Guild Wars 2

Shiren.9532:

You can argue that raids are accessible until you are blue in the face, but join ten pug groups on lfg and I bet less than five will kill the boss they are forming for.

I… would call that accessible elite content.

Inaccessible elite content, to me, would be as if 1 out of 10 pug runs beat VG, and 5 out of 10 well established groups beat VG.

So I guess the issue comes down to how one defines “accessible”. Anyone can enter the raid, and you have a 50-50 chance, roughly, of beating the boss with pugs. This chance will only get better with time as people make better guides for the mechanics – just as dungeons began as something semi-challenging and ended up with ‘this is how you solo it’ and ‘clear in 5 minutes’ stuff.

In time, the harsh reality is that raids will not get updated and becomes more accessible. Even now, they’re more accessible than most inaccessible elite content.

The latter, more or less. IIRC, it was said that the raid will lead into Season 3, but not be required reading. I took it to mean like Edge of Destiny for the Personal Story/Dungeon story mode plot. We eventually find the main details out in the game (DE formed, killed dragon champions left and right, went after Kralkatorrik, Logan went to save Queen Jennah, Glint and Snaff died, group split), but we don’t really get the whole story without reading Edge of Destiny.

Kind of like the cinematic at the end of wing 2 – it recaps the White Mantle involvement of GW1, but ultimately doesn’t give the whole story. Just enough so that you know the main points of the lore and story.

Roxhemar.6039:

Bandit’s have rarely been associated with them…and why would mere bandit’s care about kidnapping someone instead of pillaging them?

The very core of the bandit group is that they’re just a front for the White Mantle. Every bandit outpost is united – whether the mooks realize it or not – and the bandit leadership are all White Mantle.

Sabetha is White Mantle. So are all the other bandits in the raid wings.

Shiren.9532:

some of it is even rewritten history

Which part is that?

Closest thing I saw as ‘seems rewritten’ is that the White Mantle overthrew the throne – which isn’t entirely false. We don’t know the circumstances behind King Jadon’s fleeing the throne, and we know that the White Mantle came into being before the charr invasion (the first Test of the Chosen took place 5 years before the events of Prophecies – e.g., 3 years before the Searing).

For all we know, Jadon fled the throne at sword-point because of the White Mantle (without Saul’s knowledge – or with).

Furthermore, this recap is based on the Pact Squad Leader’s knowledge of history – which is prone to errors. Ever since War in Kryta, we knew that the Shining Blade portrayed Saul D’Alessio as a tyrant and liar, despite we players knowing he was at least partly honest and caring.

Shiren.9532:

Only Factions elite dungeons had the same or more people required than GW2 raids. Getting ten people together for a GW2 raid is not an easy task. At least in GW1 you had heroes.

No henchmen or heroes were allowed in elite dungeons in Prophecies of Factions (excluding Tombs and Sorrow’s Embrace, but henchmen in Tombs was suicide and SE was as much an elite mission as Arah is a raid).

So this argument seems silly. No one complained about the story denied to them in UW/FoW/Urgoz/Deep before Nightfall came out – at least not in large numbers.

And then consider accessibility to those areas (favor for UW/FoW, ownership of HzH/Cavalon), and how for years you could only have 3 heroes (thus you needed at least one other person anyways) even after they were introduced (and even then heroes are vastly inferior to players), honestly raids feel far more accessible to the average joe.

Shiren.9532:

The reality is, a good chunk of GW1’s elite dungeons were solo or duable. UW was commonly farmed this way, DoA even had areas that were solo’d. GW2 raids are tuned to be more difficult and the GW2 combat system is less gimmicky than what ruled during GW1 (nothing close to Shadow Form/Ursan/Spirit Spammer exists in GW2).

People are already doing wing 1 bosses with self-given handicaps like no armor, fewer teams, not using certain mechanics, etc.

While none has been solo’d yet (afaik), folks have done Gorseval with 7 players instead of 10 (if not fewer). Just like the elite dungeons were not solo’able at first, given time people will find ways to do low-number raids just as people figured out how to do solo Lupicus.

Shiren.9532:

Elite dungeons were in GW1 since the beginning. Up till Spirit Vale came out, everything in GW2 was relatively accessible to all players. Our GW2 community was built around the expectation of being able to access all story content. Raids are a departure from the norm for GW2.

Except it’s still accessible by everyone. They just need to find a group for it – no different than needing to find a group for dungeons.

Accessibility to raids is very little different than accessibility to Arah.

So I really don’t get these complaints of accessibility. Many of the people complaining also say they’ll never do raids – which puts the fault on them not ArenaNet because they don’t even try.

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

BuddhaKeks.4857:

By the way, Bobby mentioned there would be an NPC in Spirit Vale that previously had no name, but would get one with this release. Has anyone already found out who he ment?

It’s the vendor. She got renamed from “Priory Scholar” to “Scholar Glenna”.

No idea if spoiler…

Show Spoiler

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Could it not be the Pact Squad leader? From what I understood he didn’t really have a name in Wing 1 and you end up talking to him in Wing 2, I think?

Wouldn’t call the fact the Squad leader gets a name, and I considered that, but Stein said we meet the NPC in wing 1. The only NPC we meet in wing 1 that’s in wing 2 is the vendor.

Shiren.9532:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

So it would be only be not ‘super lame’ if Jennah dies? That seems silly.

If they repeat the Queen’s Speech/Clockwork Chaos why bother do the story at all? Jennah doesn’t have to die, but recyling the same “someone tries to take down the Queen” plot, with the same outcome (they lose, Jennah continues to rule unscathed) is redundant.

Well, Scarlet did a sabotogue of the Watchknights, while the White Mantle seem to be out for a full blown coup d’etat. Which implies a full out war. And if this is so, then we’re facing a major plot, and not just a single release’s plot.

There might be assassination attempts, but it likely will be along the lines of ‘as she’s walking down the hallway in the Palace,’ rather than on a big stage over a gaping hole in the ground (seriously, who thought that was a good idea?). Scarlet was out for a show, the White Mantle are out for power and revenge.

Given recent reveals in wing 2, I don’t think we’re for a showdown with Lazarus.

Wing 2 has constant mentions of “Him” due to arrive. And there are hints that the sacrifices are healing him of old wounds – likely the actions of Eye of the North. I think Wing 3 will have us see the return of Lazarus at the end, finally having been fully healed.

They seem to be forging weapons out of the Bloodstone shards they’ve aquired – to a surprisingly high amount that I wouldn’t be surprised if there is no Bloodstone left when we get there. This tells me that they’re planning a coup on DR, which may be the focus of Season 3.

Which while awesome, is a bit disappointing because that would mean we get very little primary screen time for the aftermath of sylvari, which was barely covered in HoT. I really hope it doesn’t just get swept under the rug ‘because Mordremoth is dead now’.

Avarice.2791:

Lol what you are basically describing is taking 3 books. You read the first one then hop to the third one and say OMG WHAT IS GOING ON?

This is not Anet’s fault…..zzzzzzz

Also, this fee you describe is essentially equal to $2. I think its 20% off as well….

You forgot the part where the author had then burned all copies of the first book, leaving only audience-made summaries of it, then slapped in a recap prologue in the third book.

Palador.2170:

Trise.2865:

“WTF? Caithe is evil?” She did something bad and you want to know why.

To be fair, she’s always been evil. You just didn’t have it rubbed in your face until then. Before that, it was always evil in your favor.

Merciless to Nightmare Courtiers != evil

Honestly, Caithe is the most developed – personality and history wise – of all DE. I mean, what do we know of Logan or Rytlock’s past? pretty much nothing (though more on Logan thanks to Edge of Destiny and family relationships), or Eir? Not much – nothing at all, really, until Braham showed up. Zojja? Only that she was Snaff’s apprentice (which isn’t really past since that’s Edge of Destiny material).

Caithe we know so much more. We know her motivations, her secrets, her harsh truths. We have a well developed and consistent personality (which is why the hatred on her during HoT is so odd – her taking the egg for protection without explanation is exactly the kind of stuff she did in Edge of Destiny – remember the scene where she just gets up and runs away to stop a bear baiting fight without any explanation to Rytlock or Logan who wonder where she’s running off to all of a sudden?), unlike with any of the biconics, or Zojja, or Eir, really.

Charr don’t worship gods anymore – and when they did, they worshiped beings called titans. Only humans, Forgotten, and certain dwarves worshiped the Six Gods (and for dwarves, they only worshiped Grenth and Dwayna – but most worshiped their own god: the Great Dwarf). Most species have their own religions.

So it would be only be not ‘super lame’ if Jennah dies? That seems silly.

ScarecrowHD.4120:

Necromancy isnt a magic practised its an ability given to people by grenth. okay thats cool

All magic is practiced. Otherwise there’d be no charr necromancers.

Humans attribute some professions to certain gods – which are the professions’ patron god, but the connection is not absolute.

Necromancy existed before Grenth was a god, he just gave his own take on it to Desmina.

ScarecrowHD.4120:

Now in the ps we meet the 7th reaper of grenth and before that we see the past of the Mouth of grenth???

There’s no Mouth of Grenth. You might be thinking of the Mouth of Zhaitan and the Keeper of the Shrine (a priest for Grenth’s cathedral in Orr) and mixing them up.

ScarecrowHD.4120:

since it hasent been explained how you get your New spec it has drawn on me you wouldnt be able to go from what the necromancers were first to becoming one of the reapers since grenth left with the others and wouldnt be able to give you the ability to become one of his reapers. so anyone have any toughts on this? please share this is buggin me plenty but as i said it could all just be ended by its just a name.

It’s just the same word to name different things. Like the druids – they were a group of humans who sacrificed their flesh to become one with nature, but it’s the name of an elite specialization.

Being a Reaper elite specialization is not becoming one of the Seven Reapers. The Seven Reapers are powerful souls tasked with overseeing the Underworld. The Reaper elite specialization is just a more physical-based take on the necromancer profession.

Unfortunately, there’s not much lore on any of the elite specializations. The one with the most lore is Scrapper – the rest are pretty much loreless, except for some name ties. And Scrapper is the only elite specialization who’s name actually holds a connection with another thing of the same name (Scrappers are a low, often punishment duty, position in charr society – the elite specialization began when said charr society scrappers decided to become useful in fighting).

That ‘he’ mentioned in one of the journals is no doubt Lazarus.

Curious that the Slothasor only became a thing after Mordremoth’s death – and some more literal confirmation that Mordremoth’s influence is gone, with the vine being ‘lifeless’.

Also curious how the White Mantle are charging the bloodstone (shards) somehow – which according to the Forgotten via A Study in Gold is an art lost with the Seer’s near extinction (which indicates the mursaat might have stolen that knowledge – just as there are minor indications they might have stolen magical knowledge from the Forgotten).

It also seems the sacrifices have two purposes – charging the bloodstone, and healing Lazarus from his wounds in Eye of the North.

I’m now really wanting to see Bloodstone weapons released in wing 3. But more importantly – where are they shipping all those bloodstone shards and weapons? Obvious answer is through the Fort Vandal asura gate. Which means they’re preparing for a large scale assault/coup. That could be Season 3… We know that bloodstone weapons are very effective and dangerous from Eye of the North, so it’ll be interesting to see if this is so.

Confirmation that the Vale Guardian is old, not new like some folks thought from the journals in Spirit Vale. And hints that they were made by the mursaat’s knowledge – interesting.

Liewec.2896:

pretty much like super evil versions of the Exalted you meet in HoT

Not in the least. Mursaat are flesh and blood powerful spellcasters. Exalted are humans converted to magic encased in armor.

Exalted are closer to Margonites than mursaat.

There is the appearance similarity, but the Exalted’s appearance is actually based off of the enchanted armor of GW1, which always looked like spikier, tarnished, versions of mursaat armor.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

With (spectral) Agony, which required your gear to be infused… Doesn’t that seem familiar somewhere?

It was explicitly stated back during The Lost Shores when Fractals was added that Agony, Ascended gear, and Infusions were all name-only call backs to GW1 – done by Linsey Murdock who was a huge mursaat fan.

We finally got lore on Agony with HoT – and it is nothing like Spectral Agony in lore.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Im very dissapointed they gated this reveal behind the kitten ed raid, they could and honestly should have made this part of living story.

I really don’t get all this story hate on raids. It’s not like it’s new for ArenaNet to give elite missions good story and lore.

For example, Dhuum.

Amineo.8951:

Well Salvation Pass tells us about the return of Mursaat, maybe that’s what the sacrifices are for, to ascend into one or resurrect one.

Lazarus never died, and the raid doesn’t tell about the resurrection of them.

Erukk.1408:

The lack of effects from Bloodstone Dust could possibly be handwaved as it being a “safe” refined form or weakened product of the Bloodstone.

Technically already has:

Magic flows from the bloodstones back into the world. Bloodstone shards are rare, but still known to affect anyone or anything within range. Bloodstone dust is far less effective.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstones_

Valik Shin.9027:

There is a text somewhere that indirectly hints that the elder races did actually take down 1 dragon

I don’t recall any such indication. There is mention of six dragons in the past, and there are six dragons now (though one’s not affecting Tyria – directly).

ColdSlot.6928:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Keep in mind that the elder races lacked two things the modern races have in abundance:

2) Technology. The only technological race of the elder races were the dwarves, and their technology goes as far as blackpowder and trebuchets in GW1.

You forgot about the Jotan. Even if its not double confirmed the Jotan have stories of their civilization and had technologies such as telescopes, which in my opinion is much more advanced than trebuchets.

I didn’t forget it. As Aaron said, telescopes aren’t very useful in war – and the jotun had given no known militant assistant during the last dragonrise. Their story is more neglected than humanity’s in the modern time, which barely adds anything that norn don’t – which is pretty much just physical forces, in turn that’s not very useful against the Elder Dragons except as canon fodder and meat shields for the actual canons.

And as draxynnic said, what ‘technology’ that the jotun had actually appears to be magitech – aka food for dragons. Only the dwarves had pure raw technology, like the charr do, and theirs was drastically inferior.

Squee.7829:

We really don’t know what technologies those races had. If they had telescopes and magical towers with scrying pools, who’s to say they didn’t have something great they could weaponize? The Cauldron of Cataclysm and the scrolls that caused The Cataclysm (interestingly not caused by the aforementioned cauldron) certainly didn’t come from the current races. In the Cauldron’s case, it was given to the Charr by the Titans, (as orchestrated by Abaddon), but did the Titans/Abaddon actually MAKE that weapon? (Serious question, I don’t know if it was ever mentioned)

The Priory’s plan in Orr does go into a tad bit more on the cauldrons – the Cauldron of Cataclysm was given to the charr, but the Flame Legion were the ones to enchant and duplicate it – and given CoF’s Searing Effigy and the purple hue of the Searing Crystals in GW2, the idea must be that they siphoned from hibernating Kralkatorrik to enchant the cauldrons.

As for the elder races’ technology… Yes, they had magitech, and they had magic. They no doubt had powerful spells too. We know they had powerful magitech and powerful magic.

But that’s it – everything the elder races had relied on magic, at least given all of our information. The only exception to this is the dwarves, but all indication points to their technology never exceeding the invention of blackpowder.

And dragons eat magic.

I don’t think you can kill a person by throwing pies at him.

Squee.7829:

I would also argue that their lack of technology and unity would, in fact, make them chumps xD. We were able to get our kitten together and fight back given nothing but ingenuity and good old fashioned Tyria magic. What was their excuse? What prevented them from pooling together and creating better tech? What prevented them from setting aside personal grudges or self preservation and decide to fight together?
Very chump-like behavior, I think xD

They relied on magic too much, which made their civilizations greater than modern Tyria’s, but it in turn made them weaker to Elder Dragons.

Unlike them, the modern races had warnings and preventions against the Elder Dragons. Our entire success is wholly dependent on the few successes the elder races had.

Without their records, the Forgotten’s actions with Glint (and probably the Pale Tree’s seed), the dwarves turning to stone, and the creation of the Bloodstone the modern races would not have stood a chance.

Without the elder races:

• There’d be no sylvari – no sylvari means no cleansing of Orr, no Trahearne to lead the Pact (no individual that all three Orders respect)
• The mursaat would still be enslaving humanity (because Glint wouldn’t have been there to lead to their demise in GW1), who would no doubt act the same as they did before (as they did in Prophecies): sacrifice other races in the thousands to save their own hides; and the charr would still be following titans (and thus Abaddon) under the Flame Legion – which means no alliance with them
• Without the dwarves the Great Destroyer wouldn’t have been killed (it was thanks to them that we got the forewarning), leading to the asura’s (near?) extinction, and destroyers would have begun breaking the surface in 1078 instead of ~1320. Further – as drax points out – if the charr had the chance of a revolution (which wouldn’t be clear without Glint thus the Flameseeker Prophecies), they would still be unable to reverse engineer the dwarves’ technology for their speedy industrial revolution, leading them to not have as much technology as they do now, reducing any potential Pact’s advantage greatly.

Without the Forgotten and dwarves’ actions, the entire history of the lore changes. And not for the better. The only group of the modern races that would be effectively unchanged is the norn.

So those ‘chump races’ are the entire reason why modern races have made the progress they have.

I wouldn’t call it “richer” but it is based off of more established well loved lore.

Honestly, I don’t get all this complaining about lore being in the raids. I mean, raids are basically GW2’s version of elite missions we had in GW1, and every one of those had good lore behind them – especially The Underworld and Fissure of Woe. Mind you, GW2’s putting more lore into their ‘elite mission’ variants, but they’re trying to put more lore in everything.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

By the way, Bobby mentioned there would be an NPC in Spirit Vale that previously had no name, but would get one with this release. Has anyone already found out who he ment?

It’s the vendor. She got renamed from “Priory Scholar” to “Scholar Glenna”.

Palador.2170:

Personally, I don’t even know the plot (if there is one) behind the first part of the raid, and I can look at these things and make some interesting guesses about the guy.

The entire raid basically has a singular plot that we’re finding out. In wing 1, we go into a bandit complex, protected by the Vale Guardian, looking for prisoners – where we find magical oddities (the river of souls and Gorseval) which has hints of the area’s past (this all tying into GW1 by the looks of it) and mentions of ‘experiments’ going on, and we find out this place is ‘something bigger’, so we go further west into wing 2 to get the remaining prisoners and discover what that ‘something bigger’ is which the bandits are hiding.

Ultimately, this raid seems to be the culmination of the White Mantle/bandit storyline. Which makes me rather scared for Caudecus – he’s a worthwhile villain but he has had no role in all of this thus far.

I wonder where Riot Alice fits in. She mentioned she would be going further north soon, so I’m betting she’s been made a White Mantle initiate or is being tricked into becoming experiment fodder.

I haven’t played much Inquisition, but isn’t Red Lyrium basically normal lyrium which has been corrupted by Darkspawn blood?

For Bloodstones to be the equivalent, it would mean corrupted by dragon energy, but that would mean using it would corrupt the users – e.g., all of humanity for the past 1,000 years. The Bloodstones seem to be more likely to be anti-Elder Dragons, so I rather doubt that.

But this reminds me of the finale to Arah Seer path. As you reach the final boss, a Bloodstone Shard, it becomes active and out of control, and Randall turns into a red-hued ghost (100% unique in all of GW) while saying “I can hear the stones calling me! I can hear the voices of the Six Gods!” When you destroy the shard, he disappears, saying “I go now, to seek out the gods themselves!”

Makes me want to replay that dungeon, to see what I might have missed.

Was it like the Cranes in Kessex Hills? Ambient only – cannot even be selected?

If you reach the Slothasor’s Den, you can see streams of yellow-gold magic. Curiously, it reminds me of the Exalted magic. Which isn’t too surprising since one of them says they were made by Bloodstone magic.

I think the difference might be that the Slothasor is being exposed to leaked magic while Matthias might be more directly ‘injecting’ it. Spirit Vale mentioned experiments. I had thought this meant more Gorsevals, but it could be what Matthias turns into.

We’ll see soon. Folks already beat Slothasor and there only seems to be the two bosses this wing, unless the Matthias Abomination is separate from Matthias completely.

Keep in mind that the elder races lacked two things the modern races have in abundance:

1) Unity. The elder races were brought down not by the Elder Dragons but by the mursaat’s betrayal and subsequent near genocide of the Seers.

2) Technology. The only technological race of the elder races were the dwarves, and their technology goes as far as blackpowder and trebuchets in GW1.

However, you’re also ignoring the fact that the Elder Races:

1) Put the Elder Dragons to sleep via starvation by the creation of the Bloodstone.
2) Created a means to effectively fight and survive the Elder Dragons (unfortunately, the mursaat took their Spectral Agony and dimensional phasing with them when they left for the Mists, leaving the others mostly defenseless – and wholly offenseless).
3) Discovered magic that was not only able to break the mental enslavement between Elder Dragon and dragon minion, but also prevented corruption.
3.1) The latter magic being used on the Exalted, who had kept Mordremoth back before the Pact arrived, seemingly, as well as gave them refuge when they were recovering
3.2) The former not only used on Glint but seemingly used on the Pale Tree (no other explanation for why both Pale Tree and Malyck seems free of Mordremoth), which allowed the sylvari to be a thing, which in turn allowed a major advance against Zhaitan, the forming of the Pact, and effectively all things the modern races have accomplished.
3.3) Glint’s turn also allowed the races to survive, and created enough preparation for the next awakening cycle – of which we’re likely to see take fuller root in the next LW Season or two (or next expansion).
4) Dwarves ended up stalling Primordus, keeping him from wrecking Tyria’s surface for enough time for the modern races to find out about Elder Dragons.

Effectively, without the Seers and Forgotten and possibly dwarves, modern races couldn’t accomplish what they have.

If you go to the wardrobe and find the item, it has a description:

Adorned with Bloodstone shards. Pulsing with magic.

At the top are four textural copies of Bloodseeker aka Bloodstone Shard aka Mysterious Stone.

Not all that surprising – we know that Bloodstone Fen is pretty much right where we’re going by now (the temple is actually on the path just behind it compared to GW1, I think – will have to see from that_shaman’s historical guide once updated), and we’ve long known that the White Mantle were behind the bandits.

What’s interesting to me, however, is the Mini Matthias Abomination. It looks like a human had bloodstone fragments melded into its body.

Kossage.9072:

We now know for certain thanks to Bobby Stein’s comment about Malyck on Reddit that none of the Blighting Trees seen in Magus Falls is Malyck’s Tree for the simple reason that no content about Malyck or his Tree ever appeared in HoT beyond early planning stages. I’ll let the man speak for himself:

Bobby Stein on Reddit

Bear in mind that my involvement with HoT was minimal, but I did partake in many discussions about scoping and such in the early phases of the project. There simply wasn’t the time or resources to do that story justice. And while it’s hard for a team to make that call, it’s a very real part of game development. You can’t do everything all the time because it’s just impossible. (Source)

This was in response to a redditor bringing up the subject of Malyck in a lengthier discussion about whether the GW2 writing team is neglecting long-standing mysteries of GW verse and why the story content of HoT was limited in scope.

What this means is Malyck and his Tree are still unaccounted for in one of the areas in the world map not yet revealed to us. Whether we ever get to see his story concluded one way or another remains to be seen but seems unlikely at this stage as we’re now moving on towards new adventures.

Ooo, never saw this. Thanks! Gotta update wiki pages now.

Cobalt Raven.3986:

I have a few.

Why did Trahearne fly the entire fleet into the jungle without sending scouts to explore first? If someone says “to stop the dragon before it fully awakens”- how does it count as being half awake when it’s been around for at least 2 years, and has extended its reach as far as the Iron Marches? (This is also partially a gripe, as comparing Trahearne’s behavior during vanilla PS to this- he should not be this careless.)

• Other than typical idiot ball handling that the Living World writers loved (dear Anet, please leave the ball in its corner), Mordremoth could count as ‘not fully awaken’ because there was no massive disaster. Jormag, Kralkatorrik, and Zhaitan all awoke with a major disaster followed by an army’s assault – Trahearne explicitly states in Season 2 that his primary goal is to kill Mordremoth before it can build a minion army. So time is of the essence.

Where the bloody heck is the Commander for 2+ years and why was there no report or some indication of correspondence with Trahearne? In such an organization, one cannot go AWOL for that long and still have a position.

• He was out saving the world from non-Elder Dragon threats. Namely, this ended up taking the form of Scarlet, and figuring out what she did to cause a dragon’s roar.

What happened to those Pact Vigilantes you ran off?

• Depends on which you mean. If you mean the ones in Torn from the Sky, you can follow them to the exit to Silverwastes – if you mean in the Pact Camp open world, then probably back to camp?

What exactly is the Coztic Itzel’s deal?

• Explained in The Jugnle Provides. They suffered harder than the Jaka Itzel and has turned bitter and untrusting because of that. Also, if we go with original hylek lore – blue and green hylek have less poison in their bodies than red, yellow, and orange. Having higher amounts of poison results in a higher aggressive personality – unlike the Jaka Itzel, the Coztic Itzel (and the hostile Nuhoch tribes) are all red, orange, and yellow skinned. In other words, they are biologically more aggressive. Then add in the death tolls added by mordrem (and probably the mindless firing into the jungle by the Pact…).

How did the Itzel and Nuhoch meet? (My curiosity)

• Enjoy your reading

Hmm… that needs to get added to the wiki still, it seems.

Do the Itzel know the bandits?

• Nothing indicates so.

More info on the Blighting Tree? Could it be that that tree IS Malyck’s tree and he was one of the, if not the only “minion” to escape Mordremization and instead became “Sylvari”? Also, where are the Blighting Tree seeds? <pure curiosity, I want to see where the Sylvari came from, in terms of specific place of origin.

• There are five (possibly six) Blighting Trees across HoT. According to the personal Story, Malyk’s tree is along the river that flows between Tangled Depths and Metrica Province. If any tree in HoT is his, it would be Morwood in Auric Basin.

As for ‘escaping mordremization’ – such a thing isn’t possible on an individual case, or even group case, without some external interference. That’s a very long process though, but basically – we never see the Pale Tree undergo some rite of purification like Glint did, so it is most likely that the Pale Tree’s and Malyck’s tree’s seeds were all purified as seeds

Why did Rytlock tell Eir and Faolain to run to the overpass first, despite knowing that Faolain can’t be trusted (novel inference), and knowing that Eir is weakened and unarmed?

• Because the only other option is “stay there and we’ll run around the long way to reach you instead of you running to meet us halfway!”

They were taken to a peninsula – there was only one way out from where Eir and Faolain were taken.

Also, Eir is a Norn. Why did she just stand there and take the shot despite still being able to move, and knowing that there is a small group of very armed warriors near her, at least one of whom could do first aid?

• Because she was starved for days, injured, the thorn Faolain stabbed her with being a very damaging strike (they couldn’t show blood due to T rating but devs have said it was meant to be a near fatal strike), and she had no weapons. She knew she couldn’t do jack kitten against the Vinetooth, so rather than run like a coward she faced her enemy like a norn who was completely out of options would.

She could move, but not fast enough to escape. She could move, but couldn’t fight well enough to survive or do any damage.

Why are the human nobility here, what exactly do they bring now that they’re stuck in the jungle thanks to Faren’s harebrained idea that it was a good time to go over Magus Falls on a joyride?

• Talk to the NPCs. They explain it. And if you think watching a battle from afar when you believe it’s a sure victory… go read up on the American Civil War and what families did.

Spoiler: Families, often noble families, would set up picnics on the edges of battlefields to ‘enjoy the view of battle’. Needless to say, yes, stray canons did kill some of those dolts.

You may see it as harebrained but… it’s historically accurate.

Why are the Exalted there, exactly? Who else lived in the Golden City? What happened to the Forgotten? Do they have a connection to the Zephyrites? How are they keeping the Mordrem at bay? How are they keeping Mordremoth’s influence out?

• In order:
• To await and protect Glint’s Egg – and more duties that will be revealed to them in time when Glint’s Egg is no longer needed in Tarir.
• The Forgotten.
• They left or died off.
• Yes, the Exalted were friends and families to the first generation of Zephyrites.
• Forgotten magic is immune to dragon corruption. We saw this in Arah. Exalted are immune and have immune magic.
• Same as above.

If you’re a Sylvari, how come you aren’t hearing Mordy’s voice/feeling its presence at the surface?

• You do – in the story. You never do in the open world, probably because it would be to hard to code for placement in the story and placement in the open world.

Actually, general question: How are we able to resist the dragon?

• This is a very long answer. Basically, Mordrem Guard are not naturally corrupted. Mordremoth is capable of whispering into sylvari’s minds in a manner that makes them think these whispers are their own thoughts. Whether a sylvari falls to Mordremoth or resists him is whether or not they believe these whispers to actually be their own thoughts – those who know who they are and know that they wouldn’t normally think thoughts of killing their comrades, wouldn’t turn. Thus, the “how” is based on individual and their acknowledgement of self – as Occam says “I know who I am” so he doesn’t even consider the whispers to be anything other than odd thoughts. He doesn’t even acknowledge that Mordremoth’s in his mind – apparently, Occam is a major kitten. Their physical change is something common to all sylvari and we see happen to Canach and Caithe – it’s just more drastic in this situation.

Where did the Chak come from? How did they get so numerous?

• Underground. They lay a kitten ton of eggs, if you notice while inside their hives.

Is it possible to reverse Mordremization? One guy seemed to be coming back to his mind.

• In theory. As I said, “mordremization” for sylvari as you call it (a huge misnomer since they’re not ‘true mordrem’) is not actual corruption. If they are taken out of Mordremoth’s ‘range’ (be this distance or interferrence based), then they could potentially come out of the mentality caused by believing the whispers.

What’s up with Taimi? Her mentor Zojja is captured, why doesn’t she mention this at all? Does Taimi just not care or…?

• As shown in Torn from the Sky, Taimi is either very confident they’ll be fine, or has been remaining confident for Braham’s sake.

Why do we HAVE to go to Rata Novus? {this one is more of a gripe- if I think about it, I see that there were no Novans sighted for at least a few decades, if not much longer, according to that one Exalted where the ley line map is. No Novans came to shoot at me or talk to me either, despite hundreds on thousands of trespassers in the area and a dragon at the doorstep.}

• Because of the potential of a very powerful weapon to use against our enemy. Same reason why we see Pact in CoF. Same reason why we go after the Blue Orb (that one actually proved fruitful) in the personal story.

Also, the Exalted were only awake for a few weeks/months. They awoke when the Egg drew near, so they woke up after Mordremoth did. They weren’t awake for ‘a few decades’ so they couldn’t know that Rata Novus had fallen – they were too busy with mordrem. They didn’t know why they weren’t around, but couldn’t spare the manpower to find out. We could.

Did we actually kill Trahearne, or was that a clone? I say this because his death wasn’t acknowledged, which ANet usually doesn’t overlook, even for minor characters, much less for a major player like this guy. Also I noticed that this Trahearne was roughly comparable to Diarmuid, Hareth and Adrian. Eggy also showed that Trahearne was going to be/was cloned, and as you reached him last, the possibility of him being cloned is VERY high.

• Trahearne’s appearance was due to how long Mordremoth has been digging into his mind. He was falling to Mordremoth’s call, even if slowly. But the idea that he was a clone is interesting. But all indication shows that he is dead.

If Trahearne did in fact die, what the heck ANet, why no acknowledgement?

• Because they cut off too fast and have no conclusion.

How is the PC not affected either physically or mentally by this? The PC thinks they just offed someone that they’ve been working with/might have been friends with for an extended period. Also, that ley energy blast had to have been at least 3-5 hubs’ worth. How the heck are we not dead? We basically got nuked with Tyrian World magic! And never mind the magic, the blast was big enough to be seen from the upper atmosphere and strong enough to blast us right out of the instance. How aren’t we injured from shrapnel or something?

• Again, the story cuts off with Trahearne’s death. So we don’t really see the aftermath of his death – on the PC or others.

As for the blast, at the end of Season 1 no one saw that giant flash and trail of energy, but a small flash of light. When we kill the Mouth of Mordremoth (which is supposedly happening at the same time), he just blinks the same color of light.

So what we see in the concept art cinematics is NOT how characters see it physically. It would just be like a big lightbulb blinking on then off.

Egg said there were clones. I don’t think we saw all of them. Where are they? Do we ever see them again? Also I noticed that at least Zojja’s inherited some of her will. Now that Mordy’s out of the picture, if they do fully ripen and emerge, how will this work? Actually is Mordy even out of the picture? How do we know he’s not lurking in a plant or a Mordrem somewhere, severely weakened but still there?

• Uh… in Order!
• We killed them.
• They dead.
• If there were suvrivors, maybe?
• Honestly, we can’t be 100% sure but most likely he is – like Zhaitan.
• See above.

Nightmare Court: In the meta event, we fight alongside them. What exactly is their deal now? Do we get more definite development from them?

• This was somewhat answered in the AMA – basically, it was a plot scrapped for time and duration of plot. There was to be more Nightmare Court stuff during Prisoners of the Dragon.

Major Question: What exactly is the Dream? It was said Mordy could use Wyld Hunts as an access point, how does that work exactly?

• All we really know is that it’s a mindscape that can be accessed by powerful individuals in the Maguuma Jungle region (which includes Magus Falls and Tarnished Coast) – the known magically powerful individuals being Mordremoth, the Pale Tree, and the White Stag. Malyck’s Tree does not seem to be tied to the Dream – in theory, his whole tree would be immune to Mordremoth.

About the Magus Falls Hylek being able to understand Common: There are bandits going in and out very close to their village (Spirit Vale is near Jaka Itzel). It’s possible they might have learned to speak Common from the bandits.

• Spirit Vale is actually rather far north. While we access it from Verdant Brink, nothing really indicates that the bandits would too. It’s closer to Silverwastes, so they likely have a path straight there.

And the White Mantle miiiiight be a thing in the Raid, once they finish releasing all the wings and its associated story.

• White Mantle are definitely a thing in the raid. Sabetha’s trinkets are all named after GW1 White Mantle bosses, and all bandits are ultimately backed by the White Mantle.

More answers we know to OP’s questions:

- The Itzel magically know us, thats convinent, they can also speak our language despite having a trait involving learning their language?

• They don’t magically know us. Do The Jungle Provides story instance – this is the Itzel meeting the Pact for the first time. As for language… yeah, that’s just bad writing/mechanic communications.

- Who exactly are the Exalted, besides being former humans created by glint to defend Tarir, are they Zephyrites formerly?

• Not really. It’s explained in the panels related to the achievement “A Study in Gold”. Basically, they are the friends and families of the first generation of Zephyrites who passed additional challenges. One of which shares names and origins with an NPC from GW1: Herta.

- Did Faolain actually “die” or was she captured after being stabbed and forcefully transformed, is she even dead?

• As provided in a reddit post by Matthew Medina, she doesn’t die until we kill her during Bitter Harvest.

- Why are there ghosts displaced roaming the spirit vale? Are these Ascalonian Ghosts displaced by Rytlocks actions?

• No, they are not related to the Foefire ghosts. There are many, many more ghosts in the world than the Foefire ghosts. The full story of them will be told, no doubt, in the second and third raid wing, but the hints provided thus far imply that they are the souls of people killed by the White Mantle over the past 250 years atop of the Bloodstone. Their behavior matches the souls who were imprisoned in the Soul Batteries in Prophecies, the location is next to Bloodstone Fen, and the formation of Gorseval matches that of titans which are formed from tormented souls and make bodies out of their surroundings.

Basically, the entire raid is a continuation of Prophecies.

- What exactly is going on with the Egg and it absorbing Mordremoths magic, is it going to hatch, is it corrupted, what? Will we be some kind of dragonborn chosen creature in a future season?

• They already promised to answer this in Season 3.

- White Mantle teasers in Season 2 lead to nothing, good to know, come on, wheres the mantle?!

• Didn’t lead to nothing. It lead to the raid. Have you even played it?

- Caithe betrays us and we dont even at any point attempt to beat the snot out of her for it? Logic.

• She didn’t betray us. Why would we beat her up, anyways? She’s our ally – and she’s always acted this way – by taking matters into her own hands, acting before thinking, and playing to personal logic instead of considering others’ emotions. What’s strange is why the PC, Canach, and Rytlock are so aggressive towards her. How she acts is literally not uncommon – what’s uncommon is that she blames her actions on a Wyld Hunt.

- Braham gets Eir’s bow and never used it once, logic.

• Actually, he didn’t get it yet. It wasn’t on her when she died. It’s somewhere among the rubble. Do you really think he’d spend the time to look for it while deep in enemy territory and his mothers’ killer is threatening Tyria?

- Taimi gets left behind after season 2 where she clearly was in deep trouble being left behind the last time, or season 1 when scruffy got broken up in the edge of the mists, does she have some kind of personal pride? Is she eventually going to die or get into serious trouble she cant escape from because of it?

• She’s never in serious trouble in Season 2. As for why she’s left behind – in Season 1 she was left behind because she’s a child (Scruffy was fixed by the time she was left behind). In Season 2 she’s left behind because she has schooling to attend. In HoT she’s left behind because she’s a cripple and cannot run – or walk fast – without Scruffy. No Scruffy = very slow and non-combat able Taimi.

- Is Taimi a villian? She appears to have some sinister agenda’s despite her heroic nature, generally involving power hungering and getting more power for herself even to the point of dismissing her friends lives.

• Her “sinister agenda” is “learn more and get famous”. That’s not very sinister. Everyone, to varying degrees, want to be smarter than they currently are (asura exemplify this human trait), and she just wants to be credited for all the work she does (because, as a kid, asura society deems her unable to be credited with anything – it’s all “the college’s work” not “Taimi’s work while in the college”).

- Eir’s death, was it really necessary, I feel we deserved a longer time with Eir considering the lack of bonding Braham and Eir had in Season 2, ON screen.

• I agree. Luckily – kinda – apparently they were originally going to kill Eir off in the very first HoT instance…

- What was in the weird Mordremoth trip vision we saw, Divinities Reach or somewhere else?

• Tarir. It was effectively showing Mordremoth’s desire to assault the one thing that he believed could resist him effectively and pose a threat: the Exalted and the Egg. I kind of see it as depicting the Attack on Tarir meta fight (Octovines).

- How exactly is lobotomising the dragons brain going to stop its wild and rampant vine expanded body from growing into chaotic insanity?

• Talk to Laranthir during the Mouth of Mordremoth fight after Hearts and Minds. It technically didn’t. Basically, as I understand it, Mordremoth’s powers allowed him to transfer his mind into his corruption from which he could regrow a body. So he was effectively immortal so long as you couldn’t destroy his corruption faster than it can grow (which was basically several dozen feet a second); to kill him, they attacked his connection to the Dream, which prevented this act of immortality. They would then need to kill any ‘seeds’ of his mind – such as in the Mouth of Mordremoth (his physical body) and in Trahearne.

- What exactly “did” Mordremoth plant in Treesus to make him corrupted, some kind of thought? A corruption in his body, what?

• A copy of Mordremoth’s own mind. That was his specialty – transferring and copying minds across plant bodies.

Answering what questions are known/partially known:

- What ever happened to Braham’s “girlfriend” back in Cragsted?

• She started dating a traveling merchant after breaking up with Braham. This was shown during unrelated Season 1 releases – small dialogue packets added to Cragstead.

- With Scarlet supposedly being “responsible for everything” How? Is my question, perhaps we should have a segment where we play Scarlet as she formed the three alliances?

• She did it by being a mary sue – literally. There were explanations on forums, and attempts in S2, and all were bad. Basically, she promised the dredge and Flame Legion the other group was already working for her and willing too cooperate, which ‘somehow’ managed to convince the groups to work together – when they found out that she lied, they didn’t care. She got the krait to work with her by holding the obelisk shards ransom, which makes no sense given that the krait are xenophobic and egotistical to new heights, and how they wouldn’t wage war on her instead is beyond explanation. Basically, they broke the lore to make these ‘oddball pairings that Scarlet loves so much’ into the story.

- How the “hell” did Taimi know about us, is she some kind of time traveler? Was it just her fangirlism for Scarlet?

• How wouldn’t she know about the Pact Commander who slew Zhaitan? How wouldn’t she know about a mass terrorist and the five individuals trying to stop her? Both would be all over the newspapers and whatever other information spreading network there is – which we know that Rata Sum has some pretty accurate news networks of some sort, given that Taimi repeatedly mentions it in Season 2 and in the HoT prologue.

- How the hell did “we” know about Mordremoth? Considering it was never mentioned even by name once by any character.

• Bobby Stein answered this – basically, Mordremoth while never named to players, both its existence and name was known by anyone who studied the Elder Dragons. This includes most of the Orders and the Pact, and of course includes the second-in-command of the Pact – the PC. It was, ArenaNet admits, (another) bad storytelling bit.

- Where exactly “did” the Zephyirites “go” to in season 1 and return from in season 2? Was it Cantha? Was it somewhere new?

• Never explicitly stated, but there’s enough subtle hints from Marjory and some Zephyrites to indicate that it was either Cantha or somewhere with Canthan culture. Marjory is of Canthan descent and outright states that some things the Zephyrites brought back is very similar to her grandfathers’ stuff and stories.

- What ever happened to the refugee’s that were “enslaved” by the Consortium to help rebuild Southsun a second time, only to fail?

• At the end of Last Stand at Southsun [we blew up the contracts that ‘enslaved’ them](http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contractually_Obligated) and afterwards we can see a number of the individuals in Cragstead and North Nolan Hatchery – including those who had the scavenger hunts in Flame and Frost, who still recognize you if you returned their items!

- Where exactly ‘is’ the Consortium located centrally including what island there actually holding their main base, their agenda, and generally who they actually are aside from a get rich group of mischievous wannabie lionguard trying to vie for control over LA?

• Nothing actually says their HQ is on an island. And… whoever said they’re trying to control LA or replace the Lionguard? Their guards only protect Consortium interests, not LA. And Consortium interests is just their facilities and profits – they’re more after replacing the Black Lion Trading Post, rather than controlling LA. The two aren’t the same.

- Kiels promises were only partially forfilled, and she obviously failed to deliver on many other things, will LA reject her as part of the captains council for her failures?

• Actually, everything Kiel promised was given. They were mostly temporary – same with Evon – though. Only time Kiel didn’t deliver was when the rest of the Captain’s Council stonewalled her for fortifying LA against Scarlet’s incoming invasion (because ‘no one would attack us twice’ logic – said ArenaNet writers).

- Mai Trin is still out there, last I checked, she ran off into the edge of the mists and hasnt appeared since, when will we see the aether captain and her forces cause trouble again?
- Same goes for the Toxic and Molten Alliances, Remenants of both survived from what I know.

*Angel McCoy said a while ago that the three alliances of Scarlet still have stories that will be told. Honestly, I expected the Toxic Alliance to play a part (even if minor) in Heart of Thorns. Then again, I expected the expansion to have story parts in Central Tyria too, and be at least twice the length it was.

- Canach’s past was vaguley touched upon mostly via indirect confrontation when he was in prison, what lead him to join the consortium in the first place? We already know the rest but how did it begin?

• He didn’t join the Consortium. He was a third-party contract mercenary hired to lead an expedition onto the island. This was explained in The Lost Shores, though I’m sure many missed it due to it being weekend only content and highly buggy due to everyone trying to interact with the same NPCs at once.

- In Dry Top, the now Mordrem infested Village was intended to be some kind of mining colony for a group to the north allegedly an entire bandit city is roaming somewhere there, will we ever see it, are they white mantle?

• Wait for raid to finish, because Silverwastes and Spirit Vale talks about this city too, supposedly. I’m betting that the name of the third wing will be “New Kryta” – a white mantle city built atop Bloodstone Fen, led by Lazarus.

BTW, yes, bandits = White Mantle. This has been confirmed for a long time.

- The Pale Tree has collapsed after the attack from the Shadow of the Dragon, has she re-awoken yet? Was she corrupted by Mordremoth?

• We saw her wake up – and we talk to her – in Episode 7. So yes, and no. Respectively.

- The White Fire was mysteriously effective at purging corruption from the dragons influence, how, what exactly made the shadow of the dragon adverse to it and why isnt it used more often?

• Divine Fire* and it didn’t purge corruption, but was destructive against it. It isn’t used often because of how rare it is – as shown in Season 2. We had to break a one-time seal of an ancient Forgotten artifact just to get that one torch.

Mind you, I would have expected the Exalted to have some of this information, but seems they don’t for whatever reason…

- The Zephyrites left in Drytop need to rebuild their society, but there was an entire fleet of Zephyrites, considering that supposed entire fleet was destroyed, wouldnt it be safe to assume there are “others” out in the jungle?

• Aerin only sabatogued one ship. And that ship hit only a few others. In total, only four out of 11+ ships fell. But yes, there should be others elsewhere – I think it was meant to be implied they touched ground after the wreckage when we meet with the three Aspect Masters in Silverwastes.

- How “will” the Zephyrites survive as a culture, will they rebuild in Dry-Top? Perhaps form a new human culture there?

• Why would they? Technically speaking, their task is complete. And even if they do reform, it isn’t like they cannot build four replacing airships (if they even need them with their death count). Raise a new Master of Sun, and another Master to replace the Master of Peace, and they can be on their way once regathered. For all we know, they already are on their way – remember that maps are stuck in time!

- That kitten ed egg, a red herring plot that has yet to reveal its true purpose or what exactly it was there for in the first place, more to come later.

• Red herring is a great misnomer here. Red herrings means that it is a distraction – a false lead. The egg is the main plot.

Its purpose has been hinted at, but yeah, nothing ever gets pointed out to why the PC even cares.

- The Durmond priory carried a pendant that revealed the true krytan heir to the throne, does that mean Jennah is a puppet queen? Also, why did Jennah let Scarlet into the palace, and why did Anise even think that was a good idea given she is one of Kryta’s most espionage heavy informats.

• On the Scarlet bit – this was long before the events of Clockwork Chaos, remember. This was before Scarlet was known as an international terrorist. She had known ties to the Inquest, but had been publicly disgraced and went different ways from them. So at the time, Scarlet wasn’t a well known villain. Even the most espionage heavy informants wouldn’t know everything, and Scarlet had a known history of never interacting with humanity prior to that moment – so how she’d react to humanity was an unknown.

- Why did Kasmeer get dragged off by Anise for a private chat, is she the true heir?

• Why would Kasmeer, a low noble, be a true heir. Besides, all dialogue indicates that Jennah is a true heir, but that there is another possible heir.

- Apparently Kasmeer can tell when people are lying, is this a magical gift, or a capacity for body language reading?

• Been confirmed. It’s both.

- Why exactly did Taimi’s “Machine” suddenly fix the asura waystones after Mordremoths tentacles initally disabled them, wouldnt it have taken the Asura ages to build those in mass production and apply them? Also, how is it that too much magic apparently attracts dragons, tied to the same question.
*Taimi’s Waypoint Reconfiguring Device (W.R.D.) did not fix any waypoints. If you go through the maps, the waypoints that were shattered still are (except for the one in LA – that one got fixed). What the device did, as explained in the story instance, was change the wavelength of the magic resonance the waypoints use to make them seem invisible to any mordrem seeking out magic.

Dragons eat magic. Magic is their food source, their goal, their purpose. So magic draws dragons – this has been known and explained in the personal story. And in Season 2.

- What the heck was that kitten trip vision we saw in Omadd’s machine, was it our vision, was it Scarlett’s memories? What was that weird thing, the Eternal Alchemy? What are the orbs? Are they the dragons, or something else?

• It was The All, which is basically Tyria’s metaphysical moon system – the orbs are not entirely defined, but are suspected by some Priory to be spirit realms, and they are known to be affected by the Elder Dragons’ risings (and are directly connected to the Elder Dragons). This is what Scarlet saw, but what we see is not the same as Scarlet’s visions – Scarlet claims this is the Eternal Alchemy but it is not. The Eternal Alchemy is the interworkings of all things, while The All is just the interworkings of Tyria and its magic. This is all explained in Season 2 – Hidden Arcana, specifically.

- Caithes “Ninja” looting of the Egg felt very cheap and unexplained, why is it the pale tree wanted us to take the egg, and yet Caithe just ran off with it because of some dumb “wildhunt” revealed in HoT?

• Bad storytelling. Caithe was a McGuffin, who’s sole purpose was to drag out the story, pull players away from the Pact Fleet, and make a dramatic reveal of the sylvari’s true nature. ArenaNet just couldn’t devise a real reason for Caithe’s actions.

-continued in next post-

Regarding Season 1 being ‘20 episodes’ – keep in mind that for the most part each release was half the size of Season 2 releases, with four of them (Flame and Frost) being a quarter or less. Season 1 had content closer to 9 or 10 releases of Season 2. It was just further spread out.

And what I think Mike O’Brien meant by ‘no more biweekly releases’ was Season 1’s styled biweekly where they just go a full year of biweekly releases no breaks – Season 2 was biweekly two, but separated in two sets with twice the amount of content and a shorter overall release period.

When Season 2 was released, they said Season 3 would be the same. I expect that to remain true. I think the ‘side stories’ will be more akin to how LA was slowly rebuilt over the course of S1’s finale to HoT’s release, without direct interaction with the main story. Though if he did compare such to S1 (I don’t recall that – got a link?) then it might be another situation of hoping all over the map like we did with The Dragon’s Reach Part 1/2, but instead of acting with the same goal we head around doing different things each story step… which would be rather tedious and potentially dull, unless they do it exceptionally well.

EDIT:

Though another thread just reminded me. During Season 1, we had dialogue added to Cragstead during the Secret of Southsun and Dragon Bash months (maybe Cutthroat Politics month too? not sure off the top of my head) which showed Braham dating then betting dumped by his love interest.

Which is very similar to the LA restoration ‘side story’ that I mentioned. So we’ll likely see stuff like that – little bits and pieces of new dialogue seeded here and there for players to find.

You don’t need cliffhangers to get people to stay with the story.

You need a good story to keep people with the story.

And continuous cliffhangers is not a good story.

If you want to go obscure, I’d go with Magadore. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Magadore http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Zojun Gives plenty of room to make your own personality for the character.

@narwhalsbend: The OP isn’t asking for a GW1 revenant character but a GW2 revenant original character who channels a GW1 npc.

@thunderfall: Verata, Oberan, Galrath (maybe?), almost any Stone Summit figure, almost any White Mantle boss, Khilbron, Turai Ossa, Shiro, Varesh Ossa, General Bayhet (sp?), Minister Raiko and other Ministry of Purity boss.

Off the top of my head. I can probably provide a bigger list + links when I’m home in a few hours.

But you give a very general request which can fill almost any villain and some hero figures – and certainly almost any political figure. Care to be more specific in what you’re wanting?

draxynnic.3719:

Questions were asked, but weren’t answered.

One of mine were – as were a few narrative focused questions that border lore (less of a “what’s the lore” and more of a “why make it a lore”). Though not by Leah who was there for the AMA. It was by Matthew Medina.

I’ll pull up the post later since I’m out on my phone atm. But I asked about Canach’s Shield of the Moon which most folks overlook entirely given its meant to be a unique shield in the lore, and that one got answered. Disappointingly as a ’it’s just a copy like all the players shields chosen for aesthetics not lore’ answer.

No one seems to have commented so…

Zojja and Mr. Sparkles – Female and Male

Taimi and Scruffy – Female and Male

There, politically correct distribution. :P

Honestly though, who cares?

Scarlet is dead, which means there’s no coming back for her. Why? Two reasons.

First off, resurrection has become a nigh impossible thing. The only ones to come close to achieving it in the past 250 years is Gaheron and the Flame Legion – and they used the Eternal Flame, which is a magical artifact of still unknown origin, and wasn’t even true resurrection but putting a soul into a new body not the same one. The only one who achieved this kind of resurrection in the past was Shiro Tagachi (though the Lunatic Court tried for Oswald Thorn).

Secondly, there has been zero indication that sylvari have souls. Given their origins as dragon minions, this makes sense, as typically speaking dragon minions do not have souls as far as we’ve seen.

HOWEVER, there is a small caveat. The only possible method of bringing Scarlet back without breaking a dozen and a half lore facts is by arguing she came back the same way the Mordrem Guard Commanders did – Mordremoth used his domain of mind to transfer her mind into a new body. However, given that Mordremoth was not awake at the time of her death this seems unlikely to have been possible in lore. Still, there’d be enough wiggle room to allow this – but her appearance would be drastically altered as she’d be a Mordrem Guard, not a sylvari.

Given proximity to the Black Citadel, ‘old parts’ before they got that Great Imperator’s Smelter going is likely.

Deleena.3406:

thief is a oddity IMO it mechanicly borrows so much from assassin it would make adding assassin redundant.
but its supposed to not be the same as assassin in lore

although it would make more sense to not know to me
it would be like knowing who or where the 1st RL warrior came from xD

I believe it was stated that, like how guardians are in lore derived from monks, paragons, and ritualists, thieves are in lore derived from assassins. Thieves are basically a post-GW1 ‘Tyrian alteration of the assassin profession’.

Edit: Though I suppose Donari’s video would prove or disprove this. Don’t think I ever saw that one.

To the OP: visit chak hives. You will see the bones.

Per lore, the escape gate was only open for 5 minutes. That was not enough to get everyone out. And even then, if you get to the Dragon research lab in the open world, there are panels with a journal of someone who, with others, were trapped in that lab with no way out.

So while some seem to have made it out – to the cube to the west per a Buried Insight story achievement – not many would have. Those who didn’t likely had their corpses brought to the hives as food for the swarm.

As to what S3 will be about, it will likely be a single instance directed to each thing in the blog post preview, like S2 was for a lot of things. One or two instances then move on.

Why I never thought to check when the Maw it seen again is beyond me. I’ve always just scoured the first fight for hints. Thanks for the quote.

Also, the fact that the skin scarred implied that it was still some time before the Maw was turned into a risen – long enough for tissue to heal.

Do keep in mind though that the Staff of the Mists had to be taken to a very specific location in order to be destroyed – the Hallowed Point.

There wasn’t really anything that indicated such one way or the other in the first encounter, unfortunately.

But all risen look highly decayed, so I would imagine such would be notable.

However, it should also be noted that the Maw survived cannonballs through the mouth – it’s hard to say if a leviathan would be capable of such survival without being an undead capable of moving all body parts despite how they get separated (per EoD/SoS).

I believe there were many NPC dialogues – some even in DR – which mentions Rurik dying at The Frost Gate/in the Shiverpeaks.

The Pact did more than just kill the Mouth to starve Zhaitan.

They also stripped him of his food (artifacts and corpses) and more importantly they purifying a massive source of magic in Orr (The Artesian Waters).

They also used Gorr’s weaponry that effectively mimics dragon consumption/corruption to metaphorically pump Zhaitan’s stomach both before and while fighting the dragon itself.

Danikat.8537:

I think for the sylvari it’s a matter of upbringing and life experience overcoming basic instincts. Aka ‘nurture’ overcoming ‘nature’.

This counteracts EVERYTHING we know about dragon corruption however. Why?

Because dragon minions lack free will. They are simply incapable of denying their dragon’s will. Because their dragon’s will is their will, because they don’t have a will of their own.

Nurture doesn’t matter for jack squat if a person is literally incapable of making choices for themselves.

Danikat.8537:

And during all of that time her master was asleep and inactive, unable to have much influence over her.

Scarlet kind of disproves this, given that she was driven mad by Mordremoth’s thoughts.

Glint also disproves this, as she was able to sense Kralkatorrik’s state of being from across Tyria.

Jormag was in the far north, beyond the GW1 map, sleeping when Svanir was corrupted and still followed Jormag’s whispers.

Danikat.8537:

To some extent it’s the limitations of their powers – Mordremoth can’t make minions out of stone and larva like Primordius does because he doesn’t use that type of magic. But I think there might also be some different schools of thought or preferences between them.

-snip rest-

While I agree fully with the Elder Dragons having a preference for how to corrupt, I’m just going to note a few things:

• We have canon confirmation Primordus can and does corrupt living beings, though we don’t see this happening – directly – in-game… except for a possibility in the Volcanic Fractal. In the end, there’s a strong preference for creating mockeries of living beings, and just outright killing all living beings. Much like Mordremoth.
• Zhaitan corrupts living beings and plants – as well as the air, water, and ground – just as much as he corrupts corpses. But of what he corrupts, Zhaitan makes minions out of bodies – living or dead.
• Jormag corrupts corpses and the land too. Like Zhaitan, out of all it corrupts, Jormag makes minions out of bodies – be it living or dead. In Edge of Destiny, one icebrood is specifically called out (as the norn was met before being corrupted) with a caved in face – something no one can survive.
• Kralkatorrik is like Zhaitan and Jormag – seen corrupting water, air, land, and bodies, but makes minions primarily out of the last (bodies).

Regarding minion intelligence, the risen are actually the most sentient minions we’ve seen outside of the Mordrem Guard (which as we’ve covered are not common minions).

Glint is a very bad example of a “minion with independent though” – because she’s a dragon champion. Every dragon champion is capable of independent thought to a degree, but they still do not have free will. Furthermore, you use Glint as an example for Kralkatorrik and Jormag’s minions being capable of betraying their dragons – this is a faux pass. Glint could only break free of Kralkatorrik’s enslaving will because of the Forgotten ritual she underwent in Arah (see Arah explorable path 3).

And your comment about the Sons of Svanir is false – none of them are corrupted. Those you see with bodies of ice and act sapient are fullblown Icebrood who are also powerful dragon minions (lieutenants or champions), and like all other dragon champions are capable of independent thought. The Sons of Svanir who abandon Jormag – as few of a number that they are – are not corrupted at all, and at least one of them is fighting the imposing will of Jormag’s thoughts.

TL;DR

Branded and icebrood are no more intelligent than risen are. In fact, despite your claim, we see more intelligence among the risen – however, this might be simply due to having more examples. Mordrem and destroyers are actually the least intelligent – the exception being Mordrem Guard/slylvari, which as established are unique.

Danikat.8537:

We don’t know anything about the Deep Sea Dragons minions, except that if I remember correctly the karka aren’t dragon minions and whatever they are is bad enough that the karka fled the deep sea to get away from them and the quaggan won’t even talk about them. So we don’t know how they’re created or how they function.

We know that the DSD makes its minions out of water.

In other words, the Elder Dragons are split 1:2:3 in the following set up:

One dragon grows minions (Mordremoth).
Two dragons corrupt inanimate landscapes to make minions (Primordus + DSD).
Three dragons corrupt species (dead or living) to turn into minions (Kralkatorrik, Jormag, and Zhaitan).

Though one might group Mordremoth with Primordus and the DSD, especially if the DSD makes mockeries of species out of the corrupted water. If this is so, then it becomes a 3:3 split of Mordremoth/DSD/Primordus to Zhaitan/Kralkatorrik/Jormag, with the first set’s minions being copies and ultimately more mindless but also capable of being created infinitely, while the second group’s minions are 1:1 corruptions of their proverbial kill counts, but in turn are smarter.

Thermaltron.6829:

Moredremoth was planning for the next time he would awaken, so he ‘planted seeds’ (Pale Tree(s)) to spawn his minions for him. These would start spitting out Sylvari well before he would wake up so there’d be an army ready for him. This would have given him a leg up over a few other Dragons who have to corrupt something to get a minion (If Zhaitan didn’t have all those dead, he’d have been in an even tougher position)

Most probable, given that every Elder Dragon had left a champion around in some form or another.

Primordus left The Great Destroyer; Jormag left Drakkar; Zhaitan had the risen Giganticus Lupicus; Kralkatorrik had Glint.

Every one of these champions were meant to prepare for their master’s awakening when magic rose to a certain level in the world. This meant begin making minions as well as feeding their dragon magic so it can awaken faster. Both Primordus and Kralkatorrik were stalled due to the lost of their herald champion.

So Mordremoth wouldn’t have had a ‘leg up’ on the other dragons, in all honesty.

Thermaltron.6829:

Sylvari are adolescent Mordrem; mostly friendly (with exceptions), able to get along with the other races. This was planned so his army could spread passively through the world, mostly unchallenged.

Friendly, okay. Makes no sense for an Elder Dragon who wouldn’t even know if races replenished themselves to make minions that are friendly to insignificant insects (compared to itself – the Elder Dragons have god complexes, remember, which is reasonable given they pretty much are like gods).

Thermaltron.6829:

As such, he builds in a back door (Being the Dragon of Mind) so that he can still exert influence through their minds; though being immune to true corruption, this means he doesn’t have perfect control over them.

Dragon minions are innately mindless (except for the more powerful ones like lieutenants and champions) and without free will. Why would Mordremoth have minions created with free will?

Besides, such protection would be unnecessary – Elder Dragons have shown themselves to not want to corrupt another dragon’s minions.

Deleena.3406:

i think the pale tree did something to give them free will (somehow didnt give them mordy’s will/orders)

But who gave the Pale Tree free will?

Deleena.3406:

maybe the guards was supposed to plant them at some point? (although that would be a very silly plain for a elder dragon xD what if all the guards was killed :s)

The fact that Malyck’s Tree created sylvari and also came from that cave indicates that the whole cave’s seeds were given free will.

Which would mean that the guards likely had free will too. Unlike standard mordrem.

It’s never really said that Ronan had to sneak around the ‘plant monsters’ – just that they were there. Maybe they let him take a seed, and then planted the others, one of which becoming Malyck’s tree.

Squee.7829:

Maybe The Pale Tree was in charge of the whole “make mordrem minions in the form of Sylvari” department. And maybe it would have gone swimmingly if someone hadn’t stolen Mordremoth’s general from a cave! I’m only speculating, but it seems like Mordremoth put a little too much of his plan on his pale trees. They seem to be the biggest producers of his most sentient minions. The hounds and thrashers and terragriffs are neat and all, but pretty mindless and stupid. The good soldiers are apparently produced by specialized trees. And one of those trees was given free will.

Actually, it seems that except for the mordrem guard champions, the blighting trees don’t create any sentient minions.

The only sentient – or sapient – minions Mordremoth has been seen to have are the Mordrem Guard, who were originally sylvari born of the Pale Tree. The Blighting Trees might remake them as their consciousness is transferred to a new body (per the lore blog post – something that never comes up in-game but is meant to explain the Mordrem Guard Commanders’ returns), but they don’t create that sentience – merely channel it.

Ultimately, the Blighting Trees seem to be the source of all of Mordremoth’s minions – from teragriffs to hylek copies to thrashers to saurian copies to reborn mordrem guard.

So the only trees of Mordremoth’s that got shown to make sentient – and sapient at that – dragon minions are the two that create minions with free will: the Pale Tree and Malyck’s Tree. So this means they are unique, not standard, and not what Mordremoth intended.

So the age long question remains: why does the Pale Tree (and Malyck’s Tree) have free will?

The Elder Dragons awaken when magic in the world has risen to a certain point, so drawing from Zhaitan wouldn’t affect that unless what magic was drawn would be put directly into the world – in this case, it wasn’t, but was placed in the Bloodstones.

However, the Bloodstones were seeping magic over time as well, so that drawing did affect it but only at a different rate. Whether that rate was the same or less than it would be if magic wasn’t pulled from Zhaitan is unknown.

But an important thing to consider is that the Elder Dragons also pull in magic to rise – some are known to do this via champions, which are often called heralds or harbingers (Primordus – The Great Destroyer, Jormag – Drakkar, Mordremoth – Scarlet) while others seem capable of doing it by themselves or at least has no known champion to assist them (Kralkatorrik – given dialogue it seems that Glint was to be this champion, though the details are iffy as some lore indicates she was given free will and betrayed Kralkatorrik before Kralk fell asleep, while others indicate that the betrayal was after – alternatively, knowing that Glint prepared for Kralkatorrik’s return in the manner of trying to stall it, she might have killed whatever champion Kralkatorrik left to act as a herald).

Zhaitan has no known herald, but there is a dragon minion known to have been from the previous dragonrise – the risen giganticus lupicus fought in Arah explorable. It’s possible this risen was Zhaitan’s herald, which if so would mean that Zhaitan was given magic before rising. Alternatively, it’s possible that Zhaitan had no herald, thus leaving him to be like Kralkatorrik – waking without being given magic to assist the awakening (from another at least).

If Zhaitan had a herald, then the gods pulling magic from him wouldn’t matter in theory. If he didn’t, then it could have severely weakened him before he rose.

But also keep in mind this important fact: The Pact was starving Zhaitan before confronting him.

Edit: I’ll also make note: the two dragons where it is known they either lacked a herald or said herald died (Primordus and Kralkatorrik) awoke close to another dragons’ rise. Primordus was likely to wake originally near GW1’s time but awoke 50 years later; 50 years after Jormag woke, but the DSD awoke between Primordus and Jormag (guess which one it likely awoke near). Kralkatorrik awoke after a 100 year gap, and within a decade before Mordremoth.

Given this, it’s likely that Zhaitan – like Jormag and Mordremoth – had a herald to wake it ‘on time’ for that 50 year spacing.

I was thinking that the depth underground – which is supposed to be greater there than elsewhere in HoT except maybe the various chak hives and ley line confluence where the gerent goes (all void of mordrem) – made it further than the 2d distance of Dragon’s Domain to Verdant Brink.

Alternatively/as well as the distance from any of Mordremoth’s corruption, which are definitely beneath Verdant Brink but rather far from that corner (closest is the mordrem migration path).

With triple trouble it’s best to find when guilds like EVOS or TTS have scheduled times to fight it and join in on their kills, because that boss fight is not puggable.

Even without getting the five points from Triple Trouble, there’s still 12 other points you can get. I wouldn’t mind more, but honestly I don’t understand why people find this an issue – especially if they own Season 2.

As draxynnic said, Mordrem Guards are not corrupted – at least not in the regular method.

Sylvari and the Pale Tree for some unknown reason was given protection – in-game dialogue heavily implies this protection takes form in The Dream of Dreams and is guided by the Pale Tree, but we aren’t 100% sure – whatever gave them free will in the first place, which remains unknown despite the plot coming and going, is likely very similar to the ritual used on Glint.

As shown in the story instance Buried Insight, Mordremoth’s mental influence is distance based – this is no longer suspected like Diovid said but pretty much confirmed; Mordremoth’s voice is silent to Canach and the Mordrem Guard who wandered there passes back and forth between his old self and his new self to the point of voice wavering (it’s very hard to tell this from just reading the dialogue – the voice acting is critical here). This situation with the Mordrem Guard proves that their free will was not overwritten like typical dragon corruption (as seen in the case of Zhaitan, Jormag, Kralkatorrik, and Primordus), but overwhelmed.

In theory, this means if you take a Mordrem Guard far enough away from Mordremoth while it was alive, it had the chance to become their old self – if they haven’t fallen into the new thinking processes instilled by Mordremoth to the point of being irredeemable. One would question how this fairs for the Mordrem Guard now that Mordremoth is dead – if ArenaNet does their cards right, we could see not only a conflict between sylvari and other races, but a civil war within the Mordrem Guard, between those who return to their old selves ashamed and those who remain devoted to the dead dragon, lost to its implanted thoughts, and even a conflict between those who would see the returned Mordrem Guard dead or put into rehab for another chance.

There are various dialogues across HoT which indicates that Mordremoth’s whispering orders are being done in such a way that the individuals think that the whispers are their own thoughts. Those kittenist aren’t really ‘those with strong will’ but ‘those who can separate their own thoughts from Mordremoth’s whispers, and not listen to the latter’. Occam describes it well: “I know who I am.” That’s got nothing to do with willpower, but selkittennowledgement.

Their physical change is explained back in Season 1, as we saw it happen with Canach (and we saw it happen with Caithe in S2’s flashbacks). When a sylvari suffers from extreme psychological changes, their body changes a bit to reflect those changes.

The Mordrem Guard are just sylvari who listened to these whispers, causing a dramatic change in psyche that resulted in the typical sylvari-unique physical change. All evidence points to the fact that they are not corrupted at all.

What this means is that Mordremoth likely cannot corrupt sylvari – otherwise why wouldn’t he? Most likely, the only “truly corrupted” Mordrem Guards are those who are spawned from the Blighting Trees (which are really only the three Mordrem Guard commanders – side note: Faolain was killed, so she wasn’t a Mordrem Guard despite having been a sylvari, I’m even hesitant to think that the Faolain/Vinetooth hybrid even used Faolain’s original body). This also explains why any sylvari could resist Mordremoth’s call. You cannot resist dragon corruption – that’s been proven time and time again – without something unique, and sylvari are killed from a dragon’s corruption (even Mordremoth it seems, given Mordremoth’s lack of true corruption on sylvari).

So to answer the OP’s question:

The sylvari may find their origins in Mordremoth, but like Glint they broke from their yoke of being dragon minions. The only question is “how” they broke it, not really “if”. Whatever gave them this freedom in the first place still protects them, and only through trickery could Mordremoth get any to serve him. Elder Dragons are powerful, but brute force and even genius does not necessarily mean you’ll be able to manipulate all others.

Sylvari are not icebrood or branded or risen (who do function the same as branded and icebrood – being dead doesn’t change dragon corruption and some icebrood are corrupted corpses as proven in Edge of Destiny). They are not even mordrem. And just as we saw Glint resist Kralkatorrik, we see sylvari resist Mordremoth.

Hence why I typed, in bold, if.

You refer to the tall plant?

That’s just a standard sylvari lamp post. Been there since launch. Unrelated to Mordremoth.

There’s an event chain that happens there where some Wardens try to push the risen out of that area – and keep them out.

The Personal Story wasn’t really a cliffhanger. It was a closed arc, but left room for the future. There was no sense of immediately going after something else. The plot was done, the story was done, but there was the potential for more.

Season 1 was definitely a cliffhanger while also being a closed arc. The arc might have been done, but the story and plot were not. Season 2 was worse of a cliffhanger, as not even the arc was done – nothing was finished in Season 2. You cannot play Season 2 without playing HoT and have a sense of completion – it’d be like watching Star Wars Episode 4 only to where Obi-Wan dies and the others escape the Death Star.

HoT was also a cliffhanger, done in a similar style as Season 1. The arc and plot was finished, but they had already begun the next… with only one page’s worth comparatively to a book.

I do not expect S3 to end without a cliffhanger, but I do hope that the next plot – whatever it is – doesn’t end with one. Whether it means the next expansion or Season 3 or Season 4 or whatever.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The cliffhanger is if there will ever be a season 3 or not.

My guess is it will get pushed back 2-3 times and then magically appear behind the paywall of the next expansion.

That wouldn’t be a Living World Season. And we’ve already been told that we’re getting it this year, with hints being that we get it before the Fall quarterly update (or at least it starts before then).

Though the sooner they begin releasing it, the better.