Guild Wars 2

Azjenco.9425:

250 years ago it wasn’t all that uncommon to see players running around with mountainous stacks of gold. Back then the people even traded in platinum, which was also in such abundance that alternate trading became the norm.

Nowadays gold is a rare commodity, platinum isn’t even in trade anymore. The people have even reverted to other lesser coins, coppers and silver, just to fill the gap. Makes one wonder, when did such a huge economic downfall struck the world.

Copper and silver coins were ALWAYS part of GW lore – it’s just that the players’ money system didn’t include them.

And even in GW2, there’s platinum coins – see Stealing Secrets personal story step.

So no, the Elder Dragons did not make Tyrians poorer – it’s just a mechanical change. And now how players see money is more like how it actually is – and always has been – in lore. This of course includes the prices of things. I can’t see a simple cheap-as-hell sword costing 3 gold coins unless gold was a common-as-all-hell resource.

What I don’t get, however, is why having 1,000 gold coins in one’s inventory doesn’t change it to having 1 platinum, rather than 1,000 gold coins.

Shevek.2691:

Guardian magic is a result of the School of Preservation, yes; it’s fueled by strong faith in something. Friends and family, a cause, your leader, yourself—anyone can be a guardian under these terms.

Pretty much this.

Guardian Magic comes from the school of Preservation (or rather, I should say, suspected to – the only profession who’s school of magic is confirmed is Elementalist, who use Destruction magic), and those who are guardians have strong faith in something. For charr, it’s usually faith in their warband or legion, for humans it’s in the Six Gods. There’s a Nightmare Court sylvari guardian who’s faith is in the Nightmare.

Zhaitan did more than that – he besieged Lion’s Arch, wiped out various port cities, and was an overall nuisance to anyone near the Sea of Sorrows.

Jormag on the other hand not only forced the norn south, but survived a battle with four of the Spirits of the Wild (of which he ate one), toppled iceburg cities (the kodan sanctuaries) and scattered the entire kodan race to the four winds, and let’s not forget that he shattered part of the largest mountain range known on Tyria to create an inland sea when he woke up (that’s splitting mountains down to below sea level, and that inland sea is pretty wide).

And that’s not to ignore the deep sea dragon who pushed the entire krait race – who are put on par to charr in battle prowess on land (meaning underwater krait are stronger than charr on land), the quaggan, the largos, the karka, and has managed to remain unknown to most of civilization.

Primordus on the other hand pushed out the asura – big deal, right? Well…. Elder Dragons eat magic, and the asura had to leave all those magical objects that they had (and lets not forget how asura often lose such magical objects due to their paranoia). That’s a lot of food, and he’s been down there for 200 years creating that army of his.

And speaking of magical food surpluses, the Crystal Desert is a land rich in magic, and where is Kralkatorrik? Yeah…

Zhaitan was taken out because he’s the most immediate of threats, not because he’s the greatest. If anything, he seems to be the weakest of the Elder Dragons. Kralkatorrik second, only because he got his kitten handed to him by five individuals and his former champion (even if he did just wake up) – but on the up side for him, he put a huge thorn in the charr’s side just before. The only Elder Dragon we can compare – of those we know about – for strength would be the sixth ED.

I’ve never been to Asia, but I know it exists.

The charr, asura, norn, and sylvari knows that it exist. And modern humans and tengu never been there either.

Inkubus.7529:

this map is fitting too perfectly
http://i.imgur.com/WZeaQ.jpg

That’s the most oblong shaped zone ever – and I think the green is meant to show unseen Dominion of Winds’ wall? if so, it’d be wrong since Garrenhoff is a port town – the wall being where the green is would cut it off, and it doesn’t match the novels’ maps.

THere’d probably be two maps – the city and some “mini-zone” like Southsun Cove that’s meant to be a lvl 1-10 area, before tengu players get put into Caledon Forest and then Kessex Hills before joining the rest of the players.

Cherokeewill.7504:

That’s what, three and a half years at most before the “greatest threat” to Tyria is annihilated? What do we do then?

Then we deal with the lich that’s the greatest threat to Elona, then we deal with the greatest threat to Cantha, then the greatest threat to the Mists (Dhuum and Menzies).

There’s plenty of plot possibilities outside the Elder Dragons, and suffice it to say, they don’t need to be “the greatest threat” either. A cunning foe can be more dangerous than a wild animal who kills all adventurers entering its woods. An immortal lich can be as deadly as a magic-eating eldritch abomination that just so happens to resemble a giant flying lizard.

I think that a campaign based around the White Mantle or Joko would be much more entertaining than fighting Jormag or Kralkatorrik. The White Mantle are backing the bandits, who are allied with the Nightmare Court, Inquest, and centaurs, have ties into the Ministry and Ministry Guard, the street gangs of Divinity’s Reach, and possibly still have ties to the mursaat. They easily hold a campaign all by themselves.

Besides, with the Pact formed, each Elder Dragon will basically be a repeat of everything post Forging the Pact from the storyline – just theme, NPCs, and location differs.

Cherokeewill.7504:

Aside from those listed above we also have currently in game the defeat of the Inquest/Separatists, the Treaty between Char and Human and the Sun Coast needs definite improvement.

Separatists weren’t defeated? TBH, the only group that was defeated was the Flame Legion – though not completely, they lost their leader as well as some tribunes and a good number of their forces. Inquest just lost Kudu and their Elder Dragon research.

But there’s, off the top of my head, ten immediate enemy factions still active to varying degrees, not including Elder Dragons, and who knows how many can be introduced.

Cherokeewill.7504:

And just because Zhaitan’s dead doesn’t mean we can ignore and huge problem still facing the continent. Orr needs to be cleansed, Arah needs to be rebuilt and the last of Zhaitan’s lieutenants need to be destroyed. The Zhaitan story is still incomplete.

Zhaitan was defeated – never said to be dead. Just to nitpick (go ahead and quote Matthew Medina’s post, he said defeated ).

Greyalis.2309:

I bet they will either implement horse mounts inside of these two zones, or some sort of event involving riding said horse mounts.

It was already stated by Anet that there will be no mounts.

He’s referring to the supposed boundaries brought up by the Shuttered Gate in Lion’s Arch, where tengu say that on the other side (which leads to the land between Kessex and LA) is the Dominion of Winds. Based on that one tengu, then the Wizard’s Tower and Garrenhoff would be cut off by the wall, meaning it makes no sense for that to be a port town – or for the karka to have managed to attack it (unless they also attacked the Dominion of Winds).

This is wrong, however, as the novel maps show the wall ending before where the Wizard’s Tower would be. And the merchant NPCs along the path to the Shuttered Gate imply that said gate is a recent development since that’s a trade route. Ergo, that land is not part of the Dominion of Winds, but it seems that the tengu are expanding, and making that land theirs.

mercury ranique.2170:

bout the flamelegion…. I had a thought the either day (yip, one of those twisted ones).
I was hoping that in one of the future storylines there is a meeting of the pact, where they are discussing a way to accomplish somethign (e.g. kill and ED). None has a clue, but a whispers agent, who knows bout a flamelegion weapon and we have to restore peaceamong the charr. Think it would be an interesting storyline but thats just my twisted mind

Procuring a Flame Legion weapon is actually the reason behind Citadel of Flame. Though you’re only told this if you’re a charr character who’s gone far enough in the personal storyline (maybe other races, but not sylvari).

As things are, I don’t really want to be part of the evil factions. They were all made too black. Separatists and Renegades, for instance, I had high hopes for. Fueled by racial rivalries and disagreeing with the leading government, they could be a rebellious group that just wants to live life how they grew up living it. But instead, we get run of the mill “kill everything” terrorists who would kill their own brother or wife just as easily as killing their hated rival.

Or the Sons of Svanir who have this unnatural bias against women just because of one individual. I actually like the concept of a group worshiping an Elder Dragon and I really like the idea of the Sons of Svanir, except for their women bashing.

Anet just had to add in a stereotypical “this is evil no matter what” concept to every “evil” faction there is. The best we get are some turncoats in the Separatists, Bandits, and Inquest who have just seen how wrong their group is because they’re just so evil.

Just like what happened to the White Mantle in War in Kryta.

mercury ranique.2170:

Anet took this road and shoulds stick to it in my opinion. So I still have hopes up that we will learn more bout what the other ED are up too.

The only road I see that Anet took is that they have a powerful distant threat alongside more up close threats. Naturally, there’s going to be more focus on the upclose threats.

I’m not saying they should never go on about the ED, but rather that only going on the ED would be boring, and Anet never truly made the game’s primary antagonists beyond Zhaitan to be only or mostly the Elder Dragons.

Mystic Starfish.2586:

But the other problem with focusing on dragons and making them relevant still is that the big big story takes place with expansions, store-bought and all. I can’t foresee them releasing the whole of fighting Jormag in just free content updates, it would be something more of a box buy.

I disgree with that having to be how it goes, but it probably will be Anet’s method…

Gaudrath.6725:

Speaking of ships, how come we aren’t using regular ones now that Zhaitan isn’t around to maintain his blockade?

You didn’t pay much attention to the beginning of the Lost Shores content did you? There were more ships in the Sea of Sorrows – until the karka threat. Since then though, we don’t know – probably an increase of ships, but due to the lack of new content, we can’t say.

Assuming there’s any updates to Lion’s Arch, we may see something of the like.

But there’s also the two following issues:
1) The threat in the Unending Ocean that drove krait and quaggan to the surface (the Pact seems to know of this threat being an Elder Dragon – they at least know of five active ED – and the quaggan in Timberline Falls says as much).
2) The interest in going elsewhere might not exist.

Margonites as humans had a more magical culture than other human cultures in GW1? I don’t recall this being said anywhere – yes Abaddon was their patron god, but I always saw that as being due to him being the god of the deeps (the ocean) and the Margonites being seafarers, rather than Margonites worshiping the god who granted magic to the races because they’re a magic-mainly group.

Especially since Margonites barely lasted a generation after magic was given out.

As for seeing military in risen… I can somewhat see it, though we do have some Admirals in the risen ranks that are coral coated, so we probably see plenty of Orr’s navy as Risen.

But I’d believe the bulk of their army were survivors or part of Khilbron’s invasion, given the huge number of spellcasters and armored rangers (and note how there were very few warriors, excluding those grasps).

They aren’t extinct – there’s a group of horses featured in Edge of Destiny.

Unless they went extinct over the past five to six years.

mercury ranique.2170:

But In myopinion the live and changing world that has promised us has to tell a story and I was under the impression that the story concerned ED’s and how they influence the world.

Then you’re quite wrong. And I blame ArenaNet’s focus on the dragons in their advertisement – going so far as to make a dragon (which is errily sharped like the jormag totems) is part of the icon (this is why I prefer the older one, which is an arched map of Tyria behind a 2 behind Guild Wars).

Just look at the initial release – of all that content, how much is actually focusing on the Elder Dragons? Yeah, over half of the personal story, but of the dynamic events? Very few overall. In terms of enemy forces – Flame Legion, centaurs, bandits (and White Mantle), and pirates have nothing to do with dragons; Inquest, supposedly Nightmare Court, possibly krait (other than being displaced by like the karka), and dredge have very little to do with dragons.

The Elder Dragons – all six of them – are more of a “distant threat” beyond the initial personal story. Only Zhaitan was really up-front anyways, and Jormag second. Kralkatorrik is only an issue due to the Dragonbrand, and the rest are only here and there bits (both directly and indirectly)..

mercury ranique.2170:

cause gw2 should all be bout dragon’s

Ugh. No. Just not.

“Hey, go fight this dragon. Oh, you killed it? So go fight this dragon! Oh, that one’s dead? Okay, go kill that dragon! Another dead dragon – next dragon!”

Talk about bland and boring. The great thing about GW1 was that there was so much variety among the enemies – both in just the first campaign and in the entire series of campaigns.

Direksone.3867:

EDIT: THIS update no Dragons will be coming in if you are still wondering that, I think that quote is quite clear on that. It’s a prelude, they’re setting the world up.

Read the post from Martin again. He doesn’t say update or in the prelude. He says the story arc.

Icarus Pherae.4680:

Oglaf.1074:

Yes! Time to pay Jormag! Eventough we might not fight him, let’s ruin stuff for him! The more Norn-related content the better!

Wait I’m confused, can’t you fight Jormag all the time in Frostgorge Sound? That’s all I ever read when I am there “when is jormag” “is jormag up?” “15 mins till jormag” “Jormag 50%” :P

That’s the Claw of Jormag. One of Jormag’s champions.

Think of the Eye of Zhaitan or the Mouth of Zhaitan. People should be calling the Claw of Jormag “Claw” and not “Jormag.”

There was a quest chain in Prophecies about how the White Mantle, in hopes of getting converts, offered to provide supplies. Adelbern refused, but the people still accepted aid when he wasn’t looking.

Mystic Starfish.2586:

And wasn’t Caladbolg stuck in the ground after Trahearne purified Orr? IMO, it’s the new source, so it needs to stay there to keep Orr looking nice

This is what I’ve figured.

This combined with the ritual taking a lot out of Trahearne is why he didn’t make it to face Zhaitan, so I figured.

Frost candidates (from what I find to be most to least likely/sensible/desirable):

• Icebrood/Jormag – seems to be void, at least on Jormag and any champions
• Sons of Svanir – might be void, due to ties to Jormag, but “no dragon” may just mean no appearance of a dragon (Elder? champion? Not clear)
• Jotun – would make sense for an up-and-coming giant-king to make a stance and cause trouble for everyone
• Modniir – they have their hands full with humans, lost Ulgoth which kept the three tribes together, and hold no known grudges to charr, so I don’t see this.
• Dredge – don’t see to be likely as it wouldn’t make sense; dredge are in a civil war so why would they make more trouble for themselves? So I don’t see this personally, at least not without Anet making some sort of kitten pull
• Shiverpeak grawl

Flame candidates

• Destroyers/Primordus – seems to be void, at least on Primordus and any champions
• Flame Legion – they’re in a civil war and had a massive devastating blow in Fireheart Rise, so I don’t see this personally, at least not without Anet making some sort of kitten pull
• Ascalon grawl

Once you take out “dragons” you don’t get many things that make sense with the theme. Best I can say would probably be Flame/Jotun, Flame/Modniir, or Flame/Dredge – if we assume “no dragons” include “no dragon minions.”

There’s two Arboreal spirits – one outright says he’s a druid, and his body is called a druid husk by the Priory. The other one doesn’t speak though.

Tyria ALWAYS had horses. Since Prophecies, horses have been mentioned. Iron Horse Mines, for example. Necrid Horsemen for another example.

Horses are also mentioned to be in Canthan history in An Empire Divided. And don’t forget about the Celestial Horse.

Edge of Destiny also mentions horses in a plain.

For other mentions of the word “horse” in both GW1 and GW2 see:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=Horse&go=Go
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=Horse&go=Go

Mystic Starfish.2586:

Hate to be a downer, but I think they said they’re not making new zones for this, or at least right away.

They said new regions, not new zones. But for the prelude I can’t see a new zone – though given Anet, “region” to them might be “zone” to us. That said, if there’s new zones, it’ll be in February or March, when the story is meant to really take off.

Anyways, my initial thoughts on the title alone lead to three concepts:
*Jormag and Primordus
*Sons of Svanir and Flame Legion (a friend of mine often jokes about how they’d get along in their female-hating)
*Shiverpeak Grawl and Ascalon Grawl

Of course, other big threats in Wayfarer and Diessa would include dredge. And there’s always the modniir.

Gaudrath.6725:

SpeedFiend.4521:

Gaudrath.6725:

Considering the Flame legion used Kralk’s power to fuel their Searing

Where is this mentioned?

Not sure anymore, just remember some NPC discussing how the Searing crystals look awfully like the ones Kralkatorrik creates. I might be mistaken, but the fact that using any kind of magic won’t do anything against elder dragons but feed them, remains. Flame Legion has nothing to rain on Jormag. Iron Legion could. Cannonballs. Might tickle.

Really? I’d LOVE to see this. I’ve speculated on that since the Movement. But on what NPCs say, I only have seen an NPC near the Tail of the Star God POI (the giant crystal in Pockmark) say that it comes from magic predating the titans.

They become fertilizer.

/endsarcasm

I’ve actually speculated that the sylvari are soulless for a while. We never once see a sylvari spirit – but we do see charr, asura, human, norn, and other non-major races having souls. It’s very interesting to consider.

Naturally, the sylvari themselves think that they have spirits. But there are conflicting views on what happens to them after they die – some, like Seiran and Cadyrn, believe they go into the Mists like everyone else. Others, such as a generically named Warden in the Grove, believes that they’ll return to the Dream of Dreams. Still others, if I remember correctly, believe that when they die they become nothingness (effectively same outcome as if they had no soul).

@Athuria: We see Oola’s spirit, so we do see an asura ghost outside of the Lunatic Court.

And Secrets of the Earth isn’t about souls at all – it’s just about the past events. The ritual allows you to witness what happened in the past, though to you it becomes tangible (think of the Matrix movie, how things in the matrix can hurt your body – die in the matrix, die in real life).

And I don’t recall any treants having spirits. Perhaps you refer to the druids? They were originally humans who took on a plant-like appearance (Willowhearts, to be exact).

There’s no branded centaurs because there’s no centaurs in Ascalon.

The only race immune to corruption would be the sylvari.

The reason why we don’t see many different kinds of destroyers, icebrood, or branded is because they’re not the focus of the story – otherwise we should be seeing icebrood and branded wurms and grawl, icebrood jotun, icebrood centaurs, branded harpies, and so forth.

There’s no risen centaurs because there’s not much interaction between the two groups – they only get near the borders of each other, and the centaurs generally don’t like risen (sylvari lvl 28 story path if you join the Whispers puts them against each other, where the centaurs make some comments about how they really really don’t like dealing with risen).

A generically named Seraph Soldier that circles around within Fort Trinity explains why centaurs are attacking – the real reason. There’s also a long standing history ever since 300 AE.

Conflict began in when Kryta was (re?)settled in 300 AE and expanded into centaur territory (where is unknown) and had been going on ever since more or less – there’s a conflict with centaurs in the background of GW1, though it’s never shown it’s often talked about in the Maguuma Jungle. I presume that Watchtower Coast’s towers were meant for the centaur threat from the north – and when they were removed between GW1 and GW2, the centaurs attacked again in full force.

More recently though…

The Modniir tribe was almost wiped out 250 years ago by norn and humans. A couple decades ago, the up-and-coming leader, Ulgoth, re-united the Modniir and the subjugated the Tamini and Harathi with pledges of vengeance against the humans and norn. They claim that they’re wanting land, but the true motivation is the Modniir’s revenge. The Tamini and Harathi are ruled by fear into joining.

Gaudrath.6725:

Airships we have are tough enough to take a direct hit from an elder dragon and still remain airborne. I doubt that severe winds and an occasional lightning strike would be a problem.

The Glory of Tyria is one-of-a-kind. All those others get knocked out constantly by dragon champions and could be flyswatted by Zhaitan.

But as BuddhaKeks said, combat ready is not the same as long distance travel.

Anyways, to answer the OP, probably because they belong to the Pact and the Pact are focused on fighting Elder Dragons, not re-establishing contact with xenophobic continents that, given the last known state of them, wouldn’t lift a finger except to shout “GET THE kitten OUT OF MY HOME!”

Gaudrath.6725:

If it was built for such a short flight, they might as well scrap it now because unless they plan on bunnyhopping it across Tyria, it is useless.

It pretty much was. During the second instance of The Source of Orr, it’s repeatedly stated that the Glory of Tyria isn’t yet complete, that it hasn’t been test flighted, and probably won’t be ready for facing Zhaitan.

They rushed its development. It’s incomplete and the fight with Zhaitan was its test flight. It’s a prototype – and a shoehorned one at that.

And it probably will be scrapped until improvements on the design can be made.

Gaudrath.6725:

No, the real reason why they won’t use the Pride to cross oceans is because it needs to be at its dock, ready for the next party of heroes doing Arah story mode. :p

Nah, it’ll be ready for Gunnar’s Hold story mode – when they go to face Jormag. And in the fight, it’ll crash into the ocean, into Drakkar who’s sinking all the Sanctuaries with his army of Fins of Jormag dragon champions. After the laser just bounces off of Jormag and he goes “lol mind crush you all” leaving the crew a bunch of bumbling drooling idiots turning into icebrood.

@Errant: “Sadly, his efforts were unsuccessful. Not only did he fail to stop the wars tearing Kryta and Ascalon apart, but the attempt to use Orrian troops to stop fighting elsewhere left his own country open for an invasion of its own—by the charr.” http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls

The Orrian army were mostly not in Orr at the time – they were sent to Kryta and Ascalon to end the Guild Wars faster. Because of King Reza doing this, the third Guild War was the bloodiest and highest casualties of all three.

This said: most of the surviving Orrians that remain hidden in society (they hide their heritage due to all the dark events of the land) are likely descended from said military.

However, as pointed out by BuddhaKeks, most GW1 Orrian Undead look like they were from the military, so any that were in Orr at the time of the Cataclysm – or returned after – are likely among those numbers, and thus not in Orr when Zhaitan woke up.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Also I know when Kralkatorric rose that a lot of the charr were driven south, but I’m curious to know if there have been operations to retake Blood Legion homelands like they are in the Brand area. There were a lot of interesting things up there too.

Uh, you mean when Jormag rose the norn were pushed south.

Not the charr. When Kralkatorrik rose he went south and created the Dragonbrand.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Anyone else wondering what ’ol Rotscale is up to these days?

I always figured he was killed in GW1.

@Gaudrath: You mean that it being constantly and repeatedly stated that sylvari die before corruption can take place isn’t evidence that sylvari cannot be corrupted? Stated both in game and by developers since nearly a year before release? The reason why the Pale Reavers (a group of all sylvari scouts in the Pact) exist?

We’re outright told that all Elder Dragons cannot corrupt sylvari. And have been for a while. This isn’t a questionable matter, buddy boy. The sixth and DSD may be an exception given their lack of influence on the world and lore about them, but icebrood, branded, and destroyers are not.

@Nay: Arah explorable. The risen are still devoted to Zhaitan, despite there being no Zhaitan.

Also, I think if they killed an Elder Dragon in the last cycle, the jotun and dwarves would have kept records of it.

Well, in regards to the temple metas, they have their own reward (making Orr easier), so I don’t think an achievement per temple is really needed (maybe one for defeating each priest + the High Wizard at Gates of Arah).

I don’t think Taidha got an achievement because she’s above the others, but rather that the others don’t need such for people to go fight her – and the dragons got one because they’re just freakin’ dragons.

Inkubus.7529:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Kodan – they seem unlikely given the lack of customization abilities in appearance. Charr have leopard patterns, tiger patterns, Siamese cat patterns, plain patterns, etc. Kodan? They have white, white, and more white. Polar bear people is very limited.

I disagree on this.
Look at Asura. Their only true customizations are ears, hair and tattoo.
Look at humans. The only true customization is hair, beard for males and tattoo.
If we take Kodan, we can have also beards, warpaint, while hair and jaw similar to Charr.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Kodan_04_concept_art_(Kodan_Voice).jpg

Kodan wouldn’t really have beards or head hair, if you ask me.

And humans, charr, norn, sylvari, and asura have the kodan cannot ever have: skin color.

Kodan are polar bears. At best, without breaking that, you’ll have various shades of white.

And with how kodan are currently, hair, beard, and the like seems unlikely. And the tattoos thus far seen on kodan are unique to the Voices, so while possible, overall seems unlikely given what we’re shown. So all you really have beyond body physic and height, would be facial features and shades of white fur – with a possible tattoo.

Don’t get me wrong either – I wouldn’t mind kodan being playable. I’d probably enjoy it, in fact (well, so long as I get a constant speed boost skill for such a character – norn feel slow as hell enough, can’t imagine an even bigger race). I just don’t see it likely given customization possibilities.

All the races have a lot more than what kodan have seen possible. Doesn’t mean Anet can’t make stuff up, but the biggest barrier is the polar bear aspect.

This is sounding more like “why doesn’t Ulgoth have an achievement” rather than “what’s the story behind Taidha” now. :P

It’s likely that they’re going to add more Boss category achievements (I can see some for the Jade Maw, Ulgoth, and quite a few others).

If you pay attention to the nearby hearts, you’d learn that Taidha is a commander of multiple pirate fleets (basically every pirate in Bloodtide Coast and then some, sans the one pirate captain which the Order of Whispers wants to replace Taidha with because he’s easy to manipulate), a huge thorn in the side of the Lionguard, a target for the Order of Whispers, and an overall kitten apparently.

She’s basically Tyria’s version of Blackbeard.

I want to know too, the answer to this riddle. I don’t think a reason was ever given.

Maybe they did know of the Elder Dragons, but didn’t know of Zhaitan being under Arah. I mean, the forgotten cleansed Glint in Arah, so he had to have moved in while they were hiding.

That is a possibility, though all three tribes are seen coming from the east and the Seraph in Brisban never make mention of centaurs.

I never brought up how the outcome turns out – merely that dragon corruption of multiple dragons can co-exist in a single being.

Therefore, sylvari, who die before becoming corrupted, cannot be dragon minions.

So while you nitpick the wording, point remains untouched and unphased.

Skykiller.3160:

When I first went through this I had simply assumed that this had something to do with the Nightmare Court, but after thinking about it you do not fight any Nightmare Court in the dream.

Well, that’s kind of to be expected. No sylvari can physically return to the Dream of Dreams – not without the help of the Pale Tree.

The Nightmare Court do spread the nightmare in the Dream of Dreams, but they themselves don’t return to the Dream of Dreams. So you wouldn’t find Nightmare Courtiers in the Dream – just the memories of them.

Skykiller.3160:

Also when you actually get to doing the story for about 10-15 levels or even before that you also find out that the Nightmare Court has had no luck with actually finding a way of corrupting the dream (well they find ways but always get stopped at the last second by your character).

Wrong – what you stop are their major movements to corrupt the Dream of Dreams. But they’re all still spreading Nightmare.

At least as far as we know – and by all means, they should be. By spreading negative emotions and painful memories among the sylvari, more darkness (nightmare) spreads into the Dream of Dreams.

Personally, I’d consider that there’s two kinds of nightmare:
The nightmare produced by negative emotions and painful memories – the kind spread by the Nightmare Court. And then the kind that instigated the Nightmare Court – the darkness that Faolain saw before joining the NC, for instance. The latter I personally think may be tied to Mordremoth (the sixth).

Narcemus.1348:

Yeah, I am pretty sure I have seen in dialogue many times that the increased intelligence of groups of skritt comes from their ability to communicate at rapid speeds. This allows their minds to somewhat network increasing their intelligence. Like, for example, if you video taped a bunch of game designers brainstorming a game, and then watched it in fast forward.

Yes, we know that’s why. The point I was making was that the asura don’t seem to know this.

Though it seems one or two may, but most who experiment – or any form of interaction – with skritt seem unknowing of this.

Durzlla.6295:

They are a hive mind race….

Actually, they aren’t. They’re a fast-communication race.

The difference is that hive minds are telepathic, but skritt are not. Their communication is in a fast speaking language which other races understand as chirping (they don’t actually chirp, they just talk very very fast). The reason why they become so smart in groups is because they discuss things very quickly – thus they build off of each others’ ideas and understandings of the same situation.

It creates a faux hive mind. When together, it seems like a hive mind, but it isn’t. Remove the skritt’s means of talking, and they’re all morons again. No matter how many you get together.

The only hive minds that exist in GW2 are the dragon minions.

ArenaNet creates a false comparison with calling them hive minds – just as they incorrectly state that Guild Wars didn’t have a hive mind race before the skritt (destroyers in Eye of the North were hive mind).

Irrell.3524:

the Ascalonian Settlement has shifted all the way to where Divinity’s Reach is.

Wut?

I think someone needs (new?) glasses…

Irrell.3524:

Now I’d really like to open up discussion about possible upcoming zones, but also to open up more interesting lore options. An example of this – how has the place of ruling for Humans moved from Lion’s Arch (with Queen Salma and ‘The Battle of Lion’s Arch’ ) towards Divinity’s Reach?

Not sure what that question really has to do with new zones, or for that matter what you mean by it – why is the leadership of Kryta in DR instead of LA? Simple: when Lion’s Arch flooded, Krytan abandoned the city for new high ground, and established Divinity’s Reach. Lion’s Arch was rebuilt by pirates, thus the Krytan royalty settled in Divinity’s Reach, and didn’t get back to LA before pirates rebuilt it.

As for future zones, rather than looking at GW1 to GW2 placements, it’d be better to look at areas in GW2 which have closed gates and unreachable portals to other areas off the map. Of which, I’ve found the following:

• Kessex Hills going east (south of Gendarran) from Garrenhoff; and another going south into the Dominion of Winds from Dominion Killing Zone
• Caledon Forest going east from Dominion of Winds (area) into the Dominion of Winds (city)
• Brisban Wildlands going north from Lionshed Outcrops
• Harathi Hinterlands going east from Hidden Ourobn (I may be wrong on this, it’s actually a wall of boulders, so it may be tied to an event revealing some room or some such).
• Fields of Ruin going south from Blackwing Excavations.
• Sparkfly Fen going west (into the fogged area between Southsun Cove and Sparkfly Fen) from Karinn’s Passage
• Mount Maelstrom going southeast from Judgment Rock.
• Frostgorge Sound going north from Drakkar Spurs (there’s a bit of ice that looks like it could give way to a portal).

And going off of topics of GW2 event interests – there’s western Maguuma Jungle (Malyck’s tree), Crystal Desert (Kralkatorrik), the rest of Orr (Anet should show us some non-corrupted Orr, and there’s plenty of research that the Priory would be interested in), and Far Shiverpeaks (Jormag). In continental Tyria, at least. Other lands are of lesser interest to the NPCs of GW2 and with fewer to no known threats.

But there’s already old threads on this topic anyways.

I never said that they couldn’t corrupt otherwise, just that they hold a preference to such. And due to said preference, chances are you won’t see Primordus or his champions doing around corrupting Branded – but you might see Kralkatorrik and his champions going around corrupting Destroyers.

That’s stretching things beyond the realm of disbelief there.

Sylvari aren’t dragon minions, they’re parts of the dragon itself!

That’s what you’re saying in less confusing syntax. But that’s silly to the point where I can’t argue against it because it’s just that far out of the realm of possibility – and similarly, you have nothing to support such a hypothesis. Like saying my heart came directly from the Abrahamic God – you can’t disprove it, but there’s nothing to support such a claim either.

Edit: Oh, and you’re also making the assumption that Elder Dragons can’t corrupt each other.

That’s actually be a pretty kitten cool concept – Kralkatorrik (for example) goes around and battles Primordus and Jormag, corrupting them with his breath making them serve him, thus uniting three of the five remaining Elder Dragons into one single threat…

I wouldn’t call the dwarves loyal lap dogs to the Six Gods – at most, they only worshiped Dwayna and Grenth alongside the Great Dwarf (I wonder why, personally…).

Son of Elias.5420:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Yes, well, I think of Aesgard when I think of Asgeir (or rather, Aesgir).

<_< It’s spelled ‘Asgard’. Or, more specifically, it’s spelled “Ásgarðr”.

Sorry, I meant Aesir – or if you want to get technical, Æsir.

Dunno why the two got mixed up in my head. (Edit: Oh, probably because my guild was talking about the Asgard and Stargate’s joke on the name (“we’re called Asgard because we guard your kitten #8221;) earlier yesterday).

draxynnic.3719:

If this is so, I could see this having ramifications with the Kryta-LA relations – I could see the Krytan government feeling that they didn’t have to guard an approach the Lionguard was already guarding, and the demonstrated falsity of that assumption has cost a lot of Krytan lives.

This kind of already is the situation, truth be told. That the Krytan government are having poorer views of Lion’s Arch.

There’s two ministers – Minister Etham and a generic one – in The Upper City talking about the situation with Nebo Terrace, where the generic one says they sent for aid from Lion’s Arch, and Etham says they’re not doing anything. The Ministry knows that the Lionguard aren’t helping – and probably know they’re staying neutral to the situation (and the centaurs are abusing their peace with the Lionguard according to the Sheriff in Kessex Haven, it just can’t be proven and the centaurs are denying it – though it may be referencing Daithor’s works).

Well what the wiki says there is the Nightmare Court’s belief and is, in fact, no different than saying “psychopaths are humans who embrace the darkest parts of their nature” truth be told. And all Cadeyrn’s questioning does is show that sylvari have free will and can disagree with the philosophy they grow up with. Hint: dragon minions don’t have free will (at best, champions have independent thinking, but they still are fanatically serving their dragon).

Personally, I don’t think either the Dream or the Nightmare are part of what makes a sylvari – especially given that there are those who can disconnect themselves from both cases (intentionally or not – Soundless for the former, Malyck for the latter), and even Nightmare Court eventually stop sending feelings to the Dream when they become twisted enough.

And yes, your view does make sense. Though the failing point is that non-sylvari can access the Dream (White Stag, PC’s via Pale Tree), thus it’s outright known to not be a “collective consciousness.”

Emissary Vex.5690:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

2) You do realize that the only way known to disconnect a dragon minion from their Elder Dragons’ control is to sever the mental connection, right? Ventari’s influence couldn’t do this.

Wrong, Glint is proof that a dragon champion is not under direct control of the dragon and still has free will, thus the Pale Tree can choose to do good.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

3) Sylvari are immune to dragon corruption, however, dragon minions are not immune to other dragons’ corruption.

Personally this only strengthens my theory, we only think Sylvari are immune due to the fact that they are immune to corruption from other dragons, but not immune to corruption from the dragon that created them.

1) Glint was freed by the Forgotten using a powerful ritual. Arah explorable, Warden Illyra path. You can find the dialogue for such on the wiki.

2) You do realize that what you said is actually not using what I said as support. Dragon minions are NOT immune. Sylvari ARE immune. Difference.

Wanna know how we know dragon minions are not immune to other dragons’ corruption? Crucible of Eternity. Kudu, Kudu’s Monster (a Risen Giant with powers of destroyers, branded, risen, and icebrood), and Subject Alpha all have four dragons’ corruption in them – the main four.

Mind you, these three cases are forced corruptions (we don’t see wild examples simply because there are no dragon minions close enough to conflict with each other at the moment – and even then, as it stands, destroyers would only be corrupted by Kralkatorrik and possibly Jormag, and Primordus wouldn’t corrupt others’ minions given the Elder Dragons’ preference for corrupting), but the point remains because sylvari cannot be given forced corruptions.

Those that migrated are in Bloodtide Coast and Sparkfly Fen (you can even find hylek grounds that are completely full of hylek undead). All the others are in their ancestral homes.

Sylvari and human storylines both feel fast paced, while norn feels slower (the revenge storyline is known to take a couple weeks iirc…). The charr and asura – some are faster feeling while others are slower feeling.

But they may all take the same amount of time. There is urgency presented in each storyline (to varying degrees), so it’s likely something that would be taken care of asap.

That’s the true question.

It might have been purified in some means (unintentionally) – the forgotten found a means to prevent corruption, and remove mental connection between dragon and minion, after all. It could also be the case that the stones are tainted, but not the magic, though that sounds more like handwaving to me, nonetheless a plausibility.

Nike.2631:

The end of the “personal” story was largely fatal to my pleasnat gaming experience.

The shift to group based-dungeoning to see the last page of the story literally ran my roommate and regular teammate right out of the game.

I still haven’t finished it because I want to do it in the company of my friends, and it kitten my friends off so bad they don’t play anymore.

So.. your friends stopped playing an MMO because they had to party with other players?

So.. your friends stopped playing an MMO because they had to party with other players?Seriously?

So.. your friends stopped playing an MMO because they had to party with other players?Seriously?That’s no fault of the game, that’s a fault of your friends.

Yes, well, I think of Aesgard when I think of Asgeir (or rather, Aesgir). But still, Aesgir is a common mispelling begun by Anet! Don’t hate me!

I blame ArenaNet occasionally mispelling it as Aesgir. And that Aesgir sounds more norse.