Guild Wars 2

1) Dryders are called demons and seem to originate from the Mists, though this isn’t outright said.

2) If you take note, we never actually go to where Dryders were in GW1. Who’s to say they aren’t still there? They were in the Far Shiverpeaks, around Anvil Rock, and on the Ring of Fire – as well as in the Mists (just about every place we could go – all Realms of the Gods, which we cannot access in GW2). Since the closest to these places we go to is Anvil Rock, which is still off the map, it’s not unlikely to believe they’re still in the world.

@Urthoa: If they originated with that company, you may hold something. But they didn’t. :P

All members of the same warband are under the same Legion. So you cannot have a charr who’s a member of one legion in a warband who has a member of another legion. However, you can have where a charr transferred into/out of that warband from/into another warband and legion – much like how you get your second warband member in the Iron Legion storyline. Alternatively, you can have a charr who’s assigned to work with another warband of another legion long-term, as well as, if Ash Legion, working undercover in another warband.

But a single warband cannot be within two Legions. But changing Legions is, while uncommon (in all four cases in the personal storyline, it is only said to be possible because Rytlock pulled some strings for you because he wubs u).

As for charr commitments – it depends on the individuals. It’s explained in Ghosts of Ascalon that most charr don’t have long lasting relationships, but it does happen. Snarl and Galena I suspect would be in the uncommon category, personally.

@Zaxares: There’s multiple fahrars per legion, and which fahrar a parent sends their cub to is first chosen by the legion the fahrar serves. There’s cubs in Plains of Ashford where its mentioned their folks crossed the Dragonbrand to take them to the Black Citadel fahrar because that’s the best Iron Legion fahrar in their parents’ opinions. Location doesn’t seem to matter much to them. But there’d be Blood Legion and Ash Legion fahrars in Ascalon just as well as Iron Legion fahrars.

As for when parents continue to maintain relations with their children – you’re also wrong here. The usual answer is “no” – the PC’s sire for Loyal Soldier was unusual in that he kept tabs, and the other two only came back in contact when something was up (well, the Honorless Gladium sire didn’t come back in contact – you hunted him down). Most parents and children only keep tabs on each other to know what they’ve been up to on a professional level, and nothing more.

Most of what you’re wrong at is shown in The Legions of the Charr. – the parent/child relation, I think, was mentioned in an interview though.

Nike.2631:

My guess is the dragons don’t give a soft, white kitten about out gender distinctions and are kind of waste-not want-not conquerers

I disagree with the notion that all Elder Dragons follow the whole “waste not want not” concept – Primordus doesn’t corrupt living beings, so that’s a lot of wasting (I find it unlikely that he can’t), and Jormag doesn’t seem to corrupt (except via Sons of Svanir forcibly corrupting) those who don’t come to him first, as just two examples.

I would say that they’re picky eaters, so to speak, but I wouldn’t say that Jormag doesn’t corrupt female norn – he likely just keeps them away from the Sons of Svanir for morale purposes. Or alternatively, there’s just no sapient female norn icebrood which would still work for the Sons of Svanir since that’s “using your kind” rather than “granting your kind power” as they say to non-norn in Hoelbrak.

smekras.8203:

given what we know of the EDs, Jormag is the only one that shows “active” intelligence, seducing people left and right with promises of power and conquest. unless the other EDs display similar, the Sons of Svanir may just consider them “dragons” instead of Dragons

Kralkatorrik and Zhaitan show intelligence, though Kralkatorrik we only know thanks to Edge of Destiny showing the thoughts of Branded and Kralkatorrik himself, and Zhaitan only shows it from halfway through the storyline on.

Dante.1508:

This is just a mild guess but Anet said they are going to revamp Orr maybe this revamp is going to show how us killing Zaitan has changed orr for the better.

I guess I don’t pay enough attention to GW news, but where was the revamp to Orr mentioned? Either way, I cannot see it being that they’re cleaning it up – it’s probably just a lot of balance changes (that Balth temple meta is hard as hell from the few times I’ve tried it, for example) or alternatively some changes to the events or mobs there (please reduce the CC!!!). The issue that cleaning up the corruption or mobs would bring is that new players who never fought Zhaitan would also see it, and they wouldn’t see the change so that it’s pointless or the change would be drastic to the point where Orr loses its “corrupted land of undead” feeling to new players.

It’d be cool and all, but I cannot see that happening.

Gaudrath.6725:

Seriously, the elder dragons are so cool, Zhaitan’s defeat was so… meh. It could have been made so much more epic.

True, it was rather meh, and only a few changes would really be needed to make it better. The main reason why it was meh was because the last phase of the fight was just stand there pressing 2 once you allign the cannons properly, only stopping for those weak-as-hell Tendrils of Zhaitan that spawn.

But your story… I don’t like, personally. They give a reason why Trahearne’s not there – he’s busy keeping the corruption at bay (this is said, iirc, in the instance after Zhaitan’s defeat in the personal story). And you have us finishing Zhaitan off with our basic weapons against a weak spot? Doesn’t that ruin your whole concept of why Elder Dragons are cool? Why would an Elder Dragon have a weak spot that can be taken out by tiny kitten weaponry?

All they had to do was have some dragon champions come in to defend their master while the Glory of Tyria airship circled around Zhaitan – making you change angle of the cannons, and leave the cannons to attack the (effectively endless) minion assaults. Then just add more attacks from Zhaitan – his little mouth tendril things practically snap at one or two of the cannons from 50% health and on, make that do damage.

No need to get all fancy with stuff that’s probably not entirely possible with the game engine (half the stuff you said would work great in a book or movie or as a cinematic, but probably not with the GW2 game engine).

But I digress – yes, the final fight with Zhaitan was sub-par. Let’s just hope we get better fights with Jormag who’s most likely to be next, and especially the deep sea dragon (I cannot see an army of airships being effective against any other Elder Dragon except maybe Kralkatorrik – you don’t really want airships over the arctic sea, where Jormag can submerge underwater, and they wouldn’t work with the DSD unless you force him to surface and they certainly wouldn’t with Primordus underground).

I don’t really see that anywhere in their culture shown. It is all eastern Asian to me. Their culture is obviously highly influenced by the Samurai, and their large wall… I can’t recall what it reminds me of, but one of the Eastern Asian cultures’ architecture if I remember correctly is similar.

The Eye of Zhaitan mentions all three mentors as being with Zhaitan. Given that Sieran is among the mentioned, it’s unlikely that the Eye of Zhaitan told the truth.

The only bit that indicates humans were in Orr when the Six Gods arrived was the Orrian History Scroll’s entry for Dwayna – the one for Lyssa doesn’t give any sort of timeframe except “when Arah was finished” (which is of no benefit to us in placing or guessing on the timeline because we don’t know when it was finished except “before 1 BE”).

The Orrian History Scrolls, however, do give an indication for when humans began spreading from Orr – “Doric was the first king of Tyria. His kingdom encompassed the lands we now know as Orr, Ascalon and Kryta. According to the ancient scroll. all human royalty descends from this first king. Doric created the human system of governance: he sheltered his people, first in Orr, then as the population grew, sent them out into Tyria with his blessing.”

Even if humans spread before King Doric was crowned, in order for them to spread with his blessing, he’d have to be both alive and a figure of power – though we don’t have a birth date for him, one would find it hard to imagine he lived for more than 140 years (the earliest known date for his lifespan is 115 BE, when he was Dwayna’s charge, and I personally find it hard to believe he was such as a child or teenager, placing him to have been born no later, I would imagine, than 135 BE).

I wouldn’t really say that. I mean, charr military is rather overpowering, and they’ve been constantly sending supplies to Ebonhawke. Not everyone can fight, you know, so its not like all the people who went to Kryta will just up and go into Ebonhawke. And obviously there would be those who remained in Kryta and gave up on Ascalon overall.

When I read dialogues, its mostly the nobles who aren’t going in to fight, or the deluded old people.

Curuniel.4830:

That seems weird to me Konig. When Ascalon Settlement was founded, humans still held Ascalon City and were still fighting against the charr. Sure it was post-Searing, but the kingdom wasn’t exactly lost. Wouldn’t the people who wanted to fight the charr have stayed and done so with, presumably, what remained of the national army? Those who followed Rurik to Kryta were basically acknowledging, to my mind, that Ascalon post-Searing was a lost cause. That’s something we know King Adelbern had problems accepting :P I don’t recall hearing anything from Ascalon refugees in Prophecies about intending to take the fight back to the charr one day.

From Nolani Academy, end cinematic.

Prince Rurik: “Trumpets! The king must be near. The fall of Rin will have darkened his heart. Hail King Adelbern!”
King Adelbern: “Rise, my son. you have done well. The discovery of Stormcaller is surely a sign of victory.”
Prince Rurik: “It is a powerful weapon, but I fear not powerful enough. The Charr have amassed an army of many thousands.”
King Adelbern: “You overestimate these beasts, Rurik. Do not be afraid.”
Prince Rurik: “I am not afraid, father. I have seen them in battle. Rin has been destroyed! It would be wise to escape while we can. We should make for Kryta and rebuild our strength. Not wait here for death.”
King Adelbern: “I will never allow Ascalons to live in the shadow of the Krytans! It is Rin that will be rebuilt. And you will learn your place.”
Prince Rurik: “You have grown proud, Adelbern of Ascalon…proud and foolish!”
King Adelbern: “You would dare call your king a fool? I will hear no more. I banish you from Ascalon! You are no longer my prince, and you are no longer my son!”
Prince Rurik: “People of Rin! Your king will lead you to death. If you wish to see better days, if you wish to live, then leave the beasts behind and follow me over the Shiverpeaks. We make for Kryta and a new life, free of the Charr.”

Rurik’s plan was to rebuild their strength in Kryta, then retake their land with said restrengthened troops.

I don’t think it’s said Rurikton was established by or because of Ebonhawke.

It was established by Ascalonian refugees (just like Ascalon Settlement). Just because Ascalon Settlement (which is a name, btw, even if not very imaginative like Beetletun or Shaemoor) was the first established by those who left Ascalon with Rurik, doesn’t mean there weren’t other refugees – and even then, it certainly wouldn’t mean folks wouldn’t leave Ascalon Settlement for a place more secure.

Mystic Starfish.2586:

I think he was just saying that they would either have to make it so it makes sense that Tengu can play through the orders/racial sympathy/orr stuff and killing zhaitan even though they weren’t there, or just not let Tengu players be able to play that storyline

Wut u talkin’ ’bout?

Go into Vigil Keep, there’s a tengu there! Remember Izu Steelstrike? There’s a tengu there! And to paraphrase Izu (using as accurate wording as I can remember): Individuals may join the cause, but the tengu race as a whole would not.

So they don’t need any time lapse or whatever for tengu – and largos, for that matter. And kodan, for that matter (there’s a kodan in the Chantry of Secrets and you know how they are about spreading balance and fighting Elder Dragons). Just gotta make them some lvl 1-30 personal story steps and then do voice acting for everything else. Maybe some changes if largos become playable with interacting with Sayeh (I can easily picture Sayeh becoming the largos’ “mentor” figure to replace the Destiny’s Edge figure – as well as he joining Destiny’s Edge later in the storyline after Zhaitan’s defeat, to keep a “close eye” on some “possible prey” – especially when the DSD becomes the target).

Rehashed Jibe Tube.7102:

something I find really odd here is the turm “resurrection” is still applied to ranger pets when they return to action…so apparently they die…they just never fall over and walk around uselessly till they resurrect.

Well pets used to fall over and go into a downed state. DUnno why they changed that.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Actually the Ascalonian Settlement started more like a refugee camp. The people, who went there, while born in Ascalon, never wanted to go back. They fled from the Charr to start a new life (compare to the european settlers of america, though they fled from oppression, not war).

Actually, they settled there to rebuild their strength and then retake their land from the charr, not to start a new life.

While some folks were probably more interested in starting a new life, the main point of Ascalon Settlement was to let the charr win, rebuild forces, then take “their” land back.

The problem with the plan is that their attempts to retake (Ebonhawke) hasn’t really worked out as planned.

loneknight.8425:

1. Presence of Norn in territories between Humans & Charrs will likely to diminish as they begin to return northward. Conflicts will arise as both races expand their territories, with Norn either play Switzerland or join in on both sides as mercenaries.
[…]
Can’t wait for next expansion

Well, given the individualistic aspect of the norn, I doubt they’ll just up and leave Hoelbrak as a whole. There will be norn returning up north, but not the whole culture. Similarly, nothing really indicates that the humans and charr will expand in means where they conflict with each other – especially given Jennah and Smodur’s interest in peace between the two races. And even if they do intend to expand territories, they have plenty of room to go that isn’t in conflict with each other – charr going east and humans going north.

And don’t you mean first expansion? :P

endeavor.7530:

Now, didn’t the humans originate further east than Ascalon? It would be interesting to see what lies beyond the borders.

Son of Elias.5420:

I thought humans came from Elona, originally, in the south. And then moved northward across what used to be the Crystal Sea.

You’re both wrong.

Humans came from another world, originally, and their first known location on the world of Tyria is in Cantha – about 300 years later, they appear on Orr and Elona (Istan and southern vallies of Elona) during the same year. Humans then spread north and east from there into Kryta, Ascalon, Kourna, and Vabbi – as well as the Crystal Sea. It was said by Jeff Grubb, a continuity writer for Anet, that humans may have arrived on the world further south than Cantha.

Charr come from east of the Blazeridge – as from The Ecology of the Charr: “the unified Charr spread throughout the northern reaches of their homeland, and down into the lands east of the Shiverpeak Mountains.” which indicates they moved north, west, and then south in an n shape. This land is currently held by the Blood Legion to our knowledge, per The Legions of the Charr: “East, across the Blazeridge Mountains, Imperator Bangar Ruinbringer controls the lands of the Blood Legion.”

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Isn’t Ascalon the Iron Leigon homeland with the Northern part of Ascalon containing Fireheart Rise and the Citadel of Flame being the Flame Legion Homeland and area north of Ascalon and the Blazeridge Mountains being The Blood Legion Homelands?

The Flame Legion don’t really have a homeland. By homeland, I mean current territories. They were forced into the Blazeridge Mountains and lost all their control and land to the other three legions (I presume what’s currently marked as Blood Legion Homelands was the Flame Legions’ territory) and they’ve been slowly invading over the years, creating a foothold in Fireheart Rise.

But Ascalon wasn’t originally charr land – it was grawl, at the very least. No known civilization lived there prior to the charr, but it is said that there were races there in The Ecology of the Charr: “The Charr subjugated or destroyed any and all who dared defy them within their territories; they were masters of all they surveyed. "

draxynnic.3719:

There have been developer interviews indicating that humans originally came to the world in a location south of Cantha, but there are also things in GW2 that suggest that Orr was inhabited by humans almost since the gods arrived – however, they didn’t start spreading out from Orr until around 200BE, about the same time the humans coming from the south started arriving on Tyrian and Elonian shores.

You mean 100 BE – humans spread from Orr under King Doric’s leadership, and he was crowned in 100 BE, the same year Ascalon was established as settlements.

I wasn’t really saying Lovecraft wasn’t racist, only that the degree of claims is arguable (but hell, what isn’t arguable?). Either way, way off topic.

loneknight.8425:

I will love to have Tengu as the 6th playable race for one reason : they have wings for hand. WINGS ! Look at the number of possibilities with type of racial skills Tengu can have with wings – gliding, fanning…. heck if Tengu can flap their wings fast enough, it can be a frontal AOE attack that has stun & knockback effect aka Fus Ro Dah!!!

Uhm… they don’t have wings.

Just very feathery arms.

I’d actually be surprised at such an action – Jormag got viewed as Dragon because he’s the one who messed up norn culture. The other Elder Dragons haven’t done such.

Though I am curious what the Sons of Svanir’s take on Primordus and the others are.

The reason why karka are not Lovecraftian is because what “Lovecraftian” means in reference to horrors is the horror of unknowably unimaginatively large entities that make not just humans but the human race seem so entirely insignificant the very thought of such entities promote a nihilistic view on life – or insanity, depending on your take.

Lovecraftian isn’t “ancient and from the ocean depths” – even if Lovecraftian creatures are ancient and from the ocean depths. That’s just an addendum to what they are!

In this sense, the closest thing to a true Lovecraftian entity would be the DSD, but in a more broader sense it’d be the Elder Dragons as a whole, though poorly portrayed due to Zhaitan’s death, as they’re meant to be titanic creatures of unknowable proportions that make the modern races and their contributions to be insignificant. The Lovecraftian-ness with the Elder Dragons once you hit the “they can be overcome by uniting together” bit – or hell, just the “they can be overcome” part.

The fact that Lovecraft held a focus on deep sea life or was racist to variously arguable degrees (I wouldn’t say placing tribes as being the prime worshippers of the Old Ones to be racist – I’m not racist and I say such things are perfect situations other than outright messed-up-in-the-head cultists which is way overplayed nowadays anyways) are both irrelevant to what is Lovecraftian.

Anyways, using the sylvari as an example for why karka could be immune is fairly poor reasoning, given how unique sylvari are (came out of seemingly no where, driven by an unexplained force (the Dream of Dreams) to fight the Elder Dragons, sentient and sapient plants, etc).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

No you aren’t, you are the king of death, therefore you are god or something, you don’t count.

Okay, okay, you caught me red handed.

Just don’t go destroying my Phylactery, okay?

Son of Elias.5420:

So the real lesson here is, if you’re going to have a character do awesome things, they better have an awesome voice.

Definitely. No one would like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator if he had Steven Hawking’s electronic voice (even if that’d be much more hilariously fitting).

Excelliate.7914:

That’s a very broad question.

This to the Nth degree.

Every Elder Dragon seems to hold a “preferred” means of corruption, but their magic in of itself is corruptive thus they’re seen corrupting indirectly (such as through the amulets in the charr lvl 20-30 storyline, or the Sanguinary Blade in Priory lvl 30-40 storyline).

As Excelliate said, Zhaitan corrupts only corpses – though as mentioned there are objects infused with his corruption which has corrupted living beings (such as Kellach) as well as killed-then-corrupted beings (such as what those aforementioned amulets do). How Zhaitan corrupts seems to be, based on one of the personal story missions, a form of magic radiation – and depending on the amount of corruptive magic used on the corpse, they could be weak mindless risen, or risen with entrapped souls. He can even corrupt mangled corpses that have been sewn together (the Risen Abominations – and possibly the Risen Knights, Eyes of Zhaitan, and dragon champions like Tequatl).

Jormag corrupts mentally – he and his champions attack and entice with promises of power, slowly winning them over to his own side before their bodies slowly become ice overtime. That’s his primary means – as Excelliate mentioned, Svanir/Icebrood shamans also channel Jormag’s power to forcibly corrupt others in a similar manner as the objects infused with Zhaitan’s corruption, and Jormag’s frozen blood in the Sanguinary Blade is also corruptive – as is his ice when it imprisons creatures.

Kralkatorrik corrupts physically – primarily via his breath. An interesting thing to note is that he either cannot or simply does not corrupt spirits (they’re the one thing left untouched by the Dragonbrand’s creation, though water and Lightning Elementals, though corrupted, appear normal too). Like above, creatures can be imprisoned in crystals created by dragon champions/the Dragonbrand itself and corrupted into Branded that way. To my knowledge there’s no objects which corrupt due to being infused with Kralkatorrik’s corruptive ability.

Primordus doesn’t corrupt living beings at all – its unknown whether its because he doesn’t want to (my bet) or that he simply can’t. All actions and motivations of his minions indicate that Primordus just simply wants to wipe out all organic life, so I’m inclined to say he doesn’t view living beings worthy, just as Jormag focuses on those who seek power to come to him. He is said to corrupt by his breath just like Kralkatorrik, however Destroyers can be created in pools of lava by his champions – slowly forming over time. The “destroyer eggs” seen in the skritt racial sympathy storyline seem to be small individual mobile versions of this (perhaps created to be taken into the enemies’ territory Trojan Horse style).

Based on the one line about the deep sea dragon from the Movement of the World, the DSD corrupts water only – though since we know next to nothing about it, it’s impossible to make any conclusion.

The sixth Elder Dragon, possibly named Mordremoth, based on my research I posted in another thread now buried seems to corrupt primarily (if not solely directly) plantlife – and via inflicting pain. If I’m correct, then there’d also be large plants which can engulf targets to corrupt, just like Jormag’s ice or Kralkatorrik’s crystals can do.

That concept art of the “icebrood” norn – the rightmost male is art that’s also used as armor concept (there was an image with it then another lineart design of it showing the different dyable areas where the ice itself would be dyable). I personally presume those four models were early Honor of the Waves armor concept art designs – the right two being heavy, the leftmost being light, and the second-to-the-left being medium.

If that were the case, that would have been muuuuuuch better than current HotW armor (I was really disappointed it wasn’t in-game!).

No, that’s Iron Legion land. The ogres are invaders. The ogres hail from the Blazeridge Mountains and are moving westward for more land.

Oglaf.1074:

No, it doesn’t work like that. Owl is dead. As are the other Spirits said to be dead. Jormag/Dragon ate them up. Spirits of the Wild are definitely “mortal” in the eyes of the Norn.

Owl is the only Spirit of the Wild said to be dead – Wolverine and Ox are just missing.

And I never said that the Spirits of the Wild aren’t mortal. I’m saying that the Sons of Svanir may go “well, Jormag was defeated because he had a physical body still! But now he’s a spirit, a true Spirit of the Wild!”

Don’t expect logic – what you’re trying to apply here – to work for norn, let alone fanatical ones.

Oglaf.1074:

Did I say Sylvari were old?

No I did not.

I said that they were immune to corruption.

Technically you didn’t say that either, however you were giving the reasoning of “karka are immune to corruption for the same reason that sylvari are”

Which would basically mean “karka are immune because they’re new and the Elder Dragons don’t know enough about them to corrupt them” – however, both beliefs would be false.

As would the whole “maybe they’re so ancient they’re Lovecraftian” since that’s the department of the Elder Dragons, as I said.

Antares.2586:

MatthewMedina.5419:

Canonically, yes the Lost Shores weekend and lead-up was set after the events of the Guild Wars 2 personal story and the defeat of Zhaitan, so this is partially what made it possible for the karka to establish a clawhold on Southsun Cove.

Hello there, and thank you Matthew for your feedback.

This is an important matter, especially for roleplaying focused Guilds.

While previous content is probably going to be always available and playable by newer players,
is this an official indication that Zhaitan should be considered defeated, from a storyline perspective ?

Thank you and keep up the good work !

That’s pretty much what he just said, yes. He’s defeated by the time the karka are out and about.

I go with less than a year – Prophecies (after the Searing ofc) takes place for most of the year (the halfway point is noted to be the summer solstice, and Glint says at the end “late into the Season of the Scion” (aka late fall), but Factions is from late fall to sometime before the year ends. I can see GW2 taking roughly the same timepsan as Prophecies, if not a little more or less (not counting the 2 year gap from pre-Searing to post-Searing of course).

I would imagine that all content update happened after the main personal story – meaning Zhaitan’s defeat was before Halloween, and we know that the karka invasion followed Halloween given the state of the Lion’s Court.

If I recall correctly, the norn tournament storyline takes place over the course of a week – so I’d imagine that the other lvl 10-20 storylines would be similar.

Based on Wayfarer Foothills, Timberline Falls, and Lornar’s Pass, I believe that the game starts in spring, and those zones are in summer given the state of melted snow in the Shiverpeaks.

Given all this, I’d say that the main GW2 storyline takes place along the Tyrian equivalents of March/April through September at the longest. But the best way to determine this will be when/if we are ever given a year for Zhaitan’s death.

There’s no “Blackgate” in relation to the Underworld. You may be mistaking with Reaper’s Gate which is an old temple of Grenth which, in GW1, gave access to the Underworld when the world had the favor of the gods.

Blackgate is likely a remnant of one of the gates (either Diessa Gate or Ashford Gate, I guess) in the Black Citadel.

Three Owl Shamans – or more accurately, 2 (one event chain related, the other skill challenge) and an apprentice shaman (the heart NPC).

And comparing the Owl Lodge to the Hoelbrak lodges is like saying Wurm, Ox, Wolverine, Minotaur, Eagle, and the other minor Spirits of the Wild are without any following. Of course it’s a far stretch from Hoelbrak – Hoelbrak is for the major Spirits of the Wild! That place outclases any minor Spirit of the Wild, which includes Owl. And Owl having a ruined lodge is still far more than the other minor Spirits of the Wild get.

And think: They view Jormag as a Spirit of the Wild. Spirits don’t have physical bodies, so they very well may view that Jormag’s spirit is still out there (and it very well may be) and able to give them power.

Oglaf.1074:

Could also be that the Karka are too alien or otherwise Lovecraftian for Zhaitan to raise them. Remember how they are touted to be really ancient and stuff?

It has happened before with the Sylvari.

Sylvari are new, karka are old. How can it be the age that makes em uncorruptable for both?

Elder Dragons are far much more Lovecraftian than the karka, which are simply a deep sea lifeform.

MatthewMedina.5419:

the karka are recent arrivals to the surface from their original home deep in the ocean. The ocean is a big enough place that the karka managed to settle on Southsun without encountering many risen, and they avoided Orr for the same reasons they fled their home. The karka are an old, old species so they have encountered Elder Dragons and their minions before…and they’re certainly smart enough to understand the threat they represent.

I suppose this is confirmation that the karka were forced out of their homes by the deep sea dragon, probably twice now based on Zommoros’ dialogue.

Bullshizle.2675:

Please,… I beg you a-net ! No more risen !
Zones are filled with risen and only risen,…

The only zones filled with only risen are in Orr – and even then, its only 2 out of 3 (as there are Inquest in Malchor’s Leap). Risen are definitely the most spread enemy, but they’re not the only enemy in most zones (some zones they’re in they’re only a small portion of – e.g., Kessex Hills, Gendarran Fields, Caledon Forest – and in the others they’re less than half – e.g., Bloodtide Coast, Sparkfly Fen, Mount Maelstrom).

Risen are only in 9 of 25 zones, in fact (26 if you count Southsun Cove).

Oglaf.1074:

Why would Jormag exclude half the the Norn population by not allowing women to worship him – all because of the action of one woman, Jora…?

Except that it’s not Jormag.

Its the Sons of Svanir – fanatical die-hards for power and Jormag.

We don’t know Jormag’s stance on female norn, or what he does to female norn.

Obviously, you don’t know norn. Go to Snowden Drifts, go to the southwestern corner of the map. You got multiple followers of Owl still. Most of the skaalds still go on about Owl’s tale too.

Owl is dead. Yet she is still revered and remembered by the norn.

In the same light, Sons of Svanir will have some remaining die-hard fans (as you put it), and you’ll have a lot more remember the story of Jormag (in both lights).

As Excelliate said, it’s possible that Lazarus is leading the White Mantle in modern GW2 – we don’t know how long mursaat live, but a lot of the more ancient races live far longer than humans thus far (ogres, dwarves, kodan, and jotun seem to live easily into the triple digits, and forgotten can live into the quadruple digits).

Now take a look at the situation behind the White Mantle:

They’re the leaders of the bandits – though it seems most low level bandits don’t know this. The bandits are united all across Kryta (and in Brisban Wildlands) – those aren’t individual groups! Said bandits are in alliances with centaurs, Inquest, and Nightmare Court. They’re also paid for by the Ministry, and infiltrating the Ministry Guard (two known ministers are working with them: Caudecus and Zamon, the latter gets killed in the personal story). And they have a base in Brisban Wildlands: Fort Vandal, which no one has been able to get near (NPC story wise). Said Fort Vandal seems to be near where the White Mantle fled to in GW1 (northwestern Maguuma Jungle – near the Bloodstone).

So I’m expecting Fort Vandal to become a level 80 dungeon, and I am expecting Caudecus, Lazarus, and Faolain (only living leader of the allies of the bandits) to appear in content that leads west (via the portal in north-central Brisban Wildlands).

Just as there are many Eyes of Zhaitan, there are multiple Mouths of Zhaitan (I cannot see how there are only two Mouths of Zhaitan, tbh). The Mouths of Zhaitan serve as a means for Zhaitan to continuously consume magic in multiple locations, without having to go to the buffet himself (or as others said, wait on minions bringing them to him). Also, can you imagine something as huge as Zhaitan trying to pick up a human-sized chalice or some such?

Actually, Elias, Smodur seems to be giving up land to humans. If you go through Fields of Ruin, you’ll see that humans are progressively expanding northwards. I expect that in the end of the peace agreements, humans will be giving all land of Ascalon that lies between the Dragonbrand and the Blazeridge Mountains.

In the story, I expect the final signing of this agreement will be Commander Wade Samuelsson, only known descendant of the Ascalonian kings still living, will be given the reforged Magdaer and will take it to release the Foefire ghosts to end that threat.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

So you’d like a multiplayer, open-world game in which you can accomplish epic feats that genuinely affect the world around you in a lasting and large-scale way, with such feats being completely unique to your own character?

I assume after someone’s completed such a world-changing feat, other people cannot complete said feat, because that would be contradictory. So an impossibly-large team at ANet must work night and day to keep creating these events, as they can only occur once each.

I’m just trying to get this straight, so I can get to creating this masterpiece.

Precisely! This is what Anet did with the Ancient Karka. Remember how that was?

No, thank you. I’ll pass on having more content like that. I don’t want to miss such stuff, but I certainly don’t want to sit an hour or two through massive horrible lag again either!

Oglaf.1074:

In a way. They’d still be a round in the sense that they wouldn’t just stop existing, but the organization/faction known as the Sons of Svanir would crumble with the defeat of Jormag.

I disagree due to how individualistic norn are.

So long as there is at least a handful of norn still revering Jormag and seeing Svanir as their martyr, there will be Sons of Svanir.

Well, first, it wasn’t Togo, but Instructor Ng, and the response was about death penalty. Anyways, those tutorials (the one in Factions and the one in Nightfall) are breaking the fourth wall every other line and cannot be taken as lore (outside that there was some basic training happening with those individuals).

Kain Francois.4328:

Trahearne is worse than Kormir because Kormir still acted humble and appreciated the struggle of your team. She also did a lot behind the scenes.

So you’re saying Trahearne didn’t do much behind the scenes? He didn’t create alliances with the most renown blacksmiths, call in favors with isolating races, garnered the charr legions’ and Lionguard’s support, or oversaw the construction of Fort Trinity, or devised the plans for invading Orr (with consultation)?

I don’t agree with you about the whole “Trahearne is condescending” – he acknowledges how the risen are after everyone, not just him. I don’t see or remember how you could get such. He goes into the front lines four times when he very much didn’t have to – I wouldn’t call that a coward, even if he is a bit of a coward (and acknowledges such!) about fulfilling his Wyld Hunt which is something he overcomes (with the PC’s and Pale Tree’s support).

I said this several times over on Guru2, and I’ll say it again: the only real issue with Trahearne is his voice actor, which leads people to believe his character is just as emotionless and robotic as his voice. He doesn’t go stealing a storyline (hell, he’s barely in it after you meet him in Claw Island! He’s just around for you to give a debriefing to, and for your next assignment – little different than Destiny’s Edge figures at the beginning of the personal story). He’s not contrived or condencending or anything all you people complain about.

Trahearne’s only crime is having a bad voice actor. Just as Kormir’s only crime is that the game’s story couldn’t let the PC become a god.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

With Gwen there are only 2 types of people, the ones who hate her and who love her.

Guess I’m not a person, since I neither hate nor love her.

I prefer the explanation that the islands themselves are fairly new, given how volcanic they appear, and thus wouldn’t have existed for the risen to occupy.

Gaudrath.6725:

Nope. If you think you need a big bad boss at the end to have story progression, or even just to have an epic story, you haven’t read enough good stories.

Again, I invite you to play Planescape:Torment – where the central plot is in fact, all about you. One great example of how to have a very personalized story and very personalized epic ending and still leave everything else open.

[…]

Another way to create a good epic, open story where everyone who wants can participate, is to make it fully player driven, and open-ended. Make the entire world a warzone like Orr. Make it so that, if players don’t put in some effort, most of the world gets taken over and then players have to work together to retake it. Then the world is the prize, and once secured, it has to be defended. The war never ends.

I know you don’t need to defeat a big bad boss at the end of a story, but when one is presented – and several are in GW2 – then the story will be fairly unrewarding to players. You might be into the story of an endless conflict, but the vast majority of players enjoy a real sense of accomplishment – that they ended the conflict. That they were the driving force of such.

I have Planescape: Torment, though I never finished it due to having to change computers and all my progress lost, leaving me unwanting to redo all that progress when I have other games still, however that remains no different than the Elder Scrolls – it’s a single player game and thus is an invalid example of how an MMO should act.

And again, endless warfare is not enjoyable to everyone, because people like an ending to their story. And stories which end without the main conflict ending are generally leaving people yearning. It’s fine to leave some conflicts open – this makes it feel more real, because in reality all the problems of a society are never solved together, but you normally need to close the conflict that is the main focus of the story.

Oglaf.1074:

Where did I say that they would go back to being normal Norns?

They would dissolve, scatter. Not return to their former lives.

They’d remain a roaming nuisance, for sure. But only because most of them are too far gone as Icebrood to ever live another life.

Wait, it sounds like you’re in agreement with Son of Elias because you’re saying the Sons will still be around, just not in large communities. And SoE is saying they’ll still be around.

I expect that we’ll see both new races (specifically, I see – in order – tengu, largos, and kodan as the most likely to become playable) and new lore on all races.

Humans already got a focus on historical lore with going to Orr, but can get more when going to Cantha or Elona. Norn will get such when we go after Jormag. Asura will get such when we go after Primordus. Sylvari will get such when we go west (to where Malyck’s tree is) most likely after the White Mantle and/or Mordremoth. Charr will get expanded when we go east into their original homelands (reason unknown?). Tengu will get expanded when we go to Cantha (or even Elona or some new land, since they were a world-wide race and said they were in Elona before). Largos will be expanded when going into the Unending Ocean to fight the DSD. Kodan when going north to face Jormag too, perhaps.

THe priest thing is also shown in PvP and, more importantly lore wise, pre-Searing Ascalon – where Lina the Healer (iirc) outright states that she resurrects adventurers – and every resurrection shrine in pre-Searing has a priest at it, except one in the Catacombs which is non-functional.

For the reason behind Saidra – it’s likely because they had to abandon the body (same goes for Rurik), though when you get to Togo or Captain Langmar the situation changes (though can be explained by being due to the ritual Shiro used and Kieran not knowing resurrection spells). There’s likely a time limit for resurrection if you ask me (which is, imo, why Baelfire’s resurrection is “unprecedented”).

The NPC also states that the lighthouse went through multiple renovations. So to her this may count as just another renovation.

And about 1/3rd of the lighthouse is till standing, folks.

I disagree with the notion that any profession holds origin in any one culture. There are deviations in professions based on the culture, but they all existed in multiple cultures.

Magic is universal, so are the schools of magic – that meant that the basics of these schools (Elementalism, Mesmerism, Monks, and Necormancy) were in all professions. Monks later evolved into Guardians due to, primarily, human culture but half of its origins were universal.

Engineers are also a universal thing – they’re simply people to make machines, present in charr, human, and asuran society (in regards only to the player races), but made combat-ready specifically by the charr.

Thieves, though mechanically originating from assassins which were fairly much human culture magic wise, also come from the Ash Legion of charr who were known for having scouts, assassins, and other stealthiness (note: assassins from GW1 did not hold stealth – they were all about get in, kill, get out – so the thief’s stealth aspect likely comes from the Ash Legion if not elsewhere).

As to new races bringing new professions – I don’t see this ever happening. Not because I can’t see there being professions unique to certain races’ culture that could then spread to other cultures, though that explanation is highly unlikely to ever occur imo, but rather because of this:

What niche would new professions give? The current eight professions fill just about all playstyles and niches. Any new professions I could ever think of just simply step on existing professions’ toes – it’d merely be a change in asthetics and nothing more. In other words, there’s no point in a new profession unless it can do stuff that other professions cannot.

And the only such profession I could think of ever happening would be a third soldier profession, and even then that’s unlikely to me.

Instead, what I would see is new weapons and skills to the existing professions, and new races and new racial skills. And not just new weapons, but new weapon availabilities (e.g., giving rangers the ability to use hammers).

New professions also mean, as Narcemus said, less balancing issues. As does fewer skills, so I don’t expect to see many new skills in the long run – best cases for new skills would be underwater-only skills (in a future expansion focusing on largos and the DSD crosses fingers) and weapon skills – that way they’d be restricted and easier to balance with the existing group. Possibly racial skills as well, since they too are lower in number and restricted in usefulness (since they’re supposed to provide unique but weak abilities).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Weindrasi.3805:

people also did not know that sex resulted in babies—they just thought women became pregnant due to the will of the gods or some other reasons.

What? No! You can say many things what people did and didn’t know in ancient times, but this one is most certainly not true. Not only could people see the direct connection by their own species, but also with their cattle and if you want to go even further back, by animals they hunted.
And even if there was a point in human history were they didn’t know (though I can hardly imagine such), it has nothing to do with the equality of men and women.

Well, I do know of one (now died out) religious group – though I cannot recall the name, I know it originates from a sect of Christianity – which apparently did not know sex led to pregnancies given that they preached sex of any kind automatically led you into hell. Kinda funny. One can only guess as to why they died out.

But his is all well off topic.

Oglaf.1074:

I always thought that the Risen in the Orr maps were the original Orrians – they have corals and stuff growing on them which would seem, to me at least, indicate that they spent a lot of time at the bottom of the sea.

Then you have the “new” Risen that launch attacks on Tyria, these do not have corals and stuff growing on them because they are made up of the recently deceased in Tyria.

Narcemus.1348:

I do believe that somewhere I read that upon awakening Zhaitan took control of the shambling undead of Orr that were left after Khilbron was destroyed.

I just looked it up and the article I was thinking of was the wiki page of the GW2 wiki for Zhaitan, and it was uncited.

Well of course not all corpses were made undead/taken by Khilbron – based on GW1 models, he only used the Orrian army that were turned undead. The villagers, nobles, and ancient royalty from the crypts were made risen by Zhaitan.

Narcemus – the article you are thinking of would be The Movement of the World which states: “Risen from the ocean by the will of a powerful undead dragon, Orr no longer stands under human control. The beings roaming those lands are twisted, perverted remnants of Orr’s once-magnificent culture. Drowned by magic and then raised into service by the will of a monster so terrible there are only whispers of its nature, they now serve a dragon more horrible and more powerful than any other being in Tyria.” and “Many of the corsairs who inhabited the island chain before the peninsula rose again were subsumed by the dragon’s power, twisted by its breath, and enslaved to its will. Ships with black sails, built from seized corsair vessels, sail along the Strait of Malchor, west of Orr. These vessels surround the Fire Islands, manned by undead minions of the dragon that fear neither fire nor sea.”

Note that it never once states that it corrupted former undead. It only mentions corrupting the corsairs which were hiding out in the islands of Orr. Though we do know that many of the Risen in Orr are Orrian, it was never said those were ever made undead by the Cataclysm or Khilbron.

@Gaudrath.6725: No, I’m sorry, but that’s not bad storytelling. That’s a limitation of an MMO – because everyone’s able to experience the same location at the same time, it cannot progress further in the story with your character otherwise you’ll have a mesh of earlier and later events together in the same location – you’ll have NPCs shouting “I’m going to kill Zhaitan!” next to NPCs shouting “Ding dong, Zhaitan’s dead!” And that, my friend, is bad storytelling.

If it were a single-player game like Elder Scroll games, or if the game wasn’t in persistent areas like in GW1, then it’d be a different case. You can have the whole world together progress as one. Alternatively, you can have it where earlier locations are blocked off.

You blame storytelling, but your qualms are in the medium that is called “massive multiplayer online game.”

Because everyone can experience the same location at the same time, that location has to have a set storyline – this means it has to be in a set location, otherwise you’re getting multiple stories in the same spot, and all stories are seen by all. The only real alternative you get is where you separate world from story, and you have the story progress in time where the world doesn’t.

But that still doesn’t work to your liking, because you’ll eventually confront the big bad (any story where the big bad isn’t defeated is a flunking story that’ll be hated by the community – if you want an example, take RAGE which held no final boss and left the general run free), and once you kill the big bad, in this case Zhaitan, it makes little sense for him to still be a threat in the world, in this case for there to be endless undead.

The only solution for an MMO to not hold the “bad storytelling” that you claim GW2 has is to have no story progression. At all. And that, my friend, is just as bad as never confronting and beating the big bad.

Ninth Requiem.3250:

Actually, there is a risen Largos.
It’s encountered in an event in Bloodtide Coast, called an “Orrian Terror”. I think it’s part of an event chain in Castavall – you can fight it there, or (I believe if that event is failed) on Mistarion beach.

I recall an “Orrian Terror” champion event in Sparkfly Fen (I think it was Sparkfly Fen and not Bloodtide) – it used a Risen Knight model, wings and such.

Not really – I mean, there’s no trace of Sieran or Forgal’s body, and they were an elementalist and warrior respectively. It just means that the risen did something with the bodies (just as there are no other bodies present on Claw Island when retaking it).

Just a kitten shame we never saw Risen Tybalt or Risen Forgal when the risen attacked the Chantry of Secrets/Vigil Keep respectively.

“in the sense that most individuals seem to retain individualism (to a sense)” – like Ogden? Huh, sounds like those princes in Orr, or Lord Kitah, or the Mouths/Eyes of Zhaitan, or other powerful risen/icebrood we fight.

I wasn’t really serious about them being dragon minions, but I was serious in that sans their objective, they act just like dragon minions now. Physically and mentally. There are just no (to our knowledge) “grunt” minions (aka the mindless zergers). They’re all of lieutenant (and possibly champion) level when compared to ED minions.

Gaudrath.6725:

Now, explain to me, if I kill Tequatl, then kill Zhaitan, then keep on killing Tequatl about 20 more times, which one of those times predates and which one succeeds the death of Zhaitan? If you say that all of them predate the death of Zhaitan, then your analogy of time travel just got literal. If you say that some of them succeed the death of Zhaitan, the original question of “but we just killed the reason these things exist” pops up.

All of them precede, but its not literal time travel. As I said, you’re simply playing events that, timeline wise, take place before the events you’ve already played through.

This is why I’m saying you’re not listening. “Listening” perhaps isn’t the right term – you’re like my father, taking the term as meaning only “hearing and paying attention” but there’s a second meaning to the word, the meaning I’m using: understanding and not disregarding what I’m saying.

Play order != story order

Simple as that. It’s not literal time travel – your character isn’t jumping into the GW TARDIS and going back 1 month repeatedly to kill multiple Tequatls (personally, I doubt that Tequatl is multiple creatures – unlike the Shatterer and the Claw of Jormag, I don’t think Tequatl is ever mentioned to be replaced by another, or for there to be more than one Tequatl, and unlike those other two, Tequatl is a unique name). Rather, you’re simply playing through events that took place before other events you played through – like going back a level in a single-player game. Its just that because there’s no save points in MMOs, that in order to go back, you simply change locations.

I can’t see how you’re not understanding this. I’ve been saying the same thing in many different ways to try to help you understand what I’m saying, but you seem to not be grasping – or paying attention, or not disregarding, or whatever – what I’m saying.

Gaudrath.6725:

And my answer is that it doesn’t, they messed it up, and for my part I will choose the lesser evil, which is keeping the integrity of the game world intact (which means that zones all exist at the same time and do not follow a chronological order), over keeping the integrity of the personal storyline intact. It’s those undead fumes, they… confuse people.

You do realize that kittens up the story even more right? Because that’s just not how it’s done.

If you do it that way, then you have folks praising and wanting to kill Baelfire after his death. You have the dredge ignoring the fact that they’ve realized their leadership is corrupt (everywhere from level 65 on areas with dredge feature some sort of rebellion and working with outsiders – from Sorrow’s Embrace explorable on). You have the Pact trying to get into the Crucible of Eternity after it blew up (completion of Explorable path of the dungeon and the meta to get into said dungeon). You have as you pointed out, endless dragon champions after Zhaitan’s death.

How you desire to explain it makes no sense. Because it is not the situation. Zones have a chronical order – this is a fact – and it does not mess things up, except the fact that you’re experiencing things that happened before events you already played through, which when you realize this, makes perfect sense for why there are Flame Legion in Plains of Ashford still saying how Baelfire will make everyone burn, and how there are Iron/Ash/Blood charr saying they want to kill Baelfire (they wouldn’t be saying this after he’s dead, they’d say something else).

Gaudrath.6725:

Lore wise, you could argue that the undead of Orr are not, in fact, product of Zhaitan, but of the earlier curse, the same one that caused it to sink beneath the oceans in the first place.

No. No, you can’t. That’s like arguing that demons don’t come form the Mists (they do, proven in Nightfall), or that the Flame Legion never worshiped Titans. That’s called fanon discontinuity – and it’s not lore, it’s not canon. So no, you can’t argue such lore wise.

Yes, there were undead made by the Cataclysm – but said undead were taken out of Orr by Vizier Khilbron. And Zhaitan had made brand new undead since. So no, you cannot argue that no Risen is made by undead.

wouw.5837:

well, because the NPC’s use the GW naming of currency, gold and platinum, while the players use a different currency, don’t ask me why,tho

NPCs also make mention of silver and copper, I believe.

Those two cases are, imo, intentionally made to be steep wagers. Tybalt was trying to get the pirates attention – I mean, why would pirates give up what they’d think would be a easy win for a lot of cash? They might not have gone with it if it was “1 gold coin.” And the bet between Snarl and Galena (sp?) also seemed to be intentionally steep – if you dealt with them as an Iron Legion charr or a Vigil member, you’ll know that 1) they love betting against each other (just as they love each other – bleh), and 2) that they love high risk betting against each other.

As Narcemus said, resurrection magic doesn’t exist – not in commonplace at least. Even revival seems to be rare (and very much lore) base on an escort event in Snowden Drifts where if someone needs reviving, talking to the NPCs needing escort will have them asking if anyone knows how to revive someone. The reason why resurrection magic all but disappeared is never mentioned – all we know is that in modern times, the Flame Legion are the only ones known to know how to resurrect the dead, though in a different manner than in GW1 (where in GW1 is was a literal reviving the dead, from the corpse of the dead to a once again living, the Flame Legion are calling the souls of the dead and putting them into a body – sounds more like how undead seem to be made, rather than resurrection, and an asura says its unprecedented (my guess: because that’s how you make undead, so resurrection via that means is new))

As for the Mist Wars – that is mostly untalked about. All we are given about it is that there are two army invaders from the Mists which are merciless. I don’t think Anet ever intends to extrapolate in that lore, just as they didn’t really do such for PvP lore in GW1.

My guess on both: Dhuum got free, and he’s also why Aatxes and Shades (and the Shadow Behemoth) are breaking free into Tyria – and why the Reaper seen in the personal story is weak: Dhuum is causing chaos in the Underworld, preventing resurrections, allowing the natural inhabitants to easily escape, and bringing wars (perhaps with Menzies’ aid) into the Mists.

Narcemus.1348:

I’m not entirely sure how resurrection came into the world at all, unless it was just something that only the Chosen could do. But then it would be a kinda big give-away for the Mursaat that we were Chosen all along. In the end, even in GW1 death always seemed final for anyone but the player character. Remember in Factions when Shiro killed us we didn’t go back to a rez shrine…

The chosen thing seems to me to be solely related to the Prophecy, and doesn’t really have any extra magical abilities about them (that stuff being lies by the White Mantle, I bet). Given the dialogue of ghosts in Aurora Remains in Brisban Wildlands.

And there are NPCs in GW1 who mention having to resurrect others – particularly the monks at resurrection shrines in pre-Searing having to resurrect solo’ing adventurers. Its just an explanation of mechanics, but mostly the lore behind resurrection shrines (ignored a lot in Prophecies and partially in Factions) is that they need to be maintained by priests or some such, who do the actual resurrecting.

But it isn’t ever really explained, the conditions of resurrection compared to making an undead instead, since they seem to utilize similar processes.

I’d say they’re closest to dragon minions now, personally.

They were organic beings, changed into another material, and their minds have been altered, given a fanatical-ness.

Sounds just like a dragon minion.

Obviously Great Dwarf=Mordremoth

Sure you can, RedSpectrum – just as some people can sleep with their eyes open.