Guild Wars 2

Logan is merely a Captain of the Seraph. There are several Captains, each regulated to a different part of Kryta, and are all equal to each other in ranking file. The only individual higher than a Captain is Queen Jennah. The monarch of Kryta is the official leader of the Seraph (on top of the ruler of the nation of Kryta).

The highest rank in the Seraph is captain. At any given time, the queen has from five to ten captains in the Seraph; each operates independently, but in coordination, under her command.

Each Seraph captain is granted authority over a certain territory of Kryta — be it the embattled foothills of High Timber Claim or the lowlands of Nebo Terrace. The troops under their command report upwards to them, and they receive their orders directly from the queen. In recent days, Queen Jennah has been absorbed in her duties to Ebonhawke and the treaty being negotiated with the charr. Most of the command of the Seraph in Kryta has fallen on her closest captain, Logan Thackeray, whose immediate authority covers the city and environs of Divinity’s Reach. Now considered the first among equals, he organizes the body of Seraph response to overall threats against the nation.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Line_of_Duty_%E2%80%93_The_Three_Military_Orders_of_Kryta

Any treatment of Logan as “Commanding Officer” of the Seraph is fully unofficial, brought on by, as mentioned above, the Queen’s business, as well as his role in DR and his fame. As such, it probably is no longer the case as of him joining the Pact to fight the Elder Dragons (he can’t really manage the tasks typically held by the ruler when he’s not there himself).

The Seraph’s leader is Queen Jennah, so how is she unstable? Or do you mean Logan as of HoT – but he’s just one of ~7 other equally ranked Captains.

Truth be told, the return of the White Mantle has been foreseeable since the initial release. It was always a matter of “when and what’s the exact circumstances” not “will it”.

I’ve noticed a handful of errors and assumptions (like the claim that the Ministry control the Seraph – this isn’t true. Only the Queen and the Captains control where the Seraph go), and any relation to O-Tron seems to be restricted primarily to just getting an excuse to push O-Tron towards Kiel and that final battle in LA (every platform had 2 NPCs – O-Tron and Kiel was the southern platform). Aside from those, though, it’s pretty much been how I’ve been seeing it too.

Maybe cuz I looked into it and connected the dots ages ago I began thinking other people did, so I always come out surprised when people think this is a huge reveal. ._.

Kilroy as a Mist Champion:

• War Cry: “Kiiiiiiilrooooooooooy Stooooooonekinnnnn!” – all enemies on the map suffer from taunt.
• Passive: Be There First – grants fury, quickness, swiftness, and vigor to all allies, taunts enemies within range
• Elite: Dwarven Brawler – runs straight to the guild lord and lands a flurry of unblockable unevadeable hits

And all his attacks mirror GW1’s brawling skills.

Turn him into a Mist Hero Champion for Stronghold. Special effect is swiftness, he’s the fastest champion! But not necessarily the strongest or best to survive.

Tiefsee.3647:

I may wonder, do we know if the itzel & nuhloch where attacked by mordremoth before the pact attacked?
Because if he attacked only afterwards, it’s just an protection against those aggressiv ‘flesch things’

They’ve been attacked for weeks, iirc, before we meet them. HoT begins ~1 day after the Pact Fleet’s destruction.

Tiefsee.3647:

And we shouldn’t forget, mordremoth knows what the sylvari know – therefore he knows what the charr & humans did to their forrest (not sure about the norn) – they destroyed them!

Charr and humans might be logging their forests, but they replant trees too.

Tiefsee.3647:

And even if cutting each single tree in the jungle won’t kill mordremoth, it surely would hurt him and cause damage, a lot of damage!

No damage at all, according to those directly attached to Mordremoth’s mind.

Tiefsee.3647:

And he also knows that the charr and humans corruptet his own grandchildren, the sylvari! Everything has a right to grow? Yeah? I better don’t start counting when a sylvari kills plants in the story! Even when we exclude all plants controled by mordremoth!

That’s centaur, not charr, and mere teachings don’t free something of dragon corruption. The Pale Tree was freed of Mordremoth’s will long ago, given that Malyck was free too – and Malyck had no interactions with Ventari’s teachings.

I read that less as “other artifacts” and more as “what the egg will have to do/preparations for the egg and what it will do after hatching” – though of course there were 20-some other eggs in that lair in GW1, so yes there’d be other ‘artifacts’ but they’d all be eggs as far as we know (though the one we take care of in HoT/S2 is ‘the last one intact’.

Except that it is explicitly stated in-game that Diarmid was a sylvari.

And as we’ve been told, game trumps external lore, even blog posts.

Mordremoth’s hardly a hero accidental or otherwise. The cinematic shows seemingly random bombing but that’s not necessarily true – after all, there isn’t a single line in Verdant Brink about the Itzel suffering from the Pact’s attacks (though maybe the Coztic did). Furthermore, as we learn in HoT, Mordremoth wouldn’t be seriously affected even if they burned the whole jungle to the ground, so he wasn’t even saving himself – he was just butchering his enemies’ greatest strength to give him the chance to kill/capture everyone and everything himself.

Also, the Exalted have their own protections, so I doubt that they would have been hit – and Caithe was behind the fleet, not ahead of them, so she would have been wading through the destruction left by the Pact’s attacks, not in the middle of it.

So in the end, even if the Pact would have struck the Itzel and Nuhoch, Mordremoth’s actions was less saving anyone, and more an act of “I will be the one to make them suffer, not you!”

maddoctor.2738:

The daily cap is nothing compared to the achievements you cannot obtain anymore. Like historical achievements and retired achievements that you will never ever get no matter how long you play. I’d rather they introduce those back first before they increase the daily cap, or not do either.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Does no one remember the threads upon threads from AP hunters lamenting the fact it took them hours and hours to finish each and every Daily?

This.

I kind of want them to bring back monthlies, but I hope that they keep the cap. I’m about 8k AP into the cap personally so it won’t affect me for quite some time, but most of the missing AP for folks are historical achievements.

I’d rather they brought those back, especially previous year festival categories (set them up similarly to the PvP backpiece achievements – every year they add a new category which unlocks when you complete the previous year’s category). Until Season 1 becomes permanent, I would love a new NPC that gives access to one or two maps every month (1 month = 1 chapter of S1) and said map has 1 of the S1 chapters content accessible, with the related achievements unlocked at the time.

For example, first month would have access to a copy of LA and Southsun maps during The Lost Shores; second month would have access to Wayfarer, Diessa, and Molten Facility as seen during F&F; third month would have access to Southsun as seen during Secret of Southsun/Last Stand at Southsun; fourth month would have access to Dragon Bash content; etc. etc. etc.

This would give a greater chance for players to regain those forever-lost AP.

As Narcemus says, asura pretty much say everything in a matter-of-fact notion. Just because three asura have good astrological knowledge (the third being Mecha from SoS), hardly means all do.

Furthermore, any astrological knowledge would be less than 250 years – as we saw in SoS itself Mecha was learned about those things during the course of the novel, so it wasn’t common knowledge 150-70 years prior to GW2, and at that she only improved old designs based off of human and charr knowledge (mostly human).

Blimm no doubt learned astrology himself after surfacing, given the lack of star watching underground.

Any knowledge Kranxx and others have on astrology or astronomy likely originates from human knowledge (though you can bet none would ever say such), if not self-taught. There is a class in the pre-college school in Metrica which is dedicated to star gazing (even during the daytime) – though the students there seem to prefer dozing rather than gazing – so it’s become more common knowledge, but they would hardly be experts on the subject given that they wouldn’t even have a full 300 years of study on the subject.

I agree. If that must exist, put it at the respawn area.

That makes no sense, though, because the Infinity Ball shows a possible future – basically creating a fractal-like state of the future – based on the moment it is used. Scarlet had already made the Steam creatures, so there could not be some divergent where Scarlet would create the Steam creatures.

In order for your explanation to work, the creation of the Steam creature has to still be in the future of when ‘the present’ is. The butterfly effect is an act of going to the past and changing the timeline from that moment in the past and onward.

However, to change the origin of the Steam creatures, then the ‘future self’ would have had to go further in the past by five (or more) years – prior to the creation of the Steam creatures – in order to change the origins of the Steam creatures.

In other words, the timeline that happened isn’t the five points you have but:

1. Scarlet creates Steam creatures
2. Future events happen, future self disowns Zojja and takes over the (known) world.
3. Future self and Steam creatures come to the present.
4. Present self kills future self.
5. Timeline changes fate of self.

Though we’ve gotten confirmation elsewhere that the Infinity Ball is less time travel and more ‘making a possible future physical’ which is more akin to the Fractals of the Mists, the main difference being that it only becomes physical once entering/leaving the ‘portal’ the Infinity Ball made.

Overall, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense when you add in Scarlet. They really should have just had that scholar be right and that Scarlet only reverse engineered the Steam creatures.

@Rhaegar: That’s just one asura, who was an oddball and was on the surface. I’m not sure you can say that asura have astronomical knowledge because of Blimm. I mean, he forsake the Eternal Alchemy – that should show how odd of a ball he was.

@Surbrus: It was a pretty big thing in pre-release lore statements that humans were the “go to” race when it came to historical records and facts about the past.

Ironic, it is, that this is rarely brought up directly in game and most of GW1’s historical lore was altered under the pretense of “human inaccuracies”.

Plagiarised.2865:

That’s not true. They also appear in Tekki’s gate.

Wasn’t sure if they did or not. Point being, however, is that all appearances in Brisban Wildlands come directly from the Shiverpeaks and via unintentional methods. Tekki’s gate, which also brings in icebrood and other natives to the Shiverpeaks, is no exception to this statement.

So, still, not a single Steam creature in Brisban could have possibly came from Scarlet’s secret labs – wherever that might have been – as they were all unintentionally teleported there or came from the Infinity Ball.

Plagiarised.2865:

I am saying that the timelines changes after our interference in the PC. It would of retroactively changed not only our future bu the past aswell. That is to say that is was our timeline at all, as Angel even stated, it was a possible future. I agree with her, I don’t see the contradiction.

According to Season 2, Scarlet created the Steam creatures prior to 1325, when we have the Infinity Ball storyline taking place.

Ceara: My black-market dredge contacts continue to prove useful. For a little gold, they sell me their scrap iron so I can build my steam minotaurs.
Ceara: I’ve landed a lab assistant position with Omadd, an intelligent but overly gentle asura. I should be able to wrap him around my little finger.
Ceara: Today I am sixteen cycles old, and to celebrate, I’ve been testing my first steam portal with steam minotaurs. The last batch actually made it in one piece.

This explicitly states that Scarlet had created Steam creatures prior to 1320 AE, as Scarlet was born in 1304 AE and had already been building the steam creatures prior to turning 16.

Mysterious Stranger: Wait until you get to know my creations. In my reality, they conquered Tyria.
Mysterious Stranger: You don’t stand a chance. In your world, this technology hasn’t even been invented yet!

This explicitly states that the future you not only invented the Steam creatures, but that they don’t exist in Tyria yet. Seeing how Scarlet had already made them, either this is a blatant retcon, or our future selves are blatant liars who wouldn’t even care if the PC knew that they were lying. Which makes no sense and doesn’t match the mentality of the character.

Plagiarised.2865:

The earlier steam creatures started out from dredge metals, but we know that they soon become self-replicating and improved themselves. They built upon the prior, possibly finding better alloys. After all, we know that the steam creatures in lornar’s is partially made with bones.

Yes, it says that they build from “whatever materials they can find” but they’re finding these materials in Lonar’s Pass or in Scarlet’s lab.

All materials the Steam creatures ever had access to, the Priory and Whispers should know about.

All in all, they should have left it as a “Scarlet reverse engineered the Steam creatures” set up.

Adrenaline Mushrooms, I would say. It can be helpful in any future replays of the HoT story content (particularly the last fight), and can be a random boost anywhere in HoT, even raids. While the Alchemy is only useful against Chak and it’s just a difference of “losing 2 stacks of goop on dodge” versus “losing all stacks of goop on dodge”

Artanis.4963:

This is being excessively favorable to them. The only reason the Shatterer was rebuilt was because the fight made it nearly impossible to complete The Bifröst III. That’s it.

The devs could have given it immunity to blindness and changed how the “encase in crystal” skill worked (e.g.: more targets, more casts, or restrict it to players). We were lucky they decided to get more involved.

Oh please, they did list that as A reason, but not the reason. They in fact listed other reasons – like not liking how easy the Shatterer was to beat, especially since he’s one of the more iconic world bosses.

So you’re being excessively unfavorable towards them.

ArenaNet likes taking the easy way out when it comes to fixing problems, which often leads to problems later on. If the reason was “that collection is being blocked” then they would have just altered The Shatterer enough for that collection to no longer be blocked.

Plagiarised.2865:

True, I only showed what in-game scholars thought. But I do not even agree that it was a retcon from the personal story. The future is not so linear, and even after the Split Second instance, timelines could have changed. When it comes to future/timelines/time mumbo-jumbo, I’m not too quick to call retcon (though other Scarlet-related things are definitely retcons)

Scarlet mentions she dumped them into Brisban Wildlands.

The ONLY time we see Steam creatures anywhere near Brisban is when tied to the Thaumanova explosion which teleports anything randomly, or in the personal story Split Second.

Not to mention that at the time, steam creatures weren’t even invented in our world according to the future PC, when S2 claims that Scarlet invented them several years before the PS. Now the future world dominator could be lying… but why would he/she? (The true irony is that Angel McCoy even made a forum post that there was no contradiction from the asura personal story! – yeah, right)

But when it comes to the origin of the Steam creatures in Lornar’s Pass, the explanation given to us makes no sense whatsoever either. And that’s discounting the possibility of them coming from the possible future.

Even excluding that part, the whole thing of Scarlet building them as revealed in Prosperity’s Mystery is that Scarlet used dredge materials, however the Order of Whispers and Priory agents in the area explicitly state that the materials and engravings are a complete mystery.

Here’s one such case of the mention:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Steam_Gasket_Ring

If the wiki is accurate… it was removed from the game. Though it could be just a wiki error.

Both orders have samples of dredge technology and dredge-mined metals, as we see in Wayfarers and the norn personal story. If the metals came from the ‘dredge black market’ (which in of itself is silly given how xenophobic the dredge are – why would they have a black market? The only group any dredge deals with are the Inquest, presumably that’s how Scarlet got to them, and it was hardly an underground dealing (metaphorically that is)), then the Priory and Whisper agents would be able to figure that out.

Trust me, I am NOT saying retcon just cuz Scarlet was made the origin. I’m saying retcon because Scarlet using dredge materials as the origin makes no sense given what lore we were given in Lornar’s Pass.

Exclaiming surprise and excitement is exactly what I was saying. As said, it came off to me that Ruka was surprised to hear the PC knew of the egg, rather than the egg itself showing, and the excitement being from confirmation that what he felt was the egg.

A Study in Gold explicitly mentions that the Zephyrites will bring Glint’s egg to the Exalted, and as far as I know there is no other “object of Glint’s legacy” ever mentioned or implied – the only other object we know of is the hourglass, and that doesn’t seem like it needs all of Tarir to protect it.

So I find it hard to believe that Ruka would be expecting the possibility of some other ‘object related to Glint’s legacy’.

sanctuary.1068:

When is ls3 going live? Im getting impatient…

In the summer.

Season 2 was also living world. The main story was – just like in Season 1 – told via story instances, but there was a lot of ambient story – just like in Season 1 – that was told via events.

Ruka the Wanderer: Good. As for my mission, I’m tracking an…object. These devices respond to Glint’s legacy, which means—
<Character name>: Caithe and the egg, it must be!
Ruka the Wanderer: Did you say egg? After all these years. I must go…quickly.
Ruka the Wanderer: I might need help. You may accompany me, if you wish.

He explicitly mentions that he’s tracking an object – and shows hesitation to reveal it. Given the tone, I would say it’s not because he doesn’t know what the object is, but hesitates for the same reason the PC tells the biconics not to mention to anyone about the egg’s existence in S2.

So his surprise doesn’t seem to be the egg’s existence, but that the PC knew of it, and confirmation that what he was tracking was indeed the egg.

I never said (nor implied) the Exalted had been in communication with the Pale Tree – after all, they were hibernating for the past 150-200 years.

I love multi-layered maps.

However, ArenaNet made a fatal flaw with them all. Only Verdant Brink’s Canopy layer did things right – its own layer of area names, its own uncovering, and properly fading out map markers which aren’t on the layer.

Tangled Depths’ primary issue is that it’s hard to tell which parts of the visual map are on which layer – only the Depths layer has clear indication of that. If a layer made it visually obvious which parts of the map are on that layer and which are not, it becomes easier to tell the difference. ArenaNet didn’t do this like they did with VB because a lot of that map doesn’t have overlap – about a quarter does, and those parts do differentiate between layers. The problem arises because people don’t see that small differentiation and looking at the layers becomes a “find the difference” game.

The second issue is that regardless of layer (aka z-axis placement), you’re in the same map sector/area, so whether you’re in a deep underwater tunnel or in a high tree… you’re still in the same area. Verdant Brink’s canopy layer doesn’t have this (though its crevasse layer does have this issue).

These two simple issues cause a clusterkitten of confusion to anyone who doesn’t spend a lot of time going through the map.

How about this option:

Fulfilling the promises you made.

I don’t care for legendaries, in all honesty. So I’m glad more effort is put to the story content. HOWEVER, I find the continuous lack of ArenaNet sticking to their statements and fulfilling promises to be a horrid practice.

• In October 2012, we got 2 mini-dungeons, 4 jumping puzzles, and 2 random (read: not tied to newly added maps or the main story) and permanent series of events added. We were told we’d get more stuff like that added. Prior to HoT, we got a total of 0 mini-dungeons, 5 jumping puzzles, 0 random series of events; of those, 4 of the jumping puzzles were part of new maps. Promise unfulfilled.
• In February 2013, Ascalon Catacombs explorable mode got a bit of a rebalance, primarily the bosses. We were told that all seven other dungeons would get the same treatment. None did. Promise unfulfilled and forgotten.
• In September 2013, we got Tequatl Rising, and were told that they’d do this regularly for all world bosses over time. It took them two and a half years (January 2016) to get to the second world boss (Shatterer). Promise unfulfilled, practically forgotten.

That’s not even counting the promises made where we didn’t have a first iteration of it released.

When Heart of Thorns’ content was steadily being announced, it was primarily promises. A new PvP type – one map with more to come… A new WvW borderland map, with cycling and more to come… A raid with more to come… Three legendaries with 13 more to come… Fractal changes with more fractals to come…

This was something I was afraid of. And I voiced it then – it’s a lot of the same old. A first iteration of something with promises for more. But if ArenaNet couldn’t fulfill the first time, why should we trust they will again?

I bought HoT out of the benefit of the doubt for ArenaNet, and because the writers’ interviews had intrigued me… with talked about plots that didn’t come to pass (Nightmare Court, for example).

Already, one promise has been broken – again – so I’m left wondering if ArenaNet will keep any others. Is Forsaken Thicket going to be the only raid we’ll ever see? Will they drop raids for something new like they did dungeons? Will we ever get a second Stronghold map? Will we actually get those new fractals?

Honestly, I’m becoming doubtful. At this point, “ArenaNet” is becoming synonymous to me with “makes promises that won’t be kept”.

I don’t care for Legendaries. I do, however, care that ArenaNet fulfills their promises to the playerbase. Especially when said promise is part of a paid release.

Ruka’s dialogue definitely indicates they knew an egg was in play, they just didn’t know when they’d get it – or if it survived.

There’s also a few centaurs that at least worked for Balthazar post-mortem, though the major of their modern faith is based on the earth (or battle) itself now.

I avoided mentioning them because it’s literally a handful (one naga, one centaur + a later-added series of generic centaurs the number of which is unquantifiable).

I’m a bit unsure what to think of this.

On one hand, this implies better and faster content that isn’t scavenger hunt to do what we’d be doing anyways (like 95% of the current legendary collections are anyways).

On the other hand, this leads to false advertisement and more promises not kept when players pay money, which feels like a backhanded slap to our faces.

Honestly, not sure what to think… but I feel more insulted than anything at the moment. ArenaNet, you’ve had a habit since Season 1 of changing your mind every few months. I could go on and on about lists of these kinds of things, if you feel like you don’t show this. There’s been far too many promises never kept, and promises is what most of HoT was – and now they’re not being kept either.

I’m sure whatever content the legendary team will work on will be good and fun, but do you really want the name “ArenaNet” to be synonymous with “those who cannot keep their promises”?

Next time you make a promise, fulfill it before moving on, please.

Logic would dictate that they do, given the overall lack of asura studying the stars throughout the entire game. Same goes towards charr – only sylvari and norn hold an interest in the stars beyond humanity (among modern, major races), and in that only by the handfuls instead of dozens/hundreds.

However, apparently the humans are so stupid as to realize their calendar is 5 days short – the asura, as it would be, have realized this error and fixed it. Despite the fact that a 5 days miscalculation would result in the calendar being an entire season (90 days) off, cumulatively, every 45 years (less than a lifetime!).

But hey, nonsensical retcon it is!

Blighting Trees are capable of making mordrem asura, norn, human, and charr. We see a mordrem asura and a mordrem human, depending on your choices, during Bitter Harvest.

There’d be no reason why Pale Trees (for lack of a better term for them all) couldn’t. You’re not looking deep enough.

Besides, sylvari basically are mordrem humans.

That’s not even all of the plot holes, just three of the major ones not brought up in the S3 preview summary. Others not included are:

• The Dream and Nightmare – with Mordremoth out of the way, the primary reason to explore this mystery has effectively vanished, and we still have no further clue on what ties the Nightmare and Mordremoth had (and there had to be some connection given that the Shadow of the Dragon was caused by the Nightmare, supposedly, and given the existence of Nightmare chests in the Silverwastes’ maze, and given the Toxic Court – subliminally tied to Mordremoth but still furthering Nightmare).
• Toxic Court – as mentioned, they were subliminally tied to Mordremoth. Especially the krait side of it, which were mentioned out of game to have been mentally altered. HoT would have been the perfect time to turn them into a Son of Svanir-like group, seeing Mordremoth as the power to bring their prophet openly, but also show in the game what was told to us out of the game. With the statement from the interview with Ree about dragon magic spreading to the Elder Dragons’ remaining minions, they may even be included in this ‘spreading’ (the courtier side definitely could, I imagine).

And more. Many more.

HoT wasn’t even quarter of the size it had the potential to be, and wasn’t even half the size it should have been.

And I’ve noticed something over the years. ArenaNet has two huge problems when it comes to storytelling in GW2. First off is that if they don’t feel they can do a story justice, they won’t do it at all; which is a very bad view to always take because sometimes not telling at all is worse than telling less than perfect. Second, and far more important, is that they’re viewing GW2 as a singular story, with every LW Season and every release as just another chapter, instead of how it should be: each season and each release being its own story that ties into one another (like Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall were).

Less a typo and more a retcon, since we didn’t know the island existed until Eye of the North nor had a name for it until GW2 betas (and for all we know the devs didn’t come up with that island location until making the new map for Eye of the North); most people, iirc, thought that Janthir was the mursaat’s name for the Ring of Fire islands until GW2 named that northern island.

Anyways, your comment made it sound like you were saying that the mursaat handed it to the White Mantle post-Saul’s disappearance.

Only line that was really of interest was the bit about Tequatl. Suspected for a while but good for confirmation.

The tengu bit sounded like a throwaway but hey, at least they created a lore excuse for no playable tengu yet.

Kind of a shame they didn’t tackle any of the annoyances of the HoT plots.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Is this the first time we heard from Ree since Sea of Sorrows was pusblished in 2013? Certainly feels like it. I hope there is a good reason for her absence, like writing another novel maybe?

There was an interview shortly after SoS’s release, but other than that yeah pretty much.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

It makes me wonder, assuming that Tequatl was on track to becoming an ED, if other of Zhaitan’s champions could do so at the same time. If each dragon has two spheres, could they be replaced by seperate entities for each? Does there necessarily need to be only one dragon per given sphere, or could we conceivably have multiple, simultaneous Elder Undead Dragons in the future?

I’ve always wanted to treat the minor updates to the Orrian undead and the temple priests to be a case of this (magic spreading mostly evenly across his stronger minions), even though there was no overt lore regarding it unlike Tequatl. So it sounds like my old theory may actually come to pass.

Regarding multiple “Elder Undead Dragons” – in theory, it would be possible, but I don’t think they’d be considered “Elder” at that point, just as Glint wasn’t despite how powerful and old she was.

draxynnic.3719:

Given what we’ve seen, I think it is very much to do with the cemetery. The Pale Tree is almost certainly a Blighting Tree that had her independence from Mordremoth – I think it’s reasonable to presume that her method of gaining templates is the same. She needs a corpse to use as the starting point.

But they don’t, they just need a body. But this is also the ‘evil dragon minion’s way of doing things’ and not the ‘kind dragon minion’s way of doing things’. Just as we see Glint making Crystal Guardians and Crystal Spiders without corrupting actual spiders or whatever for the guardians.

And Ronan and others were around, living, for quite some time.

Also, as you point out in the other thread, it’s clear that Mordrem don’t need a template to make minions – see Vinetooth.

Kalavier.1097:

Did Ventari’s influence and magic cause the Pale tree to be free, or was it that she was ‘planted early’ perhaps?

Given what we know about dragon minions, unless altered by a powerful external force (such as the ritual that Glint underwent), dragon minions – all dragon minions – are without free will. This means that they are incapable of chosing their own life. This is regardless of their dragons’ wakening state (see Svanir, Drakkar, and Great Destroyer).

This would mean that if it was unique to the Pale Tree itself, then Malyck would not be a sylvari, it’d be a mordrem .

It should also be noted that there is no mention of Ronan fighting the ‘monstrous plant creatures’ that guarded the cave, so they could have looked horrid but were friendly for all we know.

Which means that the most likely scenario is that the entire cave had purified seeds.

And before Mawdrey gets mentioned – we put that seed through various odd magics which could have replicated the ritual that Glint underwent. The main thing that I would suspect causing this is the Foefire magic we feed it, seeing the divine fire’s reaction to mordrem in Season 2, knowing that Foefire ghost’s fire is really effective against both risen and sylvari, knowing that Foefire ghosts were the only thing not corrupted by Kralkatorrik’s breath, and knowing that – like the Forgotten’s ritual and divine fire – Magdaer/Sohothin potentially originate from the Six Gods.

Donari.5237:

It’s been years since I read Ghosts of Ascalon but as I recall the act that triggered the disgust was when Killeen animated a recent corpse of one of their companions to walk across a trapped area to set off the traps.

Kalavier.1097:

It’s when she literally turns a recently fallen Ebon Vanguard soldier that both humans in the group knew personally into a minion, that they express feelings. And even then it always is said it’s more of a “Could you please not do that anymore?” and not a “UGH. MINIONS.”

The Ebon Vanguard is mentioned because it’s more obvious. But there’s more than one case than this, which people seem to forget (perhaps because it isn’t so obvious or because it isn’t so often quoted).

On page 7/8 Killeen makes a minion out of long dead bones in the Divinity’s Reach crypts. The reaction was….

“Dougal shuddered as Killeen gave the creature a satisfied smile.”

This, while not obvious, does show some discomfort with necromancy – at the very first time he sees her using necromancy, at that. And again, in making a minion – but this time using methods more similar to what day to day necromancers (read: player characters) use.

Then there’s also the quote that drax brought up.

Overall, it’s far more than “oh my god that poor Ebon Vanguard that we just killed!”

Kalavier.1097:

One thing I maintain is I doubt the Mursaat are all dead. I figure the ones behind the white mantle are all gone, but we know Saul stumbled into a golden city of the Mursaat, and they had cities/places on the Isle of Janthir.

It was not a golden city. This is a highly warped remembrance of the lore.

“a city of massive towers reaching into the heavens. It was a sight to behold, alabaster and golden filigree.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Protectors_of_Kryta

Our one and only line describing the city that Saul found beyond “towers reaching into the heavens” describes it as Alabaster with golden filigree. This line comes from pre-beta lore where Saul’s name was Botolf instead of D’Alessio, and the Confessor’s was Schessler not Dorion. The description of material is actually removed from all later versions of the story – including the Prophecies manual – which at most will only talk about the towers’ height.

Furthermore, nothing says that the mursaat inhabited Janthir at any point in time. All that’s said about Janthir is:

1) It’s where Saul got the Eye of Janthir, and
2) its inhabitance had the Gift of True Sight (which one can deduce to mean seeing into the overlap between Tyria and the Mists, where the mursaat and souls hide).

Kalavier.1097:

As for the Eye, it most definately was sent by the Mursaat, as we all know Saul disappeared shortly before the White mantle completely took over Kryta. Maybe it’ll show up in the raid, given how this seems to be where the White Mantle retreated to and built a base after being defeated.

The first Test of the Chosen began no later than 1067 AE, according to Franklin who states its been around for five years at the time of Prophecies.

Saul D’Alessio disappeared in 1070/1071 AE.

That means that Saul and the Eye and the White Mantle were around for at least three years before the events of the Bonus Mission Pack where Saul is ‘killed’ (aka kidnapped).

So unless Franklin was a huge liar or told nothing but lies (the latter being highly unlikely in this case), there’s nothing to contradict Saul being the one who brought the Eye of Janthir to Kryta.

I was speaking more in generalities when I mentioned that “Mordremoth – like Primordus – doesn’t use original concepts for its minions but create mockeries of already living beings.”

In the same sense that we say that Zhaitan doesn’t corrupt living beings – he certainly is capable and we see him do it, but 99.99% of the time he’s corrupting corpses.

Vinetooths are more the exception than the rule, like Kellach. It proves that such is capable, but the lack of such being done also proves that it isn’t done often enough to be considered the norm. (In the entire game there are ~8 Vinetooths – the one which killed Eir, the Prime, the hero challenge, and 5 Veteran spawns across the eastern half of Auric Basin (underneath Northwatch, western entrance to Vinetooth Den, in a cave just east of Eastwatch, at the southern Eastwatch pylon, and near the wiped out Nuhoch village towards the exit to Tangled Depths).

Well yes, now it’s underwater… but what if it wasn’t!

Or what if they had an aqueduct running through the library!?

You never know! The statue was originally meant for the Cathedral of Hidden Depths. I’m sure there was some waterworks going there somewhere, before it was sunk.

More seriously:

Furthermore, there’s no evidence that anybody else (certainly not the Zephyrites or the Exalted) knew that the PC was supposed to be the egg’s champion,

That’s untrue:

Player character: I need information about how to deal with Mordremoth.
Ogden Stonehealer: Actually, I think you need information about the meaning of your vision from the Pale Tree.
Player character: What? How did you—
Ogden Stonehealer: There are those who have taken interest. I had some warning that you might be calling. Your challenges do not go unnoticed.
Player character: Who?
Ogden Stonehealer: All in good time. But know that they have Tyria’s best interests at heart. Now, this is what you’re looking for. This artifact. Go on, examine it closely.

Which leads me to believe ‘some other party that we don’t know of’ rather than the Dream or the egg.

Erukk.1408:

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

Hehe, we need a How It Should Have Ended gw2 edition.

Captain’s Council: So, you’re saying that this slyvari, Scarlet Briar, is going to be attacking Lion’s Arch with a fleet of sky pirates and other nefarious groups?

Kiel: Yes.

CC: And that it would be the best idea for everyone to instal air defenses and be on high alert?

Kiel: Well, yes…

CC: Sure, why not. After what happened at Dragon Bash, that sounds like a good idea.

~~Cuts to Trahearne looking on as Scarlet’s fleet is shot down over LA and her forces quickly cut down by Lionguard and Order forces.~~

Trahearne: How does everyone feel like going to Elona to take down Kralkatorrik?

Honestly, I’m doubtful that they would have wiped out Scarlet’s assault even if the Lionguard were on full alert and had assistance from the Order (they wouldn’t have gotten aid from the Pact unless the Captain’s Council offered something very useful for fighting dragons – the only non-dragon affair the Pact got involved in was the Flame Legion and this was because of the rumors that Gaheron was making a weapon that would make him as strong as a god; the Pact wanted to confinscate this weapon to use against the Elder Dragons – sadly, it was Gaheron’s ‘godform’ by all likelihood (though I guess it could have been the Searing Effigy or the Eternal Flame) which was unusable by the Pact; furthermore the Iron Legion offered their tanks, submarines, and choppers to the Pact for this assistance, which was a huge boon).

Keep in mind that Scarlet did more than just an aerial assault – she also had the Molten Alliance come from underground, and the Toxic Alliance from the sea. She even had portals that she used. And along with foot soldiers there was the toxins – that’s what really hindered the Lionguard, not the Aetherblade airships.

Just my little derailing.

You can toss the Broken Caladbolg in the forge, but it functions like the standard rare sword. Nothing special to it.

To those ‘worried’ about it being a component in a legendary – if that happens, it will likely just be unlocking the skin for a collection for the precursor.

Ayrilana.1396:

Artanis.4963:

Ilvanor.1986:

It will be fixed and reforged to become a precursor known as Caledfwlch to become the legendary Excalibur.

Oh man, they have the tech to do this justice, too. It’ll be like Replica Job-o-Tron and the r-Tron gathering tools, playing narcissistic and belittling statements when your character takes an action. Periodically (read: frequently) it’ll spontaneously regale those around it with tales of its history.

And whenever your character says something, it responds with “Fool!”

In the voice of Trahearne.

Logan Thackeray would be better. Why? Same voice actor as Excalibur in the English dub of Soul Eater.

The humorous parts: Both Excalibur and Logan have their legend begin in the 13th century!

Honestly, ever since Nolan North was revealed as the voice actor for Logan Thackeray, I’ve been expecting some Excalibur-voice spoofs of Logan…. no one has presented something.

Kalavier.1097:

Most people think with their hearts, not with their heads. They are guided by feelings rather than thoughts. So the general opinion would sway towards hating and distrusting necromancers in general. It’s not to say everybody does it, or all necromancers are like that.

Sorry for the rant, but I honestly don’t understand how you can’t see this.

I honestly can’t understand how you believe that stuff is applicable to the general population, who have shown that talking casually, publically about being a necromancer is not a distrusted or hated thing. The one civilain who talks about Grenth being creepy gets told “Maybe you should rethink your profession.” Not hated or scorned. YES, necromancers can be viewed as creepy, and the worst are really bad. But the MAJORITY are not anywhere close to that level. The Majority don’t spawn armies of minions from their dead neighbor and his three dogs and a pony.

Marjory is a necromancer, and she receives ZERO HATRED about it. ZERO distrust. She’s hired as a detective enough to be profitable before she joins the player character.

Yes, there is some distrust. But GW2 necromancers are not even a shred alike socially to the WoW warlocks or other universe necromancers. Olias, IIRC, was all about sending souls to grenth to be judged, not binding them to minions.

I didn’t reply in the first place because this is not the place for necromancer discussion, this topic is about thieves as a professsion.

The game shows this poorly – along with all versions of disgust and distrust among the ‘good guys’. There’s a bit of sylvari distrust added lately, but beyond pretty much everyone sans some oddball dialogues.

I’d suggest reading Ghosts of Ascalon, which shows Killeen, a sylvari necromancer, who is shown with a bit of disgust by her friends for being a necromancer – especially when she makes minions.

Marjory hasn’t really used any minions around her allies, which is the biggest ‘problem’ most people have shown to have. As memory serves, she only made such during the Fort Salma instance, where only the player and Kasmeer was around.

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

While I agree that sylvari do grow most of their tools (technology in itself), Scarlet should still not be left out. No technology is developed in a vacuum after all and more often than not small upgrades and modifications make the big impact. Fusing completely different technologies together is impressive imo.

Scarlet is more the exception than the rule. Like a charr who’s worshiping gods but isn’t in the Flame Legion.

Scarlet took technology from all other races – like I mentioned – and nothing made by herself for the most part (if not the whole part). She was not a creator, she was a renovator. What technology was directly attributed to her was a blatant retcon (Steam creatures) which don’t even match her designs and MO (organic cores in robotic bodies!).

But again, she is the exception, not the rule. And a very poorly written exception at that.

“Sylvari technology” is, as we see with Scarlet Briar the lore wreck that she was, often a case of taking other races’ technology and putting a new twist in it. Sylvari as a culture are more magic-based, specifically with plant magic, than the other races (even asura, really).

Their study of science also tends to go in different directions because they themselves are plants putting them in a different state of mind than other races (and they’re new so they’re more focused on studying current states than seeing how they can alter current states like asura, charr, and humans are).

In making minions, not using souls seems to be more about morals and/or social graces than anything else (like not murdering people for minion making but using the corpses of enemies from battle), seeing how we see Joko (who, unlike Zhaitan, is indeed a necromancer) and Khilbron using souls (either in their undead or not) – and I would not attribute this to them being powerful liches, but something they were willing to do that ‘moral necromancers’ do not. Oberan might have used souls in his minions, too, given that they’re very similar to Joko’s and Khilbron’s. And there’s Fendi Nin as well, who did the same.

Or like how Bria’s and Daithor’s minions are spectral.

But then again, we have shades in GW2, which are Nightmares which are some kind of twisted, hostile spirit. So in a way while we didn’t have souls for minions in GW1, we do in GW2.

In the end, it all falls down to one’s willingness, and not capabilities or even moralities in the act itself.

After all, even when Khilbron uses the souls of the recently killed White Mantle to fight off the remnents of the Stone Summit at the end of Thunderhead Keep – or brought souls of the dead to fight off the White Mantle in Sanctum Cay – there was no moral objection.

And regarding the grind of HoT – they’re going to be reducing it in April with the Spring Quarterly update. how much is unknown, but they stated that the Spring update (which will be in April sometime) will focus on reducing the grind of the new content.

The White Mantle don’t need to have made the soul batteries to be able to use them. During All for One and One for Justice we see the White Mantle still sacrificing on the bloodstone with soul batteries attatched. This indicates that they still did their ritual even when the soul batteries had no destination.

Most likely, IMO, the situation is that they kept the sacrifices going until the soul batteries simply couldn’t hold any more souls within them and exploded (think like a lithium battery), which resulted in turn with the River of Spirits in the Spirit Vale. Then these souls go crazy with Mordremoth’s magic seeping the land.

That’s not true at all, Narcemus. Necromancers in Tyria and Elona deal with souls a lot:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Rites_of_Remembrance
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Crypt-ology
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ghosts_in_the_Graveyard

This has remained true in GW2, though is most evident in the Priests of Grenth (whom are usually necromancers – like Priestess Rhie).

He can make new bodies, but all indications point that he’s just transferring their mind, not making new intelligent minions, and this is only attributed to the Mordrem Commanders.

The trailer shouldn’t be taken as anything close to canon, since it was outsourced with a lot of creative license given to the makers (such as the ‘vine monster’ at the end being 100% made up by the trailer makers, not ArenaNet).

My theory is…

“The Divine Eye has an intelligence of its own. It won’t follow just anybody. Only those who have proven themselves worthy are asked to partake in this ceremony. In the past five years, all of the knights who have been promoted to the rank of zealot or justiciar had at one time administered the test.”

“You came all this way for a few soldiers? You really have no idea what’s in this compound, do you? Only the worthy are taken inside. Like the squad leader.”

It would be rather interesting, if the Eye of Janthir returns in the third wing, perhaps even as an ‘enemy’ to destroy. We know it was capable of offensive capabilities – it knocked down all who were not worthy, and illuminated the Chosen. It is sapient, too.

They’re still doing living world seasons. I don’t get where you’re coming from with ‘relying on the rare feature drop approach’.

There’s pretty much an 8 month wait before and after HoT for new story, but that doesn’t mean they’re not doing focus on story anymore.

We still have a Season 3 coming, and it’s going to be – as far as we know – a lot like Season 2 in structure and format.

Mordrem Guard by definition are sylvari who took on Mordremoth’s call.

The rest are just mordrem, who are also far more mindless.

There was a comment that they were released when ‘something broke’ – it was a slip of the tongue by someone at Anet, and I’ve been thinking that something was soul batteries.

Though it’s possible that it’s the Bloodstone itself, which is why we see so many shards.

And I just recalled something about it being Mordremoth’s magic that charged the Bloodstones. Though I cannot recall if this was from a screenshot, from a dev, or just wild speculation. Seems more reasonable than souls charging them, given how many are out and about.