

Most outstanding sylvari? I can top Scarlet.

The PC.

Might not be the brightest match in the box, but she doesn’t set fire to the other matches and still succeeds at just about everything but one or two things.

Lokheit.7943:

If they can evolve this fast, it could be a very frightening idea depending on what path they would take (and our current “mutated” sylvari went horribly wrong).

There is one major thing to consider here:

How old is Ceara? I don’t think we’re ever told. Given her history with Teyo, she’s older than the beginning of GW2’s plot. Given her prior history of spending a winter with Beigarth and two years with Asagi, then went through Dynamics and Statics in “less than a year” each, we can probably place her at being 4 years old before entering Synergetics. She then spent more time in Synergetics, and some time with the Inquest. Placing her to be at least 5 or 6. Slap on the “several months” before training under hylek, the unstated amount of time with the hylek, and then the “months of painstaking preparation” for Omadd’s experiment that made Ceara go mad with knowledge, we can place Scarlet at being about 7 years before going bat-kitten Joker. The question is: when did that take place? Probably around the time of GW2’s early personal story, IMO.

Which means that the sylvari PC – the super-powered “killed a dragon and completed two Firstborn’s Wyld Hunts for them” sylvari – who’s just as much if not more of a super soldier sylvari than Scarlet, was born after Scarlet either way.

Fuel for your theory.

But as a counter:

We have Trahearne. And Caithe. And Faolain. Each seem infallible in their own rights – except for one or two things (being emo, being anti-social, being obsessive; respectively). Without prior evoultionary traits from older sylvari, Trahearne has gained an immense knowledge and understanding of Necromancy, Risen, and Orrian lore – as well as quickly figuring out how to best lead a disgruntled army. Caithe had quickly learn the best way to kill – to seek out weak points – and quickly learned how for each kind of creature. Faolain supposedly quickly learned how to manipulate people, to turn them into whom they aren’t.

Miss Sugarific.8471:

I agree, that the Pale Tree is good because of the tablet. But I’d like to remind everyone that it is not unheard of for a dragon Champion to turn against their Elder dragon.

Glint… anyone?

Yes, she is only one unique case, but she did it (and got killed in the end for it, but still.)

Glint became free because of one-of-a-kind barely-excessible and not-excessible-in-the-Maguuma (akitten) magic. That being, magic of the Forgotten Ones. This magic only remains in Arah and the Crystal Desert (perhaps northern Desolation) by the time of GW1. And by the time of GW2, perhaps fewer places. In regards to the explored Tyria world.

Glint did not just simply break control out of her own willpower. Cheesy comedy anime stuff like that doesn’t exist in GW2. At least didn’t before Ceara’s existence (and if Anet plays their cards right, they can still fix Ceara).

Asura can live for up to 120 years we have been told, if this is the same Flax(x), then he was very young when joining the Arcane Council. Most asura do not want to be part of the Council, rather wanting to be in their own labs doing their own experiments. 1237 AE is 92 year difference by GW2’s initial date. So if Flaxx was councillor in 1237, he could have been a late teen or early 20s, and is now pushing his final years (which would also explain why he’s so supportive of the Inquest – he is nearing the end of his lifespan (which is supported by his model, which is that of an old geezer), so he has little time to make his dream come true – that is, making the asura race reign supreme (all hail High Grand Sovereign Flax?).

Flax and Haia seem to be the only non-Inquest asura who want to be on the Arcane Council. So it wouldn’t surprise me.

It actually was confirmed by Ree Soesbee during the sylvari were made to, physically, mimic humans in lore. Reason unspecified, but supposedly the Pale Tree controls their humanoid appearance.

Now, to play devil’s advocate for a minute…

Technically, Ceara wasn’t born with a lot of knowledge. No sylvari truly is. Ceara was born with high IQ. Which, IMO, is no different than one human born with a low IQ, and another with high IQ. Ceara’s a fast learner who awoke with knowledge of how interlocking systems work (and seemingly, that’s it).

How that got her to advance so well in blacksmithery, sniping, golemite making (and how doing something an asuran toddler can do impressed the Arcane Council), advancing through three asuran colleges, or alche- okay, the alchemy makes sense, possibly the golemite making. But the rest don’t make sense with her.

But (losing devil’s advocasy), an army of super plant soldiers? Huh, interesting idea.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lost_Soul_%28Gate_of_Pain%29
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lost_Soul_%28Remains_of_Sahlahja%29
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lost_Soul_%28Underworld%29

“Lost Soul” is pretty much just a catch-all term for ghosts in GW1. Little different than Restless Spirit

It’s not impossible, but the likeliness through that term alone is… extremely unlikely.

Narcemus.1348:

I think Konig would agree

Yup.

Please do not treat me as an infallible source of lore. Because I do make mistakes. And my theories are merely such – theories.

GW2’s initial state (as well as Thorn’s story) was designed for with the mentality of those who didn’t play GW1 or read the books to get into and understand (be it both or just one of those two). The Living Story… I’m doubtful, since it’d be like joining up with the Pact without seeing Claw Island. Unless they do manage to write it in such a way to prevent this, but honestly, if they really want a personal nemesis who isn’t personal just by who it is but rather being personal because of actions, then those actions will come… and they will go.

I have seen Cloud Atlas – rather recently, in fact. But I wouldn’t call that chapter disorder so much as telling multiple stories simultaneously (bit by bit). A GW2 comparison would be to take a break at Forging the Pact to do a story mode dungeon, then go and do some Frostgorge Sound stuff, then returning to the PS. There’s no disorder… just multiple stories that end up being related in the end (Arah).

The problem with that is that for new players, such fractals would be important to understanding the plot. In turn, fractals are for high end players overall, and more importantly, are random. So most new players aren’t likely to actually see such storylines until well after they’ve witnessed later on things – the story of Ceara will be out of order, like reading chapter 15, 10, 3, 8, 7, 5, 6, 12, 2, 1, 13, 3, 9, 11, and 14 of a book in that order. The plot’s all discombobulated.

For my experience, I’m golden. You too. Everyone else here, more or less, same thing. But new players can and probably will get confused (I mean, exactly how many players out there are only able to keep up with the LS’s plot thanks to WP videos? And how many more players out there have troubles following the lore due to how Anet shows it? Too many, IMO.).

To us, there’s little problem. To others, there are/can be.

Goorman.7916:

First i want to remind everybody about the idea, that Pale Tree is a champion of the elder dragon.Basically that means that sylvari are dragon minions., and the sole reason sylvari are “good” is because of the centaur tablet.
However…
What if the tablet story is just a lie, made to persuade other races to believe in sylvari as allies?
What if the reason sylvari are working with the other races is to be an insider and to betray other five races?

Malyck.

He breaks that theory fully and into the ground. He grinds the theory down into dust and oblivion.

Their immunity too (dragon minions are not immune to other dragons’ corruption).

The theory cannot be.

The fate Ceara likely refers to is the notion of Wyld Hunts and the uncanny call for almost everyone of the race – even Nightmare Court – to fight the Elder Dragons.

Narcemus.1348:

You know there’s a chance that as long as this remains on here, it will become the plot line of GW2…

Given Bobby Stein’s comments on the responses to Scarlet’s character.

I find that immensely doubtful. Even if Anet were to ignore the legal issues Tobias mentioned.

And in the (paraphrased) words of Thalador: “That’s still a better plot than where it seems we’re heading.”

Stooperdale.3560:

There is no dredge/flame legion/molten leader. There’s no named inquest leader in the aetherblades.

On the first, the Molten Firestorm and Molten Berserkers were individual leaders of each facility, it was said in an Scott and Angel’s story synops explanation video a while back (yeah, more lore not available in the game).

And the Inquest did have a leader in the Aetherblade. It was Frizz, aka Mister Electrical Stunning Wall with Golems who got crushed by a generator or some such. He was the Inquest leader – or seems to have been. Certainly led that lab, and led those around him.

ZenSwift.5918:

I actually want to draw this scene, but I don’t know how long it would take me to do.

I also have to say that was a nice little story Konig.

TY, it was fun to write up.

I would like to disagree with your guildie. What we need isn’t more drama, but more development. And less flat, and worse self-contradictory, characters like Ceara.

We also need more time for the living story updates, for ArenaNet to stop calling it a living world because it is, and for the instances from day 1 to be available permanently (dungeons too) so that the new players won’t get lost in the nether and go “okay, why is Scarlet hated/after me/evil” in a few months when all this here and now can only be gleaned via second-hand posts.

zamalek.2154:

Your Dragon theory is probably correct, although I am not sure if I would call them a “race” – meaning that from my perspective the Giganticus Lupicus may be the oldest. The Six Gods are also an option – it is known that they did not create Tyria and it is known that they lived in Tyria. If they evolved and ascended on Tyria (if that was how they came about at all) they are still technically part of their ‘precursor race’.

At least three of the gods came to the world as gods (Dwayna, Balthazar, and Melandru); Lyssa, Dhuum, and Abaddon’s ascensions coming prior or after are unknown but it is likely that at least Lyssa and Abaddon – if not Dhuum and Balthazar as well – were originally humans. The Gods are less of a race than the Elder Dragons, since most of them appear to be ascended humans or half-humans (Grenth).

The Giganticus Lupicus is also a “catch all term” for the giant skeletons of ancient races. We have no clue, however, just how old these races are – they could be younger than the survivors of the last dragon rise (should the last dragon rise be during 10,000 BE at least).

zamalek.2154:

We know for a fact that the Asura came to the surface with their advanced technology in-tow.

Though they had advanced little to not at all. Asura are known to constantly lose information, but at the same time, asura are capable of making leaps and bounds in technological advancement individually.

The asura race on a whole is like a combination of the Dark Ages and the Industrial Age for Europe.

zamalek.2154:

Andlat Helsonr.1284:

As for the gods – we know that they, and the humans, originate from another place in the multiverse. The gods brang humans to Tyria, supposedly fleeing from something – as suggested by some lore found in Orr.

Source? We know well that the humans were bought to Tyria, but the gods fleeing doesn’t make sense in terms of the Forgotten who were also brought to Tyria by the gods some 900 years before the humans.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls

As well as several interviews with Jeff Grubb over the years.

The Forgotten are also said to have been on Tyria before the Six Gods in GW2, having been around during the last dragonrise while the Six Gods were not around then, so the statement of the History of Tyria saying they were brought by the gods is subject to question.

Congratulations on only reading the very bottom.

What I meant is that the discrepancies you mention are mechanical in nature, not lore-based in nature, even if they effect your suspension of disbelief.

As I said, in lore, the sylvari do grow their own armor and weapons just as they grow their houses. Similarly, races do move at different speeds. But because mechanics must balance all players equally, these things are not how they would be in lore. Same goes for the scale of the open world – lore wise, you would not be able to go from the westernmost part of Brisban Wildlands to the easternmost part of Fields of Ruin within a couple hours via speedboosts while on foot. But in the game, you very much can. Such a thing is not a lore discrepancy or lore issue, it is mechanical in nature which is what I meant when describing what you were posting.

The SAB is something completely different on every level of comparison. It is not something that happens differently between mechancis and lore. It is something that exists as we experience it in the lore. And THAT is the problem.

There are cases of lore breaking, and then there are cases of immersion breaking. Your list wall of text of questions is the latter, the complaints in this thread (and about Scarlet) is the former.

People can follow in as many of the gods as they want – be it none or all six. They are not limited to one god, and those following a certain profession are not forced to follow the profession’s patron god (there is a necromancer in DR who in idle conversation complains Grenth is too morbid for her likings).

There are no “churches” by that name as far as I know, but there are monasteries and temples. Those mainly use the term temple.

And bringing all six gods under one roof has been done – Temple of the Six Gods was one such temple before the fall of Abaddon. Temple of the Ages was another (though originally for Grenth, it grew to five then included Kormir after her rise). Then you have the Shrine of the Six in DR though just a shrine and not a temple, it’s still under one roof (in one room no less). And there’s Serenity Temple in now-Blazeridge Steppes (though there’s only statues to Dwayna and Melandru, all gods were worshiped there, except possibly Kormir due to timeframe). In GW1 there was also the Chantry of Secrets in Elona (not the one in GW2), and Zin Ku Corridor.

@Rainbow, in order:

• Risen keep appearing because zones are effectively stuck in time. Only exception are the Living Story content updates. Otherwise, why do the same named NPCs keep reappearing in events despite being killed?
• I wouldn’t say “most” but I think the idea is that folks train hard enough and they’re lighter than they look. But I’d put this into the same category that I said about armor and weapons – a lot of them are unrealistic. This is just one of the suspensions of disbelief that is not part of the story whatsoever, unlike the SAB.
• Reoccuring events is mechanics so that everyone has a chance to do the content within the open world. Some of the events are also set up to be appearing like they’re just similar events with similar but not the same folks reoccuring.
• Simple: you don’t die. You get knocked unconscious. Hence why it’s called “defeated” and not “dead.”
• Reviving isn’t bringing back to life in GW2, but waking up those who are unconscious. So those who cannot be revived are dead, those who can be are merely knocked out. Why don’t enemies ensure their deaths? Mechanics. Same reason why the PC never dies.
• A place of power is a place of magical concentration. They exist there for the reasons in the text – overall magic seems to congregate in places of many deaths, water, and close to the depths of the world.
• Skill points is mechanics that replaces the idea of training. You don’t magically know things. Even with magic.
• Mechanics, again. The concept of scaling is meant to make it so that you never really become able to take more hits per say, but you’re more skilled in combat. It’s a mechanical replacement thing and is not lore just like most things you mention.
• Again, mechanical replacement for becoming more skilled in combat via experience.
• Karma isn’t a physical thing, and it’s not given for free – you help them out, they pay you. No different than a job.
• Do they know you helped Farmer Joe? If so, grapevine most likely.
• Not sure what you refer to here.
• You can call this either a mechanical limitation to keep the profession balanced (why can player characters only summon one Flesh Golem while Trahearne and what’shername that faces Draithor can summon multiple Flesh Golems?), or the character’s own limitations. Same with the ranger pet.
• Subsequent weapons and armors questions – again mechanics. Not lore. In lore, sylvari do grow their own armor – that’s what cultural armor is, lorewise (as well as Warden and Verdant weapons – perhaps Nightmare armor/weapon too). Similarly, in lore, any profession can use any weapon because lorewise, they aren’t limited to the same limitations as players. Again not lore, but mechanics – there’s a separation.
• Norn armor question is also mechanics.
• Humans don’t expand their territory because they’re being pushed from the east and north. Technically their territory in Kryta extends north and west of what we have access too, though how far is unknown. But our inability to see this is mechanical – just like we cannot see where the Blood Citadel is to the east.
• Running speed is also mechanics. In the novels, the asura have to speed walk to keep pace with humans (Sea of Sorrows) and charr walk slowly to be at the pace of humans (Sea of Sorrows), even the measurements between races are different at times because of this size different (Edge of Destiny).
• Question on the other dragons moving is same as the Zhaitan one – zones are effectively stuck in time until ArenaNet puts in the effort to show these things. Unfortunately, they’re intent on having The Sylvari Sue as the story focus for a while, so don’t expect dragon movements. Technically speaking, Jormag was making a move before Zhaitan was killed. He just wasn’t the story focus.
• NPC strength is, once more, a mechanical thing.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

And from all of this that has been in the game since launch, you complain about a single update ruining the games lore with it coming out.

Every single thing you mentioned is not lore. It’s mechanics.

SAB permanence is lore. Not just mechanics.

That’s the difference.

The Mist Warriors also make mention of a blue hued portal that fluctuates and leads to the Mist Wars. So it seems that they did retcon it out, but forgot to fix those NPCs’ dialogues.

Minstrel wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, though. It was just a mesmer reveal joke. And though there’s jokes on that in the game, (a couple gravestones, the guy in Cursed Shore, who showed up in Halloween’s LA), the reveal itself isn’t canon (obviously).

As to the SAB remaining in the game… that’s a good point, but still all that pop culture that floods from the SAB content…

Really? The tone of Moto’s voice and his words came off to me as if meaning “please, go away now.” That is, saying polite things but obviously wanting to end the conversation.

It’s more of the feel of the SAB than the existence of it.

Alright, take Corporal Bane and the Moahawk from GW1 – if you played it, if not GWW it. It’s a full blown Terminator (and subsequently, Terminator II) reference quest and NPCs, decked out with April Fools jokery, modern tech, and the like.

It can perfectly exist in lore without question via the existence of alternate realities – it’s been set up that the Mists contains a multiverse since Prophecies, and the Infinity Ball storyline tells us that time travel is possible, so it’s not hard to argue alternate realities exist, and Bane is just from one of those in the future.

But the feel of the quests, them being 100% pure joke-infested pop-culture ridden content… just wouldn’t sit right with the canon lore. The concept is perfectly fine, but the execution not so much.

SAB is the same, except being Terminator references, it’s 90s video game attitude and commercial references.

Perhaps it’s because I grew up with those references, that it feels offputting to have the SAB – especially with its ‘Back to School’ theme this run – returning as canon content.

I certainly love the SAB itself, but it feels like it’d be better off remaining as a joke content, rather than being a serious part of lore, even if it canonically can fit in.

@Ted: I suppose you’d say “assumption because it was an April Fool’s thing” – Anet does jokes that are non-canon every year. The year before it was Corporal Bane and the fake GW2 professions of the Commandos (the page on the official site used to exist hidden, but sadly they removed it). And this year it was SAB. Every year it’s been non-canon jokes. And suddenly it changes.

Baktwerel.9108:

-stares at Konig for a few minutes and slowly starts clapping-

You had me at kittenslapping Trehearne x,D

ty <3

I, myself, never said that it is lorebreaking.

I just said that the entire thing is joke content. And it should remain as such. IMO, joke content should remain as non-canon. This update makes SAB 100% canon.

And in that, it becomes lore. And in that, it breaks the feel of the lore/story for me.

Though I would say Gandarel overacts to the nth degree with his complaint of 8-bit weapons. I mean, come on, look at all the other weapons we got. There’s a pistol with freaking rotating saws in the barrel – the thing would cut your finger off if you try to put your finger on the trigger, let alone fire. The weapons and armors in both games have remained unrealistic since Prophecies.

Gabby.3205:

Again, it is completely SEPARATED from the rest of the world. It is like if, I don’t know, Eir called you for a random hunt and you killed a bunny. Irrelevant for the rest of the story. Completely unrelated to the story line, just something that someone did in their free time.

This is where you’re wrong. It’s part of the world’s story – as opposed to previous April Fool’s joke that was there and disappeared, never commented upon lore, because it wasn’t canon.

This content update makes it officially canon.

And that’s the problem. It’s 100% joke content, made part of canon lore. It’s something meant for a comedy, put into a game that is actually a rather serious plot if you manage to get past all the other pop culture references (well overdone IMO, but they were in Nightfall too – thankfully in Nightfall, they were all part of side quests not the main plot). SAB is far from the worst offender in the pop culture references, but turning it into actual canon lore is not exactly an improvement.

There are ettins to the west.

There’s no case of body snatching as far as we know. Isgarren invites people to the tower. If the people who are invited up are being used as experiments or some such, this matches the White Mantle’s MO as they’ve done it before (Chosen) and had 2 members trying to enter the tower in GW1.

Elementals have nothing to do with Verata, who was a necromancer.

Purecura.1795:

Or would you just agree to the fact that it lies within the magic user’s ability and skill?

Yes.

All life on Tyria (world) has ended, Destroyers reign supreme. The land is a barren, molten, wasteland. A few pockets of Flame Legion and other life may exist here and there, having learned to thrive off of ash, but they don’t last too long. Decades pass, Primordus has consumed most of the world’s magic. Now destroyers that are formed come out tiny, thus fulfilling the true history of Universe 1 – the outcome seen in the second portal of the Infinity Ball storyline!

Decades more, perhaps centuries, pass. A rift opens as Primordus becomes sleepy, having consumed all the magic he can handle for years upon years. The Six Gods step out and Grenth freezes Primordus’ fiery behind, and Balthazar decapitates the dragon while Kormir sits in the back. Dwayna comes up and sighs, saying “looks like we’ll have to start from scratch. Bring in some new lab subjects from Earth.” And Lyssa opens a portal into the Mists as Melandru terraforms the world. Cycle restart.

Guild Wars 2 Fin.

(Author’s note: this started as a joke in an IM chat with Thalador. Originally meant to just be the joke about Faolain and Caudecus, but turned into this.)

At this point, Cantha finally makes landfall on continental Tyria, specifically at Orr. Thanks to Bane declaring it a human refugee nation, Cantha begins setting up shop there to launch a land invasion on Elona – turns out they’ve been at war with Joko for quite some time, but the DSD had kept their naval warfare to a minimum. Siding with the Canthans, Bane leads the Commandos and Pact southeast into Elona, where they confront Kralkatorrik and chase it into the Hall of Heroes. Bane decides to leave it at that because, heck, it’s not human land he’s in anymore and Joko’s now a more pressing matter!

Using Searing Cauldron-infused Moahawks, Banes rains crystal missile fire of death over the Desolation, killing many of the normal undead there and obliterating the sulfurous wastes for good (as well as drying up that pathetic excuse of a dammed river) and launches a land invasion. They battle with Joko’s forces from the Temple of Ascension to the Hallowed Point, which is revealed to be the location of the Destruction Bloodstone (the sulfur being caused by the deadly magic of this bloodstone). Using a soul battery stolen from the war with the Sinister Triad, the Commandos kill Joko atop of this bloodstone and seal his soul within the soul battery for all eternity. Thus liberating Elona from the undead once and for all. All hail the liberated human nation!

But the threats aren’t over yet! There’s still three Elder Dragons left in Tyria (world).

Bane sees the threat of Jormag looming ever closer. As he leads his forces north he comes across some old hag and her whiny cub of a son who keeps nagging about following his own path despite following in his mommy’s footsteps. It gets to the point where this annoys Bane greatly, so he roundhouse kicks Braham into Jormag’s mouth (likely from either one of the kodan Sanctuaries, or one of his Moahawks – skaald stories aren’t really consistent here). Jormag chokes on Braham’s whinery and suffocates to death. “Job well done, norn!” Bane shouts as he sings tales of the bravely suicidal norn as Rox weeps in the corner over a lost love – whoever that is.

Next, Bane decides to turn his attention south, to the deep sea dragon! You see, Sayeh caught his eyes – or rather, her mostly-exposed butt did. He couldn’t help but help the woman in need! Using Pact submarines and Canthan technology that advanced in a similar manner to his own world’s technology (but not quite as advanced yet), the combined forces of Largos, Canthan, and Commando (the Pact has since been disbanded – the Commandos proved to be a good enough fighting force, and with Jennah and Logan now together, humanity’s place feels secure in the continent so who needs racial allies?) go deep into formerly krait-infested waters and use similar electrical grappling hooks that crippled Zhaitan to pull the name-still-unknown Elder Water Dragon to shore. Beached and marooned on Southsun Cove, Bane’s top scientists and magicians use a prototype weapon of mass destruction (which will later be used to force the other races into submission through fear Cold War style) – the combination of The Lost Scroll’s magic and the Searing Cauldrons! Using this magic, the island, housing the remaining karka, the DSD, and Consortium heads (“kitten ed asuran capitalists!” sayeth Bane) disappears forever. Not a trace of land is left, and all is well.

However, upon the detonation of this weapon, Primordus feels a massive magical surge on the surface. Having devoured the last of the stone dwarves, he finally makes an appearance – by popping through the Great Collapse, shooting that pathetic excuse of an arena through the hole and watching it land, crushing the royal palace (thus ending the royal line… again). Banes, being the militant “fight fire with fire” man that he is, tries the same attack on Primordus – though more concentrated, human homeland and all. Primordus, being made of fire and stone, shrugs these puny magic missles of fire off, having consumed all asuran and dwarven magic underground thus being superpowered and laughs before spouting a monologue of self-importance and how he intends to wipe all life out. Then he chomps down on Bane and one by one fulfills his gloating speech.

PLOT TWIST

Ceara truly did die when she delved her mind into the Eternal Alchemy. What she saw was not the Eternal Alchemy but instead the afterlife for sylvari – an ethereal showing of the sylvari life cycle. The truth is that Faolain had heard of Ceara’s accomplishments and wanted to draw her into Nightmare and found Omadd’s lab, but was too late. In anger of her tardiness, she used her magic like a puppeteer’s strings to animate Ceara’s corpse and voice, killing Omadd.

Now, using Ceara’s corpse as a front, Faolain has married Caudecus to solidify the Sinister Triad alliance. “Scarlet Briar” is merely a false identity created from Ceara’s past to hide the true villains behind it all, and using Faolain’s magic and the Inquest’s technology, the trio has agreed to take out Divinity’s Reach first, causing a bit of chaos in Ascalon and the Shiverpeaks in an attempt to get the Flame Legion and dredge to join the Sinister Triad (the centaurs were to be the fourth member, but the death of Ulgoth made the plans change) – the Molten Alliance was merely a “test” to see if they can work together and the results proved that they can… so long as they don’t fail.

On the other end of the continent, Shodd has become discontent in working in the lab of the asuran Commander. He joined the Inquest and learned of the Steam creatures’ current existence in Lornar. Using them, he gained ranks to leadership, replacing Kudu. And it was he and Caudecus who agreed upon attacking Divinity’s Reach (Shodd being stuck in his desires of genius, power, and glory recalled the mention of the Battle of Divinity’s Reach by the Grand High Sovereign). It was also Shodd who retrofitted the Watchknights into the Twisted minions and it was through both the Inquest and White Mantle/Bandits that the Aetherblades got outfitted. The humans of the Aetherblades are in fact merely bandits, while the charr of the Aetherblades come from the Renegades – who secretly work for Bangar Ruinbringer – and the norn come from nearby pirate crews.

At the moment while Faolain and Caudecus use the guise of Scarlet Briar to cause anarchy in the west, Shodd is hitting it up with the twin Councillor sisters, Ludo and Zudo, in order to further Inquest connections in the Arcane Council. Using these connections, he intends to tamper with Kiel’s research into the Thaumanova Reactor – using the chaos magic to open a tear into Universe A that the Grand High Soverieng came from (Universe 1 being the current universe).

However, this plan fails, and instead of more steam creatures like Shodd wanted we get…

CORPORAL BANE Mother kittens! Coming from Universe Alpha where humanity has redominated the continent and then some, the commandos storm through to liberate humanity from the yoke of oppression by other races and the Elder Dragons. Bane’s first move is sniping Shodd and Evon in Lion’s Arch, and then he moves on west with his commando unit to wage war against the Sinister Triad alongside the forces of the Seraph (being Bane, he doesn’t care for the aid of Wardens or Peacekeepers, though they give it). This culminates in a full out war westerward, ending in a final confrontation between the PC, Bane, Logan, Caithe and Zojja versus Faolain, Caudecus, and Lazarus – whom are backed by…. an imprisoned Mordremoth! Who in actuality awoke the same time as Primordus (because Primordus was pushed back, but the other Elder Dragons’ awakenings were unaffected by this) but subjugated by the then-healed Lazarus.

In the final confrontation with the Sinister Triad, Faolain and Caudecus bite the dust, but Lazarus escapes into the Mists cursing humanity and asuranity once more – but this time slapping the sylvari onto the list of those who’s generations shall suffer for their transgressions against the Unseen One. Unfortunately, Mordremoth escaped in the confusion and flew eastward, spreading the Blighted across the landscape of Kryta and Ascalon (which will replace most of the spawns of Risen, Bandits, and Nightmare Courtiers).

With the initial threat of the Sinister Triad attempting to topple the human kingdom now gone, Banes heads to Orr and kittenslaps Trahearne for sitting on his kitten during this whole conflict and declares Orr a human refugee nation for all humanity. He then takes over as Marshal Bane and leads the Pact forces, backed by the Commandos, westward where they take out the Big Chicken (aka Shatterer) for good and goes further east across the Blazeridge to confront Mordremoth. Slaying Mordremoth thousands of feet into the sky, the Elder Plant Dragon falls into the inactive remains of Hrangmer – which upon impact, breaks through the rock and turns the volcano active once more, burning through the planty flesh of the dragon. Bane then leads his Commandos to the sadistic Blood Citadel where charr prisoners go to be “truly punished” and ends Bangar’s wildcard-reign and the Renegade threat.

I don’t get why folks believe that there are signs of Verata.

There aren’t.

At all.

Motto seemed very much uninterested in the Consortium’s offers. Even if they said they’ll always be open, that doesn’t matter if motto doesn’t care for their offers.

Do you mean continental Tyria? Or the world of Tyria? What do you mean by “first”? First ever, as in, in all history of the world? Or do you mean the first of the modern races.

If you mean the first first… utterly and completely unknown. The Elder Dragons have existed for several cycles of sleeping and awakening and the oldest existing records go to 10,000 BE when the Giganticus Lupicus got wiped out by the Elder Dragons. The oldest known creatures to exist on the world would be the Elder Dragons. The cycles are hinted to be at either a rate of 3-4k years, or 11k years. If the latter, then we could be expecting 33,000 years of utterly unknown history. If not more.

If you mean which of the modern races were first to arrive on the world – as your question seems to ask – then once more it’s really unknown. As far as we know, all life except for the Forgotten, Jotun, Dwarves, Karka, Djinn, and Seers (I would mention Mursaat but they all fled into the Mists), with possiby Tengu, Kodan, and Krait as well, was utterly wiped out in the last rising. That means all the races you see now came about since then. Where or how, unknown.

Humanity’s known to have come from the Mists with the Six Gods – and it’s said previously the Forgotten did as well though whether or not that got retconed is unknown – but we don’t know when.

On continental Tyria, humanity only arrived in 205 BE (excluding when first brought to the world – apparently humanity was relocated after arriving on the world to the south). And charr have been around long before that – though how long is similarly unknown. Same goes for norn, and it’s implied by Thruln the Lost that they too were around during the last Elder Dragon rise. Asura are hinted via Rata Pten to have been on the surface once before GW1, but how long ago and how many is unknown (just a settlement or, if very far back, the whole race?).

In short: We don’t know. We only really have a rough history of humanity and the charr and the ‘elder races’ – beyond that, it’s still a mystery.

“Somewhere” being nowhere.

Gandarel.5091:

I don’t want to turn this to be the 3287476237856237th kodan-largos-Tengu playable race thread. But only Tengu got chances and maybe, mabye the largos.

Congrats, you did.

Gandarel.5091:

But considering how the Largos alienate themselves from other races and only 5-6 of them makes contact with us

They aren’t alienating, they just don’t live in large numbers nearby. Unlike the quaggans, krait, and karka, the largos seem to be mainly still situated in the Unending Ocean. That’s not alienation.

It’d be like saying Japan alienates itself because there aren’t many Japanese in, I dunno, India.

Gandarel.5091:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Gandarel.5091:

Btw, if expansion. The reason why we couldn’t go to the ocean was Zhaitan. He is gone. Basically, route to Cantha and Elona are open. Elona is closer, and if they could aid the living in rebelling against undeads and attack Kralkatorrik from 2 sides would work.

Or recruit.. Palawa >_> The OoW wouldn’ like that, however.

I would like to contest that with the existence of the DSD. Sure, Zhaitan’s navy are grounded, but you still have the critters of the deep.

We don’t even know where that dragon is. And the Ocean is a lot bigger than any other dragon’s territory, maybe 1 out of 10 ships will disapper, big thing.

For Elona you would just have to follow the coastline.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Movement_of_the_World#Cantha

“Sporadic sailors have washed ashore on the southern coast of the Maguuma jungles, but that is the only evidence that Cantha even exists past the cataclysmic event that cut it off from Tyria.”

The presence of sporadic sailors imply that Cantha’s attempting contact with Tyria. If Zhaitan was the only threat in the way, they’d probably be risen not merely sporadic – and on top of that, they’d now be showing up on our doorstep. It seems highly likely the DSD’s influence stretches to between Cantha and Tyria.

Gandarel.5091:

Somewhere it was stated that there are Tengu in the maguuma Jungle.

Art of GW2 book.

Ludovicus.7980:

It is sad to read such a bitter post from you, Konig. You used to love this game.

And it’s really hard to make me to stop loving something. Honestly, it’s just the Living Story that’s post-April that I dislike.

Like Aaron, I wouldn’t say Elementalism is weaker than Mesmerism, but rather that it’s either easier to comprehend and master or that it’s simply a more basic use of magic (which would in many cases, make it easier to comprehend on a lower scale).

@Tobias: While he didn’t claim to have seen the Eternal Alchemy, he says to have a better understanding – which is more or less the same thing, seeing how the Eternal Alchemy isn’t a thing, but a concept to describe the meaning of life.

I mean, if you want to get technical, what Ceara saw couldn’t have been the Eternal Alchemy, but at best a representation of the Eternal Alchemy.

Presuming McCoy doesn’t botch this up like her interview.

@Zhaneel: It pretty much is only an easter egg. It’d be news for GW2-only folks who didn’t pay attention to interviews, but for others there’s little new.

Seiran wasn’t a great character, but neither was Tybalt and Forgal – too limited in interaction for proper development.

But Seiran and Ceara are worlds apart. Ceara being far, far worse.

My thoughts on SAB? A fun joke.

It shoulda remained as a joke.

Next up: Commandos from an alternate reality. Featuring: stick people breakdancing! And little people.

In my opinion, the “Living Story” is slowly and surely killing the game. They should have stuck with only holiday updates and expansions.

Living Story update:

You can no longer make a sylvari character. All sylvari PCs are hostile to formerly allied NPCs. Quaggans now playable in their stead.

8D

Any existing Mordremoth concept art is from 2007 or so by Kekai Kotaki, all unused in the end and were just early drafts of what the Elder Dragons could be looking like.

The living story has been stated to focus on the “personal nemesis” (so despite their claim of a living world, it isn’t), so it’s unlikely to ever devulge away from Scarlet for a long long time. They’ll be losing players before they decide to kill Scarlet off, I feel.

An actual expansion may still occur – when they see that their plans for a living story will utterly fail. Because quite honestly, they’re robbing new players of an experience – if they ever do succeed at making Scarlet a “personal” nemesis, then it will be through one or a few months’ content. That content passes, while old players have a reason to hate Scarlet and Scarlet to hate old players, new players get nothing.

They had a chance to make the living story work – with making the instances permanent additions on top of the Personal Story perhaps – but they screwed up. They’ll be doing something new before the end of next year, if they’re not too stubborn.